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" - - - * -- * º Cº. &: §º *º Eº ñIIITIIIHTITITIIITITITIIIHIIIº E---rrºr-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrºcºrrºr-cºrrºr-crºc C RTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT Tºmmuniſmſ: E-------- -§ 3:- : : : SERMONS for (Tbe QChristian facat S E L E C T I O N adapted to (The $2a30ng of the QLſ)tigtian jacat ſrom the (. C) ſ & QUEBEC CHAPEL SERMONS of HENRY ALFORD Sometime Dean of Canterbury V. l, a U R I V IN G T O N S WA TER LOO PLA CE, LO WDOW MDCCCLXXXVIII *ºn THIS SELECTION OF SERMONS, PREACHED BY OUR DEAR FATHER, IS DEDICATED TO MY SISTER. PR E FA C E. THOUGH nearly thirty years have elapsed since my father published his “Quebec Chapel Sermons,” so many of them seem to deal with doubts and difficulties of the present day, that it is thought a selection from his sermons, adapted to the seasons of the Christian year, might be of use. The selection from such a rich mine of material has not been easy, particularly where single sermons have been taken out of a course. Two or three of the sermons in this selection are taken from the course on “Divine Love in Creation and Redemption.” In the preface to that volume the author says, “This course of sermons was suggested by reading Sartorius's treatise, “Die Lehre von der heiligen Liebe.' . I am not aware that Sartorius's book has been translated.' I would earnestly recommend it to * I am informed that a translation was published in 1884, under the title of “Doctrines of Divine Love : Outlines of Moral Theology.”—ED. viii Preface. German readers, who may not be aware of the really rich treasures of sacred learning of the best kind, which are now being laid up for us by the evangelical writers of Germany.” A few sermons in this selection are also taken from the course on “Christian Doctrine,” preached in Canterbury Cathedral. Many only know Dean Alford's name in connection with his commentary on the Greek Testament, and through the biography of him, published in 1873; I have therefore endeavoured to collect together from different volumes, sermons which were published during a period extending over eight important years of his ministry, when his name was also prominent as a preacher. Thirty-two sermons only are printed in this selection, ending with the sermon for Trinity Sunday; but should this volume meet with a favourable reception, it is proposed to publish a second volume, which will contain a further selection from the “Quebec Chapel Sermons.” ALICE OKE BULLOCK. KENSINGTON, Aaster, 1888. C O N T E N T S. I. Øſtgcmt. THE COMING OF THE LORD. i- PAGE ‘‘Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be over- charged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.”—LUKE xxi. 34 º I II. % burnt. PRACTICAL USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.”—ROM. xv. 4 . * - º - e - . I 4 III. %ingent. CHRIST THE JUDGE. “He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.”—ACTS x. 42 . - º º º 29 X Contents. IV. %ibbent, OUR LORD's For ERUNNER. PA 3E “He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.”—John i. 23 º s - . 45 V. (Tijristmag. THE CHRISTIAN’s CHRISTMAS. “They . . . did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people.”— ACTS ii. 46, 47 . - - º º º º e . 6o VI. (Tijristmag. GOD's REMEDY FOR SIN. “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”—ROM. iii. 3 . - - . 7 I VII. 32nd of the jear. THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR. ‘‘To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne.”—REV. iii. 2 I • e e º º - . 84 VIII. 3Epipiyang. THE CHURCH, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. (A Missionary Sermon.) ‘‘Ye are the light of the world.”—MATT. v. I4 w º - . 97 Contents. xi IX. 3Epiphang. CHRIST THE SAVIOUR OF ALL MEN. “We trust in the living God, Who is the Saviour of all men, specially P.A.G. H. of those that believe.”—I TIM. iv. Io * - º ſº . I I I X. 35 pipijang. MIRACLES: WATER MADE WINE. “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and mani- fested forth His glory.”—JOHN ii. II e vº e g . I 26 XI. 3Epiphang. CHRISTIAN CONFIDENCE IN TROUBLE. “And He saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith ? Then He arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea ; and there was a great calm.”—MATT. viii. 26 . t - º º . I4 I XII. 3Epipijang. PARABLES: THE TARES OF THE FIELD. “He spake many things unto them in parables.”—MATT. xiii. 3 . 153 XIII. $rptuagrginia, CHRIST THE CREATOR. X “All things were made by Him ; and without Him was not anything made that was (or hath been) made.”—JOHN i. 3 . g . I67 X11 Contents. XIV. Štragesima. LOVE IN THE DETAILs of CREATION. - PAGE “The Lord is good to all : and His tender mercies are over all His works.”—Ps. cxlv. 9 o º • º . I 82 XV. QRuinquagesima. LOVE IN THE CREATION OF MAN. I97 “God created man in His own image.”—GEN. i. 27 XVI. 3|Ent, OUR LORD's TEMPTATION. “Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”—MATT. iv. I * * º . 2 I I XVII. 3.cnt. THE FIRST SINNER. “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”—I JOHN iii. 8 224 XVIII. 3|Ent, CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE. “. Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.” —I COR. ix. 25 o - g s • . 237 XIX. £2nt. FELLOWSHIP WITH CHRIST’s SUFFERINGS. “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death ; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of g ſº g o . 25I the dead.”—PHIL. iii. Io, I I Contents. xiii XX. 3.2nt. CHRIST’s CROSS IS CHRIST's GLORY. “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.”— JOHN xii. 23 . º º º º º e * XXI. 3.2nt. - CHRIST CRUCIFIED. “We preach Christ crucified.”—I Cor. i. 13 . º XXII. (ºrgot, jribag. CONFORMITY TO CHRIST's DEATH. “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unfo His death ; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead,”—PHIL. iii, Io, I I , º º º º XXIII. 3Easter. THE POWER OF CHRIST’s RESURRECTION. “That I may know Him, and the Power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death ; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead,”—PHIL. iii. Io. II º t { XXIV, 35agttr, THE LORD Is RISEN. “Because I live, ye shall live also.”—JOHN xiv. I9. PAGE 263 279 292 3O4. xiv Contents. XXV. 3Easter, OUR LORD’s CHARGE TO PETER. PAGE “Peter was grieved, because Jesus said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me? And he said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all things ; Thou knowest that I love Thee.”—JOHN xxi. 17 . 332 XXVI. 3Eagttr, CHRIST OUR SHEPHERD. (Preached for the Scripture Kadºr, Society in 1857.) ‘‘I am the good Shepherd.”—JOHN x. I I º * º º , 347 XXVII. 35āşttr, THE SALT THAT HAS LOST HIS SAVOUR. (Preached for the Scripture Readers' Association in 1856.) “If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned P”— LUKE xiv. 34 . e e º - - º • - . 362 XXVIII. 3Eagter. THE UNITED HEART. (A Confirmation Sermon.) “ Unite my heart to fear Thy name.”—Ps. lxxxvi. II & º . 375 XXIX. Østension Bag. OUR LORD's ASCENSION. “I go to prepare a place for you.”—JOHN xiv. 2 . º . . . 392 Contents. XV XXX. 33cension Bag. OUR LORD's LAST WORDS. (/’reached for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.) PAGE “He said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”—LUKE xxiv. 46, 47 405 XXXI. Qſìjit $Umbag. THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. < “And they said unto Him, we have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.”—ACTS xix. 2 * * gº . 4I 7 XXXII. QIrinity, Śumbag. THE HOLY TRINITY. “Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”—MATT. xxviii. 19 & & & * . 43 I SERMON I. (PREACHED IN 1855.) Qſìjt (Tomíng of the 3Lorū. “Take heed to yourselves, Zest at any time your hearts be ozercharged wit/ surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.”—LUKE xxi. 34. WE have been preserved to begin once more the season of Advent: and with it the whole course of Commemora- tions, with which the Church has so wisely strewn our yearly Christian path. I say, so wisely; for indepen- dently of the advantage of thus having the thoughts directed evermore in succession to the great verities on which rests our faith, we have this other also ; that as years pass, a preacher is able to present to his people those verities from their many various aspects—some- times dwelling on one or other of the Gospel narratives where they are borne witness to—sometimes insisting on their doctrinal import, Sometimes on their practical tendency. Among these different ways of presenting the events of the Christian seasons, I would this time Select that one which regards them as immediately bearing on our actual thoughts and practices. It may B 2 7%e Coming of the Lord. be somewhat deserting the beaten path, but can hardly fail I trust to be productive, or suggestive, of good, if we enquire how each of these great matters practically affects us, who are placed on earth, in this latter half of the nineteenth century, to glorify God in the Church of Christ. You will, I am sure, pardon me if in taking this side of truth to exhibit to you, I should sometimes speak plainly of our present state and habits of thought and action. There are certain great and broad common- places, which must be always in Christian men's minds, and constantly sounding in their ears ; but at the same time it is ever well that these common-places should be broken up into familiar details and sayings which may come nearer home to each man's actual life in the world. The subject then of our enquiry to-day will be, “What practical effect ought the doctrine of the Lord's second coming to have on you and me, living when and where and as we do P’’ On the certainty of that coming, I need I suppose say very little. We are all agreed at least thus far ; that this present state of things will at some time or other come to an end ; and that the consummation will be brought about by the coming again, in some sense or other, of Our Lord Jesus Christ. On the manner of that coming, we possibly may not be agreed ; the time of it is expressly and purposely con- cealed from us. There is no more reason why it should not take place this day, than there is why it should not be centuries distant in the future ; but on the other hand there is no more reason why it should be thus near to us, than why it should be very far off. It may 7%e Coming of //e Zord. 3 be said, that the further we advance in the world's life- time, the more reason have we to believe it to be near ; just as the grey hair is a streak of the dawn of the eternal day, and a warning to prepare for it. But the answer to this is, that whereas we know the limit of the life of man, we do not know that of Our world ; whereas the hoary head is a sign that can hardly be mistaken, mistakes in this matter, of the signs of the Lord's coming, are so frequent as to be the rule, rather than the exception. From the first age even to this, men have been crying “Lo here and lo there.” Every war, every pestilence, every great advance in knowledge or civilization, has been successively pointed out as the immediate precursor of the great final event, but in vain ; as one after another has gone by, the interpreters of prophecy have shifted their ground, being baffled ; and now we are living and working, hard upon the twentieth century after Christ, and we know no more of that day and hour, than did our brethren of the apostolic age. All we know is, that it is hidden in the counsels of Our Father, and will appear in His time. Two things therefore seem to me to have a right, as elements, to influence our practice in this matter ; the absolute certainty that the day will come, and the absolute uncertainty when it will come. In fact, in both these respects, we are in much the same situation, as we are, when in health and strength and the prime of life, with regard to the day of our death. We know that it must be ; but no sign appears of its immediate approach. And from this example, so common and 4 The Coming of the Zord. well understood, we may perhaps be able easily to deduce our duty in the other case. Christ's coming is certain ; so is your death and mine. If you or I were to live on year after year, forgetting this latter truth ; regarding ourselves as for ever to live in this world, and making Our plans accordingly,–though I am afraid such conduct is far too frequent among the ungodly and careless, it would be universally condemned at least by all Christians, and even by sensible and serious-minded persons. But in the other case, it is not so ; Christians go on, and would allow others to go on, year after year, without the slightest regard to the certainty of the Lord's coming, and think themselves not only not to blame, but rather giving evidence of good Sense, and sobriety of mind, in so doing. Let us still use the more familiar case to explain the less familiar one. The wise course with regard to the inevitable day of one's death appears to be this ; never to lose sight of the certainty of it, but to keep ourselves ever ready, while at the same time we do not morbidly brood Over the fact, nor allow it to interrupt our duties in life. The man who all day long were thinking of his latter end, picturing to himself all the circumstances of that awful season, would plainly be disqualified for the commonest employ- ments of that state of life, to which God has called him. And just so it is with regard to the Lord's coming. We are ever to bear it in Our minds as a certain thing –as one of those foundation facts on which our practical life is built. The circumstances of it, our own part in them,-the hopes and fears arising 7%e Coming of the Zord. 5 from such considerations, are not indeed to be ever before our view as objects or causes of terror to us, or of mental excitement, but are to be soberly and wisely dealt with, as solemn considerations influencing the whole course of our conduct. And here as in that other case, we must avoid a diseased and restless state of anticipa- tion, as well as the opposite extreme of entire forgetful- ness. But perhaps it may be said, in laying down rules for the one consideration, that of our own deaths, are we not also including the other, the expectation of the coming of the Lord 2 Certainly, in some particulars the two great events coincide ; but by no means in all. And it may be profitable for a few moments to ask ourselves, wherein they are identical, and wherein each has its region peculiar to itself. They coincide, in that each event, as far as we are concerned, will put a limit to this our present state of existence ; but they differ, in that the one will do this for ourselves alone ; the other, for all mankind. And this is a strictly practical consideration ; for I suppose few of us are so selfish as to confine our anticipations and provisions to ourselves alone, but we all extend them over those who are to come after us. The certainty then of the day of the Lord will influence those provisions, if we look on it as bringing the limit of this state of time; we shall be rather anxious to do present good with Our substance, making moderate provision for Our Successors, than to lay the foundations of great possessions, and starve our charities to do so. Again, they differ, in that the One brings to ourselves 6 7%e Coming of the Lord. alone the final state ; the other completes the great scheme of redemption. The number of God's elect will be accomplished, and His glorious kingdom will have come. And such a consideration, while it may not have much distinctive influence upon our individual Christian lives, Ought to have much upon our regard of Our relative duties, and our