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The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clichd, il est film6 d partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n6cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. y errata >d to nt ne pelure, ipon d 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 ■t H i'C WM. MORLEY PUNSHON, D.D, If liLOftt " * A \' i^ (mm:' "'^»A.L:lLtjl'v EEV. >v ^' f F^^siion; i>p liFlK fl ^v*'t'K{ ... .H fir' %\\ |n?u;^adrnT !o ©r Wmis '.D'BV- T1' T^'^'f? rt »*•*•■■ «i»^J?»P,At A^T-. AUTHORS. ,'OHs-. S.H. . >»■ it*- ■s^ j^'L-"-^^' ^' ■•..;*<- ■ -■y THE MOST ELOQUENT SERMONS OF THE GREATEST LIVING PREACHERS. EEV. WM. MORLEr PUNSHOK D.D. .^ REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. REV. C. H. SPURGEON. ^K ^^ , .s CONTAINING SELECT PULPIT ORATIONS DELIVERED ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS, FROM A GREAT VARIETY OF TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE, AND INCLUDING DR. PUNSHON'S FAMOUS "FAREWELL SERMON," PREACHED IN THE METROPOLITAN CHURCH, TORONTO, PREVIOUS TO HIS DEPARTURE FOR ENGLAND; » WITH PORTRAITS A^:D BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF EACH DIVIDE; ASD gin |nfrobmtia« lo gr. ^m«Ijon*8 Sermons, BY THE REV. W. H. MILBURN. ' REVISED AND CORRECTED BY THE RESPECTIVE AUTHORS. TORONTO, ONT. PUBLISHED BY A. H. HOVEY & CO. CJexeral Agext Foa New Brukswick— R. A. H. MORROW, St. Joun, N.B. 1873. PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. The Publishers having been repeatedly solicited to issue a Collection of Ser- mons by Dr. Punshon, have deemed the occasion of his departure from Canada — the field of his recent successful labors — an appropriate one for complying with this urgent request. ' I Sincerely regretted by hosts of admiring friends, that earnest and eloquent preacher of Divine truth has departed from our midst, perhaps never to return. The Publishers beg leave, therefore,' to offer the present collection of his Ser- mons (which is the only extensive collection ever published), carefully collated and revised, with the hope that it may serve as a Memorial Volume of our departed friend. To make it more acceptable to all denominations, and ta afford an opportunity for a comparison of the relative merits of our greatest living preachers, late and select sermons of Beecher anc' Spurgeon have been added ; and to the thousands of admirers in Canada of these three great pulpit orators, the publishers beg leave most respectfully to dedicate the work, with Ihe hope that it may carry to its readers the richest blessings imaginable. Toronto, July, 1873. \K ll HI r . CONTEj^TS. ction of Ser- arture from ate one for id eloquent •r to return, of his Ser- Uy collated ^ME of our ns, and to ir greatest have been eat pulpit •ork, with )Ie. PUNSHON'S SERMONS. , « I'Ar.B INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR OF DR. PUNSHON ix I. MEMORIES OF THE WAY 21 II. THE BELIEVER'S SUFFICIENCY 39 III. THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT 58 IV. SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD 77 V. THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST 92 VL ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST 109 VH. THE CHRISTIAN'S INHERITANCE 125 VIIL THE HEAVENLY CONQUEROR 142 IX. THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH, LIFE, PROSPECTS & DUTY 158 X. THE APOSTLE'S GROUND OF TRUST 175 XI. THE EFFECTS OF PIETY ON A NATION 195 XII. THE PROPHET OF HOREB— HIS LIFE AND ITS LESSONS 2H Xin. FAREWELL SERMON 251 BEECHER'S SERMONS. MEMOIR OF HENRY WARD BEECHER 267 1. IMMORTALITY 271 n. EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR DIVINE PROVIDENCE 290 in. REASON IN RELIGION ', 308 IV. THE USE OF IDEALS 328 V. THE HARMONY OF JUSTICE AND LOVE 350 VL LOVE, THE COMMON LAW OF THE UNIVERSE 373 it- 'I IV CONTENTS. SPURGEON'S SERMONS. PAGB MEMOIR OF REV. C. H. SPURGEON 401 I. TRAVAILING FOR SOULS 405 II. YOUR OWN SALVATION 425 III. THE SIN OF GADDING ABOUT 444 IV. NUMBER ONE THOUSAND, OR "BREAD ENOUGH AND TO SPARE." 454 ILLUSTRATIONS. PORTRAIT OF DR. PUNSHON FRONTISPIECE. CHURCH 109 THE "HOLY BIBLE." .........'/.... 210 CHRIST REBUKING THE PHARISEES 250 THE ASCENSION 26Z PORTRAIT OF HENRY WARD BEECHER 266 CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN 270 CHRIST BEARING THE CROSS 349 CHURCH 373 PORTRAIT OF REV. C. H. SPURGEON 400 CHURCH 404 "SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME." 424 MARTYRDOM OF LATIMER 472 • • • • • . 401 •••••••» 4^5 425 444 i AND * 454 'SPIECE. 109 210 250 ^3 266 ' • • • . 270 .... 349 •••• 2>7'2 • • . . 400 ' • • • 404 ••• 424 ... 472 WILLIAM MORLEY PUNSHON. INTRODUCTION. be MEMOIK OF DE. PUNSHON", - , BY REV. WM. H. MILBURN. N a bright sunshiny morning I drove from my lodgings, Little Ryder Street, St. James', two oir three miles in a south-westerly direction to Brixton Hill Wesleyan Chapel. The edifice was that day to dedicated to the worship of Almighty God, and the' preacher on the occasion was the Rev. William Morley PuNSHON. I had heard much of him, and was naturally de- sirous to listen to one who was called the most eloquent of living "Wesleyan preachers. As I reached the chapel in advance of the time for com- mencing the service, I entered the vestry, where I was introduced, among others, to the preacher I had come to hear. He seemed a man about five feet ten inches in height, rather inclined to corpulency, with by no means a striking or expressive face when in repose, and possessed of a voice rather husky and not at all prepossessing. His dress was that of all Wesleyan ministers in England, closely approaching the style of the clergy of the established church — the invariable white neck-tie surmounting the uni- form of black. The appointed hour arrived and we entered the chapeL The prayers of the church of England — excepting the Tiitany — were read by the superintendent of the circuit from Al . ■ X INTUOnrCTTOK. » - • a desk on one side ol'tlie clumeel. i\lr. Punslion tlien mounted a desk on the other side of the chancel, gave out a liynin, and offered a hrief extemporaneous prayer. His readhig was not at all immx'ssivo, and I began to wonder whether, indeed, ho could uc an orator. In trutli, I liad been so often disappointed that I had almost come to regard a reputation for clo(picnce as prinuf facie evidence against a man's possessing it, and I was tempti d to think in this case, that I was once more befooled. The preaclier took Ids text and proceeded with the discourse. A brief exegetical introduction was followed by the announcement of the points he meant to treat. The arrangement of the sermon was textual, methodical and Wesleyan. The English take far less latitude in such matters than we. The Wesleyans are Weslcyans indeed, imbued with the spirit and almost ad- hering to the letter of our Great, Founder. Well-nigh every sermon has its three lieads, and each head its three sub- divisions, and at the conclusion of the third "thirdly," comes a close, searching, and practical application. This style seems to be considered almost indispensable to orthodoxy, and forms a striking contrast to the large, oflen latitudin- arian, and frequently helter-skelter freedom of style allowed in this country, where all manner of truth, and even untruth, is preached from any text that may be selected, under the plea that the style is " topical." The form of the English pulpit obliges the preacher to ad- here to a pulpit manner. It is modelled upon the shape of the little wooden boxes we see in Roman Catholic churches in this country, affording room for one person only — access to it being gained by a long flight of winding stdps, and when you have toiled to the dizzy lieiglit, you find yourself overlooking the galleries, and perched, perhaps twenty feet above the floor. Not a little self-control must be practiced by the preacher, and he is compelled, whether he will or not, to pay a good deal of attention to the laws of gravita- tion, and other decorous regulations, or tlie stern penalty of a tumble may be enforced upon him. The platform of this countiy (for our pulpits are nothing more), in its slight elevation above the floor, its nearness to the people, its susceptibility to impression from the audience, xiud the vantage-ground it affords the preacher for imbuing lnthoductioin. XI II iiiouiitod began to II truth, I ) como to evidence! > think in ?lier took xegetical 10 points non was take far yans are iiost ad- ?h every l*ee sub- " comes is stylo bodoxy, titudin- allowed mtruth, ier the • to ad- lape of lurches -access >s, and ^urself y feet cticed ^ill or avita- Ity of thing' 3SS to ence, )uing tljo lu'RVcrs with his own syini»;Ui»ies, is a gr(\*it advance npon the Knglisli desk, and a near a|)|)roach to tlie (iniho of tiic early Cluirch. Tlie dilleivnce, as to the standing-ground ot the |)reacliers of the two countries, is significant — ahnost symbolic — of tlie dili'erence of their styles. The English seem to fancy that our method, in its reach after the ))eoi)le, its disloyalty to technical rule, its range of illustration, and its disuse of a strict theological phraseology, as well as in its free ado])tion of the language of common life, borders upon a reprehensible looseness. To the American, on the other hand, the close adherancc to models, the almost single variation between a dogmatic and horatory style, and the employment of a limited range of words, not so much Scriptural as conventional, make the English pulpit appear formal. No doubt each could learn somethincr of advanta«jje from the other; and it seemed to me, that I\Ir. Punshon occupied the enviable position of standing midway between the two, with many of the advan- tages ot both. He is systematic, yet untrammelled, and while technical in his arrangement, he is still free and varied in illustration. Confining lumself to the legitimate themes of the pulpit, he at the same time does not despise the U80 of general literature. His aim seems to be to make men Christians — either to convert them from sin, or to establish them in holiness, not to teach them political economy, to educate them in aesthetics, to afford them brilliant disquisi- tions in metaphysical science, or to enforce on them the flat- tering assnrance, that the private soul (that is, the essential mc) is higher and grander than society, state, church, law, or Scripture The staple of his disconrses, wh(!n I heard him, concerned man's spiritual and eternal welfare, and did not consist in llowers, stars, breezes o" clouds. I shoidd say that he is better read in the writings of St. Paul and St. John, than in those of the Gnostics, and that he holds the canon of Scrip- ture to be binding upon men, as a rul 3 of faith and practice. As to politics, I have a suspicion (but I can only state it as a suspicion, for I heard him say nothing on the subject) that he prefers th« English Revolution of 1G88 to the French Re- volution of 1*780 ; and tliat he holds the i)owers that be are or- dained of God, and not of the Devil ; and therefore if he taught \ xE INTHODUCTION. I ! anytliing on the subject, tliat lio would teach fealty to the constitutiou of the land in which he lives, loyalty to the law, obedience to constituted authority, as tlie duty of every good citizen, and not, that insubordination and revolution are the crowning glories ot every regenerate soul. He is liberal, but his liberality is not the equivalent of a contempt for or- thodoxy ; and while some of his countrymen may esteem him a progressive, I hardly think his progressiveness consists in the recently expounded doctrine of consistency, " be true to yourself to-day — no matter what you said or did yester- day " — that is to say, progress and the weathercock are one and the same thing. As Mr. Punshon advanced in his discourse on that pleas- ant June morning, an occasional emphasis, applied with judgment, betokened the practical speaker, and the finish of his sertences betrayed thorougli preparation. As he warmed to his work, quickening at the same time the gait of his articulation, you found him gaining a stron^ij hold not only U|)on your atl ention but upon your feelings ; and you discovered that underneath the ample and rather loose folds of adipose tissue with which his outer iran is invested, there are great stores of electrical power. He possesses that attribute indispensable to the orator, for which we have no better name than magnetic. You are rooted as by a spell, and surrender for a time the guidance of your own thoughts. You have dropped the helm of your mind, for a more skillul j^ilot has for the nonce taken your place at the tiller. Occasionally, you find the speaker's power over you going to such lengths as to control your respiration, and you breathe as he breathes, or as he gives you liberty. Whoever ' has known the delicious pain of a long, deep inhalation — half a sigh of relief, half a wcVome ot the outer world for the time forgotten — while listening to a speaker with such rapt earnestness that every faculty of mind and sense is con- centrated in the one act of hearing, has felt what oratory is. He has felt it, but can he describe it? He might as we'd - attempt to describe the thrill of love or raptui'e. I doubt not Mr. Punshon has showed many people what oratory is, and made them to know the power of the orator; but I question much if he can teach them the power of his art, or how to analyze and define it. It is not the power of intel- INTRODUCTION. • •• Xlll ealty to the to the law, every good tion are the 2 is liberal, mpt for or- aay esteem ess consists y, " be true did yester- [5ck are one that pleas- >plied with I the finish »n. As he ne the gait 1^ hold not i; and you loose folds (Sted, there esses that ve have no by a spell, thoughts, lore skillul er. you going and you Whoever lalation — world for with such use is con- )ratory is. ■ it as well I doubt )ratory is, )r; but I his art, or of intel- lect, for I have seen and heard nothing from him extraor- dinary as an intellectual production. It does not lie in his taste — I am not sure if that would bear the test of rigid criticism. It is not in the exhibition of stores of learning ; his life has been too busy and practical to enable him to gain great stock of lore. It is not in the tricks of a charlatan or the skill of an actor, for Mr. Punshon is a sincere, devout, and godly man. The charm of eloquence retreats from the scrutiny ol analysis as life retires from the knife of the anatomist. Before he has reached his major "thirdly," it is all over with your independent consciousness ; you have yielded at discretion, and are the prisoner of his feeling. I am half in- clined to believe that his own intellect is in the same plight, and that memory acts as the warder of the brain, under writ from the lordly soul. You have thrown criticism to the dogs; your ear has exchanged itselt for an eye; the bone and flesh of your forehead become delicately thin, as the laminae of the corneajj and your brain seems endowed with the power of the iris. You enjoy the ecstacy of vision, and as the speaker stops you recover yourself enough to ftel that you have had an apocalyptic hour. It seems to me that the true measure of eloquence is found, not so much in what is said as in what is suggeste:! ; not so ^ much in the speaker's ability to convey to you an idea, as to suffu e you Avith the glow of a stmtiment ; not so much in the truth which is uttered, as in the soid behind the truth, of which you become, for the time, a sharer. Mr. Punshon is much more of an orator than any man I heard in England. In rociety he is simple, quiet and genial ; his excellent good sense aud unaffected piety deliver him from the snares of egotism, and the foolish weakness of self- conceit. The chalice of praise turns many a great man's head. The goblets which both the English and American public have offered to Mr. Punshon are huge and brimming ; but if the contents have affected him. I have not discovered it. T have an idea that he gives close and scrupulous heed to the Apostle's admonition, " Let no man among you think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but let him think soberly, righteously, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith." m I I i XIV INTRODUCTION. Mr. Punsbon is not as robust as be ^ooks. Ho is not able to stncly closely more tlian cbree liours at a time, and fre- quently not more than that out of the twenty-four hours. He prepares himself for the rostrum and pulpit with the most scrupulous and exhaustive care. I should say that the greater part of his sermons and lectures are committed to memory, and delivered almost word for word, as they were beforehand composed. His recollection is, therefore, at once quick and tenacious. This plan, while it insures a higher average of public performance and saves him from many mortifying failures, at the same time shuts him out from the ground of highest power. Mr. Punshon was born (I now quote from reliable autho- rity) on the 29th of May, 1824, and successfully passed his examination for the Wesleyan ministry in the year 1845. He is a native of Doncaster, and is related on the mother's side, to the Morleys of that town, and since of Hull, Sir Isaac Morley being his uncle. The only child of his parents, he early di,^played that wonderful memory for which he is now so remarkably distinguished, and a propensity to store it Avith facts which rarely interest mere boys. At the Don- caster Grammar School, where he was educated, he is said not to have displayed any surprising proficiency ; but when still a child he was able to name nearly all the members of the House of Commons, with the j)laces for which they sat, and the color of their politics. In early life he associated himself with the Wesleyan Methodists, to which religious body his fa:.iily belonged ; but public affaiis continued to be his ruling passion, and the most surprising thing is, that his oratory, instead of adorn- ing the Methodist chapel, should not have been electrifying the chapel of St. Stephen. When his grandfather and ur.cles removed to their establishment in Hull, he was placed vr their counting-house as junior clerk. Ht .nay have had talents for business, but his inclination ran in i^nother direc- tion. During the three years that he was supposed to be making out invoices and footing up ledgers, he was absorbed in newspapers ; and the only account he cared to keep was of the way in which the representatives ^f ihe people voted in parliament. In the debates nobody was better posted up. The tei the I of wai notl maij owi mu^ dQ^ thrJ INTRODUCTION. xv s not able and I're- >iir Jiours. with the Y that the niittecl to hey were 2, at once a higher Pm many from the •le autlio- y passed sar 1845. mother's EiuII, Sir parents, Loh he is to store :he Don- 5 is said nt when nbers of bey sat, esleyan longed ; and the adorn - ;rifyi:j ur.cles ced r\ re had • direc- to be sorbed >p was voted The temptation of a daily newspaper was irresistible ; and whilo the other clerks were deep in figures, he was culling figures of speech from the orators of the Reformed Parliament — watching the opening genius of Gladstone and Mn aulay, noting the maturer excellences of Peel and Palmerston, and marking the finest flights of Shiel and O'Connell for hirt own. The predilections of a young politician are seldom of much importance; but it so happened that young Punshon's devotion to newspaper studies threw him into the society of three young men who were earnest disciples of the then newly born conservative opinions of Sir Robert Peel and his adherents, and who held weekly meetings to strengthen each other in their political faith. Once a month one of them read a paper to the rest on a given subject ; and though not more numerous than the celebrated knights of the thimble of Tooley Street, they called themselves " The Menticultural Society." Two of the three survive, one being a Wesleyan minister and the other a clergyman of the Established Church. In these weekly discourses and monthly lectures, Mr. Punshon first distinguished himself as possessed of those faculties which have made him eminent. Nor did he and his associates con- fine themselves to politics ; for th^re is in existence a small volume of poetry which they publir:hed conjointly, and to which Mr. Punshon contributed a piece entitled "The Orphan," of considerable promise. About the same time he received, under the ministry of the Rev. Samuel Romilly Hall, those impressions which resulted in his religious con- version. He then became a Sunday school teacher, and subsequently a local preacher. He began to preach when he was eighteen years of age, and exhibited much ability in the pulpit. His first attempt was made at EUerby, near Hull, and it was so successful as to cause the sermon to live in the memory of at least some who heard it, for they talked about it years afterward, when Mr. Punshon visited the place. Under such circumstances there could be little doubt that his vocation was not in the counting-house. But still he was kept in the commercial circle, for from his relatives in Hull he was sent to an uncle at Sunderland, to follow up the pursuit on which he had entered. But the books in which he delighted were neither ledger nor day-books. His refined fancy and polished taste made If XVI INTHODUCTIOX. him an ardent admirer of the sublime and beautiful in litera- ture, and at the same time his religious views led him to employ his talents more than ever in the preaching of the Gospel ; and as certain rivers are lost in morasses, we lose sight of his commercial career somewhere among the coal- pits and iron-works of the North. During these events he had been bereaved of both parents ; and his grandfather, at length convinced that secu- lar business was not his vocation, made liberal arrangements for his being trained for the ministry in the Wesleyan Insti- tution, after a preliminary course of instruction at the house of his uncle, the Rev. Benjamin Clough, at Deptford. There, however, he did not long remain ; it being found, probably either that his genius was ill-suited to the res- traints of an academical course, or that by selt-culture, and the help of his ministerial relative, he had attained a profi- ciency which, with talents such as his, superseded a more formal training. In the spring of 1845 a secession of the parishioners from the Episcopal Church at Morden, Kent, formed the nucleus of a Wesleyan church in that town, and Mr. Punshon was invited to accept the^ pastoral cha ge of the seceders. He complied with the request, and under his ministry their numbers so greatly increased that a commo- dious chapel was erected, and always well filled. It was only for a short time, however, that he remained in this place, for in the autumn of the same year the Conference, under whose jurisdiction the Mordea church seems to have come, sent him to Whitehaven, where he resided two years, and attracted large congregations. From thence, in 1847, he was removed to the city of Carlisle, and two years after- ward to Newcastle-on-Tyne. In both of these great centres of population Mr. Punshon at once acquired a worthy name, and became a mighty power for good, as well as at Sunder- land, Gateshead, Shields, and the other towns of the dis- trict, where he never had to preach or lecture to empty, or only partially occupied pews and benches. While stationed at Newcastle, being then in his twenty-fifth year, he mar- ried a daughter of Mr. Vicars, of Gateshead, a very esti- mable and highly accomplished lady, whose premature death in 1858 threw the darkest shadow across Mr. Punshon's path, jubt when he had been appointed to a Metropolitan firf.i INTROBrOTTON. xvii in litera- i him to g of the we lose the coal- of both hat secu- igements an Insti- lie house 1 g found, the res- iire, and [ a profi- a more 1 of the 1, Kent, ivn, and la ^e of ider his commo- It was in this erence, o have years, 1847, 3 after- entres name, under- le dis- ty, or tioned s mar- Y esti- death 5hon's olitan circuit, where enlarged usefulness and new honors awaited the gifted and ardent ambassodor of Christ ; when most unwelcome, the King of Terrors came and took the angel of the pastor's home away, to her sister-spirits in glory. From Newcastle Mr. Punshon was removed in 1851 to Sheffield, and thence to Leeds in 1855. It was while he was at Sheffield that the fame of the preacher became noised abroad ; and his services were soon in very frequent request for special sermons, and also for lectures. It was, we be- lieve, in the character of a lecturer that he appeared for the fir?,t time in London, some twenty years ago. We well recollect the circumstance of his standing upon the platform ot Exeter Hall, to discourse to the members of the Young Men's Christian Association on the Prophet of Iloreb. It was not, strictly speaking, a lecture ; but an oration of ex- treme brilliancy, suited in a high degree to captivate the minds and find its way to the affections of a youthful audi- ence ; and we never remember to have heard such rapturous applause as that with which the thousands there assembled greeted each glowing period. The whole of the oration was delivered memoriter^ and with extraordinary fluency ; and such was the literal fidelity with which the speaker had followed the manuscript, which was either in his pocket or at home, that when it shortly afterward appeared in print, it would have been difficult for the most retentive memory of the closest listener to have pointed out a sen- tence that the lecturer had not uttered. By this single performance Mr. Punshon established a Metropolitan repu- tation outside his own denomination, which was increased some two or three years afrerward by his second lecture in Exeter Hall, before the same Association, on the Immortal Dreamer, John Bunyan ; and, later still, by that most master- ly oration on the Huguenot, which tens of thousands in almost all parts of England and America have listened to with unbounded delight. The following ten years of the great preacher's life were devoted to the preachins: of the Gospel in the various cities and towns of Great Britain and Ireland. During this period he visited all of the larger places, and many of less note. His reputation was now becoming thoroughly estab- lished as one of the leading pulmt orators of Great Britain, ! 