Stom i^t &i6rar)? of (ptoftBBox ^mam (gitfPer (paxion, ©.©., &&.©. ^teeenfe^ fig (gtre. (Jarfon to f^e fetfirarg of (Princeton C^eofogicaf ^emxnaxi^ BV 4241 .M55 Monod, Adolphe, 1802-1856. Sermons V3' MAR 20 19 SERMONS BY ADOLPHE MONOD, PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AT MONTAUBAN. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, BY THE REV. WILLIAM HICKEY, M.A., RECTOR OF MULRANKIN, DIOCESE OF FERNS, IRELAND. LONDON : JAMES NISBET AND CO., BERNERS-STREET. 1849. ALEXANDER MACINTOSH, PRINTER, GREAT NEW-STREET, LONDON. PREFACE. The following translation embraces several of the published discourses of M. Adolphe Monod, who deservedly occupies so distinguished a position in the Reformed Church of France. When he undertook to prepare them for the English reader, the translator was not insensible to the difficulties of the work. He could not hope to transfer all the eloquence and force of the original compositions to his translation, and much of their beauty must, therefore, be sacrificed. Still, however, he is encouraged to think that his humble task, though imperfectly executed, will not be alto- gether fruitless, and that even in their present enfeebled form, " Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" may so pervade these dis- courses, that they may direct the thoughts of those who shall read them towards " the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world." Acuteness of reasoning, with a very vigorous and original style, have rendered M. Monod a remark- ably effective preacher of the Gospel in France, a 2 IV PREFACE. where the Evangelical purity of his doctrines shines brightly in its contrast with the Socinian principles and Rationalism, which have so deeply tainted the Protestant Churches on the Continent. It was not until after he had completed his ver- sion of " Dieu est Amour," (1 John iv. 8,) that the translator became aware of its having already appeared in an English garb. Had he been before acquainted with the eloquent and faithful transla- tion in which Mr. Charlesworth has produced it, the version which is given in this volume would not have been inserted among the other Sermons. The recently published Sermons of M. Monod entitled, " La Femme," have not been included because they have been already translated and published. Those admirable ones entitled, " L'Ami de r Argent," (on Luke xii. 15,) and " Le Geolier de Philippes, " (Acts xvi. 22 — 24,) have been omitted from the present volume, because the translator was unwilling to increase its limits to an expensive and inconvenient size. January, 1849. CONTENTS. SERMON T. THE CREDULITY OF THE UNBELIEVER. PAGE "All Scripture is given hy inspiration of God."- — 2 Tim. Hi. 16 1 SERMON II. THE CREATION. " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." — Gen. i. 1 54 SERMON III. ARE YOU A MURDERER 1 " Thou shalt not kill."-— ExoA. XX. IS . . .78 SERMON IV. DIVINE LOVE. •' God is love."— I John iv. 8 . . . . 106 VI CONTENTS. SERMON V. THE CANAANITE's FAITH. PAGE " Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying. Have mercy on me, Lord, thou Son of David ; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying. Send her aivay ; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. TJien came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said. It is not meet to take tlie chil- dren s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord : yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Then Jesus ansicered and said unto her, looman, great is thy faith : be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.'' — Matt. xv. 21 — 28 . 150 SERMON VI. Part I. THE COMPASSION OF GOD FOR THE UNCONVERTED CHRISTIAN. " Say unto them. As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in tlie death of the wicked ; but that the ivicked turn from his way and live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why ivill ye die, house of Israel ? " — Ezek. xxxiii. 11 . . . . .174 CONTENTS. Vll SERMON VI. Part II. THE COMPASSION OF GOD FOR THE UNCONVERTED CHRISTIAN. PAGE Ezek. xxxiii. 11 . . . . . .217 SERMON VII. THE HAPPINESS OF A CHRISTIAN LIFE. " Lord of liosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee." — Ps. Ixxxiv. 12 . . . . .245 SERMON VIII. THE DEMONIACS. " And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Qergesenes, there met him tico possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that xcay. And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city,^' — Matt. viii. 28 ; ix. 1 . . . . . 282 SERMON IX. THE PECCADILLO OF ADAM, AND THE VIRTUES OF THE PHARISEES. " Tlie Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thanh thee, that I am not as other m.en are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican, I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess." — Luke xviii. 12, 13 . . . . 307 Vlll CONTENTS. SERMON X. CAN YOU DIE IN PEACE 1 PAGE " And as it is appointed unto men once to die, hut after this the judgment." — Heb. ix. 27 . . . . 339 SERMON I. 2 TIM. III. 16. " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,'' My Brethren, — The Gospel ministry would be irresistible in its power, if our hearers unreservedly believed in the inspiration of Scripture ; because all our preaching is so entirely based on that foun- dation, that it rests or falls with it. If we proclaim to you that man is a fallen creature, prone to evil, incapable of goodness, and under the curse of God, we do so because it is written, " There is none that doeth good, no, not one ; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." * " For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse : for it is written, Cursed is every one that con- tinueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." f If we declare to you that, lost by our works, we may be saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, it is because it is written, "By grace * Rom. iii. 23. t Gal. iii. 10. B Z SERMON I. ye are saved through faith ; not of works, lest any man should boast." * " Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus : whom God hath set forth to be a propitia- tion through faith in his blood." f " We conclude, that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." X If we declare that this faith which justifies with- out works can alone produce good works, and that there is no salvation without change of heart and holiness of life, we do so because it is written, " We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." § " Without holi- ness no man shall see the Lord." || " Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." ^ If we declare to you that He who has redeemed us by his blood is no less than the only-begotten Son of God, the Lord Jehovah, the Creator of heaven and earth, it is because it is written, " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." " All things were made by him ; and without him was not any thing made that was made." ** " He is the first and the last, the King of kings and Lord of lords, * Eph. ii. 8, 9. t R.)m. iii. 24, 2.5. | Rom. iii. 28. § Kpli. ii. 10. II IIol). xii. 14. *i\ Mutt. vii. 21. ** ,]i>hn i. 1—3. SERMON I. 6 our Lord and our God, God over all things, blessed for ever. Amen." If we declare to you that we have need of a new birth, which the Holy Ghost can alone produce in us, and that this Spirit is promised to all those who pray for it in the name of Jesus Christ, it is because it is written, " Ye must be born again." " Except a man be bom of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." * " Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." f And, finally, if we declare to you that salvation from first to last is the work and gift of God, the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, we do so because it is written, " Elect according to the foreknow- ledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." :|: " Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again 1 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen."§ It would be sufficient for your full conviction that you believe the Bible to be what " it is in truth, the word of God," and " not the word of men," || for then, even though the doctrine might appear to you * John iii. 5. t Acts ii. 38, 39. t 1 P*-'*. i. 2. § Rom. xi. 35, 36. |1 1 Thess. ii. 13. B 2 4 SERMON I. as strange, you would receive it with confidence on the faith of God, because the reason of the creature ouglit to submit to that of the Creator. But, alas ! where is the use of flattering ourselves'? How many Christians, how many Protestants are there who do not implicitly believe in the inspiration of Scripture, and who would readily say so, if they dared openly to avow those sentiments which men generally conceal ; " we see clearly in the Bible what you have stated, but is the Bible in reality all that you believe it to be"? who can assure us that it may not have been of human invention T' It is to those among you who secretly hold this language that I now address myself. I know that in general a minister of the Gospel should appeal to the Divine authority of the Bible instead of proving it, and that the most eifective means of convincing you that it is " the sword of the Spirit " is to pierce your heart with it. But I consider it useful for once to show those who are so \A'retched as to doubt, that the Bible possesses some marks of inspiration containing a kind of evidence quite different from what, perhaps, they had ever ima- gined. And as to those individuals who are fully persuaded on that point, I shall not have spoken in vain, if they perceive still more clearly, from this discourse, as in the instance of Theophilus through the Gospel of St. Luke, " the certainty of those things wherein they had been instructed." * Those * Luke i. 4. SERMON I. O who doubt usually lay the blame of their sc:'pticisin on their understandings. The Gospel addresses itself to your conscience, it agitates your soul; your heart half gained would desire only to yield, but your reason is not satisfied ; faith, in your opinion, comes not without some measure of cre- dulity. Well, then, let us only appeal to your reason, and laying aside those proofs of sensibility which are the most powerful of all, let us show that this disposition to believe which you attribute to the believer is on the side of the unbeliever. I may appear to advance a paradox. " How can a person be credulous in not believing'? We can conceive that unbelief may be called presumption, an abuse of reason, but to term it credulity is a contradiction in sense." I term it credulity, and be assured that I mean no play or equivocation of words. I speak most seriously, and call everything by its proper designation. The unbeliever does not believe, do you say ^ he does not believe what the Christian believes, but he believes things which the Christian does not believe. The Bible exists; it has proceeded from some source, from God or from man. The Christian says it is from God, and not from men ; this is the belief of the Christian. The unbeliever says it is from men, and not from God ; this is his belief. Each credence has its difficulties ; there will be obscurities to us in whatever position we take. G SERMON I. because, being mere creatures, we are not in the eternal centre of things from which alone they may be viewed without eclipse. We must be placed on the sun not to see shadows ; how then is a prudent man to distinguish between faith and unbelief? We must choose between these two, not that belief which is free from all difficulties, as such would be a vain notion, but that which offers the least. You say that the belief of the Christian has difficulties, and therefore you reject the Gospel; but what becomes of the difficulties of your own belief? If you were this day to learn that the difficulties of the first are much less weighty than those affecting the second, should we not then have grounds for asserting that credulity is on the side of the unbeliever "? Now, this which I have sup- posed is actually the truth. The things which the Christian believes and the unbeliever denies are much less difficult of belief than those which the Christian denies and the sceptic believes ; or, more precisely, the first have no obscurities, but those which might be expected on such a subject; whilst the latter contain absurdities which a sensible man can only believe with his eyes shut. This proposition will be found true, from what- ever side we view the Bible ; but for the sake of perspicuity let us take one point on which we may fix our whole attention. Let us select the prophecies, and especially those of the Old Testa- ment Avhich announce the Messiah, and we will SERMON I. 7 undertake to prove that what the Christian believes respecting them, is infinitely more admissible than what the sceptic believes on the same point. What does the Christian in effect believe respect- ing the prophecies ? He believes that there are in the Old T^'stament certain predictions which have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ — five, eight, a thou- sand, fifteen hundred years after they were written ; which he accounts for by saying, " Prophecy came not in old times by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.'* That this belief has its obscurities we admit. It is astonishing that the Sovereign Ruler of the world should have condescended to reveal himself to his erring, guilty, and rebellious crea- tures. It is astonishing that when he had resolved to speak to us, this God who controls the heavens and the earth should have chosen for his instruments poor sinful men. It is astonishing that he should have selected all his prophets from amongst one of the most unknown nations in the world, and that after having waited 2,000 years to call that people into existence, in the person of Abraham, he should have waited 2,000 years more to give that people the Messiah whom he had promised. It is asto- nishing that those prophets should have been at the same time subject " to like passions" with other men, and depositories of Divine truth ; and that there should be so much difference and yet so much resemblance between their w^ritings and those of 2 Pet. i. 21. 8 SERMON I. other men, and how many more subjects of surprise ! In truth, the persuasion of the Christian respecting the inspiration of the prophets, has great mysteries, but yet it has nothing contrary to any unquestion- able principle, nor to any demonstrated fact; for, observe, everything in it difficult of belief relates to the will of God, to his designs, and, if we dare so speak, to his character, that is, to things belonging to the invisible world, regarding which we may easily deceive ourselves, because they do not fall under our observation, nor come within the limits of our experience. If / believe that God has been pleased to reveal himself to mankind by inspiring certain prophets, you are, no doubt, at liberty to believe that he has not, and that neither the end nor the design accords with his wisdom or his greatness. But what can you affirm on this point 1 Have you entered into the councils of the Most High] Have you a perfect knowledge of his thoughts'? You have only your ideas and conjec- tures to adduce: " it appears to me," " I presume," "I feel," "I am inclined to believe," — tliis is all you can say in contradicting my conviction ; you cannot go farther and deny it altogether, and charge my faith with obvious error and absurdity, without being guilty of extreme rashness. Can this be said respecting your opinion, when you believe that the prophets were not inspired \ No ; and you will be convinced such opinion is contrary, I do not say to conjectures about the invisible world, SERMON I. 9 but even in regard to what is most certain and most clearly proved in the visible world, and to the most positive and acknowledged facts arising from observation, from experience, and from history. For, what does the unbeliever think concerning the prophecies 1 Those of you in this assembly, who will not admit that the writers of the Old Testament were inspired of God, how do you explain the fulfilment of their predictions 1 for that there are in the Old Testament predictions relating to a prophet who was to come, and that the history of Jesus Christ, as it is given to us in the New Testa- ment, corresponds with those predictions, is an indisputable fact to any one who will examine it. We easily account for this fulfilment by inspiration ; but how do you, who admit it not, give any other explanation of the connexion which you cannot avoid perceiving between the prophecy and the fulfilment ? The question embarrasses you — let us have your explanation ; perhaps you have none, perhaps you have never tried to solve this problem, never supposed that there was one to be solved. You have thought it impossible that God should have inspired men to foretel the future, and you have been satisfied to afiirm this impossibility, with- out taking any pains to inquire if history and the Bible do not prove that God has done what you daringly assert he has not done. If this be the case, you have acted like the rustic who, on being 10 SERMON I. told that the earth revolves round the sun, an- swered, " That is impossible ; I see the sun rise and set, and I know that the earth remains firm under my feet." You offer him some proofs, you cite observations which prove that appearances have deceived him, and that it is the earth and not the sun which revolves. " Impossible," he still replies, " I see, I feel that it is otherwise." He has made up his mind, he is determined not to admit your arguments, though they cannot be refuted ; he has neither eyes to see, nor ears to hear. I ask you, which is the more credulous, the peasant, disbelieving the motion of the earth, and who will know nothing contrary to his obsti- nate notion, or you, believing in this motion from what you have observed, seen, and understood'? By parity of reasoning, if you have not even taken the trouble of examining the problem of the pro- phecies, 1 who observe, who listen, and who, taking facts as my guide, allow them to lead me freely where they will, am not the credulous party of us two ; but you are, who have neither eyes nor cars for this examination, and who, without investigating facts, form an opinion which you do not allow those facts afterwards to alter: and as the wise of this world accuse the Lord's people of mys- ticism, I will add, that if the mystic is a man influenced by vague and indefinable sentiments rather than by clear and solid reasoning the mystic of us two is not I, who am a believer SERMON I. 11 in the inspiration of the prophets — as Newton was in the motion of the earth —because by believing I am but doing justice to the results of observa- tion ; but it is you who allow yourself to be led into a contrary opinion, shall I say by arguments or by impressions such as these? — "I cannot conceive it " — " it is unworthy of God " — " im- possible." I speak to those familiar with the sciences. Will you not admit that these only deserved their name from the era when the great Bacon laid down this rule, so pregnant with meaning, " First observe facts, and then observe the theory which best explains them ;" whereas men had previously been in the habit of first conceiving a theory, with which they afterwards reconciled facts if they could. Well, I proceed in religion according to the method of Bacon, taking observation as the basis of prin- ciples, whereas you proceed according to the old method, imagining principles beforehand without regard to observation. But I do you injustice ; you have investigated, and found means of explaining, without Divine assistance, the correspondence between the prophecy and its accomplishment. Let us consider this explanation, and see if it be more worthy of belief than that which the Christian gives. Will you tell us that the event has corresponded Avith the prophecy by accident, and without com- bination 1 That by mere accident, aided by human 12 SERMON I. foresight, certain predictions of the Jewish pro- pliets have been accomplished in Jesus Christ, as they might have been in another individual, and as they would, in fact, be found accom- plished in other cases, if sought for. This coin- cidence, which would not be morally impossible, however full and precise be the prediction, is ren- dered in this case more credible by the veiled and metaphorical language of the prophecies, which leaves much latitude in the application to be made of them. Is this, then, your explanation, a chance coincidence 1 Let us examine it impartially. I acknowledge that we meet in matters of this kind with singular circumstances, resembling the capricious humours of fortune, in which none of us try to discover Divine interposi- tion. Without entering fully into the particu- lars of the response given by the Delphic Oracle to Croesus, " If you make war against Cyrus, you will ruin a great empire," — a prediction realized by the fall of Croesus himself, but which was so worded that it could not fail of being realized on one side or the other ; or dwelling on that passage of the tragedian Seneca, in which it has been fancied that the discovery of America was declared ; nor on that passage of Tasso in which some men have dis- cerned a foreshadowing of the French revolution ; — I go directly to the most remarkable fact of this kind known to me in ancient or modern history ; I allude to the prediction of Vettius Valens. That SERMON I. 13 soothsayer, who lived about 100 years before Christ, declared, it is said, that if Romulus, when consult- ing the flight of birds, with his brother Remus, had seen twelve vultures, this token would indicate the duration of the Roman power during twelve centuries. Now, from the foundation of Rome, about the year 753 before Christ, to the fall of the Western Empire, which happened in 475, nearly ] ,200 years did really elapse. The grammarian Cen- sorinus, who relates this matter, is not suspected of fraud, because he himself wrote long before the fall of the empire. He rests also upon the testimony of the historian Varro; and no one, to our know- ledge, has suspected any interpolation in this pas- sage. We can scarcely avoid acknowledging that there is something extraordinary in this ; and with- out discussing the opinions of some theologians, who admit an intervention of the evil spirit in the ancient oracles, I consent in this instance with you to see nothing but a game of fortune, which, with- out noticing the vast number of presentiments and omens which are of common occurrence in the world, takes amusement, if we may so speak, in verifying some of them. We forget the others, and retain only these. But you ought to admit, that there may be a prophecy too full and precise to be compared with that of Vettius Valens, and of which the accom- plishment cannot be explained by an accidental congruity. This fulfilment is not morally impos- sible ; assuming only that it does not imply a 14 SERMON I. contradiction ; but yet it may be so incredible that no rational man will believe it. It is not absolutely impossible that the types of a printing press thrown together by chance should compose an ^neid quite perfect ; yet if any one should tell you that such a thing happened, you would not move one step to prove the lie,* Suppose, for instance, that instead of being accomplished among a multitude of omens falsified by the events, and from that time forgotten, the augury of Vettius Valens should constitute part of a long train of prophecies, which commenced with the foundation of E-ome, passed onwards in succes- sion, developing itself and becoming clearer with the progress of time; which have been collected one after the other in books, preserved with the utmost caution; which indicated the fall of the Roman empire, by detailing events which were to prepare, accompany, and follow that event; and which were all accomplished at the time foretold, without a single failure ; — in this hypothetical case would the acci- dental conjuncture satisfy you 1 would you not pro- nounce it impossible, untenable, and absurd 1 Now, we have all this, and still more, in the prophecy of the Messiah in the Old Testament. This prophecy commences with the call of Abra- ham, or rather, let us say, from the creation of the world — from the beginning of Genesis. Immedi- ately after the fall of man, a deliverance is an- * Rousseau. Profession of Faith by a Savoyard Clergy- man. SERMON I. 15 nounced, but obscurely, and remotely future : — " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head."* And the sacrifice of Abel prefigures the immolation of a victim in time to come. Sub- sequently, when the earth is re-peopled after the Deluge, the Almighty vouchsafes to promise Noah, the father of a new race, the spiritual bless- ing, of which the safety he had found in the ark is an evident pledge. •]• This blessing was to be perpetuated in the family of his son Shem, until the time should come when it would be extended to the family of Japhet. Like Abel, Noah testifies his faith in the promise by the sacrifice he ofiered. '^ This may yet appear obscure. But proceed. Abraham comes into the world 2,000 years after the creation, and 2,000 years before Christ; and God makes a covenant with him, confirmed by a visible sign, and based all through upon the sacri- fice.§ It is then the future Deliverer begins to be more clearly predicted, as well as the work he is to accomplish. * Gen. iii, 15; Acts xii. 9; 1 John iii, 8. f Gen. ix. 26. An attentive examination of this prediction will lead us to perceive that the subject is essentially that of spiritual blessings. Observe that the name given here to the God of Shem is that of Jehovah, and that God has assumed it only when revealing himself to mankind, and entering into covenant with them (Exod. iii. 15). He does not carry it to the following verse, in the promise made to Japhet. (Gen. ix. 27.) X Gen. viii. 20. § Gen. XV. 8, 9. It is God himself who here directs the sacrifice. See Ps. 1. 5. 16 SERMON I. The country and nation of the Messiah were already pointed out in Gen. xii. He is to be born of the family of Abraham, and in the land of Canaan, which God expressly gives to Abraham, not for himself, but for his posterity, more than 400 years before the appointed time. It is this promise which leads Abraham into Palestine, and brings back his descendants, after an exile of seve- ral centuries in Egypt. This promise, in fact, is the foundation of the history of the Jew^ish people, or rather, it is this which alone constitutes this people ; which led Pascal to say, " There is a great difference between a book that an individual com- poses, and circulates among a nation, and a book which of itself originates a nation." Take from the Roman history the augury of Vettius Valens, and what does it lose 1 Nothing but an interesting anecdote. And many men have acquired know- ledge of the Roman history without having ever heard of Vettius Valens. But the history of the Jews without the Messiah is a body without a soul ; nay, is a contradiction in terms. The Jews are the people of the Messiah ; and without the prophecy of the Messiah you can explain neither the origin, nor the development, nor the establishment, nor the destinies, nor the religion, nor the customs, nor the laws of this singular people, whose distinctive point of character always has been, and is to this day, their expectation of the Messiah. Here, then, you have a close, extensive, and SERMON 1. 17 secular prophecy, comprehending the 4,000 years which preceded the birth of Jesus Christ. And I have but yet shown its first gUmmerings, Let the light progress, "that day of Christ" whose dawn alone was sufficient to make Abraham rejoice,* and you will see it increasing to the dazzling brilliancy of noon, enveloping the whole earth with its rays. After Abraham you can follow the course of the prophecy unrolling itself from age to age, and from prophet to prophet, during 2,000 years, until it terminates in Jesus Christ, in whom it has its full accomplishment, and whose name signifies in Greek, Jesus the Messiah. Each of the writers of the Old Testament seems to have appeared in his turn only to add a line to the work, in which you can read in order, from what people sprung from Abraham, from what tribe of that people, from what family of that tribe, in what place, and at what time the Messiah was to appear, with everything that was to happen to him, and the unparalleled revolution he was to effect in the world. Ac- cording as the train of prophecy relating to the Messiah is extended, it becomes precise and definite. I do not lay a stress upon the fact that it embraces so many centuries, and is in all ages so consistent with itself that an apostle has defined it " as the testimony of Christ." t It must be added, that prophecy enters into the detail of facts, and that it declares the most important events even to * John viii. 56. t Rev. i. 2. C 18 SERMON I. the most minute particulars. It not only announces the Messiah and his kingdom, but scrupulously designates this Messiah by such unequivocal marks that it requires but the ordinary powers of vision, in order to recognise him at his coming. Do you know that a history of Christ might be composed previously to his coming, with no other materials whatever than the prophecies of the Old Testament 1 Do you know that Daniel indicates the number of years which were to pass from the promulgation of an edict authorizing the Jews to rebuild their temple until the coming of the Messiah, — seventy weeks 1 * — Haggai a building in which he was to present himself, and which was to be destroyed soon after his death — the second temple 1 ■]• that Micah names the town in which he was to be born, Bethlehem ? ^ that many prophets point out the line of his ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and so on, to David? and farther §, that others foretel the actions of his life, and the circumstances of his death, the thirty pieces of silver which were to be the price of his blood, the ass on which he was to ride into Jerusalem, the vinegar mingled with gall, with which his thirst Avas to be relieved, || and even the events which were to precede his ministry — such as the * Dan. ix. 24, 27. f Haggai ii. 6—9 ; Dan. ix. 27. X Micah V. 2. § Gen. xii. 3; xxii. 18; xxvi. 3, 4; xxviii. 14; xlix. 10; Num. xxiv. 17 ; Isa, xi. 1 ; Jer. xxiii. 15, &c. II Psalm xli. 9; Ixix. 22; Zech. ix. 9; xi. 12, 13. SERMON I. ]9 sending of a precursor;* and the circumstances that were to follow his death, such as the rejection of the Jews, and the calling of the Gentiles ^. -j* But it is not easy to collect and compare with the event predictions that are so numerous and diffused. In order that you may verify by your own observation what I have just stated, respecting the special application of certain prophecies, I shall confine myself to two passages in the Old Testament, the tvi'enty-second Psalm and fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. In the twenty-second Psalm you hear the Messiah praying thus, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." You behold him in dreadful agony, his hands and feet torn, surrounded by wicked people, who mock him in his sufferings, wagging their heads, and saying, " He trusted in God, let him deliver him, if he will have him;" his raiment is divided among his murderers, who cast lots for his coat; yet God delivers him, and the remembrance of his humiliation will occasion the conversion of all nations, and lead them to humble themselves before the Lord, whose reign will be established over all the earth by this wonderful beginning. But even all that is of no great im- portance, in comparison of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which pious antiquity has called a fifth Gospel. There you find paradoxes announced in the history of the Messiah, if we may so term certain traits which were to be collected in the * Isa. xl. 3, 5 ; Mai. iii. 1. f Isa. xlix. 5, 7. c 2 20 SERMON I. person and history of the Messiah, and which appear so contradictory to each other, that it is difficult to conceive how they could have existence together. He is the servant of the eternal God ; he is to be " exalted and extolled, and be very high "* above nations and kings, and yet he was the most " despised and rejected of men," even so that men " hid as it were their faces from him." Scourged like a vile malefactor, forsaken by man, and appa- rently by God, he is to be offered as a pure expia- tory victim for the sins of his disciples and those of the world. Condemned by an unjust sentence, over- powered by false accusations, he is to suffer his sen- tence without opening his mouth, "as a lamb brought to the slaughter." He dies, and behold he lives for ever. " He is numbered with the transgressors ; " and behold him justified and crowned with glory. This humiliation and this glory meet together, and destined " to make his grave with the wicked," he is laid in an honourable tomb reserved for the rich man; and at last, after having been rejected and set at nought during his life, he is to be acknow- ledged and glorified after his death. When all should appear lost, his triumph was to be complete, and he was exalted among men as their Deliverer and Saviour. Now I ask you in the name of sincerity and good faith, if all that has been accomplished in Jesus of * Note, the portion of Isaiah referred to here commences at lii. 13, where the fifty-third chapter ought to have commenced. SERMON I. 21 Nazareth, as you know it has been, and as you may fully assure yourselves it has been, by reading the New Testament, everything, from the most im- portant events to the most trivial details, and from the most ordinary circumstances to those so strange as to surpass belief; then if we defy you to shew us in all the signs which the Old Testament has given us for distinguishing the Messiah, a single trait which can be contradicted by the history of Jesus Christ ; will you still dare to speak of a for- tuitous coincidence 1 Are these some of the vague and general predictions that chance has happened to realize, and for which another completion might be found on close inquiry "? Well, find me another, or even the shadow of one ; you have the entire field of history before you ; shew me in the annals of mankind any individual, except Jesus Christ, in whom all these traits, which, after all, constitute but a feeble part of the prophecy, are found com- bined, without exception. Point out another man, who was born in the land of Canaan, at Beth- lehem, of the family of David, 490 years after an edict which re-established the Jews, while the second temple was standing, and but a short time before its destruction ; a man, who, though full of wisdom, justice, and truth, was despised, betrayed by a friend, sold for thirty pieces of silver, supplied with vinegar in his thirst, crucified like a male- factor, and yet buried as a man of wealth. More- over, one who was at the same time the most abased 22 SERMON I. and honoured of men, and who, rejected while living, and believed only after his death, has effected an universal revolution in the world, and founded a kingdom upon earth, which remains and extends itself over the ruins of the most powerful monarchies ! I know the reply which has been given to this, and it is the only answer that can be attempted. The prophecies, it is said, are not so clear as I am supposing them, and, though they ought to have been delivered in terms as lucid as those of history, they are clothed for the most part in mysterious and figurative language ; and so mingled with the details of contemporaneous events, that it is difficult to separate the present from the future. I admit that the language of prophecy is not so perspicuous as that of history, and such must be the case, for the plain reason that prophecy is not history, no more than history is prophecy. But I maintain, what is enough for my purpose, that the prophecies, as they are, have sufficient clearness, not only to enable us after the event, to see that they had announced it, but also sufficient clearness to enable us before the event to expect it from prophecy. In place of the proof, which I could give of this from the examination of prophecy, I offer another, more brief and decisive; (viz.), that those same prophecies, which are unintelli- gible to you at this day, were understood before the coming of Jesus Christ by the Jews, to SERMON I. 23 whom they were addressed. They had understood at first that a Messiah was to come into the world, since we know that they have always expected him, and that they still expect him, on the faith of their prophets. They had understood that the Messiah was to come from David, for they called him, as we see in the New Testament, and as they still call him, the Son of David. They had understood that he was to be born at Bethlehem, for their Rabbles made Him known to Herod by the prophecy of Micah ; and in consequence of that, Herod massacred the children of Bethlehem ; they had understood also that the Messiah was to be born at the period when Jesus Christ was born. So well had they understood this, and for such a length of time, that their impression upon this point was communicated to the surrounding nations and through the whole extent of the Roman Empire. The history of the New Testament shews that the Jews in general entertained this expectation, and even profane historians have informed us that the report of it had reached Rome, where they did not know what to think of it. Witness this celebrated passage of Tacitus, in his description of the siege of Jerusa- lem, " If we are to believe a great number of men, it was written in the old books of the priests that at the same time the East should acquire an ascen- dancy, and the Empire succumb to men of Judea.* " This testimony is corroborated by that of * Hist., book v., c. 13. 24 SERMON I. Suetonius, who also, speaking of Vespasian's reign," says, " it was an old opinion, generally held and spread throughout the East, that divines promised the Empire at this epoch to men come out of Judea." * After such testimony, I have a right to conclude that the prophecies of the Old Testament are not so obscure as to throw any doubt upon their agree- ment with the history of the New; and this harmony once admitted, cannot be explained by fortuitous coincidence. The prophecy is at the same time too extensive and too circumstantial. For my own part I declare, on mature reflection, that not to see in the connexion of the event with the prophecy more than an accidental coincidence, would be to admit a supposition so unreasonable, that between it and the difficulties of faith, I do not hesitate, and if I can give no other explana- tion for the fulfilment of the prophecies, I am constrained to be a believer, lest I should be credulous. It remains to inquire, if entirely admitting here a manifest agreement, we ought not rather to at- tribute it to men than to God. Might not men interested in leading us to believe that the coming of Jesus Christ had been announced from the beginning, have so arranged the prophecy, or the event, so as to make them harmonize '? That might have been done in either of two ways. If * Hist., Book i., c. 4. SERMON I. 25 the prophecy had previously existed in the Old Testament, the apostles might easily have arranged events expressly to realize them ; or if the prophecy had not pre-existed, they might have framed it after the events had taken place, for the purpose of making it appear that the prophecy had foretold them. We could not have imputed crime to them for so doing ; if there had been fraud among them it would have been a disinterested, a pious fraud. A pious fraud ! How ill does this association of words sound in Christian ears ! It is as if one were to speak of an honest theft, or a charitable murder. Truly I should do as much violence to my under- standing as to my heart, if I were to enter coolly into a discussion, whether the authors of the most holy and least artificial of all books have used deceit, pious or not, for the purpose of preaching a crucified Master with the same fate impending over them ! But I wish to examine the whole matter, and if we question their sincerity, it will shine more brightly when we show what a contra- diction this suspicion involves, and what credulity it supposes. I admit, for argument sake, that they might have wished either to accommodate the event to the prophecy, or the prophecy to the event. Was it in their power to do so] This question satisfies me. And first, — could the apostles have suited the event to the prophecy 1 How could that have been done '? is it by directing the history of Jesus Christ 26 SERMON I. to cause the principal facts of His life to occur so that they should correspond with the predic- tions of the Old Testament 1 I grant that there is a kind of prediction of details for which such accommodation might be made ; we might conceive, for instance, that the prophet Zacharias having foretold that the Messiah would enter into Jeru- salem, " seated upon an ass and the foal of an ass," Jesus might have been made to enter Jerusalem in this lowly manner in order to be able to say — See the accomplishment of the prophecy of Zacharias ; but could anything like this be done with the whole series of prophecy"? Reflect on this, my hearers : a prophecy which contains an entire system of predictions ; some relating to the greatest events, others to the most trivial circumstances; a prophecy, which not only bears upon the whole life of a man, and that man the Messiah, but also on what was to happen before and after Him ; the impossibility of this is obvious. There were predictions referring to the birth and infancy of the Messiah ; to the mission of a prophet, who was to precede Him. Would any persons have chosen Jesus to make Him the fraudulent object of the prophecies before he was born ? Would they have had him born for their purpose in Bethlehem'? Would they have sent before him a false precursor, and have created a John Baptist, whilst waiting to produce a Jesus Christ ] There were predictions which foretold great sufferings and a terrible death SERMON I. 27 to the Messiah ; were they then so certain of the compliance of Jesus, that after having made choice of him they could calculate upon his consent to sustain his part to the close, and to submit to be hated, persecuted, ill-treated, and crucified] But there were also many predictions which concerned the enemies of the Messiah. When the Roman soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross and pierced his hands and feet, according to the 2 2d Psalm ; when the Scribes and Pharisees literally accomplished another portion of that Psalm, by laughing Ilim to scorn, even on the cross ; when the Jews rejected Jesus and insisted on His death, and then, some days later, were converted by thousands, and adored him as their Lord and their God; those soldiers, those Pharisees, those Jews, were they also in the plot? and did they do those things only in obedience to the apostles 1 You will see that such a supposition is entirely untenable in your hypo- thesis, by testing one that is analogous in our own day. Suppose that a manuscript were now dis- covered bearing the date of the twelfth century, in which is predicted that 600 years afterwards there will be born at Ajaccio in Corsica a man whom a dreadful revolution will render the master of France, who will pursue his victories from the Rhine to the Nile, and fill the whole world with the fame of his name ; who will conquer con- federated Europe at Marengo, at Austerlitz, at Jena; who will find himself suddenly stopped in 28 SERMON I. the midst of his achievements, and will annihilate his own power in a last design against a mighty monarch of the north ; and then, after a short exile, re-ascend the throne, fall from it again, and go forth to die in a distant and lonely island. Suppose farther, that some persons conclude thence that the author of the manuscript had the spirit of prophecy. What would you think of any one who would try to silence them by saying, " I know the bottom of this mystery ; it is merely clever decep- tion ; a secret society aware of the prediction, and wishing to make it pass for a prophecy, has caused all these events to happen purposely to verify it. But if it be not admitted tliat the apostles con- ducted the history of their Master, might they not have invented it? and might not the portion of that history which corresponds with the prophecy be imaginary 1 "What was there to prevent them from inventing lies 1 What prevented them"? — The whole world. . . History, which, at a period so remarkable as that of Jesus Christ, in the age of Augustus, of Tiberius, of Tacitus, of Suetonius, would never have allowed such a falsehood to pass current amongst all nations without contradiction from some quarter, and without some person being able to discover traces of the true occurrences. Above all, the Jews, in the midst of whom Jesus lived, before whom the apostles began to preach, and who were as much opposed to the disciples as they SERMON I. 29 had been to their Master. Would the Jews have permitted the apostles falsely to attribute to Jesus, not merely particular actions, but a whole history, and what a history ! without exclaiming against so audacious an imposture? And while occasions were eagerly sought against them, would so easy a mode of confounding them before the whole people have been neglected'? These are among the ideas which naturally might arise in the mind of a man trying a variety of hypotheses in succession, but which could not bear a quarter of an hour's reflection. I return to the supposed prophecy of Napoleon. You would deem that person mad who should assert that it had been contrived expressly to accomplish the history of that great man ; but would you think more favourably of the individual who would get out of the difficulty by saying, that this history might have been but a story, written for amusement by authors who had an interest in verifying the prophecy, and that no such person as Napoleon ever existed, or that he had not per- formed any of the deeds ascribed to him] Yet such language would not be more untenable than that of an unbeliever, who should accuse the apostles of having invented, for amusement, the life of their Master. I even venture to assert that in some respects it would be less so ; for, besides that there would be no one so interested in exposing the false historians of Napoleon as the Jews were in exposing those of Jesus Christ, His life surely 30 SERMON I. holds a very different position in the annals of the world from that which the life of the greatest of men maintains. Jesus Christ is so absolutely neces- sary to ancient history of which he is the end, to modern history of which he is the beginning, to universal history of which he is the centre, that his life could not be withdrawn from it without over- throwing the whole, and utterly confusing the histories of ancient and modern times. If any one be insane enough to deny the history of Jesus, and to discern in it but an astronomical allegory, the name of a Dupuis will only remain to prove that there is no opinion so extravagant that it cannot find a mind predisposed to admit it, and a vain science to defend it ! Men become weary of proving truisms. Assuredly the first of the two schemes which the apostles might have used for making the prophecy agree with the event, or the event agree with the prophecy, is more difficult of belief than the alternative of for- tuitous coincidences. Between the difficulties that it presents and those of faith I do not hesitate; and if I have no other explanation for the accom- plishment of the prophecies, I am constrained to believe, in order that I may not be credulous. There remains a last resource to unbelief, viz., that the prophecy may have been composed after and for the event. This is what you might say of the supposed prediction concerning Bonaparte. Why should you not say it also of the prophecies in SERMON I. 31 the Old Testament 1 Might not the apostles have interpolated them after the event ? It is not very difficult to change the text of a book ; paper tells no talcs, and how many similar interpolations does not the history of literature reveal to us ! That would have been easy, I grant, in your closet and in your imagination, but in the reality of things was it possible "? First, if you have read the Old Testament, you ought to know that its prophecies are so numerous, so well connected with each other, and so closely combined with contemporary history, that it would have been less difficult to re-construct the entire book than to insert them in it afterwards. Then, if the apostles had arranged the prophecies after the event, do you not suppose they would have made them more clear I It has been complained that they are not sufficiently so; now an impostor would have taken care to guard against this objection. Besides, if the prophecies of the Old Testament had been contrived after the occur- rences which they foreshowed, why did the Jews receive and understand them previously to the events 1 Where had they read that a Messiah was promised to them, that he was to descend from David, to be born at Bethlehem, and to appear at an appointed time"? Was it in predictions which had no existence in their time, and which were to be forged in later ages ] All this, however, is comparatively trivial ; there 32 SERMON I. remains a more serious difficulty. Paper is silent, do you say '? But this paper might have fallen into the hands of men less prudent and more disposed to complain. Who were the natural guardians of the Old Testament? The Jews, and more parti- cularly the high priests, the scribes, the rulers of the synagogues; that is, on one side, men who entertained a superstitious veneration for the written word committed to their charge ; and, on the other, those whose hands had just crucified Jesus Christ. It Avas then in the custody of men so vigilant and hostile that the prophetical writings were to be falsified — and by whom ? By the disciples of that Jesus, whom the Jews had put to death; and for what purpose? To make the world believe that he whom they had then cruci- fied is their Messiah and their God ! But the power of corruption is great. Might then not those who had the custody of the Old Testament in Jerusalem have been bribed 1 The fishermen of Galilee had no means of bribery ; ' ' silver or gold have I none," said one of them,* and of credit they were equally deficient. But let us waive this. What! seduce from their fidelity the keepers of the Old Testament ; do you consider, what in effect, that would be ? If some few of the guards allowed themselves to be bribed to spread the report that the disciples came by night to carry, away the body of Jesus, one can easily imagine that those * Acts iii. 6. SERMON I. 33 miserable men might have sacrificed their duty for a little gold. But where were the means of bribing the whole Sanhedrim, all the doctors of Jerusalem from first to last, since so daring an interpolation could not remain a secret to any of them and a single individual would have sufficed for its pro- mulgation ? If, then, the opportunity of falsifying their books could have been purchased from them, why was there not a bargain also made for permis- sion to preach Jesus Christ, without being stoned like St. Stephen, or beheaded like St. James "? But I will admit, however, that you have corrupted the whole priesthood of Jerusalem. You have done nothing yet. How will you deal with the synagogues of Judea, Antioch, Athens, Corinth, Rome, Alexandria, Babylon, and of the innumerable towns in which the Jews were scattered after the captivity, where they lived and trafficked for more than 200 years before Christ, and in eacli of which they had a synagogue, where Moses and the Pro- phets were read every Sabbath to them "? It would have availed the apostles nothing to have gained over the Jewish priests of Jerusalem, if they had not also gained those of the whole world. Yet there is something more wonderful. This derangement of the sacred books of the Jews was eff'ected so simultaneously and universally that all the copies of the Old Testament disappeared from the world, without the reservation of a manuscript, a page, or a line, to be produced in testimony 34 SERMON I. against the most notorious interpolation that ever was made, and kept with such profound and guarded secrecy that not a single tongue complained of it, and that the insulted Jew presents to us even at the present day unhesitatingly this text, which was altered by our divines while it was in Jewish hands, for the purpose of condemning them, though it was only necessary to leave the text as it originally was, in order to support the hopes of the Jew, and annihilate the expectations of the Christian. If I could credit all that, I should be more quali- fied for a cell in a lunatic asylum than for the pulpit from which I now address you. This third explanation is more inadmissible than the second, which was more so than the first. Between such an accumulation of absurdities and the difficulties of faith, I have not the least hesitation ; and if there be not a fourth solution to account for the fulfilment of the prophecies, I am constrained to be a believer, in order that I may not be credulous. But a fourth explanation is not possible. For, lastly, if there has not been a casual agreement between the event and the prophecy, there must have been a skilful accommodation of the one to the other, and this accommodation could only be produced by suiting the event to the prophecy, or preparing the prophecy for the event.* * This is so true that we might almost rest this division of the subject on this remarkable expression of Rousseau: — "In order that the prophecies should have any authority with me," SERMON I. 35 After having exhausted all those hypotheses we come to the conclusion, with evidence which does not appear to belong to this sort of proof, that in the case of the prophecies unbelief is in fact a cre- dulity that cannot be sustained, and to which a wise man will never submit himself with his eyes open. But consider farther I do not wish to take you by surprise. I could not have found any means of explaining the prophecy, if God had not inter- posed ; but possibly you will find some. Search diligently, return to your line of argument, look on all sides ; convince yourself that we have not forgotten any loophole, any outlet, by which you might have retained your judgment, though per- sisting in your unbelief. Once more, there are the prophecies in the Old Testament, and here we have the accomplishment in the history of Jesus Christ, after an interval of time too long for any human sagacity to have fore- seen the event. If the hand of God be not in this, said he, " three things are necessary whose concurrence is im- possible, viz., that I had witnessed the prophecy and the event, and that it had been proved to me that the event could not have fortuitously coincided with the prophecy." Rousseau required to be witness of the prophecy, to be assured that there was no deception in the prediction ; he required to be witness of the event, to be assured that there was none in the fulfilment ; and, thirdly, he required that it should be demonstrated to him that the events could not casually have agreed with tlie prophecy and without collusion. These, then, in other terms, are the three natural solutions of the harmony of the event with the prediction, as we have maintained in this discourse. D 2 36 SERMON I. what shall I say'? — shall I say that the prophecy has heen framed for the event, and inserted in the text of the Old Testament after the result 1 If I should assert this, I should be the most credulous of men ; I should be admitting a supposition against which everything that history tells us of the Jews, their actions, character, virtues and vices, lights and prejudices, rises up and exclaims ; I should transgress all the rules of criticism, and render myself guilty of a literary absurdity. De- cidedly, clearly, the prophecy existed in the Old Testament before Jesus was born and the apostles had their mission to the world. Shall I say that the event was contrived for the prophecy, in the invention and in the application 1 If I should say this, I should be the most credulous of men: I should be supposing, either that mankind had allowed, without discussion, some Galilean fisher- men to insert in the annals of the world, in the noonday splendour of the Augustan age, the foun- dation page, the alpha and the omega of history ; or else that those fishermen moved all the springs of the universe according to their fancy, and made Jesus, Mary, the Jewish nation, Pilate, and the Romans serve their own purposes. I should offend against the whole course of experience, and render myself guilty of an historical absurdity. Unques- tionably the design of the life of Jesus can neither be explained by invention nor by human direction. Shall I then say that this harmony between the SERMON I. 37 prophecy and the event can only be a for- tuitous coincidence, and that words thrown at hazard by the prophets have turned out favourably to Jesus Christ by a throw of fortune's dice"? If I should say so, I should still be the most credulous of men ; I should be attributing to chance greater miracles than those which I had denied to the Creator; to get rid of the God of Jesus Christ, I should be adopting the God of Democritus ; as he supposes atoms to meet in space, I should be making time, places, men and things unite on earth; I should offend against the whole order of nature, and render myself guilty of a philosophical absurdity. I see but one opening, one avenue by which my reason can find an escape — faith. I must either deny everything, reason, common sense, nature, criticism, history, experience, observation, the tes- timony of the ears and the eyes, or acknowledge that there subsists between prophecy and the event a connexion which neither comes from chance nor from men. I call to mind that there is a God, and all is explained. Yes; prophecy has been made for the event! and he who has composed the pro- phecy is He who reads in the darkness of ages what his own mind had determined, and his own arm will accomplish. Yes, the event has been made for the prophecy ! and He who has arranged the event is He who records it and keeps in his powerful hands not only the Jews, Pilate,- and the Romans, but the earth, the heavens, and the universe. Yes, 38 SERMON I. the prophecy is accomplished by a throw of the dice ! but, according to the saying of Pascal, " the dice were loaded," and He who threw them is He who has scattered the worlds in space, and said, " Let there be light, and there was light." Now my understanding is satisfied; now I believe in order that I should not be credulous, mystick, and sentimental ; happy to perceive after all that the only way in which I give glory to the God of the Gospel is also the only way in which I do not dishonour myself! So strong is the evidence for this conclu- sion that to escape from it is impossible. It can be conceived that a different judgment may be formed without examination ; but that a man who has reflected, examined, and compared, should not see in this the hand of God accomplishing the pro- phecies in Jesus Christ, is impossible ; such a man will not be found. But I am wrong. There have been found men, there has been found a nation, there have been found learned teachers, who have examined, reflected, compared, and have not come to this conclusion. And, strange to think ! it was not for the purpose of escaping from the inspiration of the prophets that they rejected our opinion ; for they too believed them to be inspired, they looked for the fulfilment of their predictions, they expect it still, but diff"er- ently accomplished ; these men — are the Jews. Ye who believe not, have an authority to support your opinion on the prophecies, and truly you are not SERMON I. 39 more credulous than the Jews. What do you say to this? Do you not see that this resemblance tends only to your confusion] Far from us be the thought of insulting the affliction of this unhappy people, whom God still loves " for their fathers' sakes," and whom he has cast off but for a time ! But how not perceive that there is thrown a " veil over their hearts," and that they cannot refuse to recognise in Jesus Christ Him whom the prophets announced without receiving in themselves " the just reward of their iniquities'? " They expect another Messiah. But, besides its being too incredible that there should be found a second man combining in himself all the signs of a prophecy so comprehen- sive and so defined, there are amongst the number some which render such a supposition impossible, and the Messiah whom the Jews expect can never come; his time is past. Suppose him born to-morrow, ten years hence, or a century. Could we now be certain that he would be of the family of David, when all the genealogical tables of the Jews have disappeared"? Could he now come 490 years after an edict which permitted the Jews to return to their country, when the last of those edicts bears the date of more than 2000 years ] Could he now show himself in the second temple, when that temple is destroyed 1 Could he now put an end to the sacri- fices which have ceased for 1800 years? Urge them farther, that you may know exactly what they think of the Messiah whom they expect : 40 SERMON I. their confused reply will show you that they have never considered the question fully. Do not suppose that they have patiently inquired into each of the hypotheses which we have just examined. They have made up their minds that Jesus, who has thwarted and disappointed their carnal expectations, was not to be their Messiah ; and, therefore, in order to reject him, they take hold of the first conjectures which come into their minds on reading Moses and the Prophets. Judge of this by a single instance. According to an opinion accredited by their rabbles, He of whom Isaiah has spoken in his fifty-third chapter is not the Messiah, but the Jewish people; it is the Jewish people which has borne our griefs, and been bruised for our iniquities; it is the Jewish people that has been "taken from prison and from judgment," and whose generation is eternal.* It is the Jewish people who shall "justify many," " by his knowledge." It is the Jewish people whose grave had been ordained with the wicked, but who was with the "rich in his death." It was the Jewish people which has been wounded for the transgressions of his people, that is, for the transgressions of themselves! But, if the Jews do not acknowledge Jesus * The French version of Isaiah liii. 8, from which M. Monod has quoted (qui a ete retranche dc I'angoisse et de la condemna- tion), corresponds with the marginal reading in some of our Bibles, " He was taken away by distress and judgment." SERMON I. 41 Christ in the prophecies of the Old Testament \vill they at least recognise themselves in them ] Will they recognise themselves in predictions such as those written, by their own confession, 1500 years before Christ came into the world, in that book which they revere as the Book of God, and which, as they who have kept it well know, has not undergone any alteration? " But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee.* The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth, a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand ; a nation of fierce coun- tenance which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young: and he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou he destroyed : which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down wherein thou trustest, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee. And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the * Deut. xxviii. 15, 49, &c. 42 SERMON I. flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege and in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee.* Then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses and of long continuance. -f- And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude ; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the Lord thy God. And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you ; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and to bring you to nought ; and ye shall be plucked from oif the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people from the one end of the earth even unto the other ; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest ; but the Lord shall give thee a trembling heart, and failing of eyes and sorrow of mind: and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even ! and at even thou shalt say. Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt • Deut. xxviii. 49—53. f Deut. xxviii. 59. SERMON I. 43 fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.* The Lord shall smite thee with mad- ness and blindness and astonishment of heart, and thou shalt grope at noonday as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways ; and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.-j- Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thine eyes shall look and fail Mith longing for them all the day long : and there shall be no might in thine hand. So that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee. J And I will bring the land into desolation : and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you : and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste. And upon them that are left alive of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies ; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them ; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword ; and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands ; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. § And I * Deut. xxviii. 62, 67. f Deut. xxviii. 28, 29. X Deut. xxviii. 32, 34, 37. § Lev. xxvi. 32, 33, 36, 39. 44 SERMON I. will deliver them to be removed into all the king- doms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them.* For, lo, I will com- mand and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. f My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations. :{: So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sickness which the Lord hath laid upon it : even all the nations shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this land'? what meaneth the heat of this great anger ] Then men shall say, because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book : and the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is to this day." § What say you of these predictions 1 Try to apply to them any one of the three suppositions we have * Jer. xxiv. 9. f Amos ix. 9. J Ilosea ix. 17. § Deut. xxix. 22, 24, 25, 27, 28. SERMON I. 45 been repudiating as prophecies of Jesus Christ, and you will find them, if possible, more inad- missible. Fortuitous agreement *? You cannot believe it. The history of the Jews, who have been dispersed among all the nations of the world and have yet everywhere preserved their nationality, is too special, and if I may so express myself too unique^ and altogether too clearly announced in those predic- tions. But has the event been contrived for the prophecy, or the prophecy for the event '? you are yourselves guarantees of the contrary, for the point at issue is the train of events in process of fulfil- ment in your own times and under your own observation. If there had been here any pious fraud it would not have been in the days of the apostles, it would necessarily be more recent ; the disciples of Jesus Christ, subsequently to his time, our fathers — ourselves — would be the persons guilty of it. Is it you or I who have altered the Jewish books and interpolated in the Old Testa- ment the prediction of what befalls the Jews this day*? Have you or I given a direction to their destiny "? have we taken and dispersed them through every clime, made them a reproach among all nations, caused their persecution in the middle ages, closed them up in their Ghetto at Rome or in their " quarter" at Frankfort? Is it you or I who have concocted a fictitious history X and will some Dupuis arise from the earth to tell the world that 46 SERMON I. Jews have never been, and that their pretended dispersion is but an astronomical allegory ^. Admit, then, that if we must be credulous, lest we should believe in the prophecies relating to the Messiah, we must be more so not to believe those relating to the Jews. Recognise here with us the hand of God, and fear not to glorify His name, and to exclaim with Jacob at Bethel, " Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." Prophecy is but one instance that I have selected out of many; and if we were to examine with the same attention the miracles, the established reception of the Gospel in the world, the character of Jesus Christ, his doctrine, his morality, there is not one of those subjects which would not present to the unbeliever difficulties incomparably more embar- rassing than those of faith. Here is the reason which I was mentioning at the commencement, but my idea will be better understood after the developments into which I have gone in favour of prophecy. The difficulties of faith relate to the invisible, and those of unbelief to the visible world. We belong to both worlds, to the unseen world and to that of Divine and spiritual things, which we can only know by a principle of faith ; and to the visible world, to the world of human and ter- restrial things, which we may know by sight ; the invisible world is full of mysteries and obscurities to us ; and as to the character of God, his judgments, and eternity, we can only, when left to ourselves, SERMON I. 47 form conjectures with more or less probability. It is not so with the visible world that is open and accessible to us all, for it has been given as an experimental field, and when the matter in question is to collect observations and to prove their results, nothing more is required than the powers of seeing and hearing.