efforts for spreading Christ's Gospel on earth. There can be no doubt, whether we take analogy or Scripture for our guide, that God is pleased to conjoin human agency in a wonderful way with His own great designs. It is His blessing and His Spirit alone that brings the harvest; but it is for us to sow or to leave unsown. And there is no reason to suppose this rule departed from in the spiritual kingdom. It is His Spirit alone Who can breathe upon the dry bones and make them live ; but it is for us to give or to withhold the word of truth through and by which the Spirit is pleased to act. Ought not then these considerations to be ever before Christians, seeing that the time may be very short ; seeing that vast tracts of this world for which Christ died remain yet unprovided with the bread of Life; seeing that even where He is named, great masses of men are as yet unevangelized, left in the gall of bitter- ness and bond of iniquity ; and adding to all these con- siderations, that the facilities granted to our age for such work are great beyond example P Will not the practical effect of the certainty and uncertainty of the Lord's coming on every man who really is influenced by it, be to make him doubly anxious to advance the missionary work of the Church, at home and abroad—and per- The Coming of the Lord. 7 sonally to spread, in his own circle and wherever his influence extends, the knowledge of Christ Once more, the two events coincide in equally bring- ing on us the final change, and as a consequence of it the judgment; but the one does this latter only in prospect, the other immediately. Of all the subjects on which we may speculate as to our Own State and desti- nation, perhaps none is so mysterious, none so difficult to form a definite idea of, as the condition of the dead after the act of death ; on the other hand nothing is more simple and clear, than their state after the coming of the Lord. As to the former of these, when the act of death has passed, where are they What is that dis- embodied spirit, which but a minute since was here thinking and giving utterance P What is its employ- ment now P how can we conceive it employed at all, without any of its corporeal vehicles of thought and action ? These are questions which, though they shake not our faith, nor indeed the inevitable conclusions of Our reason itself, that Our Spirits are and must be un- dying, yet baffle every enquirer, and never will have an answer till we know each one for ourselves. But when the Lord shall have come, and the trump of the resurrection shall have sounded, and the bodies of the redeemed shall have been reunited to their spirits, though the wonderful process itself far surpasses our comprehension, all after that seems plain. We appear again, even with the spiritual body of the resurrection, to be linked to that which is real and palpable ; and there is no difficulty in conceiving a thousand blessed 8 7%e Coming of the Zord. employments in the wide universe of God, in which we may be then engaged. And equally little difficulty do we find in conceiving of that solemn day when all, small and great, shall stand before God. From the sacred language of the Scriptures themselves, down even to the representations of painters and sculptors, descriptions of that day and its awful scenery abound ; whereas of that other, the state of the disembodied dead, we have not either in Scripture or in the writings or works of men, any descriptions,—except indeed, on the side of God's word, the most general assurances for our comfort, and on the side of man's imagination, only the gross and revolting dreams of idle superstition. There is then this Consideration, which is worthy at least of our notice; that the looking for and waiting unto the day of the Lord brings us something more definite, something immediately following it of a more tangible kind, more Calculated to make a deep impression on us, than the contemplation of the day of our own death. The reali- ties consequent on the one are and must be, even to the strongest faith, shrouded in a mist which is to us im- penetrable ; the other, with its realities, stands forth boldly before us, marked out in all its features by the hand of Christ Himself. So that the man who waits for the Lord's coming is likely to be more definite, more assured, more manly and determined in whatever effects on his character such anticipation may have, than he who merely looks forward to his own death. Moreover, when we compare the two as to the ques- tion, which best befits the Christian as an object of thought 7%e Coming of the Zord. 9 and expectation,--we cannot I think hesitate a moment. The New Testament is full of exhortations to watch and prepare for the Lord's coming. From His own dis- courses while on earth in the flesh, through those of the Apostles in the Acts, through the Epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter, St. James, St. John, St. Jude, even to the latest written words of the Spirit in the Revelation, no Com- mand is more frequent, none more solemnly impressed on us, than that we should keep that great event Con- stantly in view, and be ever ready for it. Whereas we shall hardly find one exhortation, addressed directly to us as Christians, to be ready for the day of Our own death. And why so 2 clearly not because such readiness is not necessary—far from it indeed—but because the greater absorbs the less : because the promise of Our ascended Saviour—His return to us—His coming to take account of His servants—includes in it all that the other possibly could do, and very much more ; because death is at the best but a gloomy thing, bearing trace of the Curse, accompanied with pain and sorrow, whereas the Lord's coming is to His people a thought full of joy, —the completion of their redemption, the beginning of their reign of glory; the solution in God's lovingkind- ness, of all the difficulties, and doubts, and fears, of this present state ; the reunion of severed friends, and the full revelation of Him Whom they love. For these reasons and for such as these, the proper principal subject of the Christian's hope and anticipation is the bright and welcome one of his Lord's coming, rather than that other dark and unwelcome one. His Lord's coming, when IO 7%e Coming of the Zord. and how He will ; whether that coming shine upon him living and in the body here, or penetrate with its pierc- ing rays and jubilant shout the dark chamber of his grave ; in that his hopes, in that his yearnings, in that his prospects are summed up and fulfilled –he looks for his Lord, not for his last enemy; he meditates day and night, not on a step down in the darkness, but on a blessed emerging into everlasting light. Let us employ our remaining time in considering more pointedly the direct practical effect which such an anticipation ought to have on us as Christians. Our Lord's warning in our text will guide us in so doing : . “Take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you un- awares.” “That your hearts be not overcharged "-be not weighed down ; for such is the expression. O my friends who are yet in, and of the world—you talk to us of lightness of heart ; and that which you understand by the word is, the desire and the power to join in the giddy world of pleasure and fashion ; in fact, the very things of which we are cautioned to beware lest they weigh the heart down. How totally different then are the two estimates—that of the world, and that of the Lord of Truth ! We too want, in our preparation for the day of the Lord, lightness of heart; hearts which we can lift up to heaven where our treasure is ; hearts which are not tied down to this earth, not cleaving to the dust. And how may we lighten our hearts The first lighten- ing—the first rolling off of the burden which weighed SO The Coming of the Zord. I I heavily on them, is the work of God's Spirit in the day of His power ; is that setting free from the load of sin by the blessed effects of justifying faith in Christ, in which the law of the Spirit of life makes us free from the law of sin and death. But how may we best keep them, when thus lightened, from again accumulating a burden, and being weighed down from their proper object of contemplation and desire P Listen to Our Lord's Com- mand. It is the surfeiting of this world's employments and pleasures which thus clogs the heart. This then of all things is to be shunned, if we would be prepared for that day. You cannot, beloved, be casting yourselves fully into the arms of the world, and be prepared for the coming of the Lord. The two things are absolutely incompatible. If you choose the part of eagerness about things present, that day will come upon you unawares, —whether it come with the sign in the clouds and the resurrection trumpet, or with the sinking of the flesh and heart, the curtained chamber, the bedside group fading away from the failing vision. I say “the part of eagerness about things present ; ”—because our Lord's caution applies just as much to the business, as to the pleasures of this life. Take heed that business do not your hearts. What a place Overcharge—do not weight, is this, brethren, in which to speak such a warning ! How strange it would sound proclaimed in our crowded thoroughfares —how strange would it look, posted up in our busy exchanges How can we observe it? From morning to night the world's business calls us. We must revolve with the wheels of the great machine. If I 2 7%e Coming of the Lord. we strive to disentangle, it crushes us. Yes, but your hearts—the world may require your diligent attention, may demand your time, your talents, your strength ; but it never asked you for your heart: it would not thank you for it, for there is no place in its business for the heart. If you give it your heart, it is your own doing, It is a gift perfectly gratuitous, it is an interference with the best fulfilment of its duties. Your heart is wanted elsewhere. There is one who says, “My son, give me thine heart.” His it is, by right and by purchase; His, by every bond that can bind it to Him. Give, if it must be, your time, your diligence, your strength, to business; but give your hearts to God. Or I might better describe it, for so it then will be, give your time talents, strength, to your Lord's work on earth, and your hearts to your Lord's Person in heaven. Be prepared. In the midst of the world, be not servants of the world, but of the Lord. Look not on this state of things as enduring. Build not here the heart's home. Christ's coming is certain ; therefore pre- pare for it —it is uncertain ; therefore keep that prepara- tion itself in a state of constant preparedness. Let not go the thought of His coming any day. Let it enter as an element into every plan. Be not ashamed of it in any company. Talk of it as a reality with Christian friends; soberly but earnestly. Be found walking in the light. Accustom the eyes to look upon the Redeemer, that the glory of the Judge may not confound them. Learn to listen to the whispers of Christ's Spirit, so 7%e Coming of the Zora. I 3 shall the dread voice of the Son of God bring no terror to you. Little children, abide in Him ; that when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. - SERMON II. (PREACHED IN 1855.) 33rattital Qāse of the GPIb QTestament. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.” ROM. xv. 4. IT may be well that we should take up the subject suggested to us in the Collect for this day, and enquire into the practical use of Scripture. We have our Bibles. It is our boast, that no man may stand between us and the word of God. To whom much is given, of them shall be much required. We are deeply responsible for the use of those Bibles. And that use is perhaps not so very simple a matter as we might at first suppose. Many a man reads his Bible even daily and scrupulously, who hardly uses it at all ; many a man is thoroughly familiar with its contents, to whom it never yielded its meaning for any good purpose. In order to use it well and practically, several requisites must more or less concur, which will come before us in the course of the treatment of our subject. And to-day I will speak of the use of the Old Testament. About two-thirds, in bulk, of our Bibles, Aractical Use of the Old Testament. I 5 is distinguished from the other one-third, as belonging to a dispensation and a system of things which has now passed away. Beginning with the record of creation itself, its historical monuments extend, for the most part continuously, till about four hundred years before Christ appeared. What are we to think of this collection of documents P How are we to use them P I shall not to-day, except when absolutely necessary, diverge from my path to consider or answer the objections of those without ; I am not preaching a controversial, but a practical sermon. My endeavour will be to set before you plainly the views and opinions of the Christian Church, and apply them as well as I can to Our Own practice. We regard then the Old Testament as the record of God's special preparations for Christ, just as that of His general preparations is contained in the History, Geography, Chronology of the wide world. This latter evidence is, so to speak, sown broadcast over earth and sea, to be found by those who search for it ; but the other is concentrated in a smaller compass— in God's word. We have no inspired record of His making ready of the nations for the proclamation of Christ's Gospel; but of His special arrangements for the sending forth His Son, He has been pleased by His Spirit to give us such a record. The myriad paths which lead into and diverge out of the great highway in the desert, we are left to explore for ourselves ; but that highway itself was marked out by His own hand, raised by a people of His own choice, paved by the toil of His own selected workmen, and tracked by His own I6 Practical Use of the Old Testament. chariot-wheels. Such a marking out, such a raising, paving, and tracking, is the subject of the Old Testa- ment Scriptures. And as in a neglected or untilled country, the first steps to breaking up a road seem unpromising, and indicate but little of the route even- tually to become so Smooth and plain ;--So what wonder if in the great chaos of our desolated nature, it is long before we can discern the meaning of His preparations— long before we can interpret the heaps of material laid in One spot, or the clearance which is made in another ; —what wonder if all, to the unpractised eye, seems confusion and absence of design P In using then the Old Testament Scriptures, bear ever in mind, that the key to their arrangement, the Secret of their usefulness to us, is the discernment in them of the Redeemer to come. Use them as Our Lord and His Apostles used them ; who, not because it was the Jewish habit of the time, but because that habit was founded in God's truth, at once and without hesitation applied the words of the law and the prophets to the great events of Redemption, and to Him in Whom all those events are centred. To do this well and SOberly, to avoid on the one hand that irregular fancy which would press home things uncertain and minute, and on the other that cold and self-satisfied unbelief which refuses to see the plainest types and prophecies, should be our aim in the present use of the Old Testament. Looking on it all as prefatory to Christ, we see there a dispensation whose necessary character was imperfection and obscurity. From the first faint dawn of prophetic light in the primaeval days, Aractical Ose of //e O/d 7 estament. 