'lil XVlll INTllODUCTION. and tlie simple announcement of his intention to fill the pulpit on any occasion, was sufficient to crowd the edifice to its utmost capacityo Occasionally he appeared upon the rostrum as a lecturer — a field which allows greater scope to his imagination, and one in which his genius seems equally at home as in the pulpit. It was during these years that Mr. Punshon made a tour of Continental Europe, visiting France, the Rhino, Switzerland, Italy, etc. This period of reereation, though one of rest and enjoyment to the indefatigable preacher, was not by any means without its beneficial results to the religious and literary world, for the orator has drawn largely from his experiences at this time for illustrations in his discourses ; and his lecture of " Florence and her Memo- ries," was suggested by his adventures in that city. But Mr. Punshon's fame had by this time spread beyond the narrow confines of the two islands in which his labours had up to this time been principally spent. His reputation had crossed the broad expanse of the ocean, and an earnest desire was expressed on this side of the water that they might be permitted to listen to the appeals of the eloquent divine. Yielding to these solicitations, Mr. Punshon deter- mined to visit the United States and Canada, and sailed for Canada in the s*pring of 1868. His career among us is too well known to need any extended notice here. His eloquence was equal to the expectations, and his reputation was fully maintained. He achieved a great success, and was chosen in 1869 President of the Wesleyan Conference of Canada. He preached and lectured in a great number of the cities and towns of the Dominion, and was instrumental in infus- ing a new life, and enlarged vigor and membership, into the Wesleyan Churches throughout the country. One of his noted achievements was the projection, and subsequent successful erection, through his earnest and unflagging zeal, of the famous " Metropolitan Church" in Toronto, a costly and beautiful structure, unsurpassed in architec- tural effect by any church on the Continent. This noble edifice stands a monument alike to the indefatigable energy of Dr. Punshon, and to the liberality of the citizens of Toronto. While residing in Toronto, Mr. Punshon was married to forll lib( to shol ble( soni INTRODUCTION. XIX ) fill the lie edifice upon the scope to s equally made a 3 Rhino, , though )reacher, s to the I largely IS in his ' Memo- beyond labours Dutation earnest lat they (loquent 1 deter- iiled for 5 is too )quenco as fully chosen Canada, e cities L infus- p, into One of equent g zeal, ito, a chitec- noble energy ens of arried to the sister of his late lamented wife — a marriage formerly forbidden by English law, but since rendered legal by more liberal enactments. Mr. Punshon was destined, however, to undergo the anguish of another domestic affliction, and shortly after foUoAved this wife also to the grave. lie was blessed with several children by his first marriage — three sons and one daughter. The University of Cobourg conferred upon Mr. Punshon, during his residence in Canada, the legree of Doctor of Divinity. Dr. Punshon made several visits to the United States, lecturing and preaching, and on every occasion was greeted with the acclamations of his audiences. Offers of very high salaries, however, failed to induce him to settle in the States, though repeatedly solicited by a people who are never slow to appreciate talent, or to remunerate it with a fitting reward. But his associations there, as he informs us, were of the most pleasant and agreeable nature. On Sabbath morning, the 11th of May, 1873, Dr. Punshon delivered his farewell sermon, at the Metropolitan Church, in Toronto, previous to his departure for England. In a pathetic and touching address, he urged his hearers to steadfastness and increased zeal in the cause of Christ, that his labour amongst thorn might not prove to have been in vain ; and in conclusion, in simple and touching language, which drew tears to many ar eye, he bade them an earnest and affectionate farewell. Tne people of Canada will offer a fervent prayer, in which not Wesleyans alone, but all denominations will join, that this painful separation may be but for a brief term ; and also, that wherever Dr. Pun- shon' s lot may be cast, and wherever his labours may be spent, that lot may be one of continued happiness and pros- perity, and those labours crowned with an abundant measure of success, to the honour and glory of God, and the furtherance of His kingdom upon earth. With one or two exceptions, perhaps there is no living minister possessed of so much popular power as Mr. Pun- shon. It* is something wonderful and grand to witness the spell of his genius upon miscellaneous audiences of from three to five thousand people. In the pulpit he is unques- tionably a master, and only second to a very few preachers of the age. So accurate and elaborate is almost every J age. XX INTRODUCTION. sentence, and so appropriate and polished every illustiative simile, that it may be confidently said he writes out and commits to memory every sermon that he delivers. What- ever he undertakes, lie does well. Whether it is in the preaching of an ordinary sermon in a Methodist chapel, or in the delivery of an ostensibly popular discourse in some great public building, or as taking part in the meeting of some benevolent or religious association, or as a lectui;er occu- pying the rostrum before thousands of delighted hearers, he is always earnest, always energetic, always effective. Vigorous, inventive, and impassioned, he adapts himself to the versatile tastes of his auditory, not by any apparent effort, but by simplicity and strength, and by speaking right out the thoughts that are in him. He rouses every passion, touches every emotion, and awakens every sympathy in the hearts of his hearers. With God's blessing. Dr. Punshon has yet, according to the English standard, full twenty of his best years before him. May he have length of days and fullness of power, so that he shall continue to grow in favor with CJod and man, is the hearty wish of his friend, W. II. MiLBURX. Bbookltn, N.Y., /Mne, i<575. \ tusti ativG out and . What- Is in the hapel, or >me great J of some ;er occu- hearers, effective, elf to the It effort, ight out passion, athy in rding to :>re tiim. so that , is the .BUEX. PUNSHON'S SEEMONS. ■<•>» I. * MEMORIES OF THE WAY. " " And thou shall remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep his command- ments, orno."—DEUT. viii. 3. i PECULIAR solemnity would be attaclied to these words in their original utterance, espe- cially in the mind of the person who uttered them, for they were spoken under the shadow of approaching departure. Last words are proverbially impressive, and these were among the last words of the veteran Moses to the people of his charge and love. There had grown in his heart a strong aft'ection for the children of Israel during his forty year's administration of their affairs. He had watched over them with fatherly tenderness, and had guided them through the intrica- cies of the desert, to the borders of the promised land. Often had he been wearied by their murmurings, often had he been provoked by their unbelief. He had been alternately the object of their mistrust and of their confidence, of their jealousy and of their enthusiasm, and yet their very waywardness only seemed the more warmly to endear them ; and, with a love stronger than death, he loved them unto the end. Aware that, by C)0 MKMOllIES OF TIIK WAY. \} his unadvised speaking at the waters of Meribali, lie had barred his own entrance into Canaan, and ani- mated with a passion for the welfare of his people, intenser as the time of their separation drew nearer, he gathered them upon the plains of Moab, and in solemn and weighty words retraced the path they had trod, warned them against their besetting dangers, and exhorted them to fidelity in Jehovah's service. In the midst of this advice, the words of the text occur, sum- moning^ them, so to speak, to take a mental pilgrimage over all the track which they had travelled, and to connect it with beneficial uses which might influence their future lives. Such a review of the past is always wise and salutary when it is conducted in a becoming and prayerful spirit, and to such a review of the past, therefore, it is that we invite you to-day. We may not unprofitably accompany the children of Israel in their review of the way which they had trod ; we may learn lessons in their company which may effectually benefit ourselves. In order that we may preserve some sort of system in our contemplations, we will notice, in the first instance, the remembrance of the way ; secondl}^ the purpose of God's providence in the journey; and, thirdly, the uses of the memory. I. In the first place, the remembrance of the way. " Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness." It is a wonderful faculty, this faculty of memory. Its acts seem to be of the nature of miracles wrought con- tinually for the conviction of unbelief. We cannot expound its philosophy', nor tell its dwellihg-place, nor name the subtle chords which evoke it from its slum- bers. A snatch of music in the street, the sight of a modest flower or of an old tree, a word dropped casu- ally by a passer-by, a face that flits by us in the hurry- ing crowd, have summoned the gone years to our side, and filled us in a moment with memories of divinest comfort or of deepest sorrow. The power ot memory is IJ!!' MEMOHIES OF THE WAY. 25 cribalj, lie I ftiicl ani- ls people, nearer, he in solemn had trod, :ers, and '• In the 3ur,^ 8um- ilgrimage |, and to influence is always •ecoming the past, may not in their ay leani benefit e sort of in the condiy, Y', and, E WAY. 5rd thy rness." Its it con- annot !e, nor slum- of a casu- uirry- side, finest ory ia lasting and is 'nflucntial. A kindness has been done in secret ; but that seed, dropped into the soil of memory, has borne fruitage in the gratitude of years. A harsh word or an inHictcd injury, flung upon the memory, has rankled there into lawlessness and hi to sin. Iso man can be solitary who has memory. The poorest of us, if he have memory, is richer than he knows, for by it we can reproduce ourselves, be young even when the limbs are failing, and have all the past belonging to us when the hair is silvery and the eyes are dim. How can he be a sceptic or a materialist, for whom memory every moment raises the dead, and re^-^ses to surrender the departed years to the destroyer; communes with the loved ones though the shroud enfolds them ; and converses with cherished voices which for long years liave never spoken with tongues ? I had almost said, but that I know the deep depravity of the human heart, how can he sin who has memory ? For though the mur- derer may stab his victim in secret, far from living wit- nesses, and may carefully remove from the polluted earth the foul traces of his crime, memory is a witness that he can neither gag nor stifle, and he bears about with him in his own terrible consciousness the blasted immortality of his being. Oh, it is a rare and a divine endowment ! Memories of sanctity or sin pervade all the firmament of being. There is but the flitting moment in which to hope or to enjoy, but in the calen- dar of memory that moment is all time. This, then, is the faculty which the Jewish law-giver calls up into exercise : " Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness." And in truth there could be no grander history, nor one richer in instruction, than theirs. From the time vv^lien they groaned in bondage, and their cry went up to God, until now, when, after forty years' vicissitudes, they stood upon the threshold of the land of Canaan, each day would have its wonder and its lesson. They had been led by a way which they knew not; they ! '2\' MK.MnlUKS OF TIIK WAV. ,l|| liiid seen the Iuwh of luitiiro Kuaix'udcd, iind the mochiin- ism of the finiKUucnt disorganized ou their behalf. In Egypt they had qimiled beneath the very Omnipotence which had delivered them, and they had crouched trembling at the banc ot Sinai, while ever and anon loomed through the darkness the flashings forth of the Divinity within. Sustained by perpetual miracle, delivered with an outstretched arm, with the barrenness behind and the plenty before them, they were to ^^remember the way which the Lord had led them in the wilderness." Brethren, our own, if we will only think of it, has been an instructive history. There is much in the life of each of us, in its rest, and in its change, in its hazard, and in itti deliverance, wdiich will repay us if we revisit it to-day. I3e it ours to recall the paot, to recover the obliterated circumstance, to abide again at each halting place of our journey, to decipher the various inscrip- tions which the lapse of time has fretted almost to decay, to remember, as the Israelites, the way which the Lord hath led us. 1. Tht-re would be in their history, in the first place, the remembrance • of favor, and by consequence of joy. All through their course they had had very special manifestations of the power and goodness of God. He had brought them out with a high hand from the pride and tyranny of Pharaoh, he had cleared a patJti for them through the obedient waters, the heavens had rained down sustenance, the rock had quenched their thirst; Jehovah's presence had gone with them through the tangled desert path, by day in guiding cloud, by night in lambent flame; their raiment had not waxed old upon them, neither their foot swelled, for forty years. He had spoiled their enemies in their sight. Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, had fallen before his power. When the law- giver gathered the tribes in the plains of Moab, he could say : " !N"ot one thing of all that the Lord your Go noli vid| or MEMOIITES OF THE WAY. moclmn- •ohalf. In nipotence crouched and anon rth of the miracle, arrenness were to em in the of it, has n the life s hazard, ve reviait jover the 1 halting iiiscrip- Imost to 'hich the at place, of joy, special xl. He tie pride )ath for sns had 3d their ihrongh cloud, ad not led, for \ their dng of le law- ab, he i your God hath .spoken hsith ever failed;" and there was not a iiuirniur in the host, and there was not an indi- vidual in the congregation that could either gainnay or deny. Brethren," there could not fail to he great and grate- ful rejoicing in this remonihrance of the loving kind- ness of the Lord. That loving kindness has compassed us from the first moment of our existence until now, and by his favor he hath made our mountain to stand strong. I would call up before you to-day those scenes in your history upon which you are apt to dwell with joyous and grateful memory. Think of the gracious Providence who cared for your infancy, and who pro- vented your doings in youth ; think of the unexpected deliverances, the unlooked for surprises of blessing with which you have been visited; pause before the various stones of help which you have erected in the course of your journey ; remember the stores of glad- ness inexhaustible and constantly operating, that have been poured upon you by the bounty of your heavenly Father ; the joy of your heart, the joy peculiar to your- selves, the natural and inevitable outflow of childhood's sportiveness and glee, the joy of enlarging knowledge, the joy of some new discovery of the beautiful, of some keener thirst after the true ; the joy of travel, the sight of earth's great cities, fair landscapes, and spots renowned in song and story ; the joy of home, of parents whose love has cast a spell upon your after- lives, from which you would not be disenchanted if you could — brother, and sister, and wife, and husband, names that mean more to the heart, a thousand-fold, than they can ever mean to the ear ; friends that knew you and that understood you, those twin souls who bore with your weaknesses without chiding, and who entered into your dreams with sympathy. The joy of meetings, and of farewells, and of that which came between more sweet than each. The joy of the Church ; victory over some besetting teir^ptation ; glad season a2 \ ^ '!! i 1 il,i : 26 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. of Christian fellowship which can never be forgotten; sermons that seemed, in their exquisite adaptedness, as if they had been made for you, to counsel in per- plexity, to comfort in trouble ; sacramental occasions when, in no distempered vision, you " saw heaven opened, and the Son of Man standing upon the right hand of the throne of God." The joy of usefulness, the gladness which thrilled through you when you succored the distressed, or were valiant for the truth, or pitied and reclaimed the erring, or flung the gar- ment of praise over some bewildered spirit of heavi- ness. The joy that has sprung for you out of sorrow, and has been all the brighter for the contrast ; deliver- ance from danger which threatened to be imminent, recovery from sickness that seemed as though it were about to be mortal; the lightnings that have let the glory through the clouds ; the flowers that vou have so often plucked from tombs. Call up the mighty sum of gladness now, and as, subdued and grateful in the memory, you think of your past times, many a lip will quiver, and many a heart be full, as you remember the way which the Lord hath led you in the wilderness. 2. There would, secondly, be in their history the remembrance of sin, and by consequence of sin, the remem- brance of sorrow. Nothing is more remarkable as a fact, and more illustrative of the depravity of the human heart, than the frequency with which the children of Israel sinned. Only three days after the wonderful interposition at the Red Sea, their rnurmur- ings began. The miracle at Marah, although it appeased their thirst, failed to inspire their confidence, for they tempted God again at the Waters of Strife. Although the manna fell without ceasing, they lusted after the fleshpots of Egypt. Their whole history, in- deed, is a record of perpetual sin, a perpetual lapse, now into jealousy, and now into sensualism, now into unbelief, and now alas, into idolatry. These repeated transgressions, of necessity, introduced them to sorrow, SCJ MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 27 and they suffered, in almost every variety, the strokes of Jehovah's displeasure. They were wasted hy suc- cessive pestilences; they were devoured by fiery ser- pents in the wilderness; the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the rebellious sons of Korah; the Lord went not forth with their hosts to battle; and they fled discomfited and crestfallen before the face of their enemies. Their journey was made protracted and dangerous. Bereavement visited every tent in turn. One after another the head of each family bowed, and sunk, and fell, until of all those who left Egypt, stalwart and sinewy men, only two, and those of another spirit, remained to enter into the land of pro- mise and of rest; and the very lawgiver who called up the exercise of the memory, and the few old men, upon whose brows the almond tree was flcurishing, thinly scattered here and there among the tribes, knew that their heads must bow, their frames dissolve in death, ere the van-standard of the host could be unfurled within the borders of the promised land. There could not fail to be subdued and pensive emotion in this aspect of the remembrance of the way. Our own history has its sorrowful side, too, which it will be well for us to remember to-day. All sorrow, of course, comes originally from sin, but there is some sorrow which we inherit from no personal transgression, but which has been handed down to us, a sad entail of suffering, a disastrous transmission from our earliest fathers. The remembrance of such sorrows stretches far back in the history of every one's life. Perhaps you were cruell}^ treated in j^outh, and you can hardly think of it now without shuddering. Perhaps some bitter disappointment made your path ungenial, or some early unkindncss came like a frost-blightupon your fresh, young hopes, just when you were beginning to indulge them. Perhaps a long sickness chained you down, and you suffered the illness of hope deferred, and you wondered whetlier the cheek woukl ever bloom h c nil i.'i> 28 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. again in the ruddiness of health, and whether the elas- tic pulse would ever bound and swell through the veins. Perhaps there are other memories — most likely there are — so dense in their darkness as to cast all the rest into a relief of lesser shadow. The first breaking up of your homes, the stroke that swept you into orphan- hood, or that took away the desire of your eyes with a stroke, or that cast you upon a cold world's charities for work and bread. Call up these nieriories, though the heart bleeds afresh as you think of them. They have their uses ; they need not be summoned for the first time in vain. And then the memory of sin — don't hide it, don't be cowardly about it ; confront your yesterdays, not in defiance, but in penitence and prayer ; your long resistance to the strivings of the Holy Spirit, the veiled impertinence with which you refused to hearken to a father's counsel and were deaf to the entreaties of a mother's prayers. The sins of your youth, which, though you humbly trust are par- doned by the grace of CTod, plague you still, like the scars of some old wound, with shooting pains in many a chango of weather. Your unfaithfulness since the Lord called you, your indulgence since your conversion in things you dared not for your lives have done while ynu were seeking mercy. How } ou have cherished some secret idol, or forborne to deliver them that were drawn to death, or dwelt in your ceiled houses?, intent only upon your own aggrandizement and pleasure, while the house of God lay waste. Call up these memories, do not disguise them ; they will bow you in humility before God. This is the memory of the way. " Thou shalt re- member all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee." All the way — it is necessary that all the way should be remembered — the hill of difficulty as well as the valley of humiliation, the time of prosperity as well as the time of pain. l!^ecessary for ou:* advantage that we may understand our position, learn the lessons of MEMORIES OF THE WAY, providence and grace; necessary tliat we may con- struct a narrative, for every event in our history is con- nected and mutually interpreted ; necessary that ^ve may trace the outworking of Jehovah's plan in the successive achievements of our lives. And if by the memory of joy you are impressed with God's benefi- cence, kept in cheerful piety, and saved from the foul sin of repining ; and if by the memory of sorrow you are moulded into a gentler type, taught a softer sym- pathy, and receive a heavenward impulse, and antici- pate a blessed reunion ; if by the memory of sin you are reminded of your frailty, and rebuked of your pride, stimulated to repentance and urged to trust in God — then it will be no irksomeness, but a heaven-sent and precious blessing that you have thus "remembered the way that the Lord hath led thee in the wilderness." II. I come, secondly, to notice tile purposes of Di- vine Providence in the journey. These are stated to be three ; '' to humble thee and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or no." The passage tells us that in all God's dealings with the children of Israel, whether he corrected them in judgment or enriched them with bounty, there were purposes at work — ^pur- poses of spiritual discipline, intended to induce self- searching and the improvement of their hearts and lives. 