* Now there is this distinction between the belief of a Christian and that of an unbeliever, that the belief of the first explains satisfactorily the data furnished by experience and observation, while partially veiling the Divine nature and will, whereas the second can only get out of these obscurities by decidedly opposing the most established facts. The Chris- tian receives the Bible as the Word of God, on the faith of miracles and prophecies, that is of historical facts which he cannot otherwise explain, and then he has recourse from them to the Bible to supply his ignorance of Divine things. The unbeliever is so determined not to admit anything that does not coincide with his opinions and senti- ments regarding the things of God, that rather than receive the Bible as Divine he closes his eyes to what he sees and his ears to what he hears. And thus the Christian, when confiding in the competency of his own judgment, respecting visible things which legitimately come within its range, and yielding his opinion when the things * " The heaven, even the heavens are the Lord's, but the earth hath he given to the children of men." (Ps. cxv. 16.) 48 SERMON I. of the invisible world are in question, resembles a blind man who makes use of his hearing to supply the want of sight, while, on the contrary, the unbeliever depending on himself when the invisible things are concerned, and resigning his contradicting senses and experience in visible things, is like a blind man, depending on his sight, and refusing to believe the testimony of his ears. How can we hesitate between these two ways ■? How refuse to see that if the faith of the one astonishes by that new light which it diffuses over the things of heaven, the unbelief of the other subverts all received opinions by the contra- diction it gives to whatever we know with most certainty of the things of earth ; and that any man who terrifies himself with the mysteries of faith without being startled at the folly of unbelief, renders himself guilty in doctrine of an error similar to that which the Pharisees committed in morality in " straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel?" Do not suppose, brethren, that we could elevate our mind so highly as not to perceive any stumb- ling blocks in the path of faith. You find there many obscurities ; I acknowledge that I find them in it too. When I take this book into my hands and say to myself, here is a book which is unlike any other, and which has been the only one among all, inspired by God ; when I consider that Isaiah, Jeremiah, St. Paul, St. John, have spoken as they were moved " by the Holy Ghost," SERMON I. 49 and that I ought to receive the word from their mouths as I would receive it direct from heaven ; nevertheless, when I see each of them maintaining his individuality of character, throughout the in- spiration which influenced them all, and making use also of all the natural means of enlighten- ing their minds available to them, I pause ; I am lost in thought, and the doctrine of inspiration amazes and confounds me. And then, when I open the Bible and consider this Christian doc- trine so strange for the philosophy of the age, and the Christian life still more strange for my natural dispositions ; when I meditate on this in- nocent Son dying for guilty men, on this Spirit which bloweth where it listeth, without our knowing whence it cometh or whither it goeth, on this all-powerful efficacy of prayer, on this faith which creates inwardly and outwardly a new world, and on the solemn judgment which is to separate men into two classes by an impassable gulf, the one going into eternal life, the other to eternal punishment — to eternal punishment ! then my faith, I will not say wavers, but it be- comes troubled ; then in some degree, oppressed by a weight of the Divine mysteries, I am like a man who feels his sight dazzled, and is obliged to sit down lest he should fall ; then methinks the tumult of my thoughts is about to force from me the cry which the persecution of the wicked made Jeremiah utter, — " I will not make mention of £ 50 SERMON I. him, nor speak any more in his name."* In such moments, for ought I know, a frightful tempta- tion might present itself to my mind, if unbelief, hope-destroying as it is to my heart, should offer at least a system satisfactory to my reason. But what do I find in it on the contrary 1 I find in it difficulties infinitely greater than in religion. Here it is no longer a vague opinion which disturbs me, but the clearest reasoning which convinces me of error. It is no more the invisible world which astonishes my weak understanding, but it is the visible world which rises up against me with over- powering evidences. It is no longer a doubt which perplexes me, but a certainty which constrains me, it is history which I must repudiate, it is expe- rience which I must reject. It is observation to which I must give a barefaced contradiction ; and facts I must deny and charge with falsehood and trample under foot. Ah ! the contradictions with which unbelief abounds, throw me backwards and leave me no retreat, except faith with its sacred obscurities ! And after having been almost ready to say with Jeremiah, — " I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name," I am compelled to exclaim with him, — " But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay." * Then I return to thee, O God of Jesus Christ, like the prodigal to his * Jer. XX. 9. SERMON I. 51 father's house, " under his everlasting arms." I eagerly take hold in my heart of that which my understanding could not reach, and I find no peace but in believing on Thee, and no happiness but in serving Thee ! After all, if faith has its shadows, it is because it has such brilliant lights ; if it has deep chasms, it is because it has high mountains ; and if it has the keys of hell, it is because it also holds those of heaven. Certainly there are things which I do not understand, but I know that I cannot understand them. Helpless creature, thrown into a corner of Thy kingdom, how could I have that view of the whole which Thou in the centre of thy works beholdest 1 But above all, poor sinful erring creature, why should I wonder that a veil is over my eyes, and that Thy Word, O God of heaven, astonishes me '? Alas, it but astonishes me, perhaps, because it is true.* Nature has her secrets, and I believe in God; the Bible has its mysteries, and I believe in Jesus Christ ; and those very mysteries, which at first confounded me, con- clude in enlightening me and giving me the most holy lessons; and there is now nothing, not even the eternal punishments that I have so long rejected, that has not served to disclose to me, O my God, with the terror of Thy judgments and the sanctity of Thy law, the greatness of Thy deliver- ance, and the depth of Thy love. " Speak, Lord, * John viii. 45, " And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not." E 2 52 SERMON I. for thy servant hearcth." He listens, his head bowed to the earth. Wouldst Thou speak of things yet new to me 1 Speak ; I beheve because Thou speakest, and I desire to be the most behev- ing of men, in order that I should not be the most credulous and senseless. My brethren, give glory to the truth. These are not declamatory representations beyond reality ; they are clear, simple, solid proofs. Do you not ac- knowledge this"? and do you not already perceive that at the tribunal of God reason itself will condemn you, and render your unbelief inexcusable 1 Do not, then, impute the fault of your want of belief to your understanding ; for faith alone can fully satisfy that, but impute the blame to your heart, to your own will. If in the end you do not attain to faith it is because you do not desire it. You are disinclined to a doctrine which so completely humbles your pride, and leaves you no other entrance into heaven than that through which the Zaccheuses, the Mary Magdalenes, the publicans, and harlots pass. You will not receive a doctrine which obliges you to forsake your cupidity, avarice, hatred, lies, deceits, and sensuality! No, you desire it not. Jesus Christ has said: " Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life ; " * and again : " Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." f If this discovery alarms you, it also presents something to reassure * John V. 40. f John iii. 19. SERMON I. 53 you. Because your unbelief is voluntary, it is cri- minal, and " he that believeth not is condemned al- ready ; " but also because your unbelief is voluntary, it is remediable, and it depends on yourself to be free from it. Learn again of Jesus Christ, " If any man will do his will he shall know of the doc- trine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself" * From the day on which you will have experienced a fixed desire of doing what God com- mands, of doing so at any sacrifice, you Avill be in the path of faith, which is that of eternal life. Until then, though one were raised from the dead before your eyes, you would not be persuaded. -f Ah ! if a ray of light have dawned upon you, be faithful, faithful to God, faithful to yourself; be faithful, harden not your hearts ; be faithful, and God will do the rest. Amen. * John vii. 17. f ^^^^ xvi. 31. SERMON 11. GENESIS I. 1. "//i the heginning God created the heaven and the earth." You will, perhaps, think it strange that I should select this subject for a Gospel discourse. How- can the creation which preceded the fall, and even the birth of our race, teach us anything respecting what we ought to do in order to be saved ] This is a very natural remark, but it is unfounded. This creation being the work of that God who gave us eternal life in Jesus Christ, and related in the Bible which has been only written for the purpose of announcing salvation to us, instructs us in the designs of Divine mercy by traits lightly sketched, but which subsequent revelations will assist us in following out and completing. God creates: he makes something out of nothing; from nothing he makes everything that is. " The things which are seen," says St. Paul, "were not made of things which do appear. The worlds were SERMON II. 66 framed by the word of God." * He lias only to speak ! He speaks of things which are not as if they existed. " He spake, and it was done ; he commanded, and it stood fast."-|- Sublime word which brings to our mind the still more sublime language of our chapter, "God said, Let there be light, and there was light." :|: What a word was that which brought into existence that which was not! What is the language of man, however beautiful and forcible, comparatively with the cre- ating word ? The language of man follows things and imitates them ; the Word of God precedes and creates them. Man speaks because things are; but these are because God hath spoken. Let him speak again, and things will revert together with man who speaks of them, to nothing. But let us not attempt, however, to explain what creation is in itself The transition from nothing to something is an abyss in which our words, even our thoughts and inquiries, are lost. Let us be content to perceive in creation a character which belongs only to God, and which distinguishes his work from that of his creatures. We sometimes say, that a man has created a work, or that he possesses creative genius ; but it is by some abuse of terms. The human mind works only with the materials with which God supplies it ; it observes, imitates, combines, but does not create. The best painter in the world, composing the most beautiful * Heb. xi. 3. f Psalm xxxiii. 9. J Gen. i. 3. 56 SERMON 11. picture that ever proceeded from the hand of man, creates nothing : neither the canvas, nor the colours, nor the brushes, nor his own hands, nor even the conception of his work, since tliat con- ception is the fruit of his genius, which he has not given unto himself. Trace to the origin of each of the several things which have combined to form this picture, and you will find that all the channels from which they came, converge towards, and meet in the Creator, who is God. Having reached this point, you see God and him only; everything else has disappeared as if ab- sorbed in him, or appears at most as the work of his work. God creates, and he alone creates. In thus showing us from its first page that the visible world has had such a wonderful beginning, the Bible informs us that it is also as a Creator that God saves souls. He not only develops the natural dispositions of our hearts, but creates in them new ones, " For we are labourers together with God ; " but labourers working like the painter, with what God has given to us. We hear, read, seek, believe, pray, but even these come from God. " For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good plea sure ; " and if we seek the principle of our salva- tion we shall find that we owe all to God from the beginning, and from the beginning of the be- ginning. " For who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again"? for of SERMON 11. 57 him and through him and to him are all things — to whom he glory for ever. Amen." Thus the Scriptures call the conversion of a soul a creation. " If any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away ; behold, all things are become new."* " For we are his workmanship created in Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."'!' Thus good works are prepared for us, but we are created for good works. " You have been taught in Christ," writes St. Paul to the Ephesians, " to put off the old man, to be re- newed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man, which after God is created in right- eousness and true holiness.":}: Again, in another Epistle which repeats in an abridged form the greater part of the instructions contained in that Avhich he had sent to the Ephesians, he returns to this doctrine, and reminds the Christians at Colosse that they had " put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man, which is re- newed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. " § " In Jesus Christ neither cir- cumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. "|| Thus speaks the New Testament. The Old uses the same language. Not only does David, rising from his fall, pray in these words by the * 2 Cor. V. 17. t Eph. ii. 10. | Eph. iv. 24. § Col. iii. 10. II Gal. vi. 15. 58 SERMON II. Spirit : " Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me ; " * but all the Lord's dealings towards the people of Israel, that type of the future Church, are compared by Isaiah to a creation, — " I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King." f If he alternately deals out to them good and bad fortune, — He creates. " I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." J If he tries them for a time by chastising them through the hands of their enemies, he creates : " Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument of destruction for his work."§ If he raises up prophets to them, he creates : " I create the fruit of the lips ; Peace, peace, to him that is far off, and to him that is near;"|| and if ultimately he give to that people, after many vicissitudes, happier days and an eternal rest, he will create: " For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth : but be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create ; for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing."^ Will it be said that we strain the words of Scripture, and that the analogy which we find between these dispensations of God and the * Psalm li. 12. f Isa- xliii. 15. X Isa. xlv. 6, 7. § Isa. liv. 1 6. II Isa. Ivii. 19. M Isa. Ixv. 17, 18. SERMON II. 59 creation of the world, is more in words than in things? But, besides that the Bible chooses its expressions with more exactness than is generally supposed,* especially one expression, of which it makes so much use, it has carefully marked the analogy for us, " Before me there was no God found, neither shall there be after me.""|* Observe here the power of God displayed in the creation ; and this is the conclusion that we should draw from it, " I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no Saviour." J Hear again, in Isaiah, the Lord Jehovah speaking to the Messiah, " Thus saith God, the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out ; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein : I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thy hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." § " Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my Godi "|| It is in the same spirit that the apostles thus commence their prayer after the appearance of Peter and John * See Ps. xii, 6. " The words of the Lord are pure words : as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." f Isa. xliii. 10. X ^^^' ^^"*- ^^- § ^^^- ^^i* ^> ^' 11 Isa. xl. 26, 27. 60 SERMOxN II. before the Sanhedrim : " Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is ; and now, Lord, grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word."* He then must be fully acknowledged. God wills that the sovereign power with which he has created heaven and earth, should be to us a pledge of that which he will manifest in establish- ing his reign both in the world and in our hearts. This sentiment discloses itself in a very striking way to the attentive reader in this passage of the Epistle to the Colossians : " Having put on the new man after the image of him that created him." f The word " created " alludes altogether to the creation of the soul in Jesus Christ, and to that of man at the beginning. Ye who sigh for the entire freedom of your souls, or after some other spiritual deliverance, cease la- bouring to accomplish it in your own strength ; you could as easily create a world as make to yourselves a new heart. You have need of a creation ; seek it from the Creator of heaven and earth. Let him speak a word and you will be free. But without this word from the mouth of the Lord, all the world combined could not deliver you. Nothing is done ; nothing is undone, but because God hath spoken. That a world may arise, what is wanted 1 — a word from God. That a blade of grass may sprout, that a leaf may fall from a tree, or a hair from our head, * Acts iv. 24, 29. f Col. iii. 10. SERMON II. 61 what is wanted'? — a word from God. That the living may die and the dead live, that a stone be changed into a child of Abraham, what is wanted 1 — a word from God. That the door of heaven may open and none may close it, that it may close and none open it, what is wanted] — a word from God. Do you desire then that your soul should live and prosper; and be happy and triumphant ? obtain a word from God. And do you wish to obtain that word? pray to God the Creator. The word, which every- thing obeys, even that which is not, is itself obedient to the prayer of faith. God creates ; but what does he create "? and what is the character of his work ? This work is perfect ; so perfect that it reflects the Godhead to Himself.* At the close of each day, as Moses tells us, God saw that what he had then made was good. But, at the end of the last day " God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good;"-j- whether it were that the harmony of the whole enhanced the excellence of the details, or that the formation of man crowned the work of creation. If at a later period, if, soon afterwards, disorder, deformity, and wretchedness pervaded the world, "it is the enemy who hath done this." Everything, as it came forth from the hands of the Creator, was beautiful, happy, and well-ordered ; and the work of God could only be marred by separating itself from its Author. * Que Dieu lui-meme s'y admire. t Gen. i. 31. 62 SERMON IT. The creation of the world affords us a new lesson as to the manner in which God acts in the dispensation of grace. There again, all that God makes is good, and very good ; what is evil proceeds from another source. Alas! sin is everywhere ; " The whole world lieth in wicked- ness ; " * " The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." j* " When we would do good, e^dl is present with us.":|: At the sight of this original and universal evil, we are tempted to believe that God has mingled good and evil in his work, and compounded man of good and evil dispositions; but it is not so; " God made man upright." "In the image of God created he him."§ "And it is man who sought out many inventions." || For all that is good and holy, let us ascribe the glory to God; for what is evil let us accuse ourselves. This distinction, in which the philosopher with the wisdom of this world only, disceras more of piety than of reason, is an act of simple justice, by which we render unto man that which belongs to man, and unto God that which is God's. Besides, in judg- ing thus we conform to the commandment of the holy apostle : " Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man ; but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed."^ St. James thus * 1 John V. 19. t Gen. viii. 21. X Kom. vii. 21. § Gen. i. 27. 11 Eccles. vii. 29. f James i. 13. SERMON II. 63 accounts for evil ; and he proceeds to account for good: " Do not err, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."* St. James here refers only to us, and is silent with respect to the tempter, because he does not wish that we should cast our own responsibility upon another — not even upon Satan, whose wickedness does not justify ours. But you are well aware that Scripture teaches us in many places, that it is this eternal enemy of God and man who has sown tares in the field in which the householder had sown only good seed. And how did he cause the fall of our first parents'? by inducing them to doubt their Creator, by persuading them that there was in him and his work a something that was not good. Satan is still the same, and uses the same means with us. Are you not conscious of the foolish accusations which he raises against God in the depths of our miserable hearts ? Yes ! accusations against God ! He speaks to us in the same spirit in which he spoke to Eve, and we are just as credulous as she was. At one time he accuses God of want of mercy : we picture him to our- selves as insensible to our afflictions, deaf to our cries, and then our prayers become spiritless. At another time he accuses God of want of faithful- ness : his most solemn promises appear to us * James i. 17. 64 SERMON II. unstable, and then our strength fails with our faith. At another time he accuses the Almighty of vain threatenings, and says again : "Ye shall not surely die:"* the dread of his judgments is removed from our eyes, and then we fall into fatal security. At another time he accuses God of something else. Let us close our cars to all his arguments. Let us firmly resolve to believe nothing of God but that he is good. Whatever happens, let us give him the glory. Let us not impugn his justice and his holiness. " Let God be true, and all the world a liar."f This doctrine too is necessary in order that you should not make a false application of what you have just heard respecting the sovereignty of God. He acts as Creator, we should say in things which belong to his government, but he only uses this sovereign power for good; he only gives birth to good thoughts, holy desires and dispositions, con- sistent with salvation. Again, " he tempteth no man," he keeps no one in a state of unbelief, he obliges no one to destroy himself, and in the instance of men whom he gives up to a " dark- ened understanding," it is because " they did not like to retain God in their knowledge. ":{: " As I live, saitli the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked may turn from his way and live."'§ Wherefore at the * Gen. iii. 4. f Rom. iii. 4. J Rom. i. 28. § Ezekiel xxxiii. 11. SERMON II. 65 last day, when the veil shall be lifted up, tlie re- probate shall impute their ruin only to them- selves, whereas the elect shall attribute their hap- piness to God alone. God creates, but how does he create ? At first view we only see here the sovereign Lord, alone at first in his eternity. Alone afterwards in the work of creation. But a more deliberate contem- plation leads us to discern in this singleness a cer- tain mysterious union of persons previously hidden in the depths of the Divine nature, and displaying itself at the creation, as it was to be manifested at a later period in the redemption of our race. Many think that they discover proofs of the Trinity in this verse, in which God in some way moves himself to create man, by saying, " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,"* the WE appears to indicate more than one person in him who speaks. They connect with this verse a similar expression which the sacred historian puts into the mouth of God : " Behold the man has become as one of us;"j* and shew moreover that the name usually given to God in the original language of the Old Testament (Elohim), is a plural substantive, which properly signifies Gods. "We do not reject this opinion, which has high authorities in its favour, but we consider it rather as a presumption than as a proof, both because it is not unexampled in antiquity, and even in the * Gen. i. 26. f Gen. iii. 22. F 66 SERMON II. Old Testament, that a single person speaks of him- self in the plural number, and also because there would remain to be explained, why this peculia- rity of language is not continued, throughout the whole history of the creation ; for in the second chapter God says when forming woman; "It is not good that man should be alone, I will make him an help meet for him." Here are more cer- tain evidences. We read in the second verse of our chapter : — " Darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." It is not easy to determine precisely the sense of the Hebrew verb which our versions have trans- lated by the word " moved.'' All agree that it is an illustration borrowed from the tender care which a bird bestows on its helpless brood ; some apply it to a mother who gathers her nestlings under her wings ; others to a mother which hovers round them to secure them from danger in their early flight. The same uncertainty rests on the translation of this word in this pathetic passage of Deuteronomy, where the Lord watching over his people compctres himself to " an eagle which stirrcth up her nest ; fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings."* Whatever slight differ- ences may exist on this point, the Spirit of God is presented to us in each interpretation as guarding * Deut. xxxii. 1 1 . SERMON IT. 67 the world, about to burst forth and preparing for the work which the Word of God is going to ac- complish. Let us then respect the sacred obscu- rity which envelops his teeming work,* but let us acknowledge also that in one way or other, the Spirit of God appears, from the first page of the Bible, co-operating in the creation and giving life to the world. The book of Job alludes to tliis truth in more than one passage: — " By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens, his hand hath formed the crooked serpent "•]* (the name of a con- stellation): and the pious Elihu says in his turn: — " The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." X Isaiah asks, " Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord?" When he "hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span;"§ and the Psalmist indicates this same Spirit sent from God to give life to his crea- tures, as he was at the beginning to give it: " Thou takest away their breath ; they die and return to their dust : thou sendest forth thy Spirit ; they are created, and thou renewest the face of the earth." || This is not all. A third agent appears in the narrative of the creation. He is not named there as the Spirit of God ; but his presence is revealed by more than one sign, without taking into considera- * Action feconde. f Job xxvi. 13. % Job xxvi. 13. § Isa. xl. 12, 13. II Psalm civ. 29, 30. F 2 68 SERMON IT. tion that it is expressly attested in other portions of Scripture. Let us observe, in the first place, that God created the several portions of this universe by words: each of the six days opens with this simple and grand commencement : " And God said." This trait is not overlooked by the inspired writers: they take delight in returning to it. David, St. Paul, and St. Peter, bear testimony that God formed the world by his word, * that he sustains and governs it from age to age.*]- That God should have spoken to create is an amazing fact: was it not enough that he should have willed? Let us be convinced that he has not spoken in vain, and that this Word of God con- ceals a deep signification. St. John lifts up a corner of the veil which envelops this mystery. Who is he whom he terms alternately " The Word of God, faithful and true, King of kings, and Lord of lords "? " J But above all read the first verses of his Gospel, which are evidently in imita- tion of those with which the Book of Moses opens : " In the beginning was the Word ; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." And if you wish to know what that Word is, refer to the 14th verse : " And * Psa. xxxiii. 6 ; Ileb. xi. 3 ; 2 Peter iii. 5. f Psa. cxix. 89 ; Psa. cxlvii. 15, 18. X Apoc. xix. 11, 13, 16. SERMON ir. 69 the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." If this accordance does not satisfy you, you will not at least refuse submission to the positive de- clarations of the Holy Ghost respecting the part that the Son of God has borne in the creation. We shall not avail ourselves of the eighth chapter of Proverbs,* in which you have not perhaps dis- cerned the Son under the designation of the " Wis- dom of God." But hear St. Paul : " By Him (the passage relates to the well-beloved Son) were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, and principalities or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him." "f And again : "■ God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds, who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by his power ; " :{: — and then learn from the same apostle in the same chapter,^ that it is to the Son you are to address this prayer of the Psalmist: " Lord, thou hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands." || Let us not omit this noble verse of the thirty- * Ver. 22, 31. t Col. i. 16. t Heb. i. 2. § Ver. 10. II Psa. cii. 70 SERMON II. third Psalm, which gives a summary of this won- derful doctrine; "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them, by the breath of his moutli." This verse throws a light on the first chapter of Genesis, which is reflected to it again; and if others will only see in this passage figurative expressions of the creative power of God, we cannot but recognise there the myste- rious partition of creation between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. These three will also exercise distinct agencies in that other creation by which souls have a new birth unto Divine life. The elect people of God are, as St. Peter expresses it, " according to the foreknow- ledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." * The Holy Spirit descends at the voice of the Father on the baptized Son,j- and the Catholic Church was to be baptized also, " in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.":}: On the day of Pentecost the Father sends the Spirit, in the name of and at the prayer of the Son ; § and the Spirit was not to come until the Son should have gone away. || It is for this reason that St. Paul bestows upon the Church " the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy * 1 Peter i. 2. f Matt. iii. 16, 17. X Malt, xxviii. 19. § Jolin xiv. IG, 26; Acts ii. 33. II John xvi. 7. SERMON II. 71 Ghost;"* and that we find in another passage, " For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strength- ened with might by his Spirit in the inner man ; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith ; that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." f Oh, may we now understand well, after such a com- mencement, the inexpressible magnificence of that aspiration with which the apostle concludes: — " Now, unto him that is able to do exceeding abun- dantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us," that of the Holy Spirit, " unto him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." :{: Have we read this right] — " exceeding abundantly, above all that we ask or think !" Yes ! for all the fulness of God is there ; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ! And, my brethren, have you the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost 1 The three unite in the creation of the world ; they unite in the redemption of man ; are they also united within you ? Are you born of the Father, and become his children ? Are you washed in the blood of the Son, and become members of his body 1 Are you baptized with the Spirit, and become his temples 1 Ponder upon these things ; for it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life.§ * 2 Cor. xiii. 14. f Eph. iii. 14—19. J Eph. iii. 20, 21. § Deut. xxxii. 47. 72 SERMON II. Finally, God creates, but for what purpose ? does he only wish to spread before you an enchanting exhibition '? No, he has nobler designs. The Lord has created all things for his glory,* and his first object is to render visible the invisible things hidden within himself, by giving them a body, and, if one may so speak, by exhibiting them in the form of flesh. The text is only applicable to man, the last and most perfect of his works, who being his image is also the glory of God. I But Scripture also informs us that the rest of creation was made with the same design, and that God shows forth himself in all his works. " The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." ;{: If, then, we desire to enter into the designs of the Creator, we must learn to discover, in the natural world, the eternal truths which God desires to impress upon our reason through our bodily vision. The Bible gives us invitations to this effect, and supplies us with an illustration, dictated by " the God of the spirits of all flesh." § There is nothing in the work of the six days in which the Bible does not afford us some lesson concerning the world of spirits. If God at the beginning creates the heavens and the earth, the Bible warns us to see in that work but a transient page, which, after it has borne its testimony, will be rolled together as a * See Isa. xliii. 7. f 1 Cor. xi. 7. X Rom. i. 20. § Num. xvi. 22. SERMON II. 73 scroll, * to make way for "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." •]■ If God says, " Let there be light," the Bible tells us, " that was the true light which entering into the world lighteth every man ; " X ^nd that " God who commandeth the light to shine out of darkness hath shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. "§ If God gathers the waters in the bed of the rivers and in the hollow of the seas, the Bible shows us in this water an emblem of the Holy Spirit, || and in Baptism the sign of regenera- tion.^ If God causes plants and trees to spring from the earth instantaneously, the Bible compares the kingdom of heaven to seed cast into the ground, which grows we know not how, " for the earth * Isa. xxxiv. 4. f Isa. Ixv. 17 ; 2 Pet. iii. 13. if John i. 9. Mai'tin translates the passage differently: — " qui eclaire tout homme venant au monde." He refers the word "coming" to man, while we refer it to the light. The grammar allows either of these interpretations ; but we un- hesitatingly say, that ours renders the sense more intelligible, and more conformable both to the doctrine and the language of Scripture, besides having the authority of the best commentators, Olshausen, Locke, Tholuck, &c. " To come into the world " is an expression consecrated to express the advent of our Lord in the Gospel according to St. John (xi. 27 ; xvi. 28 ; xviii. 37), whereas it is nowhere applied to the birth of man. Moreover, the context, and especially the tenth verse, would not in our opi- nion leave any doubt as to the evangelist's idea. — (The author's note.) — The English version agrees with that of Martin. — [Tr.] § 2 Cor. iv. 6. || John iv. 10, &c. ; vii. 38. % John iii. 5 ; Titus iii. 5. 74 SERMON II. bringeth forth fruit of herself, first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear."* And what shall I add — Is not the sun of the fourth day a figure of " the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his wings T'-j* And do not the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea, and the beasts of the field serve respectively as texts to the Bible 1 All the works of creation are so many witnesses that God has raised to proclaim his glory ; apostles have been commissioned from the beginning " to make their line go out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world," :f to announce the Gospel to the whole creation. Does this appear to you forced '? It did not so appear to St. Paul, for it is from him I have borrowed it. St. Paul applies to the preaching of the apostles of Jesus Christ the very words of the nineteenth Psalm, which I have just quoted. § Not that David did not there speak of heaven and earth ; but the Spirit which inspired him saw farther, and under visible representations he has sketched, in the first portion of this Psalm, the doctrine of life which fills up the second. Think not that these are only ingenious simili- tudes, like those of poets, but acknowledge in them the existence of a real and profound analogy, designed by God, between the works of his hands and the plan of redemption. The Bible * Mark iv. 26—28. f Matt. iv. 2. X Psalm xix. 4. § Rom. x. 18. SERMON II. 75 as much surpasses the poets of the world in the depth of its reasoning as in the beauty of its descriptions. The poet is limited to the visible world, the Bible reads beyond it. With the poet, visible things are his starting point — reality ; and even his imagination discerns in invisible things but a vague resemblance to things which are visible. With God invisible things are the starting point — reality ; to our view that which is visible, appears but the shadow and reflection of that which is invisible. Thus, in the language of Scripture, " Jesus Christ is the true Light, the true Bread, the true Vine," * and " heaven is the true Tabernacle ; " | though the light which illumines us, the bread which nourishes us, the vine which grows in our garden, the tabernacle made by hands, are but " the figures of the true." X But on the contrary, in the language of the poet, the true light, the true bread, the true vine, the true taber- nacle, are those which we see with our eyes; whereas Jesus Christ and heaven are only figura- tively in them. One man sees the figure, when another distinguishes the reality. It is not by a fortuitous coincidence, nor an illusion of fancy, that the water which washes the body designates the Holy Spirit, which purifies the heart, or that a tree, which is first covered with * Jolin i. 9 ; vi. 32 ; xv. 1. t Heb. viii. 2 ; ix. 24. X Ileb. ix. 24. 76 SERMON II. leaves, and then loaded with fruit, serves as an emblem of the soul, which combines the works of Christ with the confession of his name. But it is because the Author of nature is also the Father of Jesus Christ, and that he has drawn the plan of this world after the eternal type of the Son and of his kingdom, as Moses built his tabernacle according to the " pattern shewed to him in the Mount." * When St. Paul informs us " that by the Son were all things created that are in heaven and that are in the earth, visible and invisible," he adds, " that all things were created by him and for him," or with him in view. With Jesus Christ in view, God made all that he has made ; with Jesus Christ in view, God had the whole Bible written. That Bible only shews us God the Creator, to lead us to God the Saviour ; and if it commences with the words, " God created the heavens and the earth," it concludes with these, " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." Well, then, Christians, since it was with Jesus Christ in view that God created the world, let us regard it with our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and let us not contemplate him as cold and insensate observers, merely for the satisfaction of looking on him with our eyes, nor as heartless Deists, who discover in him nothing but conclusive * Heb. viii. 5. SERMON II. 77 evidences of the existence and perfections of the Creator. Let us contemplate him as Christians, who seek their Saviour everywhere. May the soft clearness of the heavens, the sun rising above the horizon, the firmament spangled with stars, and willows planted by the running brooks ; may the withered leaf that falls, and the fields white to harvest, and the vineyard, and the wine-press, and the bird escaping from the hand of the fowler, and the sheep dumb before its shearer, and the lamb led to the slaughter, — may all things, in a word, place our Saviour before us, and remind us that the God who has given us life, is also the God of our salvation. * Let us have but the eyes of a Christian and everything will speak to us of Christ. Thus shall we experience, in the fullest sense, that beautiful maxim of the " Imitation.'' •\ " All creatures would teach you to live as you ought to do, if your heart were right. It would be a book in which you would only find lessons of holiness." " Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work : I will triumph in the works of thy hands. O Lord, how great are thy works ! and thy thoughts are very deep." % * "I know not how to express to you," wrote a friend to me, on seeing the amphitlieatre of the Alps, for the first time after he had known the Lord, — " I know not how to express to you what I have felt while thinking that He who formed Mont Blanc was my Saviour." I By Thomas a Kempis. | Psalm xcii. 4, 5. SERMON III. EXODUS XX. 13. " Thou shalt not kill.'' The selection of this text somewhat surprises you. You think that such a subject would be more appropriate in a forest of evil repute, before a band of robbers, than in a house of prayer, in presence of a congregation composed of whatever is most decorous and respectable in society. How can it be supposed that among those whom I now address there could be any individuals capable of transgress- ing this commandment, "Thou shalt not kilH " I can easily conceive your surprise. Yet do not judge hastily. Many unlikely things are however found to be true when attentively examined. Then let us examine them. You will afterwards be yourselves the judges. As to me, I shall judge no man; I shall individualize no one. I shall only put questions to you. I leave it to each of you to answer for himself, in his conscience, and before God. SERMON III. 79 Let us observe, in the first place, that there are two ways of breaking the sixth commandment. It may be broken according to its true and actual meaning ; it may be broken also in a spiritual and more enlarged sense ; two transgressions, very difiierent in the eyes of men, who see the first, but do not perceive the second, though both are equally deserving of condemnation before God, who knows the secret workings of the heart, as well as those that are visible to men. This principle has been laid down by Jesus Christ respecting a particular commandment, whence it is easy to extend his meaning to all the others, "Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery already with her in his heart." * There is the idolatry of the knees and there is the idolatry of the heart ; there is the lying of the lips and the lying of the heart. There is also killing according to the letter, and killing according to the spirit. For this reason, then, we have proposed in this discourse the general question : Have you broken the sixth commandment'? this divides itself into two separate questions ; Have you transgressed the letter of the sixth commandment ■? Have you transgressed its spirit I We are about to examine each of them in turn. Have you transgressed the letter of the sixth commandment \ * Matt. V. 28. 80 SERMON I IT. Have you killed'? And in the first place, has any one here present killed a man with his own hand 1 It is not absolutely impossible, that there may be present here a man to whom that may have happened ; not indeed in the manner which the world condemns, and the laws of society permit, but in that other mode of which the laws take no cognizance, and which the world tolerates, even though it approves not of it — I mean in a duel. Would such a man be a murderer in your opinion ? He would not be an assassin undoubtedly, since he attacked his antagonist face to face, prepared for the combat ; but would he be a murderer 1 Is a man a man 1 and is killing killing "? Do you reply that duels are seldom fatal? That may be true, but there is the hazard of killing ; and even if there be no fatal result, what is done "? Blood is shed. Is not this half murder ? is it not written: " The blood is the lifeV* And is not shedding blood synonymous in every language with killing"? If this does not satisfy you, go to your philosophers, for instance, Jean Jacques Rous- seau, who thus answers a duellist who pleaded in his excuse, that he only fought until the first blood was drawn, f " The first blood ! and what will you do with that blood, ferocious brute, will you drink itl" * Deut. xii. 23. f The then usual mode of duelling in France with swords is to be understood. SERMON III. 81 If you have never fought a duel — and perhaps circumstances alone have prevented you from doing so, or if you belong to the sex which does not fight, have you approved of those who have done so*? The Spirit of God teaches us, in the first chapter of the Epistle to the E-omans, * that to have pleasure in them that do evil things is worse than to commit them, -f a sentiment ex- pressed in other terms by a very intellectual woman, who said, that " She hated bad maxims even more than bad actions;":}: which is very just, because a bad action may arise from temporary allurement, while a bad maxim supposes corrup- tion rooted in the heart. Have you countenanced duelling'? Have you tolerated it ^ Have you thought that there are certain circumstances, certain pro- fessions in which it is not criminal? Have you failed in the duty of protesting against all cases, all forms of a custom which is a combination equally detestable and absurd, of weakness and courage, of barbarism and politeness, which for a word or gesture plunges, under the forms of good breed- ing, and as if for amusement, a wife into mourn- ing, a family into despair, and which, even if it does not produce those bloody fruits, at least, and * Ver. 32. f The verse in our version does not directly express this : but the Greek commentators understood the passage in the sense in which M. Monod applies it. J Madame Necker. G 82 SERMON III. as if to compensate for not having caused them, shows clearly, and boasts in letters of blood, that it could have produced such results. In short, has society into which duelling has been able to force its way, and in which it has established its sway, and made the laws, civilisation, common sense, and natural affection subordinate to it, and at last has passed as a matter of necessity, of honour, and of virtue ; has society, I ask, violated the letter of the sixth commandment "? Have you killed? killing is not alone causing the immediate death of a man ; it is also occasion- ing it after a week, a year, or even longer ; it is not only taking away, it is shortening life. Have you shortened the days of any person ? Have you, in the heat of a dispute, or in the excitement of passion, or in cold blood, caused a wife, a child, a servant, a labourer, to suffer from those furious blows, or from that continued ill-treatment which wears out the animal frame, by injuring its func- tions and undermining its vigour? Have you taken advantage of the wants of the poor and the weakness of children to overload them with ex- cessive toil, causing them to drag on a sickly existence, and then to languish and fade and die by inches, that they may minister to your profit and your pride ? Have you by your avarice, by your harshness, by your injustice, oppressed an inferior, discouraged industry, impeded the success of a family, deprived a father of employment, a SERMON III. 83 mother of sleep, and children of their bread ? Have you led a companion, a friend, to plunge into the excesses of the table, or into the lusts of the flesh, which have injured and perhaps ruined his health for ever'? Have you, in destroying a reputation, in causing domestic trouble, in breaking a tender heart by your coldness, in repaying benefits with ingratitude, implanted in the bosom of some indi- vidual, perhaps of one near to you, a wife, a father, or a mother, one of those deep-seated and incurable sorrows, which overwhelm life, break down the strength of the body, and cause it to descend prematurely to the grave ■? I might urge these questions farther. And is it not a mode of killing to let a human creature die ? Is it not a mode of shortening a man's days to omit the means of prolonging them when you have the power of using them"? Have you by refusal, by neglect, by parsimony, left the Lazarus at your door, whom the crumbs from your table might have nourished, to perish of disease or misery '? Have you dissipated in pleasures, frivo- lous if not criminal, the means which might have given liberty to the captive, health to the sick, and food to the famished, whose cries of misery were ascending to heaven, simultaneously with the mirthful sounds of your balls and concerts ? Have you killed 1 Killing is not only killing another, it is also killing oneself Have you abridged the term of your own days ] Have you G 2 84 SERMON III. exhausted the treasure of your health and strength in impurity, in intemperance, in voluptuousness, in the immoderate pursuit of any object, or even in any excessive toil undertaken for your own pleasure, and not enjoined by duty"? I should never conclude if I were to enter into the details of the different modes by which the sixth commandment may be broken. Consider those which I have pointed out, add to them many similar ones which I leave to yourselves to find out; then reflect deeply on this question : — Have you transgressed the letter of the sixth com- mandment ? Is there any one here who has trans- gressed it"? is there any one here who has not trans- gressed it? I judge not; I do not pronounce on any individual, I only put the question. I leave to each of you the task of answering for himself. Have you violated the spirit of the sixth com- mandment 1 I might at once say that you have done so, if you have intentionally broken any other commandment whatsoever, even the most different from the sixth ; for example, that which forbids covetousness. This assertion surprises you. Alas ! the Word of God always does so. " Whosoever shall keep the whole law," says St. James, " and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." AYhat a paradox! think you. But proceed ; this paradox will be soon explained by a very simple and yet, upon the whole, a very profound consideration. " For he SERMON III. 85 that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commitest no adultery, yet if thou killest, thou art become a transgressor of the Law." * Let me illustrate the apostle's meaning by a familiar comparison. A father says to his son, My son, you must this day do two things for me ; you must work in my vineyard and deliver a message for me. The son replies, Father, I will not deliver your message, but I will work in your vineyard, — and he goes there. Now I shall put this question to you, Does the son obey his father's command by labouring in the vineyard ? Accord- ing to the letter he does ; but according to the spirit? He obeys with the hands; but does he obey with the heart 1 He does what his father commanded ; but does he do so because his father commanded him 1 No, for in that case he would also have done the second thing which his father had equally enjoined. Why then does he obey him in the first instance? Evidently because his father's command is agreeable to his own pleasure. If he felt any repugnance to obey it, he would, as he did in the second case, have refused obedience ; and if he should subsequently experience any disinclination to labour in the vineyard, he will refuse it too, in its turn. From the first moment, then, he rebels in spirit. He only pleases himself, * James ii. 11. 86 SERMON III. and is disobedient to his father, even when he seems to obey him. By disregarding one of his commandments he disobeys the paternal authority ; and in disobeying that, he transgresses the spirit of all his father's commands, even those which he fulfils according to the letter. You now may understand the sentiment which I have borrowed from St. James. You have trans- gressed the spirit of the sixth commandment, if you have deliberately broken any other command- ment whatever. For instance, if you have coveted; why have you not killed 1 Is it because God has forbidden it 1 No, for in that case you would also have refrained from covetousness, which God has equally forbidden. Why then have you not killed 1 Because murder is forbidden by the laws of your country, or by your own interest, or by the force of public opinion, or by your conscience"? You are, then, obeying the laws, your interest, public opinion, or your conscience, and not God. You disobey him with the semblance of obedience. In disregarding a single commandment of God you reject the authority of God, and in rejecting the authority of God you reject the spirit of all his commandments, even of those which you observe in the letter. After this, in order to know if you have violated the spirit of the sixth commandment, we should only have to inquire if you have wilfully broken SERMON III. 87 any other commandment, if you have coveted, slandered, borne false testimony, or committed theft? But let us pass on to a more definite question. Have you violated the sixth commandment, accord- ing to its spirit? I do not now mean indirectly and through the infraction of another, but directly, and vi^ith reference to itself alone? You have violated the spirit of the sixth commandment, if you have hated, or cherished in your heart any kindred disposition, — revenge, jealousy, anger. The Holy Spirit declares by the mouth of St. John, "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer."* But, before we apply to you this rigid principle, let us be sure that you fully understand it, and let us justify it by the same reasoning that we have just applied with regard to the principle advanced by St. James. He who hateth his brother is a murderer in God's sight, because the feelings to which he yields, if nothing obstructs their influence, may lead him step by step to lift his arm against his brother, as Cain did against Abel. Murder is to hatred what the fruit is to the seed ; it is its development, its completion, its last point. " Out of the heart (said our Lord) proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." Ask one of those wretched * 1 John iii. 46. 88 SERMON III. beings who have laid a homicidal hand on a fellow-creature, and prevail upon him to relate his deplorable history. He did not all at once reach the height of crime, and he remembers a period in his life when the mere contemplation of murder would have filled him with as much horror as you feel this day at the thought of it. Endeavour to trace the gradations through which he passed until he came to the original source of his crime. A few days ago he was a fierce conspirator, who con- stantly revolved in his mind the design of striking the object of his hatred, but whose hands were yet unstained with the blood of that person. Until he had resolved on committing the terrible deed, he was a deadly foe, secretly desiring the death of his enemy, but not yet meditating the gratification of his revenge by a crime. His heart, before it fully admitted the murderous desire, was abandoned to its passions, — to jealousy, vengeance, hatred, and other feelings, as yet undefined — and ignorant of the fatal point at which they were to terminate. I ask you now, m hen did this man, whose history you have here, and who has been thus led from hatred to the desire of vengeance, and from that desire to the designing of means, and from the designing of means to the execution of them — become a murderer"? In the opinion of man, who only looks upon the outward appearance, he was only so when he committed the murder; but, in SERMON III. 89 the judgment of the Lord, who "looketh upon the heart,* " was he a murderer before he committed the deed ^ was he a murderer an hour previously to the deed of blood, when posted on the path of his victim, his eye watchful, his ear stretched, his weapon ready, he was awaiting the fatal moment ■? Was he a murderer when his mind first conceived the confused and undefined notion of the murder 1 Was he a murderer when he secretly wished for the death of his enemy and regarded him with murderous looks'? Was he a murderer when he cherished against him a vague feeling of jealousy or of antipathy, which led him gradually into the path, of which he himself saw not the issue 1 And if death, if any unforeseen obstacle had arrested him when he was plotting the death of his foe, or thirsting for it, or fostering hatred, was he not already, in the sight of God, what he was after- wards to become in the sight of man if he had lived and been able to execute his pui-pose 1 Yes ; according to sound philosophy, agreeably with the Word of God, this man was a murderer from the time when he began to hate his neighbour ; and whoever hates his neighbour is a murderer like him in the eyes of God, " who understands our thoughts afar off." He is a murderer from the first in spirit ; and he may become so in deed if circumstances second his hate and favour its deve- lopment. A man may become an assassin, who * 1 Sam. xvi. 7. 90 SERMON III. to-day is well-disposed and who would shudder at the very thought of such a thing. I make this remark among a nation who have furnished more examples than any other of this dangerous ten- dency ; among a people who but fifty years since had terrible experience of what our natural pas- sions may produce, when the curb of the laws and of public opinion is removed ; among a people who are justly reputed to have the most effective police in the universe ; and yet in periods of dis- order and revolution have produced men of blood by hundreds, in their state of terrorism, who had previously perhaps been well-disposed, humane, and virtuous perhaps, according to the world. Let us acknowledge then with St. John: " That whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer ;" and let us understand this profound saying of our Lord : " Ye have heard that it was said by them of the old time, thou shalt not kill ; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say to his bro- ther, Raca, shall be in danger of the council ; but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." * In pursuing this principle, in order to know if you have violated the spirit of the sixth command- ment, it is sufficient to analyse this question ; have * Matt. V. 21, 22. SERMON III. 91 you hated? I do not address it only to those furious men who exhibit in their demeanour and language the clear manifestations of vengeance and hatred; I address it to all. Have you hated? Hated! I? you exclaim, how can you ask such a question ? Is it not obvious, from my language and conduct, that I entertain the tenderest feelings for my friends, and benevolence towards all men ? I wish with my whole heart that I could subscribe to the testimony which you give of yourself. But faith- ful to the spirit of this address, I must examine and interrogate you. Do you hate ? I take it for granted that you look upon the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God, and that you consequently believe to be true what it declares as true, not only if it accords with your personal feel- ings, but even if it be contrary to them, because there can be no doubt which of the two is in error, God or you. I ask, then, does Scripture declare that you do hate ? This is a question of fact easily solved. Open the Bible. In the portraiture which it traces of human nature, in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans — a portraiture which Scripture applies to heathens, Jews, and to all men, you find the following traits : — " Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covet- ousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understand- 92 SERMON III. ing, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful." * And in this other portrait which it draws, in the Epistle to Titus, of unregeneratc men, it paints them as " foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another." These words astonish, and perhaps offend you; but place yourselves on the elevated height of Gospel morality, and you will see that selfishness conceals an element of hatred. The selfish man hates others, inasmuch as he loves himself more than them ; and if placed in the alternative of sacri- ficing their interest or his own, their's must give way. Does self-love, then, prevail in the worlds Does it prevail in your own heart *? In the senti- ments which you entertain, I say not towards an enemy, or a rival, or a person indifferent to you, but towards a friend, are you selfish "? Do you love him more for your own sake than for his 1 Does your affection grow cold when the trouble which it imposes upon you interferes with your tastes or interests'? Do you become, by change of posi- tion, of fortune, of poUtical party, the enemy of your friend ? What do I say 1 Are you found to become austere, if not inimical, towards a friend, a wife, a child, because they have believed in Jesus Christ, and renounced the world to which you are still clinging^ Do you love, in short, with the ♦ Rom. i. 29, 30. SERMON III. 93 feeling commonly understood by the term love, but which philosophy calls self-esteem, and which God calls hatred ? These are questions having reference to those whom you love ; and with respect to those whom you do not love, those who are indifferent to you, rivals, or enemies, do you hate them'? Is there any hatred in your indifference 1 any of it in your rivalships ] any in your animosities ] Have you transgressed the spirit of the sixth commandment; have you hated'? Is there any one here who hates his neighbour '? Is there any one here who has never hated his neJffhbour^ I pronounce no judgment. I only put questions. I leave it to each individual to answer for himself. If alarmed and troubled by what has been advanced ; wondering that I should have grounds for inquiring in solemn earnest, whether you are guilty or not of murder, what will you think, when pursuing the development of my text, I proceed to ask you, whether you are not guilty of another violation of the sixth commandment, more fatal than even murder itself? You will not, I suppose, deny the following pro- position. Of the two parts of which man is con- stituted, the body is less precious than the soul, because the body is to " return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken," whilst " the soul is to return to God who gave it," and appear at the Judgment. The death of the body, the passage to another existence, is less to be dreaded than the 94 SERMOiN III. death of the soul, which is eternal condemnation. Killing the body, then, is committing a lesser injury to a man than killing his soul. Well, have you committed this murder of the soul, this spiritual murder 1 AYhat is killing the soul? Learn it of Satan, who was a murderer from the beginning, not only of the body but of the soul. God had said to Adam and Eve, " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Satan appeared to them, and said, " Ye shall not surely die." They eat, and are condemned to death, temporal and eternal. Satan killed their souls by persuading them to fall into sin which brought forth death. Now if God afterwards provided the means of deliverance for man under condemnation, so that his soul should no longer die if he believed, Satan is no less the murderer of his soul ; for he is the author of condemnation and not of deliverance. Killing the soul of any one is doing to him what Satan has done to Adam and Eve ; it is causing him to fall into sin which produces death. Have you destroyed a soul ? Have you led any one into sin ? If you have not encouraged him by your precepts, have you not at least led him into it by your example 1 Have you by flattery nourished his pride, strengthened his sinful desires by your compliance, excited his anger by your want of temper, aroused his vengeance by your injustice, prevailed over his scruples by your laxity of prin- SERMON III. 95 ciple, corrupted his sentiments by your licentious conversation, shaken his foitli by your doubts, checked his awakening piety by your ridicule 1 In short, have you been the occasion of offence in any manner to any individual ? Farther : Have you been the occasion of offence in the most criminal way'? Have you been the occasion of offence to those very persons whose souls the Almighty has intrusted to your keeping, as a sacred deposit for which he will one day call you to account — your inferiors, your domestics, your families 1 and to end with this most serious of all questions, have you been a stumbling-block to your children'? Have you allowed them to form dangerous friendships? Have you put into their hands, or permitted them to read, corrupting books, and shown them examples of sin '? Have you taught them, by your indifference or levity, to forget the Lord, to neglect his service, to keep away from his holy Word, to forsake his worship ? Have you taught them to seek what we term fortune, the approbation of man, and worldly success, more than the forgiveness of God and eternal life, even at the loss of that forgiveness and that life"? Have you directly or indirectly, in words or deeds, hindered them from surrendering their hearts to God, and have you sided with the scoffing and profane world to keep them in unbe- lief, that is to say, in the broad path of perdition ? Have you soured their tempers by your impatience, 96 SERMON III. inflated their self-love by injudicious praise, tole- rated their culpable tendencies, favoured their sensualities, encouraged their idleness, smiled at their falsehoods, jested at their improprieties'? The world asks with levity and often in a tone which shows that it will not bestow a moment's thought upon the matter : fathers and mothers, do you spoil your children"? But God asks it with the high and awful majesty of the Holy of Holies, and with a voice which makes us feel that he will remember the question for ever : fathers and mothers, do you kill the souls of your children 1 Killing a soul is not only killing the soul of another, it is killing one's own soul ; it is not only doing that which Satan did to the hurt of Adam, but what Adam did to his own hurt. Have you destroyed your soul ] Have you followed Adam in his disobedience 1 Have you practised those works " the wages of which is death 1 " Have you drawn on yourself the curse denounced against " every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them "? " * Have you transgressed the spirit of the sixth commandment ^ Have you committed soul mur- der *? Is there any one here who has committed soul murder 1 Is there any one here who has not done so] I judge not. I pronounce not. I only propose questions. I leave to each person the duty of answering for himself. * Gal. iii. 10. SERMON III. 97 In this successive interrogatory respecting all the varied applications of the sixth commandment, graduating the terms in proportion as I reach from one transgression of the commandment to another more serious, what terms can I use when advancing a step higher] And yet there still remains one. There remains still a possible violation of this com- mandment more odious than all those of which I have yet spoken. There is still a question to be put to you. All the sins we have as yet enumerated relate to man. But killing a child of man is a lesser crime than killing — whom ? The Son of God, Jesus Christ. It would be as impossible to depict the enormity of this murder as it would be to describe the greatness of the victim. Jesus Christ, if you believe the Scriptures, is the Son of God, who has assumed our nature to rescue sinners from the damnation of hell, by suffering a hell for them. He is the Word of God, who was in the beginning with God, and who was God. He is the image of God, the glory of God, the wisdom of God, the justice of God. He is the light, the door, the way, the truth, the life. He is the Father of Eternity, the Prince of Peace, the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; the Creator of heaven and earth, the Lord our Righ- teousness, God with us. What would killing him be '? Who can find language to express this crime 1 I cannot. This, then, is my last question ; tremblingly I H 98 SERMON III. ask it: — Have you killed the Son of God"? Do not exclaim at the exaggeration and extravagance of the idea. This crime is possible, because it has been committed ; possible to men, because it has been committed by men. Do you remember what the Son of God suifered from men 1 In his infancy his life is threatened by Herod, who, in order to cut him off with greater certainty, massacres all the little children of an entire city. He Hves in lowliness and poverty, not having a place where to lay his head. He is despised, rejected, insulted, maligned. He is called Nazarene, Samaritan, Galilean, Sinner, Sabbath- breaker, deceiver, liar, blasphemer, glutton, wine- bibber, madman, devil. Behold him forsaken in his agony in Gethsemane by his three favoured disciples, betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, forsaken by all, delivered defenceless to false wit- nesses. A murderer is preferred to him. Plis face is spit upon. He is buffeted. His eyes are bandaged. He is bound. He is scourged. He is clothed with a scarlet robe. Pie is crowned with thorns, which are forced by the scourge into his bleeding fore- head. He is led to execution, bowing beneath the weight of his cross. He dies at length, crucified between two malefactors ; he dies, mocked by the Jews and Komans ; mocked even to the end ; mocked in his parching thirst ; mocked in his cry of agony ; mocked in his last prayer. It was thus the Son of God was killed ; not only in the day of his SERMON III. 99 death, but every day, from the beginning to tlie end of his ministry ; killed both in the letter and the spirit ; persecuted, tormented, murdered, hated, tempted, insulted, crucified ; and by whom "? — by men ; by what men 1 Could it be by you ? Those who crucified Jesus Christ are not only those Roman soldiers, who fastened him to the cross, and who drove the nails into his hands and feet ; they are not only those Pharisees, who dragged him before Pilate, or the people who cried, " Away with him ! away with him ! crucify him ! " Those persons crucified him according to the letter. But who have crucified him according to the Spirit? Are they not those, who, by their sins, have caused his death ] This is the doctrine of St. Paul. For how else are we to explain these words, " For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, — if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." * How do they " crucify " him'? Not by their hands, but by their sins ; they identify them- selves in spirit with his murderers, as if they wished to renew their work of blood. Does this notion appear extraordinary to you "? I shall here institute a comparison, and suppose that you have committed one of those crimes which human justice * Heb. vi. 4, 6. H 2 100 SERMON III. will punish with death ; that at the moment when you are about to suffer execution, a generous friend comes forward and offers to suffer in your place ; that his sacrifice is accepted, that he dies for you, and that your life is spared. I ask you, have you no jiart in the death of that man 1 and does not his blood speak as it flows, to your conscience 1 Then I also ask you, have you no share in the death of Jesus Christ, if you are of those for whom his blood has flowed "? At the foot of the cross of our Lord, the Roman soldiers parted his raiment and cast lots for his robe. At the foot of that same cross I this day propose another partition. Those sins, which at the moment were accumulated on the Son of God ; those sins which bent his august and sacred head under the weight of his Father's malediction ; those sins which forced him to cry out, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken meV those sins, in a word, which crucified him; who are really chargeable with those lies, those frauds, those thefts, those resentments, those calumnies, those backbitings, those repinings, those sneers, those impurities 1 Come, and let each of you distinguish that which belongs to himself in this humiliating and sad re-partition of individual shares. What say you to this ? Do you also find a portion to claim *? Have you anything at all to do with the blood of this Just One ? Are you too amongst those enemies, whom he came to reconcile with his Father, at the price of his life ? Do you SERMON III. 101 belong to that accursed race, in whose name a prophet has said, " He was wounded for our trans- gressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." * Have you violated the spirit of the sixth com- mandment ] Have you crucified the Son of God 1 Is there any one here who has crucified the Son of God ] Is there any one here who has not crucified the Son of God? I judge not; I do not pro- nounce. I only put questions. I leave to each individual the responsibility of answering for himself. Does there remain to me any new application of the sixth commandment, any new question to address to you ] No. This trait is the last. And w^ere there another, I should not have the courage to continue ; I could not go farther ; I fail under the weight of my subject. I shall sum up with what has been said, and conclude. The whole of this discourse reduces itself to this question, Have you broken the sixth command- ment'? First, Have you transgressed its letter'? Have you cut off, or in any manner shortened, the days of any fellow-creature "? Secondly, Have you transgressed the spirit of the sixth commandment ■? And, in the first place, have you transgressed the spirit of the sixth commandment by cherishing any of those feelings which may lead to murder, — to * Isa. Iv. o. 102 SERMON III. hatred in particular'? Secondly, Have you trans- gressed the spirit of the sixth commandment by- killing a soul — that is, by leading it into sin'? And, finally : Have you violated the spirit of the sixth commandment by crucifying the Son of God? To all those questions I know not what will be your answer. This is mine. To the first question, Yes ; to the second, Yes ; and to all the following questions, even to the last, Yes. Yes; oh my Saviour, I am of that impious race, who have laid a murderous hand upon thee ; and when my salva- tion was thy work, thy sufferings were caused by me ! I am, in the sight of God, a murderer. I have merited for my lot the burning lake of fire and brimstone, reserved for murderers. One word more ; I might take the ten com- mandments of God's law successively, and question you upon each of them as I have done with the sixth, which I have selected only because the transgression of it is least understood. I would ask you. Have you preferred other gods in the face of the true God '? — that is, have you been un- faithful to his service'? Have you worshipped idols? — that is to say, have you loved the creature more than the Creator ] Have you taken the name of God in vain ? — that is, have you pronounced it with irreverence 1 Have you desecrated the Sab- bath? — that is, have you carelessly observed the day of rest ? Have you neglected to honour your SERMON III. 103 father and your mother 1 — that is, have you failed in respect or in obedience to them'? Have you committed adultery'? — that is to say, is your heart impure and carnal"? Have you stolen"? — that is, have you a selfish and an unjust heart"? Have you borne false witness"? — that is, have you calum- niated, slandered, lied, broken your word ? Have you coveted"? — that is, have you an envious and jealous heart"? To all those questions I know not what will be your reply. This is mine. To the first question, Yes; to the second, Yes; to the third, Yes; and even to the last, Yes. I have broken all the com- mandments of my God, from the first to the last ; several in the letter, all in the spirit ; I am not a better man than Job, who said : " I cannot an- swer him one of a thousand."