17 the eastern sky is ever more and more lit up with the beams of advancing morning ; but meantime, man, and the objects in this nether world, are but dimly seen. Men walk not in full light, judging of and appealing to the open principles of truth and justice, but as it were in the glimmering dawn ; contented, in the half-revealed morning, with paths too rough for us to bear, who are children of the day; soiling their feet with pollutions, which we cannot tolerate. Such things Ought not to offend us, but to teach us, and make us thankful. The old heathen poet could tell us that it is sweet, when the surface of the great sea is troubled by the winds, to stand on the shore and behold another man's danger; still sweeter should it be to us, to stand on our firm ground of faith and hope and love, and see others, not indeed tossing, the victims of chance,—but mercifully guided through the storms and perils of those wilder days. With regard to the more closely practical question, how the Old Testament is to be read, and /low much of it, I would say, that a very good rule is, to follow in private in the main the plan of Our Church, and read the Old and New Testaments alternately. By this means, we shall have read the latter twice over or more, while we are going once through the former ; a relative pro- portion well fitting their positions with regard to us. And to the question of ‘how much,' in broad terms I would say, the whole ; that is, I would have no Christian omit any integral portion or book, as such, of the Old Testament. Such a rule must obviously be interpreted with Christian caution, and with a view C 18 Practical Use of the O/d Testament. to edification ; and the young especially will need the guidance of their elders and parents in their private reading ; but that such caution has been generally exer- cised with too little discrimination, is shewn by the almost total ignorance, on the part of our educated classes, of the Levitical types, which apply to our Lord, and of the Contents of the prophetical books. Of this the results are much to be lamented. The Old Testa- ment Scriptures are frequently depreciated and set aside by those, whose knowledge of their contents is most inadequate to their assumed censorship ; and a degree of flippancy is shewn in the subject by grave and other- wise well-informed persons, which in such a matter can only be accounted for by ignorance. He who really has Studied his Bible to any purpose, who has marked in it the gradual preparation for Him in Whom he believes and in Whose light he rejoices, will be of a very different mind with regard to the difficulties or stumbling-blocks which he may discover in the Old Testament. He will approach them humbly and seriously; will see in them the undoubted evidences of that working by human instruments and gradual enlightening, which accords with the analogy of God's present dealings; will admire, as he reads, the holy boldness of that record which, while it stands single in its candid narration of the falls and crimes of good and great men, stands single also in never palliating nor standing Committed to them : ever bearing noble witness to God's purity and justice, ever with an unsparing hand laying open the depravity of the heart of man, even in those who might well have Aractica/ Ose of Že O/a/ 7 estament. I 9 been, were it a merely human composition, its heroes and patterns. But we Christian readers of the Old Testament ought to take much higher ground than this. As we see in it the historical and typical preparation for the Redeemer, so we trace a moral preparation also. If it comes from the same Holy Spirit as the Revelation of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, we may fairly expect to find asserted or implied in it all those germs of truth of the moral and of the spiritual life, which we now have unfolded and fully displayed in Christ. And this we do find—most amply and satisfactorily. The bitterest enemy of the faith cannot deny, that in this respect, it is totally different from any other writing of the ancient world. From the first, the highest moral standard is upheld. Nothing unworthy of the loftiest estimate of the divine character is ever spoken by, or from God. In the midst of much that is widely divergent from our thoughts and practices, we ever read the same appeals to holiness, justice and truth, which the Gospel of Christ makes in our own days. The moral law of the Old Testament is indeed deepened and filled out by the New ; but in no case contradicted nor set aside. In our Lord's sermon on the mount, where He so often con- trasts His own precept with that given of old, the difference proceeds not from a different estimate of good and evil, but from the necessary distinction of out- ward and carnal from inward and spiritual ordinances; and the same great Teacher Who pronounces these con- trasts themselves, in that very discourse tells us, that He came not to destroy, but to fulfil. 2O Practical Ose of the Old Testament. Let us now speak of some of the various departments of Christian knowledge, for which the study of the Old Testament Scriptures is requisite. The history of the chosen people of God is very full of needful instruction for us. The seed of Abraham were selected as the vehicle of God's will, and ultimately of the blessings of redemption to the world. But they were also selected for the great lesson to be read to all ages, that the reve- lation of a moral law of precepts and ordinances never could save mankind. And this fact is one abundantly commented on in the New Testament. It is impossible to follow St. Paul in his argument to the Romans or to the Galatians, without a familiar knowledge of the law of Moses, and its history, and its effects on the Jewish people. It is equally impossible to comprehend the beautiful Epistle to the Hebrews, without some adequate acquaintance with the ceremonial portion of that law. Nay, a man is equally incapacitated from reading the Gospels and the Acts to much purpose,_from appre- ciating the relative position of Our Lord and the Jews in the one, or the Apostles and the Jews in the other, without being fairly read in the Old Testament. The same may even more strongly be said, when we come to the differences of the Apostles among themselves on the question of the admission of Gentiles into the Church ; a question which agitated the apostolic body more perhaps than any other, and the continuing effects of which are visible, long after their first council at Jerusalem. Then again, One very large and important region of Practical Use of the Old 7 estament. 2 I assurance of our faith will be void, without a competent knowledge of the prophetical books of the Old Testa- ment. Those books, as might be expected, being written in the form for the most part of poetry, of a kind and in a language alien from our Western habits of thought, are not easy at once to comprehend, even so as to put their sentences together, and educe their first and Superficial meaning. And consequently, those who have rendered them for us into English have had great difficulty occasionally, and have presented us with several various versions of their purport. And attempts have in consequence been made to represent these books as altogether uncertain in their expressions and reference; as meaning just what anybody pleases to say they mean, and having no fixed standard of interpretation. I need hardly tell you, that this is very far indeed from being the case; that the laws and rules of their composition are by no means unknown ; that in the main, their great principal references have been ever discerned and ac- knowledged. - And it is to establish this for ourselves, that it is so important to study these books, and to have an intelli- gent idea when, and of what each prophet wrote, what things he had immediately, what more distantly in view ; or what the Spirit of God may have conveyed by his words even unconsciously to himself. For this is a department of our faith where it is exceedingly easy, unless we choose to bestow such labour, for the shallow objector to plant his foot and insert his influence. Take but an instance. Our Lord or His Apostles quote 22 Practical Use of the Old 7 estament. a prophecy from the Old Testament, as applying to Him. St. Matthew perhaps tells you, as is his wont, “All this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet.” But the objector—the careless intellectual friend, who has never examined the matter, Comes to you with his off hand assertion, that the prophecy was never written of Christ at all ; that it regarded some present deliverance of Israel at the time, or perhaps, as he is pleased to express it, the success or failure of Some marauding expedition. What is the young Christian, unversed in his Bible, to say to this 2 How can such an objection be satisfactorily answered, without some general knowledge of the character and spirit of prophecy itself? The fact alleged by the objector may be patent and undeniable, and thus bear in full force on the young disciple. But if he is aware at the same time, that all main deliverances of Israel led up into and set forth that great One, for which all good men looked ; if he knows anything of the character of prophecy to find its immediate reference in present or individual circumstances, and its great fulfilment in distant and general ones; if he can substantiate these views by actual and undeniable instances of prophecies fulfilled, where they have been exemplified ; then the objection will fall blunted from his shield of faith, because that faith will be intelligent and consistent, and he will be able to render a reason for the hope that is in him. Another practical question arises : How are we to deal, in studying the Old Testament, with the mysterious Practical Use of the Old Zestament. 23 and unfulfilled prophecies of some of its books 2 Would you have us—would you advise the young, for instance, —to give scope to their fancy in the interpretation of these books ; to spend their time in fitting present events to them, and disputing over prophetic systems ? I answer, undoubtedly not ; and I believe much mischief has been done to the quietness and earnestness of the Christian life by such fanciful putting together of systems of prophetic fulfilment. But remember, that this exercise of the fancy is not the study of prophecy. It might rather be called building castles out of prophecy ; the study, not of God's word, but of man's tradition. I certainly would advise the study of those portions of the Old Testament, with the rest, for all reasons. First, for this ; that it is most important to have a knowledge of Scripture as a whole. He who has, will be far better able to apply even to these parts wise and Sober rules of interpretation. Secondly, because it is only by being familiar with such portions of God’s word, that we have any chance of recognizing their undoubted fulfilment, when it arrives, as a thing announced to us for our instruction and caution. Thirdly, because there is a plain and evident great highway of prophetic fulfilment, —a sum and substance of the content and scope of prophecy, which must approve itself as true to him who is acquainted with the data on which it is inferred, but otherwise can only be taken on credit, and there- fore not so vividly felt, or so thoroughly believed in. And fourthly, because if God has really given these announcements of futurity to His Church, it cannot be 24 Practical Ose of the Old Testament. for us, who are lying in His hands, the creatures of what a day may bring forth, to neglect them or cast them aside. Therefore, study the Old Testament prophets, reverently, soberly, cautiously; with a view to familiarity with their contents, rather than to using them in ingenious fitting on to the events passing around us. Of Such events we are never competent judges. They are the hedges which overtop the traveller's head and keep him from seeing beyond them ; wait till we mount the height of experience and look on them behind us, and they shall sink down and blend into the plain. Read the prophets, rather to know what God has said, than what man has imagined ; and abide His time, wiser, and better armed for contingencies, in that you will have laid up so much more of His will, and drunk in so much more of His spirit. We have yet to speak of two of the principal uses of the Old Testament ; its use for example of life, and for purposes of devotion. In the former respect, the ancient Scriptures are exceedingly rich and valuable to the Christian. The examples of faithfulness to God, occurring in darker times, mingled more with secular matters and human weakness, appeal to our practice with a charm which is hardly found even in those of the Apostles and holy men in the New Testament. There, all are grouped round one perfect Pattern,-even Him Who is first and last and midst in all our thoughts for God. All are eager for His work; and except in one or two cases, their individuality seems absorbed in Him. But in the Old Testament, we have men Practica/ Use of the Old 7 estament, 25 employed in life, differing indeed from ours in its habits and maxims, but still with very much in common. The noble example of the faith of Abraham,_the stedfast- ness of Joseph when assailed by temptation,-the fidelity to God of Caleb and Joshua, the inseparable attach- ment of Ruth to Naomi,_the pious childhood of Samuel, —the whole career of David, so bright in God, SO darkened by his own sinfulness, the wisdom and the fall of Solomon, the weak piety of Jehoshaphat, the faithfulness and feebleness of Hezekiah, these, with many lesser characters, we find in our Old Testament Scriptures, full of warm reality, and speaking to us evermore for encouragement and for warning. How many familiar pictures have we of domestic life; of the natural affections hallowed by the fear of God ; how many touching scenes of sorrow and resignation | If it were only for the effects of these, we could ill indeed spare the Old Testament books from the training and forming of our youth ; from the keeping and guarding Our Own natural affections in their freshness, during the burden and heat of the day of life. But the direct devotional use of the ancient Scrip- tures is no mean element in the nurture of the Christian Spirit. They are full of the breathings of the souls of holy men of God ; full also of words of life, spoken by Him to the soul. One whole book, the Psalms, has ever formed part of the liturgical service of the Church of Christ; and from the other books she takes her daily lessons, selecting for Sundays and holidays those chap- ters whose importance, and tendency to edification, is 26 Practical Use of the Old Testament. most plainly apparent. It were much to be wished that this latter list, of Proper Lessons, were enlarged at least by one-third, to provide as well for many more chap- ters being taken into it, as for the increased need of the Church, now that three services on the Sunday have become so common. But however much we may lament that the Church is fettered in these matters, and unable to extend her services so as to meet even the most apparent exigency, there is no such restriction laid upon our private devotional practice. The whole Scrip- ture is at least open to us in our closets, to cull from at our need or our pleasure. And a rich store indeed we shall find it. Everywhere the same teaching meets us as to the purity and holiness of Him with Whom we have to do ; the same testimonies to our own sinfulness and infirmity. The witness of the historical Scriptures is not, to the Christian, historical only ; it has an echo in his own heart, when it evolves the depravity of man, when it traces written in dark characters on the world's progress, the effects of those thoughts which his own sad experience tells him are only evil continually. The typical Scriptures are not to him typical only ; in the whole ordinance of sacrifice he reads of life forfeited by sin, of remission by the shedding of blood, of the Lamb for a burnt offering, whom God has provided ; in the passover, he sees his doom, he sees his rescue, and feeds on Christ in his heart by faith with thanksgiving ; in the manifold ordinances of the law, he traces spiritual truth, marked out boldly and broadly for every one who believes to read: the uncleanness and the cleansing of Aractica/ Ose of the O/a/ 7 estament. 