1. The first purpose that is spoken of is to induce humility — " to humble thee. ' * Every event, alike in their deliverance from Egypt, and in their passage through the wilderness, was calculated to show them their own feebleness, and their constant dependence upon a high and upon a superior power. AVhat could human might have eftected for them in the way of securing their de- liyerance from Egypt ? Their spirits were broken by long years of slavery ; the iron had not only gyved their limbs, it had entered into their soul. They had not the heart, any one of them, to strike for freedom ; and ] i ' I: ii I I i 30 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. if they had even meditated a rising, they were a people of such divided counsels, and so distrustful of each other, that it would have been but a paroxysm of frantic rebellion, which would have rooted the Pharaohs on the empire, and have riveted upon themselves the yoke of a more bitter bondage. When the permission for departure was wrung reluctantly from the plague- stricken king, what could human might have availed for them, when he repented of his momentary gracious- ness, and pursued after them in hot haste, and they were on the borders of the Red Sea, with the giant waves barring their progress, and a host of ferocious enemies behind? Everything in their experience taught them their dependence upon God. They were led through a region that no adventurer had ever ex-, plored, no foot had ever trod. When they pitched their tents at eventide, they knew not at what hour they should strike them, nor whether they should strike them at all; there might b« forced years of en- campment in that one spot; there might be forced marches and rapid progre-s; but they had no control over it: as the pillar went, and wherever the pillar went, they went ; and as they sounded forth their matin song of praise, there was not a man in the whole con- gregation that could tell through what rocky clefts or woody defiles the echoes of the vesper hymn would sound. Their supply was as miraculous as their guid- ance. Ko plough had turned up the soil, no river murmured by their side, they had never gazed for forty years upon one solitary blossom of the spring-time, nor had tne golden grain ever once in their sight bent grace- fully to the sickle of the reaper: they were fed with ' manna, which they knew not. " When faint tbey were and parched with drought, • ' Water at his word gushed out." Oh! it is the world's grandest illustration of man's absolute f'^ebleness and of God's eternal powder. 600,000 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. iVG a people ful of each 11 of frantic 'haraohs on es the yoke nission for he plague- ive availed y gracious- , and they the giant ' ferocious experience rhey were d ever ex-, 'J pitched vhat hour 5y should ^rs of en- le forced o control the pillar eir matin hole con- clefts or m would eir guid- no river for forty ime, nor nt grace- ■^ed with ' man's 600,000 lighting men, beside women and children, led by Divine leadership, and fed by Divine bounty, for the space of forty years. Brethren, the dealings of Provi- dence with ourselves are intended to show us our de- pendence upon God, and to humble us in the dust under his mighty hand. We are very proud sometimes, and we talk about our endowments, and we boast largely of what wc have done, and what we intend to do ; but we can do absolutely nothing. The athletic frame — how soon can he bring it down ! The well en- dowed heritage — how soon can he scatter it! The mental glance, keen and piercing — how soon can he bring upon it the dimness and bewilderment of years ! We cannot, any one of us, bring ourselves into being ; we cannot, any one of us, sustain ourselves in being for a moment. Alas ! who of us can stay the spirit, when the summons has gone forth that it must die ? We are free; we cannot help feeling that we are free; and yet we can as little help feeling that our freedom is bounded, that it has a horizon, something that indicates a watchful Providence outside. How often have wo aimed at building for ourselves tabernacles of remem- brance and of rest, and we have gazed upon the build- ing joyfully as it progressed to completion, and then the breath of the Lord has blown upon it, and it has been scattered, and we have been turned adrift and shelter- less; and, lo! dwellings already provided for us of firmer materials and of more excellent beauty, upon which we bestowed no labor nor thought. And so it is with all the matters of human glory. The strong man rejoiceth in his strength, and magnifieth himself in the might of his arms, but the Lord hath made him strong ; the wise man glorifieth himself in his intellect, but the clear perception, and the brilliant fancy, and the fluent utterance, these are God's gifts ; the rich man rejoiceth in his riches, but the prudence to plan, and the sagacity to foresee, and thQ industry to gather, these are the bestowments of God. J .; 'i^i 32 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. Ah ! why will men sacrifice to their own net, and burn incense to their own drag, when they have abso- lutely nothing which they have not received ; and when every gift cometh from the Father of light, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning ? And in the realm of morals, and in the spiritual life, feebleness is the same. A conscience voic' of our offence, a good report of those that are without a heav- enly purpose or a holy resolve, the inner purification or the comely outgrowth of a beneficent life — we are poor to compass them. We acquire them only by our dependence upon God. Have you learned this lesson, this deep, hard lesson of humility ? Forty years' sins you have committed ! have they humbled you in the j)resence of God ? Forty years' chastenings have cor- rected you ! have they humbled your pride or fretted you into greater audacity of rebellion ? Forty years' mercies have blessed you ! have they excited your gratitude or inflated your vanity ? Brethren, we must be humbled, if we would be happy. It was in the Valley of Humiliation, you remember, that the lad that had the herb heart' s-ease in his bosom kept his serene and his rejoicing home. 2. Then the second purpose of God's providence in the journey is to prove us. The idea seems to be, that a skilful chemist employs tests for the purpose of ana-, lysis, and to discover the composition of that which he examines, so God uses the occurrences of life as a moral touchstone, to discover the tendencies and inclinations of man. Thus we read God did tempt, test, try, prove Abraham, requiring from him a sacrifice, excessive and apparently cruel, in order that he might knov/ the strength of his servant's faith, and of his filial fear. There were many of those testing circumstances in the history of the children of Israel. They were tested by their mercies, as when, feeling the manna insipid, they lusted after the flesh-pots of Egypt ; they were tested by their duties; ,they were tested by their calamities, as MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 33 net, and ave abso- andwhen th whom urning ? itual life, voic^ of t a heav- cation or are poor by our s lesson, ars' sins a in the ive cor- c fretted Y years' 3d your fe must in the lad that serene Jnce in ►e, that )f ana- ich he moral ations prove i^eand w the fear, n the ed by they ested es, as . at the I., .'d Sea, and in the confticts with the hosts of Amalek. They were tested by their companions, as when they formed unholy league with Midianite idolators, and brought upon themselves that swift destruction which Balak wished for, but which the cowardly Balaam dared not for his life invoke. Breth- ren, God has his crucible still. In oui past lives we shall find circumstances that have tried ourselves, and we shall remember the results of the trial sometimes with devout gratitude, oftener with unfeigned shame. Our afflictions have tried us, and we have thought that we have done well to be angry, and we have arraigned the proceedings of God at the bar of our limited reason (solemn mockery of judic ature !) when, perhaps, the reflection of to-morrow w^ould have approved what the distrust of to-day was so ready to condemn. Our duties have tried us. We have felt the shrinking of the flesh, and the result has been sometimes their reluctant and sometimes their spiritless discharge. Other people have b'^en unjust or unkind to us ; we have met with ingratitude or with treachery: our own familiar one, in whom we trusted, has betrayed us ; slander has been busy belching out her calumnies against our fair fame ; all these things have tested our patience, our endurance, our meekness, our long-suflfer- ing, and, like Moses, we have spoken unadvisedly, or, like the disciples, we have had to pray, " Lord, increase our faith," before we could grasp the large and princely idea of forgiveness to seventy times seven. Often companionships have tried us, and we have shown how small has been our self-reliance and how easily we have taken the hue and mould of the society in which we were thrown, and how a pointed finger, or a sarcastic laugh, or a lip scornfully curled, can shame the man- hood out of us, and make us very cowards in resisting evil, or in bearing witness for God. Thus have we been, thus haa God proved us in the wilderness, and if we are in earnest for heaven, and if we have in any i 34 MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 4k ilii !ii!!l' measure proHted by the discipline, we shall be thankful for the trial. Placed as we are in a sinful world, exposed to its every-day influences, whether of good or evil, we need a piety which can maintain itself in all circumstances, and under every pressure. The trial will be a matter of choice, preferred by every godly and valiant C/hristian soldier. He feels as though that were an inglorious heaven that was won without a sacrifice and without a toil ; he knows that the pro- mise is not that he shall pass through the wilderness without the sight of an enemy ; it is a better promise than that — that we shall never see an enemy that we cannot master, and that by God's grace we cannot completely overcome ; and he had rather don his armor for a foeman worthy of his steel, for an enemy that will at once prove his own valor and show the resources of the Captain of his salvation, than he would don it in order to prance in the gorgeous apparellings of some holiday review. Oh ! believe me, the piety which the world needs, which the church needs, and which we must have if we would be approved of our Great Master, must not be that sickly sentimentality which lounges on ottomans, and discusses social and moral problems while it is at fease in Zion ; it must be the hardy principle pining in inaction, robust from healthy exercise, never so happy as when it is climbing up the slopes of some difficult duties, and has the breeze from the crest of the mountain stirring amid its waving hair; and happy, thrice happy, will it be for you if, as the result of the inspection, you can say, as David did, " Thou hast proved my heart and thou hast visited me in the night ; thou hast tried me and shalt find nothing. I am purposed that my heart shall not transgress, con- cerning the works of men ; by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer." 3. And then the third purpose of l^rovidence in the journey is " to know what was in thine heart — whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no." The hUT itsel an< liui its whl MEMORIES OF THE WAY. 35 le thankful ful world, of good or self in all The trial ery godly ough that without a : the pro- nlderness r promise T that we 'e cannot his armor ' that will ources of don it in I of some ^hich the ^^hich wo r Great ty which id moral St be the healthy g up the eze from ng hair ; as the ^id did, lited me nothing. Jss, con- lips I in the whether " The human heart is a microcosm — a little world, containing in itself all the strifes, and all the hopes, and all the fears, and all the ventures of the larg«jr world outside. The human heart ! who can unravel its mystery, or decipher its hidden law % The smile may play upon the lip, while beneath there is the broken, burning heart ; and, on the other hand, the countenance may have shadow of anxiety, while the sunlight dances gaily on the soul. The human heart ! Human knowledge can give us very little acquaintance with it ; such knowledge is too won- derful tor man ; it is high, and he cannot attain unto it ; but there is One who knows it, and knows all its tortuous policy, and all its sinister motive, and he is anxious that we should know it, too, and one purpose of his provi- dential dealings with us is, that we may know what is in our heart ; and yet of all sciences none is so difficult of attainment as tliis same science of self-knowledge. Whether it be from the deceitfulness of the object of study, or whether it be from the morbid reluctance, almost amounting to fear, with which men shrink from acquaintance with themselves, there are few that have the bravery to pray, " Lord, make me to know myself." Indeed, it were a hideous picture if it were suddenly unveiled in the presence of us all. When the Lord would show Ezekiel the abominations of Jerusalem, he led him through successive chambers of imagery, upon the walls of which were portrayed their loathsome and unworthy doings. Ah ! if our enormities were to be thus tapestried in our sight, who of us could bear the disclosure? There was deep self-knowledge and deep humility in the word of the old reformer, who, when he saw a criminal led off amid the jeers of the multitude to be hanged at Tyburn, turned around sighing, and said : " There, but for the grace of God, goes old John Brad- ford." There is a very affecting illustration of what can lurk unsuspected in the human heart, in the 8th chapter of the 2nd book of Kings : " And Elisha came to Damas- cus ; and Ben4iadad, the king of Syria, was sick ; and it \ N i!^; m MEMORIES^ OF THE WAY. was told lilm, sayiupj, The man of God h coinc hither. And the king said nnto Hazael, Take a present in thine liand, and go, meet the man of ixod, and inquire of the Lord by liim, saying, shall I recover of tliis disease? So llazael went to meet him, and took a present witli him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' burden, and came and stood before him, and said, Thy son, Ben-hadad, king of Syria, hath sent me to thee, saying. Shall I recover of this'^disease ? And Elisha said unto him, Go, say 'unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover. [The disease itself is not fated to destroy thee, tliere is no decree of that k'lid.] Howbeit the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die. And he settled his countenance steadfastly, until he was ashamed ; and the man of God wept. And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord. And he answered, Because 1 know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel ; their strongholds wilt thou set on fire, and the> young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child. And Hazael said [shocked at the bare mention of such atrocities], But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing ?" But, as the old divine quaintly says, " the dog did it after all." Brethren, there lurks this danger in us all ; there is no superiority of character in ourselves ; there is no firmer power of resistance to evil. In our unaided strength we are no better fortified against the extremes of iniquity than many around us who now wallow in the atrocities of crime. That speculative merchant, whose afiairs had become hopelessly embarrassed, and who, in the vain hope of retrieval, olied the too ready pen of the forger, and in that sad moment forfeited the probity, of years — how sad must have been his reflections when, to use his own expressive words, he " agonized on," when he thought that he should transmit to his children nothing but the heritage of a blasted name, and that those children would have an up-hill struggle all the way through life, their own blamelessness being a small matter against the ter- i-ill col th MEMORIES OF THE WAY. m nble opprobrium of tlicir fatlicr's mi^idolngs. He who continues in the feast until wine intlanies him, imagines that he can tread -svitliout danger upon the giddy verge over which multitudes have fallen ; but, by little and little, he cherishes the unappeasable thirst for drink until it becomes a morbid physical malady, and, frantic and despairing, he rushes down into a drunkard's grave. • That youth who, at the solicitation of some gay com- panion, ventures, for the first time, into the foul hell of a gaming-house, and Avho joins in the perilous hazard, would scoff at the prophet who should tell him that, a few years hence, a gambler and a spendthrift, he should live in poverty and die in shame. That young man who, to gain funds, perhaps, for the Sunday excursion, or for the night's debauch, took the money from his master'^ till Avith the conscientious intention of replacing it at the time of the quarterly supply, little thought that that deceitful heart of his would land him in a felon's dock, or, upon the deck of the transport ship, waft him to a returnless distance from his country and his homo. Brethren, from a thousand causes of disaster and of shame with which our experience can furnish us, and which we read in the history of every day life, it becomes us, with godly jealousy watching over our own hearts, to guard against the beginnings of evil ; and as we think of blighted reputations and of ruined hopes — of many once fair, and innocent, and scrupulous, and promising as we — as we gaze upon the wreck of many a gallant vessel stranded by our side, which we saw steaming out of the harbor with stately pennons — let us remember that in us there are the same tendencies to evil, that it is grace — only grace — which hath made us to differ, and that each instance of calamity and sin, while it evokes our pity — not our scorn — for those that have so grievously erred, should proclaim in solemn admonition to ourselves, " Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fallo" " To know what is in thine heart, w^iether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no." J I, Ill '^' H 38 iMEMORIES OF THE WAY. III. If you have thus tnivclled in tlio way that you have trodclen, there will bo many uses of the memory which we cannot stay to particularize to-day. You will know more of God at the conclusion of your visit than you did at the commencement. You will behold in the way both the goodness and the severity of God — the severity which ])uiiishc8 sin wherever it is tO be found, the goodness which itself provides a substitute and find.s a Saviour. Where do you not iind him rather ? There was the stream gushing forth from the smitten rock-s— was there not? — and the perishing and thirsty Israelites were happy. " They drank of the rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ." There was the brazen serpent, the symbol of accepted propitiation in the wil- derness of sin. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so hath the Son of Man been lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not parish, but should have everlasting life." Oh, as you gather u]) those memories — the memory of joy, the memory of sorrow, the memory oi sin — as you remember the good- ness and the loving kindness of the Lord, his faithful- ness to fulfil his promises, his tenderness, which your repeated rebellions have not caused to fail — gather up yourselves in one earnest consecration of flesh and spirit, which I take to be the best consecration of the house which you now dedicate to God — living temples, pillars in ihe house of God, that si «U go out no more forever. ■*' > V . II. . THE BELIEVER'S SUFFICIENCY «» Not that wo arc Bufllclent of ourselves to think anythhig as of our- selves ; but our sulUclcncy Is of God."— 3 Cokintuians, iii. 5. IIE promise contained in these words is one of ^ the most encourat^insj cand one of the most SI comprehensive in tiie Bible. It is the essence of all Christian experience; it is the moral which the Sriptnres continnally inculcate, and it stands in the heraldry of heaven as the motto on the believer's arms. The all-sufficiency of God has been the support and comfort of the faithful in all ages of the Church. On this rock Abraham built his hope ; to this refuge in all times of trial the sweet Singer of Israel fled ; by this confidence the great Apostle of the Gentiles was constantly and perseveringly upheld. The all-sufficiency of God gives strength to patience, gives solidity to hope, con- stancy to endurance, gives nerve and vitality to eifort. The weakest believer, with this giieat treasure in possess- ion, is enabled to go steadily forward, sacrificing no du*y, resisting all sin ; and, amidst every horror and every humiliation, feeling within him the still, clear light of life. To this the most eminent saints are indebted for all they enjoy, for all they are enabled to perform ; and though assailed by various foes without, and by various fears within, by this they can return from every conflict, bearing the spoils of victory ; and as with the trophies of their triumph they erect the grateful Ebenezer, you may see this inscription written upon them all : " Having J I hi I 4!0 THE believer's SUFFICIENCY. obtained lielp of God, Ave continue unto tliis day," feeling most deeply the impotency of the nature they inherit, and peiietrated with the sense of the difficulties by which they are surrounded. When faith is in exercise, they point to this as a never-failing source of strength ; and in the course of their untried and unswerving pilgrimage, this is their language : " Let the wise man, if he will be so foolish, trust to his wisdom ; let the rich man glory in his wealth ; let the proud man vaunt his own dignity ; let the trifler make the world his defence ; we dare not trust to such refuges of lies, we dare not build upon foundations that are palpably insecure. "We feel our own nothingness ; but we feel our own might, because our sufficiency is of God. From the commencement of the chapter out of which these words are taken, we learn that the same exclusive- ness of spirit existed in the days of Paul which exists in certain quarters now, and that the same charge — that of false apostleship — was brought against him that has since been so plentifully flung at eminent ministers of Jesus Christ. It is no small consolation to find that we are thus unchurched in good company. The apostle, how- ever, answers the accusation just as any man woul4 do, who had no particular interest to serve ir^ 'Surroundihg a m'eat question with a cx'owd of arguments anything but luminous — he appeals to the Church a?mong8t whom he had labored, and asks their verdict as to his success as a minister: " Do we begin again to commend oi^rselves, or need we, as some' others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you ? Ye are j'our epistle (your changed hearts, your holy lives, your -tya^slbrmed affections, your heavenly deportment — ye are 0ttr epistles) written in our hearts, known and read of all men : forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink (nor anything so fading), but with the Spirit of the living God ; not in tables of stone (nor anything so hard), but in fleshy tables of the heart; and such trust havo we THE believer's SUFFICIENCY. 41 tins day," nature they le difficulties is in exercise, of strength ; unswerving e wise man, let the ricJi n vaunt his his defence; we dare not secure. We own might, ut of which e exclusive- 3h exists in ge— that of at has since rs of Jesus hat we are ostie, how- ^^oul4 do, •oundiig a j^thing but whom he cce$s as a oijrselves, nehdation 1 Ye are ives, your ment — je id read of ^•ed to be not witli 'it of the so hard), havo we ' through Christ to Godward;" then, so anxious is he even in this moment of his triumphant vindication to avoid all appearance of boasting, that he puts in a great disclaimer: "not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves; all that, whether in us as subjects or by us as the instruments, has been done by the sovereign power of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." The Apostle in these verses imfolds the great secret both of ministerial call and of ministei ial efficiency. It is God, not man, that makes, not finds, able ministers of the !New Testament. The tones of his voice are heard, saying to them, " Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." And it is a remarkable fact, one which we should never forget, that this voice is never heard in a heart where there is no faith ; consequently, the prime qualification for a minister of the Christian religion is the heart that has been melted by its love, and a consciousness which has felt it in its power. Without this, all else is unavail- ing ; the attainment of the most profound and extensive knowledge, the grasp of the loftiest and most scholarly intellect, thepossession of the most commanding eloquence, the treasures of the most imperial fancy, the research of the most accomplished scholar, all these are useless, worse than useless, if they be not consecrated by the Spirit of the Holy One; only the trappings that decorate the traitor, and make his treason yet the fouler; only the weapons of more imminent danger, and the portents of more terrific and appalling ruin. The most distinguished minister within the compass of the Catholic Churcli, however eminent he may be, however signally his labors have been blessed, has reason to remember, every moment of his ministerial career, "I am nothing, less than nothing; but my sufficiency is of God." The comfortable and scriptural doctrine contained in the text is not more true of ministers, of whom it was immediately spoken, than of Christians in general, to whom it may be properly Bl I N I «P 'i Ili ,,;.,,- 42 THE believer's SUFFICIENCY. applied. The station is different, the strength is the same. Your sufficiency, as well as ours, is of God. To take the words in this extended sense, we may find in them matter of profitable meditation, by considering first the nature of this sufiiciency and then the authority which believers have to expect this sufficiency for them- selves. I. First, the sufficiency of God may be considered either as proper, or communicated. By his essential, or proper sufficiency, we mean that he is self-existent, self- sufficient, independently happy ; angels and men may declare that they cannot increase his glory ; it is eternal, underived, perfect. He has said that he will never give it to another. There was no necessity in his nature im- pelling him to create tlie universe ; he could have existed alone, and he did exist alone, long before the everlasting silence was broken by a human footstep, or interruptea by a human voice; and that Divine solitude was the solitude of matchless happiness. The best praises, there- fore, the most extensive services of his worshippers, are but reflections of the glory which dwells originally in himself. But it is of the sufficiency of God in relation to his creatures that it is our province especially to speak. And it is in this sense that God is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. 