* I have deserved all the punishments denounced against the viola- tion of all the commandments. I have deserved in this world a thousand deaths; and in the world to come, I have deserved what is worse than a thousand deaths — death ; that death which can neither be divided, nor multiplied, nor increased, nor diminished ; that death, which is one, single, infinite, eternal. Hell has not torments too pain- ful nor too enduring for the punishment of my sins. I have been condemned to it, I know the way to it, and I have a long time walked in it. If you cannot unite with me in these responses ; * Job ix. 3. 104 SERMON III. if your answer to all these questions be No ; if you have kept the commandments of God, both according to the letter and the spirit ; if you are neither a murderer nor an idolater, nor a Sabbath- breaker, nor carnal, nor anything, in short, that I am, it is not for you that I preach. You have no need of me. You neither want the Bible nor Jesus Christ. You think yourselves righteous, holy, free from danger, worthy of heaven. What can be said to you ] But if there be any one here whose state re- sembles mine; if there be any one here who knows himself, were it for the first time in his life, to be sinful, condemned, lost, cursed of God, — let him rejoice. It is for him, for him especially, that the voice has gone forth from heaven and still proceeds from every page of the Bible — grace ! grace ! grace ! but only for the guilty ; salvation, but only for him who is lost ; eternal life, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, but for him only who is on the path of eternal death, and in the kingdom of Satan. A grace, not a grace to be merited, but a free grace; not a grace to come, but a grace prepared before the begin- ning of the world ; not a grace which is of works, but a grace which is a grace'? Yes, the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin. Come, then, my poor partner in sin and misery, let us together plunge into " the fountain opened in Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness." Then " though our SERMON III. 105 sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." I might say more to you ; but lie who believes himself lost quickly finds a better in- structor. It is no longer for me to ask him ques- tions; it is for him to ask this question of the Word of God: "What shall I do to be saved T' — a question which always receives, nay carries within itself its own answer : " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." O God of our Lord Jesus Christ, I send him to thee ! Thou Shepherd of souls, I present to thee this wearied and heavy-laden soul ! Give him peace. Thou wilt give him peace. His anguish and terrors remove my apprehensions on his ac- count. If he be convinced of sin and perdition, it is because thy Spirit has began to speak to him ; and if thy Spirit speaks to him, to whom will it guide him but to thee, to thee the Christ, the Son of the living God ; to thee, who " hast the words of eternal life;" to thee, " the Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world ; " on whom we lay hold by faith and as the only hope of our life, to find thee in heaven as the only joy of our eternity. Amen. SERMON IV. ] JOHN IV. 8. " God is love:' In a small Italian town, which the volcano of Mount Vesuvius buried, eighteen centuries ago, beneath a jflood of lava, some ancient manuscripts have been found, so burned, as to bear more resem- blance to charcoal embers than to books, and which are unfolded by an ingenious process, with difficulty and slowly, line after line, and word after word. Let us suppose that one of these rolls of Herculaneum inclosed a copy (and the only one in the world) of our Epistle. Having come to the fourth chapter and eighth verse, these two words have been just deciphered : God is , and no one yet knows what is to follow. What sus- pense ! That which philosophers have so anxiously and so vainly sought, that which the wisest among them have at last given up as beyond the reach of investigation — a definition of God ; here, then, see it, and see it from the hand of God himself. SERMON IV. 107 God is What are we going to say, and what is he ■? What is this hidden God, who dwells in light inaccessible, whom no man hath seen nor can see, whom we seek as if groping our way, though he is not far from each of us, and who constrains us to cry out with Job: " Oh, that I knew where I might find him ! Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive him ; on the left hand where he doth work, but I cannot behold him, he hideth himself on the right hand that I cannot see him." * What is this powerful God, whose word has created all that exists, and whose word can annihilate every exist- ence'? " in whom we live and move and have our being," •]* who holds us continually under his control, and who does what he pleases with our existence, our situation, our sojourn, our connexions in life, our bodies, and even our souls'? AVhat is this Holy God, whose eyes are too pure to behold ini- quity, whom our conscience accuses us of having offended, and whose indignation is vaguely made known to us by a natural impression, though neither conscience nor nature could lead us to conjecture whether pardon may be obtained from him ; this just Judge, into whose hands we shall fall at our de- parture hence — it may be to-morrow, it may be to- day — in ignorance of the eternal sentence reserved for us, and knowing only that we have deserved that * Job xxiii. 3, 8, 9. f ^^ts xvii. 28. 108 SERMON IV. it should be unfavourable to us] What is He"? Our rest, our salvation, our eternity, our all. Methinks I see all God's creatures bending over the sacred volume in silent and solemn expecta- tion of what is about to be revealed to the world respecting the most momentous of all questions. Here is the momentous word displayed: — " love." " God is love." What better can be desired, what can the most ardent and daring imagination con- ceive that is to be comparable with tliis "? This in- visible God, this all-powerful God, this holy God, — He is LOVE, — what now do we require 1 God loves us ; loves us, do I say 1 everything of God is love. Love is his very essence. He who names God, speaks of love. " God is love I " Oh ! this is our answer, surpassing all our hopes ! thrice blessed revelation which terminates all our appre- hensions ! the assured pledge of our present, future, and eternal felicity ! Yes, if we can believe ; for it is not enough that God is love if we cannot say with St. John, " We have known and believed the love that God hath to us." The love of God can neither comfort nor nlighten, nor sanctify, nor even save us — the love of God is to us as if it were not, until it has been " shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us," * and " mixed with * Rom. V. 5. The love of God in this passage is the love of God for us, and not our love for God. SERMON IV. 109 US by faith." * As spiritual and responsible crea- tures, we possess the glorious but fearful privilege of opening or closing our hearts to the love of God, and therefore, of profiting by or excluding our- selves from this love — the rich treasure of mankind and the universal hope. Faith in the love of God is, then, the sentiment which I desire to excite in you. Oh, that 1 could dismiss you deeply influ- enced and affected in your inmost hearts by this idea : God is love. Lord, if it be true that Thou art love, make it known here, by directing my words by thy love, and by opening the hearts of this congregation to it ! True love not only declares itself in words, it shows itself, or rather, according to a fine expres- sion of St. John, God has bestowed it upon us.f God not only tells us that he is love, but he has proved it by visible indications, by astonishing facts, which change this soul-affecting doctrine into a narrative still more touching. Open your ears * Heb. iv. 2. M. Monod uses the follovying ^yords : — mele avec nous par lafoi; he subjoins a note respecting this expres- sion. " By faith the Woi-d of God enters into our soul and unites with it, as the aliments which enter into our body assi- milate with its substance. The translation which we liave followed is more literal and more clear than that which has been adopted in our versions." j" " Voyez quel amour le Pire nous a donne" is the version given in a note by M. Monod, who seems to have adopted ours. Accoriling to Martin's version, the expression is, " Voyez quelle charite le Pere a cue po7ir vous." 110 SERMON IV. and hear. Open your eyes and see. No more is wanting to perceive clearly that God is love. It is not from the works of creation, nor from natural life, that I would deduce these facts, though each is filled with the love of God, for the " Lord is good to all," " Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord;"* but the proofs which they furnish would be insufficient to persuade us, because indications of wrath mingle with love in the works of the Creator. If the genial warmth of the sun pervades nature with life and joy ; if majestic rivers fertilise the earth; if the balmy winds refresh and purify the air that we breathe ; if the earth sustains and nourishes the generations of man ; have we not seen this sun become also a consuming fire ] these rivers devastating torrents "? these gentle winds furious tempests, which dash a hundred and fifty ships upon our coasts in a single night "? and this earth, this faithful earth, become a moving mass which in a day, an hour, a moment, swallows up a city, and sweeps it from the face of heaven ? If the domestic fireside has joys so sweet, those tender overflowings of the heart, that partner so suited to us, our second selves in whom we live again, that endearment of a little child, and that mother's smile ; alas ! has not all this its acute sorrows also 1 those conflicts of the heart, those privations of poverty, those pains * Tsa. cl. 6. SERMON IV. Ill of sickness, and, sooner or later, death, which even before it terminates our enjoyments, imparts to them, while in the vigour of vitality, a mortal chill, through the daily apprehension of seeing them elude our feeble grasp"? It is true, that if we would take pains to reconcile these contradictory experiences, to distinguish between the Creator and the creature, we should discover that the marks of Divine wrath did not appear in the original design of the creation, and that the work of the Almighty, as it came from his hands, was as radiant with love as the sun is with light. What love in the work of the six days, each of which in the language of Moses ended with these words ; " And God saw that it was good," and the last work ended with these words : " And God saw everything that he had made ; and behold it was very good ! " "What love in the brightness of the heavens, in the fruitful earth, in the order of the seasons, in the starry firmament, in the living multitude which peoples and animates the whole creation ! What love in man, made after the similitude of God, capable of thought, of speech, and of love ! Conceive the extent of love in the words, " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness!" What love in Eden, in that abode of pure delights, and in man's week — corresponding with the six days of creation — between labour so easy and repose so sweet! What love in the gift of woman, formed from the side of man, in their union so tender and so pure, 112 SERMON IV. and in all that simple happiness which, though unfelt by us, has left in the depth of our hearts an undefined and mournful remembrance ! What love even in that tree of knowledge of good and evil, by which God tried our first parents, and which, if they had been faithful, would have changed their child-like innocence into an obedience founded upon reason and free-will ! If we could have questioned Adam before his fall, we should have heard from the abundance of his heart — we should have read in his every look, the exclamation of the text, " God is love." But it is of another love that I would speak to you — of the love with which God this day loves you, such as you are. I would leave you to discern this love concentrated in a simple act, which is enough in our apostle's estimation, and enough for us too, if we view it rightly. " In this," continues St. John, developing the same sentiment, " in this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."* But as I begin to unfold this doctrine, in order to show you the treasure it contains, a secret appre- hension restrains and disheartens me. I know that it contains a stupendous amount of love, which astonishes, confounds, and delights us ; but I fear * 1 John iv. 9, 10. SERMON IV. 113 that you will listen coldly to me, and that I shall speak of it with too little fervour. As the daily contemplation of nature has deadened our percep- tion of her resplendent beauties, so has the habit of hearing the Gospel blunted our perceptions of this inestimable gift, which all tlie faculties of our souls are incapable of feeling and celebrating justly. To awaken an interest in his auditors, an ancient philosopher, describing the wonders of creation, supposed them to be seen for the first time by a man who had passed his previous life in a dark cavern, and he analysed the impression which such a grand view would have produced on that spec- tator. I shall act somewhat in the same manner with you, my brethren. Let us ask ourselves what effect the Gospel tidings would produce in the mind of a heathen on hearing them for the first time, after having previously been altogether given up to the spiritual darkness of gross idolatry. Or rather let us leave imaginary cases, and take an historical fact. The Moravian missionaries who preached the Gospel to the people of Greenland thought they would best prepare them for its reception by speaking first of the general truths of religion only, of the existence of God, of the obedience due to his laws, and of a future state of retribution. Several years passed, without any fruits from their labours. But at length they ventured to speak to them of the Saviour, and to read to them the narrative of I 114 SERMON IV. his passion. They had no sooner finished this than one of the hearers, named Kajarnak, approached the table at which the Missionary Beck was seated, and said to him, in a firm voice which yet betrayed emotion: "What do you tell us there] Repeat that. / also wish to be saved ! " * And Kajarnak believed, lived a Christian, and died in peace, the blessed first-fruits of an abund- ant harvest. Now let us place ourselves in the situation of that heathen, whose conscience was just awakened, and endeavour to comprehend the lively impression which he derived from the Gospel that was new to him. For this purpose we need only follow our apostle step by step in the brief but full development that we have read in the text. We there see that sinful man may still have part in eternal life, that God hath sent into the world his Son veiled in flesh, that he gave him over to death as a propitiation of our sins, and hath done all this for us gratuitously, when we deserved nothing but his wrath. That which first led Kajarnak to perceive that " God is love," is the end which God designed in the Gospel which the apostle has thus announced : " To the end that we might have everlasting life." Though the offender may have a thousand times deserved death, " God willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live." j- He hath declared it, he * Cranz on Greenland, p. 490. f Ezek. xviii. 27. SERMON IV. 115 hath sworn by himself: " Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel ? " * As this life which God will grant to tlie sinner was explained to Kajarnak, he became amazed, more and more delighted and affected by such love. This life is the life of grace : it is the pardon of all the sinner's transgressions, a pardon which blots out and takes away all sin. " To take away my sins," said this simple-minded man to himself, " what language ! When I have stained my hands with the blood of my enemies, I washed them with the water of the sea, or the snow from the clouds ; but to remove sin from my conscience, and restore to me the peace which I had before I committed it : what grace, what love ! " This life is a heavenly life; it is the enjoyment of God's glory in the dwellings of the blessed and the company of the holy angels. A sinner such as I am, called to such glory, admitted into such an abode, received into such a company : — what an invitation ! — what love ! This life is the life of God: it is the Spirit of God; it is God himself who takes up his abode in the sinner's soul ; it is God who gives himself to him, and unites himself with him; — is not this the essence of love ? God dwelling in my soul as in a sanctuary of his choice, in this soul which seems * Ezek. xxxiii. 11. I 2 116 SERMON IV. only reserved for the devil and his angels : — what condescension ! — what love ! But can this delightful news be quite true 1 Can it be so ! And the law of God that I have broken ; and the Word of God pledged to punish sin by death; and the justice of God denouncing the punishment of my crimes, — what of them ^ Perhaps it appears to many of you that I am attributing to Kajarnak thoughts scarcely natural. You discover nothing astonishing in this pardon of God, which he could scarcely believe ; you, whose minds are filled with the theoretical knowledge of the Gospel, without having received that Gospel in your hearts, do not distinguish in that pardon a wonderful display of grace, but see only a very simple act of goodness that God owed to his creatures and himself — Why so much difficulty about pardoning "? Is not forgiving the noblest use a sovereign can make of his power "? and could we expect less from the perfections we ascribe to God"? We are, doubtless, sinners ; but for all sin there is mercy. — This is one of the popular maxims, which, confounding truth with error, men adopt to weaken the Gospel through the Gospel. There is pardon for all sin : a maxim true, holy, and divine, if you utter it with astonishment and delight, and as if it almost surpassed your belief; — it is then true that there is a pardon for all unrighteousness ! But it is a false and soul-destroying maxim to say, without joy, without emotion, and as SERMON IV. 117 if it were a natural consequence from the perfec- tions of God and the misery of man, — there is mercy for all sin. You are then judging of God by yourselves, drawing upon yourselves that withering reproach which God addresses to the most wicked of men : " Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself." * It is quite intelligible that you who " are shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin," j- should tolerate in others, without indignation and with- out surprise, what in yourselves has become a second nature. But is it thus with God, " who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon iniquity," and '* will in no wise spare the guilty;" and who has denounced death and a curse against whoever transgress his command- ments'? It must not, it cannot be, that his Word should be found untrue, or his law trodden un- derfoot, or his justice disarmed ; and God would be no longer God, if he pardoned as you expect him to pardon. Know that there is an immense and insurmountable obstacle in the way of this pardon, to all except to Him " to whom nothing is impossible." X So far are the thoughts which we have ascribed to Kajarnak from exceeding the limits of truth, that they are much within tliem. He is yet too little enlightened as to tlie Divine perfections fully to see the difficulty ; according as light breaks in upon his mind, the greater will it * Ps. 1. 21. t l'*^- ^i- 5- t ^^^^ '• 37. 118 SERMON IV. appear to him. But propose it for solution to those who are more advanced. Propose it to a sinner who has laboured long and been heavy laden, who cannot persuade himself that there is pardon for him, so impressed is he by a sense of his own misery and the holiness of God, — and you will hear him pray thus in the solitude of his chamber: Pardon me, O God, if thou canst, without dis- honouring thy holy law. Propose it for solution to the profound theologian, who exercises himself day and night in the contemplation of grace, and you will find him writing in his diary, in which he notes the secrets of his soul : I would not desire a salvation, in which the law would not be honoured and my sin expiated.* Do still better: propose it for solution to the angels in heaven. Place your- selves with them, between the fall and the promise, and ask them to suggest means by which God might pardon without ceasing to be just, and be gracious to the sinner without sharing the sin. Come, angelic spirits, acquainted with sublime meditations, and who have so deeply penetrated the thoughts of Divine love; try to solve this great problem. Concentrate all the powers of your immortal spirits ; call to your aid all the philosophy from on high ; search, meditate, ascend to the third heaven, go down into the lowest depths, and tell us, if you can, a method of pardoning without ceasing to be just and of forgiving the sinner * Memoir of Griflin, by Sprague, page 27. SERMON IV. 119 without excusing the sin. But how could you discover that which, when disclosed, astonishes and overpowers your understanding 1 How could you anticipate the intention of God in the Gospel, you whom the Holy Spirit represents to us as bending over " his great idea," as the cherubims over the ark, never able to satisfy the desire " to look into these things."* Ah ! be silent rather, and listen with us to the voice of God himself from heaven : " I have found a ransom. "f He has found it; and it might be said that he was himself astonished at the discovery, so marvellously wonderful is this great result, in which all the fulness of his divinity has been engaged. He has found it; entirely within himself; "His arm brought salvation unto him, and his righteousness, it sustained him." X ^^^ this work is " of Him, by Him, and for Him." He has found it; " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men ! " § This God, who has found the propitiation — this God, who has so determinately resolved to give us life that he has as it were triumphed over his justice and over his law; this God, is He not love ] H the end which the Almighty has proposed to himself in our redemption affects the heart of Kajarnak, the means which he has employed for ransoming us affect him still more. God * 1 Pet. i. 12. t Job xxxiii. 24. X Isa. Ux. 16. § Luke ii. 14. 120 SERMON IV. has found the propitiation, behold it here: "He sent his only Son into the world." God has a Son ; what astonishing information ! Accus- tomed as we are from childhood to hear the Son of God spoken of, we do not consider how very strange is the idea of paternity, of generation, associated with the name of God the Creator. Kajarnak was much more forcibly struck with this than we are ; but the pious missionary does not fix his attention on tliese deep things, and, desirous of appealing to his heart, touches upon them but merely to make him apprehend something of the inconceivable love which unites this Father with this Son. The very name of Son makes Kajarnak at once understand this ; for what more tender name could the Holy Spirit choose, when he would shew us in an earthly station some image of this eternal love "? But this is not enough for him ; to this name of Son he adds others which exalt him more. He is " the only-begotten Son of God," " his own Son," " his well-beloved Son." His only-begotten Son maintains a relationship with him — which no creature shares; his own, truly belonging to him, and born of him, really and not figuratively ; " his well-beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased." What force and simplicity are combined in these words: "The Father loveth the Son ! " He loves him, and com- municates to him all his power : " The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his SERMON IV. 121 hand." * He loves him, and makes him partner in his counsels : " For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth."f " He loves him from everlasting: " " Father, thou lovedst me before the foundation of the Avorld." X He loves him, and this love of the Father for the Son is the eternal emblem of all genuine love ; all other love is but a reflection of that ; and the most excellent thing that the Son can ask for his beloved disciples, is, that " the Father may love them as he has loved them." AVho will say what this Son is to the Father? Who shell declare to us those intimate communings of the Divine Spirit, this ineffable love, this eternal abiding of the Son in the bosom of the Father? Who shall unfold before our eyes the full meaning of this expression ; " There I was by him, as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him ? " § With what feelings, then, will Kajarnak now learn that this Son of God, this only-begotten Son, this well-beloved Son, is he whom the Father sends into the world, he whom the Father with- drew from his throne — from his glory — from his bosom, that we might live by him ! If the Son of God be so great, so precious, so dear in his eyes, what are we, then, in his estimation, for whom he has given this Son so great, so precious, so dear ? If a captain redeems with gold tlie soldiers whom his • John iii. 35. t John v. 20. I John xvii. 24. § Prov. viii. 30. 122 SERMON IV. enemy had taken, is it not because the Uberty of his men is even more valued by him than the gold with which he has purchased their liberation "? If Abraham offers his son Isaac as a burnt sacrifice, is it not because the holy will of God is more dear to him than the life of the son so loved "? If God gives "men for Israel, and people for his life," is it not that Israel is as dear, even dearer to him than the men and the people whom he gives in ransom for Israel ? And if the Father being placed in this alternative, — of either striking us in sparing his only-begotten Son, or of delivering up that Son in order to spare us, — delivers his Son and spares us; — what shall we say of the love with which he loves us, what shall we say of it that would not be perfect folly and presumption, if we had not on our side the truth, the testimony, and the revelation of God himself? However this may be, he delivers him up, he sends him into the world, into this our world, lost by sin; but which, for that very reason, had need of him for its salvation. He does still more ; he sends him in the form of sinful man, " and in the likeness of sinful nature." " For it behoved him," says St. Paul, " to be made like unto his brethren ; " and "forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil '? " * Have you ever re- * Heb. ii. 14, 17. SERMON IV. 123 fleeted upon this, my brethren ? What honour for our nature, for our poor fallen nature, that the Father should have caused that Son, " who is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person," to have taken that form upon him ; that Son, " who being in the form of God made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of ^en:"* but, also, what humiliation for the Son, what wonderful condescension and love on the part of the Father who has given him — was it for " the King of kings and Lord of lords " to be born of a woman and to come to an accursed earth — proceeding from the womb of one of his own creatures'? — for the Son of the Most High to exchange the bosom of the Father for an abode of which Satan is called the prince'? — for "the mighty God" to suffer labour, weariness, and pain'? — for him "whom all the angels of God worship" — for him to bear a body of dust and clay'? — for " the Lord of glory" to subject himself to the humiliations and infirmities of the flesh '? — for " the Heir of all things" to support a perishable body with perishable food'? — for the "Most Holy" to be tempted by the devil? — for " the Prince of Life" to submit to the abasement of death and the tomb? Consider, therefore, this amazing thought with which this mystery inspired St. Paul. What the Lord has done for us he has done for us alone ; he has done • rhii. ii. 7. 124 SERMON IV. nothing like it for the angels themselves. " For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham." ♦ Oh, what love was that which conceived the design of uniting the Son of God with our wretchedness, in order to deliver us from it ! the God who hath sent his Son into the world that we might live by him, this God, is he not love 1 But with what message has the Father commis- sioned the Son, and what tvoi'k has he given him to do on sending him into the world 1 " He hath sent him," replies the apostle, " as the propitiation for our sins;" and the work which he has given him to do is the expiation of our guilt by his blood ; — the expiation : a word common to our ears, a doctrine so familiar that the children know it by heart ; but what a word, and what a doctrine for the catechetical scholar of Beckl Thou hast just been told, Kajarnak, that God hath sent his Son into the world to save thee ; listen now to the way in which he saves thee. It was necessary that *' this Holy and just One" should bear in thy stead the stroke which thou hast deserved, but which the Father desired to turn from thee. " All we like sheep have gone astray," far from God and his law ; but the ' ' Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all," t mine, thine, — do you understand this perfectly ? Moreover " He was wounded for our transgressions, he Avas bruised for our iniquities: ♦ Ileb. ii. 16. f Isa. liii. 6. SERMON IV. 125 the chastisement of our peace was upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed." * Hear again: " For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." j- What dost thou say to this ] Didst thou expect if? Couldst thou have dreamt that an offended God would shed the blood of his own Son to wash away your sins 1 I could shew thee in distant and privileged countries whence this won- derful news has been brought, — men, nay whole congregations of them, who find this very simple and easy ; but, if they should charge thee with exaggeration and enthusiasm, what sayest thou — what couldst thou say "? But follow me to the foot of the cross of the Son of God : it is a spectacle which must be con- templated more nearly. " Behold the hour is come and the power of darkness ; " the hour of which even the approach caused him such intense agony that a bloody sweat issued from his body in drops to the ground, but an hour from which the Father could not save him if he desired to save us. Abraham, at the moment when he was about to sacrifice his son, heard the voice of an angel, who cried out : " Abraham, Abraham, lay not thy hand upon the lad ! " But this other Abraham had no one above him to hold back his arm when about to strike : that which he did not exact of his ser- vant he laid upon himself Nor will he stop until he has finished the sacrifice. Come, rage of hell ; * Isa. liii. 5. f 2 Cor. v. 21. 126 SERMON IV. come, fury of earth ; come, anger of heaven, and exhaust upon this innocent head, which the Lord gives up to your utmost powers, "to do whatsoever the hand and the counsel of the Lord determined to be done ! " " Satan, the old serpent," impatient to fulfil the first j)i'op^6cy, raises his demon head, hissing, and " bruises the heel of the seed of the woman." Defeated, lately, by him whom he had come to tempt, he withdrew for a season. But now the Father permits him to return, to array his whole legion against the Son, to enter into Judas for the purpose of betraying him — into Caiaphas to con- demn him — into Pilate to give him to be cruci- fied ; and if he was unable to accomplish the fall of the Holy One in the desert, he had power to cause the death of the Prince of Life at Gol- gotha ; and that he was allowed to do, to afford him the occasion of" delivering them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."* Yet there is something still more detestable. That this terrible angel, the eternal enemy of God and mankind, should furiously rage against the Son of God and Saviour of men is atrocious ini- quity, but yet it can be conceived ; but how did those men whom he came to save, and whose nature he assumed, treat him in return "? For the Father hath delivered him into their hands: and "they have done to him whatsoever • Heb. ii. 15. SERMON IV. 127 they would." They treat him, I do not say, not as the Son of God ; I do not say, not as a king ; not as a prophet ; not as a just person ; but not as a man. They — worms of the earth — force him, the Son of God, to exclaim, under the pressure of their hatred and contempt : " As for me, I am tlie scorn of the people, a very worm, and no man." * They sell him to each other ; they value him at thirty pieces of silver, at the very moment when he valued them at the price of his Divine blood ; armed with swords and staves they lay hold on him at night; they bind him, they drag him from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod to Pilate. They mock him as a king; they clothe him with scarlet and crown him with thorns ; they mock him as a pro- phet, smiting him and saying : " Prophesy, who smote thee." They mock him as the Son of God, and say to him : " If thou be the Son of God, save thyself." They strike him with a rod, they spit in his face, they condemn him to death, they prefer Barabbas to him, they crucify him with a male- factor on his right hand, and another on his left ; and whilst the greatest criminals excite at least in their last moments more pity than anger, even among their most inveterate enemies, to him alone was reserved by the Father the terrible privi- lege of exciting on his cross in his agony, by his cries, and by his prayers, the ridicule, the taunts, and the reproaches of his persecutors ! * Ps. xxii. 6. 128 SERMON IV. But this is not yet all, it is trivial compared with what remains to be told — to whom ? — to you ? no, but to Kajarnak, — to a heathen who hap- pily is ignorant of these things, or at least does not know them as you do, who are as familiar with the sufferings of our Saviour, as men are acquainted with the fables of Homer or the histories of past times. When the Son was alone, — alone in his temptation in the desert, — alone in the agony of Gethsemane, — alone upon the cross, He could say : *' I am not alone, for the Father is with me;"* but how would it be if the Father himself should desert him'? Against the rage of the devil, the malignity of the Pharisees, the clamours of the people, the cowardice of Pilate, the scoffs of the high priests, God — his God, his Father — sustained him and consoled him ; but who shall sustain him against the wrath, the malediction, and the fearful justice of God himself? This death, this punish- ment — this body wounded, this blood shed — these atrocities, doubtless, were among the bitterness of the cross ; but its full bitterness is elsewhere. The agony of the bloody sweat proceeds from another cause ; the bitterness of that cup which he prayed, if it were possible, might pass from him, was from another source. That which constituted the bitter- ness of the cross was the load of sin laid upon him, witli its consequences — the Father's anger, and the Father's curse. We have seen the Father, * John xvi. 32. SERMON IV. 129 accumulating upon the Son " the iniquity of us all;" "making him to bear our sins in his own body;" "making him to be sin for us;" loading him with our transgressions until they overwhelmed and made him bow down imder the burden. * We have seen the Father in order to redeem us from the curse of the law making the Son a curse for us, being " pleased to bruise him," " putting him to grief," j* pressing his hand sorely upon him, piercing him with his arrows and leaving no sound- ness in his flesh by reason of his indignation, nor rest in his bones by reason of his sin. :{: We have viewed God afterwards as discerning in his Son, yea, in his only and well-beloved Son, a spectacle so repulsive to his Holy Majesty, that he would not go near to deliver him, " nor hear the words of his groaning," leaving him to cry out, his voice exhausted, his throat parched, his eyes consumed \vith watching, and constraining him at length to exclaim in anguish ; " Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani 1 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me 1 " § Does this still leave your eye tearless, your heart cold ? Give me then another audience ! Give me then for hearers Greenlanders, Heathens, Jews, who for the first time hear the wonders of such love, and I will shew them to ♦ See Is.liii. 6 ; 1 Pet. ii. 24 ; 2 Cor. v, 21 ; Ps. xxxviii. 3—8. t Is. liii. 10. X Gal. iii. 13 ; Ps. xxxviii. 2, 3, 8. § Ps. xxii. 1 ; Ixix. 4. K 130 SERMON IV. you agitated, " pricked in their hearts," and crying out : " What must we do to be saved ? " Nay, give me the inanimate earth, give me the rocks, give me the veil of the temple, give me the sun for hearers, and I will shew you that earth quaking, those rocks dividing, that veil rend- ing, the sun hiding his face, and the universe attesting their mourning and your indifference, inquiring of themselves if it is not for them that the Son of God hath died rather than for you 1 Tell us, Greenlanders, Heathens, Jews; tell us, earth, rocks, veil of the temple, sun! God who hath sent his Son as the propitiation for our sins — that God, what is he if he be not love ? But what completely subdued the heart of Kajarnak is the cause of this love : for if God has so loved us, whence does all this love originate? We ourselves love that which is lovely, but we especially love those who love us. Were we worthy of love in the sight of God, or did we love him first 1 No. " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us." God, said Kajarnak to himself, hath sent his only begotten Son into the world as a propitiation for my sins; and what have I done for him '? What have I done to at- tract this love with which he anticipates me, loads and overwhelms me 1 Where are my claims, my overtures; my desires, my thoughts, which have given rise to such love on his part? When he remembered me, when he extended his unmerited SERMON IV. 131 compassion to me, when he sacrificed his own Son for me, when he sent this missionary from beyond the seas to give me a proof of this love, even yesterday, this very morning, what was I doing] I was unmindful of him, I was forgetting him, I was offending him, I was treading under foot his holy law. I was living in error, in rebelUon, in idolatry, covetousness, malice, falsehood, dis- honesty, andl icentiousness. My overtures ! I see now but my sins, and as to any claims on his love — I see none but this love itself ! Yes, Kajarnak, thou speakest truth; and in proportion as thou shalt learn to know thyself, the more thou wilt see that thou art guilty, unjust, and rebellious: "The enemy of God by wicked works," deserving hell and everlasting maledic- tion. If you could doubt it a moment, the sight of this cross that you have before your eyes would be sufficient to undeceive thee. For if it shows thee God so loving the sinner, as to give his only begotten Son to save him, it shews you also God abhorring sin so much, that no lesser price could atone for it, than the death of that only Son. The same blood is the measure of God's love for us, and of his detestation of our sins. What must have been the enormity of those sins which sub- jected the Son of God to the rage of hell, the fury of the world, and the wrath of heaven ! What must those sins be which God could not contemplate in his Son without overwhelming him under the K 2 132 SERMON IV. weight of his curse ! The most terrible exhibitions of God's abhorrence of sin, — the world submerged by the deluge, five towns of the plain consumed by fire from heaven, entire nations exterminated in Canaan, the thunders, the lightnings, the smoke, and the earthquake of Sinai, all this is little in comparison with the Son of God expiring on the cross. Come near, Kajarnak, and finish reading in the agony of thy Saviour the hell thou hast deserved. And yet, when thou wast so truly hateful, that the blood of the Son of God could alone reconcile thee to God, he so loved thee, that he shed for thee this precious blood ! " Is this the manner of man ? " * Thou canst love a wife, a child, a friend ; but to love an enemy, to impor- tune him with thy love until thou hast overcome his hatred, to sacrifice for him thy most precious treasure, when his animosity against thee was at its height, hast thou ever done, or seen, or imagined anything like that 1 God has loved thee, not for anything worthy of love that he has seen in thee, but in despite of all that is evil and hateful in thee. He has loved thee, for his own sake, by an over- flowing of his nature ; he has loved thee because " he is love." Kajarnak is not the only one agitated by this thought. All the sacred writers have but one voice concerning it ; and in their pathetic descrip- tions of God's love, the prominent point, the trait * 2 Sam. vii. 19. SERMON IV. 133 which has penetrated their hearts, is the gratuitous character of this love. " When we were children of wrath even as others," God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; (by grace ye are saved)."* — And in another passage : " When we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die ; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."j" And again, " For we our- selves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us." j: But all gives place to the expression of our apostle: " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us." Do you feel the force of this sentiment, " Herein is loveT' That which we have now seen, a propitia- tion found for our sins, the Son of God sent into the world, this Son delivered for our sins, all this is a manifestation of the love of God so lustrous, that all the other tokens of Divine love that men * Ephes. ii. 3, 4, 5. t Rom. r. 6—8. :}: Titus iii. 3, 5. 134 SERMON IV. or angels could collect from the whole universe become obscure before it. But here we have more than a manifestation of love, here we have its very essence and principle : " God hath first loved us ; " and if the greatness of this love forces us to exclaim with admiration, " God hath so loved the world that he hath given his Son," the gratuitousness of this same love extorts from our humbled and broken hearts this pathetic, this profound expres- sion : God is love ! Yes, God is love : this alone can explain that he has so loved — whom] Angels? The saints'? No, but us, his enemies, us individually — you the hearers, and me the preacher. God is love: love is his existence, his substance, his life. " God is love." * Love is the summing up of all his works, and the explanation of all his ways. Love led him to create a holy and to redeem a fallen race. Love overcame a state of non-existence to give us being, and triumphed over sin to give us eternal life. Love forms the theme of angels' admiration, and will be the subject of ours in eternity. The thoughts of God are love, his will is love, his providence is love, his dispensations are love, his holiness is love, his judgments are love, all in him is love: "God is love." But the heart of Kajarnak speaks more to him than all we have said. On hearing this good news, see this heathen, if we can still so call him, hang- * 1 John iv, 19. SERMON IV. 135 ing on the words of the missionary, his heart touched, his conscience troubled, exclaiming: " AVhat do you say there 1 repeat that ! I also wish to be saved ! " And why should he say this rather than you? Why should not the same doctrine which made a Christian of this Pagan on the shores of Greenland make in this land, this day, among this congregation, sometliing more than a nominal Christian, — a spiritual and fervent Christian'? I have asked you in order to arouse you from your habitual indifference, to put yourselves in the place of this Greenlander, who hears the Gospel for the first time; but do not suppose that this condition is indispensable in order to be affected by it, that the Gospel has lost its power by having been so often declared, and that the coldness we have been lamenting in you is a necessary consequence of your position. It is the necessary result of sin, of negligence, of ingratitude, of unbelief, and nothing more. Your position is a privilege, if you only knew how to improve it ; and this you will be able to effect as soon as you possess the Avill to do so. The Gospel has been often repeated to you. You have then the privilege for which Ka- jarnak longed so earnestly, when he said, "Repeat that, repeat that to me." That has been done for you which St. Paul took care to do for his beloved Philippians : " To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe." * * riiil. iii. ] . 136 SERMON IV. Supply the want of novelty by the fervour of your meditation, and you will find in this long familiarity witli tlie Gospel means of impressing you more fully with the sense of God's love. Our admiration of the works of man is diminished if we view them too closely ; but the works of God, the proofs of his love, and, above all, the unspeakable gift of his Son, can never be adequately admired. Our admiration A> ill ever fall sliort of the truth both in this life and in that which is to come ; even the angels them- selves, who seek to look into the depth of this, will never penetrate it. How many new aspects of it to contemplate, which all our sermons, all our books, all our medi- tations, could no more exhaust than you could exhaust the sea in the hollow of your hand! At one time it is tlie depth of that abyss from which God has raised us: what love was that which delivered us from sin, from liell, from eternal fire, from the company of the devil and his angels! " For great is thy mercy toward me : and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell." * At an- other time it is the number and the immensity of the gifts which accompany that of the Son : what love is that M'hich gives us " grace for grace; " life eternal, peace, light, strength, joy, and, to sum up all in a word, the participation of the Divine nature ! j* Some- times it is the greatness, the fulness of the pardon w Inch God gives us in Jesus Christ : wliat love is * Psa. Ixxxvi. 13. f 2 Pet. i. 4. SERMON IV. 137 that which blots out sin, " which casts it into the depth of the sea," which removes it as far from us " as the east is from the west ; " which only requires that we should repent and believe, and which raises us up — fallen as we were under the weight of the Divine curse — freed, justified, glorified, saved ! Sometimes it is tlie new turn which the grace of God in Jesus Clu'ist gives to those calamities of life, that we inherit from the first Adam : what love was that which avails itself of all the fruits of sin, makes them constitute a part of his merciful design, and constrains them to contribute to our happiness ; wliich converts the curse into a bless- ing, and compels all creatures, even those \vhose antipathies are strongly against us, to toil for our well-being! Sometimes it is the special appeals that God addresses to each of us, to lead us to accept this great salvation : what love was that which, seeing us slow to flee from the wrath to come, sends call upon call, warning upon warning, message upon message, affliction upon affliction, if it be needful, and whicli knocks repeatedly at the door of our hearts ! At another time, it is the firm assurance of the grace which the Holy Spirit imparts to a soul, even of a Zaccheus. of a Mary Magdalene, of a crucified malefiictor: nhat love is that wliicli renders such a soul capable of eternal life, of anticipated resurrection from deatli, to take its place in Paradise, sitting in heavenly places with Jesus Christ, and singing the hymn; 138 SERMON IV, " I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." * But more than all, what love was that which has given, which has sacrificed for us, the only-begotten and well-beloved Son! It is to this that we must always revert ; it is here that every grace and heaven itself are centred ; " for he that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?" It is here that we see unveiled " in the face of Jesus Christ," t of Jesus Christ crucified, the love that was concealed in the bosom of the Father. It is here that the heart of God opens to us, and that we read in it as in a book, unutterable things, that no human tongue can adequately de- clare. It is here that we find a new standard for measuring this love, for which all human dimensions combined would be insufiicient, and tliat " being rooted and grounded in love " we become enabled to " comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. " :{: And yet, vain efforts ! we could not contemplate it un- veiled ! our weak heart would be unequal to it ! no mortal man could look upon such love and live! * Horn. viii. 38. t 2 Cur. iv 6. X Eph. iii. 18, 19. SERMON IV. 139 our whole existence would be overpowered, annihi- lated by the view ! Here below we see but the "back parts ! " and if, with Moses, we should ask the Almighty to let us behold his glory, he will make all his goodness to pass before us, but we should not see his face. While the spectacle passeth before us, the hand of the Lord will cover us in a cleft of the rock ; * only a voice will sound in our ears, no more that which Moses heard, but one still more sweet and tender, the voice of the Holy Spirit in the text: " God is love ! "— " God is love ! " And now, what will you do with respect to this love? AVill you respond to it, like Kajarnak, and say, " I also desire to be saved 1" I do not ask you if you believe in the truth of the doctrine which the Lord has caused you this day to hear; you cannot doubt it. This doctrine carries with it its own clear testimony. If it were not true, it would not have been in the world. There are things that " the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man to conceive ; " and it would have been more inexpli- cable that man should have invented such a sclieme than it is that God should have executed it. In speaking thus I am not ignorant that the very greatness of the love which God has testified to us, according to the Gospel, renders that Gospel incredible to many. God giving his only-begotten Son, this Son assuming our nature, dying for our * Exod. xxxiii. 21—23. 140 SERMON IT. sins, it is too much love, too infinite a condescen- sion, to obtain unreserved credence in hearts so enslaved to selfishness as ours are. He who loves not believes not in the existence of love. How should we believe that God first loved us, if we love those only who love us"? — how believe that God has taken away our sins, if we cherish in our hearts remembrance of the offences that we have received? — how believe that God has given his only and well-beloved Son for us, if we are un- willing to give for another — I do not say an only, beloved Son, but a little of our time, our trouble, our maintenance, our superfluities, our comforts'? Yes, but reflect, and you will acknowledge that this very thing which excites our unbelief ought to confound it. For how could the human mind conceive a prodigy of love which exceeds it, which overwhelms it on every side'? How could it be capable of inventing that which it is not even capable of believing"? Whence has it acquired this over- powering idea of a Son of God crucified for our sins'? in what unknown region, in what recess of its meditation, in what depths of its philosophies, in what dreams of its poets '? If I were to find this Gospel system in the depth of a desert far from the Prophets who announced it, far from the miracles which have attested it, I would acknowledge that it is the work of a God whose ways are not as our ways, and whose thoughts are not as our SERMON IV. 141 thoughts.* When God loves he loves, as he does all things, as a God. Would he show forth his power "? he divides the waves of the sea; — would he manifest his justice"? he sends a deluge upon the whole earth ; — would he display his glory'? he speaks, and a world arises from nothing ; — would he show that he is Lord over all"? he speaks again, and the sun is extinguished, and the heavens are " rolled away as a scroll ; " and would he shew forth his love, which is " above all his works "? " he sends his Son into the world and delivers him for our sins. Dismiss, then, all your doubts and all your sophisms and all your hesitations. Do as Kajarnak did: listen to the dictates of your heart, and you will believe. Do you not feel that heart compressed within you? it wants air, day, and life; set it free, exchange the cold and lifeless god which you have hitherto served for the God who is love, and who has given his Son to save you. Besides, what other salvation can you find or seek, or even dream of in the presence of this manifestation of love 1 — what claims, what merits, what works, that this mighty current of love does not carry away with your sins'? Will you weigh your virtues, enumerate your services, count the mites you have bestowed in alms, in view of the blood of the Son of God flowing for you 1 At this sight cease at the same moment to tremble on account of your sins and to hope, on account of * See Isa. Iv. 8. 142 SERMON IV. your works : hasten to cast away the filthy rags of your own righteousness, as Bartimeus threw off his cloak. Plunge into this " fountain, which is open for sin and for uncleanness," and " though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."* Come to him who first " came to seek and to save that which was lost," and who addresses to you this most tender invitation : " Every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat, yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price, "-f Come, and they shall give into your bosom " good measure pressed down, shaken together, and running over." X Come, such as you are ; though you hear the Gospel but for the first time, it is sufficient; Kajarnak had heard it but once, I ask you but to say with him; "And I also would be saved," only to believe in the love of God and to enter into the design of his grace, and only not to render useless " the blood of the cross." To-day, here, in this place, believe, open your hearts, surrender yourselves, devote yourselves ! If you do not do so, what is your intention 1 Is it (let me put a question which occurs to me, and which, in faithfulness, I dare not withhold), that you ground upon this love a secret expectation and encourage yourselves in unbelief by the * Isa. i. 18. t Isa. Iv. 1. J Luke vi. 38. SERMON IV. 143 thought that a God so full of love could not destine you to a miserable eternity 1 If this be so, I shall not stop to represent to you the utter worthlessness of such an expectation. What ! when God appeals to whatever remains of noble and generous sentiment in your fallen nature, by love unmerited, immeasurable, ineffable, you yourselves defeat, as much as you can, the design of so tender an appeal, and dream of prevailing against God by the very excess of his mercy! But we shall not dwell upon this, because, on the supposition just made, this language would probably be unintelligible to you. We shall say but one thing more, and that seriously: this love, which gives you pre- sumptuous confidence, ought to make you tremble. Beware of comparing God with those weak persons whose short-sighted good nature flatters and fosters the vice or the ingratitude which takes advantage of it; a liberality unworthy of a just man, especially so of an upright magistrate, and how much more unworthy of the "Judge of all the earth!" The love of God is a holy love, with which is united the detestation of sin, and never, I repeat, neither in the deluge, nor in Sodom nor in Gomorrah, nor in Egypt, nor in Canaan, nor in Sinai, was his hatred of sin so clearly exhibited as upon the cross. If you continue in your sin and unbelief, the love of God finds no access to you, and he cannot impart his grace to you. Without obscuring his holiness and being wanting 144 SERMON IV. to himself, he cannot do it; as "Jesus could do no mighty work amongst the Nazarenes, "because of their unbelief, " * he cannot do it because you "reject the counsel of God against yourselves. "f It is written : " If we believe not, he abideth faith- ful, he cannot deny himself." J But this is not saying enough. The love of God will find access to the unbeliever, but it will be to act against him, and to render his condition more terrible. If you persevere in your course, the time will come when you will be constrained to wish that you had never been thus loved, because the love of God, this love itself, will leave you without consolation, without excuse, and mth- out resource. Without consolation: if you had been less loved, you might perhaps hope in your ruin for some alleviation of the stings of conscience and the bitterness of your remorse ; but what means of alleviation, when you shall reflect that God so loved you as to give up his only- begotten and beloved Son to death for your sakes ] What depth of anguish in this thought: " to perish when we had such a Saviour ! — to be so loved, and to have come into this place of torment! " without excuse too : if you had been less loved you might have attempted some justification before the tribunal of the Sovereign Judge ; but what can you reply, when he will bring to your remembrance the greatness of his love in the price at which your • Mark vi. 5. ] Luke vii. 30. J 2 Tim. ii. 13. SERMON IV. 145 ransom has been piirchasecn Ponder upon tliese words: "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy, under two or three witnesses ; of how mucli sorer punishment suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the spirit of graced It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!" And why fearful? You have just been told : because of the mercies we have received and the love which God has testified towards us. And above all, fearful, because without remedy : if you had been less loved, you might have indulged in some imaginary hope of a fresh display of love sufficient to put away your sin, and remove your misery. But what ground is there for any such hope, when God gave up his own Son, and spared him not? Will you wait until another victim shall be sacrificed expressly for you 1 — a victim more precious, in the sight of God, than his only and well-beloved Son ; " more glorious than the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person;" more soul-stirring than "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world ; " more dignified than " the King of kings and Lord of lords ; " more pure than " the Holy of holies ; " more powerful to deliver you than the " Wonderful Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace ? " No ; no. " If we 146 SERMON IV. sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall consume the adversaries."* Thus God makes us testify against ourselves, that there is nothing more to be added to that which he has done in our behalf: " Judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What more could I have done to my vineyard that I have not done in it ? " j* All is exhausted — exhausted by love, and the supplies fail only because the love of God has already expended itself. We must say then, whatever be our repug- nance to introduce considerations of this nature, on such a subject, to those who speculate upon the love of God, and who expect to profit by it with- out believing in it : this Divine love on which you dare calculate as your excuse for resisting it, will perhaps be your greatest torment in the world to come. This idea is not new ; many divines have urged it. Perhaps this very love will be the essen- tial cause of your bitterest regrets, and render your unbelief more culpable, your condition more des- perate. Perhaps it is this love which will exhibit clearly the justice of the judgment to come, and explain the great mystery of eternal punishment. Perhaps our text will receive in the place of tor- ments a striking but dreadful confirmation. Per- * Heb. X. 26, 27. f Isa. v. 4. SERMON IV. 147 haps the love of God will be no less the theme (but, alas ! with different sentiments) in the regions of the damned, than in the abode of the blessed. There is more than mere hypothesis in this. Dying sinners agitated by dread forebodings have given testimony, even in despite of themselves, through their blasphemies, to the love of the Son of God, henceforth closed against them, but closed by themselves. The Holy Spirit shows us in the Book of Revelations the enemies of the Lord re- cognising him, but in terror, as the Lamb of God, and saying to the mountains and the rocks : " Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath is come, and who is able to abide it "? " The wrath of the Lamb ! Strange and surpris- ing association of ideas ! The wrath of the lion is in the order of nature; but the wrath of the Lamb has something strange in it that renders it still more dreadful. The more unnatural wrath is to the character of the Lamb, the more just and provoked and inevitable must it be when it bursts forth ; and if its wretched victims distinguish the Lamb in him who strikes them, this character of love serves but to extort their homage and increase their dread. Oh ! may you never have to flee be- fore the wrath of the Lamb ! May the time never come when your greatest misery will be that of having been so greatly loved and ransomed at so L 2 148 SERMON IV. high a price ! The time when, seeing too late the truth of the text, you shall confess, that " God is love," but with rage in your heart! " But, beloved, though we thus speak, we are per- suaded better things of you, and things that accom- pany salvation." * May we not assume that you no longer desire to close your heart against the love of God, nor to live without faith in the presence of a God who is love '? By this faith you will save your souls; and by it also you will become new creatures. This love of God that you will have before your eyes will impart itself to you, and will renew your whole existence. It is by feeling our- selves loved that we learn to love, and the inor- dinate love of self only exists because we are igno- rant of the love of God: "He that loveth not knoweth not God ?" You will love as you have been loved. You will love God because God first loved you, and you will love your neighbour because God has loved you both. Do you discern then the new life which this change prepares for youl I behold you then " a follower of God, a dear child," living only to diffuse around you the love with which God has filled your hearts. I see you, after the example of Christ, who hath loved you, going about doing good ; finding your happi- ness in privations, in fatigues, in sacrifices of charity. I see you constrained by the love of Christ, weaned from your own self-will, the love * Heb. vi. 9. SERMON IV. 149 of money, the vain pleasures of the world, consol- ing the afflicted, comforting the poor, visiting the sick, and bearing everywhere with you Jesus Christ and all his benefits. Then the image and resem- blance of God will be formed anew in your hearts ! Then you will dwell in God and he in you! If to be loved is the life of our souls, love is the enjoyment of it 'i If to be loved is all the doctrine of the Gospel, is not loving all its moral 1 To love as we have been loved is heaven upon earth, in expectation of the heaven above. Happy are you if the love of God so affects you that there cannot be found for your character, however scrutinized, a more accurate description than that definition with which love inspired St. John to express the love of God ! Happy, if it can be said of you, " that man is love ! " his words are love ! his works are love ! his zeal is love ! his labour is love ! his joys are love ! his tears are love ! his reproofs are love ! his judgment is love ! Happy, above all, if that " God who trieth the hearts and reins" can add; — his heart also is love ! Amen. SERMON V. MATTHEW XV. 21—28. ^'•Tlien Jesus went thence^ and departed into the coasts of Tyre a7id Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying. Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David ; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away ; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worship>ped him, saying. Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, IVuth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master s table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O ivoman, great is thy faith : be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour" SERMON V. 151 There is a faith which renders man all-powerful with God.* This language would be daring if we had not learnt it from God himself, who said to Jacob : " Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel ; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." -j- We find in the woman of Canaan a complete illustra- tion of this faith ; and if she is not of Israel by birth, she is so by principles. For what do we distinguish in the text but a terrible struggle between the Lord and her, from which she comes forth " more than conqueror 1 " Let us pursue the successive changes of the struggle : it will teach us, in a few verses, more of the power of faith, than the most elaborate essay could convey. We shall commence by showing the position of this woman, and the conduct of our Saviour to her. This Canaanite had believed in Jesus Christ before the scene related in this Gospel. But how had she attained to her faith 1 It is right to keep this in our minds; for we already distinguish in her conversion that strength of soul which is sure to triumph over all obstacles, and all that follows is explained by such a commencement. She was a heathen, as her appellation indicates, and had not enjoyed, like other heathen converted to the Lord, as Zaccheus or the Centurion, the privilege of * II 1/ a unefoi qui rend Vhomme plus fort que Dieu, is the sti'ong expression of the Author. * Gen. xxxii. 28. 152 SERMON V. living among the Jews. Apart from our Lord, his disciples, and all the privileges belonging to the people of Judea, she could only learn God's word by indirect communication, which had reached her even through the prejudices of the Jews, and by the distant rumours which had reached her ears of our Lord's discourses and the miracles he had wrought among her people, or in kindness to some strangers. This feeble ray which had reached her proved sufficient to guide her to faith, — and to what a faith ! while a multitude of the Jews closed their eyes to the stream of light which " the Word made flesh " poured in among them. So true is it that salvation depends less on external circumstances than on disposition. The Abrahams, the Rahabs, and Naamans believed ; others, as Caiaphas, Judas, Demas, hardened their hearts or turned aside. And we, my brethren, are among those who possess much light ; but are we also of those who have much faith ] If any of you complain of the want of means or evidences in order to believe, it will not only be a St. Peter, or a St. Paul, who will rise in testimony against you on the last day, but it will be this Canaanite. You cannot be- lieve because you will not ; and that will be your condemnation. The conduct of our Lord respecting this woman corresponds with his manner of acting towards the heathen generally, and with his especial designs of mercy towards her, Jesus came for heathens, inasmuch as his doctrine SERMON V. 153 and kingdom were to extend to all the nations of the earth. But he came for the Jews only, so far as his personal ministry was to be exercised within the limits of Judea; his disciples alone were to pass beyond them, and that not until he had quitted the earth. On this account there is a two- fold view, and, as it were, two distinct points, in the conduct of our Lord towards the heathen ; and something contradictory might be supposed, if this distinction be not understood and kept in mind. Faithful to his special mission, Jesus confines his ministry to his own country, and commands his disciples to do the same whilst he continued with them. " These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not." * Nevertheless, he incidentally let fall, from time to time, the gifts of his grace upon heathens who were in his path, and whose faith united them with the people of God ; thereby he gives intimation of what he will one day do ; he gently rebukes the prejudices of his disciples, and accustoms them, by degrees, to the doctrine so incredible to them respecting the calling of the Gentiles: "And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." f But are these considerations sufficient to explain the deportment of our Lord to this woman 1 Does * Matt. X. 5. t Matt. viii. 11. 154 SERMON V. he not treat her with apparent harshness and severity, which he shewed neither to the Centurion, to Zaccheus, nor to any of those who came to him '? And does he not seem to depart, in her case, from that gentleness and inexhaustible patience, which form the basis of his character'? But look more closely ; attend above all to what St. James calls "the end of the Lord," and you will form a different opinion. Jesus only assumes this appear- ance of inflexibility to make his mercy more conspicuous; and the deliverance which, in the end, he vouchsafed to the Canaanite, is much more precious and salutary from having been obtained with some difficulty and delay. Let us not forget that he who speaks is not a man, it is the Lord. He reads our hearts, he works in them according to his good pleasure. Fear not that he will try his poor servant more than she can bear; while he proves he strengthens her, and he will make " a way for her to escape"* worthy of her faith. Besides, he knows with whom he has to deal, and he has different methods with souls differently disposed. With the weak he makes the first advances, and accommodates himself to their infirmity ; but with the strong, those heroes of the faith, he is pleased to await them, to draw back, to incite them to holy warfare, in order to exercise their courage, and, at the same time, place before the view of men and angels the noble exhibition of their triumph. It is by such means he confirms * 1 Cor. X. 13. SERMON V. 155 the Canaanite, and that he so much more effectually enlightens his disciples, from having at first appeared to adopt their prejudices. Doubt not this ; it is for elect souls, it is for the children of his special love that he reserves these peculiar afflictions. But what coldness in his language, say you ; yes, but what love in his heart ! After this explanation, let us see how this woman wrestles with the Lord, pursues him, if we dare so speak, from place to place, and obliges him to say to her: " Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Jesus often sought retirement. Many causes might have induced him to do so : a need of repose, a motive of prudence, to conceal himself from the vindictiveness of his enemies ; a feeling of humility, which led him to avoid the hosannahs of the multitude ; a sentiment of piety, to pour forth his heart in secret prayer. But, upon this occasion, he had a special motive for solitude, which is linked with the whole of the narrative ; he was on the confines of a heathen land, into which his ministry was not to extend. But however this may be, St. Mark presents him to us as taking precautions for the concealment of his presence. " He entered into a house and would have no man know it ; " but, adds the Evangelist, •' he could not be hid ; " and why '? because the Canaanitish woman permitted him not.* This pious woman, who ardently desired to see * Mark vii. 24. 156 SERMON V. Jesus, this afflicted mother, who expected no cure for her daughter, unless from the compassion of our Lord, had her attention always fixed on what- ever she heard of him. From the most distant point of his approach she eagerly caught the first rumour of his advance, and she no sooner knew of his arrival on the frontiers than she left her beloved daughter and ran to seek him. But what impediments in her way ! Jesus was not going to her ; it was for her to anticipate his coming. She was not countenanced by the example of a mul- titude bringing their sick to the Lord ; she was to be alone in seeking him. He did not call her to him, as he called that people to whom he said: "Come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy laden ; " he avoided notice. It was necessary to force herself into his sacred presence, to gain admittance to him by an effort, and to follow him into a house into which he had retired expressly to avoid discovery, and where he was surrounded by his disciples, Jews full of their national pride and prejudices, and the more dis- posed, on this occasion, to keep this poor heathen woman at a distance, from the idea that their fidelity to their master required them to do so. This would have been more than sufficient to discourage an ordinary mind : " the time is un- favourable ; " "I shall not be allowed to enter ; " " my presence will be troublesome ; " " I shall be harshly received ; " " respect even ought to keep me SERMON V. 157 back." But the Canaanite does not make all these reflections, or does not yield to them. A longing desire which her maternal tenderness inspires, sustained by a stedfast trust which rests upon the word and promises of our Lord, enables her to overcome all difficulty. The occasion seems favour- able to her, perhaps the only one. Her daughter may die; Jesus may return to Judea; to-morrow may be too late. She sets out, she proceeds, overcomes all obstacles — how ? the Gospel does not inform us in what manner ; but, behold, she has gained access to our Lord, and is pouring forth her prayer. " Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil." But if the Lord could not conceal himself, it is to be understood that he did not wish it. He could not escape from the faith of this woman, as he found it impossible to grant anything to the unbelief of the Nazarenes, respecting whom St. Mark informs us : " He could do there no mighty work, because of their unbelief."* It is of his own will, and without any compromise of his sovereign power, that the Lord is conquered, or rather that he allows himself to be conquered, in the struggle which he permits us to enter into with him; whether he comes to us, and that the deliverance he brings to us be frustrated by our unbelief; or whether it be that he avoids us, and that the deliverance he refuses to us be * Mark vi. 5. 158 SERMON V. wrested from him by our faith. It is he who has established the double rule, that unbelief ought to receive nothing, and that faith can obtain every- thing. See then the first victory of our Canaanite : she triumphs over the preventives which our Lord op- posed to her. And do you know how to discover the Lord as she did, when he hides himself, and to make way for yourselves to him in those gloomy days in which difficulties of all kinds accumulate in your path"? Or rather, would you be of the number of those sluggards, who, not satisfied with yielding to real obstacles, " not ploughing by reason of the cold," * create imaginary ones, and will not go forth for fear of meeting " a lion in the wayT' Learn what this means: "He that observeth the winds shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap." f Once in the presence of Jesus, the woman is satisfied. He knows all the efforts she has made to come to him ; how then could he send her away empty ■? His mercy is well known ; and a mother who entreats for her daughter has strong claim to his compassion, especially when she prays to see her delivered from an evil spirit, which is more grievous to the soul than to the body. The deliverance is assured. . . . Poor Canaanite! the impediments which you have overcome are trifling in comparison of those you will meet with : those * Prov. XX. 4. f Eccles. xi. 4. SERMON V. 159 were the outward circumstances which hindered thee from approaching Jesus ; these you will find in Jesus himself. What will you do when he on whom you relied for deliverance from your trial will use means for proving you ? " Jesus answered her not a word." This woman, who obtruded herself into his presence, is a heathen; and he allows her to cry without answering her. This silence ! How unexpected ! What bitter- ness for this poor mother! If she had even obtained a consolatory word, an expression of sympathy, when she failed in obtaining a word of deliverance ; but when an answer was refused ! A father importuned by his child, a master by his servant, would at least give an answer, even if he would not comply with the demand. The least favour that can be conceded to the prayers of the meanest of mankind is a reply. Jesus had answered the Centurion. He had answered the nobleman at Capernaum. He had answered the leper. He had answered all other applicants; "I am the only "person to whom he has given no reply, the only " one whom he has allowed to appeal to him without "appearing to care for his affliction. Is this, then, "the Messiah, who, ' with righteousness shall judge " the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of "the earth "?'=*' A bruised reed shall he not break, "and the smoking flax shall he not quench; 'f "who says to the poor sinner, ' Call upon me in the * Isa. xi. 3, 4. t Isa. xUi. 3. 160 SERMON V. day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.' " * But if these sentiments of doubt and despair assault the heart of the Canaanite, they do not find an entrance there. She walks by faith, and not by sight. This silence surprises her, it alarms her, it distresses her, it is inexplicable, but does not shake her faith. Jesus may have reasons for remaining silent, which she knows not. Perhaps he wishes to try her patience ; perhaps he wishes to give a lesson to his disciples ; or perhaps he has some other motive. Whatever be the case, he is the Son of David, the promised Messiah, the Lord. Whatever may happen "he is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." -j* She rests on his promises as on a rock, which cannot fail her ; let him act as he will, she is determined never to doubt his love. He is silent, but it is only for a time. Far from being silent on her part, " she crieth so much the more." X She constrains him to speak, she gives him no rest until she has obtained an answer. This answer she succeeds in obtaining in an unexpected manner. The apostles interpose between her and their Master: *'Send her away, for she crieth after us." Send her away; but howl Is it by favourably receiving her urgent request, or by repulsing her as a miserable heathen 1 Perhaps the apostles designedly use an equivocal expres- * Ps. Ix. 15. t Vn. cxlv. 9. | Luke viii. 4. SERMON V. 161 sion ; they dare not suggest to their Lord what he should do ; but they intimate that, in one way or other, he should send her away with a Yes or a No ; in short, that he should give some answer. The reason which they assign, " for she crieth after us," throws a sad light on the feeling which dictates their interference. What chiefly influences them is the importunity with which she cries to Jesus and to themselves. They so little understood the heart of their master as to suppose him wearied with the prayers of the afflicted, like the servants of Jairus who said unto him, " Thy daughter is dead, trouble not the Master." * They judge of Jesus by themselves. Oh! unworthy sentiment! to be less affected by the agony and supplications of a mother who sees her daughter in the power of an evil spirit than by the annoyance or inconve- nience of which she is the occasion to them ! But let us take heed. Christians; we ourselves, servants of God — let us take heed, let us not be ready to cast a stone at the apostles. Has nothing like this ever occurred to ourselves 1 Sought for by some individual who opened before us the bitter- ness of his heart, who perhaps would speak to us of his sins and of the salvation of his soul, has it never happened that we have been wearied by his words, less touched by his sorrows than tired by the length of his communications, or pre-engaged with some unimportant care, some pleasure, some * Luke viii. 49. M 162 SERMON V. feast, which awaited us? Oh, selfish hearts, more affected by a sHght annoyance to ourselves than by a great calamity to others ! But these are our reflections; the Canaanite made them not. What signify to her the apostles' motives and their contemptuous treatment, pro- vided that their suggestions break the Saviour's silence'? It is not to the disciples, but to their Master that she looks : for him only she has ears and eyes. Now the lips of Jesus opened ; that mouth from which a single word can heal her daughter, as it healed so many sick, consoled so many afflicted, raised so many dead ; what more did she wanf? It was sufficient that she triumphed over his silence, and compelled him to speak. Call to remembrance, my dear friends, those days of darkness and desertion when the Lord proved you by his silence ; when he let you cry unto him mthout affording you any reply 1 " nor any token for good;"* when you said to him in vain : "Teach me thy way, O Lord," when you fruitlessly sought in his word some light to your path; when you could only find with all your efforts a God without speech and a heaven of brass f — what have you done at such a time 1 Have you, like this woman, im- portuned the throne of grace until you have ob- tained an answer 1 Go in peace, thy faith has saved thee, be it unto thou even as thou hast believed, thy daughter is * Ps. Ixxxvi. 17. t See Deut. xxviii. 23. SERMON V. 163 healed ; — these are the words which the Canaanite expected from Jesus. But instead of them what does he say to her 1 or rather what does he say to his disciples'? for it is more to them than to her that he addresses his reply : " I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel ; " or, more literally, I am not sent but among the lost sheep of Israel. "We have seen that the mission of our Saviour in one sense had reference only to the Jews, and in another to all nations. He was sent only among the Jews, and his personal ministry was not to extend beyond their limits ; but he was sent for all men, and the salvation he brought was to be proclaimed at a later period through the whole earth, which he had already partly made known in dealing out a portion of his grace to a small number of the Heathen, who had not gone to seek it until the Gospel had reached their country. Had he said that to the Canaanite, it would have been sufficient to relieve her disquietude. But of the two views of the question, he only shows her that which was discouraging, and he shows it in the most harsh point of view. He had said to his disciples, when sending them to preach the Gospel ; " Go not unto the Gentiles, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ; " but to her he said in terms more decided and inflexible : "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." M 2 164 SERMON V. If the silence of Jesus appeared cruel, this ex- pression must have appeared to her still more so. His silence left her at least a hope; this word seemed to deprive her of it altogether. Jesus cannot grant what she asks without in some degree depart- ing from the course of his mission. He is sent among the Jews, only and has nothing to do with the Heathens. Even the law of his ministry and the principles of the kingdom that he came to establish excluded this woman from his mercies. He is the Saviour, but of the Jews ; there is deli- verance in him, but it is not for her. It is true that we, comparing one text with another, and discerning " the times and the sea- sons," are able to explain the reply of our Saviour in such a manner that it leaves the door open to the Gentiles. But the Canaanite did not enjoy our light and our theology ; and the word of the Lord, that word which she had so ardently desired, had pronounced, and pronounced against her. What then was she to do, what to oppose to such a trial 1 If any other than Jesus had forbidden her to hope, 8he would have appealed to Jesus ; but to whom could she appeal from Jesus 1 The more confidence she has in him, the more reason she has to be dis- heartened. It is he who turns against her, it is he who distresses her, it is he who compels her to cry out in despair of obtaining her petition; " My affliction increaseth, thou huntest me as a fierce lion, and again thou showest thyself marvellous SERMON V. 165 upon me." * If she have not our theology, she has something better: she has a faith which we want, and that faith enables her to triumph over the word of Jesus. Kemember David at Nob. lie came with his fol- lowers to the house of God pressed with hunger, and found no other bread than that which had been con- secrated to the Lord. It was written of this bread : " And it shall be Aaron's and his sons, and they shall eat it in the holy place; it is a perpetual statute ;"f and the word of God did not permit David or any of his people to touch it. But David anticipated by his faith the liberty of the Gospel times ; that faith raised him above what is written ; the Holy Spirit taught him that the Levitical law was but a transient type ; he felt himself approved by God when transgressing the letter of his com- mandment, and he did eat in peace the loaves of the high priests. Now the Canaanite was sus- tained by a similar feeling. The faith of her heart caused her to anticipate the times marked out for the calling of the Gentiles, and raised her above the word which our Lord had just pronounced. She knew not what to say against that word, but she felt in the bottom of her heart something that spoke more emphatically still. It is vain to say to her, It is not for thee ; the Lord himself says it to her in vain. She will not believe that she is excluded from his grace. There is in this a mystery which ♦ Job X. 16. t Lev. xxiv. 9. 166 SERMON V. will explain itself — an apparent contradiction, which will be cleared up at a fit time ; everything is possible to the Lord, except to desert a soul which relies on Him. She perseveres, and humbles herself more deeply, prays more ardently, ap- proaches nearer to the Saviour who tries to keep her away, and prostrates herself before him, exclaiming, " Lord, help me ! " Whether thou art sent or not to me, thou art the Saviour of the afflicted ; whether I am invited or not, I am here, a mother, in deep distress; you must grant my prayer, you must heal my daughter, you must cast out this devil ; I will not let you depart until you have delivered me ! My brethren, the Word of God, which has been given for our eternal consolation, seems at times to bear against the child of God ; either by a trial from the hands of God or a temptation from Satan, as he tempted Jesus in the desert, by the written Word. * In that Word we find conditions which we think we do not fulfil, signs of conversion which we think we do not possess, promises to which we believe ourselves strangers, threatenings which fill us with dismay. In such moments there is no peace for us but in that heartfelt faith which here supports the Canaanite. It is not a dogmatical inference, it is not an eager discussion of the meaning and limits of a condition, or a promise that could deliver us : we must look higher. We * See Malt. iv. 6. SERMON V. 167 must go direct to the Lord. We must have recourse, whatever may happen, to this testimony which the Spirit of God gives : " He only is my rock and my salvation : my heart said unto thee, Thy face. Lord, will I seek. I know whom I have believed. My beloved is mine and I am his."* It is from this confidence inspired by the love of the Saviour, that the woman's strength is derived. It is in an inward sustaining power she finds a refuge both against his silence and his words. But what will become of her if this last refuge fails her, if, on the contrary, she finds iii the heart of Jesus but harshness and disdain ? Severity and dis- dain, what do I say ! harshness and disdain in thee, " the meek and lowly in heart T' Thou hadst never loved her so well as then, thou provest her because thou lovest her; but because thou art faithful, thou wilt not try her beyond her strength, that strength which thou measurest exactly, which thou thyself impartest ; for with what strength can we wrestle against the Lord except with that which proceeds from him ] But this faithful love of Jesus is hidden for a moment under the semblance of harshness and disdain ; and how are we to describe what passes in the heart of the poor heathen woman, when her tender and urgent prayer, " Lord, help me," receives this answer: " It is not meet to take the children's * Ps. Ixii. 6 ; xxvii. 8 ; 2 Tim. i. 12 ; Song of Sol. ii. 16. 168 SERMON V. bread and cast it to the dogs." You under- stand this ; the children are the Jews : the dogs are the Heathens, the Canaanite herself was one of these. Contemptuously severe as this appears in our language, it was more so in that of the Jews. For the dog is never noticed in Scripture except under the most loathsome images, and the humiliating comparison which our Lord here uses is not even softened by the good qualities which we distinguish in that animal : to the Jew every- thing in the dog was hateful, vile, and filthy. This trial undoubtedly went farther than any of the previous ones. St. Mark felt this so fully that it is the only one which he relates in his narrative ; passing over the silence and the first reply of our Lord, he only dwells on the similitude which He uses between the poor suppliant and unclean dogs. Here, then, we behold Jesus adopting, nay, even in the extreme, what was most contemptuous in the language and prejudices of the Jews towards the Gentiles. Here we not only see the pride of the Canaanite hurt, but her heart wounded, stricken, agitated ; I say her heart, for more than her self-love was touched. Her confidence is met by coldness, her devotedness by want of sympathy, her love by contempt. Ah ! it is by this that she might have been conquered, — if that could have been possible. But she could not be defeated because she would not doubt. "It is the Lord; let him do what SERMON V. 169 seeraeth him good ; " * " Though he slay Aer, yet will she trust in him."-f Far from allowing herself to be shaken in her faith, she scarcely allows herself to be disconcerted — she triumphs over the Lord's disdain. She retains all her liberty of soul, and with a presence of mind that we should admire, if our attention were not absorbed by a much nobler exhibition — that of her faith, she arms herself against the Lord, even with the weapon with which he had just pierced her. She judges him by his own word. She adopts the humiliating com- parison which might have been supposed likely to offend her deepest feelings, and deduces from it a new argument to overcome the resistance of our Lord ; she forgets self in thinking only of saving her daughter, and obtaining the favour of Jesus. "True, Lord, I admit it. I am in the sight of thy " people what a dog is compared with a child. But " even so, I have a right to a dog's portion : " " The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table." I need no more than a crumb of that bread with which thou fully satisfiest thy chosen people; but one word, one look, and my daughter is healed ! It is granted, Canaanite, the triumph is yours; your daughter is healed. " And the Lord said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith ; be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Now the parts of the scene are reversed ; it is man who triumphs and the * 1 Sam. iii. 18. -j- Job xiii. 15. 170 SERMON V. Lord who yields ; it is the Creator of heaven and earth who says to the poor sinful creature ; " Thy will be done." This is the power of faith, and what is it that decided this wonderful victory 1 It is this expression of faith and humility: " The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table." This is the decisive sentence. And the Lord says farther, as we learn from St. Mark, " For this saying go thy way, the devil is gone out of thy daughter." For this saying! We have often ad- mired the mighty power of God's Word ; we have now to admire the great power of man's word. The words of the Canaanite open heaven, triumph over the Lord, cast out the devil, and obtain what she wishes. " As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand," says Elijah, " there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word." It is because that word was the word of faith. Faith causes us to obtain a mysterious participa- tion of the omnipotence of God himself If it be written: "With God nothing is impossible," it is also written : " All things are possible to him that believeth." Fear not that this great privilege will fill him with vanity, it only operates through the medium of humility ; it fails when the heart is swollen with pride, and the moment in which the Canaanite becomes all-powerful is when she has most humbled herself. O Wonder ! O Wisdom ! Un- fathomable Mystery ! Divine Light ! How happy are the simple in heart whose hope is in the Lord SERMON V. 171 their God ! They will inherit the earth, they will judge angels, they will reign evermore ! My brethren, when the heart of Jesus may seem not to be with you ; when even your prayers will give you no comfort ; when you will imagine that you find in him in return for the most fervent prayers and most tender devotion, but a closed ear, but an inaccessible heart, but a hand which repels you, remember then, oh! remember the last word which saved the Canaanite. Beware of believing that the Lord could forsake you. It is written: "For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee." * Humble yourselves under his mighty hand. Present to him " the broken and contrite heart," to which the promise is made ; and even from the depth of your affliction, and from his refusal, draw forth a new cry, a more urgent prayer which he cannot resist, and which extorts from him this answer: " For this saying go thy way ; " " be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Such is the struggle, such the victory! The more the Canaanite suffered and resisted, the more precious did her deliverance appear to her, and the more was her faith confirmed. Oh ! with what delight did she see her daughter delivered from the power of the evil spirit ! How she then understood that the Lord had only tried her severely because he loved her much! Must there not have been, even in the remembrance of this affecting and * Isa. liv. 7. 172 SERMON V. terrible scene, sufficient to sustain her against all the suiFerings of life, even to its close 1 Let this narrative be to you what this remembrance was to her. This was done for her, but it has been written for your benefit. If the Lord tries you, be assured that he loves you ; if he has assigned you especial trials, know that he loves you in his heart. Stricken soul, thou art highly favoured : may the experience of the Canaanite instruct and strengthen you ! Give glory to the Lord as she did, and never doubt his goodness. As long as you can say — but from the bottom of your heart — " Whatsoever may befall me, God is good," you will be invincible. But, moreover, the experience of the Canaanite will not support you, if you do not participate in her faith. If she had had to sustain her only the experience of the afflicted ones, whom the Lord had delivered before her, she never could have firmly borne up against her trial. With the experience of his goodness towards them, she would have contrasted his apparent harshness towards herself, and she would have yielded. We think that the experience of others differs from our own. What strengthened the Canaanite, and what caused her to triumph, was her determination to depend on the Lord and on his word, let what might befall her, and her resolution to see or hear nothing against faith. Thus she is rendered able to resist not only that particular trial, but every trial which may befall her. It is when all had been SERMON V. 173 tried and exhausted, and that she had been found not only unconquered but unconquerable, that the Lord said unto her : " O woman ! great is thy faith." If her courage had failed before the end of the struggle ! If she had abandoned her hope when there remained but one step more ! Well, perhaps you are at this crisis. One step more, one effort, one prayer more, and you will be delivered. Say not, I have been praying one, five, ten years, and the Lord hears me not ; but say. The Lord cannot reject me. Say not, I have this or that token that the Lord will not answer my request, but say, The Lord cannot refuse me. Arm yourselves with the faith of the Canaanite, my brethren ; with a faith which overcomes the Lord; with a faith which excites his admiration. Say unto him with Jacob : " I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." Lord Jesus, who commandest faith and who crownest it, thou art also he who gives it, and who, having given it, increases it. We believe, Lord. Help thou our unbelief. Lord, increase our faith ! Amen. TWO SERMONS ON EZEKIEL XXXIII. 11. " Say unto them, As I live^ saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; hut that the wicked turn from his way and live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die, O house of Israel ? " PRELIMINARY REMARKS.* To enter fully into the spirit of these words it is necessary to understand the character of the men • Besides this introductory matter, the original copy con- tains the following prefatory letter addressed by the author " To the Pastors of Mens, the Members of the Consistory of Mens, and the Pastors assembled at Mens for the Conse- cration held May 4, 1834. " Gentlemen and dear Brethren in Jesus Christ, — You have obligingly asked me to publish the two following sermons, and to have 200 copies of them printed at your expense — half of which are to be at your disposal, and the other half sold for the benefit of the Evangelical Church at Lyons. There were then but notes of these Discourses in existence. Being greatly occupied, and delicate in health, it is but lately that I have had leisure and strength for arranging them — whether well or otherwise. Such as they are I should never PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 175 to whom they were addressed. Those for whom they were first intended, and who actually heard them, were unconverted Israelites; Israelites — for the Lord calls them " the house of Israel ; " but unconverted Israelites, for the Lord warns them to turn from their wicked way. They were Israelites ; they were born in the family of Abraham, with which God had made a covenant, which announced the Messiah to the world until the time when he appeared in it ; they were within hearing from their birth of the good tidings of the remission of sins; they had received, when children eight days old, circumci- sion, " a seal of the righteousness of faith ; " ♦ they annually celebrated that paschal feast of the Lord which prefigured the great sacrifice of the Cross ; they read the work of salvation in the book of the law; they heard it from the mouths of the prophets ; birth, education, Divine worship, preach- ing, sacraments, — nothing was outwardly wanting to complete the privileges of the people of God. But within, they bore an unconverted heart ; they have thought of publishing them, if I had not considered that your generous proposition rendered it my duty to do so. " May God give a blessing to this fruit of your charity, and cause these sermons to turn the thoughts of those persons who may read them towards ' the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world ! ' " Your affectionate and grateful, " The Autuor." * Rom. iv. 11. 176 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. had not responded to those invitations of grace; they had not believed in that " righteousness of faith ; " they had not forsaken sin ; they had not become new men ; and if they were distinguished from the Heathen nations by their privileges, they were no less distinguished from the godly Israelites by their unconverted state. The Jews were the first objects of the apostrophe in the text ; but the appeal is not to them alone. God, who speaks for eternal ages, had in view, besides unconverted Israelites, men who, in succeeding times and under another dispensation, should present the same character, and combine, like them, the profession of truth with an unchanged heart. Those men who invoke the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ; who have been baptized from their entrance into the world in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; who take part in that affecting ceremony which presents to us Jesus Christ crucified for our sins ; who read the AVord of God, and regularly attend the preaching of the Gospel ; but who have not received a new heart and a new spirit; who have not a living faith practically shown in good works; and who, if they differ from unbelievers in profession, differ no less from the children of God in their dispositions and in their lives ; members of the Church of Jesus Christ, but not of his body ; baptized with water, but not with the Holy Spirit ; Christians, but unconverted PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 177 Christians. You see such men everywhere : they are numerous in Christian communions of every denomination; they people our towns and rural districts ; they crowd our Churches, and probably form the greater part of the assemblage now before me. It is to them that these words are addressed, and it is to them that I especially apply them this day — " As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die, O house of Israel \ " What words ! I know not, my brethren, if they affect you as they do me; but this passage is among those in the Bible which speak most forcibly to my heart. I find in this a very peculiar characteristic ; and the feature which distinguishes it — the spirit which throughout pervades it, is God's compassion for the unconverted members of the Church. In other passages of Scripture we behold God crushing such men with his scorn and indignation ; at one time comparing them to lukewarm water which a man would spue out of his mouth,* or to vile animals, rejecting pure water " and wallowing in the mire ; " t at another time displaying hell beneath their feet, and shewing them the most dreadful torments reserved there, for those who, "after they have known the way of righteousness, have turned from the holy commandments delivered * Rev. iii. 16. f 2 Pet. ii. 22. 178 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. unto them." * It is on them that God pours out the most withering reproaches, the severest indig- nation that the energetic language of the prophets can express : " Hear, O heavens, and give hear, O earth : for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up chikh'en, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger; they have gone away backward : to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies I cannot away with." t But the language of our text is totally different. The compassion of God alone appears there. His violated law, his insulted majesty, the enormity of sin, are not the subjects which occupy him in this passage ; that which does so, that which absorbs all his attention in it, is the wretchedness of the unconverted members of his Church. He cannot bear the contemplation of it; his compassion is awakened within him; he exclaims, he descends from his throne, he addresses the sinner in the tone of entreaty, he places before him the solicitude of his God, and conjures him to have pity also on himself, and to turn from his wickedness : " As I live, saith the liOrd God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn * 2 Pet. ii. 21. t Isa. i. 2—13. PRELIMINARY REMARKS, 179 from his way and live : turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel." But let us more nearly contemplate this com- passion of God and attend to the warnings which it gives us. This compassion, so tenderly expressed in the text, contains two instructive lessons equally beneficial to the unconverted Christian : for it leads him to know, in the first place, how wretched he is in the sight of God ; and secondly, how much God desires his conversion ; and thereby it removes the two most formidable obstacles which the enemy of his salvation opposes to his conversion, by endeavouring to persuade him, first, that he is not so wretched as he had been told, and then that he could have no assurance that God desires his conversion. These two instructive lessons will form the subject of the two following discourses. X 2 SERMON VI. Part First. EZEK. XXXIII. 11. " Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; hut that the wicked turn from his way and live : turn ye, turti ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die, O house of Israel ? " The compassion of God for the unconverted Chris- tian shows us how miserable the condition of such an one is. For God in his compassion does not resemble man, whose feelings may be deceptive, or at least so wide of the reality, as to lead him to call a person wretched who is quite happy, and another person wretched who is only so in a slight degree. But God is altogether true and perfectly exact in every trial that he makes, and he never gives way to tenderness but when there is occasion for it ; and he does so precisely in the degree in which SERMON VI. 181 the occasion requires his compassion. Cease, then, ye unconverted members of the Church, to flatter yourselves with the notion that you are harshly judged, or that imaginary offences are imputed to you, or that your real offences are exaggerated. He who says to you ; " Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die ? " is not a man, he is God. His compassion for you is a certain indication that you are miserable, and at the same time the degree of his compassion is in exact pro- portion to your misery. Estimate, then, if you can, the extent of compassion in the words of my text, and you will learn the extent of your wretched- ness ; for if you be obliged to admit that the com- passion expressed in this passage is infinite and without measure, know also that your wretched- ness is infinite and without measure. But why so ? and what is there in you which inspires God with such extreme compassion "? God shall still be your instructor in this. His Word elsewhere de- velops the general declaration which it here gives of your misery, and reveals to you its most striking features. The first trait — the root and origin of all your misery — is sin ; you are miserable because you are sinners. You are sinners, and you admit it; it would be folly to deny it. But you admit it in terms and in a manner which show that you ex- cuse it under the plea of a weakness inherent in human nature ; thus — " We are not, certainly. 182 SERMON VI. exempt from sin — no man is; as men wc par- ticipate in the frailties of human nature." * — In this language we easily recognise a man who has never viewed sin in its true light, and who has never known its full enormity, or, as I would here impress upon you, its full bitterness. Do you know what sin is 1 Keflect on this ; sift it to the bottom. Sin, — this disposition that is so familar to you that you speak of it as an element in your nature; sin, — in which you live, you move, you act, you think, — do you know fully what it is "? God will now explain it. Scripture defines it thus: — "Sin is the transgression of the law."* What light in that single expression ! Transgres- sion is not weakness, but it is revolting against order, it is the overthrowing of the law, which is order and rule ; it is total irregularity and confu- sion. Since, then, sin abides in you, there is dis- order in your hearts ; and wherever there is dis- order, must there not be misery ? Moreover, sin is the transgression of the law. Whose'? — the law of God, the Creator and Sove- reign of all things; of the law which reigns su- premely over this whole universe; of the law which commands the sea to confine itself within its limits ; the sun to give its light ; the worlds to remain in their spheres, and man to love God and render to him praise and glory ; of the sovereign and universal law. Such law, such transgression ; * 1 Jolin iii. 4. SERMON VI. 183 such order, sucli disorder; he who transgresses any law offends against the order of the whole region over w^hich that law extends its empire. He who offends against domestic law, offends against domestic order; he who transgresses the law of a nation, offends against the order of a nation ; he who transgresses the law of this world, offends against the order of this world ; and he who transgresses the law of the universe, offends against the order of the universe. Let us illus- trate this by an example. Suppose that an indivi- dual of a family violates domestic law ; for instance, a husband breaks his conjugal vow, — I say that in this case he offends against domestic order ; for if the principle that he puts in practice were adopted by the rest of the family, by the wife towards her husband, by parents towards their children, and by children towards their parents, by masters towards their servants, and by servants towards their masters, all the ties of duty, of authority, of confidence, of affection, which unite the mem- bers of this family would be broken, and this whole household would be thrown into complete dis- order ; and even if the offence of one of its mem- bers should not be imitated by the others, he is in- dividually as criminal, as if all of them transgressed, and responsible for his share in the disorder of the entire family. In a similar manner he who sins, offends against the order of the universe ; and he is individually as blameable as if all creatures re- 184 SERMON YI. belled like himself against the law of God. If the sea should pass its limits, if the sun should leave its orbit, if the planets should quit their places and wander in space without control, — this universal revolt, the very idea of which is con- founding to our imagination, what would it be? Nothing but the extension of sin; the sea, the sun, the planets would in this imaginary case be sinners, and all created things would be doing what you do. And though this is not a real occurrence, and other creatures follow not the example which you aiford them, yet in transgressing the law of God, you contribute everything in your power to its universal violation; and if, with your own hands, you were to force the sea above its bounda- ries, and remove the sun from its orbit and the planets from their spheres ; — if you could do this, and were to do it, Oh! sinning man, you would only be consistent with yourself, and would not as an individual be more a transgressor of order than you are by your daily actions. But more remains. Sin is the transgression of the law of God: but of which law of God] for there are two laws of God : there is his material law, which regulates the visible world, to which the sea, the sun, the heavenly bodies belong ; and there is his spiritual law, which governs the in- visible world, to which the soul of man belongs. The law which sin transgresses is the second law, the spiritual law, which regulates the invisible SERMON VI. 185 world. Man sins, and the harmony of the invisible world is disturbed ; but though man sins, the sea observes its limits, and the sun pursues his course, and the celestial bodies remain in their places. It is for this reason that the disorder of sin is less striking to us, carnal as we are and enslaved to visible things; but it is exactly for this reason that it ought to strike, amaze, and alarm us more. For, which is the grander and more glorious of these two worlds, the invisible or the visible world ■? Which is the grander and the more glo- rious, the spirit of man made after the image of God, destined like God to an eternal duration, capable of enjoying eternal felicity with God, — or the sea, the sun, the celestial bodies, formed of dust, destined to return to dust, and which are to be consumed by flames in the terrible day when " the earth and the heaven will flee away and there will be found no place for thera "? " * Let him who has the heart of a man and feels the dignity of his nature, answer. Let him say that the invisible world is the eternal world, and the visible world the perishable world ; the first the Sovereign world, and the second the subject world ; the first the real world, and the second but its type. Let him say that nature in her most dazzling glory is but a pale reflection of the invisible glo- ries of the spirits who preserve their fidelity to God and share his happiness ; and that the trans- * Kcv. XX. 11. 186 SERMON VI. gression of the laws by which God rules the in- visible world, is also but a pale image of the law by which he governs the world of spirits. Come out then, ye men, from the narrow circle from which your eyes can see and your hands can feel; place yourselves in spirit before the " Father of Spirits," and understand, if you can, the nature of that confusion which sin has produced. Though the sea were to overflow its boundaries and cover the earth with a new deluge; though its raging waves were to root up and overwhelm everything in their progress; though with a mighty crash they should roll the rocks loosened from the hills, the uprooted trees, the carcases of animals, and the bodies of men, and should render our globe but an immense waste of waters, the confusion thereby produced would be almost insignificant compared with that which would arise from the sin of man. Though the sun departing from its orbit should recede farther from, and approach nearer to our earth by a movement without design or rule ; though alternately it should expose it to a winter's blighting cold and consume it by insup- portable heat ; though it should cause everything to perish in a world which it was formed to gladden by its light and vivify by its lieat, the disorder which would be occasioned thereby would be as nothing compared with that which the sin of man would occasion. And though the world should totter on its ancient base and fall to pieces on its SERMON VI. 187 foundations ; though the planets and their systems should meet and crush each other ; though the uni- verse should relapse into more friglitful chaos than that from which God brought it forth, this derange- ment, this upsetting of the universe, would bear no comparison significant with the disorder which the sinfulness of man would produce. All that might happen if the heart of man were still in order and rule. The harmony of the invisible world, to which everything in creation is obedient, would remain the same, unalterable, full of glory, on the ruins of all visible things. But when man created in the image of God, departs from the spiritual order to which everything in creation is subordinate, when he rebels against God, when he sins — then dis- order is in the heart of the kingdom, then eternal realities are perilled; then the design of the Crea- tor would fail — if that were possible ; then a sacri- legious hand is raised against the King of kings, and it endeavours to drive him from the throne of the world. This hand — whose is it ? It is yours, it is mine, it is that of every one who has sinned. Behold then the disorder which sin hath pro- duced ! And by a necessary consequence, since the seat of this disorder is in the sinner's heart, there is the sinner's misery and wretchedness; there is your wretchedness, your own individual wretched- ness; and this is the reason why the God of all compassion is moved, conjures you, and says: — " As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no plea- 188 SERMON VI. sure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die, O house of Israel ! " What ! though you be so familiarised with this disorder that it does not terrify you ; though you be almost about to say unto sin, " Thou art my brother," and to say to disorder, " Thou art my sister," know that you will eternally feel your wretched- ness in another way, and so that no force of habit will render it tolerable. Sin does not only throw you into disorder, it exposes you also to the chas- tisement of God ; and if you can blind your heart so that it can reconcile itself to disorder, you cannot blind God to exempt you from punishment. Vain would be your hope of persuading yourselves that your sin deserves no punishment because you were born in sin, and that it is only in the first man it should be in justice sought for. For with- out going back to Adam, and entering into a long course of reasoning to justify the transmission of this sad inheritance from father to children, I will at once put two questions to you in which you are personally concerned: 1. Have you never done anything which you knew to be sinful, though you had power to avoid committing it 1 2. If this has been the case, have you not felt the reproaches of conscience 1 To the first question I answer for you, and for every soul of man : Yes, this has been the case ; and to the second question, I answer for SERMON VI. 189 you and for every soul of man: Yes, my conscience has reproached me for it. Well then, when you have done what you knew to be wrong and what you had the power of not doing, you have com- mitted on your part what Adam did on his, and you have spiritually shared in the fall of all your race; and when your conscience has reproved you for it, you have testified against yourself that you have deserved a punishment. — And what is the punishment that God reserves for sin? If you have hitherto looked upon sin only as a necessary consequence of human nature, partaking rather of infirmity than of wilfulness, it is probable that you only expect a mitigated degree of punishment, such as a father inflicts on his disobedient child. But if these reflections which we have placed before you have given you new views respecting the magnitude of sin, you will also have acquired new thoughts respecting the punishment which it deserves. Shall I tell you what the Word of God declares upon this point, this word, which gives everything its true name, which can neither magnify nor lie 1 I hardly venture to express it ; but it is necessary that you should be fully aware of your absolute wretchedness : for if otherwise, you will remain and perish in your delusion, which may God in his mercy prevent! but if you have a clear perception of it, there is deliverance for you. It is the compassion of God which leads him to reveal your condition to you, and it is charity which 190 SERMON VI. commands us to repeat to you what he has said of it. I repeat it to you tremblingly and as if I were a suppliant before you. Open the Bible at the Epistle to the Galatians, 3d chap., 10th verse, and read : " Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them." The punishment of sin is the malediction of God; the punishment incurred by every sinner — by yourselves — is the curse of God; You are under the curse of God. . . . Do not close the book, do not turn away your eyes, do not seek to distract your thoughts ; no ! but attend, listen, and understand your condition, such as it actually is. A curse ! — this single word has something in it which makes us tremble. You hear it pronounced, and without having time to enter fully into the meaning of it, an involuntary shudder seizes you. But examine its signification, and this feeling will be increased. To curse * is to say to any one, I wish you ill. It appears so conformable to our nature to feel a kind interest in any human being, even if he be not of our own race ; to desire his welfare cordially, and to express that feeling by good wishes; human language so abounds with wishes of this kind, though without real love, and even in respect to enemies, if we hear one man speaking to another and commencing thus, — " I wish ". . ., some kind expression is expected to follow. But when, on the contrary, we hear, " I wish that * Malcdicere, muldire. SERMON VI. 191 evil may befall you," it appears as if the order of nature were reversed, and that something myste- rious, fearful, and hellish, must have passed between him who utters the malediction and him on whom it falls. If a criminal, an outcast of the world, when about to receive the just reward of his crimes and on his way to the scaffold; if such a criminal should curse me, an involuntary tremor would affect me and make my heart beat, and these words, " I curse you," would sound in my ears long after the unhallowed voice which had pronounced them would be silenced by the hand of justice. And if a good man, accustomed to utter but virtuous words, and from whom I had myself received proofs of kindness ; if such a man were to curse me, his malediction would grieve me more because I thought more highly of him, and it would leave in my mind a deep and ineffaceable impression. And if my father, a venerable, tender, beloved father, if he on his death-bed were to curse me, — would not this curse cleave to my heart like an arrow that had pierced it 1 Who can estimate the extent of the anguish and bitterness it would occasion to me 1 Yet the malediction of any man might be unjust. That criminal might have cursed me because I reproved him for his wicked- ness ; the good man may be unjust to me ; even my father is not infallible ; and unfounded report, or a sudden irritation, may extort from him a malediction that I may not have deserved; and as 192 SERMON VI. it is written: "As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come." * If I have the approval of God and of my own heart, T could take refuge in tlie sanctuary of my conscience, out of the reach of man, and lift up my eyes in peace to heaven and say unto the Lord: "Let them curse, but bless thou." And even if the malediction of man were merited, it is powerless of itself Neither the criminal, nor the good man, nor my father is the arbiter of my fate ; they neither rule nature nor events, nor exercise an influence over my body or my soul ; the man curses and dies, and what will be the result of his male- diction, if a more powerful than he does not under- take its accomplishment 1 But if God curse — God who is just when he speaketh, and when he judgeth, who only strikes the guilty, and does not deal one blow more or less than is deserved; "The Lord who is good to all, and whose tender mercies are over all his works," f and who inflicts no punish- ment that the holiness of his law, the requirements of his government and the magnitude of crime do not force from him, as it were against his will ; God who speaketh not in vain, " who spake and it was done, who commanded and it stood fast,":}: and whose word, whether it be a promise or a threat, a blessing or a curse, is still that same word which said at the beginning, " Let there be light and there was light ; " God, whom all things worship * Prov. xxvi. 2. f Psa. cxlv. 9. X ^^^- xxxiii. 9. SERMON VI. 193 and obey, to whom the world is subject, and whose sovereign will constrains all creatures to work together, from one end of the universe to the other, towards the accomplishment of his designs of mercy or vengeance ; who blesseth, and all his creatures bless; who curseth, and all his creatures curse ; God, in short, who has entire possession of me — body and soul, who holds me altogether in his hands, who encompasseth me, who covereth me, who is everywhere within me, who makes each fibre of my brain, each pulsation of my heart, and each movement of my thoughts obedient to him; — if this God, all just, all good, almighty, should curse me; if I were of those on whom he pronounces these words : "As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him : as he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually." * What would this malediction be, but all the Divine perfec- tions arrayed against me; the justice of God over- taking me, his power overwhelming me, and, what is more terrible, his goodness aggravating the horror of his judgments, and of my remorse, and constituting my severest torture"? What would this malediction be, but all creatures contributing * Ps. cix. 17—19. o 194 SERMON VI. to my sufferings, co-operating respectively to the aggravation of my misery, and every nerve of my brain, every throb of my heart, every movement of my thoughts rebelHng against me 1 What would this malediction be, but the whole world, within and without, becoming to me void of love, nature with- out charms, the earth without fruit, heaven without blessing, existence joyless, the last drop of happiness exhausted in my inmost heart, and my whole being withered even to the root, like that worthless iig tree which our Lord cursed, and respecting which the apostle said the next day, " Behold the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away ■? " * In short, what would this m.alediction be, but my soul over- cast and wrung by an extent of misery which has no limit, and no longer finding in the range of creation anything save an universal hell, a hell within oneself, a perception of hell even in the contemplation of God"? To what purpose are these allusions equally impotent and terrible 1 It is too much for the feel- ings, it is too little for the truth ; and all this is as much below the reality, as the power of human language is below the power of God's word .... Ye unconverted ones of this congregation, be not emboldened by the consideration that you do not feel anything commensurate with such dreadful denunciations, and do not reason in this manner Avithin yourselves : " No, I do not feel myself * Mark xi. 21. SERMON VI. 195 accursed of God." Whether you feel yourselves accursed or not, you are so, for God says it. If you feel it not, know that this insensibility is the sign of a hardened heart, and the first-fruits of this very malediction. If you do not feel it now, know that you will one day feel it, when the visible things through which you are now able to disguise your condition from yourselves shall have perished. If you do not feel it, know that God feels it for you, — God, who says in the text: " Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live ; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel 1 " As a man, laboriously ascending a steep moun- tain whose surface discloses itself in elevations rising one above the other from the plain below to the summit, sees (each time that he arrives at the base of one of these successive heights and begins to ascend it) nothing beyond it and flatters himself that this is the last, and that he has just reached the end of his course, but has no sooner attained its summit than he sees other lulls which he has still to ascend, and he thus toils upwards with fresh surprise and with augmented fatigue ; so in laying before you the wretched condition of the unconverted Christian, as it develops itself in its suc- cessive and more frightful features, each time tliat I arrive at a new development and begin to enter 2 196 SERMON VI. upon it, I persuade myself that there cannot be any other more dreadful, and I then flatter myself that this one is the last, and that I have arrived at the end of my painful task; but no sooner have I arrived at such point of view than I discover beyond it others which I must also expose to you, and I proceed from one degree of surprise and terror to another. When we have fathomed the disorder of sin, and have found it to be more fearful than the derangement of the universe would be, what could remain to be added 1 The malediction of God ! And now, after having so far explained this malediction, and found that it involves an universal hell, can there be any new trait to increase the horror of your state'? Yes, there is one, and one that doubles, triples, and multiplies infinitely the force of what has been already said. This malediction, under which you are resting, is eternal; insomuch that if you were to appear at the tribunal of Jesus Christ without having been converted, you would be condemned to endless punishment : " for it is written, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels ; " and again : Thou shalt " go away into everlasting punishment." * Everlasting punishment! — Whatever might be your misery, it would be supportable if it had an end. The soul of man being immortal, is so con- stituted, that that which is to have an end docs not ♦ Matt. XXV. 4-1— 46. SERMON VI. 197 appear long to him. A child who had been told that the continuance of the wicked in hell would last 1,000 years, after which they would be released from it, and being one day threatened with hell for some improper conduct, answered, "What do I care for going to hein I shall stay there only a thousand years." This expression was as profound as it was artless, and the whole human race spoke by the mouth of that child ; what he said of a thousand years a man will say equally of a hundred thousand years, of ten hundred millions of years, and of a hundred times that space, and of any duration of time to which a limit might be assigned. With the eyes fixed upon this horizon, how^ever distant it may be, man can entertain the expectation of reaching it; and because he is immortal, his ten hundred millions of centuries, which he is to pass in suifering, wdll appear to him as nothing in the eternity of happiness which is to follow. But to be delivered to eternal pains ; to suffer, and to say to oneself: I shall suffer for ever ; to be in the com- pany of devils, and to say to oneself: I am here for ever; to be banished from the presence of God and from his kingdom, and to say to oneself: I am banished from it for ever ; to look downwards and see an abyss of sorrow which has no bottom ; to look upwards and see a heaven of wTath which has no horizon ; to look in every direction and see around but a boundless eternity ; to try to entertain a hope and not be able to ; to force oneself to be- lieve, and to find in the heart but the belief of the 198 SERMON VI. devils ; to cry unto God and be heard no longer ; to weary ourselves in vain imaginations of deliver- ance, and after fruitless eiforts, to fall always back upon ourselves, to find that we are in the same place, to see that we have no escape from the eter- nal abiding of the Divine malediction, and in the height of agonies to hear this voice from conscience : Tliou hast destroyed thyself; and from heaven this voice : I would have saved thee ; and from hell this voice: It is too late ; — this is a situation, of which the very idea distresses the soul, disturbs the heart, confounds the imagination, and deprives it of the power of fathoming and developing it in all its horrors. Yet this development is not necessary : you deny not the horror of this position ; you admit it, you are overpowered by it, and you have no other mode of reasoning against the terror which it inspires than by the persuasion that such a state will never be yours nor any man's, in short, that there are no eternal punishments. This is your remaining hope, but I must deprive you of it. What cruelty is this on your part, you will say, and what do you desire'? What do I desire "? to save your souls; and in order to save them, I would now tear from you, even from its very roots, the hope which the devil has suggested to you to prevent your conver- sion, — that the pains of hell will not be eternal. To cite the testimony of God's Word ought to suffice in order to silence you, who oppose your- selves to this awful doctrine ; but for your full con- SERMON \i. 199 viction I shall for a moment enter with you into the arguments which you object to the declarations of that word, and make you see the weakness and the folly of them. In the first place, I could give this one answer to all your arguments, that they neither have nor can have any solid foundation, because they depend only on conjectures, since man can but form conjec- tures respecting the things which follow after death. Death must alter the condition of man essentially and entirely. But what is the nature of this change'? — you are ignorant of it; and whatever theory you may imagine respecting the future state of mankind, you have no means of assuring your- selves that you are not taking our earthly ideas into the regions of the damned, like those Sadducces who entertained the notion that marriage would continue in the eternal world, and whom the Lord reproved, saying unto them : "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God." * This is enough at once to prove the worthlessness of your arguments. But let us consider them more closely, and we shall find them devoid of all force, even in the eyes of human reason. It is said that man has not deserved eternal punishment ; that there exists no proportion be- tween the sins included within the short and finite limits of human life, and a punishment whose duration is unlimited. But, in reality, to what does * Matt. xxii. 29. 