27 the leper, the day of atonement, the entering into the most holy place, the salt of the sacrifice, the altar of incense, the ark, and the mercy-seat, and the first-fruits, —are all to him full of practical lessons for his own inward life. Nor are the prophetical Scriptures to him prophetical only ; every page abounds with food for his spirit, and brings him nearer to his God. The most gracious assurances of help and favour on God's part, alternating with the most devoted humility and thank- fulness on that of His people, raise his confidence, while they deepen his dependence; every fervid denunciation of sin exalts God's holiness and justice, while every merciful promise of pardon enhances His long-suffering and loving-kindness; and meanwhile over every prophetic book moves, sometimes distant, sometimes well-defined in every feature, the form of Him Whom kings and pro- phets desired to see, now revealed to us in His fulness as the Christ of God. Amongst those troubled waves of prophetic denunciation, those tossings of hope and fear, of promise and threatening, His voice is ever saying to him, “It is I—be not afraid.” Let Him but be seen and taken in, and doubts and difficulties vanish, and the vessel is in the haven where she would be. The sum of all, brethren, is this. Search f/he O/d Testament Scriptures; for they are they that festify of Christ. To find Him in them, is the true and legitimate end of their study. To be able to interpret them as He interpreted them is the best result of all biblical learning. May we, whose lot has been cast in a shallow and scoff- ing age, learn the use of our Bibles, by learning their 28 Practical Use of the Old Testament. depth, their manifoldness, their distinctive and divine character; may we find in them treasures ever new, by gaining continually more of the mind of God's Spirit ; having, for all the cavils of our day, the answer in our- selves, by becoming wise, not for repute, nor for display, nor for argument, but for God, and unto Salvation. SERMON III. (PREACHED IN 1856.) Christ the gjunge. “Aſe commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is Æe which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.”—ACTS X. 42. IT may be well to take to-day as especially fitting the present season, Christ's office of Judge. In doing this then, first the fact itself comes before us—that it is Christ, and no other, Who shall judge the world. And on this head nothing can be more decisive than is the testimony of Scripture. Witness our Lord's own sublime descrip- tion of the events of the great final period of judgment, which He opens. “When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.” And such is His constant testimony. “Hereafter,” was His declaration to the High Priest and council, “shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” And to come more directly to the point of judgment as His office,—we have Him say- ing, “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed 3O Christ the judge. all judgment unto the Son : that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father.” Moreover He describes Himself, and His Apostles describe Him, as exercising the office of Judge in pronouncing on the final state of men. “At that day I will say unto them,” are His own words, “Depart from me, for I never knew you, ye workers of iniquity.” And St. Paul declares, “We must all be made manifest before the judgment- seat of Christ.” So that it is not demonstration, that the doctrine of Christ's Judgeship needs. But it does, I think, need laying forth and enforcing, because like many Other of the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, it is apt to be merged and forgotten in a general and vague way Of speaking and thinking. Just as few Christians, when they speak of God as the Creator of the world, have any distinct idea that it is Christ of Whom they are speaking, so few Christians, when they speak of the final Judg- ment, have any distinct idea, familiar as is the truth itself to them, that it is Jesus Who shall occupy that judgment-throne. It is thus that we allow the distinc- tive doctrines of our faith to drop out, and subside into a kind of Deism, from which the presence of Him by Whose Name we are called is suffered to fade away, till our faith in Him becomes no more a living and working principle, a cleaving to one Who is ever with us, but a cold assent to theological propositions. I believe I am describing a case very common in the present day. You may search through whole books about the world and Him Who made it, and not find a word about Christ in them. You may search again through whole books on Christ //e 77tage. J 2 I human responsibility and moral obligation, and not find one word about Him Who died for us being our judge, or of the peculiar ties of gratitude and responsibility which bind Christians to Him. What wonder if Chris– tian motives be absent, where Christian truths are so little thought of 2 If no man cometh to the Father but by and through Christ : if He is the appointed mediator between God and man, so that we cannot think of God acting in us, or of ourselves approaching to God, except by His intervention : it may be a solemn thought for Christians, whether they are not in fact thwarting the designs and effects of redemption by thus leaving Him out of view. Let us then dwell on this point, on which both Scrip- ture and the Creeds of the church, which are founded on Scripture, are so explicit: that it is He Which is appointed of God to be Judge both of the quick and the dead. Now first of all I conceive that one of the texts just quoted may tend to throw great light on our subject. “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” Let us try in some measure to enter into and comprehend this. The Son of God is the Head and Lord of all creation. In Him, the Father is well pleased, beholding as summed up in Him all things in heaven and in earth and under the earth, whether visible or invisible. All these are by Him, and for Him. The Father hath given all things into His hand. By Him alone have God's creatures access to the Father: by Him alone does the Father act on this Created universe. All the laws of creation, all the course 32 Christ the Žudge. of providence, all the purposes of grace, are cared for, and wrought out to their issue, by the watchful ministry of Him Whose they are, viz. the eternal Son of God, in Sweet and constant accord with the Father's will. Now among these high offices of upholding and superintend- ing, that of judgment, if we give the matter a thought, is one of the most obvious. That the same almighty and all-wise One Who has created, Who has upheld, Who has carried onward the whole frame of nature from her first hour to her last, should also determine and announce the final lot of His creatures, seems but what is just and right and to be expected. So that the Father judgeth none, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. But the Son of God has other and closer claim to be judge of mankind. Another text declares to us, from His own lips also, that “the Father hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man.” As it is fitting on the one hand, that we should be judged by one who is all-wise and infallible, so it is on the other according to God's merciful provi- sion for fair and full justice to be done to His creatures, that that all-wise One should be one of ourselves—one who has personally experienced our infirmities, and whose decisions are not only marked by perfect impar- tiality and even justice, but come forth from and are clothed in that lively sympathy which only personal participation can ever bestow. But yet more—He is man, and He is the Head of our human nature: He is the rightful purchaser of it all by virtue of His work, in it accomplished. He has brought it up through a Christ //e 7udge. 33 course of humble obedience and perfect sinlessness into triumph and glory : He has redeemed it from its guilt at the price of His own precious blood : He has made it victorious over death and hell in His own person. And He stands in His right as king and judge of mankind by this especial claim, that He is Son of man ; that one of human race, on Whom all the race depend ; the Captain of their salvation ; the Author and finisher of their faith. And thus we find the Apostles constantly resting the Judgeship of the Lord Jesus on this accom- plishment of His work of redemption and this His place in the nature of man. So, e.g., St. Paul, when he stood preaching on that hill at Athens, surrounded by the philosophers, says that God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world by (or im) the man whom He hath appointed. So again the same Apostle, in the famous passage to the Philippians, “Wherefore,” i.e. because of His humiliation and obedience to death, “God also hath highly exalted Him.” And again to the Colossians, ch. i. 18, “He is the head of the body the church, Who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead : that in all things He might have the pre-eminence.” And to the Ephesians, i. 20, “He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places far above all principality and power and might, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come : and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church.” We see then that both by natural right, and by a D 34 Christ the judge. special claim acquired and superinduced on that, the Son of God is judge of mankind : the natural right putting—as Creator—all things into His hand, and man among those, as their final arranger and disposer : the acquired claim giving an especial fitness to His being judge of men, inasmuch as they are His own peculiar possession, and the family of which He is the undoubted and manifested Head. But there are some subordinate and lesser reasons why He, and no other, should be the judge of mankind. He unites in Himself those proprieties for the high office, which none other could. The judgment will be for the deeds done in the body, and will not take place till the dead are again united to their bodies. It will be a judg- ment carried on not only by the convictions of the con- Science, but by an actual visible and audible process, eye to eye and voice to voice. And this is according to justice, nay, to necessity : because they who have lived in the body should give account in the body. We know little, almost nothing, of the life of a disembodied spirit: but we can say thus much, that from it would be absent the glow of rapture or of confusion, the kindling eye, the greeting voice: that a judgment of the spirit for things done in the body, would seem to be an incomplete taking of account of the state and deserts of mankind. And after all, however uncertain such d priori considerations may be, we have them here in their proper place, as only coming in aid of God's own declared purpose of judging men in their bodies, and after the general resurrection. Several times in Holy Writ is this process of the judg- Christ the judge. 35 ment put before us. From the suffering Job who wished his words graven with a diamond in the rock when he said, “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” down to the Evangelist in the Apocalypse, Scripture is full of testi- mony that in our flesh we shall see our Judge : that every eye shall behold Him. The whole imagery is that of a scene transacted outwardly and visibly. The tribes yet living on the earth, with their natural eyesight, shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud with great power and glory. At His coming, the dead shall be raised, in the same manner and guise as He was raised, Who was the first-born from the dead : as the first-fruits, so the harvest. As He was in His risen body, able to be seen and heard and handled and recognized, so shall it be with them also. The living shall, it is true, undergo a change : yet it will not be the severance of soul and body, but only such change as to put them also into the state of the resurrection without having gone through death ; such a change as has past upon Enoch and Elijah, who were translated alive into glory. And then, among this vast multitude, He Himself shall sit as judge, visible, and audible, and recognized by all. Now it is obvious that such a scene could only be enacted, such condition only fulfilled, by the incarnate Son of God. “God hath no man seen at any time.” The Father dwelleth in light inaccessible; Him no man hath Seen nor can see. We have never heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape. And if it be replied, that there is nothing in this argument, for that God could make Himself visible and audible if it pleased Him, I 36 Christ the Žudge. answer, that such speculation is out of place altogether in this instance, for God has made Himself visible and audible in a way of His own appointing, and in that way only ; even by His Son, incarnate in our flesh. The same declaration from John i., which I just now cited, “God hath no man seen at any time,” concludes by saying, “the only begotten Son, Which is in the bosom of the Father, He declared Him *-manifested Him— shewed Him forth to His creatures. So that by the necessity of the case, I mean, by God's eternal laws of self-manifestation to His creatures, none other than the incarnate Son of God can be the Judge of mankind : can stand visible and audible on this earth of ours, exer- cising over us all a right of disposal, inherent in Him because He is our Creator; purchased and assured to Him, because He is our Redeemer : full of justice, for as God He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and as man He is spotless and without sin : full of mercy, for as God He has compassion on the works of His hands, and as man He has felt what it is to be tempted. We cannot conceive any quality which any man could require for his final judge and disposer, which is not found in the Lord Jesus. It is plain that we might carry these considerations of His fitness for Judge yet further into particulars. We might say, that it would be requisite that for such a final assurance of God's people and conviction of God’s enemies, One should be the chief agent, Who might cause the greatest possible joy in the one, and the greatest possible remorse and dismay in the other. Christ //e ºudge. 