1. He is sufficient, in the first place — ^let us take low f round first— -/b/' the preseTvaiion of the universe which is hands heme made. From the sublime account which the Scriptures give us of creation, we learn that the heavens were made by him, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth; and as we know that nothing earthly has within it the power to sustain itself, we are further assured that he upholdeth all things hy the same word of his power. It is by this ever breathing word, constantly in exercise, that the sun shines, that the moon walks in brightness, that the stars pursue their courses in the sky ; the clouds are marshalled by his divine decree, and when he uttereth his voice there is a multitude ol THE BELIEVERS SUFFICIENCY. 43 'ngth is tho i'God. To nay find in considering e authority r for them- considered Jssential, or istent, self- nien may i is eternal, never give nature im- ive existed Jverlasting iterrupted 3 was the ses, there- ppers, are ^iuaJly^ in 1 relation to speak. , and his ake low ^e which ^t which hat the hem hj nothing we are le same ? word, emoon urses in decree, ude of waters in the heavens. Eeason looks at this systematic and continuous regularity, and admires it, and refers it to the operation of second causes, and argues very philo- sophically about the nature and iitness of things; but piety looks through tlie complications of the mechanism to the hand that formed it. The universe is to her but one vast transparency, through which she can gaze on God ; her pathway and her communion are on the high places of creation, and there, far above all secondary and subordinate agencies, she discovers the hiding of his power. The symmetry of nature is to her more beautitul because God has produced it. The deep harmonies of the systems come more tunefully upon her ear because the hand of the Lord has awakened them. '* What though no real voice nor Bound Amid the lacliant orbb be found ? In faith's quick ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a noble voice, For ever einginjr as they shine, ' The hand that made U8 Ib Divin©.' " And what a contemplation does this open to us of the majesty and power of God! Who can understand it ? The planets are kept in their orbits, and the seasons continually alternate. Old Ocean dashes himself upon the shore, and every day finds "hitherto" written upon the sand, and ihe mad surge respects it. The earth yields her increase ; vegetable life is evolved ; circula- tion takes place throughout the animal system ; man walks and lives, and all these diversified operations are produced at one and the same moment, perpetuated from one moment to another by the simple w< >rd of God. Extend your conceptions still further ; take hold of the far-reaching discoveries of astronomy. Glance at the numberless suns and systems that are scattered in the broad field of immensity, and remembor (for there is no Scripture against it, and probabilities are strongly in. favor of the opinion), that tiiey are all inhabited by de- pendent creatures somewhat like ourselves. Glance at \ N II I If 44 THE believer's SUFFICIENCY. !i- i A I m the almost infinite variety of existences witli which we are acquainted — whether we walk the earth, or cleave the air, or swim the sea — connect with all these the Scriptural announcement that these are hut parts of his ways, and how little a portion is known of them ; and then how thought shrinks from the aggregate ! how the hrain recoils from the contemplation of the sum ! and we may well finish the quotation, and say, " The thunder of his power, who can understand ?" All our reasonings upon the subject only serve to demonstrate that man by searching cannot find out God. Could you, with the swiftness of a sunbeam, dart yourselves beyond the limits of the known creation, and for ages upon ages continue your pilgrimage in infinite space, you would never — who can grasjD that thought ? it is too large for us — never be able to reach a place where God is not, never light upon a spot where this glorious Being is not essentially and infiuentially present. The whole universe is one vast laboratory of benevolent art, over every department of which the Deity presides — a sanctuary, every part of which the Divinity inhabits — a circle, whose circumfer- ence is imfathomed, and whose every section is filled with God. But I stop here just for a moment, to remind you of the thrill that comes through the heart of the believer, when, after this exhibition of boundless and colossal power, he can go home, singing — . , « •' This all-sufflcieut God is ours, . . * , Our Father and our love." " . Our suflSciency is of God. 2. Then, secondly, and chiefly^ he is sufficient jfor the preservation and for the perpetuity of the Gospel plan ^ in the salvation and ultimate happiness of every indi- vidual heliever. Christianity is not to be viewed by us merely as a moral system ; that were to place it on a level with the speculations of Confucius, and Socrates, and others. It is something more, it is a course of Divine operations. We are not to regard it as a mere '! t THE believer's SUFFICIENCY. 45 ."w-hich we , or cleave n these the parts of his them; and e ! how the in ! and we thunder of reasonings lat man by », with the i the limits ?s continue ever— who —never be igJit upon tialij and > one vast Lrtment of y part of cjircumfer- filled witli jmindyou 3 believer, I colossal k for the x>elplan^ 'fy indi- 3d bj us 3 it on a iocrates, )urse of a mere ethical statement of doctrine made known to us by a bundle of books ; we must remember tlie Divine asjency ulwaj^s, by which it is conducted and inspired. "Vfre ob- served before, that no mere man has the power to produce an abiding change upon the hearts of his hearers. Human eloquence is a mighty tiling, I know ; human reason is a persuasive and powerful thing, I know ; imder certain favorable conjunctures of circumstances, they have sometimes achieved mighty results. They can shame a Herod, they can make a Felix tremble, they can almost ])ersuade an Agrippa to become a Christian, but they can do no more. I know that immense multitudes have been swayed by the power of a single tongue. The passions liave become excited, either to madness or to sympathy, either to deeds of lawless aggression, or to deeds of high emprise ; but then there is only a transient mastery ob- tained. We read of a harp in the classical fables of old, which, when the winds swept it, was said to discourse sweet strains ; but then, unhappily, the breeze and the music died away together. So it is with the triumph of the orator : the moment the voice of the speaker ceases the spell is broken, the charm is dissipated ; reflection l)egins to remonstrate against excitement, and the whole aifair is forgotten, or comes upon the soul only as the memory of some pleasant song. Nay, truth, celestial truth, can produce no abiding change. Pardon and sanctification are not the necessary consequences of state- ments of doctrine. Scripture cannot produce them ; the truth may appear in all its cogency and in all its power before the mind — it may appear so clear as to extort an acquiescence in what it propounds ; but it is uninfluen- tial ; it lacks energy, and it lacks a self-appliant power. It may enlighten — that is its province — it can never save. Without the Spirit it is useless ; let the Spirit animate it, and it is the power of God. Hearers who sit under the ministrations of the truth without the Spirit may be likened to a man standing upon the brow of a hill which commands the prospect of an extensive landscape. The i If i- 1 |i 1 1 lirl I i 4G THE BELIEVEIVS SUFFICIE^XT. varied beauties of flood and field are before him ; nature is clad in her richest livery, there is every variety calcu- lated to interest and to inspire ; rugged rocks frown as if they would keej) sentinel over the sleeping valley ; the earth yields her increase, the crystal streamlet leaps merrily along, impressions of the beautiful are every- where visible, there is just one dravrbiick to the picture, and that one drawback is, that the man who stands upon the summit of the hill is blind. That is precisely the state of the case in reference to truth in the Bible. It is there in all its grandeur, but the man has no eyes to see it. Let the Spirit come and take the scales away and ehred ofl* the spiritual ophthalmia, and he sees the land- scape stretching before him in all its hues of beauty, and his soul is elevated and he feels the full raptuie of the scene. Prevailing truth, therefore, is not of the letter but of the Spirit, for " the letter ki'leth, but the Spirit giveth lite." This Spirit it is that is promised for the carrying out of the Gospel, and it therefore must be suc- cessful. I know there is a ij^ood deal of difficulty about his mode of prot^edure : God'a word must be fulfilled, that is one thing ; man's freedom must be m;iintained, that is another thinir. Man is a moral agent ; God has endued him with talents and invested him with an immense delegation of power, and in the distribution of these talents and in the exercise of that power, he has said, in effect, Let him alone ; he may do as he lists — just as he lists. He is allowed, for the present, to act as if he had BO superior, but for all he is holden finally most strictly responsible. But no coercion is applied, no force is ever in any conceivable instance made use of. One of our most eloquent senators once said, that an Englishman's cottage wab his castle. The winds may whistle through every crevice, and the rains penetrate through every cranny, but int(5 that cottage the monarch of England dare not enter against the cotter's will. That is just the st-ate of the case between Christ and the human soul. He lias such a respect for the will of that immortal tenant THE BELIEVER S SUFFICIENCY. 47 that he Ims placed witliiii w^, tliat he will never force an entrance, lie will do cverytliiii<; else ; he will knock at the door — r *' He now etands knocking at the door Of every sinner's heart ; The worst need keep him out no more, ' Nor force him to depart." Bat he will not force an entrance. Often, disappointed and grieved, he turns away from those whom he would fain have enriched and saved, saying, " Ye will not come unto rae, that ye may have life." But notwith- gtanding all this formidable opposition, the Gospel, as the adminstration of God's truth, backed by the energy of the Holy Spirit, shall Unally triumph. We can con- ceive of no enemies more subtle, more malignant, more powerful than those which it has already encountered and vanquished. Memory cheers us onward and bids hope to smile. God is with the Gospel; that is the great secret. She does not trust in her inherent energy ; she does not trust in her exquisite adaptation to man's every necessity and peril ; she does not trust in the in- defatigable and self-denying labors of her ministers; God is with the Gospel, and under his guidance she shall march triumphantly forward, subjugating every enemy, acquiring a lodgment in every heart, reclaiming the world unto herself, until she has consummated her victory in the ecstasies of a renovated universe, and in that deep and solemn moment when the Son, who gave his life a ransom for all, shall see of the travail of his soul and be abundantly satisfied. O brethren! what a comfortable doctrine is this! If this Gospel is to be conducted fr m step to step in its progressive march to conquest, do you not see how it guarantees individual salvation and individual defence by the way ? Where art thou in the chapel to-night (would that I could discover thee!) timid and discouraged believer who art afraid of the fatigues of climbing the Hill I I f» THE believer's SUFFICIENCY. i '.I DilTicnlty, and croiichcst back al)asliod and cowering^ at siglit of tlio lions in front of the Palace Beautiful ? Lift up thy head, be not discouraged; thy sufficiency is of God. What frightens thee ? Affliction ? God is thy liclp. Persecution? God is thy crown. Perplexity? God is thy counsel. Death? God is thy everlasting life. Only trust in God, and all shall be well. Life sliall glide thee into death, and death shall glide thee into heaven. " Who (asks the exulting Apostle, in the 8tli of Romans), who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ?" That is rather a dark catalogue; but mark how the Apostle answers it: "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors."' It is not a drawn battle; night does not come on to separate the combatants ; we have not to send a herald, as they used to do in ancient warfare, to ask permission to bury our dead ; we do not come from the Held with the dishonored banner trailing in the dust, and the armor hacked, scarred with the wounds we have gotten in the light. "We are more than conquerors." Oh, the roy- alty of that language! — "more than conquerors, through him that hath loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death" — he puts that first, because it generally threatens believers most — " neither life," which is really a more solemn and a more perilous thin^ than death, rightly considered — " neither death, nor life, nor angels" — if any of them should forget themselves so far as to come and preach another Gospel and try to deceive the very elect — " neither principalities nor powers" — for although the captain of the hosts of darkness may plant all his most formidable battery against us, he cannot shake the palisades of strong salvation, nor snatch away a solitary sheep from the fold of the great Shepherd. " No, nor things present" — though those things present may include famine, nakedness, peril and sword — " no, nor things to come" — though, in those things to come, there may be an originality of diabolism never dreamed I the' believer's sufficiency. 49 cowcri'np^ ►eautifiil ? ciency is rod is thy rplexity? erlastinff jII. Life ide thee 3, in the i love of nine, or ' a dark vers it: nerors.'*' ^ on to heraid, 'mission Id with p armor in the le roj- 1 rough that aerally really death, iQgels" as to ^e the — 'for plant annot away herd, esent "no, ome, med ■ t of yet — "and no crcatnro" — notliiiii^ l)nt sin, and that is not a creature, that is a foul excrescence, a vile ai/urtion upon the universe of God — keep clear of that — and " no creature shall he able to separate vou from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus oui Lord." Qli, the bless- edness, the ineffable blessedness of being in the love of God! The blessedness of an approving conscience, the blessedness of increasing knowledge, the blessedneF.3 of complete victory, the blessedness of Gospel peace, the blessedness of perfect love ! I do not know what that sea of glass means about which we read in the Revelation ; I do not pretend to an intimate acquaintance with Apoca- lyptic disclosures ; but I know nothing that can better imagine the deep, serene, reposing, kingly rapture of the spirit that has finished its course with joy. It is a sea of glass; it hath no billows; not a breath ever, by any possibility, ruffles it. And on this sea of glass, as on a wide and waveless ocean, the believer stands forever, chanting eternally the song of Moses and the Lamb. Oh, lift up your heads and come back to Zion with singing, and let this be the burden of youi song : - ■ "Let doubt then, and danger my pro^jress oppose, They only make heaven more sweet at the elosc ; Afflictions may damp me, they cannot destroy, For one j^limpse of His love turns them all into joy. • And come joy, or come sorrow, whate'er may befall, One hour with my God will make up for it all." It were very little use our talking in this strain to you, if you were to find out, after all, that it was some aristo- cratical blessing, some privilege reserved only for the l^eerage of the faithful, for the favored ones in the family of the King of kings. II. I come, secondly, to notice xnE AUTHORriY which BELIEVEHS HAVE TO EXPECT THIS SUFFICIENCY FOR THEM- SELVES. And, very briefly, we have a right to expect it, because it is found and promised in the Bible. Every believer, the moment he becomes a believer, becomes an inheritor of the promises. The Bible is not my Bible, 60 THE BELTFVER S PUFrirTENCY. t i nor yonr Blhlo — it is our Bii)le. It is coiinnon property; it beloiifj:^ to tlic uuiveraal Church. Wc have no eyrn- pathy, of course, with those wlio would monopolize this sacred troHsure, and keep this light of the Gospel burn- ing, and tha|, with a precious dimness, only in the study of the priest, or fettered, as it used to be, like a curiosity, to the altars of the Church. Thank God, these days of darkness are forever gone by. And yet there is a Church, somewhere, professedly Christian, which denies to its members the light and comfort of the Bible, in direct oppo itio:i to the command of Ilimwdiohas said to every one, "Search the Scriptures," thus most absolutely exalt- ing itself against all that is calleolizc tliis pel burn- ^he Btudj Juriositj, i days of Church, }s to its n direct to ever J '^y exalt- lost foul 1 forbid hj the Bible I in tlie e hand it, and ?d, has >iirpose 1 to all of the lers to pietj ; cannot e thus indled is the e con- Phant it, by guid- J8 are of U9 : this We n to tlicm, they are yonr.^ : " Tliu?^ Raith tlic Lord wlio created thee, O Jacol), wlio tbrincd tlieo, O Israel, Fear not, I liave redeemed tliee, I have called thee by t/iy na7)ie" Whiit a berintifiil thoupiht that is I Just get the meaning and beauty out of it. llow many thousands of believers, thousands upon thousands of believers, have there been in the world from the beginning of its history until now — thousands in the patriarchal ages who looked through the glass, and who saw, dimly, the streak of the morning in the distance, and, even with that streak of light, were glad — thousands, in the prophetical times, who discerned it in the brightness of a nearer vision — thousands who basked in its tull-orbed lustre, when Christ came into the world — thousands upon thou.^ands, since that time, who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb — thousands, who are now upon the earth, working out their salvation with fear and trembling — tliousands upon thousands that shall come into the Church in the time of its milleni d glory, when the gatea of it shall not be shnt day nor night, because the porter shall have no chance of sliutting them, the people crowd in so fast. Now get all that mass of believers, past, present, and future, a company that no man can number; and to each of them God comes in this promise, and says, " I have called thee by thy name, I know all about thee" — that is, I have not a merely vague, indelinite knowledge of thee ; as an individual believer I know thy name, I could single thee out of millions, I could tell the world all thy solicitudes, and all thy apprehensions, and all thy hopes, and all thy sorrows — " I have called thee by thy name." Oh, precious promise I Take it to your hearts. " I have called thee by thy name ; thou art mine ; when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee ; and through the rivers" — deeper than the waters — " ther shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest througn the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flames kindle upon thee." Listen again : " The Lord Grod is a Bun and shield" — ^light and protection ; that nearly em.- I K 52 THE believer's SUFFICIENCY. l)nicC8 all our wants — "Iio will ^Ive <:;nicc and pjloi'.y/^ Is there anything left out 'i And it' there nre any of you so perversely clever and so mischievously inpjenious in multiplying arguments in favour of your own despair, that you can conceive of some rare and precious blessing that is not wrapped up cither in grace or glory — "^'o good thing will ho withhold from them that walk up- rightly." *' Fear not, for I am with thee; be not dis- mayed, for I am thy God." " Cast all thy care" — " Nay," the rebel heart says, " There is some little of it I must bear myself; something that has reference to the lieart's bitterness, that it alone knoweth ; or to the heart's deep, dark sorrow, with which no stranger intermeddles — that I must bear myself." " Cast all thy care upon me, for I care for thee." What ! distrustful still ? Can you not take God at his word 'i Hark ! he condescends to expostulate with you upon your unbelief: '' Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord" — how often have you eaid that in the time of your sorrow ! you know you have — *' my way is hid from tho Lord, my judgment is passed over from my God. Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of th? ends of the earth, faintetli not, neither is weary. There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint." Lie does not merely take his swoon away and leave him weakly, he makes him strong. *' He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no miglit he increaseth strength." Are you still dissatisfied ? The God who knows human nature, knows how much better a teacher example is than precept, and so, spark- ling upon the pages of his lio'iy truth, he has left us many bright instances of his interposition on behalf of his saints. Abraham rises early in the morning, goes a three days' journey with the son of his love, intending all the while, with set and resolute purpose, to offer him in sacrifice to the God of heaven. Arrived at the place of their destination, all the ritual preparations are made : THE BELIEVER S SUFFICIENCY. 53 the altar Is proparod ; tlic wllliiip; victim, unresisting, is bound ; the sacriticial kiiitb is lifted ; no escape, tlien, HUiCly ! But uuin'rt extremity is God's opportunity, and the ram is caught in the thicivet by its horns, and (rod's (^race is sutlicient — none too nnicli — but sutHcient still. The cliildren of Israel are brou^jht to the borders of the liCd Sea, hotly pursued by the Hower of the Ejjjyptian 'irmy ; the troops arc close upon them in tho rear : the Kcd Soa stretches before them — the inaccessible hills of Baal-Zephon tower on tho right hand and on the left. What are they to do '^ There seems no possible chance of escape. Oh ! what are tho laws of gravitation when the Lord works for his people? llo who made them can alter them at pleasure. The waters erect themselves on either hand, and the bed of the ocean is their triumphal pathway. God's grace is sufficient still. Nehemiah, like a true-hearted patriot as he was, set to work to rebuild the delapidated wallslof Jerusalem. But ho began, like pome of his successors, in troublous times ; Sanballat and To' iah came to fight against the workmen; they were so hard beset, that they had to work with sword in the one hand and trowel in the other ; God's grace was sufficient, and the second Jerusalem rose up in majesty upon the site of tho ruins of the first. What ! not satisfied yet'^ Surely that muse be an almost invin- cible unbelief that these instances will not overcome. What is it you say ? " Oh, but these are all instances taken from the Old Testament times ; the age of miracles is over now — we are not now to except such interpositions on behalf of God's people." Well, let us try again. Come out of the light of Scripture a little into the light of common life. Tred softly as you enter that house, for it is a house of mourning ; a large family surround the bedside of a dying parent ; that parent is a Christian, and knowing in whom he has believed, lie is not afraid to die. But he has a large family, and the thought that he shall leave them without a protector, the thought of the forcible disruption of all social ties, presses upon his I N 54 THE BELIEVER S SUFFICIENCY. n ■« ; fipirit, and wlien you look at him, there is a Bhade of Badness upon his counienance; but you gaze awhile, and you see that sadness chased away l>y a smile. "What has wrought the change? "What? Why, a ministering angel whispered to him : '' Leave thy latherless clildren ; I will preserve them alive." He hails the promiser. Faith cries out: ''It is he, it is he; my God is present here." He enjoys rapt and high communion w^ith celestial visitants, and thus that chamber of death becomes the gate of heaven. You pass by that house the next morn- ing : the half-closed shutter and the drawn blind tell you that he was and is not. You enter — the widow is sitting in sorrow ; the first deep pang is scarcely over. The tones of her husband's voice, with which she has so long been familiar, rush, in all the freshness of yesterday, upon her soul, and she is worn with weeping. But she, too, is a Christian, and she flies to the Christian's refuge, and her eye traces those comfortable words: "Thy Maker is thine husband — the Lord of Hosts is his name." It is a dark hour ; it has been a daik day ; and the darkness has gathered, and settled, and deepened as the day wore ( n, and now at eventide there is solt and brilliant light, because her sufficiency is of God. You pass by the house again when about a week has elapsed. Tlie last sad rites have been performed ; the funeral bell, with its suppressed and heavy summons, sounding like the dividing asunder of soul and body, has tolled ; the very clay of her hus- band has been torn from her embrace. He has died in somewhat s'^'raitened circumstances ; he was the sole de- pendence of the family, and, with aching head and throbbing heart, she sits down to calculate about her future subsistence; her heart begins to fail her, but, before she gives way to despair, she consults a friend ; he is a wise man, one upon whom the influences of the Holy Spirit have operated long-; and he gives her the testimony ot a long life* of experience : "I have been young, and iiow am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." Dashing aw^ay the teai*9 shade of 'hile, and What ha3 inistering clildren"; promise!'