200 SERMON VI. this objection amount ? What, then ! man has not deserved eternal punishment ! But who says that ? Is it he who has framed the law 1 Is it he who has made the heart of man ■? No ; it is man him- self But at what tribunal is it left to a culprit to adjudicate the degree of punishment due to his crimes 1 According to what new system of justice is a man made the judge in his own cause, when he is so full of passion and prejudices that he is not even capable of judging in another person's case 1 Man has not deserved eternal punishment ; then what has he deserved? Have you then, since you so boldly affirm that eternal punishment exceeds the proper measure of the culpability of man, this proper measure 1 Show it to us, and tell us what duration of suffering man has merited. Is it ten thousand years ? — is it a thousand years 1 — is it a hundred years ? — in short, how long is it 1 Man has not merited eternal punishment ! But how will you prove that he has deserved a finite punishment, whatever that may be"? I wish you to determine the number of years of punishment that he has deserved. Let it be, for instance, ten thousand years. What answer will you give to a person who will say to you. No ; sin is dreadful, no doubt, but not so much so as the punishment that you assign ; one thousand years is the just pro- portion for his crime? And what Avill that man answer to a third individual who wiU say. Do you reflect on it? — a thousand years for sins com- SERMON vr. 201 mitted in the space of a hundred years — for the very oldest of men I — are not a hundred years at most a sufficient punishment ? And then what will they all answer to another person who shall say in his turn : I do not know where you have derived all your gloomy ideas of sin ; it is unquestionably blameable, and deserves punishment ; but is it not sufficiently punished by the miseries of this sad life without seeking it beyond the tomb"? — there are no punishments after death. Come, what will you answer 1 What precise rule, what exact mea- sure will you produce ] You will seek in vain, you will not find them. But if you have no standard, why do you proportion punishment? and if you know nothing about it, why do you affirm anything respecting it ? We envy not your floating lights, and we leave your conjectures opposed to those of others. As to ourselves we have one rule — the Word of God : " We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen ; " seen in the AVord of God : that Word declares that sin merits eternal punishment, and therefore we believe that sin does deserve eternal punishment. But it is farther urged, that, even if man had merited eternal punishment, God is too good ever to inflict it. This argument, or, more correctly, this rejection, has something which captivates when we do not reflect; but when we do, we shall see that it proceeds from false notions derogatory from the goodness of God. God no doubt is good. 202 SERMON VI. — beyond all expression, good : but to conclude thence that he will not have sufficient determina- tion of purpose to inflict eternal punishment on the sinner, if that punishment be deserved, is to change tlie nature of his goodness and insult it by artful adulation, which could only be suggested by his constant enemy. Methinks I hear a man old in wickedness endeavouring to lure into his own destructive path a youth not yet hardened in crime, and who shrinks from the thought of legal punishment, and speaking to him in these terms : — Fear not the judges; they are too good to con- demn you. Judges too good to condemn ! What a frightful abuse of language ! too good to restrain the guilty, too good to answer the expectation of the country or the choice of the sovereign, too good to acquit themselves faithfully of the duties of their sacred charge, too good to be just and true to their allegiance ! What would judges who should be good after this fashion deserve but igno- minious expulsion from their judgment-seat, as unworthy of their high office, and base enough to sacrifice the repose of an entire nation to the indi- vidual tranquillity of the wicked ? And what would be the consequence in any country which might have the misfortune of being governed by them, but that evil-minded men would be encouraged to crime by the expectation of impunity, — men of property defenceless, — the laws powerless, and dis- order increasing — the prelude of utter ruin 1 Every SERMON VI. 203 one feels that to call that goodness, is to profane the sacred name and destroy all notions of real goodness. True goodness is united in the judge with justice, and will never prevent him from in- flicting on the guilty the punishments which they have justly incurred. Because he is good, he laments the crimes of the culprit ; he laments the punishment which must follow them ; and he laments the necessity imposed upon him of pro- nouncing sentence. But because he is just, his personal feelings in no manner impede the exer- cise of his judicial duty; — above all, the law must be paramount, and justice have its course; he will pronounce sentence perhaps in tears, but he will notwithstanding consign the offender who de- serves to be condemned, to the punishment which he has justly incurred. This is a feeble illustration of the conduct of the Judge of the earth, in whom eternal and unchangeable goodness is combined with eternal and inflexible justice, and whose good- ness can no more prevent him from being just than his justice can prevent him from being good. Because he is good, he takes no pleasure in the death of the sinner ; but because he is just, his law must be paramount, and every one must receive according to his deeds ; and if, by the law, sin deserves eternal punishment, it necessarily follows that he will inflict it upon the impenitent sinner. If the result were otherwise, if he were to dispense with the punishment or a portion of it, he would 204 SERMON VI. not be just; he would not render the law para- mount; he would establish disorder in place of order ; he would be unfit to govern the world ; — he would not be God. The learned and the phi- losophers of this world do not perhaps understand this ; but it is what good sense reveals to an unso- phisticated mind, and which was recently expressed by a poor peasant woman, in a word, which com- prehends all that I have been saying. She thought herself approaching her last hour, and longed for the pardon of her sins, which appeared to her in all their deformity. I exhorted her to believe in the grace of God through Jesus Christ ; but she replied that she was too wicked to be an object of such grace. " Then do you not believe that God is goodT' said I. " Yes, sir." " Would he be good if seeing you weighed down with your sins and earnestly desiring pardon, he should refuse it 1 " " Yes, sir ; he would still be good, because I have deserved condemnation." This poor woman did not yet understand the frecness of the salvation of God ; but she understood that his goodness could not obstruct his justice. Take the same view of this that she did, and do not indulge the vain hope that the goodness of God will prevent your condemnation, if it be merited. Does sin merit eternal punishment "? This is the question. This question once decided, — if sin really deserves eter- nal punishment, the justice of God will infallibly inflict it without being restrained in any manner SERMON VI. 205 by his goodness. And who can decide this ques- tion but God alone ? And how shall we know his decision but by his word, which declares that sin actually does deserve eternal punishment ? Similar answers might be given to all the other objections which human ingenuity can urge against the eternal duration of punishments. It is a subject, the truth of which God alone possesses, and re- specting which the Bible alone can give us know- ledge; and on whatever side we look we must ever conclude thus: — we are ignorant, let us rely on the Word of God. You feel this yourselves, I am assured, my brethren; you feel that there is nothing to oppose to the eternity of punishment, if the Word of God expressly establishes it, and that the only real mode of contesting this doctrine would be by opposing Scripture to it, and shewing that it is not taught in it. And this is perhaps what you still hope to do. Possibly, notwithstanding the declara- tions that we have deduced from the Bible, deter- mined not to believe this point — the most alarming of your awful condition — and after having vainly attempted all tlie other means of contradicting its truth, you return to the Bible, and think that by examining it closer you will find some means of making it declare that punishments will not be of eternal duration : but you will not succeed in this. Let me explain. If you be not sincere in regard to the Word of God, if you be resolved to lead your- selves into error, if you take the Bible in order to 206 SERMON VI. insert a doctrine in it, and not for the purpose of seeking it there, you will succeed to your mis- fortune, and the greater hardness of your heart. Yes, you will not find in tlie Bible a single formal declaration that punishments will not be eternal, (in vain would you seek this from the beginning to the end of Scripture,) but you will find in it a prin- ciple laid down, from which you can deduce accord- ing to your human logic, this consequence — that there will be no eternal punishments ; — a pro- position which, isolated from what precedes it, and from what follows it, and from the whole matter of the Bible, will appear to you sufficient to establish the point, that there will not be an endless duration of punishment; something, perhaps, more uncertain still, some notion, some view, some sentiment, which will not appear to you in accordance with the eternity of punishment. But if you be single- minded and sincere, you will admit that these are the subtleties of a mind resolved to alter to its own views the obvious sense of Scripture, the popular sense, the signification which a child would give it, wliich is, that the punishment will be eternal. Attend to me, my dear friends ; I shall speak to you from my own experience. I, like you, wished to find in Scripture that the doctrine of the eternal duration of punishment is unfounded. There was a time when I could not absolutely believe in eternal punishment for any man, not even for the devil, and when I wrote (I remember it well, SERMON VI. 207 and may God forgive me for it!) these senseless words: "If any one of God's creatures is to be eternally miserable, there is no possible happiness for me." But since I believed at the same time that the Bible is the Word of God, and that conse- quently I could not venture to reject the eternity of punishment while I found it taught in the Bible, I laboured to persuade myself that it was not taught there. With this object, I read, meditated, and commented, softening down the passages which appeared to favour this doctrine; searching, ex- aggerating, and forcing those which I hoped to find contrary to it; I did my utmost not to find eternal punishments in the Word of God, but I did not succeed ; I was conquered by the irresistible testimony of Scripture. When I heard Jesus Christ declaring to me that the wicked shall go into ever- lasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal,* and that thus the sufferings of the one shall be eternal in the same sense as the felicity of the others ; when I found Scripture anticipating all my doubts and cutting short all my objections with this declaration: "Where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched : " -j- when I found it to pronounce expressly against the hope that I wished to entertain of final deliverance for the damned, and declaring to me that between heaven and hell there is " a great gulf fixed : so that they which would pass" from one to the other * Matt. XXV. 46. j ^-^^'"'^ i^- "^-i- 208 SERMON VI. "cannot: "* then I yielded, I bowed my head, I laid my hand upon my mouth, and I believed in the eternity of future punishments, with the con- viction that you hear me express this day, which is the more fixed because I so long opposed it, and which constrains me to preach this doctrine to you emphatically as a Divine doctrine and worthy of God, as a holy and salutary doctrine, terrible to believe, but more terrible to reject. And what I have experienced, all souls influenced by the Gospel have also experienced ; nations have felt it, and the doctrine of eternal torments has ever been a popular one among Christian communities. What do I say"? You feel it yourselves, and you are conscious that you cannot reject it without oppos- ing Scripture, from which may God preserve you ! Ah ! lay aside your chimeras, your perilous hopes. Learn how much your awful state of malediction is rendered a thousand times more awful by this, the force of which is inexpressible in human language, the eternity of it; and know what a futurity God sees before you, when he exclaims to you: "Say unto them. As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die, O house of Israeli " Is this enough \ Have we said all that the subject admits of? And is the description of the * Luke xvi, 26. SERMON VI. 209 misery of the unconverted Christian at length exhausted 1 Already accursed — already eternally accursed, — can you think it possible that there remains another point which augments the tortures of his punishment 1 Yes ; there is another. The preceding points concern him as unconverted, and apply to him in common with all unconverted sinners. The point which is still to be considered affects him as a Christian, affects him exclusively in that character, and obliges him to envy the con- dition of others who are likewise cursed, likewise eternally cursed. It is because he finds that there are many different abodes in the place of torments, and that the worst is that of the unconverted Chris- tian]. There is something strange and a^vful in speaking of different abodes in hell, and it appears to us that there can be no gradations in an eternity of misery. But since there are grades in the iniquities of sinners, there are also corresponding grades in their condemnation, and different places in hell, as there are degrees in the eternal felicity of the elect and different mansions in heaven. This gradation is declared in the similitudes under which Scripture paints eternity in each case : as there is upon the one side " recompense for the righteous " * and the " prophet's reward," f — the just first, " shall shine as the brightness of the firmament," and the prophet " as the stars," whose brilliancy is reflected from the splendour of the * Ps. Iviii. 11. t Matt. x. 41. P 210 SERMON VI. firmament ; * there is also on the other side the chastisement " of Tyre and Sidon," and the chas- tisement of " Chorazin and Bethsaida," the judg- ment respecting Sodom, and the sentence pro- nounced against Capernaum ; j* and the difference which exists between those different punishments is sufficiently considerable for the word of God to add, that the one shall be " more tolerable " than the other. Therefore, as new caverns are found at the bottom of a vast precipice which penetrate still deeper into the bowels of the earth, which are abyss within abyss, — so in the dreadful condition of whosoever shall be delivered to " everlasting fire," there will be increased horror for those who shall be reserved for the last torments. And for whom shall they be reserved'? For the unconverted Christian. In fact, it is a rule clearly established in Scrip- ture, the equity of which cannot be disputed, that " unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required ; " J and that he " which knew his Lord's will," and did not according to his will, " shall be beaten " with more stripes than " he that knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes; " X and that, all other things being equal, the punishment of each individual will be augmented according to the facilities wliich he may have had towards his conversion. And according to this rule, for whom will be reserved tlie lowest places, • Dan. xii. 3. f ^att. xi. 21—24. } Luke xii. 47, 48. SERMON VI. 211 but for you, ye unconverted Christians? Who of all mankind, has had more opportunities for conversion than they who are born in a Christian Church, who call upon the name of Jesus Christ, who hear the preaching of the Gospel, and have the Word of God in their hands? W^ho have received most, you or the unfortunate Heathen, who bend the knee before deities of wood or stone, who devour the flesh of their enemies, and live like the brutes which perish 1 If it be you, know that your place in hell will be more intolerable than theirs. Who have received most, you or avowed Infidels, who blaspheme God's name, trample underfoot the most sacred things, and whom the Word of God compares to unclean dogs and filthy swine 1 If it be you, know that your place in hell will be more insupportable than that of those Infidels. Who have received most, you or those criminals who rob and murder on the highway, and whom society are obliged to chase as if those men were animals of prey I If it be you, know that your place in hell will be more intolerable than that of thieves and murderers. And if no other men on earth have received as much as you have, know also that there are none who may not hope for a more tolerable place in hell than yours. Believe our Lord himself on this point, in the awful words which he has pronounced against the un- converted Israelites of his time ; " Woe unto thee, Chorazin ! woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! for if the p 2 212 SERMON TI. mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell : for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee," * which signifies, when we apply this solemn sentence to ourselves : Woe to thee, Europe! woe to thee, France ! for if the testimonies, which have been delivered among you to the truth of the Gospel, had been delivered in Asia, and in Persia, a numerous people would long ago have been con- verted in those countries, confessing their sins, and believing in the Lord Jesus. Wherefore I tell you, that it will be more tolerable in the day of judg- ment for Asia and Persia than for you. And thou. Church of Mens, who art distinguished throughout the world for the signal blessings that thou hast received, thou wilt not be less distinguished one day for the judgments which will fall upon thee, if thou dost not bring forth fruits according as thou hast been favoured. For if the Gospel had been published among Caffres and Tartars as it has been in the midst of thee, there would have sprung from * Matt. xi. 21 — 24. SERMON VI. 213 their bosom long ago, a multitude of worshippers of God in spirit and in truth. Wherefore I say unto you, that at the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the Caffres and the Tartars than for thee. Woe unto you ! the measure of your pri- vileges will be the measure of your condemnation. Every new grace that you receive will be an addi- tional weight in the balance of your eternal punish- ment. Of all mankind, those who will suffer most — those who will be pointed out in hell as the most signal and deplorable monuments of Divine justice, — those to whom one of the damned shall say to another: How happy that we are not in the condition of that soul ! — those who will constitute a distinct hell within hell ; — those who shall be most cursed among the cursed, and most damned among the damned; — who are they? Name them your- selves ! I am overpowered by the importance of the subject. I have neither courage nor strength to dwell longer on the description of such misery. Undoubtedly this representation is too weak and incomplete, compared with the terrible reality ; but such as it is, I have not the courage, nor the strength, to sustain it. The disorder of sin, the curse of God, — that curse fixed throughout eternity, — and in that awful portion the place reserved for the most wretched : — when I collect together these separate points of misery ; when, in imagination, I sum them up in one single misery ; 214 SERMON VI. when in thought I apply this misery to any soul of man ; when I say that this man is to be sought — ■where'? — at the world's end] no, but near us, in these lands — amongst this people — in this temple — even amongst those whom I see before me, who now hear my voice, whose looks now encounter mine; — a shudder thrills through my veins, my heart sinks, I feel as if my voice were about to fail, and I can now only say to you, that of all the sights of suffering I have witnessed in the course of my life, the most sad I have ever seen is that of your- selves, Avhoever you be, who are in this condition ; and that no wretchedness which I may have wit- nessed, no wretchedness which I may have heard de- scribed, no wretchedness that I can imagine, excites within me such compassion as that which 1 feel for you. If I saw you poor, in want of everything, hungry, thirsty, cold, I should compassionate you, no doubt ; but this compassion would fall far short of that which your present state excites within me. If I were to see you sick, a prey to the most acute sufferings, without respite day or night, and almost in the pangs of death, I sliould compassionate you ; but this compassion would fall far short of that which your present state excites within me. If I were to see you mourning, weeping over the corpse of a wife, a husband, a parent, a beloved child, I should compassionate you ; but this com- passion would fall far short of that which your present state excites within me. If I were to see SERMON VI. 215 you an outcast from society, forsaken by parents, betrayed by the wife of your bosom, injured by your own children, I should compassionate you, but this compassion would fall far short of that which your present state excites within me. Nay, if I were to see you totally overwhelmed by all these afflictions together, and all others which it is pos- sible to imagine ; nay, concentrating in yourselves individually all the ills of all the unhappy, I should compassionate you, I should deeply compassionate you ; but this compassion would fall far short of that which your present state excites within me. The compassion which you excite within me as far exceeds that which all the afflictions of this life might justly claim, as eternity exceeds time, and infinity that which is finite. This compassion, nothing earthly, nothing human, can equal or express ; and however great it might be, it would become still more so ; and if I had more charity, it would vent itself before you in a flood of tears. But why should I speak of my compassion'? why should I now enfeeble my subject by giving way to my personal feelings 1 Away with the cold compassion of man ! it is incommensurate with the wretchedness we lament. There is another who has compassion upon you — God ! — a divine compas- sion; a compassion high as heaven, deep as hell; a compassion such as the words which he now addresses to you declare, " Say unto them. As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the 216 SERMON VI. death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die, O house of Israel "? " Great God, Father of mercies ! grant that this warn- ing voice which thou thyself hast sent forth against the unconverted may penetrate the inmost recesses of their hearts ! grant that they may no longer endure their condition, and that they may have neither strength nor voice, nor will, nor life, — except to " flee from the wrath to come," and " lay hold on eternal life." Amen. SERMON VI. Second Part. EZEK. XXXIII. 11. " Sai/ unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the tvicked ; but that the ivicked turn from his way and live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die, O house of Israel ? " My brethren, in my first discourse on these words, I invited your attention to the compassion of God for the unconverted members of the Church, and to the view which it affords of their misery; a misery which surpasses the power of language to describe, and all compassion, and all that the imagination of man can conceive, and from which we must flee at any sacrifice and without delay, and turn from its path to enter on another and be converted. If those of you in this assembly who are yet unconverted Christians have believed this, 218 SERMON VI. then you are delivered from the first snare which the devil has to this time laid for you to prevent you from being converted, in tempting you to believe that your condition is not so wretched as we would represent it to you. But when he fails in this first means of seduction, the enemy of mankind has recourse to another; that of suggesting to a soul which knows its misery and its need of conversion, that it cannot be assured of succeeding because conversion is a grace of God of which it knows not whether it will partake or not. To this second temptation, worse than the preceding, we are about to oppose that same compassion of God that we yesterday opposed to the first ; a compassion which, inas- much as it clearly shows that the unconverted Christian is wretched and has need of conversion, also shows that God is favourable to his conver- sion. Let us commence by clearly explaining the spiritual circumstances of those individuals for whom this second discourse is designed. I sup- pose then a man to address me in this manner ; — " I agree with you that my present state is " miserable, and that I must free myself at any " self-sacrifice, and that I cannot do so unless " converted. I know also what I must do to effect " my conversion ; and I do not want you to ex- " plain to me the doctrine of conversion, which I *' have often heard explained in public and in SERMON VI. 219 *' private. But is it certain that I can ' turn ' of "myself? In order that I should be assured of " this, the change should depend upon my own " will. But you preach to us and Scripture teaches " that conversion does not depend upon the will of " man, but that it is a gift of God and an effect " of his grace. If this be so I cannot ' turn ' of " myself, unless God is pleased to grant me that " grace ; and how can I be sure that he really " desires it "? perhaps he desires it, perhaps also he " does not." It is not surprising that you who recognise this to be your own language have not been converted ; with such thoughts it is beyond all probability that you ever should be converted. For conversion is, in all cases, a work so full of labour and self- sacrifice, that it seems impossible to undertake and persevere in it without perfect confidence of suc- cess. But you may obtain this confidence : the doubts which restrain you have no foundation whatever; and even though your conversion de- pends on the will of God, you may be as sure of success — I dare to say even more so — than if it depended on your own will. I shall assume that you are sincerely desirous of conversion, and that you are determined to do, as far as in you lies, all that you can and ought to do on your part towards it. If it were other- wise — if you were not solicitous for your conver- sion, by what right and in what spirit could you 220 SERMON VI. ask the question, Does God will if? This would be a dissembling question, to which there would be no ground for reply, and in such case I would not address myself to you. But I say to a man who is heartily anxious for his conversion, that, although his conversion depends upon the will of God, he may be as assured, and even more so of obtaining it, than if it depended on his own will : I shall explain my meaning. It is beyond doubt that your conversion cannot be eifected by your own will ; that it can only be by the will of God ; that it can only be a work of God, a gift of God, a grace of God ; and that a converted soul has cause to acknowledge with humility that its entire change proceeds from God, and from the very first commencement. The con- verted soul hath not chosen the Lord, but the Lord hath chosen it ; * it is he alone who hath " glori- fied" it, that is, who hath given it an inheritance in everlasting glory ; who before he glorified hath "justified;" who before he "justified," hath " called ; " who before he " called," did " predes- tinate;" and whom before he did "predestinate," he did " foreknow, " | that is to say, chosen, of his own free, gratuitous, and eternal choice ; whom, in a word, he hath " chosen (in Jesus Christ) before the foundation of the world, " X and from whom all things proceed, and " for whom are all things, * See Epb. i. 4. f Rom. viii. 29, 30. X Eph. i. 4. SERMON VI. 221 and by whom are all things;"* to whom alone be ascribed for ever and ever the conversion of a soul. Amen. But it would be decidedly wrong for you to con- clude, that, because your conversion is the work of God and not your own, its success is less certain ; on the contrary, it is more so. This may appear paradoxical to you: but it is the truth however. For if your conversion were your own work, its success would depend upon your own strength, your own perseverance, and your own wisdom; and by a necessary consequence, it would be de- feated by your weakness — by your impatience — • by your imprudence. Then, indeed, you would have cause to tremble at seeing your eternal destiny committed to hands so weak as yours, and every one of your infirmities would assume as it were a voice to address you thus : " I know how to pre- vent you from turning to the Lord." But if your conversion be the work of God, the success depends upon the power and the perseverance, the faithful- ness and the wisdom of God ; and have you not everything to gain by placing your trust in such firm and sure hands, — provided only you have the assurance that God favours your conversion] Well, he does favour it ; and, to use a scriptural expres- sion still stronger, God willeth your conversion. But he desires it, let it be well understood, not with that commanding and sovereign will which ♦ Heb. ii. 10. 222 SliRMON VI. cannot be resisted, so that you would be com- pelled " to turn" — whether you would or not — no, God does not lead man " as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding," — but with that consent and concurrence of the will by which he leads reasonable and responsible creatures; so that you may be assured that he will do what is necessary for your conversion, if you sincerely desire it yourselves. In this sense God willeth your conversion : this is what I hope to show you now in such a manner that nothing may be want- ing for your conviction. But I have something to ask you : hear me wdth singleness of heart. Do not ask me to ex- plain to you how it is equally true from God's Word that no one attains conversion without the grace and election of God, and yet that you are answer- able to God if you do not "turn" to him, he having done for each of you all that is necessary for your conversion. Both these truths are equally attested by Scripture : this sufficiently authorizes me to preach both one and the other, and this ought to be enough also to lead you to receive both one and the other. For I am a minister of Jesus Christ to declare all his counsel, " precept upon precept, line upon line," — not to reduce it to a system ; and you are the disciples of Jesus Christ, in order to believe what he teaches you, not to perplex yourselves with seeking to know how those declarations which you cannot reconcile in SERMON VI. 223 your mind are reconciled in the eyes of God. " Those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever ; " * but the one link which connects all those things that are revealed, the central idea whence they all proceed and in which they all concentrate, are in the number of those " secret things which belong unto the Lord our God." f Let us apply to the things which con- cern our salvation that spirit of simplicity and good sense that we exercise in the ordinary affairs of life. Suppose your house on fire : the flames extend, they spread and reach the apartment in which you are ; a beam over your head takes fire, is rapidly consuming and momentarily threatens to fall upon you .... a way of escape is presented to you; — will you say, in such a case, I cannot escape from the flames unless it is ordained by God that I should; otherwise I shall perish, do what I may; I can do nothing to save myself, therefore, I will remain where I am 1 No, but you will see in the way opened to you a sign that God willeth your deliverance, and you will hasten to escape, without perplexing yourself to inquire whe- ther you are destined to escape from the fire or not. Exercise the same prudence in whatever relates to the salvation of your soul. The peril in which you stand is pointed out to you ; a way of escape is shown; believe; escape, delay not, flee from the wrath to come, without perplexing yourselves * Deut. xxix. 29. f ^^^^ 224 SERMON VI. with the inquiry whether you be or be not elected. Flee only, and you will be one of the elect. What- ever may happen, nothing on the part of God raises an obstacle to your conversion ; on the con- trary, everything invites, favours, and ensures its success ; God willeth your conversion. This is what is declared to you in the compas- sion which God expresses for you in the text : as certain as it is that God would not feel this com- passion for you if you were not wretched, so sure is it that he would not express it if your deliver- ance were impossible, and that by a decree of his will. But, as in speaking of your wretchedness we entered into the details of the most prominent features under which God has depicted it in Scrip- ture, we shall also enter into the detail of the most striking marks that God gives of his desire that you should be converted. And first, do you bear in mind the solemn de- clarations that he has given to you of it in his word ; and without seeking further, attend to this announcement that you will discover in the text by a more attentive examination of it: — " Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live ; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel % " It is not necessary to inquire, too inquisitively, if this appeal be addressed to all men without exception, even to those whom the SERMON VI. 225 invitation does not practically reach. However this may be, it is addressed undoubtedly to those whom it reaches; it is addressed in the first in- stance to the unconverted Jews who had been circumcised and who had been thereby received into the first Covenant. It was next addressed to unconverted Christians who have been baptized and admitted into the new Covenant. It is ad- dressed to you: — even unto you. God says unto you: "Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his way and live : turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die, O house of Israel 1 " Is not this language clear, precise, and calculated to remove from you every doubt that God willeth your conversion? " Turn ye, turn ye ; " and " why will ye die 1 " Would God speak to you thus if he did not desire your conversion, and if there were no means re- maining to you of escaping from your wretched- ness? What! can you suppose that a rich man who encourages a poor one to come to him for relief, would resolve to refuse him if he came, which would be doing him a cruel injury? And would it not be insulting God, blaspheming his holy name, if you were to suppose that he has so distinctly, so expressly, and so tenderly invited you to *' turn," and yet refuses you the means ? Would he ask you why you are desirous of perishing, and yet leave you without the possibility of escaping Q 226 SERMON VI. from destruction 1 Would God thus trifle with man and address to him the mockery of an in\dta- tion, which in proportion to its earnestness would be the more invidious 1 No, no, that is not his idea ; if he calls upon you to turn to him, it is because he desires your conversion, and will do all that is necessary to enable you to " turn " effectually. Therefore he adds, expressly : " I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live." " I take no pleasure in your death. I neither afflict, reject, nor condemn willingly. No doubt, if you positively reject my grace, if you render all that I do to save you an occasion of hardening your hearts, as a just Judge I put in force the law of my kingdom against you, and pronounce the terrible sentence that the sinner has justly incurred. But I should be much better pleased not to be under the necessity of applying it ; and rather than render you a monument of my justice and holy indignation, I would much rather make you a monument of my tender compassions. I desire but your conversion : my pleasure, my joy, my glory, that which I take pleasure in, is your conversion." And even " willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel " * from pity towards you, and as if to remove entirely every doubt from your hearts, he adds to this tender declaration an oath, and " because he could swear by no greater, he swore * Heb. vi. 17. SERMON vr. 227 by himself: " * "As I live I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he turn from his way and live ; " as if he had said : " As surely as I live from everlasting to everlasting, so sure is it, ye unconverted Christians, that I desire not your death, but your conversion ; " if you desire it, I desire it still more, and I will refuse you nothing — positively nothing — that is necessary to induce you to turn. So that you must either accuse God of double dealing, of falsehood, and perjury, or else confess that nothing on God's part hinders your conversion ; but that, on the contrary, everything invites, favours, and ensures its success ; in short, that God wills your conversion. And do you not see this? What necessity is there for proving to you a truth which you can contemplate with your eyes 1 Look around you ; where are you"? who speaks to you'? who are ye yourselves ? and what do you now hear 1 Consider this, my dear hearers ; and doubt still, if you dare, that God willeth your conversion ! Where are you ? what is this edifice in which we are as- sembled ] is it a mute building which has nothing to teach you respecting the conversion and the vitality of your souls '? or is it an edifice without a voice, except one to lead you astray and beguile you into the paths of falsehood] Is it the sanc- tuary of some idol, of Jupiter or of ^loloch, of Juggernaut or of Bramah, or any other of the * Heb. vi. 13. Q 2 228 SERMON YI. innumerable terrestrial, shall I say, or infernal divinities, whose altar fires have been lighted by heathen nations "? No ; it is nothing of the kind, it is a sanctuary of our mighty God and Lord Jesus Christ, which speaks to you of Jesus Christ, and in which this voice constantly is heard : " Be- lieve in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Who now speaks to you, and who are we? are we ministers and preachers of some strange and unknown Divinity"? or are we public lecturers and founders of systems and hypotheses'? No ; but we are the ministers of our great Lord and God Jesus Christ, who announce on his part and in his name that ye should turn to him to have eternal life "? Who are ye yourselves "? Are you " aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise ; having no hope and without God in the world "? " * No ; but you are Christians, baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, possessing the Word of Jesus Christ, instructed in the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and everywhere surrounded, overwhelmed with signs that we must believe in, and turn to, Jesus Christ. And, lastly, what do you learn here *? What doc- trine do we announce to you ? Is it one of those impostures which the priests of false religions have invented to increase their wealth or their influ- ence'? or is it one of the doctrines of men, of * Eph. ii. 12. SERMON VI. 229 those philosophers of the age who succeed and displace each other like the soldiers which chil- dren make of cards 1 No ; hut it is the Word of the living and true God ; that word, which is the truth of heaven, and the source of all truth on earth ; that " engrafted word which is able to save your souls ; " * that word which is " quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow,'' ■[• and which is powerful to excite, to terrify, to en- lighten, to deliver, to convert, and to save. And you can doubt that God wills your conversion ! What has he refused you that is necessary for your conversion? Birth, baptism, instruction, commu- nion, preaching, Scripture, example, — what is want- ing ] Look around on all sides, what do you see, what do you hear but the invitations of God, but his graces, his promises, his menaces, which warn, which summon you, I had almost said, which compel you to turn 1 Ah ! how much more reason have not we for addressing to the Church what Moses said to the people of Israel : " The way " of conversion and salvation " is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say. Who shall go over the sea for * James i. 21. t Heb. iv. 12. 230 SERMON VI. US, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it "? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it. See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil ; I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing : therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." But besides the tokens Avhich God has given to all those who attend to his word that he willeth their conversion, he has given to you who hear me this day special manifestations of it. They are impressed upon the ground which you tread under your feet; they are written in the pages of your history; and even though every other nation in the world should doubt that God willeth their conversion, the people of this privi- leged country ought to be convinced that he will- eth theirs : so numerous, so peculiar, so striking, are the evidences of the good-will with which he regards this little portion of the earth ! Have you ever considered, my dear brethren, in what manner the preaching of the Gospel has reached you? Perhaps you think that it has been brought hither as to all other places where it is now known. But no ; it has been borne hither by a series of special, astonishing, and miraculous dispensations, and in which a fixed design clearly appears to cause the Gospel to reach you in tliis country, notwithstand- ing all obstacles. There is not perhaps any spot on SERMON VI. 231 the globe which the Spirit of darkness — under all the successive forms which he has devised and assumed — has contested so pertinaciously and fiercely with the Spirit of truth, as the land that we tread, this revered land — this land covered with the most vivid and glorious reminiscences of Church his- tory ; and truth banished for a time has invariably retaken hold of this country, where it has ulti- mately established itself without violence before your eyes and for your benefit. Eighteen hun- dred years ago this country " sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,"* and did not enjoy even a part of that faint light " which shineth in a dark place until the day dawn, " -f and which had diffused its prophetic glimmering from Jerusalem over a great part of the earth. But in the second century the Sun of Righteous- ness, with healing in his wings, J arose upon this land, and upon Lyons, which was the centre of it; there the holy Irenseus announced the glad tidings of conversion and of life, and there he assembled a people who worshipped God "in spirit and in truth." Hardly had that infant Church appeared, before the devil raised up Pagan E-ome and the worship of false gods in arms against her : the Christians were persecuted, burnt, torn by beasts, and the voice of the Gospel was stifled. It remained silent during centuries ; for how could that doctrine be termed Evangelical which had * Ps. cvii. 10, t 2 Pet. i. 19. J Mai. iv. 2. 232 SERMON YI. entered into it under the name of Christianity, but which, " having a form of godliness, denied the power thereof? " * But in the eighth century a pious Bishop — Claude, of Turin — preached the Gospel in these countries ; and in the twelfth century a noble witness to the truth was raised in the person of Peter Waldo, by whom God spread a great light, and caused the sound of the Gospel to go forth to the most distant lands. — The devil aroused himself again. Against a greater danger to his kingdom he called to his aid a more for- midable opposition : on this occasion he armed Papal Rome and degenerate Christianity against the Christians, and shed as water the blood of those who confessed Jesus Christ, who were mas- sacred, burned, broken on the wheel, put to death by all the most horrible tortures that can be imagined. But his work had a different result from what he expected. In dispersing the Chris- tians, he diffused the Gospel seed throughout all Europe, and prepared the way for a more powerful and extended reformation; and when the move- ment of the sixteenth century arrived, the testi- mony of God, which at first issued from this country, returned to it to be heard with increased power and liberty. Then arose new efforts on the part of the enemy, a new persecution, new mas- sacres ; so that many families of your own fore- fathers were compelled to seek from the land of * 2 Tim. iii. 5. SERMON VI. 233 strangers the protection which their own country denied them, and among them the ancestors of one of the servants of God who have this day pre- sented themselves for ordination in this Church. But truth still remained among your fathers ; the preaching of the Gospel could not be entirely suppressed, and even some of the persecutors were converted, and " preached the faith which once they destroyed." * At length, in the last century Satan tried new weapons against the truth of God, which succeeded but too well in our unhappy Churches of France. The philosophy and unbelief of the age made way into our pulpits to oppose Jesus Christ, and even under the name and authority of Christ. But on this occasion God, whose eye has always regarded this country, confounded the devices of the adversary, as he had triumphed over his bold assaults, and restored the light of the Gospel to its proper place. And may I not here recapitulate that series of wonderful dispensations by which God restored to you the preaching of the truth"? Waldo, that stranger, that man of lowly station, but powerful in word and in deed, almost devoted to you his entire life — so brief, but so well employed — who journeyed through your towns and villages, arousing the pastors and their flocks, and sowing plenteously on his way the seeds of con- version and eternal life. These favoured countries having in a short time faithful ministers and always * Gal. i. 23. 234 SERMON VI. hearing the wholesome doctrine of Jesus Christ; servants of God from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, successively visiting the Church and establishing within it the testimony of our faith; — a numerous people called from darkness into light, preaching the Gospel with their lips, and illustrating it in their lives ; — but time would fail us were we to enter into all these details ; — now I ask you, descendants of such a people, inheritors of such reminiscences, and of such a history, how could any one of you dare to say that he knows not whether God willeth your con- version ? He willeth not your conversion ! And what then does he will 'i what then is his desire "? what object does he pursue, then, in those dispensa- tions so astonishingly combined, by which, since the Gospel first came into the world, he always offers it to your acceptance, even though it be always rejected from the midst of you] He willeth not your conversion ! What then would he have done if he had willed it 1 what could he have done that he has not done in order to convert you? — you, for whom he has raised up witnesses, conquered armies, unravelled conspiracies, dethroned sove- reigns, caused war and peace, sent life and death 1 lie willeth not i/otir conversion ! And whose con- version then does he will? and to whom has he vouchsafed more favours than to you, and to whom has he granted them in a more wonderful way than to you? AVhom has he chosen as you? called as SERMON VI. 235 you? favoured as you? blessed as you? Once more, speak, answer, — what aid, what warnings, what ex- amples, what promises, what threatenings, have at any time been wanting to you? God willeth not your conversion ! And at what a time do you assert this ? When he has caused days of blessing to dawn upon you ; when he has collected in the midst of you a band of his servants, one after another, whose voices have proclaimed the word of salvation to you, and when each day brings to you some new invitation to turn ; when he has opened for you " the windows of heaven and poured out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it."* Ah! if you still doubt that God wills your con- version, these ministers, this assembly, this pulpit, these solemnities, even this day, will testify against you and for God, that nothing on his part prevents it; but that, on the contrary, everything invites, favours, and assures the success of it, and, in fine, that God willeth your conversion ! I now go farther, my dear brethren, and feel emboldened to assure you that there is nothing on God's part to prevent you from turning to him, nothing on his part to cause the delay of your con- version ; nothing, absolutely nothing, to hinder your conversion this very day. Perhaps you do think that your conversion is possible — but possible only after a lapse of time — after weeks, months, years, and at a distant period * Mai. iii. 10. 236 SERMON VI. if at all, as the termination of long seeking and continued effort. But this is again an error in which the enemy of your salvation endeavours to retain you for the purpose of gaining time, and in the hope that by delay your desire to be converted will diminish, and that obstacles will augment. Alas ! who can tell, in many cases, how conversion delayed has come to nothing? If the work of conversion were your own, not only would it be impossible this day, but it could never take place ; yet be- cause it is the work of God it is as practicable this day as on any other. And God's desire is not that you should postpone it: even this day he invites you to turn to him. His desire is for your con- version ; to-day is his time. He declares this to you expressly in his word, " To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." * But an invita- tion to turn to-morrow, you will nowhere find in the Word of God : when conversion is the subject, Scripture does not know the word to-morrow, except to protest against'^ all delay. " Seek ye the Lord while he may be found ; call ye upon him while he is near." j- " Behold now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation." | Thus speaks the Lord, and thus does he act. Scrip- ture presents many instances of persons turning as soon as they are called. Lydia hears Paul, and the Lord opens her heart. The jailor of Philippi hears the Gospel, and is converted the same night. * Ps. xcv. 7. t Isa. Iv. 6. J 2 Cor. vi. 2. SERMON VI. 237 The nobleman of Capernaum sees his servant healed by Jesus Christ, and believes with all his house. Zaccheus seeks Jesus, finds him, receives him, and performs works of faith — all in one day. The thief humbles himself, is converted, and receives the promise of life whilst he is on the cross. " All things are now ready " for the con- version of souls, as the Lord has expressed it in the parable of the wedding feast. Think upon these precious words: "All things are now ready." On the King's part all is ready : " the oxen and fatlings are killed," the dinner is prepared, the tables are covered, the places are arranged, the doors are open, the servants are sent, the guests are invited, they have only to enter and sit down at the feast. Everything is ready, not for to-morrow, but even for to-day, even this moment. And it is not only to-day that all is ready ; everything was ready yesterday, the day before yesterday; every- thing was ready eighteen hundred years ago, when the Son of God came in the flesh ; everything was ready six thousand years ago, when immediately after sin had entered into the world, the promise of grace also entered into it and announced him who was to come, that whosoever should believe might have eternal life; all is ready since the world began, for any one who is now desirous, has desired, or will desire to be converted. No delay in the time past was necessary or desired by God ; no delay in the future is necessary or desired by 238 SERMON VI. God. Beware of supposing that he makes you wait for him ; on the contrary, it is he who waits for you, as it is written : " And therefore will the Lord await, that he may be gracious unto you."* What do I say, he awaits you 1 He does more, he goes to seek you. Not satisfied with opening to you the door of his mansion, should you knock at it, disquieted at your not coming, he leaves his mansion, comes to your door, knocks at it, and says : " Behold, I stand at the door, and knock : if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." f You hear him, ye souls desirous of con- version, the Lord invites you to it, and his invita- tion is even for this very day. While the light of this day continues, while I am addressing you, while you are seated in this temple, God calls you, God awaits you, and God seeketh you ; and if all the unconverted members of this assembly, without a single exception, were willing to " turn " to him this day, there is nothing on the part of God, absolutely nothing, to prevent their turning, with- out the exception of a single individual ! But if God desire your conversion, and desire it this day; if on his side all is encouragement, invitation, will, disposition ; and if he does all that can be done, all that can be imagined — except compelling you — in order that you should turn ; from whom then arise the obstacles which impede * Isa. XXX. 18. t Rev. iii. 20. SERMON VI. 239 your conversion, or the delays which retard it] From whom, my dear brethren, if not from your- selves'? from yourselves, who will not enter when God opens his door to you, who will not open to him when he knocks at yours, who, in short, will not turn to him 1 Yes, undoubtedly, and we say so to you in plain language, when God has done everything, there is but one thing wanting to effect your conversion, — your own will ; and in this sense your conversion depends upon your own will, and all the responsiblity of your eternal destiny depends upon your will. This alone is still want- ing to you; this alone can be wanting to you in the time to come ; and if you be not converted it is because you will not. You think it perhaps desirable, but you will not turn. You wish to do so ; you may desire to escape from the misery wliich oppresses you, and avoid all the danger which threatens you ; you may desire God's forgiveness, peace, grace, eternal life, and in a word all the fruits of conversion. But you will not ; you will not for your conversion consent to make the efforts and to undergo all the difficulties, all the sacri- fices which it may cost you ; you are unwilling towards the attainment of the end proposed, to make every exertion, even to wrestle with sin, day and night ; to give up everything, even your most cherished pursuits, your most confirmed habits, your favourite pleasures ; to endure all things, even to the loss of fortune, honour, life itself — if God 240 SERMON VI. requires it. For if you desired it in reality, what would hinder you from doing what God commands you to do towards your conversion'? What pre- vents you from taking up your Bible and reading it with attention, with perseverance, and with prayer 1 what prevents you from praying to God for his grace and his Spirit, for faith, and a new heart? what prevents you from confessing your sins to the Lord, and beseeching him to blot them out with his blood ] what prevents you from doing what God enjoins in his Word, and from ceasing to do what he forbids"? what prevents you from seeking the encouragement and advice of enlight- ened and experienced Christians, who are within your reach ] what, in fine, prevents you from hear- ing God who speaks to you, from following God who calls you, from opening to God who knocks, and from doing in a Avord, all that is necessary to your conversion'? Nothing prevents you; but you will not; and your inward conscience bears witness against you that you will not; and to silence it, to divert the attention of others from the subject, and even to turn your own from it if you could, you go about complaining that you long for your conversion from the bottom of your heart, but that God willeth it not; thus casting your fault upon God, and adding hypocrisy and blas- phemy to the obdurate nature of your heart. But no ; you accuse God of being wanting to you only because you are wanting towards God. There SERMON VI. 241 is but one person in the world who prevents your conversion — yourself. Look around you, seek as you may, you will find no influence to render your conversion impossible, but that of your own will. God invites you, awaits you, seeks you, and says to you; be at peace with me, "turn ye." Jesus Christ stands at the door of your hearts, knocks there repeatedly, and says to you : Open to me, " be converted." The Holy Spirit ready to shed his influence within you comes nigh and says to you, receive me, " turn ye." The angels of hea- ven long for your deliverance and say to you : Participate the " good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people,"* and " turn ye." The minis- ters of the Gospel exhort you, beseech you, and say unto you: "turn ye." Nature without, and conscience within you, address you on their parts, and say, " turn ye." You alone — I ought to say, you and Satan, — but Satan cannot ruin you unless by your own will, — you alone, resist every- thing. In defiance of God, in defiance of Jesus Christ, in defiance of the Holy Spirit, in defiance of the angels, in defiance of the ministers of the Gospel, in defiance of nature, and in defiance of your own conscience, you ivill destroy yourselves. .... But will you do so to the end 1 Will you still resist, and seal your own destruction without remedy 1 Ah ! if you do so, know at least that God will not have desired your death, and that your * Luke ii. 10. R 242 SERMON VI. blood will be only upon your own head. Know that a time will come when you will vainly lament without consolation, and for ever, the folly of your resistance. Know that there is not an unbeliever, nor an ungodly man, nor a criminal, whose future prospects are not preferable to yours. Know that the justice of your dread condemnation will be acknowledged before all beings ; before the angels ; before the servants of God ; before the devils ; be- fore yourselves ; and that there will be no creature who W'ill not be forced to confess that the holy law of God ought to be avenged by an exemplary and terrible punishment of sinners so infatuated, so obstinate, and so hardened, as you are But what have I said 1 What am I about ? Have I forgotten the spirit of this discourse 1 Does not my text warn me to leave unnoticed his justice and wrath, and confine myself to the tender compassions of my God ? And who am I to threaten those who resist grace, I who have resisted it so long myself? Ah, rather, with my heart torn by the contempla- tion of your wretchedness, my spirit troubled by your peril, my imagination distracted at the thought of the fate which you are preparing for yourselves, I throw myself on my knees before you, and I entreat and conjure you with tears, to have pity on yourselves and to "turn." But no: my pity is too weak and my voice too powerless. Do thou, oh Lord Jesus, who knockest at the door and who canst touch their hearts, merciful and loving Sa- SERMON VI. 243 viour, put thyself in my place. Do not disdain to humble thyself before these poor unconverted members of thy Church. Urge them, entreat of them, conjure them to "turn." Thine entreaties, thy prayers, thy tears, will do what mine could not do, and will soften even the most obdurate hearts ; Oh, ye my people, my Church ; ye, on whom my name is invoked, ye whom my baptism has sealed, ye whom my table has nourished, ye for whom my blood has flowed, will ye not come unto me that ye may have life ■? Lo ! I am not come to condemn the world, but to save it. The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls. Do not reject my yoke, for it is easy, nor my burden, because it is light. How often would I have gathered you even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not ! I have sought you as the good shepherd seeks his lost sheep; I would have borne you on my shoulders, I would have placed you in my bosom and borne you into the sheep-fold ; but you strayed from me, as if my voice were that of a stranger. Nevertheless, behold me still ; I yet have compas- sion upon you, and I have still come to seek you ; I stand at your door and knock ; if any one hear my voice and open the door I will enter and sup with him and he with me. Oh, if thou hadst known in this thy day of visitation the things which R 2 244 SERMON VI. belong to thy peace ! Turn ye to me and be saved ; believe in me and ye shall live ; flee from the wrath to come ; enter by the narrow gate ; give me, give me your heart. It is I who implore you to do so, I your God, your Lord, your Saviour ! Do I deceive myself, brethren ] I suppose that there are in this assembly persons who have heard the voice of Jesus, who look back upon their past resistance with horror, and who wish this very day to receive him, and to open all the doors of their hearts to him. Methinks I hear them say, " I also wish to turn." Arise, merciful Saviour ! bear upon thy shoulders these sheep which were lost and are found. Lay them in thy bosom, caiTy them into thy fold, and add them to thy beloved flock which no one shall take from thee ! Grant that the Church may triumph, that the angels may rejoice, and that all who love the Lord's name, in heaven and on earth, may be united to sing with one heart: " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him for ever and ever."* Amen. * Rev. V. 12, 13. SERMON VII. PSALM LXXXIV. 12. *' Lord of hosts^ Messed is the man that trusteth in thee." You have often heard it declared " that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures."* You have been told in the words of John the Bap- tist : " He that believeth on the Son, hath ever- lasting life : and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." f You have been earnestly exhorted to flee from the wrath to come, to believe, and to be con- verted. How is it that these declarations leave you unmoved, and that you for the most part seem to pay no regard to these solemn warnings ] It is not, I feel assured, that you have formed the dreadful design of rejecting the grace of God, and of casting yourselves from despair headlong into everlasting perdition : No ! the end proposed ap- pears to you desirable, but the way which leads * 1 Cor. xiii. 3. f Jo^^ii "i- 36. 246 SERMON VII. to it is unpleasant to you. Whatever be the hopes of the Christian faith, the Christian life alarms you, a life you think that is so void of pleasure and interest, so replete with privations and sacrifices. Were the Christian life as sad as you picture it to yourselves, the knowledge that you can by no other way attain a life of perfect happiness ought to reconcile you to it ; for it would be mad- ness, surely, to weigh a transient suffering with a happiness which is eternal. Nothing, however, is more false than the idea which you form of the Christian life. If you but knew it, you would be convinced that it is on the contrary, the hap- piest, nay ! the only happy life, even here below, and that " Godliness has promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come."* This is what the Holy Spirit declares in the words of my text, and what I propose to show you this day. But even while beginning to set forth the hap- piness of the Christian life, I fear that you niay oppose me with an argument derived from expe- rience. If the Christian life is so happy, why are not true Christians more contented"? AVhy do we see some of them who generally appear sad and thoughtful ] This difficulty concerns you, children of God, who constitute part of this assembly. If I had at heart only your justification, I should not be altogether unprovided with an answer. I could * 1 Tim. iv. 8. SERMON VI r. 247 represent to those who speak after this manner, that all things considered, there is much more con- tentment and peace amongst the true disciples of Jesus Christ than amongst other men. I could represent to them that the happiness of the Chris- tian life is a substantial happiness, which is not so much outwardly exhibited, as it is inwardly felt, and that unlike the man of the world " whose heart even in laughter is sorrowful,"* the Chris- tian often conceals an inward peace under a serious countenance. T could represent to them that sur- rounded here below by exhibitions of sin and unbelief, and still, alas ! bearing within ourselves the obstinate remains of sin, having learned to say with a prophet : " Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because they keep not thy law," f and with an apostle : " Who shall deliver me from the body of this death V:]: it is not to be wondered at if we sometimes bend beneath the weight of human miseries. I could represent to them also that it is just to make allowance in some cases for natural disposition, or even for physical constitution, which predisposes them to melancholy, and which, before their conversion, urged them to despair, nay I pos- sibly to self-destruction. I could tell you all this, my dear hearers; but I doubt if these explana- tions would satisfy you fully, because they do not entirely satisfy myself; for there is in the Christian * Prov. xiv. 13. t Psalm cxix. 136. J Romans vii, 24. 