37 For remember, that judgment will be set to redress the wrongs of the whole lifetime of the world. There will be there myriads of holy men and holy women, who toiled on through oppression and neglect and tears, and were borne up by faith in this final result. “Plead Thou my cause, O Lord,” was the language of their daily prayers: on this Holy One Who died for them did they put their trust, that at last they should not be con- founded. God’s justice requires, God’s covenant pro- vides, that to them shall be given double for all their toil. If their cup of joy run not over in this final day, then is the balance not righted, the world's wound not healed, the expectation of the righteous not fulfilled : and how should their joy be full, but by the presence of Him Whom they love 2 How should their pardon be sealed, but by the voice of the Lamb Who died for them How should their anthem of triumph be loudest and sweetest, but by beholding Him Who is worthy to receive blessing and glory and honour ; Him Who inhabiteth the praises of eternity ? And on the other side, there will be there the armies of the aliens; the bold and stout-hearted ; those who would not have this man to reign over them : they who pierced Him once, and they who have been piercing Him ever since : they who have served Him for the world's hire, and used His liberty for a cloke of licentiousness; who have called themselves His disciples without keeping His command- ments, have exacted His words from others without believing them themselves, and lived in self-enjoyment, while called by His name. How shall they be judged, 38 Christ the ºudge. in the absence of Him Whom they have wronged P. How shall they be judged, but by that suffering and exalted One, Whom they called “Lord, Lord,” but obeyed not P Could any sight be thought of, which should so strike them through with remorse, as that of Him with Whom all their lives have trifled P Could any voice be heard which should so carry conviction to their hearts, as that One, speaking on earth, which speaking from heaven they have so long disregarded ? And if the memory of opportunities thrown away and benefits forgot, be ever the bitterest drop in the cup of self-accusation, what must be to them the presence of Him Who died, but they would not live : Who was wounded, but they would not be healed by Him : Who was chastised, but not for their peace, because they would not P But have we any check upon such thoughts as these ; any warrant that judgment shall not degenerate into mere vengeance; that almighty power shall be tempered with sweet mercy—that not a blow shall descend that day, but those which the assembled universe shall confess to be just 2 Yes, we have every warrant ; for we have Him as Judge, Who prayed for His own murderers : Him Who opened Paradise to the penitent on the cross : Him Who let Himself be touched by the unclean ; Who restored the fallen, Who heard the broken- hearted ; Him Who never broke the bruised reed nor quenched the smoking flax. And whenever I think of Him on that throne of judgment, and pass Over in my mind the awful events of that day, and the question arises, How can the redeemed rejoice, how tune their Christ the Žudge. 39 hallelujah chorus of praise, amidst so much utter and final misery 2 How can the hosts of God stand on the shore of time, and gaze on that world's Sunset, if it go down tinged with so much blood P how look forward to the glorious morning, if it bring so many vacant places, so many dreary remembrances P. When thoughts like these pass through my mind, and become too strong for me, and I flee cowering to the judgment-throne to hide in almighty wisdom and infinite mercy, O then I see there a sight which calms my doubts and assures my fears : I see Him Who when reviled reviled not again : Who when He suffered threatened not ; and seeing Him there, I know that all will be well : I know that for every infirmity, every inadvertence, every stumble and fall, He will make ample and blessed allowance: F know that all was open to His eye, all treasured in His heart: that He never misunderstood a simple motive, never Overlooked a loving thought, never exaggerated a casual fault : that the death-bed of shame, the dark cell of punishment, the crouching form of misery and sin, were to Him no closed books, whence His word was banished : that He judged not by the hard and rugged outside, but knew every tender thought within ; took not the world, nor the church, for His guides in judg- ment, but saw deeper than either. And when I re- member all this, and look up and see standing by Him, yea by His very throne, many whose names were cast out by our righteous ones, and many a battalion glittering in triumph, whom we in this world were too ready to consign to perdition, then am I reassured, 4O Christ the Judge. and can look forward even to that day with content- ment: well satisfied that when its great work is done, and its evening comes, He will be held justified in His judgments, and glorified in His mercies : yea, that then, as ever in His dealings, mercy shall rejoice against judg- ment. Solemn might be the strain, even though it were on the jubilee of redemption, which celebrated only the triumph of His justice ; subdued the voices, even though of the great multitude whom no man can number, which sing only of righteousness fulfilled : but knowing Who it is that is to judge us, what He has done for us, what spirit He is of, I can see now that there will be no such stint in the utterance of the praises of His church : that infinite gratitude and glad Surprise, and exultation at His vast and unexpected mercies, will cause that song to swell forth unchecked from all His redeemed, will make it indeed a new song which none before could utter ; will swell it onward without measure, and fill eternity with praise. But we must not conclude without saying some- thing on the time and manner of that judgment of which we have been speaking. As regards the first, its day and hour are hidden in the counsels of the Father. No man knows them, not even the angels in heaven, no, nor the Son Himself, but the Father only. Even He is waiting, till all things be put under His feet. Even He has not in this respect past out of His mediatorial and subordinate office. And for us, the sons of men, all attempts minutely to fix even with the aid of prophecy the day of His coming, have ever Christ ſhe judge. 4. I proved vain and unprofitable. Again and again in the course of history, have men told the year: and again and again has the predicted time past by, and the in- terpreters been baffled. Many of us are old enough to remember two or three such attempts. Even now we find this and that year spoken of by our writers on the prophetic word. All we can say in each case is, it may be so. All we know for certain is, that we have His own word for two things respecting it, the one of which we may well set against the other as a corrective, and both of which form solemn incentives to watchful- ness. The first is, that when that day is near, there will be plain and undeniable signs of its approach ; as plain to those who are watching for them, as the budding of the trees is a token that summer is nigh. The other is, that when the day actually does come, it will be Sudden and unexpected : as a thief breaking the house at dead of night. In other words, the Church will, on the one hand, not be left uninformed of the signs of her Lord's near approach ; and on the other, she will not, as matter of fact, lay those signs SO deeply to heart as to be throughly awakened and on the look out for Him. A few remarkable particulars in our Lord's own declarations and in past history must also not be over- looked. The day of which we speak has in fact been, in a foretaste and awful type, acted over already. When Our Lord speaks prophetically of it, He ever mingles with its mention His ultimate judgment of the Jewish people. Sometimes the two seem to overclasp and in- terpenetrate one another, so that we cannot tell which 42 Christ the judge. is the immediate subject: and when the lesser event is beyond doubt spoken of, it is not unfrequently clothed in many of the terrors of the greater. At this no Chris- tian will be surprised. The historic lifetime of Israel sets forth to us the fortunes of the Church of God. Israel rejected her Lord : and at the house and temple of God did His judgment begin. In every incident of that terrible time, we read the great and final consum- mation prefigured. Another of these particulars which we have from His own lips, is, that before His second coming, the Gospel shall have been preached, for a witness, to all nations. And the progress of this is perhaps the safest and most reliable token for us of the nearness or dis- tance of that day. How rapidly the work is advancing, how near completion it has approached, any one who watches the course of Christian missions is able to judge ; and may, if judging with Soberness and not with enthusiasm, form a safe inference accordingly. Another token which He has given us, both by His own declarations, and more fully by the Apostle St. Paul, is that that day shall not come except there have been a falling away first, and the man of sin have been revealed. We have not yet I believe seen the full accomplishment of this prophecy. We have seen many things which have seemed to approach, but none which has attained, the terrible and general opposition to God and all that is His, which this passage seems to imply. For this we yet wait; and when it comes, we shall know its import as the herald of the Lord's approach : Christ //he judge. 43 the last and darkest cloud, out of which shall burst the glorious Sun of Righteousness. Various themes crowd upon us, as we bring to a close these thoughts on the Son of God as Our Judge. But let us concentrate them all in one home question : How shall zve stand before Him 2 Remember that in all senses carrying terror or doubt as to the issue, His own people shall not come into judgment. They have already past from death unto life : they are knit into and united to Him on Whom they believe, and to Whose image they are being conformed. As in that terrible prefigurement of the great day, the Christian church, forewarned by the Lord, had escaped and was safely lodged in a city of refuge, comforted with His presence and ringing with His praise: even so shall it be in the great day of the Son of man's coming. They who have loved and lived on Him, will stand secure above all the anguish and terror and uncertainty and question- ing and trembling of the tribes of the earth. Their city of refuge has long been built; its towers set up, its bulwarks told : salvation will God appoint for those walls and bulwarks: the storm shall rage without them, and they shall be safe. Not that for them His office of Judge is abandoned or foregone. But that for them who are judged by the Spirit here, whose lives lie open in holy purity of purpose and constant self-searching and the communion of prayer with God, that judgment will be as it were superseded ; they shall not come into it they have already passed from death into life. Be it your endeavour, brethren, and mine, to follow 44 Christ the judge. up these meditations on Christ as our Judge, by making Him more and more our friend—by growing in His grace and in the knowledge of Him ; that when the tokens of His coming thicken around us, when the clouds grow darker, and the trumpets wax louder, and men's hearts fail them for fear, we may lift up our heads with joy, seeing that our salvation is nigh. SERMON IV. (PREACHED IN 1854.) QBut £ott's ſºorerunner. “Ae said, Z am the zoice of one crying in the wilderness, Aſake straight (he way of the Zord.”—JOHN i. 23. THE Church directs our attention, during these two last Sundays in Advent, to the course, and testimony, of the Forerunner of our Lord. It is a subject full of interest and instruction ; and One not perhaps often dwelt on. Let us first take an historical Survey of the circum- stances. When now the fulness of the time was come for God to send forth His Son, He raised up from the same family another child, not born after the ordinary manner of men, announced like Christ Himself by an angelic vision, and ushered into the world with sign and prophecy. All that concerned this child was strange and full of meaning. His parents belonged to the priesthood; they had been blameless in the observance of the commandments and ordinances of the Lord. The child was to be a Nazarite unto God from the womb. Of his infancy and youth we only hear, that 46 Our /lord’s Aore?”,727ter. he grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel." Thither let us try and follow him. We do not, perhaps, often enough accustom our imagination to fill up the gaps of the Scripture narrative, and to give life and con- sistency to the record. The lesson of faith which his father Zacharias had been taught, the prophecy which he had uttered at the nursing of the child, doubtless were not lost upon John. He grew up conscious of an unusual destiny. He was to be the prophet of the Highest. He was to go before the face of Jehovah, to prepare His ways. From the first he was not as other children are. He was in the deserts. The society, the games, the clothing of his equals, had no attraction for him. Full of his high mission, he wandered, in Strange and scanty garb, in the rocky ravines of the wilderness of Judah, or among the thickets that fringe the Jordan. There, amidst scenes full of the power of Israel's God, was his youth- ful spirit trained. Sometimes he gazed on that still lake of death, which yet bore tokens of God's swift judgment against the sinners of old : sometimes he may have visited the birthplace of the Law, and stood in the caves of Horeb, and communed with God in the solitude of Sinai : sometimes he may have forded the ancient river of Kishon, and climbed to the top of Carmel, and there have sat, and drunk the spirit and gathered the power of Elias. And we may conceive that, when he met with those who travelled by the way, he uttered | Luke i. 8o. Oz/7 / ord's Fore?”,7272e2". 47 to them strange words and warnings too grave for youth, and spoke of righteousness and temperance and judgment to come. They found him on the rocks with the prophet Esaias opened before him, or heard his clear voice trying the note of preparation which was hereafter to awaken Israel :—and perhaps for long years the wild boy of the desert had been a sign and a wonder to many. f But at the time appointed,—when now thirty years had past while that mighty spirit had been growing to ripeness in solitude,-the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. Now all his scat- tered purposes were gathered into one. His mission was given him. His anticipations of the coming Re- deemer received definiteness and power. And now first the passers-by at the ford of the Jordan heard a voice crying ; “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Now first, one heart and another is softened by the call, and daily growing numbers confess their sins and are baptized. By-and-by the whole country is stirred. The heart of the people, always sounder than the heart of their spiritual rulers, turns to the Lord their God. “There went out unto him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.”" To all these he spoke of One mightier than himself, Who, though in time Coming after him, was in dignity preferred before him : Whose shoe's latchet he was not worthy to unloose: Who should baptize them with the Holy Ghost and with * Matt. iv. 5, 6. 