. 3 present i celestial )me8 the !Xt morn- i tell you is sitting er. The s so long ay, upon e, too, is ige, and Maker is It is a ness has vore ( n. It light, le house ;ad rites )presped asunder ler h US- died in. sole de- id and )ut her r, but, nd ; he e Holy iniony i;, and tsakcn, teai*s THE believer's SUFFICIENCY. 55 that had blinded her, she struggles and labors on, and feels that though it is her darkest hour, her sufficiency is still of God. That is no uncommon cafe: J have not drawn largely upon the extravagance of an imaginative fancy to bring it out. I could go into many of our sanctuaries and bid you listen to one, as with a glad heart and fi^ee, sings the converted sinner's anthem : " O Lord, I will praise thee; thou wast angry with me, but thine anger is turned away, and now thou comfortest me." Then I could bid you listen to the experience of another, but faltering and low, for he is just recovering from recent illness: "I w^as brought low, and he helped me; he saved me even from the gates of death." And then we could point you to a third, and say : " This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." And where aie the damnatory clauses that forbid you to partake of these blessings ? M hat statute of limitations is there that bars you from thij enjoyment of this great and gracious heritage ? Brethren, are you in Christ? Then all that belongs to the covenant is yours. Yours is the present heritage, yours is the future recompense of reward. " Our sufficiency is of God." Is it bo ? Then you will be sustained in trial ; you won't succomb to its power ; it won't over-master you ; you will regard it as sent of God, intended to work lessons and changes of some providential discipline within you. You will be gratelul for it ; you will know that when it comes, although it looks harsh and repulsive outside, you have entertained angels unawares, you will find after it has gone away. Oh ! we learn many lessons when the head is low, that we do not learn in the heyday of prosperity and blessing. Just as it is in the natural world : you know when the 8un is set, the stars come out in their placid beauty, and " Darkness shows us worlds of light .; * ' We never saw by day ;" aijd we should never have known they were there if tho I K ■!!' ; 56 THE BELIEVER S SUFFICIENCY. darkness had not come. So in the night of God's pro- vidential dispensations, the stars of the great promises come shining out, broad and bright upon the soul ;■ and we rejoice in their light and go on our way rejoicing. Or, changing the figure, in the glad summer time, when the leaves are on the trees, we go out, such of us as can get into the country — we go out into the thick woods and walk under the trees in shadow, and their branches interlace above us, and the leaves are green and glossy ; and so thick above that we cannot see the sky through ; and then we forget that there is another world, and our hearts are revelling in all pleasure and all blessedness of this. But when the blasts of winter come and scatter the leaves do' ti. then the light of heaven comes in between, and we remember that here we have no contin- uing city, and are urged to seek one that is to come. Oh ! take hold of God s sufficiency then, and go bravely to the meeting of trial, and you will find that trial, "God'B alchemist old, Forges off the dross and mold, And leaves us rich with gems and gold." Is your sufficiency of God ? Then it will animate you to duty. Listen to this confession of weakness : " Unto me who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given." Less than the least! What a pressure of weak- ness th^re must have been upon that £Oul ! Listen to this exulting consciousness of power : " I can do all things through Christ that strengtiieneth me." They are the antipodes of sentiment — are they not? Weakness the most helpless and feeble — power the most exultant and prond ; and yet that confession of weakness, and that exulting consciousness of power, were the utterance of the same lips, and the expression of the experience of the same individual. What made the difierence? In the one case he relied upon his own resources ; in the other, he took hold of the sufficiency of God. Take hold of the sufficiency of God, and nothing will be able to resist you ; you I of hi) ever! anlJ is to| glinj has 11 TUB Believer's suS-ficienc 5? jrod's pro- ; promises soul ;• and rejoicing, me, when us as can ck woods branches d glossy; through ; and our edness of id scatter comes in 10 contin- to come. ) bravely ial, e you to Into me is grace 3fweak- isten to do all hey are eakness xultant -nd that e of the of the In the other, I of the it you ; you will go forward strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might, overcoming sin and overcoming evil in its every form, and planting for yourself and for your Master an heritage of blessing in this world and in that one which is to come. '' Our sufficiency is of God." Is there a poor strag- gling sinner that is rejoicing to think that the minister has forgotten him, and that while he has been endeavor- ing to bring out all the heart of the text — privilege and promise exceeding great and precious, for the beneiit of believers — no vord of warning can be extracted out of it for those that are yet ungodly ? Wait a little. What is the lesson you are to learn from the subject ? Just this : that there is a sufficiency in God to punish. All his attributes must be equally perfect. He must be just, as well as the free and generous justifier of him that believ- cth in Jesus» Oh, I beseecli you, tempt not against yourselves that wrath which needs only to be kindled in order to burn unto the lowest hell. " Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way." Perish out of the way — just as men fling away any obstacle or hindrance that interrupts their progress, so shall God fling the wicked out of the way. " Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. But a little — oh, it will need but a little kindling to doom you to the perdition of hell. Brethren, you need not perish: tiiere is a sufficiency, thank God ! there is a sufficiency in Christ to save. Our sufficiency is of God. And with this promise that I fling forth into the midst of you, and pray that God would bind it as a spell of sweet enchantment on your souls, I close my words to-night : " Wherefore he is able to save unto the uttermost" — to the uttermost of human guilt — to the uttermost of human life — to the uttermost of human time. May God save your souls, for the Kedeemer's sake! I f \ b2 1 M 1 ■T* •• !■■/-■■<■ ^ ■^ ^^yi^^ ^ as:tfi yaJHIiHyyy III. THE MISSIOJ^ OF THE PULPIT. "Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not 'walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceii fully; but by ' manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience , in the sight of God."— 2 Cor. iv., 1, 3. HIS is the Apostle's recorded judgment as to the mission of the ministry which he had re- U ceived of the Lord Jesus, and the duties of which he disciiarged with such singular fidelity and zeal. In the preceding chapter, he magnifies its superiority alike of glory and of substantial usefulness over the dispensation of the law, and then in a few weighty words separates himself entirely from all false teachers, and establishes himself, upon the ground of holy character and exalted oflBce, as Heaven's high remembrancer among the na- tions — a true witness for God amidst a dark and alien world. He takes care, at the very outset, to assure those to whom he speaks, that he is of the same nature, and originally of the same sinfulness, as themselves : " There- fore seeing that we have received this ministry, as we have received mercy^ we faint not." We are not — as if he had said — a distinct order of beings : there is no natural superiority of character which might make the minister proud, or which might make the hearer distant, and callous, and unsympathizing. We once were sinners ; we have yet the memory of bondage ; we have received mercy, and are anxious to tell to others the tidings that ,1 ^ • a THE MISSION OP THE PULPlT. 59 r. ceived mercy, ishonesty, not I fully; but by n's conscience lent as to le had re- )s of which zeal. In )rity alike jpensation separates stablishes d exalted ^ the na- and alien 3ure those ture, and " There- y, as we ot — as if jre is no make the • distant, sinners ; received ngs that have led to our redemption. As we have received mercy we faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, the secret immoralities of pagan priests ; not walking in craftiness, not retaining our hold upon tho consciences of men by deceivableness of unrighteousness, and by juggling, lying wonders ; not handling the Word of God deceitfully, not preaching an adulterated truth or a flexible Gospel ; not pliant to the prejudices, or silent to the vices of those who hear us ; " but, by manifesta- tion of the truth, commending ourselves to ^very man^a conscience in the sight ol God." All this, aflSrmed by the Apostle of the ministry of olden time, may be affirmed of the ministry of reconcilia- tion now. That ministry, wickedly maligned on the one hand, imperfectly fuliilled on the other hand, has yet its mission to the world. The unrepealed command still stands rpon the statute-book : "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel unto every creature." And it is a prayer often earnestly and passionately uttered by those on whom its obligations have fallen, that, repudiating artifice and idleness, they may, by manifestation of the truth, commend themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. I purpose, God helping me, briefly to notice from these words — in the first place, the business ot the ministry; secondly, the instrumentality which it eniploys; and thirdly, the thought that hallows it. 1. The Ministry — this is my first position — has a busi- ness WITH THE WORLD. It is the Divinely-appoiuted agency for the cotumunication of God's will to man. As a Divine institution it advanced its claims in the be- ginning, and in no solitary instance have they been re- linquished since. This Divine authorization and enact- ment are still in force. The Bible says, when Christ ascended up on high, " he led captivity captive, and re- ceived gifts for men ; and he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastow and teachers, for the perfecting ol the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." I N ill' 111 60 THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. Tliei'b :^iiglit bo sometaing special, perhaps, in this original commission, hut the principle of its Divine origin is evidently presented as the principle of the ministry itself; for St. Paul, who was not then called, who speaks of himself afterward as one born out of due time, earnestly and anxiously vindicates the Heavenly origin of his apostleship : " I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not of men ; for I neither received it of men, neither was I taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." This it is which is the elevation of the Christian riinistry, which exalts it far above human resources and human authority. It travels on in its own majestic strength — Heaven-inspired and heaven-sustained. Moreover, the same passage which tells us ""^ the institution of the ministry announces its duration, and tells of the period when it shall be no longer needed — till we all come, in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man — unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This period, thus divinely appointed for the cessation of the ministry, has obviously not yet arrived. The world sees but little yet of millennial glory ; there is yet an alienated heart in its debased and rebel tribes ; there is nothing in the pursuits which it follows, nor in the natural impulses which move it, to incite to holy aim or to induce spiritual living. It has no self-suggestive memory of God. It has passions as blind and powerful, and a will as perverse as ever. Death is in the midst of it, and, though the corpse may be sometimes embalmed with spices, or tricked out with flowers, or carried 'neath obsequious plumes to burial, the chill is at its heart, the breath of the plague is in the tainted air, and there is need, strong and solemn need, for the anointed witness who may stand between the living and the dead, that the plague may be stayed. There are some, I know, who tell us that the mission of the pulpit is fulfilled. They acknowledge that, in the earlier ages, in the times of com- parative darkness, when, men spelt out the truth in sylh 2ro\N THE MISSION OP THE PULPIT. Gl syllables, it did a noble work ; but the world has out- grown it, they tell us ; men need neither its light nor its warning; the all-powerful Press shall direct them, the educational institute shall assis'^ them in their upward progress, they shall move onward and upward under the guidance of the common mind. And, while this is the cry of infidelity and in diiferentism, there are some among ourselves who have partially yielded to the clamor. They have deplored (as wlio must not ?) the apparent ineffective- ness ot existing agencies, the feebleness of the efforts for evangelical aggression, and, in their eagerness to con- ciliate prejudice and disarm opposition, they have com- promised somewliat the high tone of Christian teach- ing, and have studiously avoided the very terminology of the Bible, so that the great truths of God s will and man's duty, of Christ's atonement and the sinner's pardon, of the Spirit's work and the believer's growth — those old gospels whose sound is always music and whose sight is always joy, are hardly to be recognized, as they are hidden beneath profound thought, or veiled within affected phrase. JBut the Divine institution of the ministry is not to be thus superseded. It has to do with eternity, and the matters of eternity are paramount. It deals and would grapple with the inner man ; it has to do with the deepest emotions of the nature, with those instincts of internal truths which underlie all systems, from which a man can never utterly divorce himself, and which God himself has graven on the soul. So far as they work in harmony with its high purpose, it will hail the helpings of all other teaching ; but God hath given it the monarchy, and it dare not abdicate its throne. The opposition that you sometimes meet with of worldliness and infidelity to the pulpit, if you analyze it, you find that though it may have derived from the oppressions of priestcraft in bygone ages somewhat of plausibility and force, it is but one phase of the method in which the human heart discovers its rooted and apparently unconquerable enmity to God. Hence it is one of the worst symptoms of the disease 1 K 62 TUB MISSION OP THE PULPIT. r*i' which the ministry has been calculated and instituted to remove. The teaching of the political agitator, of the philanthropic idealist, of the benevolent instructor — why are they so popular? The teaching of the religious minister — why is it so repulsive to the world ? Mainly from this one fact, that the one reproves, and the other exalts human nature — the one ignores, the other insists upon the doctrine of the Fall. You will find, in all the schemes for the uplifting of man not grounded on the Bible, the exaltation of his nature as it is, lofty ideas of perfectibility, assertions that it needs neither revelation nor heavenly influence to guide it in the way of truth. Thus the Gospel is presented only as one among many systems whicli all men may accept or reject at pleasure. Its restraints are deemed impertinence, its reproofs unnatural bondage. The talk of such teaching is fre- quently of rights, seldom of duties. They are compli- mented on their manlineos who ought to be humbled for their sin, and, by insidious panderings to their pride, they are exhorted to atheism, self-reliance, or habitual disregard of God. Both kinds of teaching, the worldly and the religious alike, aim at the uplifting of the nature. But then they look at it frgm different standpoints, and, of course, they apply to it different treatment. The one is an endeavor to exalt the nature without God ; the otiier would take hold of his strength and work to the praise of his glory. The one regards humanity as it once was before sin had warped it, able to tower and triumph in its own imaided strength — the other sees it decrepit or ailing, the whole head sick and the whole heart faint ; and yet, by the balm of Gilead, to be restored to pristine vigor. Tne one deeming that no confusion has come upon its language, nor shame upon its many builders, would have it pile up its Babel towers until they smite the skies — the other sees the towers in ruins, splintered shaft and crumbling arch bearing witness that they were once beautiful exceedingly, and that by the grace and skill of the heavenly A rchitect, they may grow up agaiu into a holy temple in the Lord. regis and THE MISSION OP THE PULPIT. G3 stituted to or, of the ;tor — wliy religions Mainly the other ler insists in all tlie ed on the V ideas of •evelation of truth. »ng many pleasure, reproofs g is fre- ! compli- nbled for 3ir pride, habitual ' worldly 3 nature, ats, and, The one he other Jraise of ice was mph in [•epit or t faint ; pristine iS come lilders, smite intered y were je and again It is absolutely necessary, in this age of manifold activities and of spiritual pride, that there should be this ever-speaking witness of man's feebleness and of God's strength. And, however mr.ch the opposition against the ministry may tell, and it does tell, and it ought to tell, against the vapid and frivolous, against the idle and insin- cere, it is a powerful motive for the institution of tlie ministry itself; just as the blast that scatters the acorn^«, roots the oak the more lirmly in the soil. So long as men are born to die, so long as the recording angel registers human guilt, so long as human responsibility and retribution are unheeded truths, so long as there is one solitary sinner tempted by the black adversary, so long will the ministry have a busiiess with the world ; and it is the earnest prayer of those who have undertaken it that they may in some humble measure, in all fidelity and with dauntless courage, with genial sympathy, with pure affection, be witnesses for (rod, like that glorious angel whom the evangelist saw with the light upon his wings, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto every nation and people and tongue. II. I observe, secondly, the business of thb ministry IS MAINLY WITH THE CONSCIENCE OF MEN. Every man has a conscience; that is, a natural sense of the difference between good and evil — a principle which does not con- cern itself so much with the true and false in human ethics, or with the gainful and damaging in human for- tunes, as with the right and wrong in Human conduct. Call it what you will, analyze it as you may — a faculty, an emotion, a law — it is the most important principle in our nature, because by it we are brought into sensible connection with, and sensible recognition of, the moral government of God. It has been defined sometimes as a tribunal within a man for his own daily and impartial trial ; and in its various aspects it answers right well to all the parts of a judicial tribunal. It is the bar at which the sinner pleads ; it prefers the accusation of transgres- sion ; it records the crime ; it bears witness to guilt oi^ \ K i 64 THE MISSION OF THE PUL PIT. innocence ; and as a indge it acqnits or condemns. Tims taking coginzanoe ol moral actions, it is the faculty which relates us to the other world ; and by it (rod, retribution, eternity, are made abiding realities to the soul. As by the physical senses we are brought into connection with the physical world, J.nd th.e blue heavens over it, and the green earth around us, are recognized in their relation to ourselves ; so by this moral sense of conscience we see ourselves, in the light of immortality, responsible crea- tures, and gain ideas of duty and of God. How mighty is the influence which this power has wielded, and yet continues to wield in the world ! There are many that have tried to bo rid of it, but there is a manhood at its heai't which murder cannot kill. There are many that have rebellcfl against its authority, but they have acknow- ledged its might notwithstanding, and it has rendered them disturbed and uneasy in their sin. Th^re are mul- titudes more that have fretted against its wholesome warnings ; and often when, because it has warned them of danger or tlireatened them with penalty — they have tried to stifle and entomb it, it has risen up suddenly into a braver resurrection, and pealed forth its remonstrances in bolder port and louder tone. But for its restraint, many of the world's reputable ones would have become criminal. But for its restraint, many of the world's criminals would have become more audaciously bad. It has spoken, and the felon, fleeing when no man pui-sued him, has been chased by ." falling leaf. It has spoken, and the burglar has paled behind his mask, startled at his own footfall. It has spoken, and the coward assassin has been arrested in his purpose, and has paused irresolute ere he has struck the blow. Its vindictive and severe upbraiding after the sin has been committed has often lashed the sinner into agony, and secured an interval of comparative morality by preventing sin for a season. It has been the one witness for God amid the traitor facul- ties — single but undismayed, solitary but true. When the understauding and the memory, and the wiU and the THE MISSION OF THE TULPIT. G5 afFcctions, liad all consented to the onticemcnts of evil, conscience has stood tinn, and the man conld never sin with conitbrt nntil lie had ih'u^ged it into desperate repose. It lias been the one dissentient power amonp^ the faculties, like a moody i;-!iest among a company of frantic revcHers, wliom they could neithei* conciliate nor expel. When God's judg-ments have been abroad in tho world, and men would lain have resolved them into ordinary occurrences or natural phenomena, conscience has refused to l)e satistied with such delusive interpreta- tions, and, without a ])ro])het's inspiration, has itself deciphered tlie handwriting as it blazed upon the wall. It has forced the criminal oftentimes to cleliver himself up to justice, preferring the public shame of the trial and the gallows-tree to the deeper hell of a conscience aroused and angry. Yes, and it has constrained from the dying sinner a testimony to the God he has insulted, given when the shadows of perdition were already darkening upon the branded brow. Oh, brethren, that must be a mighty power which has wrought and whick is working thus ! And it has wrought and is working in you ; and, as such, w^e acknowledge it. We can despise no man who has a conscience. Although ,with meanness and with sin he may largely overlay it, we recognize the majestic and insulted guest, and are silent and respectful as in the presence of a fallen king. We see the family-likeness, although intemperance has bloated the features and has dulled the sparkle of the eye. There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty givetli him understanding. JTow it is with this faculty in man that the minister has mainly to do. His work, his business, is to bring out the world's con- science in its answer to the truths of Divine revelation. Recognizing in it something which can respond to its own duty, the ministering witness without will constantly appeal to the answering witness within. Regarding all other faculties, however separately noticeable, as avenues qxHY to the conscience, he will ai^n constantly at the ears I K r i: I GG THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. of the inner man. To coino eliort of this is to (;ome short of duty. To fail in this is to fail in a work which our Master has given us to do. AVo sliould form but a very unworthy estimate of our own hin'li oaHini: if we were to aim at the subjugation of any subordinate faculty, and tliat accomplished, sit down as if our work were done. The minister may appeal to the intellect — of course ho may. All thanks to him if he clear away dithculties from the path of the bewildered. All thanks to him if he present truth in its symmetry of system, and in all tho grand and rounded harmony of its beautiful design. But iie must press through the outworks to the citadel, through the intellect to the conscience, that the understand- ing, no longer darkened, may apprehend the truth, and that the apprehended truth may make the cme short rV'liich our ut a very e were to ulty, and 310 done, ionrse ho ifficnlties to him if in all tho gn. But citadel, lerstand- iith, and nscience e truth, hold tlie it there c'h, with pon tho le brow, is the ujider dy that the con- result 3iritual of per- ty issue lilation cleave friends ossible lot the , but imend eJlect, tho philosopher can rival him. If ho speaks to tho imagmation, his briglitest efforts pale before the dazzling images of the ];oet's l)rain. If he speaks to the passions, the political demagogue can do it better. But, in his power over the conscience, he has a power which no man shares. An autocrat undisputed, a czar of many lands, he can wield the sceptre over the master-faculty of man. Oh! very solemn is the responsibility which thus rests upon the religious teacher. To have the master-taculty 01 man witlrn his grasp; to witness of truths that are unpopular and repulsive ; to reprove of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; to do tins with his own heart frail and erring, with the moral conflict battling in his own spirit tho while. ** Who is sufficient for these things ?" breaks often from the manliest heart in its seasons of depression and unrest. But there is a comfort broad and 8tr->ng, and I feel that comfort now supporting me. While pained by my own unworthiness, and by tho trifling of multitudes over whom ministers weep and yearn — pained by the short-sighted and self-complacent mdifference of the '^Imrch and the world — pained by the thousand difficulties which Satan always puts in tho way of the reception of the truth as it is in Jesus ; I say there is a comfort of which I cannot be deprived : that all the while there is a mysterious something movin^^* in you — in you all — barbing the faithful appeal, point in, ■ the solemn warning, striking the alarum in the sinner's soul. There! listen to that! That belongs to thee. That heart so callous and ungrateful — it is thine. That sin that the minister reproves — thou hast committed it. That doom so full of agony and horror — thou art speeding to it. Plow wilt thou escape the damnation of hell'^ Many a time and oft, when the minister without has gone sheafless to hi-^ home, and in tears h;is offered his com- plaint, *' Who hath believed our report ?" the minister within, by God's grace has been a successful harvest-man, and gathered sheaves into the garner ; and often when, to, the eye of the human m,inister, there has been no I N 68 THE MISSION OP THE PULPIT. !