248 SERMON VII, faith a treasure of joy and power which ought to be sufficient for the greatest need. But I have ascended this pulpit not to preach Christians, * but to preach Christ. Therefore 1 desire rather to confess in all simplicity before God and before men, that we are wanting in joy, generally speak- ing, only because we are people of little faith. Whatever may be our state and personal expe- rience, it remains true that joy is one of the " fruits of the Spirit," f and that there is nothing impracticable in this commandment that God has given to his children : " Rejoice alway." X I shall have no difficulty in convincing you of this, if you listen to me without prejudice. As for those among us who have already believed, may this dis- course serve to make us more sensible of the great- ness of our privileges, to render us more happy and more fit to glorify the Lord ! The happiness which we promise to you in the Christian life is not, need I say it] an external, terrestrial, carnal contentment, such as the world can give ; a happiness as brief as it is incapable of satisfying the heart of man, and which those who content themselves with it, have not even the sad consolation of being able to carry with them into hell. I speak of an internal spiritual hea- venly happiness, and such as is suited to a man who is conscious of the dignity of his nature and * Pour precher les Chretiens. f Gal. v. 22. X Phil. iv. 4. SERMON VII. 249 the boundless cravings of his heart. Raise then your minds above the ordinary objects which en- gross them and fix them on nobler thoughts. There is in the happiness of the Christian life a feature so striking that it cannot fail to attract general attention : it is that which David sets forth in the beginning of the 32d Psalm : " Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered ! " To be assured that we have received the pardon of our sins, and with this grace, (the first which God grants to a sinner, but which is never granted alone,) to receive beside all the other graces detailed in the remainder of this beautiful Psalm, consolation amidst the ills of life, and the light of God through its shadows, looking forward to a peaceful death and a happy eternity, this is not one of the joys of the Chris- tian, but the Christian joy; and a joy so great that even you who have not the blessedness of being believers cannot avoid sometimes longing for it. I will assume that you are already convinced of this, and I would rather turn this discourse to the purpose of proving to you some truths of which you have not the least idea, and which will at first appear to you extraordinary paradoxes. It is not from the bright side, but from its darkest shadings I would lead you to long for the Christian life. I would have you see that even the points which repel you most in this life, possess, under appear- ances which mislead you, secret delights, that you 250 SERMON VII. may know that " the foolishness of God is wiser than (the wisdom of) men, and the weakness of God is stronger than (the strength of) men : " the bitterness which God infuses into the cup of which his children drink, is also sweeter than all the sweetness of this world's life. What in fact in the Christian life is repugnant to your feelings 1 In the first place, it is faith ; it is that submission of mind which Jesus Clirist requires from his people. You think that this submission is not free from credulity ; your under- standing must be satisfied, else there is no pos- sibility of happiness for you. We too say: that there is no possible happiness unless our under- standing be satisfied, but far from requiring blind credulity, faith is the best use that we can make of our reason, and it obtains for us such intellectual happiness as we find in no other source. * All submission of the understanding is not credu- lity. We are not credulous unless we submit our reason to an authority undeserving of the confi- dence we repose in it. For example, a child who * This discourse was delivered previously to that which is placed first in this volume. Some of my hearers liad asked me to resume in a distinct discourse, the subject which I had dis- cussed in my first part. It was in compliance with tliat desire that I composed the sermon entitled, " Tlie Credulity of the Unbeliever." This will account for the connexion which may be traced between tlie ideas developed in that sermon and some of those in the present one. SERMON VII. 251 would be guided by the opinion of another child equally inexperienced, or who would believe all the nursery stories which an ill-judging servant should relate to her, is undoubtedly credulous. But ought we to consider credulous a child which, conscious of his incapability of self-guidance, should submit to the directions of his parent ? Does he not act with more sense than if he prided himself on his independence, and would only follow his own judgment] Take a lesson from this simi- litude. We also believe that we make a good use of our reason when fully conscious that we are even more ignorant and more dependent in the sight of God than this child is in his father's eyes, we resolve to yield submission to the Bible, which in our view is the ^^^ord of God. This would be all very well, you perhaps will say to yourselves, if we were assured that the Bible is the Word of God ; but how is even this to be known] and can we receive the Bible without credulity ] Ah ! if you think it necessary to close your eyes in order that you may receive the evi- dences of divinity which are in the Bible, unde- ceive yourselves : it is on the contrary only neces- sary to open them entirely. For these evidences are such, that whoever seeks with sincerity to know whether the Bible be the Word of God will be irresistibly convinced that it is, and he who has already received it as such finds throughout it the proof that he has judged aright. He has found 252 SERMON VII. this proof, not only in the miracles and prophe- cies which are as fully demonstrated as the most authentic histories of past ages ; not only in that inward voice by which the Holy Spirit testifies to him that he is in the truth ; but he finds it all around him in facts which actually pass under his eyes ; he sees it written every where, in heaven, on earth, in the heart and in the life of man. The world is full of enigmas which the Bible alone explains. Produce to us your philosophical doctrine and collect all your learned men ; and I M'ill bring forward the most humble amongst my brethren, peasants, children, but with the Bible in their hands. Explain sin to us, and how under the government of a Holy God, the thought of the first disobedience entered into the heart of the first man : and we will explain it to you by the simple narrative of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which has perhaps sometimes excited your ridicule, but in which there is more light thrown upon this most obscure of questions than in all your philosophy put togetlier. Explain death to us, and how this fearful evil arose under the government of a holy and wise God ; what do I say, death'? — explain to us disease — explain to us the most trifling pain — a scratch, and we will explain to you every pain, trivial and serious, yes, even death itself, which surpasses them all, by this verse of the book which we hold in our hands : " By one man sin entered into the world, and death SERMON VII. 253 by sin." * Explain nature to us, thorns and briars growing spontaneously upon an earth created by the hands of God, and man reduced to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow : and we will ex- plain to you all this by another verse from the same book : "Cursed is the ground for thy sake/'f Explain history to us, and what Divine plan can develop itself in this fearful confusion of crimes which stain our race, and of calamities which deso- late it: and we will explain it to you by those prophecies which indicated some centuries before- hand four great empires rising up in succession, falling one upon the other, and giving place at last to a kingdom which is to have no end. What shall I say more? All those great problems of humanity which are from age to age the stum- bling-blocks of philosophy, the Bible solves, not certainly in such a manner as to leave no more questions to ask, but so that it justifies God, that it satisfies man, and by this dawning of light which it gives him now it enables him to foresee a still brighter light which will hereafter dissipate all his darkness. It is by this proof from fact and from experience that we are assured, with an evidence which increases from day to day, that the Bible is what it professes to be, the book of God. And as a man, who having wandered for a long time through a house and tried ineffectually with all the keys he finds to enter into its several apartnients, * Romans v. 12. f Genesis iii. 17. 254 SERMON VII. and at last succeeds in discovering a key which with equal readiness opens all the locks, would know, that he has found the master-key, so, we have known and we have believed that the Bible is the master-key of the world, because we have ascer- tained that it opens all its doors and brings every- thing to light. How can you say to us after this that we are credulous in submitting to it ? Ah ! w^e should be indeed credulous if we could think that such a book came from the hand of man ; or if, knowing it to be come from God, we could yield to any other authority than his. But now we rejoice and glory in having submitted to it, as the best use we could make of our reason. This intellectual happiness, of which the world falsely boasts, we find indeed in faith. We should not hesitate to say, that notwithstanding superficial appearances, the reason in reality is better satisfied in a Christian peasant than in an unbelieving philosopher ; and it is with a good conscience, it is without offering any violence to the rights of human reason, it is in tlie full enjoyment of all the faculties of our soul that we can enjoy the happiness of believing. Yes, the happiness of believing : and we want language to bless God, that in the midst of those opposing opinions that are continually clashing and w arring against one another, we have a Word of God, and a written word which reveals to miserable sinners the way of eternal life, " Jesus Christ, and him SERMOxN VII. 255 crucified." * Yes, the happiness of believing ; and while all otlicrs weary themselves in vain efforts to fix their wandering thoughts on some object, and can never succeed beyond conjectures instead of the conviction after which they sigh, how great is the peace whicli we feel, we who are " taught of God," we who have a right to exclaim with that scientific man of antiquity, but with a joy as much above his as tlie problem of eternity is above that which Archimedes had solved : "I have found it ! I have found it ! " Yes, the happiness of believing, the happiness of being able to say, not only before men, but before God himself, and in our secret thoughts : " This is the true grace of God wherein we stand!" j" This assurance is imputed to us as a crime ; we are asked to present our belief only as a disputable opinion; but that is impossible for us. Let doubt speak the language of doubt ; faith speaks thus: "Thus saith the Lord," Lord Jesus, is it not true that " thou art the Christ, the Son o^ the living God ■? " Is it not true that thou hast made atonement for our sins by thy blood, and that there is no more condemnation for those who be- lieve in thy name "? Is it not true that, now seated at the right hand of the Father, thou sendest to us thy Spirit, that thou abidest in us and we in thee, and that thou art gone to prepare a place, that where thou art, we may be also I Lord, we confess thee before men, oh testify of us also in the hearts * 1 Cor. ii. 2. t 1 Peter v. xii. 256 SERMON VII. of those who hear us, whilst looking for that great day when every eye shall see thee coming in the clouds of heaven ! Oh ! incline them to receive the word which we preach for what it truly is, thy word, and not man's word, not only lest that terrible day surprise them in their unbelief, but that from this day they may have part in that firm assurance, that happiness of mind which those alone possess who believe in thee ! " O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee ! " What is it which still offends you in the Christian life ■? Is it that it appears to you monotonous, or to speak more plainly, wearisome^ To revolve con- tinually within the narrow circle of two or three ideas, to read the Bible and pray, to pray and read the Bible, is an existence so uniform and cold, that an ardent spirit cannot submit to it. You will perhaps find us very bold if we dare affirm that the Christian life has on the contrary more variety and •interest than yours. For in the first place what you take for uni- formity is unity. We willingly grant you that the whole life of the Christian is summed up, (at least it ought to be so,) we do not say in two or three ideas, but in one alone — Jesus Christ. For the Christian, " to live is Christ ; " * to believe in Jesus Christ, to love Jesus Christ, to serve Jesus Christ, to imitate Jesus Christ, is " the one thing needful." But you know very little of human nature, if you * Phil. i. 21. SERMON VII. 257 think that by being directed entirely to one end, the Christian life will have less interest. It is the character of our mind — all philosophers have ob- served it — that it seeks in everything one single principle, one single design, and that it cannot rest satisfied where it finds no unity. There is no law more fundamental, either in literature or in arts, than that which requires us to satisfy this want. For instance, with respect to public speaking, which do you like best, a discourse formed of thoughts thrown together without general con- nexion, or the well-arranged development of a single idea'? or, in the instance of architecture, which do you contemplate with the greater pleasure, an irregular mass of buildings, or an edifice whose several parts depend on a general plan"? And, if this rule has been adopted in regard to the works of men, it is because they have found it observed in those of God himself; it is from nature that unity has passed into the arts. In the human frame, in a tree, in the fields, in rivers, in the sea, in the firmament, in the whole creation we discover a wonderful unity of design. If then unity prevails throughout the outward and visible world, it ought also to prevail in the moral world and in the life of man. If your life have not one principal interest which predominates wholly in it as a centre round which it moves ; if you propose to yourself one object to-day and another to-morrow ; if at one time you regard the s 258 SERMON VII. approbation of the world, at another time the example of your neighbours, or with a new impulse, the inclination of your own heart, or the commandment of God, — your life, being devoid of unity, will be also devoid of power, of depth, of motive, or rather it will not be a life worthy of the name, it will be but a simple succession of events. Ah ! be assured that we should lose the sense of our dignity as men, and tliat of our duty as Christians, if we consented to scatter in this manner the faculties of a mind which God has made in his own image, and which one day he will make perfect in unity. If we were obliged to make the choice, we should prefer unity without variety — which would constitute an uniform life, like that of anchorites, — to variety without unity, which would constitute life without rule or design, such as that of which you boast. But this choice is not necessary, and the Christian life reconciles all things. Under the powerful unity which the idea of Jesus Christ involves, an infinite variety of objects is ranged with which we may occupy ourselves in the name of the Lord. And what is there that we may not do to his glory, except committing sin 1 The work of the six days and the rest of the seventh, the fatigues and recreations, the employments and honours of public life, — the duties and sweet engagements of domestic life, — the exercises of the soul, of the mind, and of the body ; yes, even the use of food SERMON VII. 259 which the Christian sanctifies by prayer, all can be directed to the Lord ; and we could fill up a day, a week, a year, with ever-varying cares, yet never cease to serve him and to glorify his name. It is thus that the Christian life realizes in its own way the best definition that philosophers have given of the beautiful. Beauty, they have said, is unity in variety. What is it, for instance, that charms you in the landscape which you are never tired of con- templating'? This earth, these fields, these trees, these flocks, these men, here is variety ; yet the different parts of this picture have a common re- lationship to each other : the ox crops the grass of the meadow, the hand of man draws milk from the cow and gathers the fruit hanging from the trees, whilst the earth, the common mother, bears and nourishes them all: this is unity. Variety, unity. Oh! how well connected these two things are in the Christian life ! As a more beautiful exhibition in the physical world cannot be found than the firmament studded with stars whose perpetual move- ments obey one and the same law, so a more beautiful one cannot be discovered in the moral world than the Christian life, in which one thought pervades and governs all the useful affairs of human existence. These reflections are a little abstract perhaps, and do not strike all minds with sufficient force: let us illustrate them by an example, which we will take from domestic life. A husband and wife, s 2 260 SERMON Yll. parents and children, masters and servants, in a house where the Lord is not loved and obeyed, are so many relations feebly linked together and with- out a common principle. It is very different in the Christian family. There dwells an invisible guest seen by faith as if present to the eye, and w' hose spirit animates all the relations of domestic life. The intimate and holy connexion between husband and wife finds its principle and rule in Jesus : he has condescended, you may remember, to call him- self the spouse of the Church, and to call the Church his bride : " The husband should love the wife, even as Christ also loved the Church, and the wife should be subject to her husband as the Church is subject unto Christ." * The tender and sweet connexion between parents and children finds again its principle and rule in Jesus: God who has adopted us, calls us his children and himself our Father; the father should guide his children as God guides his children in Jesus Christ, and the son should obey his father as the Christian obeys his Father which is in heaven. There is no connexion, even down to that humble but useful one of master and servant, which does not find its principle and rule in Jesus : he is our master and we are his servants; the master ought to command his servants in the same spirit as Jesus commands his disciples, and the servant ought to honour his master in the same spirit * Eph. V. 24, 25. SERMON VII. 261 as the disciples of Jesus honour their divine Master. * Thus order in domestic life combines unity and variety : variety in those different relationships, unity in the contemplation of Jesus, in whom they all concentrate. Ah ! do you imagine that the interior of such a house loses by possessing this common bond, and that the presence of this heavenly guest alters there the charm or freedom of domestic intercourse? Christian families who have had some experience of what has just been said bear witness to this truth. Say whether Jesus, in whom sovereign majesty is united to brotherly condescension, be not the friend of the family at the same time that he is the God of it. Is it not true that if there be there any gentle gaiety, any tender affection, any real joy, any effectual comfort, it is to him that you owe them'? Is it not true also that if there be seasons of languor and weari- ness, it is not when he deigns to preside at your conversations, when he seats himself with you at the domestic board, when he breaks for you the bread which gives life to the soul with that which nourishes the body, and when he says to you, as formerly to his disciples in the upper chamber: " Peace be with you." f Thy peace. Lord, and not coldness and indifference; thy peace, but with it the liveliest and the deepest interests ! Yes, my dear hearers, the liveliest and tlie deepest interests. This surprises you. The Christian life, * Eph. V. 19. t Joli^ XX- 26. 262 SERMON VII. we have been observing, appears uniform to you ; but it also appears cold. In the midst of so many circumstances and events wliich draw you along and move you by hope or by apprehension, by joy or by sorrow, the true Christian in your opinion remains impassible. Isolated, in some measure, in the midst of the world, and, according to his own language, a stranger here below, the interests of heaven close his heart against those of earth. You would not envy him this apathy; you have need of more activity and ardour. We also have need of activity and ardour ; human nature requires it, it is a remnant of its primitive dignity ; but the Christian life alone satisfies this need. I explain myself by a comparison. Young children give themselves up to the sports of their age; to them they devote themselves altogether; they run about, they cry out, their eyes sparkle with emotion and pleasure. Near the scene of their sports, quietly seated, or walking with slow steps, you are absorbed in deep contemplation, or engaged with a friend in grave converse upon some commercial speculation, upon a political revolution, upon a philosophical question. In such a moment, which is the more occupied, the more active — these children or you"? The outward man is more oc- cupied with them, but the inward man with you ; these children are more in motion, undoubtedly, but you arc more active ; for assuredly it is by the life of the mind and heart, not by the physical and animal life, that we are to calculate the wear and SERMON VII. 263 tear of our existence. Apply this principle to the subject under our consideration, and you ^vill perceive that there is much more activity in the Christian life than in yours. For, search deeply, and you will find under the agitation of your life, interests without importance, without depth, unworthy of occupying an immortal soul, whereas, on the contrary, beneath the tranquillity of the Christian, you will find in- terests alone great, alone deep, alone worthy of his nature and of yours. Upon this point we shall sum up all in a word — your interests are of the earth, and his of heaven; therefore, in you an immortal spirit is moved by the things of time, and in him an immortal spirit is moved by the things of eternity. What, in fact, are the concerns which fill up your life? Shall I speak of your ordinary ones"^ What! a party, a feast, dress, praise, censure? But let us come to your more serious concerns. Let the question be, whether you shall be rich or poor; whether you shall lose your health or pre- serve it; whether your life approaches its end or not. AVell ! what is there in all this capable of filling up the immense void of an immortal spirit ? For eventually, whether rich or poor, " we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." * Sick or healed, you must one day die ; and if you be preserved to-day, it is but to die to-morrow, as a soldier who, threatened * 1 Tim. vi. 7. 264 SERMON VII. in battle by a mortal stroke, bends, avoids it, and exclaims, " I have escaped!" but a step fur- ther he receives another blow, which lays him dead on the spot. Let intelligence be brought to you that a child is born into your family, that a man belonging to it is dead, that a revolution has been accomplished in your country. A child just born is one inhabitant more of this earth, who will be an object of endearment to you for a few years, or perhaps a source of affliction to you, and then return to its rest. A man who has just expired is one less in the world, where the blank he leaves will soon be filled up, and whose departure occa- sions you little more concern (I will suppose you above the pitiful solicitudes of heirship) than that of the transient affection you bore him. A political revolution, when once the danger has passed, is a re-organization of things, or of men only ; and what touches you most is the influence it may exercise upon your individual fortunes. All your interests are fleeting as time, uncertain as life, low as the earth. The Christian has very different thoughts. Bearing in his heart Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, the Christian, whose heart and eyes have been opened to invisible and spiritual things, leaves you to exist in time, while he lives alone in eter- nity. His great soul, taught to estimate the dif- ference between heaven and hell, perceives within itself the height of the one and the depth of the other, and feels, as it were, a reacting impression SERMON VII. 265 from what passes in the world of spirits. What he seeks for himself and for others is God, holiness, grace, the society of angels, eternal life. AVhat he dreads for himself and others is Satan, sin, the curse, the society of demons, everlasting fire. Am I saved, am I ready to die, am I ripe for the kingdom of heaven ? This is his question for himself as well as for you. Do you feel how much this spirit gives importance to the least details of life by reflecting them in the light of eternity "? Many a thing which to you appears insignificant is to him a subject of deep meditations and fervent prayers. For he does not break his connexion with earth, but he connects earth with heaven. He does not interest himself less than you do in the things here below ; he interests himself in them more deeply, though more tran- quilly than you do, after the example of God, " who is patient because he is eternal."* And what shall I say of the great events of life '? In his eyes a new-born child is an immortal being, who goes onwards towards happiness or misery without end, and whom the Lord confides to his care, saying to him, as Pharaoh's daughter said to the mother of Moses ; " Take this child and nurse it for me."-|- In his eyes, a man who dies is a soul for whom the period of probation is irrevocably past, and who goes, on leaving this earth, either to enjoy the glories of heaven or to fall into the * St. Augustiu. -J- Ex. ii. 9. 266 SERMON VII. hands of an avenging God ; and if the dying person be a friend, a brother, a wife, a father, a child, Oh ! who can tell what then passes in the heart of the Christian 1 For him a political revo- lution is a part of the vast plan which God conceived from the beginning, and which he develops from age to age, that he may subdue all nations to the empire of Jesus Christ ; and the whole of history is one great drama which human generations are born to act in succession upon the face of the earth, and which is to have this mag- nificent termination : " The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."* For him, life is so serious, so replete, alternately with hopes which raise him up to heaven, and with anguish which plunges him into the lowest depths, that he is sometimes astonished at being able to support such a conflict ; he is astonished, but there is in the depths of his soul a something which is of great worth amidst all this anguish. lie prefers to feel the bitterness of life rather than escape from it by indifference, as you would rather endure some heartfelt sorrow than avoid it through obtuseness of feeling or childish indifference. In short, even in his most gloomy moments, he would not ex- change his condition for yours ; how much less in his days of joy, of a heavenly joy of which you have not even an idea ! * Ilabakkuk ii. 14. SERMON vir. 267 Say after this, then, that the Christian life wants activity and interest ! Say rather, that it is in the Christian life alone that activity and interest are to be found : an activity and interest compared with which all that occupies you has no more importance than the card houses which you constructed in your childhood compared with your present deep solicitudes. With all your agitation, your life is cold, and deprived of everything that touches the heart ; and his, although so calm, is not less occupied with the most exciting thoughts. Shallow water, that the least wind disturbs, even to the bottom, because the bottom is so near, is the emblem of your life ; but an unfathomable sea, the surface of which can scarcely be ruffled by this same wind, and which contains beneath this peaceful surface abysses within abysses, mountains, plains, and an entire world of living creatures, this is the emblem of the Christian life. A life truly wonderful, inexplicable if it were not the work of God in man ; a life of calm peace, and at the same time of deep emotion ; a life of perfect unity, and at the same time of infinite variety ; in one word, a living life, alone capable of satisfying a heart that feels and a mind that thinks, and in comparison with which all other life upon earth is but as a corpse compared with a man: "O Lord of hosts: blessed is the man that trusteth in thee ! " What is it, then, that you dislike in the Chris- tian life^ The Christian life is one of sacrifices 268 SERMON VIT. and privations : to subdue our inclinations, to deny ourselves the most lawful amusements, to live apart from the world, — what a melancholy and austere existence, joyless for ourselves, and useless to others ! It is this point upon which I am at issue with you. What is most repugnant to you in the Christian life is what imparts its charm and its triumph. Let us have no misunderstanding or confusion as to what constitutes the Christian life. We do not make it consist in retirement from the world. We leave hermits to their deserts, and monks to their convents ; or rather, we conjure them to come forth from them, not to bury the talent which God con- fides to them. Christians, such as we understand them to be, live in the world, according to the saying of our Lord: " I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world;"* for they know that it is there God calls them to serve him. They live amongst you, enjoying the blessings of life, and fulfilling all the duties thereof With this explanation, we agree with you that the Christian life is one of self-denial ; for it is written: "So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsakcth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. "•]• It is not enough to say that the Christian life is replete with sacrifices, the whole Christian life is one continued sacrifice, the sacri- fice of oneself; all others are trivial compared * John xvii. 15. | Luke xiv. 33. SERMON VII. 269 •with this. Man will resign more willingly his money, his pleasures, his honour, his repose, his family, his health, his life, than resign himself, his own will, his self-righteousness, his self-glory. Wherefore there are to be found faquirs who mutilate themselves, penitents who lacerate their bodies, pilgrims who undertake long journeys ; hundreds of these may be found for one single Christian at heart who gives up himself. We grant you all this, but we say that this self- sacrifice, so bitter as it regards our own will, so impossible to accomplish by ourselves, becomes to a renewed will the source of the highest and purest satisfaction that can be enjoyed upon earth. I say to a renewed will, and it is on this point I fear lest I may not be perfectly understood ; and yet there is here a truth so consistent with human nature that it is impossible for you not to have felt some- thing of it. I appeal boldly to yourselves. Is it not true that there is happiness in self-renunciation, in self-devotion'? For there is happiness in loving, and self-devotion is nothing else but love carried to this point, that we forget ourselves in favour of those whom we love. A young girl was full of the vanity of the world and of its pleasures; followed, flattered, admired, she was an idol to others, and an idol to herself. She becomes a wife and mother. Then her life changes. Adieu to the pleasures of the world, the pride of dress, the intoxication of praise. She 270 SERMON VII. devotes herself to her little child both day and night. She contemplates it, she bears it in her arms, she caresses it, she soothes its cries, she nourishes it from her bosom. From morning till evening she is seen occupied with it, and often from evening till morning she watches over it if it cannot sleep. Is it ill ^ she exhausts herself to serve it, and by the cares she lavishes upon it renders herself more ill than it. Now I ask whe- ther by exchanging her former pleasures, without which she at one time thought she could not exist, for the devotion which now engrosses her entirely ; by ceasing to live for herself and learn- ing to live for another, has she become less happy '? Ah ! if there be here a mother who recognises herself in this picture, I have no doubt as to her answer. Well, I address myself to her, and say : why do you consider yourself happy *? and how is it that if some one ventured to pity you because you have exchanged your past happiness for a life of denial, you would pity this poor egotist as one who has never known anything of the true joys of the heart 1 What is the reason of this 1 It is not from the return you expect from your little child. The first days of his life, when your cares are most necessary to him, are also those when he can least acknowledge them ; his eyes are scarcely open to see them ; alas ! he may die perhaps, with- out having had time to repay them even in the manner of a little child, with a smile and a caress. SERMON VII. 271 Will you regret then that you have bestowed your cares on your little one, and will you think that you might have been happier had you thought more of yourself than of him, who after all can do nothing for you '? What is it then which consti- tutes your happiness, if it be not that we have within us a heart which hungers and thirsts to love, and which finds complete satisfaction only in surrendering itself altogether. What would it be, then, thou tender mother, if, instead of devoting yourself thus to a poor, power- less, mortal, sinful creature, you learnt from faith to devote yourself to Jesus, your Creator, your Saviour, and your God 1 When you devote your- self to your child it is to a weak creature, who may never know all that you have done for him, and who, even were he to know it, can only repay it in the measure of his strength, which is infir- mity itself; when you shall devote yourself to Jesus, it will be to the powerful God who created heaven and earth, and who has promised that " There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for his sake or the Gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, and in the world to come eternal life." * When you de- vote yourself to your child, it is to a perishable creature whom you may serve to-day, but to-mor- row may be unable to do so ; because death, what ♦ Mark x. 29, 30. 272 SERMON VII. do I say "? because lands or seas may separate you from him : when you shall devote yourself to Jesus it will be to him who " lives through all ages," and in whom " all fulness dwells," so that nothing being able to separate you from him, there is not an instant in your life that his service may not occupy, no more than there can be found a cavity at the bottom of the sea into which its waters do not penetrate. When you devote yourself to your child, it is to a fallen creature, in whom the image of God, which alone can render him amiable, is tarnished by sin, and which love, if it were not regulated by the love of God, would be but a dis- order, an idolatry ; when you shall devote yourself to Jesus, it will be to the Holy of holies, to him whose love can have no measure, because it serves as a measure to all other love, and of whom it is said, " Thou shalt love him, with all thy heart, with all thy mind, and with all thy soul." When you devote yourself to your child, it is to a creature, who, having received everything from you, and having given you nothing in return, has no right to your love but by your devotion and your name of mother ; when you shall devote yourself to Jesus (ah ! it is here I would especially wish to make myself well understood), it will be to him who has first given himself for us, given himself upon the cross, given himself the Creator for us his crea- tures ! he, the Holy One, for us sinners ! he, the Prince of Life, for us, poor slaves of death, and SERMON vir. 273 who has purchased the right of saying to us : " Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price ! " * Oh, Jesus ! oh, my God ! to devote oneself to thee without reservation, and entirely to love thee above everything, and to love others only after thee, in thee and for thee, is this the sad- ness of the Christian life '? Oh, blissful sadness ! Lord, make us still more sad in this manner ! For thou knowest, thou who searchest all hearts, that we are happy to give ourselves up for thee, and that, to deny ourselves still more is what alone is wanting to our happiness ! Yes, if we would leave all to follow thee, to love only what thou lovest, to do nothing but for thy glory, to have not a move- ment, not a thought, not a beating of the heart which is not for thee, then our joy would be com- plete ! then crosses would appear light to us ! then, in waiting for thy heaven, the heaven that thy blood has opened to us, we should have already found in thy service a heaven upon earth. Must I add, that, as the sacrifices of the Christian life are not without enjoyment to the Christian himself, so are they not without usefulness to others'? What! will not devotion to Jesus, the Saviour of men, produce devotion to men whom he has so loved] If any one amongst you be con- verted to Jesus, you complain that he is lost to society. Lost to society ! — what an abuse of lan- guage ! Happy would society be if it could lose * 1 Cor. vi. 20. T 274 SERMON VII. US all in this manner. It is because he has become a man of faith and prayer that the true Christian has also become a man of charity and activity, and an imitator of Him who " went about from place to place doing good." Is the spiritual happiness of man concerned 1 The Christian alone can contribute to it ; he alone labours in the admirable work which has for its object the salvation of the world; he alone acts, and prays, and exhorts, to induce men to turn to God. Well, is not this the most excellent charity? Do we fully understand the value of a single soul, of an immortal soul ? What joy for him who saves it from death, if in this moment, for instance, it was given to me to convert even one of those who hear me, if there were here a person who, per- suaded by this discourse that he can find no hap- piness save in Jesus, would give himself to him entirely and unreservedly, if between me and this person a spiritual connexion which has no name upon earth were formed, a connexion which unites the converted man to him who has been the instru- ment of his conversion, — who can say with what joy we should remember each other, even here below, even before that day comes when we shall meet and welcome each other in the everlasting tabernacles '? But when there shall be occasion for contribut- ing to the temporal happiness of our fellow-crea- tures, you think perhaps that the true Christian SERMON VII. 275 will apply himself to it with less ardour than another, accustomed as he is to render the things of time subordinate to those of eternity. Undeceive yourselves. There, again, he will yield in zeal to none, and will be found everywhere, according to this beautiful expression of St. Paul : " careful to maintain good works." * It is his own advan- tages that he has learnt to renounce, not those of others. For himself he takes no count of any- thing, neither doth he hold his life dear unto him- self, but for others he takes count of everything, and to confer upon them the least relief, to spare them the least pain, appears to him a reward worthy of all his efforts. He has received this example from St. Paul, who lived " in watchings, in hunger, in thirst, in fastings often, in cold, and nakedness," j* and who " wrought with labour and travail night and day that he might not be charge- able to any one." X He has received it above all from his Master who " endured the cross, despising the shame," § and who passed his life in healing men, not only from the evils of the soul, but also from those of the body. But if the Christian's first attention is for eternal interests, this even will warrant more surely the success of what he does for the interests of the present life. For it is written : " Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things shall be added * Tit. iii. 8. t 2 Cor. xi. 27. X 2 Thess. iii. 8. § Heb. xii. 2. T 2 276 SERMON VII. unto you ; " * a profound saying which finds every- where its accomplishment, either in the works of private charity, or in the general enterprises of Christianity in favour of Heathen nations. We have seen lately, in a neighbouring country, a great and noble assembly prove by a thorough scrutiny that civilization has never penetrated amongst a bar- barous people, except upon the steps of the Gospel, and that the first benefactors of the Pagans have always been missionaries. Seek in the annals of charity what men have had the greatest share in the abolition of slavery, in the reform of prisons, in the most useful institutions, and you will find everywhere not mere philanthropists, but true dis- ciples of Jesus. No ; there is no activity ! no devotion, no benevolence of which faith is not the principle and the soul; and it is here above all, it is in this life of denial and sacrifices that the Christian has reason to exclaim : " Oh, Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee." And yet, mark it well ; we have shown you the happiness of the Christian life only by its less striking features. Ask a Christian why he is happy, he will probably give you none of the rea- sons I have just developed. He will not tell you that the Christian life answers all the wants of his nature, because it satisfies his reason by faith, his soul by sensibilities, and his heart by devotion. Not that all this does not appear true to him, and • Matt. vi. 33. SERMON VII. 277 does not contribute in fact to his happiness, but there is something better still than all this ; there is a very simple answer which comes readily to his mouth : I am happy because I have a Saviour and my sins are pardoned. But on this subject I have spoken very little, because I assumed that you have acknowledged it of yourselves, so manifest, so striking is this portion of our happiness. But do you indeed acknowledge it"? Do you know what it is to be able to say : I am received into grace, my transgression is forgiven, my sin is covered, the Lord imputeth not iniquity unto me.* Do you know what it is to have God for a father, Jesus Christ for a brother, the Holy Ghost for a comforter, and to be able, at all hours of the day and night, to approach God with the confidence that he loves us, that he hears us, that he grants our petitions, that he delivers us, f that he accom- plishes in us the work of grace that he has com- menced"? Do you know what it is to be able to welcome all the afflictions of life, as the salutary discipline of a Father who loves us, of a Saviour who first suffered — as marks of love from which we would not wish to be withdrawn, could we be so, and for which wc rejoice, we glory, we render thanksgiving? Do you know what it is to have amid the uncertainties with which life is replete, a Guide from \\hom we can ask advice, and who, having taught the faithful soul to say : " Teach * Ps. xxxii. 1,2; xxxii. 5. f Ps. xxxii. 6, 7. 278 SERMON VII. me the way in which I should go," for thou art my God,* answers him thus ; " I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way wherein thou shalt go, I will guide thee with mine eye^-f Do you know what it is to be able to die in peace, by seeing the Saviour ready to receive us, and saying with the apostle : " I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith : henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." X But do you know, above all, what it will be to enter into possession of that eternal happiness of which all the descrip- tions, even those of the Bible, can give us but an imperfect idea, because they are written in man's language; what it is to be admitted into that abode " where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying," where God shall be " all in all ; " do you know what it will be to be united to Abraham, Moses, Elias, Isaiah, St. Paul, St. Peter, Timothy, in the society of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lord Jesus, singing the song of the redeemed : ' ' Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiv- ing, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever ? " § Do you know what it will be "? Do we know it ourselves ] " Oh, * Ps. xxxii. 8. f Ps. cxliii. 10. X 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8. § Rev. vii. 11. SERMON VII. 279 Lord of Hosts ! blessed is the man who trusteth in thee." Oh ! my brethren, my dear brethren, will you not enter into the way of that " godliness which hath promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 " Will you voluntarily deprive yourselves of eternal life'? And for whaf? to be happier in this ? no, but to deprive yourselves even here below of the only happiness worthy of the name 1 When we called you to faith in the name of your salvation, nature may have drawn back from a road which leads to eternal life, but which is so rough and so narrow. When we called you to it in the name of your sanctification, flesh may have been alarmed at a renouncement so unpleasing to your own inclination'? But when we now call you to it in the name of your happiness, of your present, as well as of your future happiness ; oh ! who would be so insensate, who would be so great an enemy to himself as to reject so great salvation"? And you, above all, the afflicted of this world ; you who have been surrounded by a beloved family, but are now solitary ; you whose ruined health allows you to foresee but a life of suff"ering and a death of pain ; you who want, if not the necessaries of life, at least its enjoyments ; it is you, above all others, whom God seems to call to the peace of Jesus; and it is you also, more than all others, who should be prepared to receive it. Will you not hear this invitation of our Lord, " Come unto 280 SERMON VII. me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest]"* Will you rather let your tears fall wastefully upon the lap of earth, than shed them in the bosom of Jesus 1 Were all others to keep away, will you whom the present life seems to have disinherited — will you not come unto him who has the inheritance of eternal life ? And when earth has nothing more for you than tears; when the Lord declares to you that he causes them to flow only for the purpose of con- straining you to turn to him who will wipe them away ; when your afflictions may become for you the source of an eternal consolation, when they may be changed into joy from this day ; will you not come and lay your cross at the feet of him who alone has borne a still heavier one ? Oh ! what consolation you will find in his love, and with what sweet calmness you will say during your earthly course, " It is good for me to have been afflicted ; " while you wait for that time when you may say in heaven, with those who have come out of great tribulation : " We have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."'|' Is there any one here present who says to himself, I also wish to be converted ? Soul ! hungry and thirsty for the peace of Jesus, I know you not, but God knows you; he discerns you in the midst of this assembly ; and who other than he can excite these movements within your heart ? Poor Bartimeus ! * Matt. xi. 28. f ^ev. vii. 14. SERMON VII. 281 " be of good comfort ; rise, he calleth thee ; fear nothing, believe, only believe, and doubt not." He who calleth thee is also he who will open thine eyes ; it is Jesus, whose word created heaven and earth ; Jesus, who died for thee ; Jesus, who speaks to thy heart ; Jesus, who himself asketh thee, as he asked the poor blind man: " AVhat wilt thou that I should do unto thee *? " To-day, even here, before leaving this place, come unto him. Eeceive his pardon, and give him thy heart. Amen. SERMON VIII. MATT. VIII. 28 ; IX. 1. " And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed tvith devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city.'' This is the first passage in the Gospel in which we find particulars recorded respecting that unhappy class of persons whom Satanic power tormented, and whom the Lord delivered from its influence. The subject is mysterious, and must be treated with caution. May God enable us to speak of it so as to elucidate the subject to you, and so that whatever new light we may throw upon it may reach your consciences, and incite you to watch and pray. Before we touch upon this malignant influence, which is introduced in the text, let us briefly recapitulate the general doctrine of Scripture SERMON VIII. 283 respecting evil spirits, and defend it against incon- siderate accusations. Man is not the only intelligent and moral being who came from the hands of God. There exist superior to him, and existed before him, beings of a higher order and more spiritual nature — the angels. But while one portion of those glorious spirits, the holy angels, or the chosen angels, have ever remained faithful to God, and joyfully minis- ter to his designs of mercy towards the human race,* whose creation they hailed six thousand years ago in sacred hymns, -j- there are others, — devils, or malignant spirits, " who have sinned," *• who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, and who have been cast into hell, where they are reserved in everlasting chains, under dark- ness, unto the judgment of the great day.";}: How- ever, that day which is to fix irrevocably their desperate condition has not yet come ; and while, awaiting its arrival, they are permitted to leave their prison-house, and disperse themselves over the world ; § a liberty which they abuse in order to do all the evil which is in their power to man, and this because they are desirous of having him for their partner in crime and misery. No sooner was man created, than they led him into sin ; and now their deadly ambition is to retain him in that sad state, or to draw back into it those men whom the * Heb. i. 14. f Job xxxviii. 7. X 2 Pet. ii. 4 ; Jucle 6. § Eph. vi. 12. 284 SERMON VIII. grace of God had delivered from it. Above all, they seek the ruin of man's soul ; but the per- nicious influence they exercise over it extends, at times, also to the body. Moreover, there is among them a sort of hierarchy, as among the faithful angels ; and Scripture distinguishes amongst the evil spirits one whom they name Satan, Beelzebub, or the devil, and who seems to be the leader of all the others in the warfare which they have waged against Jehovah, and against man who was made in his image, — in this warfare, in which they are per- mitted to succeed for a season, only that they may suffer a more terrible confusion in the end. This appears to be the amount of what the Bible reveals of this mysterious doctrine in detached passages, not, however, clearly developing it in any part, but faithful to its design of imparting no knowledge that will not edify, and of revealing to us only that which concerns the glory of God and our salvation. This doctrine, we know, is a subject of sarcasm to the philosophers of the day. In their opinion, it is incredible, superstitious, useless, — nay, dan- gerous. But these charges pass away, in the judg- ment of the Christian, before the clearness with which the doctrine is established by the Word of God. This distinctness increases gradually from the commencement to the end of the Bible ; and to make a passing observation, this affords a lesson as to the method we arc to follow in SERMON VIII. 285 explaining this subject to people or individuals who are yet but in the rudiments of faith. The devils are not named in the first books of the Old Testament. Satan, indeed, shows himself as early as the third chapter of Genesis, in the serpent who tempts the woman under the tree of Eden ; but then he shows himself in disguise, and it is the New Testament which teaches us to discover him there.* He reappears later in the Old Testament, but after long intervals, j* and performs a consider- able part in the Book of Job.;}: Lastly, the New Testament places the existence and influence of evil spirits in so clear a light, that it is impossible to reject them without bringing into question the inspiration of Holy Scripture, We are not ignorant of the attempts which have been made to free the Gospel from what has been called a doctrine unworthy of it, nor of the strange theory which has been invented for the purpose of attaining this object. The Jews, it has been said, derived this error from the Chaldeans during the captivity. Jesus Christ and the apostles found it so strongly rooted in their minds, that they thought it prudent to adopt it, fearing to impede the difi"u- sion of the Gospel if they had boldly opposed the popular prejudice. But this hypothesis has diffi- culties of every kind. First, it is not credible that the Jews, such as we know them, should have * Rev. xii. 9 ; xx. 3. f 1 Chron, xxi. 1 ; Zech. iii. 1, 2. X .Tub i. II. 286 SERMON VIII. inherited and be so deeply impressed with a strange doctrine, and especially at a period when, bending at length under the hand of God, they renounced for ever the worship of the heathen deities. Besides, we have no reason to think that the Chaldeans ever believed in evil spirits ; and after having explained to you whence that belief first reached the Jews, it would be still necessary to explain from whence it could have reached their conquerors. Besides, we have just seen that traces of it are to be discovered in the books of the Old Testament which preceded the captivity, such as the Pentateuch, and the ancient Book of Job. But lastly, and above all, we reject with all the strength of our faith that compromise which has been so daringly imputed to the apostles and to Jesus Christ himself. What! tolerate a doctrine which, in your estimation, is so erroneous and so fatal that you believe yourselves at liberty to despoil the Bible altogether of it ! What do I say, tolerate it, accredit it, by adopting its language and sending it back clothed with Divine authority to that deceived people ! That is indeed unworthy of Jesus Christ and of his disciples. To believe such things is to impugn, I do not only say the inspiration of the apostles, but the Divine purity of the character of Jesus Christ. I want no other proof of it than the narrative which we have before us. Hear the language of our Lord : " Come out of the man, thou unclean SERMON VIII. 287 spirit."* Hear him granting to the evil spirits the degrading favour which they ask, and saying to them, " Go." Yet these spirits had no agency, no existence, except in the imagination of his hearers ! But yet there is more in our text ; there is a posi- tive substantial fact, which could not have entered into the imagination of any one. An entire herd of two thousand swine rush in a mass violently into the sea ; because, say the apostles, the unclean spirits had entered into them. Will you suppose, with certain commentators, that these evil spirits rushed against the swine and spread among them a sudden panic, which made them cast themselves into the waters, without considering that the Evan- gelists, on the contrary, state, that the moment when the herd rushed into the sea was that in which the possessed man came to his right mind 1 -j* To explain Scripture in this way, is no explanation at all; it is a mockery. Ah! if difficulties and deep mysteries are found by others in the doctrine of evil spirits, we find them there also ; but we must admit, with such a narrative before us, either that the words of the apostles, and even those of Jesus Christ, deserve no credit, or that there is in this case a real agency of unclean spirits. The most certain and simple course is, to take things as they are written, without presuming to penetrate farther. Let us remember these words of Moses : " The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, * Mark v. 8. f ^^ark v. 15. 288 SERMON VIII. but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever."* The highest wis- dom in such a case is that of a little child. But why should there be this indisposition to believe what is written of evil spirits 1 Perhaps many persons are shocked at this doctrine without ever having considered fully what there is in it to shock them. In the first place, is it that you think there is something in it contradictory to the perfec- tions and the power of the Almighty ? Yes, if Scrip- ture taught as certain heretical sects and especially the Manicheans have, that the devil has an eternal existence, and an independent power, so that there would be two Gods in the world, the God of good and the God of evil, which is an old error of the Oriental philosophy. But Scripture teaches us, on the contrary, " that the deceived and the de- ceiver are his;"-]- that Satan is but a creature raised up by the sovereign will of God, like all the rest of his works ; that he obeys like an untamed beast, " with a hook in its nose and a bridle in its lips.":}: In short, all his artifices subserve, in their way, to accomplish the designs of God, whose jus- tice, mercy, and other perfections, they will finally illustrate. After this, the only serious difficulty which remains is, the existence of evil, — a diffi- culty to which we are compelled to submit, because, after we shall have got rid of that in which the mystery of Satan is involved, we shall * Deut. xxix. 29. f Job xii. 16. :}: Isa. xxxvii. 29. SERMON VIII. 289 find it as perplexing, and even more so, to account for the origin of evil in ourselves. Or, is it that the doctrine of evil spirits appears to embrace something opposed to reason, and superstitions'? This might be the case if there were any foundation for those puerile fables and grotesque representations with which the doctrine of spirits has been invested. But not a word of this in Scripture ; nothing can be more definite than the information which the Bible aff'ords upon the subject; on this, as upon every other, it has no answer for vain and injudicious questions, and imparts the little that it discloses respecting evil spirits, in order to teach us to watch and pray, and work out our salvation. Reduced to its scriptural standard, what is there in this doctrine contrary to sound reason "? Is it contrary to reason that God has formed creatures superior to man, and that we, the pigmy inhabit- ants of this little globe, are not the only beings who inhabit this immense universe ? Is it contrary to reason that a portion of the celestial beings should have rebelled against God, as our whole race has since done 1 Is it contrary to reason that the fallen angels should have been visited with a dreadful punishment, as we know that unbelieving and impenitent men will be in their turn '? Is it contrary to reason that the devil should tempt us to follow them in their disobedience, as we daily see one man lead another into sin 1 Finally, is it u 290 SERMON VITI. contrary to reason that the baneful influence exer- cised on our minds by evil spirits should sometimes extend to the body, which is united to the soul by connexions so imperceptible and so little under- stood 1 In truth, this reproach of superstition, so often cast upon the doctrine we defend, can only become intelligible by one or other of these two ways ; — either by the absurd fancies of the middle age — for which the Gospel is in no respect re- sponsible, or by our repugnance to believe without seeing, that is to say, by our natural unbelief. Or, is it that this doctrine appears to you to involve in it something dangerous to morality"? Are you afraid that when speaking to man of an evil spirit who tempts him, we should modify or extinguish in him the consciousness of his personal responsibility 1 This might be so if Scripture taught us that we cannot resist the devil, being passive instruments, with which he may deal as he pleases. But it teaches us, on the contrary, that we can resist* him ; that we can overcome j- him; that we can bruise him under our feet ; X and that we are without excuse when we obey his treacherous suggestions, as a man who commits a crime is not excusable for having yielded to evil counsels. Scripture is so positive on this point, that in a passage familiar to us, and designed to constrain us to accuse ourselves of our sins, it does • James iv. 7. f Eph. vi. 13. I Rom. xvi. 20. SERMON VII r. 291 not even name the devil : " Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God : for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." * So desirous is holy Scripture that we should be the first to condemn ourselves, instead of casting the blame on God, or even upon the devil. Is it that the doctrine of evil spirits appears at least useless to you 1 Let evil originate where it may, perhaps you will say, It ought to be with- stood by the same means ; and we gain nothing by knowing that the devil tempts us. This is a serious error, which must be explained with some detail. One of the characteristics of Scripture is that throughout it brings forward persons where phi- losophy brings forward only ideas. Everything has life in Scripture, whereas, in philosophy, everything is dead. Does it treat of doing good"? Scripture shows us a living person — the Holy Spirit, whom we can invite within us, and from whom alone all holy desires, all just works do come. Does it treat of evil 1 it also shows us a living person — the devil, who impels us to commit it, and against whom we must contend, and watch and pray. Do you ask what benefit we may derive from this twofold instruction, and what we should lose if we only discerned in it a figure of speech to represent the good and bad dispositions of our heart] I do not here stop to make any * James i. 13. u 2 292 SERMON "VIII. observations upon the solemnity and grandeur of a doctrine which would make a theatre of our soul, on which a mortal contest is fought in this world between the powers of heaven and those of hell ; and yet this thought, which only appears to be inflated and poetical, has also its moral use : but I confine myself to more humble reflections. Two things are especially necessary in the struggle between good and evil, — a spirit of energy and a spirit of peace : the doctrine under consideration is equally suited to foster both. It would be easy to show that it is a doctrinal principle of the Holy Spirit. Should we not be more stimulated when we are told to invoke the Holy Spirit — God Himself, and to entreat him to take up his abode within us, than if the exercise of moral dispositions alone were spoken of? Should we not be more at peace when we can calculate upon the aid, nay, upon the inward presence of the Holy Spirit, that is, of God Himself, than if we were abandoned to our own weakness "? Yet this is not less true because of the doctrine of evil spirits. Be assured that we shall strive against sin with much more energy, when we know that there is, exclusively of ourselves, near us and over us, an invisible tempter, full of subtilty and power, than if we suppose we have only to deal with our natural inclinations ; and a sacred expression, such as that of St. Peter: "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring SERMON VIII. 293 lion, walketh about seeking whom he may de- vour," * is much better calculated to arouse us from slumber than all the warnings of philosophy against the seductions of our own heart. Here we have at the same time, without, an enemy exasperated, indefatigable, and ready to take advantage of the first heedlessness on our parts ; and within, traitors, who conspire with him to deliver us into his hands. Of what vigilance, of what efforts, and, above all, of what prayers have we not need, my brethren ! and how calculated to keep us always on our guard, is our knowledge of the devil who tempts us ! But will it appear strange if I add, that this know- ledge can better enable us to combat '? It has on one side, no doubt, much that is gloomy and terrible, both for us and those guilty and outcast beings who possess life and power only to lead us into their perdition ; but it has, on the other, that which ought to soothe our hearts and raise our courage. It is consoling to think that we are not alone the authors of our ruin. Certainly, as we have already said, that does not excuse us ; yet it explains, in some degree, our fault, which is also our mis- fortune. Judge of it by this comparison : — A father learns that his beloved son has been guilty of a crime. How great is the distress of his soul ! But afterwards he discovers that this child was * 1 Pet. V. 8. 294 SERMON vni. gradually led to the perpetration of that crime, from one dark step to another, through the seduc- tions of a wily and perfidious tempter. Will not his knowledge of this impart to the unhappy father some mitigation of his anguish, so that compassion will be mingled with the indignation which he had felt at first 1 and will he not consider the state of his son less awful, less hopeless — shall I say less criminal, than if his guilty hand had only obeyed the dictates of his own heart 1 Yes, with the doctrine of a tempter we find in our fall something less bitter, less incurable than if w'e had been forced to seek the cause altogether in ourselves. How many souls are there, perhaps, who, in order to strive against sin, only want to know its source ! How many perhaps who have not even attempted to lighten the weight of their sinful infirmities, would, if they but knew how to disengage themselves from the evil which holds them enslaved, take courage and send back to the adversary the fiery darts which he directs against them ! Pious divines have even thought that there is an intimate connexion between the doctrine of temptation and that of our redemption. It is because Satan has bound us, that we can be unbound by the Son of God. But if we had revolted against God spontaneously, and witliout provocation, if the evil had its root only in our own heart, we should no longer be sinful men, but SERMON VIII. 295 demons ; and it is difficult to understand how then we could be freed, being only restrained and enchained by ourselves. Assuredly the doctrine of evil spirits is bene- ficial, salutary, and sanctifying ; and the danger arises from being ignorant of it. This ignorance constitutes the power of Satan. An enemy is doubly powerful when he is unexpected. Ah ! you who say that there is no devil, beware lest this be the first lesson he has taught you — a lesson which exceeds all others, inasmuch as it finds in you a willing pupil. But enough of general considerations. Let us consider our text more closely, and thence learn to understand better the nature of that special influ- ence of evil spirits which is there depicted, and the state of those unfortunate beings whom the New Testament represents as persons " possessed of devils," — demoniacs. All who are under the in- fluence of the devil are not however on this account demoniacs. This name is never given, for instance, to false prophets or to antichrists, who are the most dangerous instruments of Satan, and as it were, the representatives of evil in the world. The state of a demoniac is a diseased one, in which the moral and physical influences of evil spirits are combined in an incomprehensible manner and difficult to analyze. If we collect the symptoms of that state which are described in the narratives of the New Testament, this will be nearly the idea 296 SERMON VIII. which we shall form of a demoniac. He was a man botli guilty and wretched, of whom one or many devils had taken possession, which doubtless they had done through means of certain sins to which their victim had been addicted, especially the sins of the flesh.* This possession, or the diseased state produced by it in general deeply affected the nervous system ; but it developed also an extraordinary degree of muscular force, which to this day we observe in maniacs, even in those who had never given proof in their healthy state of great strength. Of this we have an example in the demoniac of our text, as St. Mark represents him.f I say the demoniac, because St. Mark refers to only one, apparently because one of the two was the speaker and drew more attention than the other. The presence of the evil spirit was acting at the same time on the mind of the diseased man, to which he often com- municated a partial, but illusive light. We see more than once in the Gospel demoniacs, or evil spirits within men, acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God and bearing testimony to him ; but that is not the faith which saves, it is the faith of devils, " who believe and tremble." This explains how Jesus, who willeth that men confess him * There is sometimes more than one devil witliin a man ; for instance, tlie demoniacs of our text, and Mary ^Magdalene, out of whom Jesus had cast seven devils. (Mark xvi. 9.) f Mark v. 34. SERMON VIII. 297 through love and not through fear, and whose teaching was perhaps more retarded than ad- vanced by such unworthy vouchers, stopped the mouths of the demoniacs who called him the Son of God, and how St. Paul, at Philippi, was grieved at hearing the poor servant who acknowledged his divine mission, but " with a spirit of divination."* The demoniac is not necessarily an entirely de- praved being. Many in whom none of the symp- toms which characterize one possessed with the devil are found, may be nevertheless more depraved than he, more familiar with sin, more enslaved to the tempter. The demoniac groans over his con- dition and appears to condemn himself, and when he cannot exercise on others the rage which con- sumes him, w^e see him turning it against himself and wounding his own person. j^ He also desires to be cured and goes with a glimmering of faith, to seek Jesus Christ for his deliverance. But here is a painful antagonism, in which we discern, as if before our eyes, the presence of a strange and hostile guest within this unfortunate creature. The possessed man comes to Jesus to be cured ; but the evil spirit w^ho possesses him is unwilling to relinquish his prey. Then, whether it be that the unclean spirit speaks by the mouth of his victim, or that " the possessed" in some degree loses the con- sciousness of his own existence and occasionally identifies himself with the unclean spirit, it is the * Acts xvi. 1(3. t Mark v. 5. 