48 Our Zora's Forerunner. fire. At last Jesus Himself came to be baptized. Re- lated to the Baptist according to the flesh, He was personally known to him ; nay we can hardly believe but that the testimonies concerning the Holy Child, spoken long years ago, and His own witness borne at twelve years old in the Temple, must have been heard of by John ; and indeed that he knew so much of Him and His office, as to look on Him as the consolation of Israel, the Deliverer of God's people. But we have it from his own lips, that he did not yet know Him as Jehovah, before Whom he himself was to go to prepare His ways ; not yet as the subject of his own prophecy, Who was to baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire. By a special sign from heaven this is made known to him. As Jesus comes up out of the water, the Spirit of God in bodily form, in the shape of a dove, is seen descending through the air, and abiding on Him ; and the Almighty Father is heard proclaiming from above, “This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased.” From that time John bears witness unto Jesus. When the Scribes and Pharisees sent messengers to him to de- mand his office and authority, he told them of One Who stood among them Whom they knew not." When in company with two of his disciples, he saw Jesus coming to him, he exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God!” ” When afterwards other of his disciples came to him to announce the spread of the influence and power of Christ, he testified of Him as the Bridegroom, having the bride, and of himself merely as a friend, standing * John i. 26. * John i. 29, 36. Ozzy ſlord’s Foreruzzzzer. 49 and rejoicing because of the bridegroom's voice. “He must increase,” he cried, “but I must decrease.” Through the various stages of that decrease it is not my purpose to follow him to-day. We have already gone over ground sufficient, from which to cull instruc- tion for ourselves. I do not think we often question respecting this course and testimony of Christ's forerunner, Whereunto served it 2 We know that by it the Jewish people as a whole were not prepared to receive Jesus as their Saviour: for they rejected and crucified Him. And if it be alleged that they who rejected and crucified Him, were the Scribes and Pharisees, who also rejected the baptism of John, the answer to this is, that the people themselves gave their voices for His crucifixion—that His course had disappointed and irritated them, as well as their rulers; or they would not have listened to these last more than to Him. Still, even in this matter, I cannot doubt that much was done by the testimony of John. At the very last, when the enmity of the Scribes and Pharisees was at its highest, we find they dared not insinuate that the baptism of John was not from heaven but of men, -because all the people held John for a prophet. Now what a vast advantage must it have given the early preachers of the Gospel, to have to do with a people who held John for a prophet For John's testimony to Jesus was matter of notoriety. Our Lord appeals to it, in the face of the Jews them- selves. How easy, to lead on any candid mind from belief in John to belief in Jesus. And consequently we E 5O Our / ord's Forerummer. find, when the Church assembled to fill up the place of the traitor Judas, St. Peter specifying" as a qualification of a candidate for the Apostleship, that he must have companied with them all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among them, “beginning from the bap- tism of John.” Again, in the only detailed sermon of St. Paul to Jews in their synagogue, we have him dis- tinctly * appealing to the testimony of John among the proofs of the Messiahship of our Lord. And if John thus prepared the way by witnessing to Jesus in person, I cannot doubt that he also prepared many of the children of Israel in spirit to receive the message of life by Him. It was a dreary time with Israel when Christ came. The old theocracy was over : the sceptre had departed from Judah, and the lawgiver from between his feet. The service of God was for the most part entrusted to a set of barren formalists. All was flat and stagnant. We know indeed that there were some who waited for the consolation of Israel; but they probably, like Simeon and Anna, like Zacharias and Elizabeth, were among the aged—belonged rather to the last age than this ; were few and far between, and out of fashion and repute. In such an age of worldliness and hypocrisy, to hear “there is a prophet among us,” to see once more the garb of Elias in the desert—to hear once more that voice, clear as when it rung among the cliffs of Carmel, “How long halt ye between two opinions 2 ” O it must have gone into the depths of many a heart in Israel, and called up again the almost forgotten presence * Acts i. 22. * Acts xiii. 24, 25. Out? /lord's Foreruzzzze?". 5 I of Israel's covenant God And then, when they stood and listened to the wonderful messenger of repentance, how the words of their old prophets, long wrapped in the napkin of formalism, and heard muffled through the drawl of the Scribe in the synagogue, must have leapt out into life, and gone right to the ear of their hearts When they who, like some of our modern rationalists, saw no more in Israel than the herald of the return from Babylon, heard once more the voice of him that cried in the wilderness “Prepare ye in the desert a highway for Our God"—heard that “every valley should be exalted and every mountain and hill made low ; and the crooked straight and the rough places plain, and that all flesh should see the Salvation of Our God,”—I cannot doubt that many a book of the law and prophets was unrolled which had long lain in the dust, and that some noble Spirits among the Jews, as among the Beroeans after- wards, began to search the Scriptures daily, whether these things were SO. And no more can I doubt, that the result was the same ; and therefore many among them believed." And again when, confessing their sins, they were baptized of John in Jordan, must we not believe that many at least of those thousands who received the outward rite, became deeply humbled within 2 that many reeds were bruised, whom the Redeemer came not to break but to heal P And if John was made the discloser of pain that he could not assuage, the dis- Coverer of burdens which he could not remove, for whom * Acts xvii. 12. 52 Our Zord's Forerunner. was this a preparation, but for Him Who cried, “Come unto Me all that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest ?” Hence doubtless arose that remarkable gathering of publicans and sinners round Our Lord and His teaching, which we notice so often in the Gospel. We know that the publicans were baptized of Him ; and we have His exhortation to them given by St. Luke.” Many an unprincipled exactor, many a profligate, was thus turned from the error of his ways and brought to Him Who came to heal the broken-hearted ; and perhaps we owe Some of the most touching scenes in our Lord's ministry to the previous preparation, by means of John, of the hearts of men and women who had been sinners. So that I must believe as matter of history, though Our Lord was rejected by the Jewish people as well as by their rulers, yet that the baptism and preaching of John prepared many hearts for Him, which afterwards leaned on Him in the fulness of faith, and now are with Him where He is. As matter of fact, remember, some of His Apostles, and as matter of probability all of the Twelve, were first disciples of John. - But we must not omit one purpose of God in raising up this remarkable forerunner to go before Our Lord. He came “in the way of righteousness.” He was to the Scribes and Pharisees just one whom, if they had been men in earnest at all, they would have hailed with eagerness and believed without hesitation. He was full of the Old Testament spirit. His parents were * Chap. iv. I2, I 3. Oz/7 ſora’s Forerunner. 53 blameless in the fulfilment of the law. All that could unite to recommend John and his office to a pious Jew, was united. His ascetic character—his stern morality —his utterance of his message in the well-known words of their prophets—all this was exactly of a kind to please Jewish feelings and conciliate Jewish prejudices. And consequently we find that some among the Scribes and Pharisees did come to his baptism. But the majority rejected him. For we read on one occasion “all the people that heard Jesus, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, not being baptized of him.” " And thus, even before Jesus of Nazareth was manifested, or their peculiar hatred to Him had begun, it was judicially shewn that when God called, they would not hear; that the heart of this people was waxed gross, and their ears were dull of hearing, and their eyes had they closed ; thus was additional evidence given to the fact, that the rejection of Jesus by His own, was not merely for any hostility that His own character and course excited in them, still less on account of His falling short of the announcements of their prophets, but because they were hardened in heart against God, and indisposed to turn to Him at all. But I must also believe, that the mission of our Lord's Forerunner had purposes reaching far beyond anything, which, as matter of history or surmise, his course may then have accomplished. All that concerns * Luke vii. 29, 30. 54 Our /lord's Forerummer. Christ's coming on earth, has deep scriptural meaning. That He came unknown and humble in station, that He went about doing good, that He was meek and lowly of heart, that He prayed for His murderers, all these things regard not only His own immediate work of redemption, but also our instruction. And so of every miracle He wrought. Each had not only its own gracious end of mercy at the time, but also its end of mercy which will be all the world's lifetime in fulfilling, even the showing to us who come after, the Person and office of our Redeemer in all its manifold fulness and richness, and sufficiency for the needs of our humanity. And SO was it also with the mission and career of John the Baptist. First, as to the place of his ministry. He came, a voice in the wilderness: a solitary preacher in the vast and trackless desert. One passer-by and another caught the sound of his words, and went his way, and told his neighbour, long before those crowds of which we have spoken gathered about him. And so does God ever send His messengers to prepare His way before Him. When Christ would come to an individual or to a family or to a nation, He sends before Him these voices crying in the wilderness. Few hear them ; fewer heed them. God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. How often does conscience testify in the heart unheeded—how often is a man warned by God's judgments—how often does the voice of affliction speak to a family — how often do the ministers of Christ cry aloud to a nation, without effect Oz/7 /lord’s Aorerunner. 55 And then at last perhaps the warning voice is heard— heard as in passing, but it sinks deep—it gathers round it more and more of the thoughts and interests and feelings, and the way of the Lord begins to be prepared : but it must still be as it were in the wilderness, the process goes on in silence and in the depths of the heart; repentance, and Sorrow for sin, and turning to God, are not matters at first mixed up with our daily lives, but cherished in our closets ; he who finds the treasure, goes his way and hides it. And the ministry of preparation for the Lord is ever Stern, and unyield- ing, and unsocial in its nature; going down into men's individual characters, and prescribing courses of duty,+ pointing onward, it is true, to the Redeemer, but not yet calling men to partake of the glorious liberty of the sons of God. He who is preparing for Christ to dwell in his heart, who is in process of conversion to God, is greater than any born of woman—than any mere natural man ; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. But when Christ appeared, how all was altered John came neither eating nor drinking. He avoided the haunts of men and dwelt in the deserts. But the Son of man came eating and drinking. He was found where men assembled. He was the friend of publicans and sinners. No longer in the desert, but in the crowded streets of Jerusalem, at the marriage of Cana, in the houses of Pharisees and disciples, in the Courts of the temple, among buyers and Sellers, on land and at sea, was the teaching and ministry of Jesus carried on. We 56 Our Zord's Foreruzzer. hear only of the festimony of John ; but ever of the 2007%s of Christ. He came to penetrate, to bless, to cheer, to hallow, the whole daily life of men. And here is our lesson too; that when Christ is really come to us, when Our preparation in Solitude, pointing on to Christ, is over, and our life of faith in Him begun, we must not be voices in the wilderness any longer ; must not stop with John's baptism, but go on to the spiritual life in Christ; in other words that our religion was not given us for Our closets, or to withdraw us from busy life, but to go with us into life, and hallow life's work, and regulate Social intercourse, and make us a blessing wherever we are. Before, God bore testimony within us to prepare us for Him : now, His Holy Ghost works within us to bring forth fruit to His praise, that men may see it and glorify Him. Thus the whole spirit of the Gospel is distinctly anti-ascetic. The Christian who withdraws from the world to serve Christ, is not mounting to a higher degree of sanctity, but going back a step in his spiritual standing, and shrinking from that life of holiness which Christ came to enable him to lead. But again, the character of the Baptist's message has a voice and meaning for us. “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low ; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain ; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” Yes, brethren, before this glorious revelation shall be made, this levelling process must take place, both amongst mankind, and Ozzy Zoraſ's Forerunner. 57 within ourselves. In our own hearts those mountains of pride must be laid low which we have raised for ourselves, those low places must be filled up where We love to cleave to the dust in grovelling and worldly thoughts; the crookedness of our ways half with God, and half with the world and self, must be made straight, and the rough unevenness of inconsistent conduct made plain, before Christ can really have His throne in our hearts, dwelling and reigning there by His blessed Spirit. And among mankind also the same preparation of His way is required. The various ranks and Orders of Society are indeed His appointment, and between them there is necessarily a barrier interposed by the Order of His Providence. But we may make that barrier an absolute one. The wealthy may add pride to his wealth ; the high born, haughtiness and exclusiveness to his rank ; the general Christian brotherhood of mankind may be repudiated ; and thus two distinct races may be found in the Church, the rich, and the poor, living together without any sympathy and without any fellow- feeling for each other. And before Christ can really Come in vital power to a people, these things must be altered ; the valleys must be exalted—the degraded taken up out of the mire, and shewn their Christian liberty and high calling, and the self-exalted humbled, by dismissing their high thoughts of themselves, and taking earnest part in works of self-denying love. One more lesson from the Baptist's course seems to be set before us. “He must increase, but I must 58 Our Zora's Forerummer. decrease.” All that merely leads on to, all that stops Short of Christ Himself, shall wane and fade ; while He shall shine on ever more and more glorious. All ordi- nances, all preaching, all mere repentance and obser- vance, shall, as time passes on, in the Christian's life, and in the great world, lose their value, and be seen to be worthless in comparison with Him ; while to the believer, and to His believing Church, He Himself shall ever become more precious, more glorious, more lovely. When the voices of all His forerunners are silent—when all the means of grace have given place to the fruition of glory, when His written word is superseded by being for ever with Him, then His name and His praise shall possess the entire hearts of all His redeemed people, reigning Supreme. Well then, dear brethren, let us prepare for His coming. Let us hear in the solitude of Our hearts, and meditate on in the solitude of our closets, those warning voices which call us all to repentance ; examining our- selves and trying ourselves ; laying the axe to the root of the tree : purifying out our chaff by the aid of His Spirit ; and then from the reality of our solitary religion, let us not fail to pass onward to the realization of it in our daily and social lives—not ashamed of the cross of Christ, but testifying to Him, and being like Him, and going about doing good as He did. Let us ever be cooler in our affection and looser in our attachment to things on earth, and ever warmer in love and more strictly bound to Him as the chief desire of our souls. * John iii. 30. Ozz?" Zora's Aoreruzzzzer. 