( ripple on tho waves, deep in the depths of the soul have swelled the billows of the troubled sea ; and in the keenest acknowledgment of the truth he was endeavoring to impress, men's consciences have borne him witness, their thoughts meanwhile accusing, or else excusing one another. Again, the great instrumentality which God has em- powered us to use is the truth. You will have no difti- Gulty in understanding what the Apostle means by the truth, because he calls it "the word of grace," and "our Gospel." The revelation of God in Christ, the life and teaching and wondrous death of Jesus, was the truth, alone adapted to tlie supply of every need, and the rescue from every peril. The Apostle was no ordinary man. "Well-read in the literature of the times, observant of the tendencies and the inclinations of man, he would be ready to acknowledge truth everywhere. He knew that there had been truth in the world before. He would see it in Pagan systems, gleaming faintly through encum- bered darkness. Fragments of it had fallen from philosophers in former times, and had been treasured up as wisdom. It had a somewhat healthy circulation through the household impulses and ordinary concerns of men. BuL ic was all truth for the intellect, truth for social life, truth for the man ward, not the God ward relations of the soul. The truth which told of God, which- hallowed all 'morality by the sanctions of Divine law, which provided for the necessities of the entire man, was seen but dimly in uncertain traditions. Conscience was a slave. If it essayed to speak, it was overdone by clamor, or hushed by interest into silence. The higher rose the cultui'e, the deeper sank the character. The whole world seemed like one vast valley, fertile and gay with flowers, but no motion in the dumb air, not any song of bird or sound of rill ; the gross darkness of the inner sepulchre was not so deadly still, until there came down a breath from heaven that brought life upon its wings, and breathed that life into the imconscious heaps soul have id in the ideavoring 1 witness, jiusing one d has em- 3 no diffi- ns by the and "our 3 life and he truth, and the ordinary )bservant he would Te knew le would h encum- 'en from sured up i'culation icerns of ruth for rod ward of God, \ Divine re man, iscience lone by i higher •• The nd gay ot any of the e came pon its heaps THE MISSION OP THE PULPIT. of slain. Tlius, when.Clirist came with his Gospel of purity and freedom, all other truth seemed to borrow from it a clearer light and a richer adaptation. The ordinary instincts of right and wrong were sharpened into a keener discernment, and invested with a more spiritual sensibility. The Gospel founded a grander morality ; the Gospel established a more chi valrous honor ; the Gospel shed out a more genial benevolence. All the old systems had looked at man as a half-man ; only on one side of his nature ; that part of liim that lay down t^ the earth. The Gospel took the whole round of his faculties, both as lying toward earth and as rising toward heaven. Love to man — the ordinary, commonplace philanthropy of every day, the pliilantrophy that wings the feet of the good Samaritan, and that sends all the almsgivers upon errands of mercy — love to man was not known in its fullness until the Gospel came. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor" was a command of old, but then the Jews first contracted the neighborhood, and then they contracted the affection. The Jew's neighbor was not the Samaritan, but one within his own exclusive pale and sphere. But when love to God came, like a queenly s mother leading out her daughter by the hand, then men wondered at the rare and radiant beauty that had escaped their notice so long ; and when they loved God first, tlien it was that from that master-love the streams of love to man flowed forth in ceaseless and in generous profusion. And the Gospel is just the same now. It is the great inspiration of ordinary kindnesses, and of the every-day .ind rippling happiness of life. It is the truth for man ; the truth lor man's every exigency^ and for his very peril — blessing the body and saving the soul. JJy the truth, then, which we are to commend to ever}^ man's conscience, we understand the truth as it is in Jesus — the truth which convinces of sin and humbles under a sense of it ; the truth which reveals atonement and flashes pardon from it ; the truth which leads the par- doned spirit upward to holiness and heaven. Now, we I N 70 THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. are to bring that conscience and that trutli in connection with each other ; that is the great business for which we are gathered here. In order that there may be the bring- ing of the one into connection with the other, there must be variety in all truth, suited to the various states in which the conscience of the hearers may be found. Now, for the sake of argument, we may take it that there are three stages in which nearly the whole of the consciences of humanity are ranged : those whose con- sciences are slumbering, torpid, inert, lifeless ; those whose consciences are quick, apprehensive, alarmed ; and those whose consciences have passed through those former stages, and are now peaceful, happy, and at rest. 1. Firf c, there are some consciences that hav", no appre- hension of God — no spiritual sensiMlity at all. It is a very sad thought that this has been, and continues to be, the condition of the vast majority of maTikind. Think of the vast domain of paganism, where the truth of God is lost for lack of knowledge, with its monstrous idols, fertile of cruelty, and its characters exemplifying every variety of evil. You may look through universal history ; you can see the track of passion in the light of the flames which it has kindled ; you can see the works of imagina- tion throned in bodiless thought, or sculptured in breath- ing marble ; you can see the many inventions of intellect on every hand, but for conscience placed on its rightful seat, and exerting its legitimate authority, you look almost in vain. Even in Christian England there are multitudes of whom it may be said that God is not in all their thoughts, to whom conscience is a dull and drowsy monitor, who live on from day to day in the disregard of plainest duties, and in habitual, hardening sin. Are there not some here ? It may be you go to your place of worship, but to little purpose ; you are rarely missed from your accustomed seat, but you have trifled with conscience until it rarely troubles you, and when it does, you pooh- pooh it as the incoherences of a drunkard, or the ravings of some frantic madman. Brethren, I do feel it a solemn , THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. 71 Iconnection whicli we the bring- ;here must states in md. fe it that >le of the hose con- Js ; those med : and >se former t. ^ appr&- It is a les to be, . Think t of God US idols, rig every history ; [le flames imagina- i breath- intellect rightful )u look fiere are ot in all drowsy igard of . Are 3lace of 3d from science I pooh- ■avinga solemn duty to manifest God's arousing truth, to you. I appeal to the moral sense within you. You are attentive to the truth ; the Word is suffered to play around your under- standing ; I want it to go deeper. I accuse you fearlessly of heinous and flagrant transgression, because you have not humbled yourselves before Heaven; and God, in whose hands your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not glorified. I charge you with living to yourselves, or that, going about to establish your own righteousness, you have not submitted yourself to the righteousness of God. I arraign you as being guilty of base ingratitude, inasmuch as when Christ was offered, the just for the unjust, that he might bring you to God, you refused to hearken. And you have trodden under loot the blood of the covenant, and counted it an unholy thing. I accuse some of you, moreover, of trying to secure impunity by your vile treatment of God's inward witness. You have deposed conscience from its throne ; you have tried to bribe it to be a participator with you in your crimes ; you have overborne it by interest, or business, or clamor, or pleasure ; you have limited its scrutiny to the external actions, and not allowed it to sit in judgment over the thoughts and intentions of the inner man. When it has startled you, you have lulled it to sleep, and you have done it on purpose that you might the more easily and the more comfortably sin. Brethren, I am not your enemy because I have told you the truth. That very consci-mce which you have insulted bears mo witness that it is the truth which I now minister before you. I warn you of your danger. Oh! I would not fear to shake you rouglily if I could only bring you to a knowledsje of vourselves. It is a sad and disastrous thought that there are some consciences here so fatally asleep that they may never be roused except by the peal of the judgment trumpet or by the flashing of the penal fires. 2. Then there are some whose consciences ars aroused^ and who are going about, it liiay be, in bitterness of soul. T2 THE MISSION OP THE PULPIT. i. You have seemed, perhaps, hard and impenetrable, but there has been a terrible wor in your soul. Your con- science has been at work; ii> is at work now. Oh! I have a power jver you from this fact — that I have got an ally m your own bosom testifying to the truth of the things I speak before you. You may fret against that power, but you cannot rob me of it. You cannot get the barb out ; all your endeavors to extract it only widen and deepen tlie wound. My brother, oh ! let me mani- fest Christ's redeeming truth to thee. Christ has died ; all thy wants may be supplied through his wondrous death. Is thy heart callous and ungrateful? He has exalted the law and made it honorable. Hast thou dis- honored justice ? He has satisfied its claims. Hast thou violated law ? He has lifted up the majesty of its equity. Is there in thy spirit unrest and storm ! Come to nim ; thy conscience is like the Galilean lake — it shall hear him, and there shall be a great calm. Doth the curse brood over thee, and calamity appal thy soul ? Flee to his outstretched arms, and as thou sobbest on his bosom iiear his whispered comfort : " There is, therefore, now no condemnation unto them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." See the clouds disappear, the tempest hath passed by, the storms rage no longer ; lift up thy head, serene, peaceful, smiling, happy. Let us hear thy experieii 3e : '' In whom I have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sin, according to the riches of his grace." 3. But some of you have got still further, and are happrji in the sense of the Redeemer's love. You are in the fairest possible position for the true soul-growth clay by day. You rejoice in Clu^ist Jesus now. You have victory over the carnal mind now. A]l antagonistic powers are made subject now, Conscience has resumed its authority, and is sensitive at the approach of ill, and eager for the completed will of God. I rejoice to manifest God's dis- cipling, training, growing, comforting, nourishing truth to you. Self is uot the master-principle within you now ; THE MISSION OF Tllli: PULPIT. 73 you are not paralyzed by craven fear. There is a good hind and fair before you. Rise to the dignity of your heritage. What a future awaits you ! to be day by day more like God, to have day by day bright visions of the throne, day hy day increased power over sin, increased jn'ogress toward heaven, increased fellowship with the Divine ; and then when the tabernacle falls down there opens another scene — angelic v/el comes, the King in his beauty, and a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. III. " By nianlfcstatlon of the truth commending our- selves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." In the sight of God. Ah 1 that is the thought that hal- lows it. All our endeavors for the enlightenment of the ignorant are under the felt inspection of Almighty God. Ilis eye marks the effort ; his voice, " I know thy works," is constantly in-spoken to the soul. It is necessary that we should feel this in order to fit us for our duty. If we do not feel this we shall have no courage. Depend upon it, the heroism which the pulpit needs, which it never needed in this world's history so much as it needs to-day — the heroism which the pulpit needs, which the ministry must have, will not be wrought in the soul unless this thought be there. There is so much to enslave a man — tlie consciousness of his own un worthiness and weakness, iu his best and holiest moments ; the love of approbation which, from a natural iustinct, swells often into a sore temptation ; the reluctance to give offence lest the ministry should be blamed, the anxiety as to what men think of him and say of him — oh ! how often have these things checked the stern reproof or faithful warning, made a preacher • the slave instead of the monarch of his con- gregation, and instead of the stern, strong, fearless utter- ance of the prophet, made him stammer forth his lispiuga with the hesitancy of a blushing child. Depend upon it, it is no light matter ; it requires no commou boldness to stand single hauded before the pride of birth, and the pride of rank, and the pride of oBice, and the pride of ci ' } :■ I I K 71f THE MISSION OF THE PULPIT. intellect, and the pride of money, to rebuke their trans- gressions, to strip off tlieir false confidence, and tear away their refuges of lies. But if a man have it burned into his heart that he is speaking in the sight of God, he will do it — yes, he will. God-fear will banish man-fear. He will feel that for the time the pulpit is ins empire and the temple is his throne, and, like another Baptist, he will thunder out his denunciations against rich and poor together, with his honest eyes straight flashing into theirs, " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." " In the sight of God." Give him that thought, and he will be tender as well as brave ; he will look upon his congregation as immortal, and will see in each one before him (oh, that thought is overwhelming !) an offs^pring of the Divine, an heir of the Everlasting ; and in this aspect of it he will tremble before the majesty of man; he will be awe-struck as he thinks of trying to influence them for eternity. There will be no harshness in his tones, there will be no severity in his countenance. If the violated law must speak out its thunders, it will be through brimminfij eyes and faltering tongue. He will remember his own recent deliverance. Like Joseph, he will scatter blessings round him with a large and liberal hand ; but there will be no ostentation, there will be no vanity ; for he will remember that he is but the almoner of another's bounty, and that his own soul has only just been brought out of prison. He will be like one ship- wrecked mariner who has but just got upon a rock, and is stretching out a helping iiand to another who yet struggles in the waters ; but he that is on the rock knows that the yawning ocean rageis and is angry, near. Oh ! let us realize that we are m sight of God, and we shall have larger sympathies for man, we shall have more of the spirit of Him who came eating and drinking, who was a friend of publicans and sinners. There will be no fierce rebukes, no proud exclusivi&m, no pharisaical arrogance then. The sleeper will not be harshly eluded ; the re- monsti'ance of aflection will yearn over him, " My eve a "Ye "Coil orive I go THE MISSION OF THE rULPIT. /o brother, my brother !" and the tear will gather in the eye as the invitation is given, or the regret is breathed, " Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life ;" " Come, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." " In the sight of G od." That will help ns to persevere. We shall be constant as well as brave and tender, if we realize continually that we are in the sight of God. Tliongh difficulties multiply, this will prevent us from VoOming weary and faint in our minds ; we shall re- member him who endured the contradiction of sinners against liimself ; and, through perverseness or obstinacy, whether men will bear or whether men will forbear, we shall labor on for the cause of Christ and for the good of souls. We shall not be satisfied with good report, with extensive popularity, with decorous congregations, with attention settled, and seriousness upon every countenance. We shall want souls. We shall press right away through to the great end of restoring the supremacy of conscience, and bringing the disordered world bact again to its allegiance to God. This is our life-work, and we are doing it day by day — unfaithfully, imperfectly, but we are doing it. Moral truth upon the mind of man is some- thing like a flat stone in a churchyard, through which there is a thoroughfare, and hundreds of pattering feet go over it day after day. Familiarity with it has weakened the* impression, and time has effaced the lettering. But God has sent us with a friendly chisel to bring it out again into sharpest, clearest, crispest, dis- tinctest outline before the spirits of men. This is our life-work ; and we are laboring on amid the driving sleet and pelting rain ; jostled now and then by the rude and heedless passenger ; fitfully looked at by^tliose who flit away to the farm and the merchandise ; regarded with a sort of contemptuous admiration by those who admire our industry, while they pity our enthusiasm. Patient, earnest workers, we must labor on, and v/e intend to do it. God helping, the ministry of reconciliation will I K :-■'¥, 70 THE MlSStON OF TllK PULPIT. continue to 1)0 proclaiiuecl, within roach of every man in this land, Sabbath after Sabbath, nniversally, unto those who will come, without money and without price. And everywhere wo shall have our reward. I, for my part, cannot labor in vain. What think you would sustain me under the pressure of tlie multiplied excitement and multiplied sorrow and labor, but the thought that I cannot labor in vain? The words I have just spoken have been launched into your eai*s, and have lodged in your con- scier. -• a" • I cannot recall them. Simple, well-known Bibk ,. V.I' have gone into your conscience, audi cannot recall ■''^. But they shall come up some day. You and I may ne\ meet again until we stand at the judg- ment-seat of God. They shall come up then — tken — and, verily, I shall have my reward. I shall have it when some fair-haired child steps out to spell out the syllables upon the flat stone, and goes away with a new purpose formed in his heart. I shall have it when some weather-beaten man, bronzed with the hues of climates and shades of years, take^ the solemn warning, numbers his days, and applies his heart unto wisdom. I shall have it in the welcome given to my ascending spirit by some whom I first taught, it may be unworthily, to swell the hosanna of praise, or to join with holy sincerity in all the litanies of prayer. I shall have it in the smile that wraps up all heaven in itself, and iu those tones of kind- ness which Hood the soul Avitli ineffable music — " Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." I leave with you and the Spirit — I dare not trust you alone — the AV"ord of his grace, praying that lie who alone can apply it, may give it life and power. m-:f>m-mM ^^^^ lY. SOLICITUDE FOE THE ARK OF GOD. *• And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the "waysido watching for liis heart trembled for the ark of God."