298 SERMON VIII. demoniac who gives utterance to the sentiments of that foul spirit. Therefore we see the same man, at the same time, as if delivered to two antagonist forces, seek Jesus and repel him, implore his com- passion by cries and suppliant gestures, and yet say : " What have I to do with thee, Jesus "? art thou come hither to torment us before the time 1 " These reflections, I think, reconcile in some degree this inconceivable union of light and darkness, of intelligence and insanity, of faith and impiety, of confidence and terror, perceptible in the person of the demoniac, and which would be unintelligible if we did not admit that two opposing principles were working within him. There is great mystery in this; and yet, we must avow that the narrative related in our text includes the difficulties common to all narratives of the same nature, and some that are quite peculiar to it. What can be more calculated to astonish and confound us than the solicitation of the unclean spirits to be permitted to enter into the swine, the acquiescence of Jesus, and the self-precipitation of the animals into the sea 1 We may venture on some elucidations. If the demons wished to enter into the swine, it was, we may presume, less from a malicious design in them to destroy those animals than from a desire to exasperate the Gergesenes against Jesus Christ, and to weaken the preaching of the Gospel in that country; and the sequel shows that they succeeded in that object, at least for a time. If SERMON VIII. 299 Jesus Christ granted what they asked, it might have been either to degrade them openly by so humiliating a favour, or to prove the dispositions of that people, or to punish the owners of the herd who apparently made use of swine's flesh contrary to the law of Moses ; or, in the last place, out of tender regard to the sick person, against whom the rage of the infernal spirits would have been re- doubled if it had not found some issue. * How- ever, we acknowledge that after these explanations there remain many obscurities ; but these, like all others in the Bible, may instruct us after their own manner and become more useful to us than the clear light would be which we complain is wanting. In the first place, they instruct us by showing us our ignorance. We learn from this recital that there are things in the world of spirits which are quite unknown to us. This ought to teach us both not to reject hastily from a principle of unbelief, well-established revelations concerning the invisible world, and not to admit hastily with respect to these subjects, through a principle of curiosity, theories without foundation and doc- trines without support. Let us trust when the hand of God clearly shows itself; let us distrust ourselves in certain things which are or appear to be supernatural, and in which the hand of God is not seen. Let us fear lest another hand should have share in it, though it endeavours to conceal * Mark ix. 26. 300 SERMON VIII. itself. Men who have not learned to know their own ignorance act in the contrary manner : they doubt the revelations of the Bible and have faith in those of occult sciences. And the more strange our nar- rative, the more clearly does it reveal to us the existence and actual influence of evil spirits. Observe, it is not on mankind in this instance, but on brutes that the rage of the unclean spirits vents itself When they only exercised it upon mankind, cavillers might, with some show of reason, have seen in their influence only another name for the eflects of imagination ; but when they exercised their rage upon the swine, could such cavillers attribute intelligence and a soul to those brutes, in order to account by natural causes for the rage which possessed them '? Our recital fur- nishes us also with a new view of the deep artifices of the enemy of souls. Let us be on our guard. He has recourse to the basest stratagems. He seizes upon all and every means. There is nothing too noble or too abject not to become in his unholy but skilful hands an instrument of temptation. At one time he will assume the appearance of an angel of light, at another he will enter into foul swine. To assault us, he may come from hell, he may come from earth, he may come from heaven. * Let us beware of his approach on all sides, and watch. What a melancholy but instructive lesson is * Eph. vi. 12. SERMON viir. 301 contained in the degradation of those fallen angels ! To entreat the favour of entering into the foulest of animals ! and who were they ? those noble beings, who, if they had "kept their first estate," might have served the God of heaven amidst the joys of heaven, and borne instead of the names of Satan and Beelzebub, those of Michael or of Gabriel ! Thus, the higher the elevation the greater the fall. We too, if we deliver ourselves to sin and apply to evil instead of good, the faculties which elevate us above the brute, shall fall below the brute from the height of our superiority. Let us confess this ; if among all the cures of demoniacs related in the Gospel there is not one more mysterious than this, there is not one more instructive ; there is not one better calculated to make us aware of our ignorance, to convince us of the influence of evil spirits, to warn us of their artifices, to inspire us with horror at their degradation, and to make us adopt a noble and holy resolution, to withstand Satan and his kingdom. For be assured that the influence of evil spirits is of all ages. Certainly it has acquired a sort of double power, it appeared in marked characters during the glorious days in which Jesus came to found on earth the kingdom of heaven ; an era of a tremendous and decisive conflict between good and evil, in which all the contrasts appeared more vividly, in which the power of heaven more 302 SERMON VIII. magnificently displayed has provoked a more active operation of infernal agency, and in which the things of the invisible world have been on both sides made momentarily visible and manifest in the flesh. Without doubt also, this possession, both moral and physical, which characterized the demoniacs is seen no longer in our days ; . . and yet, what do we know about it 1 Perhaps we ought not to affirm anything on the subject. Very dis- tinguished and very pious physicians have been of opinion, that cases analogous to those described in the Gospel have been remarked in modern times ; and if an apostle should revisit earth and enter an assemblage of persons of diseased minds, we may have some notion of the name he would give certain cases of insanity. However this may be, one thing is certain; viz., that the moral influence of Satan has never ceased, and wherever there is anything good to be done, he is there to impede it. He is there to harden the heart ; he is there to sow difficulties ; he is there to raise obstacles ; he is there to discourage the servants of the Lord ; he is there to hinder in every way the work of Jesus Christ. Let us learn then how we may contend against him. Let us learn even from Jesus Christ himself. We shall only suggest the ideas; we shall leave the development of them to your private meditations. To vanquish Satan and his reign was the sole object of the mission of Jesus Christ. It is by this SERMON VIII. 303 contest that the ministry of the future Messiah is defined in the first prophecy : " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head;"* and it is also by this contest that the fulfilment of the ministry of the Son of God is summed up by the last of the apostles : " The Son of God hath appeared to destroy the works of the devil." f Jesus came on earth to re-establish there the kingdom of heaven, by overthrowing that of Satan, who had become, through Adam's fall, " the prince of this world." Jesus triumphed over Satan in the desert; he triumphed over him by his miraculous cures; he triumphed over him on the cross ; he triumphed over him by making the dead arise ; he triumphed over him by ascending into heaven ; he triumphed over him by sending down that Holy Spirit of* promise X npon his apostles and his Church. My brethren, the work of Jesus Christ ought also to be our work. Soldiers of Jesus Christ, if we are enlisted under his banner, it is in order to subdue the powers of darkness. Each of us ought to contribute on his part to the victory promised to the Church of God ; and that part will be for each individual as great as his faith will render it. We can do nothing in this by our own strength, for Satan is stronger than any of us; but Christ is stronger than he, and we can do all things through him : *' Let us put on the whole armour of God," * Gen. iii. 15. f John iii. 8. J Epb. i. 13. 304 SERMON VIIT. and "be of good courage and let us play the man for our people and for the cities of our God."* The spirit with which we should maintain this glorious contest is shown to us by our Saviour in the example he affords in the recital of our text, — a spirit of energy and a spirit of prudence. "Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit;" and in another place: " Hold thy peace, and come out of him ; " •]■ and again : " I charge thee come out of him, and enter no more into him." :}: Thus with authority and decision the Lord speaks to the evil spirit. Let us resolve to speak to him in like manner and not to fear him. It is not because he is not powerful ; but because Jesus has vanquished him for us. He is like a "roaring lion who -walketh about " like the lions of Daniel ; the lions are terrible, but God closes their mouths and Daniel is in peace. Let us be in peace also ; for " the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet." § "Whom resist stedfast in the faith." || Yes, resist him, says St. James, " and he will flee from you." ^ It would appear as if the holy apostle desired to compare Satan to those vicious but cowardly animals which pursue those who run from them, and run from those who pursue them. But at the same time observe the wisdom of Jesus Christ, not only with respect to this person, whom * 2 Sam. X. 12. f Mark i. 25 ; Luke iv. 35. :j: Mark ix. 25. § Roin. xvi. 20. II Pet. V. 9. H James iv. 7. SERMON VI IT. 305 the unclean spirits possessed, but with respect to the inhabitants of that country, who tempted him, even at the moment when he effected the cure. Miserable Gergesenes ! they entreat Jesus to depart. They entreat him, they do not drive him away; they dared not, they begin to perceive his Divine power. They pray of him to depart from them. What do they ask of him — to remain with them] to heal them, to save them, as he saved the possessed man ? No, but to depart. They have a faith, but it is like that of the devils, who seduced them. They have a religion, but it is a religion of fear ; and the effects of such religion, far from resembling those of true religion, which is that of love, resemble those of ungodliness itself. What then does Jesus do"? He yields to their prayer, he departs. What condescension ! what discretion ! He does not choose to brave their opposition, that, perhaps, would irritate ; the moment is not favour- able, he departs. However, he does not leave them without a preacher. Their preacher will be that same demoniac whom he had just restored to reason and to health. He desires to follow Jesus ; but Jesus suffered him not, and said : " Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee." * And who knows, if, after this humble messenger has prepared the way, Jesus will not return again and find hearts more disposed to * Mark v. 19. X 306 SERMON VIII. receive him "? Oh may we learn of him, my dear brethren, to discern the moment and await the time of the Lord, who, according to that fine expression of one of the fathers of the Church, " is patient because he is eternal ! " But let us observe, in conclusion, that before he overcame the unclean spirits in the plain of Genne- saret, Jesus had triumphed over their prince in the desert. Satan presented himself only as an enemy previously discomfited, who distinguished in the voice of Jesus that of a conqueror. We, too, if we would effectually overcome Satan in the world, must first defeat him in secret. Have you defeated him 1 " Have you passed from the power of Satan unto God," and "from darkness to light '? " * This is the question that in closing the subject I leave to your own hearts. You know the means, the Word of God. This is the only weapon which our Lord used in the desert, and which is at our command as it was at his. Jesus would use no other, in order that we might know that what he has done we may do also. Do it then ; " and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God," -j" and fear not; for during the six thousand years that Satan has been seeking to tempt us, there is one thing which he has not yet learned : that is, to withstand the Word of God. * Acts XX vi. 18. f Eph. vi. 17. SERMON IX. LUKE XVni. 12, 13. " l^he Pharisee stood and j^ra^i/ed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess J" The prayer of this Pharisee distinctly shows that he was perfectly self-satisfied ; and this self-satisfac- tion arose from the notion that his sins were counterbalanced by his virtues. He sees no offences in his life that may not be forgiven, and con- gratulates himself on being exempt from those glaring vices which prevail in the world : " I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican ; " while his virtues are those which are most pleasing to God and most beneficial to his neighbour ; " I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess." With such trivial sins and such great virtues, he con- siders himself less deserving of punishment than of X 2 308 SERMON IX. reward, and has nothing to dread from Divine justice. The world, the Church, this temple perhaps, are filled with people who judge of themselves precisely as the Pharisee of this parable, and to this cause especially are we to attribute the want of power in our ministry. When we tell men of this character, that they are " unjust," " full of wickedness," "hateful," "enemies of the cross of Christ," they accuse us of exaggeration. Such accusations are not applicable to them, and appear to their eyes to be merited only by those polluted members of society who abandon themselves with- out restraint to their guilty passions, libertines, thieves, cheats. When we tell them further that in them " dwelleth no good thing," "there cannot answer him one of a thousand," " there is none righteous," "none that doeth good, no, not one," this is another exaggeration in their opinion. They are not perfection indeed, yet they possess sub- stantial and meritorious virtues which the justice of God will not permit him to overlook. There- fore, not believing Scripture respecting the con- demnation they have incurred, how should they believe the same word when it announces grace through Jesus Christ 1 They must feel themselves lost creatures before they can feel a desire to be saved. It is in vain we address, urge, entreat, alarm them ; they will not listen to us. Perhaps we might be allowed to adduce in the SERMON IX. 309 way of argument, the sterling value of the testi- mony which men of candour admit to themselves ; for a man's self-judgment leaves him to close his eyes against evidence. One man, for instance, is avaricious, and thinks himself liberal; false, and believes himself sincere ; the slave of impure desires, and considers himself of irreproachable morals; of the worst habits, and yet thinks himself a model of probity. But I will grant that you are what you suppose yourselves to be. Only, since it is God and not the world who will judge you, let us inquire what will be the estimate in the sight of God, of your little sins and your great virtues. This is the entire object of the present discourse. We want to know what judgment God will pass at the last day on those little sins, which appear to you hardly worth his attention. It would be sufficient for this purpose to refer to " the Word which will judge him in the last day." * But, to render the subject more clear, I shall adduce an historical fact. We may have a presentiment of God's future judgment from one already executed. I allude to the manner in which he sought out the sin which Adam committed in the garden of Eden by touching the forbidden fruit. I assume that you have sufficient faith not to reject the details of the holy Scriptures ; and that if what you find strange in the history of Adam prevents you from believing it, you would escape from one difficulty * John xii, 48. 310 SERMON IX. only to fall into a greater, since you would have to substitute for the explanation which the Bible affords of the introduction of sin into the world another explanation, and impose upon yourselves a difficulty by which the greatest philosophers have been baffled. The sin of Adam was not one of those which are called heinous by the world, and from which the Pharisee prided himself on being exempt. It was neither murder, nor theft, nor adultery. Adam's disobedience in itself was merely plucking fruit and eating it. With regard to the spirit which urged him to it, it was only an impulse of pride, or appetite, or curiosity : of pride, if his motive was to attain superhuman knowledge; of appetite, if he longed to satisfy his sensual desire ; of curiosity, if he only wished to know the pro- perties of this mysterious fruit. Or rather, it was all this, solely because Eve had sinned first; for Adam, who followed her in her disobedience, it was less culpable, judging as you do ; it was only yielding too much to the solicitations of his wife ; perhaps you will say an amiable and interesting weakness, Adam not wishing to separate his destiny from that of his companion, and choosing rather to fall with her than triumph alone over the temptation. What would be thought in the world of a sin of this kind 1 Is it not among those which abound in human life and which the most upright men commit without scruple ? — amongst tliose which, SERMON IX. 311 according to received opinions, are no proof of a bad heart, occasion no scandal, injure no individual, destroy no man's reputation, and are too trivial to call for deep remorse"? Who is the upright man that has never felt his heart inflated by a feeling of pride, who has never yielded to the allurements of the senses, or who has never given way to foolish curiosity"? Who is the man who has never had occasion to reproach himself (if, indeed, on the contrary, he has not given himself credit for it), for having failed in duty to a wife, a mother, a friend ? Such actions, totally opposed as they are to the commandments of God, are not even called in the language of the world by so serious a name as that of sin. They are failings of all ages, infirmities inherent in the condition of man, — peccadilloes (allow me to use this familiar but expressive word, for I wish above all things to be clearly understood). Now, with what eye did Jehovah regard the peccadillo of Adam? Let us measure the offence by the penalty, and see if the punishment which God attached to the act of Adam be as trivial as that act deserves in the opinion of the world. This is an historical ques- tion, which the consequences of Adam's trans- gression will elucidate. A primary consequence of Adam's sin is the complete change of everything around him. Exiled from that delightful garden " which the Lord God planted," and in which he made " to grow every 312 SERMON IX. tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food," * he is cast out on the face of the earth and mournfully abandoned to that liberty which had so tempted him. This earth, cursed for his sake, was henceforth to produce naturally but thorns and thistles, and was thenceforth to yield him daily bread only on the condition of his extracting it from the ground by painful toil. The animals which God " brought up to Adam to see what he would call them " as their sovereign lord, shook off his authority as he had done with reference to his Creator ; and all nature seems to rise up against him in revenge for being subjected through his trans- gression to universal suffering. " The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."j* Does this appear a light punishment 1 But let us more closely observe what takes place in Adam himself, and what deaths were compre- hended in that to which he blindly delivered himself on the false word of the serpent. The second consequence of Adam's sin is the death of the body : " for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Death, the severest punishment that human justice has discovered for the greatest criminals ; death, with all that pre- cedes and all that follows it. Before death, that * Gen, ii. 8, 9. t Rom. viii. 20, 22. SERMON IX. 313 gradual debility which prepares its approach, those diseases which accelerate it, the decay whicli announces it, the agonies which accompany it. After death, that horrifying dissolution which obliges us to avoid that form which we recently embraced with the tenderest affection, and to say, as Abraham said of his beloved Sarah: " that I may bury my dead out of my sight ! " * But above all, death in itself — the passage — the moment ; that terrible, mysterious moment, in which the heart ceases to beat, the blood to flow, the eye to see ; tliat moment, before which a living man was there, and after which, a corpse ! — a corpse, until nothing of it remains to the sight, and it is mingled with that vile dust, which is to afford aliment to succeeding generations! Does this appear a light punishment ? The third result of Adam's sin is spiritual death. I call slavery to sin by this name. God punishes sin through sin itself, by giving up the sinner to his own perverted will ; and it is the most terrible of his judgments. For, " even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient." "f Hardly had Adam yielded to the temptation than sin entered into every part of his soul. Hitherto we have seen him in the beauteous garb of innocence ; and we now behold him under an indescribable * Gen. xxiii. 4. t Rom. i. 28 314 SERMON IX. feeling of shame, which obhges him to cover himself. Previously he was walking before God, with his head erect, his countenance serene, his heart free ; and now we see him agitated at the voice of his Creator, and hiding himself as a criminal among the trees of the garden. But when God calls him to account for his disobedi- ence, you trace in his answer the rapid progress of sin. Does he condemn himself? Does he fall upon his knees 1 Does he solicit pardon from his Judge ? This was the only reparation then in his power. But this very fall which ought to have humbled him so much gave him up to pride ; and we behold him casting the blame of this fault upon Eve, as she throws the blame of hers upon the serpent : " The woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." * Do you perceive the full signification of this answer ? " The woman, whom thou hast given to be with me ; " that woman, that " helpmeet for him," that second self, " bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh," he accuses and puts forward to meet in his place the Divine resentment : so much has the love of self already stifled charity in his heart ! But the accusation made by Adam has a higher tendency : " The woman whom thou hast given to be with mc ; " it is Thou who hast given lier to me ; if thou hadst not given lier to me, all this * Gen. iii. 12. SERMON IX. 315 misfortune would not have happened. Unhappy- Adam ! thus does impiety complete the disorder of thine heart ! What signifies it whether sin enters into you by a little or a great door "? Be this as it may, this entrance was wide enough to admit sin, and to allow of its taking possession of thy entire nature. Purity, peace, humility, truth, charity, piety, — all are extinguished. Does this appear a light punishment "? The fourth result of Adam's sin is eternal death ; death, veiled as it were in that mysterious denun- ciation: " Thou shalt surely die;" that death of which the death of the body is but the image, and spiritual death the prelude ; that death, so dreadful that the world cannot give credence to it, and which even the most firm believers are sometimes surprised into a disposition to question ; but a death so clearly and so naturally foretold by the Word of God that we must shut our eyes not to see it predicted there. For we read, on the one side: " Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them;"* and, on the other, the wicked shall go " into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." j* That fire which is not quenched, that worm which dieth not, that wrath which abideth, that abyss which nothing can fill up ; alas ! does this punishment appear light to you "? Further, the fifth and last effect of Adam's sin * Gal. iii. 10. t Matt. xxv. 41. 316 SERMON IX. is, that the fourfold curse which we have just seen to fall upon his head, increasing and multiplying itself with the race which was to spring from him, is about to be transmitted to his children ; so that it would be as impossible ever to find, either in the most retired corner of the earth or in the distant depths of the future, a man to whom this bitter inheritance should not reach, as it would be to find in the bed of a river a place of retreat into which its waters would not enter. Adam, whose name in Hebrew signifies " the Man," falls at the head of a world which follows him in his fall as if it were but a single man. His children, " shapen in iniquity " and conceived in sin,* remain, like him, banished from Eden and wan- derers upon the face of the earth, subject like liim to death, like him given up to sin, like him condemned to endless misery. Does this punish- ment still appear light to you ? What do I say? and what sin is there in the world of which this first transgression is not — I do not say the sole cause, but the original one ? What calamity, what crime can we name, in which we do not see the hand of God pursuing, after 6000 years, the ijeccadillo of Adam 1 And if you be asked why you are unceasingly to struggle against hunger and thirst, why you are always contending with the soil of the earth, with the stones of the field, and with wild beasts, and why * Pa. li. 5. SERMON IX. 317 you must earn your bread with the sweat of your brow, answer ; It is the j)^ccadU1o of Adam, If you be asked what has caused the sufferings you endure, the tears you shed, the days passed in agony and the nights without rest, your death, the death of those around you, why you hve a dying life, a life into which you entered at the peril of the life of her who gave you birth, answer : It is the pecca- dillo of Adam. If you be asked why you are carnal, sold to iniquity, why you do not the good that you would, but the evil which you would not ; why your little children already bear the bitter fruits of sin, and receive the germ of it at their birth, answer : It is the peccadillo of Adam. And if you be asked, why you are by nature children of wrath, children of denounced evil, children of the devil, reserved for accursed company, and without a miracle of grace will become a perpetual subject of rejoicing to the eternal enemy of all good, answer ; It is the peccadillo of Adam. Finally, if you be asked, why the entire world is plunged in wickedness, why perdition is the natural tendency of the heart and the way of the multitude, why Satan has become the prince of this world, why God repented of having made man, and why instead of heaven having ceased to present to the earth a magnificent spectacle of its resplendent days and brilliant nights, the earth now displays to heaven but one vast scene of disorder, strife, rapine, murder, corruption, crimes of the day and crimes 318 SERMON IX. of the night, answer: It is the peccadillo of Adam. Ah I if you can still doubt the magnitude of Adam's sin, / know a man who did not doubt it, and whom I wish you could now hear in my place : this man is Adam himself. We have a melancholy advantage over him, — that of seeing the source to which he had opened a passage changed into an immense stream which overflows the whole earth ; but he had over us an advantage more melancholy still, that of having seen its first rise and flowing. Adam alone of all mankind, has been able to compare the second state of his race with that of the first. For us, who are born in sin, sin has become a second nature, and we can hardly conceive the human condition dissociated from it ; but he, the author of this first sin which overturned the work of God, — of this first sin ! — he could undoubtedly still find in the depths of his heart a bitter remembrance of his primitive innocence. What a change ! Oh ! my God, what a change ! When, fatigued with the toils of the day, Adam seated himself at the doors of Eden, and related to his children how they were closed against him and against them ; when, addressing the corpse of Abel, and wondering at the sleep which he could not disturb, he asked himself if that were not the death which God had predicted to him ; when, after having completed his 930 years, and almost reached the period of Noah's birth, he saw SERMON IX. 319 the iniquity of Cain exceeded by that of his descendants, communicating its taint to the race sprung from Scth ; when he reflected that the universal ruin of the human race had been con- summated in his person af the tree of the know- ledge of good and evil ; oh ! what would he then have thought of a man who, judging as you judge, would come to him and say that the sin which he had committed was but a light one ^. But farther, who could better inform us respect- ing the judgment of God than God himself? Hear his words : " Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned;" and again, " for the judgment was by one to condemn. " * It is because " the Lord looketh upon the heart while man looketh on the outward appearance." You consider the actual fact, and you say Adam did only eat of a fruit, what signifies that 1 Or else, if going a little beyond superficial attention you seek the immediate cause of Adam's sin, and say : a motive of pride, or of desire, or of curiosity, still what signifies thaf? But God looks to the inci- pient tendency, and he finds in Adam a heart which disobeys him, knowingly and willingly. Eat of a fruit when God has said : Thou shalt not eat of it, what is that ? It is transgressing a pro- hibition of God, that is to say, it is trampling that * Rom. V. 12, 16. 320 SERMON IX. prohibition under foot ; it is repudiating in this one commandment the authority of the Lawgiver, and with this authority the entire law. Eat of a fruit when God has said ; " Thou shalt not eat of it," is to rebel against God ; it is to say : " We will not have this man to reign over us."* It is to raise a hand against a throne, to overthrow it if it were possible, and to elevate another in its place. Eat of a fruit when God has said : Thou shalt not eat of it, is sinning, and in sinning opening the door to all sin ; it is to do in intention and principle what Cain did in killing Abel, Lamech in giving way to passion and vengeance, j* the sons of God in intermarrying with the daughters of men, tyrants in oppressing nations. Ham in mocking his father, Terah in worshipping false gods, and mankind in becoming corrupt. What do I say, eat of a forbidden fruit ? The external act is not even essential. Hands and mouths are counted as nothing here, and in the sight of God sin is com- pleted when it is in the thought. " Whosoever looketh upon her to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart," and " whosoever hatcth his brother is a murderer." Doubtless there are degrees in offence ; but offence as offence, and sin as sin, is always infinitely heinous before God, and would be so in our eyes if * Luke xix. 14. •j" M. Monod here evidently assumes the correctness of Martiu'a version. — '■'■ Je tuerai un hommc." SERMON IX. 321 it had not so encircled us as to bewilder and blind us. A little sin is a contradiction in terms ; as if we were to speak of a little enormity, or of a crime without malice ; therefore it is written : " The wages of sin is death." It is not said, the wages of a certain number of sins, but the wages of sin, even if there were but one committed. Neither is it written the wages of such and such a sin, but the wages of sin — were it one of those which you consider the least serious. Sin is sin, this is enough. As one false step is sufficient to cause the fall and death of a man passing a narrow plank over a torrent, so one sin, one little sin suffices to destroy a soul, to ruin a world ; eating of a forbidden fruit, uttering a sinful word, indulging in a crimi- nal thought — in a word, committing any of these offences which you have committed every day of your lives will do it. And do not attempt to quiet your minds by separating your condition from that of Adam. That will not succeed before God. The Epistle to the Romans, in which we read these words: " The wages of sin is death," was not written for Adam, but for you. Do not say that you have not sinned, like Adam, against an express law of the Lord. Such is not the case. What more express law would you have than this: " Speak every man truth with his neighbour 1 " * and you have lied ; or this: "Speak not evil one of another Vj* and * Eph. iv. 25. f James iv. 11. Y 322 SERMON IX. you have slandered ; or this : " The servant must be gentle V * and you have been violent ; or this : "Honour thy father and thy mother V and you have failed in respect to them; and how many other commandments have you not transgressed'? Say not either that you never were in the condi- tion of Adam at the time of his temptation, never having been in a sinless state. This is true ; but have you never done a thing that you knew to be wrong, and that you could have avoided doing 1 Well, when you have done so, you have done what Adam did, and you could have no right to com- plain of having your conduct likened to his. Do not say, lastly, that sin has so much dominion over you that you cannot resist it. Ah ! is that what reassures you'? It is rather that which ought to make you tremble ; or else you would have but to plunge more deeply into iniquity in order to become still more excusable ; and if you could attain to the unbounded corruption of the devil, you would be exempt from all punishment ! No ; plead nothing in extenuation of your culpability, or to disguise your danger ; judge of yourselves by the judgment which God pronounced upon Adam, and see yourselves as you are. For if the one sin of Adam was deemed of such magnitude as to deserve a punishment so tremendous, learn thence, if you be sincere and candid, how heavily each of the sins which you * 2 Tim. ii. 24. SERMON IX. 323 call little, and of which your whole lives are com- posed, weighs before the same God. Let us take one — only one, for an example — falsehood, and analyze it fully. Deduce from it consequences simi- lar to those which you have seen to result from the sin of Adam, and make this reflection : " If I had been in Eden in place of Adam, and had there committed this sin instead of that which he com- mitted, I should have sinned as much as the first man did." Then take all the little sins that you commit in a single day, and calculate, if you can, all the guilt involved in them, before the eyes of God and all the punishment they merit. And then sum up all the little sins of your entire life, without taking into account the great off'ences, in order to form an analogous estimate. Nay, rather let us disregard such calculations which substitute human admeasurement for Divine judgment. Refer the matter to God himself Hear " the faithful and true witness." Ponder upon these words : " Tribu- lation and anguish on every soul that doeth evil ; " * " Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil ; " f " The soul that sinneth, it shall die ; " :{: " For our God is a consuming fire ; " § and many similar ones. In short, view your sins as He who will judge them views them. Then, instead of think- ing henceforth that they are not of a nature to anger him and disturb your peace, you will find * Rom. ii. 9. t Hab. i. 13. \ Ezek. xviii. 4. § Hab. ii. 29. Y 2 324 SERMON IX. them, on the contrary, so serious, so numerous, so overpowering, that you will sink under your burden, and the only question which will remain is whether there be any way of escape possible for a sinner so criminal as you are ! You have learnt to contemplate your sins under a new aspect. But you still think that you possess some virtues : what are we to do with them ? If God be just to punish sins, will he be less so to reward virtues "? After all, that a good son, a good husband, a good father of a family, an upright, moral, benevolent man, should have no merit in the eyes of God, and be worthy only of condemna- tion, still appears inadmissible to you. That offends your reason and your conscience. But is there not here a second illusion "? Are the virtues which flatter self-pride as real in the sight of God as in yours ■? We say in the sight of God ; for we do not deny the value, the utility, the beauty of human virtue, even distinct from faith, for the welfare of the present life; but we are consider- ing it here in a heavenly light, and as a means of justification before God. Let us commence by laying down a principle which no one will dispute, and which, once ad- mitted, will allow us to resolve this question, as we have resolved the first one — by facts. All virtue which is combined with the practice of crime or vice is false, and has only deceptive ap- pearances. Let us explain this by an example. SERMON IX. 325 A man is held up as a model of respect and ten- derness for his mother. If I happen to discover that this man lives in the practice of theft, and supports his mother by the fruits of his criminal industry, I conclude thence that his filial piety is not pure, nor even real, and that it is undeserving of the name of virtue in the judgment of Him who knoweth all things. Why 1 Because, according to the scriptural authority we have already quoted, " The Lord looketh on the heart," and for him true virtue is that alone which proceeds from a heart devoted to good. Such is not the filial piety of this robber ; for if he provided for his mother's wants from a virtuous motive, the same motive would equally restrain him from committing thefts. The tenderness which influences him is but a ten- derness of temperament, and instinct, which has nothing virtuous " for the righteous God who trieth the heart and reins."* But when you have once admitted that a virtue combined with the habit of crime, or a vice, has only' a deceptive appearance, we must acknowledge that the virtues of the upright man, according to the world, afford him no ground of confidence, because there is not one of them which is not sometimes united with the worst passions. With- out scrutinizing too minutely in your own lives whether the virtues which you claim for yourselves be not allied to the most immoral practices ; with- * Pa. vii. 9. 326 SERMON IX. out specially adverting to those notorious criminals who have manifested in the highest degree certain social or domestic virtues, or to those slaves of carnal appetites who are capable of generous sacri- fices ; let us confine ourselves to an example taken from the most authentic of all histories — that of the Bible. What would you say if I proved to you that men, who have given themselves up for a long course of years to injustice and the most hateful tyranny imaginable, and who have terminated their career by the greatest crimes, have possessed many of those virtues of which you boast, and by which you think to justify yourselves before God 1 Has the world ever seen a darker deed than the crucifixion of the Lord 1 Considering it as an atrocious punishment inflicted upon an innocent person, it is a monstrous injustice. Considering it as an atrocious punishment inflicted on the greatest benefactor of humanity, it is detestable ingratitude. Considering it as an atrocious punishment inflicted on the greatest prophet of the Lord, it is a revolt- ing impiety. But by what name is it to be called, when it is considered as an atrocious punishment inflicted on the Son of God, descended from heaven to earth to save lost mankind 'i And who are the authors of this deed"? I do not say the perpetrators, they are the Romans ; but the real authors, the instigators of the crime, who are they ^ They are the High Priests, the Scribes, and, above all, the Pharisees. It is they SERMON IX. 327 who opposed themselves from the first to JesuSy because he oiFended their pride and unmasked their hypocrisy ; it is they who proposed to him insidious questions, that, " seeking to catch something out of his mouth, they might accuse him;"* it is they who, more than once, sent messengers to take him and bring him before the Sanhedrim ; it is they who, exasperated by the miracle that he had performed on Lazarus, " from that day forth took counsel together for to put him to death ; "-j- it is they who purchased his blood for thirty pieces of silver ; it is they who had him captured in Gethsemane, and brought from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and again from Herod to Pilate ; it is they who excited the multitude to cry, " Crucify him ! crucify him ! " and who intimidated Pilate by threat- ening to accuse him before Caesar, if he did not de- liver up to them him whom they called " the King of the Jews ; " it is still they who insult him, even in his agony, saying, "He saved others, himself he cannot save ! Let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.":}: Well, these murderers of Jesus Christ, these Pharisees, were at least partly what the world would term upright men. These Pharisees must not be looked upon as monsters, barbarians, libertines, villains, blasphemers. Some of them might have been of such character; but it is not the idea which the New Testament gives us * Luke xi. 54. f ^J^att. xxvii. 42. J Ibid. 328 SERMON IX. of the greater number of them. As it represents them to us, many of them would pass in the world as honest, nay, even as virtuous men. It is true that our theological books prove that evil passions and vices prevailed among them ; but such has always been the inconsistency of the upright man of the world with himself It would be very difficult to account for the reputation of great sanctity, which the Pharisees had maintained amongst the people, and which caused our Lord to say : " Ye are they which justify yourselves before men," * if they had not possessed some human virtues, and especially those which are the most beneficial to society. They rigidly conformed to religion ; and, in contrast to the Sadducees, who were the Materialists of that day, made a high profession of their belief in the immortality of the soul, and in the resurrection. Their zeal for the performance of the external duties of worship had become a proverb, and the Lord bore testimony to the exactness with which they paid tithes, while he reproached them with neglecting the more im- portant and spiritual matters of the law.-j- Their virtues intermingle with their very vices, and appear even at the time when they persecuted our Lord and were preparing to crucify him. The money which they gave to Judas as the price of his treachery — and that Judas throws into the temple — what do they do with it ? They have a repugnance * Luke xvi. 15. f Matt, xxxiii. 27. SERMON IX. 329 to place it in the treasury " because it is the price of blood:" — what scrupulousness ! — and they apply it to the purchase of " the potter's field to bury strangers in : " what charity ! St. Paul, who had belonged to the Pharisees to the period of his conversion, everywhere speaks of the moral character of this sect in terms which confirm the opinion just given. In defending him- self against his accusers he boasts of having lived a Pharisee " after the most straitest sect " of the Jewish religion, and he expresses a wish that his nation and his adversaries themselves should find in this fact a pledge of the irreproachable life that he had led from his youth. * Lastly, and above all, the parable whence our text is taken, and in which the Lord has wished to place before our eyes a Pharisee who was a true type of Pharisaism, represents to us a man, who, however far he might have been from being justi- fied before God, had nevertheless striking virtues with the world and with his own conscience. Judge of this by his prayer; for, besides that nothing leads us to think that his outward conduct was different from what he describes it, " he prayed thus with himself," and no one has a motive for uttering falsehood in a silent prayer; "he was not as other men are ; " he had then the externals of especial virtue. He was neither an "extortioner nor unjust : " he was therefore a man of probity * Acts xxvi. 4, 5. 330 SERMON IX. in worldly matters. He was not an " adulterer : " his morals then were pure. But there is some- thing more : he " fasted twice in the week : " he therefore carried his devotional practice to priva- tions and self-denials. He " gave tithes of all that he possessed : " here we distinguish large offerings, which indicate rare benevolence and great piety. Are there many amongst you who reserve for the poor or for religious purposes a tenth of your revenue '? He acknowledged in his virtues a gift from God, for he thanks him for it: "I thank thee that I am not as other men are." AVho would not see in him an estimable, virtuous, and religious man, according to the world 1 And yet he was, I repeat it, but a Pharisee, but a type of Pharisaism. But if the upright man have no virtues which he has not in common with the Pharisee, how could these virtues afford him grounds of confidence against the judgment of God 1 With all these virtues your hearts may be full of sentiments the most displeasing to the Lord. "With all these virtues, you may be really an enemy of God, of truth, and of godly men. With all these virtues, you might, had you been cotemporary with Jesus Christ, have been found, not among his disciples, but among his murderers. This idea is repulsive to you, and you think that I exaggerate ; but take heed, — we know so little of ourselves ! The unre- generate heart contains secret germs of which it does not foresee the future developments. When SERMON IX. 331 the students of the College at Nantes, invited by their masters to select from amongst themselves one to whom the prize of virtue should be awarded, crowned, after a trial of seven years, the young Robespierre, did they know what he would one day be"? Did he know it himself? But here is an instance which bears more directly on our sub- ject. The Pharisees also said : "If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets ; " and a few days afterwards they crucified the Pro- phet of prophets, the Son of God ! These are facts, my dear brethren; and facts cannot be rejected. But the result to which we have arrived astonishes you so much that you can hardly believe it, though before your eyes. What is there, then, in the virtues of the upright man according to the world, — what is there in yours, which almost reduces them to a level with sin and vice and crime, and which deprives them of all value in the estimation of God 1 This is the reason, my dear brethren — and I here request your utmost attention : it is because the love of God is not the principle and spirit of these virtues ! We have already said that the only genuine virtue proceeds from a good heart. Let us go a step further, and acknowledge that there is no heart really good but that which loves God ; and no one loves him who has not believed in Jesus Christ. He who does good for the world has a claim to the 332 SERMON IX. approbation of the world ; he who does good for conscience sake has a claim to the approbation of his conscience; but he alone who does so for the sake of God has a claim to the favour of God. This is what the upright man does not understand, and this is what destroys all his virtues at their very source. In forgetting to love God, he has forgotten not only " the first and great command- ment," but also that one on which " hang all the law and the prophets,"* and without the observ- ance of which all the remainder is as a soul without a body. For God being our Creator, and the principle of all the relations we bear to the crea- ture, and of all the obligations which result from it, to take from him the first rank is to confound and overturn everything. Without the love of God in the heart, the noblest virtues resemble fruits tinged with beautiful hues, but with a little worm inside consuming them. In accordance with the spirit of this discourse, in which I would rather prove the truth in the most familiar way than by a long chain of reasoning, I shall use an illustration, or if you will call it so — a parable. Pie who fulfils the duties of life with- out having God in the midst of them, is like a man whose career I am going to relate to you. Married to a woman whom he has made a mother, but whom he no longer loves, and inflamed with an adulterous passion, he flies far from his family * Matt. xxii. 40. SERMON IX. 333 with the partner of his crime, and goes to a foreign clime to hide his shame and guilty plea- sure. There he lavishes upon his paramour proofs of his love, and bestows the tenderest cares upon the children of impurity which she has given to him. His new friends, who are ignorant of his history, cite him as a model of husbands and fathers. But you, who are acquainted with his conduct — what think you of this conjugal and paternal affection which leaves his wife and legi- timate children to languish in desertion "? Is it not vicious in its principle? and is it not true that in order to reduce to nothing all the virtues of this head of a family, it is only necessary to mention the act which reveals his first, his real obligation 1 Well, this is the disgraceful por- traiture of you, who say : " I fulfil my duties of son, father, subject," without thinking of your first duty as a Christian, not to say as a creature ; and to reduce to nothing all your imaginary virtues, to prove that they are but vanity and falsehood, it is only necessary to bring forward this command- ment of the God who made the heaven and the earth : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind ; this is the first and great commandment." But if, not content with confining yourself to this virtue without life and reality, you venture to found upon it a claim for justification before God; if you say, what is continually said : " I have not to fear 334 SERMON IX. condemnation fi-om God, because I am an upright man who fulfils all his obligations, and who wrongs no man." Oh ! then, it is not enough to say that this virtue is null and void ; it becomes what the Scripture calls " self-righteousness," which is the worst of all sins. There is not, in the eyes of God, a more detestable sin than pride, nor a pride more intolerable than that of a wretched creature, as unworthy as you and I, who thinks to find within himself that which will merit the favour of God. I do not hesitate to declare unto you, that the condition of a poor Magdalene, who weeps at the feet of her Saviour, or of a poor crucified malefactor, who says, " Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom," is better than that of the upright men of the world, who " trust in themselves that they are righteous." There is more light and more true virtue in that woman shrouded in shame, and in that murderer covered with blood, but who have learnt at least to know themselves, and to cry, " Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner," than in you who pass in the opinion of the world, and in your own, as men without reproach, perhaps as virtuous men, but who under- stand neither the will of God nor the state of your heart, and who display with self-complacency before us the filthy rags of your self-righteousness. The penitent woman and malefactor paid due respect to the holy law of God by the bitterness of their repentance, and (at least in the case of the woman), SERMON IX. 335 a fixed resolution to lead a new life ; but you who do not think of bewailing the past or amending the future, — you despise this law, you treat it as if it had no existence, you trample it under foot. Ah ! it is not I who condemn you, it is Jesus Christ, who said to the Pharisees, to those upright men of Jerusalem: "Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your heart; for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God ; " * Jesus Christ, who shows us the humble publican of our parable justified rather than the proud Pharisee, and who elevates the poor sinful woman weeping at his feet above the irreproachable Simon ; Jesus Christ, who declares that he " came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance," •j' and that "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance ; " :|: Jesus Christ, in short, Avho received with such tender compassion the publicans and sinners, § desirous of pardon and grace, and who departs from his wonted gentleness only to annihilate the pride of the Pharisees. And whom else has he called " hypocrites, whited sepulchres, fools and blind, a generation of vipers, serpents, children of hell, who cannot escape from the wrath to comeT'll But it is not to alarm you that I have come into * Luke xvi. 15. f Matt. ix. 13. :j: Luke xv. 7. § Matt. ix. 10. II See Matt, xxiii. 336 SERMON IX. this pulpit ; it is to save you. Ah ! if you have already begun to feel the culpability of your sins, and the still greater culpability of your self-right- eousness, harden not your hearts! — no, harden not your hearts ! If a poor sinner like me has been able to arouse you to a sense of the terrors of the judgment to come, what will it be when you shall appear before that God "who is of purer eyes than to behold eviH" What will you do when he who searcheth the heart will scrutinize the inmost recesses of yours, and will discover the basis of your sins and of your virtues by the light of his holy and fearful lawl What will you do then ■? But rather, what will you do this day 1 For then it will be too late ; but to-day you have a Saviour. Yes, a Saviour ! and a Saviour who saveth truly all those who wish to be saved by him alone ! Not a Saviour who brings to us a doctrine of salvation, and confirms it by his martyrdom, but a Saviour who is himself " our propitiation," who *' cleanseth us from all sin ; " not a Saviour who helps on the way to heaven those who have per- formed half the journey without his aid, but a Saviour who from first to last has suffered all, has accomplished all for us, and who did " foreknow, predestinate, call, justify, and glorify us ; " not a Saviour who leaves us all our lives uncertain of what will follow death, but a Saviour who keeps us, who prays for us, who fulfils all things, " for SERMON IX. 337 of him and through him and to him are all things." And what other saviour could be sufficient for wretched beings such as we are 1 What title could we prefer except him "? — what condition fulfil 1 — what favour merit "? And what remains for us, in short, but to be made white in thy blood, clothed in thy righteousness, sealed with thy spirit, marked with thy name, found in thee — " Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world ! " " Will you not come to him that ye may have life '? " Will you not open to him who saith with such tenderness, " I stand at the door and knock ; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with me 1 " Will you not exchange your illusory hope for the promise of God which cannot lie, — the " filthy rags " of your righteousness for the righteousness of the " Holy of Holies," — your sinful life against the glorious service of Jesus Christ, and the wrath to come against pleasures for ever- more'? Will you not repudiate the presumptuous prayer of the Pharisee ; " God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, ... or even as this publican," and fall upon your knees by the side of the poor heathen, to adopt his humble and suc- cessful prayer, — " God be merciful to me, a sinner ? " Angels of heaven, who are present at our worship, and who bear tidings of it to the Church z 338 SERMON IX. above, what will you report to it concerning our assemblage this dayl Shall you be enabled to say that it has had power to make one soul pass " from the power of Satan unto God 1 " Yes ; God, your God and our God, is faithful ! He has glorified his word ! Seek, and you will find in some corner of this congregation a sinner who humbleth himself, who weepeth, and who prayeth. Waft one of his tears to heaven, and sing over him these joyful words : " For this my son was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and is found," while we shall respond with the hymn borne to us from the plains of Bethlehem ; " Glory to God in the highest ; and on earth peace, good will towards men ! " Amen. SERMON X. HEBREWS IX. 27. *' As it is appointed unto men once to die^ hut after this the judgm en t. ' ' My brethren, these words, which place death before our eyes, but death in connexion with the judg- ment to come, should give rise in every serious mind to a question which we are about to propose, and which will constitute the exclusive subject of this discourse. " It is appointed unto men once to die." You must all die. And you know not when. Perhaps after some years ; perhaps after some days ; it may be to-morrow ; it may be to-day. " After death the judgment." After death you must appear at the tribunal of the Sovereign Judge, there to receive a sentence eternal in its conse- quences. You are not in the number of unbe- lievers, at least you are not scoffers of religion: judgment, sentence, eternity, are not empty sounds z 2 340 SERMON X. to your ears : the subject is the most awful of realities. This being the case, I propose this question to you : can you die in peace 1 I mean, if you were to die at this moment and to appear as you are before the supreme tribunal, have you grounds for confidence that you would be acquitted there and not condemned ? " * The question is so simple, and at the same time so searching, that it would almost appear superfluous to assign any reasons for proposing it. And yet this is necessary. An opinion prevails in the world very generally, according to which the question would be uninteresting and useless. Men flatter themselves that no one will be condemned altogether at the day of judgment. If this hope were well founded, it would follow from it that you, whoever you may be, will not be condemned, and consequently, that you can die in peace : strange imagination to give the mind security against the terrors of judgment, at one sweep to free from them the whole race of man ! But I ask those who assert that no one will be con- demned how they know it, and especially how they know it with that assurance which is necessary that they may die in peace "? I am aware that this reply will be given: — God is too good to condemn any man to eternal misery. ♦ See Note 1. SERMON X. 341 But they who reason in this way forget that the goodness of God is not the only matter for con- sideration, and that his justice must be taken into account, since goodness separated from justice, — a goodness which would leave guilt unpunished, would be but a weakness unworthy of any man whose office it is to judge his fellow-men, and how much more unworthy of " the Judge of all the earth!" In order to know what a God perfectly good and perfectly just will adjudge to sinful man it is folly to refer to the opinion of man himself, who can neither be an unprejudiced judge in his own cause, nor an enlightened one in that of God ; therefore an appeal must be made to a higher and purer authority ; and where shall we find that except it be in the inspired volume which speaks to us of God in the language of God himself, accord- ing to the beautiful sentiment of a Christian poet, " Who will teach me what God is but God him- self T' The Bible, far from attributing to God a degree of goodness which prevents him from con- demning any of his creatiires, declares to us, on the contrary, in the very same page, that " his tender mercies are over all his works,"* and that " all the wicked will he destroy." There are still more daring teachers, who not content with pronouncing a sentence favourable to men, lay down plans by which this result can be obtained ; and, as may be supposed, one proposes * Ps. cxlv. 9, 20. 342 SERMON X. one plan and another a different one. Some per- suade themselves that man will even have the power of preparing himself for judgment after death; and — who knowsl — prepare himself perhaps with more favourable circumstances than he pos- sesses here below, since it is probable that the soul will be more enlightened and less tempted when it shall be disengaged from the body and translated from this world. But who has returned from the regions of the dead to tell us what passes there"? Who has estimated the results of the vast and mysterious change which death makes in our con- dition, so as to afford you the assurance that the conversion of the soul will be a question after death "? And what can be asserted respecting the dead except what the Word of God teaches 1 This word, which in truth throws but little light upon the condition of the dead, declares at least enough to destroy the hope which you entertain, since it nowhere alludes to the conversion of the dead, to prayers for the dead, nor to anything of this nature ; since it throughout represents the present life as the time of probation and death to be the termination of it ; for it describes death as sur- prising man "in his iniquity,"* and informs us that he who shall "die in his sins"-f cannot go where Christ has gone before, that is, into eternal felicity ; since it closely connects in the text and elsewhere judgment with death, without noticing • Ezek. xxxiii. 6. f John viii. 21. SERMON X. 343 the interval which separates them : " It is ap- pointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment ; " since it repeats in more than one pas- sage, that " in death there is no remembrance ; " * " for the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee : they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth. The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day ; the father to the children shall make known thy truth ; " f in fine, since it declares in a passage which bears immediately upon the question at issue, that it is " according to the things done in the body," ;}: — that is, in the present life — that we shall be judged at the tribunal of Jesus Christ. There are men who go farther, and imagine that in whatever state we may appear at the tribunal of God and whatever sentence we may receive, no one will suffer eternal condemnation ; boldly deciding the question of a judgment to come ac- cording to a theory of their own invention. It cannot be supposed, say they, that some will be totally condemned and others totally acquitted at God's tribunal; we leave to the common people and children the belief of a heaven and a hell ; matters will not be settled in this summary way ; but this is pretty nearly what wiU take place: after judgment all men will be ranged on an immense ladder comprehending every possible * Ps. vi. 0. f Is. xxxviii. 18, 19 ; Ps. xxx. 9 ; Ec. ix. 10. X 2 Cor. V. 10. 344 SERMON X. degree of happiness and misery, from the highest conceivable degree of bUss to the lowest extremity of woe, on which scale each soul will occupy a place critically corresponding with his degree of moral worth, estimated after a just appreciation of these two principles, viz., the advantages which he possessed and the use he made of them ; then will commence a universal movement, each indi- vidual mounting step by step to take the place of his immediate predecessor, and leaving his own to the individual following, — a shifting eternity, in which rewards and punishments will be eternal only because the first intervals will be eternally preserved, and in which there will be no degree of felicity so elevated as to be above the reach — in course of time — of those who will be first placed at the lowest point. But what is this but an in- genious conceit, which amuses the imagination, charms the mind, captivates the heart, and lulls the conscience into pleasing slumber 1 it is nothing more. Do you not see all that is opposed to this conjecture'? Against it is the good sense of all those nations which without any preconcerted agree- ment have concurred, as if instinctively believing in the existence of two abodes eternally distinct, the one an abode of happiness and the other of wretchedness. Philosophy is against it, because it perpetuates the shifting image of this world and carries time into eternity, — time which, in the opinion of some of the wisest of men, is but a SERMON X. 345 modification of thought which will not even have a name in our future state. Against it is morality, because it supposes that there is but an imper- ceptible transition from godliness and the blessings which are promised to it, to sin and the curse denounced against it, and that the most detest- able crimes, even if they be persevered in to the hour of death, are, after all, but time lost. Above all, the Bible is against it, which declares or supposes throughout, both in its general tenor and in its details, in its spirit and in its letter, that there will be a real judgment, in which some will be placed on the right and others on the left, after which " these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal ; " * the Bible, which describes to us Abraham as say- ing to the rich man : " Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot ; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence ;"j- the Bible, in short, which describes to us the condition of a Judas, dead in his impenitence, as so hope- lessly lost that " it had been good for that man if he had not been born." ;}: Let us dismiss all these vain imaginations. All the reasonings by which men endeavour to persuade themselves that no in- dividual will be eternally condemned have no solid foundation, because they neither rest on reason, * Matt. XXV. 46. f Luke xvi. 26. I Matt. xxvi. 24. 346 SERMON X. which knows nothing of these subjects, nor on revelation, which but speaks of them to decide against this hope. They are baseless theories which, though they may amuse the idle hour of the phi- losopher in his closet, can never impart peace upon a death-bed ; since in no case whatever can they afford security to him who tries to take refuge in them. For who amongst you in the awful hour of death — in the last agonies — could say with un- shaken assurance: I know that there is no one who will be condemned at the judgment-seat of God 1 No, no ; all these systems emanating from your fancies would be as powerless to infuse con- fidence into your hearts against the terrors of judgment, as would be a painting suspended before you, in which you had yourselves represented in the enjoyment of eternal felicity. Therefore, leaving these pompous puerilities of wisdom, falsely so called, and taking things as they are found in the Word of God; admitting that there will be a judgment properly so termed in which some will be acquitted and others condemned, and conse- quently that all men cannot die in peace, but only those who have a well-founded assurance that they will not be condemned, I ask, are you of this num- ber "? The question is most solemn and momentous. Let us examine it, not coldly, that is impossible, but dispassionately. Let us not be carried away by mere sensibilities, by creations of fancy, but let us discuss this dread subject as simply, I had SERMON X. 347 almost said as familiarly, as if I were speaking of it to each of you in private. If all the individuals of this congregation were to rise up one after the other and reply to my question, it is not probable that the greater part would do it with that decision which marks well- established confidence ; vague hopes, inconsiderate assurance — at the utmost, ill-weighed reasons are what prevail among the majority. Yet, if we may judge by their exterior calmness, and the security in which they live, they persuade themselves into the assurance that they may die in peace ; and if they are asked why, they will reply nearly thus, which, in fact, is what we hear daily. One will say : " I am an upright man ; I wrong no one ; do I not fulfil my duties of father, husband, subject 1 and what crime have I committed to merit eternal condemnation ? " Another : " I am not a blas- phemer ; I attend the Sunday services of my Church, and I communicate frequently." A third; " Is not God merciful towards those who are worthy of his favour, and what can be found fault w'ith in my life 1 " These different replies are in reality but one ; they all resolve them- selves into the grand point, that they who speak in this manner think that their conduct is such that they have no reason to dread the judgment of a just and compassionate God. It is to this common opinion that I shall confine myself, and, addressing all those who thus depend upon their conduct in 348 SERMON X. order to persuade themselves that they may die peacefully, I proceed to inquire — if this be a solid foundation for their peace to rest upon 1 In order that an accused person, summoned before an earthly tribunal, may feel confident that he has nothing to apprehend from the judgment to ■which he is about to be submitted, what is wanted"? Evidently that he must have compared his conduct with the law by which he is about to be judged and found that it has been according to that law. That you may have similar confidence when going before the tribunal of Heaven, you also must have compared your conduct, on which you rely for acquittal, with the law by which sentence will be pronounced, and have found your conduct conform- able to that law. Have you done this and found such conformity "? Let us see if there be no self- deception here. The law by which you will be judged at the tribunal of God, is the law of God. You know this in the first instance by conscience, on which God impressed it at the beginning ; but this first light having been more or less obscured by sin, God has given us another law — the Bible. It is, then, by the Bible that you may learn to know the law. You will find it summed up in some compre- hensive maxims : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," and " thy neighbour as thyself;"* * Matt. xxii. 37 — 39. SERMON X. 349 again : " Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God;"* again ; diffused in specific precepts, such as those of charity, humility, temperance, &c., of which each again subdivides itself into divers applica- tions : for example, charity branches into charity towards our neighbours, or domestic duties, charity towards our fellow-subjects, or our social duties, charity towards all mankind, or love to our neighbour. That is the law. Have you fulfilled this law 1 And when you have heard the commandments of God read, could you have risen and said what the young man in the Gospel (to whom our Lord had just repeated them) thought he could have said : " All these things have I kept from my youth upr'-j* If you answer in the affirmative, hear the simple recital of a conversation which I had one day with a person who had such an opinion of himself, and to whom I had addressed the question which forms the sub- ject of this discourse, — Can you die in peace 1 He unhesitatingly answered, that he could ; and being urged to explain the ground of his tranquillity, he told me as you might that eternal life is promised to those who have obeyed the commandments of God, which he had done throughout his life. I took then the first which occurred to me, I believe it was the fifth of the Decalogue : " Honour thy father and thy mother ; " and proposed such * 1 Cor. X. 31. t Matt. xix. 20. S60 SERMON X. questions as these: Has it never occurred to you to do anything that your parents had forbidden ] or to speak unnecessarily of their faults "? or to fail in the respect and affection which you owe them 1 or to act in some way towards them in a manner that you would not wish your children to do towards you "? I obliged him to confess that he had transgressed in various ways the command- ment that I had placed before him. I then asked him if, on the supposition that he had only broken this particular commandment and that he had perfectly kept the rest, he could say that he had fulfilled the law 1 He was obliged to answer, No, according to this searching and yet simple declara- tion of St. James : " For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said. Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a trans- gressor of the law."* I had no difficulty to make him see that this was not the only commandment he had broken : I proposed a second, about which I asked some questions, leaving it to himself to be the judge of his conduct; then a third, then a fourth ; always with the same result — the same acknowledgment. He proceeded from surprise to surprise ; step by step he became more surprised and self-convicted. In conclusion, I challenged him to produce in his turn any commandment * James ii. 10, 11. SERMON X. 351 that he had not broken. He chose the second : " Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them." Here he thought himself sure of his innocence. He had never worshipped images. But I represented to him that there is a spiritual idolatry, of which we are guilty whenever we give to the creature the devotion or the feelings which are only due to the Creator ; as the covetous man is an idolater, because he makes a god of his gold ; and the sensualist is an idolater, because he makes a god of his belly, according to St. Paul's view.* Had it never happened that he had preferred wealth, sensual pleasures, or the love of the crea- ture, or the vain glories of the world, to God and his will ■? These questions brought him to acknow- ledge that he had many times violated even those commandments which he had imagined he had been the farthest from transgressing. At last I made him see, that " if his heart condemned him," God condemned him still more ; for " God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things ;"•]■ God, who discovers in us all that evil which is unheeded by ourselves, and who remem- bers all that we forget ; and I added, that even if he were not convinced of his own sinfulness, he would not be " thereby justified, for he that judges us is the Lord ; " :|: and that the Lord has declared * Eph. V. ; Col. iii. 5. t 1 John iii. 20. X 1 Cor. iv. 4. 352 SERMON X. expressly in his word " There is none righteous, no, not one : they are all gone out of the way ; there is none that doeth good, no, not one : for all: have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."* The individual of whom I have been speaking was sincere ; he candidly admitted, and with some emotion, that he had completely deceived himself; that his conduct, far from being conformable to the commandments of God, had been contradictory and opposed to them ; and that, having so clearly deserved condemnation, he could not die in peace. I knew as little of that man's life as I know of the life of any individual here present; and what I said to him, I might also say to any one else. Therefore that conversation, with some varieties in the details, is what I should like to hold, if I could, with each of you. The substance would be the same ; and if you should be as candid as he was, you would undoubtedly be led to the same conclusion. If, then, you have no other founda- tion for your peace than the pretended conformity of your conduct with the law of God, you are in error ; this conformity has no existence, this foundation is illusory ; you cannot die in peace. We might stop here, and at once conclude that you ought to abandon the hopes you have hitherto entertained and seek for some better foundation for them, since, if your conduct be not in accord- ance with the Divine law, we cannot see how it is * Rom. iii. 10, 12, 33. SERMON X. e353 possible you could escape condemnation ; yet, if I do not deceive myself, the majority of those whom I am addressing still flatter themselves that they will escape from it. Let me endeavour to analyze the nature of that hope which remains to them, and which, perhaps, they themselves would find it difficult to explain, so vague and uncertain is it. They think that the law will not be rigorously enforced, but that it will be mitigated, and that the Judge will be content with imperfect obedience. " God," say they, " will not exact from his weak creatures the perfect fulfilment of his law ; but will consider, on the one side, the weakness of human nature, and on the other, his own holiness ; and from these two principles equally combined, he will frame a mitigated law, which will only require of man what his infirmities will permit him to perform, and by which those who, without having completely satisfied the law, have at least avoided heinous sins and faithfully fulfilled the duties of life, will not be condemned. This, then, is the hope that remains to you, — that the law will be mitigated. But what has given rise to this hope \ * Will you tell me that it is a simple process of reasoning that has suggested it] " It is not I only," you say ; " it is not only this or that man who has not fulfilled the law in the point of view in which you have placed it; all men, without exception, have failed to obey it." It would appear, * See Note 2. A A 354 SERMON X. therefore, that there is " something in the nature " of man which renders it impossible for him to " fulfil it. If so then, God, who would not punish " us for not having done that which we could not " do, will not enforce this law with rigour ; his " justice demands that he will modify it in some " measure to accommodate it to the weakness of " our nature." This reasoning appears at first sight conclusive ; but a little reflection shows its falsity. Do you not see at once to what it leads 1 " He who proves too much proves nothing," says the proverb, and are you not alarmed at the extent to which your reasoning leads you '? Why stop half way ? Follow up and push to its extreme point this argument which appears to you so tenable, and you will arrive at this conclusion, — that the law is to be relaxed because man, in his actual condition, is unable to fulfil it completely ; in other words, that sin has become in him like a second nature, so absolutely has sin enslaved his will. On this principle, then, in order to make man sure of even a farther mitigation of the law, he has only to become still more the slave of sin, until, from one degree of mitigation to another, he will claim unlimited toleration, that is, in fact, an exemption from all condemnation, when he becomes utterly abandoned to sin ; and if sinful man may calculate upon God's forbearance, the devil, favoured still more, may feel sure of im- punity. Now, surely a course of reasoning which SERMON X. 355 leads to such consequences, must contain some sophisms wliicli you may easily detect. In this there is double confusion. First, you have an imperfect apprehension of that which you affirm. You assert that man cannot obey the ])ivinc law ; this is true ; but you omit to notice in wliat this inability consists. It is not that there is altogether wanting in our nature the strength necessary to obedience (which could not be proved), but that the will to obey is wanting.* Tlie impotence of man is a moral impotence, which, far from justifying him, is precisely that which renders him a sinner, and guilty and liable to condemnation. But farther, (and this, above all, is what I wish you to remark,) the inference which you deduce from this fact is by no means correct according to sound reasoning. You infer from man's inability to obey, that God will not require his obedience. But do you not see that this conclusion is only true on the supposition that God is the Author of this inability, and that it is false if this inability pro- ceeds from man himself? Yes; if God has made man incapable of obeying his law ; if God has made man a sinner ; if God be the Author of sin, you may justly conclude that he would not require from man the fulfilment of his law: but how can such a proposition be maintained witliout folly and blasphemy'? If it be man who has voluntarily given himself up to sin, as the Bible expressly * Kom. viii. 7 ; see also Mutt. vii. 8 ; and John vii. 7. A A 2 856 SERMON X. declares to be the case, and which reason and con- science confirm, — the first, because it sees clearly that " God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man ; " * the second, because it renders us responsible for our acts of disobedience by its inward reproaches. If it be true that " God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions," t " deceiving their own selves"} by "profane and vain babblings," § and volun- tarily rejecting all the lights which God has vouchsafed to give them, " hold the truth in un- righteousness, so that they are without excuse," || according to that clear doctrine of St. Paul in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans; — if this be true, the inability of man to obey, far from affording him an excuse, but aggravates his condemnation, because it shows how absolutely he is devoted to sin. Say, if you will, that you do not understand how sin has entered into the world ; but, in the name of all justice and of all piety, acknowledge that in no case can it proceed from the Creator, but that it proceeds from the creature ; that God, therefore, could not discharge him from the obliga- tion of obedience, because man has rendered himself incapable of obeying. All the arguments by which we endeavour to persuade ourselves that God will not rigorously enforce his law, proceed, * James i. 13. f Eccles. vii. 29. } James i. 22. § 2 Tim. ii. 16. II Rom. i. 18, 20. SERMON X. 357 not from sound reason, but from a corrupt heart, and deceive human judgment at first sight only because it is confused by sin. Unable to confirm by reason the hope that you cherish of being judged according to a mitigated law, will you endeavour to support it by the Bible ? By the Bible'? Listen! If I were to open this Bible that is before me, and read thus; — "If you " cannot fulfil the entire law, do what you can, " and God will require no more. If you cannot " refrain from sin altogether, at least abstain from " the commission of heinous crimes ; have a certain " degree of charity, of patience, of holiness ; act " thus, and you may be sure that the law will be " mitigated sufficiently to absolve you from its " penalties," — would you distinguish the language of the Bible in this'? AVould you not exclaim : " Stop, faithless minister ! you are not reading, you are inventing 1 " So contrary to the spirit of the Bible is this doctrine of a mitigated law, that if you attempt to appeal to its testimony in support of it, all your feelings, all your recollections, all that is in you of the Christian character, revolts against this attempt upon your credulity. But I am now going to read, without inventing, from the Epistle to the Galatians: "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law 358 SERMON X. to do them ; " * and again : " For whosoever shall keep the law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all ; " •\ and again ; " For I testify to every man that is circumcised " (wishing to be justified by his works) " that he is a debtor to do the whole law." ^ What shall I say more "? " It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God ; "§ " for our God is a consuming fire ; " || he is " of purer eyes than to behold evil ; " ^ and "will by no means clear the guilty;"** and a thousand similar passages. What do you say of them 1 Do you think that this is the language of a God disposed to alter his law in order to suit it to the weakness of sinful man 1 And if your miti- gated law cannot stand before dispassionate reason- ing, what will it be before the Bible '? But will you, as a last resource, endeavour to support it, under the shadow of tlie cross of Jesus Christ ? Will you say : " It is true that the law " w^as at first to be strictly enforced, but God has " consented to alter it in consideration of the sacri- " fice of his Son ; and the redemption wrought by *' Jesus Christ has procured for us this act of grace, " that God no longer requires from us perfect " holiness, but will be satisfied if we add to that " work of Christ a certain measure of obedience." * Gal. iii. 10. t James ii. 10. J Gal. v. 3. § Heb. X. 31. II Heb. xii. 29. t Ilab. i. 13. ** Ex. xxxiv. 7. SERMON X. 359 Great God ! in what a position then are we, if in a Christian, if in a Protestant Church we are to substitute for the blessed and holy doctrine of the atonement for sin by the blood of Christ, the doc- trine contained in such propositions as those which you well know have not proceeded from my imagi- nation, but which you may have often heard, as I have, if you have not proposed them yourselves 1 A doctrine however, from which that of salvation by Jesus Christ is as far removed as heaven is from earth; a doctrine which but borrows some words from the Bible to overthrow what is most funda- mental in its teaching ; a doctrine which, not content with accusing God of making a compro- mise with sin, still further, renders our Saviour an accomplice in this double-dealing ; a doctrine, in short, which only makes the Son descend on earth for the purpose of proclaiming before the angelic host that the justice of the Father is not inflexible, and that the pure blood of the Son of God has flowed, not to efl'ace the sins of the creature, but to obliterate the holiness of the Creator ! Ah ! say rather, if hitherto you have indulged in the hope that the law will be set aside, that this expectation is now abandoned as you contemplate the cross of Christ ; because God has nowhere intimated his fixed purpose of relaxing his law in so notorious and striking a manner as upon the cross. And what, in efl"ect, does the exhibition which God there presents to man and angels declare, but that 360 SERMON X. God, placed in the alternative of either relaxing his law or striking his only and well-beloved Son, strikes that Sonl So impossible is it that God should mitigate the rigorous sanctity of his law ! and so completely is this mitigated law (already condemned by reason and repudiated by the Bible) that you have fancifully imagined to shelter you from the terrors of judgment, annihilated by the cross of Christ. But after overthrowing one by one all the props that you endeavour to apply to your mitigated law, do you wish that on my side I should explain to you how this hope of yours has arisen in your minds ] This will not be very difficult ; and in tracing it to its source you will ultimately find that it has no claim to belief. It is from your having felt an absolute need of such doctrine to give you comfort as regards the just sentence of God. On one side, in fact, you were forced to admit, what is indeed too evident to be denied, that in order to appear without dread at the judgment, there must be a conformity between God's law and your con- duct ; but at the same time, you could not conceal from yourselves, warned by the voice of conscience which has anticipated all my arguments, and which you would vainly attempt to stifle by your own rea- sonings, that your deeds do not correspond with the law. What remains then, what could remain to free you from the expectation of certain punish- ment, if the law were not to be acconmiodated to SERMON X. 361 your conduct, that is to say, mitigated 1 And on such grounds, you have admitted into your minds, without other proof, that in fact it will be miti- gated, because otherwise one or other of these alternatives must follow, — either that it should be so modified, or that your condemnation must take effect, which you could not bring yourselves posi- tively to admit. So that even the invention of a mitigated law, to which you have recourse as a last expedient for escaping the terrors of judgment, shows how much cause you have to dread it. But beware ! In clinging to this delusive hope, you are not only doing what is useless to yourselves, but committing a grievous oifence against God. For upon whom do you depend for relaxing the law, if not upon the Lawgiver himself? In other words, you would imagine God to be a weak, imbecile Father, from whom you can obtain anything by tears ; who alters his intentions according to circumstances, which he, forsooth, has not foreseen, and, according to a familiar phrase, will not have the courage to condemn ; a God who retracts his threats, who compromises with the corruptions of man, and dares not bring to his tribunal any other than a law modified to suit the transgressions of his creatures ! I have seen in a foreign country, at a church door, a little w^ooden figure painted red, which represented an old man with a long beard holding in his hands a crucifix, over which was a triangular board : it was 362 SERMON X. your eternal Father under the emblem of the Trinity, presenting his Son to mankind .... You shudder. Turn your indignation rather on your- selves, for, after all, those blind worshippers had but given to Jehovah the bodily form of man, and deserved only this reproach ; " To whom, then, will you liken * God ? " But you have given to him the thoughts of man, his weaknesses, his connivance at sin ; and you have merited this still severer reproach : " Thou thoughtest altogether that I was such an one as thyself," j* to be able to say, when you look upon God stripped of his holiness, and with this mitigated law of your fancy in his hands : I can die in peace, for I have kept this law. • Be it so : I will for a moment suppose that you have kept it. But beware, in the name of God, in the name of your souls, in the name of judgment, beware, my erring brother ; this law which you have kept, is not the law of God, is not the law by which you will be judged at the last day. It is a law which your corrupt heart and troubled conscience have engendered ; a law which yourselves have dictated to your Judge ; a law which dishonours him; a law which he re- pudiates ; a law which he will cast back upon the authors with indignation, as the most insulting of their offences against his Divine Majesty. Away, away, then, with this culpable doctrine of a mitigated law ! Away with this hope which only ♦ Is. xl. 18. t Ps. 1. 21. SERMON X. 363 gives man assurance by insulting God ! The law of God will not be relaxed. His law is immutable, absolute, eternal. The law of God is like steel, we may break, but we cannot bend it. If, then, you have no other foundation for your peace of mind than the hope of being judged by a mitigated law, you deceive yourselves : this mitigated law is a phantom ; this foundation is delusive ; you cannot die in peace. Yet I do not flatter myself with the hope of having entirely convinced you. I know too well that this notion of a mitigated law is deeply rooted in the heart of sinful man. You will still say, " No, you can never persuade me that man will " not be judged by a milder law. I have nothing " to oppose to the arguments that you have just " laid down ; but I have an inward feeling on the " subject stronger than your words. This miti- " gated law which you have unsparingly con- " demned is, after all, a matter of necessity, of " justice, nay, even of truth ; I feel it, I know it, " I am convinced of it." Well, be it so; I grant for a moment the inadmissible doctrine of a miti- gated law ; I am willing to suppose that the case will be as you have imagined : you gain nothing by this ; for still you cannot be sure that you will not be condemned. The law of God has become tolerant according to your opinion ; but you do not suppose that it makes no distinctions. The mitigated law as the 364 SERMON X. result of a combination of the holiness of God with the weakness of man, contains a principle of indul- gence towards human weakness, but it has also the principle of severity inherent in the holiness of God. It allows a certain degree of relaxation and gives admission into the kingdom to men who have not fulfilled all its requirements ; but it does not sanction all vice, and does not indiscriminately admit into the kingdom of heaven all men, even the most vile, — ye cannot think it will give way to this extent. If it do not require you to keep all the com- mandments of God, it at least requires that you keep what"? So much of them as man can keep in his actual state. Here I might pause, and ask you if you have ever done what you might have done in this state ; if you have not omitted to do the good that you might have done, even in your present state; and consequently, if you have not trans- gressed even the mitigated law — mitigated by your- selves 1 1 might ask you if there be one man in the world who could say : " I have done what I could do ; " a single individual who has not trans- gressed the mitigated law — mitigated by himself? Considering it in this way the question at issue might be cut short in two words ; for if no man has kept the law, how could it impart confidence to any one at the hour of death? But let us dis- miss this consideration : I need not convict you of having violated the law of your own framing; it is sufficient to show you that you could never be SERMON X. 365 certain of having kept it, and this is enough to render it impossible for you to die in peace. The law, you say, is tolerant to a certain point ; beyond that limit it is not so. If then a man's disobedience do not exceed that limit he will be acquitted; but if it do, he will be condemned. On this supposition, then, in order to know whe- ther you will be acquitted or condemned, you must know whether you are within or beyond this limit of Divine forbearance. Think you that this question can be resolved with the certainty neces- sary to calm your minds on the bed of death ? Do you not, on the contrary, at once perceive that there is something here vague and undetermined which excludes all assurance? If you hesitate to admit this, observe, that this question involves two others. First, where is the limit of Divine tole- rance to be found? Secondly, where am I myself? Does the first of these questions appear susceptible of receiving a positive reply ? and would you un- dertake to define the limit of Divine tolerance, which, however, you must define, since God has nowhere defined it, nor spoken of a mitigated law ? Could the second question be answered with cer- tainty ? And will you take it upon you to indicate the exact degree of your moral thermometer ? But if no decided reply can be given to either of these questions, do you not see that the question of your salvation, which combines them both, contains a double element of uncertainty, and can never be 366 SERMON X. resolved with the certainty necessary to die in peace '? These reflections are perhaps too abstract to strike all minds equally : but let us give a sensible illustration of them, and then every one will acknow- ledge their correctness. Let us suppose mankind to be divided into a certain number of classes in which all the individuals will be ranked according to the moral worth of each class, estimated by an exact calculation of the advantages which each person has possessed. Let us form, for instance, twenty classes, of which the first shall include in- dividuals of the greatest moral worth, that is, those who, notwithstanding bad education, bad exam- ples, bad advice, have become the most excellent of mankind; the twentieth, those who are the most worthless, those who notwithstanding good education, good examples, good advice, have be- come the most depraved of mankind ; and the intermediate classes, the intermediate degrees of morality between these two extremes, by a gra- dual declination from the first to the twentieth. Of these twenty classes, according to your theory of a mitigated law, some will be condemned and others acquitted at the judgment-seat of God, and the question you have to solve for yourself, is this : am I in one of the classes which shall be acquitted, or in one of those which shall be con- demned there l This question includes two others : What classes SERMON X. 367 will be acquitted or condemned'? In what class am I myself? First, which are the classes that will be acquitted, and which are those that will be condemned 'i If the question only relates to the extreme classes, the answer will be easy; you will perhaps un- hesitatingly affirm that the first class will be acquitted, and the last condemned. You will per- haps venture even to affirm that the second and the third classes will be acquitted, and the nine- teenth and eighteenth condemned. But, accord- ing as you come nearer to the middle classes, the question becomes more difficult to solve; hesita- tion arises, increases, and becomes interminable doubt. The ninth class, the tenth, the eleventh — will it be acquitted or condemned ? Can, then, this first question be solved with certainty 1 But I will assume that it may be and that it has been answered, and that you know for instance, that the eleven first classes will be acquitted, and that the other nine will be condemned. Then this other question remains to be determined ; which is the class to which I myself belong ] If, accord- ing to your own estimation, you rank among the best of mankind ; if you are one of those who in the most unfavourable circumstances have attained to the first ranks of virtue, you will have no hesi- tation whatever in placing yourselves in one of the three or four first classes. But if you have less merit or more modesty ; if you take into consi- §68 SERMON X. deration the advantages that you have enjoyed, and with which the malefactor, if he had been equally favoured, would have perhaps become a better man than you, — and the impediments that he has encountered, which, if they had opposed you, would perhaps have tended to make you more criminal than he ; if, in short, you take into account all sides of the question, do you think it possible to determine with certainty whether you are to place yourself in the ninth class or in the tenth, in the tenth or the eleventh, in the eleventh or in the twelfth? And this you must ascertain, because you will be free from condemnation if you belong to any of the former classes, but condemned if you belong to the latter. Can this second question be answered with certainty ■? Do you not see clearly now, that in your system of a mitigated law the question of your salvation involves a double element of uncertainty, and that you can have no assurance respecting the result of your judgment"? Ah ! if these explanations into which I have entered have not convinced you, place yourselves in imagination on your death-bed, and you will then fully see the truth of what I have just said. Suppose yourselves in that solemn moment with- out any other support against the terrors of the judgment to come than the solution of such ques- tions as these : " Have I surely possessed the degree of virtue necessary to entitle me to the SERMON X. 369 indulgence of the law? Have I or have I not exceeded tlie degree of sin that it allows ? Have I passed the fatal limit ] Have I per- formed a sufficiency of good works or more than enough ? How can I tell ? Oh ! who will tell me exactly what God requires of me, and what my position is ? Unhappy man ! Obliged in your search for peace to estimate things for which you have no rule or measure, how can you ever say ; " I am out of suspense," " I die in peace 1 " And what peace could you find in the solution of a question of degrees, but a degree of peace more or less, but a peace which rises or falls in your miserable heart, but a peace which alternately comes and departs, but a peace in short, which is no peace ? No, no ; it is not the calculation of chances which can afford you peace on a death-bed ! ac- knowledge it then : even if it were possible that God's law could be mitigated, it would avail you nothing ; and I repeat, if you have not some other ground for your tranquillity than this hope, you deceive yourselves : this foundation is illusory ; you cannot die in peace. Does any other foundation yet remain on which you can rest your peace, oh, ye who rely upon your conduct? I do not know one; I say more, you do not know one yourselves, you cannot know one. It is indispensable that your conduct on which you depend and the law by which you will be judged, should accord ; this is the test of your B B 370 SERMON X. acquittal. This cannot be but by one or other of these alternatives : either that your conduct be in conformity with the law, or that the law be in conformity with your conduct. There is only this alternative, you cannot extricate yourself from this difficulty. Now we have asked you, first, if your conduct has been conformable to the law, and you have been forced to answer : " No, it has not." AVe next inquired if the law can be accommodated to your conduct, and reason, the Bible, and the cross of Christ have answered: "No, it cannot." Lastly, as a completion of the evidence, we have examined, if leaving reason aside, closing the Bible, taking away the cross, and granting for the mo- ment that God's law will be mitigated, you could be sure of having kept that law, and all our rea- sonings have led to this conclusion : " No, you could not be sure of it." What hope then still remains to you % How can this interminable ques- tion between your conduct which can never reach the standard that the law requires, and the law which can never lower itself to your conduct, be decided % How, except by your condemnation ? This condemnation alone can re-establish order, adjust the difference between your conduct and the law, do justice to God and to yourselves. This condemnation is inevitable ; and if you appear as you are before the tribunal of God, if you die to-day. . . . But I need not go farther. It is enough that I have proved to you — and I SERMON X. 371 believe that I have done so with evidence almost mathematical — that to say the least, you can have no certainty that you will not be condemned; and therefore no peace in the hour of death. But then, my dear brethren, what will you do "? if you cannot die in peace, by what magic, by what secret have you learnt to live in peace ? What ! you may die at any moment ; you know not what will be your eternal sentence ; you have every reason to believe that you will be condemned, and at the most, you can only indulge some hope, some chance that you will escape punishment ; and your countenance is placid, and you can sleep undisturbed, and discharge the business of life undisturbed, — nay, you enjoy life ! and you fre- quent social assemblies ! and you can go before the tribunal of your sovereign Judge laughing, singing, dancing, without more anxiety than if you were going to draw a lot for your eternal destiny ; only curious to ascertain whether this teacher or that teacher was right ; if the Bible were of Divine inspiration or of human imposture ; whether paradise and hell were realities or chi- meras ; and whether your destination will be eternal happiness or eternal misery ! Ah ! if there be anything in the world more deplorable than the terrors of the judgment which is reserved for you, it is the security in which you await it. But no, I wrong you ; these reflections, this discourse, I am convinced have aroused your hearts in a B B 2 372 SERMON X. salutary manner. There is in this subject a force, an evidence which would make the very " stones cry out." The veil falls, — your security vanishes, — a new day dawns upon you, — death alarms you, — judgment terrifies you, and you feel at length that you must not remain in your present state a day longer — not an hour. But how are you to get out of it ? Are there any means to assure us before- hand of a favourable sentence at the last day "? Is there a man in the world who can appear before the tribunal of God with the certainty that he will not be condemned there 1 And you say, " Have you, who throw down one after the other every stay on which our tranquillity rests, a more solid one for yourself? Disturber of our tranquillity, can ^ou die in peace 1" Yes, I can die in peace. Yes, were I to die this day, I should depart with the blessed assurance that I should not be condemned. But thanks be to God ! I am not the only individual who can thus answer the question. It is the reply which many in this congregation would give to the same ques- tion. It is the reply that would be given by many throughout the world. It is the reply that would have been given by a multitude of others, whose confidence has been tried and has not failed, upon the bed of death. Yes, we can die in peace. "And why you, more than weT' you will per- haps exclaim; "what presumption! what folly!" "Wait. We have not condemned your confidence SERMON X. 373 without hearing your reasons for it : hear ours before you judge us. We shall, if you choose, change places. Just now you have appeared, as it were, before our tribunal ; we have subjected you to our interrogations ; we have examined the bases of your tranquillity, and found them to be devoid of strength and solidity. Now we are going, in our turn, to appear before your tribunal, and we will submit to your interrogations ; you shall examine the grounds of our confidence, and you shall judge if it rests, like yours, upon the sands, or if it rests upon the Rock of ages. You ask, in the first place, if we find in our con- duct that conformity to the law of God that we have proved is not in yours. No ; we have offended against the law, as you have, perhaps more, and each of us looks upon himself as " the chief of sinners."* Is it, then, that we hope to find in the law those mitigations that we have also shown you could not expect 1 No, even though we should have reason to hope for them, we should not be more at peace ; but we have a horror of this hope, and we believe that the law of God cannot be relaxed for any person. " But then," you may say, " What does give you confidence? and what difi'erence is there between your condition and ours 1 " Revert to the com- mencement of this discourse. We started with ♦ 1 Tim. i. 15. 374 SERMON X. the supposition, that those whom we were address- ing grounded their tranquilUty on their conduct, and said, what in fact an immense majority of people do say ; " We can die in peace, because our conduct has not been such as to merit the con- demnation of God." Our entire discourse has been directed to this point, and with this supposition, that we have continually attacked and overthrown your tranquillity ; either when we showed that your conduct was not in accordance with the law, or that the law cannot accommodate itself to your conduct ; or, in short, when we proved that even if it were so, you could never be certain that you possess even the degree of morality that the miti- gated law would require in your conduct. Your conduct, — always your conduct, — this is what anni- hilates your peace. "Well ! this is the difference between your conduct and ours : we do not lean upon our conduct, and therefore none of the strokes which had effect against your peace have touched ours, which has an entirely different foundation, which we do not seek in ourselves, but in another, according to what is written : " For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."* It is on Jesus Christ that we rest our hope ; it is because of what he has done for us that we can die in peace. •]• Let us elucidate this sentiment. We have learnt from the Bible, which is the * 1 Tim. ii. 5. f See Note 4. SERMON X. 375 Word of God, and -whose testimony is as far above all human reasonings as Divine authority is above human authority, that God, seeing that all men were under condemnation by their works, and that none, " no, not one," could appear before him without being inevitably crushed by his holy law, has devised, for the justification of man before his own tribunal, a plan in which we know not whether to admire most, the ineffable mercy or the profound wisdom which he has displayed in it. He has interposed a Mediator between himself and man. " He sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law."* It is he, it is this Son of God, who by an inconceivable mystery is also the Son of man, who has been deputed by God to reconcile unto God guilty and condemned mankind. Uniting in himself the divine and human natures ; having, at the same time, the perfections of the first with the sinless infirmities of the second; eternal as God, born and dying as man, powerful as God, subject to weariness and suffering as man ; holy as God, tempted as man; in short, " Immanuel," that is, *' God with us." He has placed himself between God and us, to be condemned in our place, and thus to merit our forgiveness. He began by dwelling as a man amongst men, but without sin, fulfilling the law as we ought to have fulfilled it to merit by our works eternal life. Then he placed himself between God and us upon the cross. * Gal. iv. 4. 376 SERMON X. There, he takes on himself our sins ; on him falls the heavy blow which our sins had rendered inevitable ; and by this at once our conduct is condemned, the law is satisfied, and yet, wonder of wonders ! we are acquitted. For the Mediator remains not in the tomb : he rises from it on the third day, and God thereby declares that he acknowledges him for his Son and accepts his sacrifice in expiation of our sins. Then he ascends to heaven, he sits on the right hand of God and watches over those whom he has purchased by his death. This is the work which the man Jesus Christ has accomplished, as mediator between God and men, as it is written : " God was in Christ, reconciling the w^orld unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we might be made the rightousness of God in him." * However, this mediation does not absolve all men. Who are those then whom it does absolve 1 Those, as the Bible informs us, those who partici- pate in it by faith, those who believe in Jesus Christ, -j- that is, those who feeling themselves lost and for ever incapable of saving themselves, de- pend upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation, and place him between God and themselves as their only hope. By this faith there is formed between Jesus and the believer an intimate and eternal * 2 Cor. V. 19—21. t Acts xvi. 31. SERMON X. 377 union. The believer unites himself to Jesus ; he becomes a branch of the vine * of which Jesus is the stem, a member of the body of which he is the head, bone of his bone, j* flesh of his flesh; one with him, as he is one with the father ;;{: so that the expression " to believe in Jesus Christ," and these, "to be in Christ, to dwell in Christ, to have Christ dwelling in us, to be one with Christ," have the same signification in the lan- guage of the apostles. Therefore, as the whole body is affected if the head sufi'ers, and the head cannot be anywhere without the body, so the be- liever likewise partakes of the work of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ does nothing but what the believer does with him. If he dies, we die ; if he rises to life, we rise to life again ; if he ascends to heaven, we ascend there also ; if he enjoys eternal life, we enjoy it with him. Thus does the mys- terious interchange take place, by which our sins fall upon Jesus Christ, and his righteousness is imputed to us. By faith his mediation belongs to us, or according to an emphatic expression of St. Paul, the "SA'ord of salvation is " mixed with faith," § and Jesus Christ is not only the Saviour for us but our Saviour, as it is written : " He that believeth on him is not condemned; — he that bclieveth on the Son hath everlasting life; — but * John XV. 5. t Eph. v. 30. X John xvii. 21, 22. § lleb. iv. 2. 378 SERMON X. is passed from death unto life ; " * and again : " There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." f After these explanations you can understand the secret of our peace : we can die in peace because we believe in Jesus Christ. We believe in Jesus Christ, have I said, but are we perfectly assured of it? Here let us who call upon the name of Jesus enter into a serious self-examination. Have we fully examined ourselves as in the presence of God to ascertain if we are in the faith — in the faith which saves? There is you know a living faith and a dead faith; the former does not justify a single soul ; on the contrary, it provokes a more tremendous condemnation. J Have we that living faith which is manifested by the renewal of the heart, and holiness of life ? For " hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his command- ments; "§ but if we continue in sin, while calling upon the name of Christ, " we deceive ourselves," we have no part with him. || Let us beware of the most fatal of delusions, or rather let us pray that God will preserve us from them ; and let us not say lightly, faith, faith, when there is no faith, lest we should also be found saying, " Peace, peace; when there is no peace." ^ Let us then * John iii. 18—36 ; v. 24. f Rom. viii. ]. J Luke xii. 47. § 1 John ii. 3. II See Note 4. If Jer. vi. 14. SERMON X. 379 watch and examine ourselves. But at the same time let us not suppose that we have no means of knowing whether we have the faith which saves, and condemn ourselves by a mistaken humility to perpetual uncertainty. Peace, that happy state of a soul which knows that it is reconciled to God, is promised and urged upon us in Scripture. For example, this desire with which the apostles com- mence their epistles : " Grace be unto you and peace ; " for example, this promise which Jesus Christ leaves, when dying, to his disciples : " Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you : " * for example, this tender wish with which he twice addresses them on the day of his resurrection : " Peace be with you," f and again eight days afterwards : " Peace be with you." X If St. John writes to unbelievers, " that they might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing they might have life through his name," § he writes in another passage, " that they may know that they have eternal life, and that they may believe on the name of the Son of God. " || For a humble and sincere soul there are certain signs clearly indicated in the Word of God, by which it can perceive that it is in the faith — in the faith that saves. When you shall have found that you have placed all your hope in Jesus Christ * John xiv. 27. f lb. xx. 19, 21. X lb. XX. 26. § lb. XX. 31. II 1 John V. 13. 380 SERMON X. alone ; when you shall have experimentally found, I do not say that you are without sin — but that instead of being ignorant as before of your sin, you know it ; instead of loving it, you hate it ; instead of allowing it, you struggle M'ith it, and instead of being overcome you are the conqueror; when, in short, you shall have experienced that God has sent into your heart the Spirit of adoption which says unto you: " Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee ; " * when you shall have expe- rienced the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit which imparts to a soul such firm assurance of the love of God, that it would be more easy to per- suade a mother caressing the child upon her lap that maternal love is but an illusion, and that in reality this child is no dearer to her than another child, — than it would be to persuade us, O my God, that thou art not our Father, that we are not thy children, that thou hast not received us into thy favour, that thou hearest not our prayers ; in short, when having made a faithful use of all those means to enlighten you, of which in the end you are to render an account unto God more than to man, you shall have convinced yourselves that you are in the faith — in the faith which saves, you need not fear to say to yourselves, and to men, what a holy apostle has said before you: "I know whom I have believed," t provided that you give all the glory to the Lord ; to him who calleth * Matt. ix. 2. t 2 Tim. i. 12. SERMON X. 381 himself, " the first and the last ; " to him " of whom, and through whom, and to whom, are all things : to whom be glory for ever. Amen." ! * Come now, ye who wish to fathom the founda- tion of our peace in death. We have made it known: it is Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and us. Interrogate us, and judge yourselves, if with such a resting-point we have cause to die in peace. Will you ask, how we can die in peace, we who have not fulfilled the law 1 It is true that we have not fulfilled the law, and that would be enough to lead us to despair, if we had but our own righteous- ness to oppose to the penalty which the law adjudges. But we have a Mediator. It is his righteousness that we oppose to the punishment exacted by the law ; it is he " who of God is made unto us righteousness ; " -j- it is in him that we have been made the righteousness of God ;:|: it is he by whose obedience " shall many be made righteous. "§ In order that we may die in peace, it is not necessary that we should find in ourselves the perfect fulfil- ment of the law, it is enough that we find it in the person of the Mediator. Has Jesus completely satisfied the law 1 — this is the question. If you can prove to us that anything was wanting in the obedience of Jesus Christ ; if you can prove to us (forgive, oh ! my Saviour ! a supposition which * Rom. xi. 36. t 1 Cor. i. 30. :j: See 2 Cor. v. 21. § Rom. v. 19. 382 ' SERMON X. insults thee, but which I assume only to magnify still more the glory of thy holiness), — if you can prove to us that there was in the whole course of his life one act, one word, one thought which was not holiness itself, all our hope crumbles into dust. But that you will never prove to us. For it is written, that he was " the Holy One and the Just;"* that we have in him "an high priest, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners ;"f " who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth;":}: that he could say to his people, " I do always those things that please the Father." § And again : " Which of you convinces me of sin r' II that he is "the brightness of the glory of God, and the express image of his person;"^ and, in fine, that " he that hath seen him hath seen the Father."** After this, " there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," t'l' and we can die as much in peace as if we had fulfilled the law. Will you ask us, how we, who have justly incurred by our works the condemnation of the law, :{::{: can die in peace? It is true that we have incurred the condemnation of the law, and that would be enough to throw us into despair if we * Acts iii. 14. f Heb. vii. 26. X 1 Pet. ii. 22. § John viii. 29. II John viii. 46. IF Heb. i. 3. ** John xiv. 4. ff Rom. viii. 1. Xt See Note 5. SERMON X. 383 had to undergo it ourselves. But we have a Mediator, "who bare our sins in his own body on the tree;"* it is he who '* was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities." j* In order that we may die in peace, it is not necessary that we ourselves should have suffered the punishment justly incurred by our sins. It is enough that the Mediator has suffered it. Has Jesus borne the chastisement of our sins 1 has he fully borne it 1 This is the question. If you can prove to lis that Jesus has not borne the chastise- ment of our sins, or that his suffering has not been adequate, and his blood of sufficient price in the sight of God to expiate them all, all our hopes crumble into dust. But this you never can prove. For it is written, that " the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin ; " " he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world;":}: " though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool;"§ " the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all ; and the chastisement of our peace was upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed."|| Again: " There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus ;"^ and we may die as * 1 Pet. ii. 24. f Is. liii. 5. J 1 John ii. 2. § Is. i. 18. I Is. liii. 5, 6. IF Rom. viii. 1. 384 SERMON X. much in peace as if we had already suffered all the punishment justly incurred by our sins. Will you further ask, how we can die in peace, when our acquittal has not been yet pronounced, and is not to be declared until the day of judg- ment, and that our hope cannot be changed into certainty until God himself shall have declared us freed from condemnation 1 This is true ; our acquittal has not been yet pronounced, and that would be enough to keep us at least in a state of intolerable solicitude, if we could not know the sentence reserved for us until the day of judg- ment. But we have a Mediator. It is he who has been " stricken" for us, and who for us " was taken from prison and from judgment."* That we may die in peace, it is not necessary that our deliverance has been already proclaimed, it is sufficient that that of our Mediator has been declared. Has Jesus been freed from condemnation ? — this is the question. If you can prove to us that Jesus Christ has not been freed from the condemnation that he has undergone for us ; if you can prove to us that he is still under the curse of the cross, and in the humiliation of the tomb, all our hopes crumble into dust. But this you never can prove. For it is written, that after having been " delivered for our offences, he was raised again for our justifica- tion ;"j- that he has been " declared to be the Son ♦ Is. liii. 8. f Rom. iv. 25. SERMON X. 385 of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead ; " * that " he was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures ; that he was seen of the twelve, and by above five hundred brethren at once ; " -j- and that " with great power gave the apostles witness" (at the price of their lives) "of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.":}: " There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, "§ and we may die as much in peace as if we had already appeared at the tribunal and heard our acquittal pronounced. Will you ask us, in the last place, how we can die in peace, or live in peace, — we weak, impotent, faithless creatures, who, though believing this day, may have our faith perverted to-morrow 1 It is true that we are weak, impotent, faithless, — even more so than you think, and that would be sufficient to throw us into despair, if we had no resource but in ourselves. But we have a Mediator. It is he who " performeth all things for me."|| In order that we may live and die in peace, it is not necessary that we should be able to uphold ourselves in the faith ; it is enough that the Mediator can and will uphold us in it. Can Jesus uphold us in the faith 1 This is the question. If you can prove to us that Jesus is weak, impotent, faithless, as we are, or that, after having wrought out our redemption, he abandons us to ourselves, all our hopes crumble * Eom. i. 4. t 1 Cor. xv. 4, 5, 6. ^ Acts iv. 33. § Rom. viii. 1. [| Psalm Ivii. 2. c c 386 SERMON X. into dust. But this you never can prove. For it is written that, after having been raised from the dead, Jesus " was received up into heaven, and sat at the right hand of God ; "* that there he " maketh intercession for us;"t that "if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life;" J that "God is faithful, who will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able ; " § and " that he which hath begun a good work in us will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ." II After this, " there is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," ^ and we can die as much in peace, as if in ourselves we possessed the power of persevering unto the end. Well, what do you think of the foundation of our peace ? Do you find it crumbling at the first blow, like that on which you rest 1 Do you not, on the contrary, find it firm and immovable 1 And have we not reason to say, comparing it with yours, " Their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies themselves being judges T'** Ah! if you tell us that, leaning, as we are, upon so sure a foundation, we do not manifest as much confidence as we ought ; if you tell us that, with a hope so firmly established, it is surprising that we do not enjoy a peace more unwearied and deeply seated, and that * Mark xvi. 19. f Rom. viii. 34. | Rom. v. 10. § 1 Cor. X. 13. II Phil. i. 6. % Rom. viii. 1. ** Deut. xxxii. 31. SERMON X. 387 we have not always a happy mind under a counte- nance ever placid, we have no reply to make ; we humble ourselves to the dust, and acknowledge that you are right and we are wrong. Yes, we confess that our trust is far from being so constant, so deep-seated as it ought to be. Practically, we are often far removed from the sublime theory which we have been developing, and which is truth itself. Too often, however, do disquietude and sadness and doubt disturb the hearts in which peace "ought to rule,"* and we have reason to cry unto God in our distress, "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation." •]• We do not scruple to make this avowal to you, provided that you fully understand, that while it humbles ourselves it magnifies the glory of our doctrine. For, why are we thus troubled ] It is because we are wanting in faith to the Mediator. It is because, whilst say- ing : " Lord, I believe," we are compelled to add : " help thou mine unbelief !" J And is it when our faith is strong that w^e are liable to these depressing thoughts 1 Nay, on the contrary, it is when faith is weak and wavering. With faith comes peace ; with little faith, little peace ; with much faith, much peace. Assuredly, the more that you de- pend upon your conduct, the more disquieted will you be ; and the more we " lean on the Lord," the more shall we be in peace ; because the more you examine your conduct, the more defective do you * Col. iii. 15. t Ps. li.. 12. | Mark ix. 24. 388 SERMON X. find it ; while the more we contemplate Jesus, the more do we find him perfect, holy, powerful, faithful, according to this saying, " The work of the Rock is perfect."* The Rock! Ah! if you knew how precious is this Word to us ! With Jesus, I descend into the lowest depths of hell, and behold in the formidable accuser of God's children but an enemy vanquished and impotent to do me harm ! With Jesus, I traverse the earth from one end to the other, and I walk as a conqueror " on the lion and adder, "j- and on all the powers of the enemy ! With Jesus, I ascend to the highest heavens, and in my Judge I recognise my Saviour ! Whatever may happen, Jesus — Jesus is the only name that we oppose to all anxieties and to all terrors. To the agonies of death, Jesus ; to the terrors of judgment, Jesus ; to the sufferings of the flesh, Jesus ; to the weakness of faith, Jesus ; to the accusations of conscience, Jesus ; to the temptations of the devil, Jesus ; and to all your questions, Jesus — Jesus ; he is our buckler, our hope, our life, our fortress, our peace, our high tower : and not to us only, but to all who have sincerely believed in his name, from the beginning to the end of the Church, and throughout all gene- rations. And this is no new doctrine ; the holy apostles of Jesus Christ have taught us this glorious * Deut. xxxii. 4 ; according to the French version of Martin, IJcEUvre du rocher est parfuite. \ Psahn xci. 13. SER?/ON X. 389 firm assurance that we have endeavoured, though feebly, to establish in your minds ; and, without appealing to St. Paul, or St. John,* &c., have I said more than what St. Paul has said in a few words, " Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth'? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.''^ And how can I conclude better, and at the same time confirm more strongly what has been said, than with the triumphant conclusion of this noble chapter: — "What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? AVho shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect ? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh interces- sion for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecu- tion, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? As it is written. For thy sake we are killed all the day long ; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor * 1 John iv. 7, 8 ; 2 Pet. i. 12. f Rom. viii. 33, 34. 390 SERMON X. angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." And now that we have shown and justified the foundation of our confidence, is there one of you who would still wish to repeat, against the glorious tranquillity of those who lean on Jesus, the trite accusation of folly and presumption, which, per- haps, you were disposed to urge at the beginning ? Can you see in this confidence any presumption, and justly impute pride to those who possess it? If so, you cannot have understood what we have been solicitous to impress upon you, that we rest this hope, not on our works, that we believe to be evil, condemnable, condemned, deserving of eternal punishment ; but upon grace alone — on the free grace of God \ You cannot, then, have under- stood that in this marvellous dispensation of Divine mercy, salvation from first to last comes from God, and not from man ; that it is given, and not bought ; and that, if we speak of it before you, it is to give glory to God, and to lead you to seek in your turn the same peace, which is equally for you as for us \ What ! the poor prodigal whose heart yet beats with the emotions of that new happiness which he has found in his father's house, will he not hasten towards other prodigals, his former associates, in mercy, to say unto them : "If you SERMON X. 391 knew what my father has done for me ! Instead of the fortune that I have dissipated, he has given me another, greater than the first ; instead of the rags with which I was covered, ' the best robe ; ' in- stead of the ' husks ' which I shared with filthy swine, food from his own table ; instead of polluted society, communion and sweet intercourse with him. He encircles, loads, overwhelms me with his love: will you not also return to him ? " Could he not speak thus without its being said to him, " Boaster ! by what right dost thou come to us to laud the goodness of thy father ] " And we, being de- livered from that fear of death which held us all our lifetime subject to bondage,* cannot we come to you who are yet in this bondage, to tell you of our happiness, and to exhort you to believe as we do, — to be happy as we are '? Think of us as you please, we cannot but declare unto you what we have seen and heard, — heard from the Word of God, seen in the experience of the Christian life. We cannot but beseech you to receive " the Word of life, that ye also may have fellowship with us ; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ : these things declare we unto you, that your joy may be full."'!' Ah ! my brethren, if you knew what it is not to fear death ! If you knew what peace is experienced even amidst the tumults of life, by a soul which has anchored on the Rock of Ages ! If you knew * Heb. ii. 15. I John iii. 4. 392 SERMON X. how much better it is to lean upon the Lord than upon oneself, how much better it is to trust in him than in the best of men ! * Or, can you tax our confidence with folly, and accuse those who possess it of entertaining vain imaginations '? You cannot, then, have understood on what authority our hope rests. You cannot, then, have understood that it is on the Word of God alone that we rest it, — on that Word which is compared to " silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times," -f and in which we have more than the most logical deductions of reason, since we have there the testimony of God himself. But even if you should consider us more weak- minded than we may now appear to you, for repos- ing this unbounded confidence in the testimony of the Book of books, and deem our hope foolish- ness, learn at least, that the pity which our foolish- ness excites in you is not equal to that which your wisdom excites in us, and that the prayers which you may present to God that we may become wise after your fashion, can never be as fervent as ours, that you may become foolish after our way ! Yes, give them, Oh, my God ! give them this holy and blessed foolishness, — the foolishness to believe in thee, — the foolishness to obey thee, — the foolish- ness to love thee, — the foolishness to be saved, — the foolishness to be happy, — the foolishness to be wise ! ♦ Ps. cxviii. 8, 9. f Fs. xii. 6. SERMON X. 393 What do I say ? Are we alone in presenting to God this prayer for you "? Do you not present it yourselves for yourselves 1 Ah ! surely, when I put into your mouths the accusations that the Avorld is in the habit of making against the confidence of the Christian, I wronged you. Other sentiments now animate you. On the contrary, you sigh after this holy and blessed confidence, and you say in your heart : " And I too wish to believe in Jesus Christ." Well, believe — believe now. A little farther and you are in the haven of faith. Do not wait until the seductions of sin, the temptations of unbelief, the ridicule of a profane world have chilled your new hope. Do not wait until to- morrow. To-morrow, perhaps, you may no longer desire it ; to-morrow, perhaps, you may be unable ; to-morrow, perhaps, you wiU be dead. No, not to-morrow, but to-day. " Behold, now is the ac- cepted time ; behold, now is the day of salva- tion."* Cast away all your misgivings; throw yourselves at the feet of Jesus, — give him your heart : and this temple, which has seen you enter " having no hope, and without God in the world," f will see you departing from it, singing, with the pious Simeon, the hymn of those who can die in peace ; " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word : for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." J * 2 Cor. vi. 2. t Eph. ii. 12. X Luke ii. 29, 30. D D NOTES. NOTE 1, Page 340. The question here is not whethei- one can die without suf- ferings. Death, that mark of the curse of God, lias ever some- thing fearful to our nature ; sickness frequently adds to it new dread, and no one can know beforehand how far it may please God to soften tliis last conflict to him. Some men, whose faith was beyond doubt, have been agitated in that solemn moment ; while others have been known to die in undisturbed peace, and seeing, as with the bodily eye, Jesus Christ ready to receive them at their departure from the body. Some unbelievers also have been seen awaiting death in per- fect security (Is. Ixxiii. 4), and others again given up, in their last moments, to anguish or rage, evil presages of the portion which is reserved for them in eternity. What concerns us is not so much whether we feel at peace as whether we have reason to be so : and they have reason to die in peace who have a well-grounded assurance that they will not be con- demned in the day of judgment. NOTE 2, Page 353. The opinion which is here combated under the name of mitigated law, must by no means be confounded with the doc- trine of a gradation in the punishment, which the laAv pro- nounces against those who have transgressed it. It is one thing that the law should be deprived of a part of its requirements by reason of human infirmity ; another, that the law should punish with greater or less severity those who have trans- gressed it, according to the different circumstances in which they have been placed. As the first of these assertions is clearly contradicted by Holy Writ and by sound philosophy, so the second appears to us clearly established by both one and the other, as we liave elsewhere shown. — Ser?no?i upon the Compas- sion of God towards the unconverted sinner. NOTE 3, Page 374. We do not pretend to say that the assurance of which we here speak is found in all true Christians. All ought to enjoy NOTES. 395 it, for it is only a natural consequence of faith. Thus faith and assurance are almost always found united in the language of Scripture. Let us remark upon this point that the word hope, in the writings of the apostles, and, above all, in those of St. Paul, has not precisely the sense which is attached to it in our days. When we say that a man hopes for eternal life, we suppose that he is not assured of possessing it. But in the style of the apostles, hope is simply the expectation of good things to come, an expectation wliich may proceed from other causes, and which ought to be, in the Christian, perfectly firm and certain. He hopes for them, not because he is unassured that he shall enjoy them at one time, but because he does not yet enjoy them. (Rom. v. 5 ; viii. 24, 25.) Nevertheless, experience shows us, that there are true Christians who do not enjoy the assurance of their salvation, which can no otherwise be accounted for than by a deficiency of light, or by weakness of faith. It is to Christians of this character that St. John wrote these remarkable words : " These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life." (John v. 13.) NOTE 4, Page 378. There are here two things to be observed : firstly, that sanctification is necessary in order that we may ascribe to our- selves the faith which saves ; secondly, that this sanctification which is needful to our ascribing to ourselves the faith which saves is not a state of perfect holiness. The first of these doctrines is everywhere set forth in the Scriptures : " Faith without works is dead." (James ii. 26.) " Without holiness, no man can see the Lord." (Hebrews xii. 14.) "Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments." (1 John ii. 3, &c.) Where holiness is not, Christ is not; and where Christ is not, there is neither pardon nor salvation. But that we may "assure our hearts before God," ( John iii. 19,) it is not necessary for us to have arrived at perfect holiness. Wherever holiness is found, even in the least degree of its development, there is Christ ; and wdiere Christ is, there is pardon and salvation. This second doctrine, so readily com- prehended, although it is not proclaimed by the Scriptures in the same manner as the first, is, nevertheless, clearly established in them, and constantly assumed, 1 John ii. 1 ; James iii. 2 ; Matt. vi. 12, &c. ; and if 1 John iii. 6 — 9 has been adduced against it, it is because it has escaped observation (what the context alone, even without the rest of Scripture, would suffice to demon- strate), viz., that these words to si?i, and to commit sin, mai'k, in this place, the practice of sin, and not an act of disobedience, as the 396 NOTES. words "doeth righteousness" (verse 7), mark the practice of holiness, and not a single act of obedience. NOTE 5, Page 382. Some one will, perhaps, say, Is it not written that we are to be judged according to our Avorks, Rev. xx. 12 ; 2 Cor. v. 10 ; Matt. XXV. 39, &c. ? and if it be thus, how can you be assured of a favourable sentence — you who admit that you have not perfectly fulfilled the law even since you have beUeved ? To this, we reply, by an infinitely important dis- tinction. The good works of the children of God which follow them to judgment (Rev. xvi. 13), and which ensure them a favourable sentence, although they will form the basis of their judgment, will not be the foundation of their justifica- tion. They will be the indication that they have believed in the Saviour, but they will not be in stead of their Saviour. These works, which they cannot perform but by faith in Jesus, will show that they belong to Jesus ; and Jesus, to whom they belong, will save them from " the wrath to come." Therefore, the infirmities and failures of those who believe in the Lord Jesus will not prevent them from being justified in the day of judg- ment, if their works clearly show that they have loved Jesus. And whom would the mediation of Jesus profit, if the fruits of it could not be gained without perfect obedience to the law ? No one, not even the holiest apostle. (James iii. 2.) The perfect fulfilment of the law will be exacted from those who rely on their conduct ; but from those who rely upon Jesus will be only required the proof that they have belonged to Jesus. " But," it will be again said, " this brings us back to the doctrine of a relaxed law ; the law wiU be relaxed for those who believe in Jesus Christ." By no means. The law, as a means of justification, will not be applied to them, but to Jesus, in whom will be found the perfect fulfilment which it exacts. There is between these two doctrines this essential difference, — that, according to the first, the law tolerates sin, and is satisfied with an imperfect obedience ; and that according to the second, it does not tolerate it, and is satisfied with nothing less than the perfect obedience of the Son of God. ^ ;^ Macintosh, Printer, Great Ncw-strect, London. '' ? Date Due ;jii»4M!4Ma »»»•«• ^^*i^*4J«|««?N^ p- WMf' 1 ■ :^vr ■ ■■'if^fspiw^'" (*^ L r i ^