59 For who can tell, how soon all preparation may be over, all Advent seasons at an end, and He may come to us, or we be called to Him P Blessed will those be in that day, who have listened to the solitary cry of His Forerunner, and made straight His ways within them, and glorified Him in the midst of an ungodly world. SERMON V. (PREACHED IN 1855.) QThe Christian's (ºristmas. “ Zhey . . . did eat their meat with gladness and sing/eness of heart, Araising God, and having favour with all the people.”—ACTS ii. 46, 47. ~. THERE's is something about the first records of the Apostolič Church, which puts us in mind of the fresh- ness and beauty of the early morning. As there is then a cloudlessness and a clearness which is seldom found in the Succeeding day, so in these first chapters of the Acte we find a simplicity of Christian motive, an exuber- ance of Christian joy, a delightful sociality and com- munity, which it has never been since granted to us to witness. And one of the passages which most vividly sets this before us, is that from which my text is taken. In it we see the Apostles and early believers realizing that unity which ages since have so often in vain sighed for, and that cheerfulness which the theory of Chris- tianity insists on, but the practice seems long ago to have dispensed with. There is however one season in the year, when we seem disposed to recall somewhat of this ancient singleness of heart, and somewhat of this 7%e Chriszzam's Christmas. 6 I primitive gladness; one little break in the great leaden cloud of coldness and worldliness, which appears to have now these many years settled down over Christendom. We wish one another “a merry Christmas.” We join to- gether words not often heard in the same breath, mirth, and Christ. And this is done by common consent. A general joy seems to pervade all men. It is shewn more or less according to dispositions and circumstances, but none can put it off altogether. We associate the day with family meetings, with social entertainment, with charitable opening of the heart and hand ; but there is a gleam of light over and above all these which dwells on it, brightening many a face never seen in a glad family circle, and warming hearts which have little else to warm them. There can be I think no question, that the general gladness at Christmas, irrespective of out- ward circumstances, bears Some analogy to that of which we read in our text ; is one of those effects of our common Christianity, distant, if you will, from its source, and not necessarily spiritual in nature, which yet is a Symptom for good, and as such Ought to be looked on and treated. Precious indeed is a day, when all men agree to rejoice ; more especially precious, if the ground of that joy is the coming of Christ. But here meet us two objectors—the first, soon answered—the second, with more difficulty. The first Says to us, “But how poor a thing is this joy of which you speak ;–how little it has of real reference to the Subject You have no Christmas displays, no elaborate decorations of your churches, no processions in your 62 7%e Christian's Christmas. streets. Come with me into other countries, and I will shew you how Christmas ought to be kept.” I answer, —as for others, let them shew their own joy in their own way. I can speak only for ourselves, and say, that while I would cast no slur on their more elaborate gladness, I feel that there is an especial value in ours, so quiet, so deep, SO universal without being Ostentatious. Seen, it everywhere is. In our streets and on Our looks there is somewhat of it. But this is its especial value, that the deeper you go into society, the more you find of it. This, it is true, is but in accordance with our national character. In many other countries, partly from climate, partly from the disposition of the people, social life is more in public ; in the streets, or in the gardens, or in places of general resort. And for this very reason it labours under certain imperfections and certain restric- tions, which Ours, more retired and domestic, knows not of. It is in these our houses, so blank and dingy and uninteresting to the passing stranger, that our social life is led. Penetrate into them, and there you will find in many a family the reality and fulness of re- joicing at this season ; thanksgiving and the voice of melody; the overflowing of hearts in genuine happi- ness, and in Christian love. And this I said has an especial value. In a people who have so little of external in their habits, what they have is peculiarly valuable, as being thoroughly genuine. We make no parade of our Christmas rejoicing ; but it is seated deep in the hearts of our people, and breaks forth in places and under circumstances where there is no affectation, The Chriszzam’s Christmas. 63 no mere display, but all speak their minds and reveal their inmost thoughts. Now however, our more formid- able objector comes forward and says to us, “But your joy is not a Christian joy—is not joy in Christ. How can you speak of the gladness of the thousands around us and call it good, or worthy of this glorious Com- memoration ? Are you not aware that true joy in Christ is, to rejoice in Him as a Saviour from sin P Do you not know, that the gladness and singleness of heart in your text was the result of being filled with the Spirit of God P that there is the greatest possible difference between the mere pleasure of this season, for which the world is ever too glad to find an opportunity, and the true Christian happiness which we ought to feel when we commemorate the Birth of Christ P” To such ques- tions I would answer, Much of what you say is very true ; but not so your application of it to the preceding • remarks. Let us take the matter in the following light. The world is for once willing to adopt as a truth that which lies at the foundation of the religion of Christ ; is willing to treat as indeed good news, that which is good news in the best sense to every creature under heaven. The world for once chooses to say with us, “ Christ is come.” Those who do not ordinarily come to the light, refuse not to advance some steps towards the risen day. Is this good, or is this evil shall we refuse to let them bear a part with us in Our Christian joy P shall we drive them back again into their worldliness, shall we forbid them, because they feel not and think not and speak not as we do P Nay shall we not rather say to 64 7%e Christian's Christmas. them, “Come and rejoice with us—advance and stand in the ranks of God's people—listen to what He hath done for His Church and for the world P " Which of the two plans is the more likely to win souls for Christ and to glorify God P But, in fact, this whole class and spirit of objections is grounded on a great and fundamental mistake. We are sent forth to leaven the world ; to penetrate human society with the blessed Spirit of Christ. The Apostolic Christians understood this. No sooner had the Spirit descended on them in His power, than they began, not to set themselves up as the oppo- nents and stifiers of human feelings and sympathies, but to eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. They set an example of simple and fervent Christian joy, and of living in a course of glorifying God, and adorning the doctrine of Christ day by day. And this was what our Christianity was meant to do for us also. If we really believe in our hearts that God hath called us out of darkness into light, hath begotten us anew unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, hath set before us His glory as our inheritance hereafter, and His mercy and grace here as Our portions,—if we believe in our hearts all this, what can we be but joyful men—what, but cheerful, even in the midst of disappointments and trials and afflictions 2 I own, I cannot understand the habitual spiritual joy which finds and desires no utterance. Joy too deep for utterance there is—but that is either on some rare and unexpected instance of God's lovingkindness, or refers 7%e Chris/Zaſz's Christ/eas. 65 to some inward state too subtle and too profound to be thus expressed. But the ordinary joys of the Christian life, if they be genuine, will find expression, just as the ordinary joys of the natural life. This whole way of thinking and speaking belongs to the system which would make our religion one thing, and our life another; which would persuade us that the hopes and interests and convictions of a man's whole being for all eternity can be wrapt up in a mere artificial set of words and thoughts taken up now and then, and find no echo in the every-day converse, no expression in the every-day practice; which would gild our church spires and the leaves of our bibles with the beams of the sun of right- eousness—but would leave our counting-houses, and our market-places, and Our every-day reading, to the flicker- ing tapers of human policy and wisdom. We of these days, brethren, should set ourselves in earnest and determined opposition to this system. It has done mischief enough already ; and we want bold men, and plain-spoken men, who will maintain that the Gospel was not meant to hallow one department only of our being, but the whole of it; our common affections and our daily practice, as well as our more solemn moments and seasons. And it is because this is so, that we, standing as we wish to do on the highest Christian ground, knowing and impressing on you the infinite love of Christ which led Him to manifest Himself in our flesh—knowing the gift of the Spirit of life, and the necessity of sanctifica- tion unto God, do nevertheless rejoice with and in the * F 66 7%e Christian's Christmas. midst of the world in such a season as this ; do never- theless thank God for that the world's joy is, in however distant a sense, in and because of Christ; continuing, in spite of the objector, to regard it as at least a symptom for good, and an opportunity whereby the leaven of Christ's kingdom may be inserted and may work among II) C11. And this brings me to the latter portion of my text, in which I set forth those parts of the primitive practice which more immediately regard the direct subjects of a Christian's joy, and its methods of mani- festation. Because we rejoice with the world, it does not follow, that we should rejoice only as the world does. Because we are thankful to see some approach to the light on their part, it does not follow that we should go and stand with them in the outskirts of the realms of day. We read of the Apostolic Christians, that they did eat their meat with gladness and single- ness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. First, Praising God. In all the Christian's joy, there is direct reference to God. Herein the Christian widely differs from the world around him. With them, the thought of God is ordinarily a thought of gloom. If it is a blessed exception to this rule that the joy of Christmas is necessarily connected with God, it is an exception only ; the rule as a rule holds good. But to /him, O how different is this His God is his Father, his friend, his joy, his glory. Every enjoyment is more intense because it finds its ground in Him ; nay, without 7%e C/7-2sſiazz's Chrzsámzas. 67 Him, there is no real enjoyment. Praising God:—and how shall we imitate them in praise 2 How best may we offer to Him thanks and praise on such a day as this is ? How best in our social meetings, in our lives and with our lips, glorify Him for His marvellous love in giving us His Son 2 There are, brethren, a thousand ways of praise. First, there is the obvious one of direct praise in His sanctuary. And let us not imagine because this is not all that is requisite, that it is unim- portant. The confession, with the mouth, of the Lord Jesus, is one of the essentials of Salvation ; SO is the open ascription of thanks in God's house one of the essentials of praise. The fact that the former must be accompanied with the belief of the heart, does not render it useless ; nor does the fact that this latter must be backed by the praise of the life, enable us to dis- pense with it. And we have every reason to be thank- ful that the busy world, so penurious of its time, so unwilling for ease or for charity to relax one hour of its Stern and incessant demands for its work, should have at last in our time universally consented to set apart two days in the year from labour, for us to meet specially, and to praise God for the mercies of redemp- tion. I say, in Our time ; for it was not always so. I cannot speak with certainty respecting this day; only that we all must have traced a gradually-increasing observance of it, till now universal consent has Stamped it as a day to be hallowed in the cessation of business. But the observance of Good Friday is a matter of very recent Occurrence. It was Some time past the middle of 68 The Christian's Christmas. the last century, when Bishop Porteus called the atten- tion of the London clergy to the fact, that that day was generally disregarded, and recommended them to open their churches, and persuade men to the observance of it. The attempt at the time produced a great opposi- tion, and the cry of popery was widely raised ; but, thank God, reason and Christian truth have prevailed. We ought surely then to be most anxious to avail our- selves of these precious opportunities of praising God by the commemoration of the two greatest of His mercies— the Incarnation of His Son, and the giving Him for our redemption. Praise Him then to-day in His house; and especially praise Him at His table, where the tokens of your Lord's Incarnation are broken and shed before you and offered to you to partake. And praise Him also at home; tell to-day of His mercies to your children and your dependents, and let there be joy in that good news which announces glory, whereof male and female, young and old, bond and free, may alike be partakers. The old heathens had a festival at this time of the year, which they called their Saturnalia ; wherein the distinctions of outward life were for a few days forgotten, the master waited on his slave, and the relations of men were reversed. And it is thought that the Christian Church, in her wisdom, fixed the celebra- tion of the birthday of her Lord at this same season, in order to adopt and hallow the already existing time of general joy. Whether this were so or not, I would say, —what they did outwardly, let us do in Our hearts : what they vainly professed to bring about for a time 7%e C/ºrgs/jazz's Christmas. 