— 1 Sam. Iy. 13. HAT news from tlie battle-field ? — for the Philis- tines are ont against Israel, and the'Israclitish armies are marslialled, and have me forth nnto the fif^ht. A few days ago a reverse bvfe them, but they have sent for a fancied talism'; u t. 1 they are marching now with the ark of God in ei" midst, deem- ing that its presence in their cam]) will a live victory to their side. There is expectation in t) ^ streets of Shiloh, doubt and hope alternating in the spir.i.s of its townsmen ; for though the ark is a tower of strength, yet their defeat has disheartened them, and dark rumors, moreover, of the Lord's kindled auger, and of sad prophecies alleged to have been spoken, are rife among the people ; so that many a glance is strained wistfully toward the plains of Aphek, whence the couriers may bring tidings of the war. There are quivering lips in the city, and cheeks blanched with sudden fear ; for the tidings have come, and they are tidings of disaster and of shame : the glory of Israel have fallen upon its high places ; the shield of the migbty hath been vilely cast away ; thirty thousand of the people have fallen wntli a great slaughter ; and the sacred symbol of their faith itself has been carried off in triumph by the worshippers of Ashtaroth and Dagon. Loud is the wail of the widows, and terrible the anguish of the remnant that are left, oppressed by the nafcional dishonor. But yonder, near the gate, there is one feeble old man, with silvered hair and sightless \ K I 78 SOLICITUDF, FOR THE ARK OF GOD. eyes, before whom, us each mourner passes, he subdues his sorrow into silence, us in the presence of grief that is mightier than his own. It is Eli, the high priest of God ; he hears the tumult, but is yet unconscious of iU cause. But now the messenger comes in hastily o unfold his burden of lamentation and of weeping. "And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and 1 fled to-day out of the army. And he said, What is there done my son ?" Oh, terrible are the tidings that are now to come upon the heart of that old man, like successive claps of thunder. "And the messen- ger answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines" — here the patriot mourns — " and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people" — here the spirit of the judge is stricken — " and thy two sons also, Ilophni and Phineas, are dead" — here the father's heart bleeds. Strong must have been the struggle of the spirit under the pressure of this cumulative agony, but it bears nobly up. Ah, but there is a heavier woe behind : "And the ark of God is taken. And it came to pass when he made mention of the ark of God" — not till then, never till then — " that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died." The grand old man: he may have been feeble in restraint and criminal in indulgence, but there is majesty about this his closing scene w^hich redeems his errors and shrines him with the good and true. The patriot could survive the dishonor of his country ; the judge, though weeping sore, could be submissive under the slaughter ot the people ; the father, his heart rent the while with remorse- ful memories, could have upborne under the double bereavement ; but the saint swooned away his life when deeper afldiction was narrated of the disaster that had happened to the ark of God. "And it came to pass that when he made mention of the ark of God that he fell from off the seat backw^ard by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died." Brethren, this is just the character, the type of charac- ter, that we covet for the chui'ches of to-day — men oi; SOLICITUDE FOR THE \RK OF QOD. n J Biihdues ^rief tlijit priest of nis of its lastilj o ^ "And lit of tlio lie said, are the that old B niessen- iilistines" )een also spirit of Hophni t bleeds, 'it under rs nobly And the he made till then le side of le grand lint and •out this . shrines survive weeping ' ot the remorse- double fe when hat had •ass that he fell ite, and charac- meu ot n broad souls, large-hearted and kindly in their human sympathy, bating not a jot in all earthly activities and philanthropy, but re8er>ing their highest solicitudes for the cause and service of the I^ord Jesvs Christ. " An impossible combination," scoffers are ready to observe, " and imlovely even if it were possible." The narrow fanaticism will contract the human affection ; the man will be so absorbed in the possibilities of the shall-be as to forget the interests of the now ; he will live in a world of the ideal, and the life that now is, and that presses upon us so ineessantly on every side, will degene- rate into a brief history of dwarfed charities and aimless being. Xay, surely not so my brother. That love must ever be the kindliest, even on its human side, which has the furthest and most open vision. That cannot be either a small or a scanty affection which takes eternity w^ithin its scope and range. The Christian, the more he realizes his Christianity, and embodies it, becomes of necessity pervaded by an afl'ection, bounded only by the limits of humanity. " Pure lovo to God its members find— Pure love to every son of man." And this love, which the thought of eternity thus makes indistructible, is raised by the same thought above the imperfections which attach themselves to individual cha- racter, so that it sees the broad stamp of humanity everywhere, and discovers, even in the outcast and trembling sinner, an heir of the Everlasting, an offspring of the Divine. And this, the perfection of character, is the character which we covet for you. You will find very many in- stances in Scripture in which, in words full, full to over- flowing, of the warmest human affection, regard for the spiritual is discovered, not in ostentatious obtrusion, but in developments of incidental beauty, to be the reigning passion of the soul. Who can for a moment doubt the strong human affection of the beloved disciple, who, lov- ing at fii'stj drank in a deeper lovingnesa as he lay upon I N 80 r'^LICITUDTC FOll THE ARK OP fJOD. tho Mastcr'fi bosom, and to whom, as the fittest for such a mission, was committed tlie cliari^e of tliat meek siit- fcrer with a sword in her licart — tlio sad and saintly mother of cm* Lord i Listen to liis sahitation to (iaius tlio well-beloved: "I wish above all things" — this is my c'hiefest and most fervent desire — " I wish above ail things that thou mayest |)ros])er and be in healtli, oven as thy soul prospereth." This is the ])rincipal thinjj; after all. Remember David and all his aitlictions. See the persecuted monarch Heeing from his infuriated and bitter enemies, hunted like a hart u]ion the mountaint^, lodged, with small estate and diminished train, in some fortress of Eugedi or in some eave of Adullam ! Of whut dreams he in his solitude'^ What are the memories that charge his waking hours? Does he sigh for the palace and tli(; purple, for the scej^tro and the crown? ^o — Hark! IJis royal harp, long silent, trembles again into melody ! " IIow amiable i.re thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts ! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord ; my heart and my flesh crieth out for tho living God." See him again when he is crossing the brook Kedron, when the hearts of his people have been stolen from him by his vile and flattering son ; when he has lost his crown and is in danger of losing his life ; what is his chieftest anxiety in that time of adversity, and in that crisis of peril ? " And the king said unto Zadok, carry back the ark of God into the city. If I shall find favor , in the eyes of the Lord he will bring me again, and show me both it and his habitation." As if he had said, '' Tho ark of God — all that is tender and all that is sacred arc in my history associated with the ark of God — carry back the ark of God into the city. I am hunted like a hart upon my own mountains ; I have no longer a spectre ^ of authority ; I am going upon a precarious expedition ; I know not wliat may become of me. Carry back the ark. Don't let it share our fortune ; don't let it be exposed to insult and pillage, and the chances of war. Carry back the ark carefully. Whatever becomes of me, carry SOLICITUDE FOn THE ARK OF GOD. 81 hack tlio ark of (lod into the city; tlKUi^h I wander in exile, lie down in sorrow, and am at lust buried in the btranger'd pjnive." But what need of multiplying ex- Hinplcs^ It wafl hift reli'^ious homo, the metropolis of faith, the place which God s presence had hallowc(l, which was referred to when the ha])])y Israelite, rejoicing in re- covered freedom, and remeinberhin; long years of bondage, struck his harp and sang, " ]*y the rivers ol' B;ibylon there we sjit down ; yea, we wei)t when we remembered /ion." And this, I repeat it, brethren, the perfection of character, is the character Ave covet f(jr you. As Chris- tians yon are bound to cultivate it. It is the highest affection in lieaven : " The Lord loveth the ^ates of Zion more than all the tiv^^ellings of Jacob." It is the highest atl'ection oif the incarnate Son : " The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." It is the highest affection of the Apostle, the highest style of man : " Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God." Oh, that God would raise up amongst ub Elis in our spiritual Israel, who, with reverent and earnest solicitude, would have their hearts tremble for the ark of God. His heart trembled for the ark of God, and wherefore^ Because the ark of God was in peril. In peril from its enemies — in greater peril from its friends. And, brethren, the cause and kingdom of Christ, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, the faith for which we are valiantly and constantly to contend, is in this hazard to-day. It also is in peril : in peril from its enemies; in greater, deeper, deadlier peril from its friends. Tl ese are the points whi(;li I will endeavor, briefly, God iielping me, to illustrate on the present occasion. I. In the first place, the ark of God is in pkeil from ITS ENEMIES. There never was a period ^ perhaps,, when the ark of God was carried out into a hotter battle, or was surrounded by fiercer elements of antagoniaui. I K 82 SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. There is, for instance, idolatry^ hol(lin<^ six hundred mil- lions of our race in thrall. Idolatry, which has succeeded in banishing from their perceptions all thought of the true God— which holds all that vast world of mind under the tyranny of the vilest passions, and under the dark and sad eclipse both of intellectual and spiritual knowledge. There is, again, imposture^ reigning in Mohammedan realms over one hundred an^ forty millions of souls ; imposture, accommodated with the most exquisite inge- nuity to the prejudices of the population among which it was to spread, complimenting Moses to cajole 'the Jew, speaking respectfully of Jesus to seduce the nominal C/hristian, offering a voluptuous heaven to the licentious Pagan, and gathering in the indifferent by the wdiolesale conversion of tlie sword — Imposture thus founded and perpctiuited over some of the fairest provinces of the globe in foul and ferocious despotism until now. There is, again, superstition^ the corruption of Christi- anity by Greek and papal admixtures, blinding the world with tlie utter falsehood of half truths, dazzling the senses and emnsculating the understanding, trafficking in sin as in merchandise, and selling escape from its penalties cheap. Imposture, under whose strange system atheist and libertine, infidel and J( a', may join hands together and with equal rights wear the sacred garments, and, in robes upon which the cross is broiderod, may gather to- gether to make war against the Lamb. There is, again, skepticism^ that cold and soulless thing, that mystery of iniquity, which doth already work, chil- ling the ardor of the church and hardening the unbelief of the world — skepticism, bribing intellect to sustain it with sophistry, and genius to foster its errors, and poetry to embalm them in song — skepticism, that travels through the universe in search of truth and beauty, that it may enfeeble the one by its misgivings, and blight the comeliness of the other by its wintry breath. Ail these^ enemies of Christianity from the beginning, P 4 SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. and retaining their ancient hate aprainst it, now are the Philistines of its spiritual field. They are not content, as in former timos, with holding their own ; thev have a resolute purpose of aggression. They have habit, and nninbers, and prejudice on their side; tlicy have warriors and a priesthood, zealous and valiant in their service. They have no chivalry about them to i estrain them from any style of warfare. They smart under multiplied de- feats, and they know that in the heart of every man in the world there are interests and sympathies in their favor. There is reason, then, is there not, for that cry, *' Men of Israel, help !" there is reason, strong and solemn reason, why tlie Elis of our Israel sliould sit by the wayside, watching for their hearts tremble lor the heart of God. It is not necessary to enhirge upon this point. I do not want to preach specially to-night in reference to these ex- traneous matters — matters, I mean, extraneous to the Church of Christ, which hinder the progress of the work of God in the world. I want to come nearer home in discussing our second point : II. Just as it was in the days of Israel, so it is now — THE ARK OF GoD IS IN STRONG KR, DEEPER, DEAT>L1ER PERIL FROM ITS FRIENDS. V\ainly might the Philistines have fought, vainly might the foe have striven, if there had not been in the heart of the camp the springs of dee]) and destructive evils, if the chosen children of Israel had not been traitors and unworthy of themselves. And there are, if you will only examine into the subject, strange analogies subsisting between the causes which prevented the victory of Israel of old, and the. causes which operate with such fcsrful disaster against the progress of the truth of God to-day. 1. In the iirst place, there was in the camp of Israel ol old the presence of super st it lo7i^ a blind reliance upon external forms. The Israelites, though their lives were loose and their devotions therefore iniquity, felt safe in the prospect of the battle, because they had the presence pf the ark. At other times they cared nothing about it, \ N M SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF OOD. were indifferent altogetlier as to its welfare ; bnt 'n the hour of danger, tliey rallied round it as an amulet of Btrengtli, and in place of contrition before God, and in place of liiimblings on account of sin, they vaunted that the Lord wan in the midst oY them, and conveyed what they deemed to be the symbol of his presence? with arro- gant and obtrusive gladness to the cnmp. And it is to l)e feared, brethren, that there is much of this vain and formal confidence clogging our ])iety now. Are there not hanging upon our skirts, ostensibly one with us in fellow- ship and spirit, many of whom we stand in doubt before God, and over whose defective consistency we mourn 'i Kay, are we not all conscious, each for himst^lt — let the spirit of searching come in — are we not all conscious of compromise, if not, indeed, of betrayal ? Our church, our organization, our intluence, the decorum of our ser- vices, the activity of our agencies, an attractive ministry, a respectable gathering, a Avell-furnished sanctuary, a well-replenished treasury — have not these stolen our liearts away from the Divine, the spiritual, the heavenly ^ Our spirit — bounds it after the Divine Spirit as it once did? Our ear — listens it as intently for his whispers^ Our eye — has it as keen an insight for his coming? Or is the very sj'mbol of his dwelling, which, in the olden time, transformed the wilderness from the sepulchre into the home, become an occasion of sin, if not an object of idolatry ? Oh, for some brave old Ilezekiah to come amongst us and write Nehushtan upon tlu; mutilated brass, and break it into pieces before God ! Do not mistake us ; we are no iconoclasts, to dissolve all organizations, and mutilate the whole and perfect symiiT^try of truth, and with distempered zeal to tear away the inscriptions on her holy and beautiful house. We rejoice in precious oi'di- nances, and crowded sanctuaries, and in those grand insti- tutions of benevolence which redeem our age from lethargy. But when the trust of the individual or of the church is ])laced in these things, God's Holy Spirit is dishonored, und the life of our religion becomes of dwarfed growtli SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. S5 and sickly habit, IVoiii the very care with which wc screen it Iroin the breath of heaven. Brethren, are there not in the Divine Word many intimations of the ten- dency which we now deplore, to let the very highest and holiest customs dc2;cncr;ite into the indifference of for- malism ? That the brazen serpent lifted np in tho wilderness received in after aoies idolatrous homao'c, I have already reminded you. And nicli was the danger of idolatry to the children of Israel, that God would not trust any one of them to be present at the funeral of their great lawgiver. Xo human eye must v,'itness his obsequies, l>ut in solitary possession ot his God-prepared sc})ulchre, the lordly lion stalked, and the bald old eagle tlew. The coml)ined power of healing and of speech constrained the worship of the men of Lystra for the Apostles Barnabas and Paul. Maltese superstition, which had branded him as a murderer whom the viper stung, in sudden reaction deified him when he declined to die. And in the time of the Saviour, the temple had become a house of merchan- dise ; anise and cummin were of more account than righteousness and truth, and enlarged phylacteries and public prayers, and a countenance preternaturally sad, AV^ere the low and degenerate substitutes for a renewed heart and holy life. And, brethren, it becomes us solemnly to be on our guard in this matter, for the same tendency exists still. The formal and the careless will creep into our worship, and, if we are not watchful, will eat out the hciart of our religion. If as individuals, our trust is in our attendance on religious ordinances, or our participa- tion of sacramental emblems in our fellowship in church communion, or the comeliness of our external moralities, and it, in the strength of these, unfurnished with the higher gifts of the Divine Spirit, we go out to dare the dangers and fight the l)attles of our daily lil'e ; and if, as a church, as a contedcracy of Christian people, we talk about our nund)ers, and our asfencv, and our infiuence, what are we doing but |)erpetrating — perpetrating, too, with atill greater aggravation and enormity- the error and I K • r 80 SOLICITUDE FOR THE AUK OF GOlX ' -.1 the sin of t'lc people of Israel of old ? We carry tlie ark into the battle, but we leave the God of tlie ark behind us; and there is strong and solemn need that the Elis of our Israel should sit by the wayside, watching, for their hearts tremble for the ark of of God. 2. I observe, secondly, that there was i7iconsidericy in the camp of Israel. The times were times of apostasy and of idolatry ; the priests, who should have been the leaders of the people, committed abominable iniquity ; there were sensuality and oppression in the service of the holy shrine, so that men abhorred the offering of the Lord, and, by consequence, the whole land became infected with the contagion of this evil example. There was still an affectation of reverence for the sanctuary, and of attachment to the ark ; but the Lord of the sanctuary and the God of the ark were not ihe true objects of worship and of love. And is it not so largely now 'i Are there not araongit those who habitually gather thii'n^elves for worship, numbers, not, perhaps, consciously in-siiicere, but strangely defective ^ and numbers more — ^spots in our feasts of charity — who C'>me among uri like so many whited sepulchres, all symmetry without, but all rotten- ness within : Achans, whose rapacioi's covetonsness can hardly hold itself from the prey : Koubons, whose unstable souls are luring themselves to their own destruction: Judases, with fawning U^?, .md grasping hand, but hiding in the coward h art the gn '- ■ :.y purpose of betrayal i Are there not such amongst us 'i Yes, there are those who intrude themselves into our assemblies, eluding all human scrutiny, wearing the garb of sanctity, and remaining in their imposture, perhaps, until some overwhelmingpressurc crushes them, and brings scandal ui)on the cause that they have dishonored. And in public life are we not accustomed to hear a noisy zeal for the holy name of God on the part of men who rarely use it except in impreca- tion and in blasphemy — ostentatious helpings on of the ark by those in whose esteem it figures only as an imposing thing for public procession, or as a relic of SOLICITUDE FOR THE AIIK OF GOD. 1 ... i Hi mti vital Iieart-lioliness — if wo would cleave unto the Lord with full purpose of heart. Brethren, when 1 see out in the broad world the ])alpablc inconsistencies of jirofessors of reli«^ion — a man devout in the sanctuary and detestable at home, saintly on the Sabbath and sordid all the week, ostentatious in the enterprises of benevolence, but grinding his own workmen and tyrannical to the poor — when I see a man whose citizenship is ostensibly in heaven, distance the keenest worldling around him in the race of fashion, or in the strife lor gold — when I see a man, whose religion teaches the divinest charity, censorious in his spirit, and narrow in his soul — when I see a man, to whom God has given a fortune in stewardshipj grudging to dispense to him that is in want ; >vlien I see a man, whose Divine Saviour rebuked his own disciples for intolerance, pro- fessing to follow his footsteps, and yet harshly excluding thousands from his fold; or when in the Avorld of opinion ] see religion represented as vindicating the most mon- K Irons atrocities, as preaching eternal reprobation, as advocating an accursed system of slavery, as upholding iin aggressive war — whiti have I to think but, as it was in the days of ancient Israel, the ark of God is carried out l)y the imcircumcised to battle, an 1 there is need — strong, solemn, and passionate need — tnat the Elis of our Israel should sit upon, the wayside, watching, for their hearts t -omble for the ark of God. 3. And then there was in the third place — and it is the last particular that I shall mention — there was in the (^amp of ancient Israel ifidifferenoe. I do not mean to say that there was not a sort of patriotism — a natural and CO nmon wish for victory — a desire to free themselves iiom the .-Miiiistine thrall. But patriotism, to be real and to ))e hr,,llo\'^.d, must have all-heartedness; and this was iackiitjvv. Tiiey had no confidence in their leaders ; thcrv3 was at ^ ag li em the element of dis-union. The laxity ct theii lives liad of necessity enfeebled soniewliat tlieir moral p. hiciples, so tha!; the high and chivalrous iiispira- i C^H-. SOLICITUDE FOR THE AIIK OF GOD. 89 tlons of the true lover of his country wore emotiouR that were a])ove tliem nnfl beyond tlieni. Ilcnco, they went out into the battlefiehl, l)Ut tliey went witli paralyzed arms; conscience made cowards of them, and, recreant and panic- Btricken, they fled at the flrst attack of the foe. And, brethren, can their be any question that a hick of whole- hearted earnestness is one of the chief sources of peril to the ark of God to-day ? Oh, if Laodicea is to be the type of the Churcli, it is no wonder that the world sneers and perishes ! If religion, clad in silken sheen, has be- come a patronized and fashionable thing — a something that men cleave to as they cleave to the other items of a respectable life — something that they wear as a sort of armorial bearing for which they pay small dut;y either to God or man — it is no wonder that the world should be heedless of the message, and should subside into the drowsy monotony in which the messengers dream away their lives. Brethren, the poisonous trees do little harm in the vineyard ; they are uprooted as soon as they are seen. It is the barren trees, that cumber the ground and mock the husbandman, that are the curses of the vineyard of the Lord. Cases of flagrant apostasy but little hinder the pi'ogress of the work ; their inconsistency is so pal- pable and manifest. They are the true hinderers, under the shadow of whose luxury, and idleness and frivolity, the Church sits at ease in Zion, while they are eating out its inner life as the vampire sucks out the life-blood of the victim that it is all the while fanning with its wings. Oh, brethren, we need all of us a baptism for a deeper and diviner earnestness, that we may bear our testimony for God. We are a witnessing Church ; this is our character and our mission. But, alas ! our witness has sometimes been feeble and has sometimes been false. We have been altogether too secular and too selfish. We have not been prophets — not we ; but stammering, hesitating, blushing children, ashamed of the message that our Father has bidden us deliver. We lifve sought morality ratlier than holiness, serenity rather than sacrificCj smooth things to C2 I K 90 SOLICITUDE FOR THE AUK OF GOT). conciliate the world rather than strong things to conqnor the world. We liavf; been content to grasp all the world's wealth and honor that we could, and then, in the great wreck, some on boards and Bome on broken pieces of the ship, to get ourselves salb to land, rather than, Ireighted with heavenly treasure, to cast anchor in the fair ha\eii with colors llying, and amid the glad welcome of the multitudes on shore. Oh, there is room, brethren, indeed there is, for the taunt of the iniidel : " Ye Christians are as iniidel as I am ; ye do not believe in your own system ; if you did, like a fire in your bones, it would burn you into action, if by any means you might save some.-' Oh ! everything around us is rebuking this lethargic and this professional piety. Everything is in earnest — suns in their constant shining, and rivers in their ceaseless flow : the breeze that stops not day nor night to bear health upon its wings, the spring tripping up the winter, the seed-time hastening on the harvest — all are activity, faltering nut, any one of them, in the sure and steady purpose of their being. Error is in earnest ; Pagans are sell-devoted; Mohammedanism has her resolute and valiant sons ; Popery compasses sea and land to make one prosleyte ; intidels walk warily and constantly, scattering the seeds of unbelief. Society is in earnest ; the sons of enterprise do not slumber; the warriors — how they hail the clarion call, and rush eagerly into the battle; t\w students — liow they consume the oil of the lamp and th(» oil of life together; Mammon's votaries — are they the laggards in the streets ? Oli, everything around us seem^ to be lashed into intensett energy, while we — ingrate.s that we are, God forgive us! — with the no])lest work in the universe to do, and the most royal facilities to do it with ; witlv the obligations of duty, and gratitude, and brotherhood, and fellowship ; with the vows of disciple- ship upon us ; with death at our doors and in our homes ; and with the sad, wailing sound, as if it came from places where men were and arc not : '' No man hath cared for my kJoul"--w^e arc heedless and exclusive, sellish and SOLICITUDE FOR THE ARK OF GOD. 01 vo some.- ) make one : Belf-ag^randizing, and, worBt of all, as Belt-?atisfied with our grudged obedience, and our Bcnnty eflfbrt, and our heartless prj^iyer, as if no sinners were in peril and as if no Christ had died. And is it really so ? Has that mightiest motive lost its ])o\ver ? Is Mammon really more potent than Messiah ? Has the cruciiix a holier inspiration than the cross 'i Is it true that war can move men's passions, and science stimulate their souls, and Irade intensify their energies, and ambition flame their blood i! and is Christi- anity nothing but a worn-out spell — a dim memorial of ancient powder — an extinguished volcano, with no lire slumbering in its mighty liearc ? Is it true? Thy cross, Jesus, has it lost its magnetism ? does it no longer draw all men nnto thee? Thy love, O Saviour, boundless, unfathomable, all-embracing, doth it constrain no longer the souls for whom thy blood was shed? It is yours to answer these questions; do it as in the sight of God. But, oil ! when we see the terrible indifferer.ee around xifi — when we see the contrast between the intensity of our beliefs and the smallness of our doings for Christ — what wonder is it that the Elis of our Israel, who, with all their faults, ieel their heart-strings quiver in solicitude furtlie interests of Zion, slioul 1 sit by the wayside, watch- ing, because their hearts tremble for the ark of God ? May God the Holy Ghost come down, and write these truths upon the hearts of all, for his name'* sake ! I K I V. THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. '•Forasmnchtlion as tho children aro partakers of llesh and blood, Uo also himself likewise took part of the same."— Hed. ii. 14. 1*11 OME eighteen hundred years ap^o, in the land of Judah, and in tlie city ot Jerusalem, a strange restlessness had come upon the puhlic mind. If a stranger just about that time had visited the Holy City, and had made himself acquainted with the inner life of its inhabitants, he would have found them ail engrossed with one absorbing theme. It had super- seded, as a matter of interest, commerce, and conquest, and the intrigues of faction, and the subjects of or- dinary politics. It had become the unconfessed hope of matrons, and the deep study of earnest men. So prevalently had i'; spread, that it became identified with every thinking of the Hebrew mind, and with every beating of the Hebrew heart. This topic was the advent of a Deliverer who had been promised of God unto their fathers. Their holy books contained circumstantial directions, both as to the signs of his coming, and as to the period about which he might be expected to appear, and these various prophecies con- verged to their fulfilment. There were rumours, moreover, of certain meteoric appearances, which in Eastern countries were deemed the luminous heralds of die birth of a great king ; and the heart of many a patriot Jew would 'throb more quickly, as in his vain I Sav I THE INCAUXATION OF CIIRTST. on nd blood, ho dream of material cmpini lie saw the Messiah, already, in vision, triumpiiiiii^ over his onemies, and his follow- ers flushed with the spoil. In the midst of this national expectancy, events of strong significance were occurring in a quarter from which the eyes of the world v/ould jiuve turned heedlessly or in scorn. The national cen- sus was decreed to he taken throughout the Jewish provinces of the Roman empire in the time of Augus- tus Csesar. In obedience to the imperial enactment, each man, with his household, went up for enrollment to his own — that is, his ancestral city. The unwonted influx of strangers had crowded the little inn in tho little city of Bethlehem, one of tlie least among the thousands of Judali ; so that the out-huildings were laid under tribute to furnish shelter to later comers. In the stable of that mean hostelry a young child was born. There was nothing about him to distinguish him from the ordinary otispring of Jewish mothers, and yet, at the moment of his birth, a new song from aiigel harps and voices rang through the plains of Beth- lehem, and ravished the watchful shepherds with celes- tial harmonies. Small space had passed ere wondering peasants beheld a star of unusual brightness hovering over that obscure dwelling; and by and by the inn was thrown into confusion by the arrival of a company of foreigners from afar oft — swarthy and richly appar- elled, who made their way to the stable with costly gifts and spices, which they presented to tho new-born babe, and bowed the knee before him in homage, as to a voyal child. Rapidly flew the glad tidings of great joy — passed from lip to lip, until the whole city was full of them — scorned by haughty Pharisees with scofts and doubting — hailed by the fViithful few who waited for the consolation of Israel — agitating all classes of the people — startling the vassal monarch on his throne — " Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord." Brethren, it is ours in this day to rejoice in the bless- I N ')>. #. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) fe < d but tlirouf^di d(»ath. Jt was through death that lie was to destioy lilni that had the power of death, tliat is, tlie devil. IntiniatiouH of this had come previously into the world, in the visions of seers, from the lips of })ro[)hets, in the adumbrations and typical shadowings of some great Offerer, who, in the end of the world, should appear to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself All other purposes, however seperably noticeable, because subordinate and subsidiary to this. Hence Christ did not become partaker of flesh and blood that he might give to the world a spotless example. Although holiness, illustrious and unspotted, does beam out from every action of his life, he was not incarnate in order that he might im- press upon the world the teachings of pui'e morality; although such were the spirituality of his lessons, and the power with which he taught them, that, "never man spako like this man." He did not assume our nature merely that he might work his healing wonders, showing' before the bleared vision of the world, omnipotence in beneficent action. All these things, however seperably noticeable, were not vast enough or grand enough to have brought the Saviour from heaven. Miracles, precepts, kindnesses, all these were collateral blessings — flowers that sprung up, as at the tread of the fabled goddess, wherever he appeared. Large and full in his sight, through all the years of his incarnate life, more distinctly, more vividly, in the last years of his ministry, loomed the shadow of the figure of the cross: "That is the end of my toil; that is the consum- mation of my purpose. I am straitened till I get to that; I have not fulfilled my mission, and expressed all the Divine energy that I am to pour out upon the world, until I reach that. There is the goal of all my endeavours ; there I see my true ofldce before me — the surety of insol- vent humanity, the friend of a forsaken race, the refuge and succour of endaiigered man." If you will think for a while, you will see how all the other characteristics of the , THE INCAUNATION OF CHRIST. 105 incarnation convor/^od liere, tinJ were each of them necessary in order to give this, the niaster-piirpoflo, its efficacy and its power. It was necessary tliat a being of lioly estate should condescend, Divinity sustaining humanity under tlie pressure of agony, and inipartirig to humanity a plcntitude of atoning nieritoriousness. It was necessary that the offering should he vohintary, hecause there could be no availableness in exacted suf- fering; and the offering must be profoundly willing before it couhl ho infiuitely worthy. It was necessary that the whole nature should bo taken on, because the man had sinned, and the man must die ; and as huma- nity, in its federal representative, the first Adam, had been drawn to death, so humanity, in its federal repre- sentative, the second Adam, might have the free gift coming upon all men unto jus'tihcation of life. Now, you see how far we have got in our search for an accepted propitiation. We have got a willing vic- tim. We have got a willing victim, in the nature that had sinned ; we have got a willing victim, in the nature that had sinned with no obligation of his own, and all whose merit, therefore, could be to spare for the redemp- tion of the sinner. Justice herself required only another exaction, and that is, that this willing victim should be free from taint, whether of hereditary or ac- tual crime. N'ow, the miraculous conception freed from the hereditary taint of human nature ; and, thus freed from hereditary defilement, he was born, not of blood, not in the ordinary method of human generation, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And he moved about in the midst of his fel- lows in an atmosphere of impurity, yet escaping its con- tagion. Like the queenly moon shining down upon the haunts of beggars, and dens of thieves, yet preserv- ing its chastity and its brilliance unimpaired, he movcvl among the scum and oftscouring of human society, and could say, " Which of you convictethmeof sin ?'' He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners ; Dl ,? 'I I i I !■ II. 106 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. evoking from heaven its attesting thunders ; charming the wondering earth with spotlessness which it had never seen before; and (crown of triumph!) wringing from baffled demons the reluctant acknowledgement, " We know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God." Here, then, is the perfected oiFering — a willing victim ; r. willing victim in the nature that had sinned, and free from taint, free from obligation, man's eternal Saviour, God's incarnate Son. Follow him in the shadow of his passion. Close upon the agony of Geihsemane came his arrest by the treachery of one whom he had honored. Patiently he bears the ribaldry and insult in the dishonored judgement-hall of Pilat J. Wearily he treads the pathway to Calvary, bearing his own cross. Now, the cross is reared. The multitude are gathered about the hill of shame. The nails are fastened into the quivering flesh ; and in agony and torture ebbs his pure life away. The last ministering g-ngel leavej him, for he must tread the wine-press alone. Darkness gath- ers suddenly round ; and — oh, mystei y of mystery ! — the Father hides his face from the Beloved. Darkness deepens in the sky and in the mind — how long, the affrighted gazers know not. A cry bursts through the gloom, sharp, shrill, piercing. All is silent — it is fin- ished ! The night, that had climbed up strangaly to the throne of noon, as suddenly dispersed. The mul- titude, that eager and wondering had gathered round the hill of shame, separated to their several homes, talking about the tradgedy they had witnessed. The moon rose on high as calmly as if the sun had not set on a scene of blood. But, oh ! what a change those few hours had wrought in the fortunes of the world. Christ had died, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. Go, tell it to that despairing sinner .^that man, I mean, who has the cord about his neck, and the pistol at his throat, who is just about to escape from the terrible harrowings of an alarmed conscience, by the dreadful alternative of self-murder. Go to him ; .1 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. lOT iharming 3h it had wringing igement, of God." ^ victim ; and free Saviour, tiadow of hsemane n he had insult in 3arily he vn cross, gathered led into ebbs his vej him, ess gath- stery ! — )arknesfl ong, the )ugh the -it is fin- ngaly to he mul- d round . homes, tnessed. had not ge those e world, le might g sinner is neck, ) escape science, to him ; be quick; tell him he need not die, for Christ has died, has died to bear his sins away. Proclaim salvation from the Lord for wretched dying men. Sound it out from the summit of tliat hill-side of Calvary, and let the sister hills echo it, until round the earth has spread the rapturous hosanna — Salvation ! Go v/ith it to the wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked ; it is just the thing they need — Salvation ! Ring it out through every avenue of this vast metropo- lis of a world, till it rouse the slumbering dust, and awake the coffined dead — Salvation! Take it to your own hearts — be sure of that ; and, in the fullness of your own experience, let us hear your song : " There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." How is it with you, brethren ? How is it with you to-night ? Have you any personal interest in the in- carnation of the Saviour ? Has the realizing change by which you are enabled to understand the purposes of the Saviour's advent come upon your heart ? Have the purposes of his advent been fulfilled in your experience? He came " to destroy him that had the power of death," that is, the devil — to counter-work him on his own ground ; is hs slain in you — vanquished and overcome in you ? He came " to deliver +hem who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage ;" are you freed trom the tyranny ? Have you entered into the liberty wherev/ith Christ has promisee) to make you free ? He has accomplished his purpose. Many a one has gone blithely to the s+ake in the name of Jesus ; many a one has marched steadily with eyes open to meet the last enemy, trusting in Jesus. No, not much fear of death about Stephen, when in the gloom of that fierce council he looked up and saw heaven opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of the throne of God, and all that were in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as .? !,'.: 108 THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST. I li ' ' '■■ m \k ! i it had been the face of an angel. ^N'ot much fear of death in Paul. That is more patent to your experi- ence, perhaps ; for he was a blasphemer onoo, y^e know — a persecutor once, an injurious man once ; but he obtained mercy, and he is presented in what I take to be one of the sublimest passages of Scripture ; "I am in a strait betwixt two" — frail, erring, sinful, mortal man poised, so to speak, in balance between both worlds, having the choice of either, and not knowing which to take — " I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better ;" but to remain in the flesh is more needful for you." Not much fear of death there. He came " to deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life-time sub- ject to bondage." How is it with you ? Does the Spirit take of the things of Christ and show them to you ? Does he witness to you of your own personal adoption into the family of God ? If yon hesitate to say that, can you say, as the old woman in Scotland said, when questioned upon the fact of her adoption : "I can say this : either I am changed or the world is changed." Can you say that ? Has the cautery begun its work i Is the proud flesh getting eaten out by the live coal from the altar ? Are you ceasing to do evil and learning to do well — bringing forth fruits meet for repentance? Do you hate sin with ev-^r-increasing hatred, and press forward to the cultivation of the things that are of good report and lovely ? Alas ! it will be sad for you if the incarnation of Christ should be to you a mystery forever, if there be no light coming upon nis purposes, no experience of the fulfilment of them in your own hearts. Oh, seek first the kingdom of God and his rigteousness. Hallow this dedicatory service by the dedication of your own hearts to God. Let there be this sacrifice, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service. .»> >> L fear of expen- se know but he take to "lam mortal worlds, ^hicli to lesire to but liTot er tliem me sub- >oes the them to )ersonal jitate to nd said, on : "I vorld is Y begun b by the do evil leet for Teasing 3 things will be e to you pon nis ihem in of God [•vice by there be 3ptable, ? )y'''' ■ i i < i ■ . \ '■^ 'i ^' ' '1 ^^^Jff'^r^^^^^S^^mM^- mA^ f^. ^-<^ 'Tg) v\*J V -^Li-^. :Li^ V'* 1. Mil (» J , \Zf ■ ■ V ■■ y^T'^^^:^-//!^:- " fSi^: 2^:-:-M -Jy. V^ VI. ZEAL m THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. "For -whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your ctjuse. For the love ot Christ constraineth us ; be- cause we thus judge, that if one died for all,', then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto them- selves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again."— 2 Cok. v. 13-15. T is always an advantage for the advocate of any particular cause to know tlie tactics of his adversary. He will he the better prepared for the onset, a^id repel the attack the more easily. Fore- warned of danger, he will intrench himself in a position from which it will be impossible to dislodge him. The Apostle Paul posessed this advantage in a very eminent degree. In the earlier years of his apostlesliip, the Jew and the Greek were the antagonists with whom he had to contend. Having been hiniself a member of the straitest sect of the Jews, he knew full well the antipathy with which they regarded anything which set itself by its simplicity in contrast with their magnificent ritual; and he knew also the haughty scorn with which they turned away from what they deemed the unworthy accessories of the Kazarene. And, well read as he was in classic literature, and acquainted with all the habits and tendencies of the Grecian mind, he could readily understand how the restraints of the Gospel would be deemed impertinent by the voluptuous Corinthian, and how the philosophic Athenian would brand its teachers mad. And yet, rejoicing in the experimental acquaintance with the Gospel^ he says, for his standing-point of advantage: f 110 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. . ■ . ■ ) 11 ■ ; i - '• \ ■ : ■■ ■ ■ ■■•. 1 b-' t i| { ' '' \-. II 1 \ ^^- i :<■-! " We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling- block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to them that are calle;d, the power of God and the wisdom of God." And in the words of the text, addressing some of those very Corinthians upon whom the Gospel had exerted its power, he seems to accept the stigma and vindicate the glorious madness : " For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God : or whether we be sober it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us ; because we thus judge that if one died for all, then were all dead : and that he died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again." The great purpose of the Apostle in these words is to impress upon us the fact that the cause of Christ in the world, sanctioned by the weight of so many obligations, fraught with the destinies of so many millions, should be furthered by every legitimate means ; that for it, if necessary, should be employed the soberest wisdom ; and for it, if necessary, tlie most impassioned zeal. He vindicates the use of zeal in the cause of Christ by the three following considerations ; First, from the condition of the world; secondly, from the obligations of the Church ; and, thirdly, from the master-motive of the Saviour's constraining love. To illustrate and enforce this apostolic argument, as not inappropriate to the object which has called us together, will be our business for a few brief moments to-night. I. The Apostle argues and enforces the use of zeal in the cause of Christ, in the first place, from the condition OF THE WORLD. The Apostle speaks of the world as in a state of spiritual deatli. He argues the universality of this spiritual death from the universality of the atone- ment of Christ. " For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead" — dead in sin, with every vice luxuriant and every virtue languishing ; dead in law, judicially in the grasp of the avenger ; nay, " condemned already," and hastening to the second death. We need not remin,d ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. Ill tumbling- n that are d." And hose very its power, i glorious s, it is to use. For bus judge 1 tliat lie forth live hem, and in these cause of fso many millions, that for wisdom ; eah Ke by the condition of the of the enforce to the business zeal in JNDITION d as in sality of atone- traineth 11, then xuriant ially in ready," remii^d you that this is by no means the world's estimate of its own condition. It is short-sighted, and, thei'cfore, self- complacent. There is a veil over its eye ; there is a delusion at its heart. In that delusion it fancies itself enthroned and stately, like some poor lunatic, an imagi- nary monarch under the inflictions of its keeper. The discovery of its true position comes only when the mind is enlightened from on high. " We thus judge," not because there is in us any intuitional sagacity, or any prophetical foresight, by which our judgment is made more accurate than the judgment of others ; but the Holy Spirit has come down, has wrought upon us — has shov/n us the plague of our own hearts — and from the death within we can the better argue the death which exists around. And that this is the actual condition of the world. Scripture and experience combine to testify. The Bible, with comprehensive impartiality, concludes all " under sin ;" represents mankind as a seed of evil- doers—" children that are corrupters ;" — sheep that have wandered away from the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls. In the adjudication of Scripture there is no exemption from this common character of evil, and from this common exposure o danger. The man of merciful charities, and the woman of abandoned life — the proudest peer, and the vilest serf in his barony — the moralist observer of the decalogue, and the man- slayer, red with blood, all are comprehended in the broad and large denunciation : " Ye were by nature children of wrath, even as others." And out in the broad world wherever the observant eye travels, you have abundant confirmation of the testimony of Scripture. You have it in your own history. The transgressions and^sins which constitute this moral death abound in our age no less than in any former age of mankind. There are thousands around you who revel in undisguised corruption. The?e are thousands more externally reputable who have only a name to live. You have this confirmation in the nations of the Continent — some safely bound by the superstition .? 112 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. ■ill m m I tm i 1% of ages ; others subsidiiifij into a reactionary skeptic'sm. You liave this confinnation further away in tlie countries which own Mohammedan rule, and cherish the Moham- medan's dream — where you have unl)ridled lust, and a tiger's thirst for blood. You have this confirmation in the far-oflF regions of heathenism proper, where the nature, bad in itself, is made a thousand-fold worse by its religion — where the man is the prey of every error, and the heart the slave of every cruelty — where men live in destruction, and where men die in despair. Travel where you will, visit the most distant regions, and search under the shadow of the highest civilization — penetrate into the depths of those primeval forests, into whose original darkness you might have imagined the curse would hardly penetrate, and the result is uniformly the same. Death is everywhere. You see it, indeed, in all its varieties ; now in the rare and fading beauty which it wears just after the spirit has fled from the clay, when its repose seems the worn-ouj casket, w^hich the soul has broken, and thrown away ; now, when there is shed over it a hue of the sublime, and it is carried amid tears to burial ; and now, when corruption has begun its work, and its ill odor affects the neighborhood, and spreads the pestilence — you see it in all its varieties, but uniformly death is there. We gather from our melancholy pilgrimage no vestige of spiritual life. Mourners go about tlie streets, and there are mourners over many tombs. Although, as we have observed just now, a thorough and realizing estimate of the world's condition comes only when the judgment is enlightened from on high, the wise men of the world, the minds that have in all ages towered above their fellows, have felt an unsatisfac- toriness for which they could hardly account ; they have had a vague and morbid consciousness that all was not right somehow, either with themselves or with their race ; they have met with disturbing forces, signs of irregularity, tokens of misery and of sin that have ruffled, somewhat, the philosophic evenness of their minds. Each in his a a ^w i. ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OE CHRIST. 113 own way, and from his own standpoint, lias guessed at the solution of the problem, and has been ready with a suggested remedy. The peoples are imbruted ; educate them. The nations are barbarous ; civilize them. Men grovel in sensual pleasure ; cultivate the {esthetic faculty ; open up to them galleries of pictures ; bring them under the humanizing influences of art. Men groan in bond- age ; emancipate them, and bid them be free ! Such are some of the tumultuous cries that have arisen from earnest but blind philanthropists, who have ignored the spiritual part of man's natu' "j, and forgotten altogether the God- ward relations of his goul. All these, as might have been expected, valuable enough as auxiliaries, worth some- thing to promote the growth and comfort of a man when life has been once imparted, fail, absolutely fail to quicken the unconscious dead. In all cases the bed has been shorter than that a man could lie on it, and the covering narrower than that he could wrap himself in it. The inbred death lay too deep for such superficial alchemy ; corpses cannot by any possibility animate corpses ; and the compassionate bystander fi'om other worlds, sickened with the many inventions, might be constrained to cry, " Amid all this tumult of the human, O for something Divine ! And the Divine is given — Christ has died for all men. There is hope lor tlie world's life. This is a death whereby we live ; this is a remedy commensurate with existing need, and intended entirely to terminate and extinguish that need. That squalid savage, whose creed is a perpetual terror, and whose life is a perpetual war — Christ hath died for him. That fettered and despairing slave, into whose soul the iron has entered, valued by his base oppressor about on a par with the cattle he tends, or with the soil he digs — Christ hath died for him. That dark blasphemer, who lives in a familiar crime, whose tongue is set on fire of hell, whose expatriation would be hailed by the neighborhood around him as a boon of chiefest value — Christ has died for him. That dark recliise, whom a^ .^ 114 ZEAL IN THE CAUSE OF CHRIST. |,l til awakened conscionce liarappes, nnd who, in tlio vain hope of aoliievinpf iriorit by Biiifcrino;, wastes himself with vip:ilant penance woll-niffli to the