69 (for you can never in truth thus reverse the order of society; their practice was either a farce, or as we have reason to know, it was something worse), let us do in reality, and as our constant habit. Let us wait on those whom God has made dependent on us, in the best service of spiritual ministration ; instructing them, and caring for their souls; and especially now let us give them a share of that joy, and teach them to utter that praise, which is theirs as well as Ours. And this brings us to the last feature of the position of the Apostolic Christians; that they had favour with all the people. They conducted themselves, that is to say, in such a blameless, such a courteous, such a bene- ficent manner, that all looked on them with admiration and gratitude. They did not aim at popularity, as the issue sufficiently showed ; but they did aim at doing good, and they did good, and met with gratitude for it. Here also I would take them as Our example to-day ; and especially in this particular of doing good by acts of beneficence. When after the captivity the children of Israel had once more returned to their land of promise and their holy city, we read, in Neh. viii., that they had a solemn day of joy in their newly-built Temple. The law of God was read ; and when all the people wept at hearing its righteous injunctions and requirements, Nehemiah said to them, “This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not nor weep. Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared : neither be sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your 7O The Christian's Christmas. strength.” Let me especially remind you on such a day as this, when we and our families rejoice before the Lord our God, of this duty, of sending portions to them for whom nothing is prepared; not only in its literal sense, in which I am glad to think that most of us are Observing it, but in its wider and more lasting sense also ; the duty of lending, in the present season of hard- ship and high prices, even more than usual, a helping hand to the poor around us. With much thankfulness then for what has past,- thanking God and thanking you for what good He has enabled you to effect, I commend you to this charitable work, and to the Christian joy of this blessed day. May you eat your meat with gladness and singleness of heart; in your families, and with your assembled friends, keep- ing Christmas as it ought to be kept, with holy gratitude for the gift of Him Who hath called us out of darkness into light, and given us the promise of this world and of that which is to come. May you praise God—here with your lips, in the wide world with your lives; may you gain favour with the people, by being fountains and dispensers of good, both Spiritual and temporal. And thus, if we can never recall that fresh morning of the early Church, we can at least shew that we are of the same body with them, bearing the impress of the same cross, rejoicing in the same Lord, and looking to join them in the same glorious inheritance. SERMON VI. (PREACHED IN 1861.) God's 3Remtop for $fm. “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending Æſis own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, con- demned sin in the flesh.”—ROM. iii. 3. WE have advanced thus far in our statement of Christian doctrine, or rather of the introduction and preliminaries to Christian doctrine. We have laid down the sinfulness of our whole nature: the manifoldness and deceitfulness of sin : the guilt and eternal consequences of sin. So far we have spoken of the disease: to-day we deal with the remedy. Our text will furnish us in this matter with safe and sufficient guidance. It tells us of a way in which sin could not be cured : and of a way in which God has brought about its condemnation and cure. Now remember how we have been treating sin throughout ; as a taint, a disease in Our nature, destruc- tive to it, but pervading the whole of it, so that it is all sinful, all guilty, all perishing: so that it has absolutely no power to renew itself unto good or to cast out evil 72 God's Aemedy for Sin. from itself. The witness of conscience it has : the help of God promised, and vouchsafed, we believe, even in ignorance and degradation : but this is not of itself: this depends entirely upon and flows from that Re- demption of which we are to speak to-day. Behold then man, guilty, helpless, lost. And what do we now hear of P. How first does God manifest Himself to him P. We now first hear of a law being revealed to him. But it might be said, of what use can a law be to one who has no power to obey it 2 The answer is very simple: to teach ſhim that he has no power to obey it. This was the use of the law given on Sinai. We have already seen, that one of the most fatal symptoms of the disease of sin is, a man's unconscious- ness of its presence. The sinner goes on imagining all is well ; saying peace, when there is no peace. And in this ignorance he would live and die, were there not something to bring out and detect sin within him. This office the Law performed : by the Law is the knowledge of sin. But the Law had, and could have, no power whatever to overcome sin, nor to enable any man to contend with Sin ; any more than a command to rise up and walk could have on the man laid helpless on a bed of sickness. And this is what is meant in our text, when it is said, that the law was weak through the flesh. Its Only organ of acting was, the weak, powerless, helpless flesh of man : that flesh which is infected and penetrated by the taint of sin. And let us stop as we pass by, to remark, that this same must be the case with all human Systems of morality, all rules for good God's ſeemedy for Sin. 73 conduct, all discipline and codes of law : they have not, and cannot have, any power whatever to renew human nature, or to help it to overcome sin. Sin reigns in spite of them : nay sin has reigned most, and most fatally, where they have been best known, and most deeply studied, and most implicitly trusted to. All of them are just what their far greater example, God's revealed law, was ; and that is, merely a means whereby Sin might be brought to light and known ; means where- by the sinner might be rendered inexcusable, the proud heart might be crushed down, the dry and tearless eye might be filled with tears of repentance, and the sinner, hardened and careless before, driven to fly to God for mercy and pardon. But here comes in a question which requires an answer, and to answer which will materially further our enquiry. “You tell us,” it may be said to me, “that the law on Sinai, that every moral law, whether in the con- Science, or in man's writings and declarations, was given just to prove man guilty, and to drive him for mercy to God. But you know, and we know, and this Christmas Day reminds us, that it was not till four thousand years after man's fall, that God's grace and mercy was revealed to mankind by the Redemption which is in Christ. Do you mean to tell us, that the great God of compassion and goodness, Who alone knew the way in which this dread disease of sin could be healed, allowed men to go On in their disease all this time without that cure, con- tenting Himself with making provision that they might know their guilt, and knowing it, perish in it 2 ” No, 74 God's Aemedy for Sin. my brethren, nothing of the kind was the case. This Redemption by Christ, which first began its real course On the stage of this world about four thousand years after the creation, was no mere worldly course of events then first brought about, no happy discovery then first made : it had been fixed in the divine counsels, and its glorious effects anticipated in God's infinite loving- kindness, before the world began, before man's sin was ever Committed. Nay, all creation, the whole of this visible universe, is but a part, but a trifling portion, of this great divine scheme of Redemption. Everything ever created, everything that ever happened or shall happen, all these are simply elements in, contributions to, the glorious issue of the mediatorship of our Blessed Lord. All things are by Him and for Him : by Him the universe holds together. And accordingly, we believe that there never was a time, in the history of man's sin and of God's dealing with it, when there was not opened to man a way of pardon and peace with God, through a Redeemer to come, or present, or having come. The antediluvian church, the Patriarchal church, the Jewish church,--these were in the direct track of that ray of light from above, which was to shine ever more and more unto the perfect day. By sacrifices, by types, by prophecies, the great Redeemer to come was made known to them as God saw fit for them, as they could bear and profit by the knowledge: at no time was access to God, and reconcilement, and pardon, denied to the sinner. Before the flood, Enoch walked with God, Noah was perfect in his generations, and preached God’s /ēemedy for Sin. 75 righteousness: before the law, Abraham's faith was counted to him for righteousness, Jacob wrestled with God and prevailed, and, dying, waited for His salvation: before the Gospel, Joshua determined that as for him and his household they would serve the Lord : David, amidst grievous weakness and sin, sought pardon and found it, and was the man after God's own heart: Heze- kiah walked in all the ways of the Lord, turning not to the right nor to the left: Simeon waited, in the light of the promise of the Holy Ghost, for the consolation of Israel. And if we turn to the other nations of the earth, though the picture of man's delinquency is dark and gloomy enough, though our knowledge of their state and opportunities is but scanty and surrounded by difficulties, yet the argument of the Apostle in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and other expres– Sions here and there dropped in Holy Scripture, enable us safely to affirm, that God left not Himself without witness even amongst them : and that nowhere and at no time has it been true, that man has been abandoned by God to live and die in his sins. This reply has prepared the way for entering on the further portion of my text, which indeed forms our proper subject to-day. The Law, any law, could not Save man from sin. But God has done what the law could not do. He has sent One into the world, Whose express object, as testified by the very name given Him, is, to save His people from their sins. He sent One into the world:—and who was this 2 That it was no mere son of man, must be evident at first sight: any 76 God's Aemedy for Sin. and every such person would be born with the taint of sin on him, powerless to save himself, to say nothing of Others. Every such person would be a mere unit in manhood, bounded by the limits of his own responsi- bilities, and unable to transfer anything or pass it on to another : So that even suppose he could save himself, that would be all. The same objection would apply to any created being whatever ; and this besides, that the Combining our nature with any other nature, however exalted and angelic, would not do for us that which was required to be done : no angelic being has, or can have, righteousness of his own : every such one stands by divine grace imparted, may fall by grace rejected. No such Saviour could suffice for us, or could save us from our sins. Then what did God 2 The language of Our text is very important and explicit on this point: “He sent His Own Son.” There is here a peculiar and intended emphasis on the words His Own. Angels are sons of God : we are said to be sons of God : but neither angels nor men are God's own sons; for that imports, of His very nature and essence, very God begotten of very God, eternal as Himself-equal to Himself. There is but One, there never was but One, of Whom this term can be used. That One was in the beginning: before creation existed : in union with God, and Him- self God. But the particular respecting Him with which we are now more immediately concerned is, that God sent Aſim into the world. The question, when 2 is readily answered : as on this day. The event was one which God's Aemedy for Sin. 77 happened, and was recorded, like any other in the history of our earth. In Bethlehem, a town of Judaea, a place which may even now be visited and seen, a child was born, whom we and all Christians believe to have been, and to be now, this Son of God, God's own Son, the Saviour of mankind. Important as the fact is, it requires little dwelling upon by me : because it is so plain, so well understood, SO universally known. But the question, How He was sent into the world, is one which does require dwelling upon; because on the rightly answering it depends Our Soundness in the Christian faith;-depends the fulness of Our joy in believing, de- pends the firmness of our trust, and the acceptableness of our obedience, and the progress of Our Sanctification, and the measure of Our heavenly glory. According as a man does or does not apprehend rightly the Christian doctrine of our Blessed Lord's Incarnation, depends it, whether his belief will yield him full consolation in his daily want of pardon and grace, in his daily struggles with sin, in the Solemn hour of death, and in the decisive day of judgment. So let us endeavour earnestly to lay hold on the truth revealed to us in this all-important matter. God sent His own Son into our world : Aſozy 8 Our text tells us one most essential particular. It was 27m f/e /ikeness of sinful ſes/, of the files/, of sin. The form in which He appeared in this world was this form of ours. He was made ſtan. That flesh of ours, which had become tainted with sin, prone to sin, Sure to commit sin, did . He take that on Him P. Now observe the words of our 78 God's Aemedy for Sin. text, and remember well what has been before said in these sermons. Remember how earnest we have been to impress upon you, that sin is not ourselves : is not our nature, but is something fatal and hostile to our nature. The Son of God took on Him our mature; became very man. He therefore took on Him our flesh ; for this tabernacle of flesh and blood is necessary to the nature of man, and none is full and very man, but those who bear it about with them. But sin is not man : sin is not necessary to Our nature : sin is destructive of our nature : sin is the very negative of our nature. And for this reason, and by a reason also inherent in Himself, on account of His absolute and perfect holiness and purity, the Son of God did not, when He took our nature, take sin with it : did not, when He entered into our flesh, enter into sinful flesh. His flesh was our very flesh ; it had the same attributes, the same necessities, the same pains, the same liability to death, even as had Adam before his sin ; but sin it ſhad not. He looked like sinful men ; was of the same shape and form : mingled in their crowds, conversed with them, felt for them, wept when they wept, suffered as they suffer, died even as they die : but He was not sinful man, nor was His flesh sinful flesh. In Him was no sin. But our text tells us, that besides sending Him in the likeness of sinful flesh, of that flesh which had become pervaded by sin, God sent Him into the world for sin. Sin was the reason why He came ; the errand on which He was sent had regard to sin : “He was sent,” says St. John, “to take away our sins: ” “He Himself,” said God’s ſeemedy for Sin. 79 the Prophet Isaiah, “bore our sins: ” “He who knew no sin,” says St. Paul, “became sin for us.” Now this taking away our sins He accomplished by two great things which He did ; by His Life, and by His Death. The Apostle Paul puts this very plainly and clearly before us: “If,” he says, “when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the Death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved through His Life.” The whole process of this wonderful matter —how His Death reconciled us, how His Life saves us, will come before us, please God, hereafter : to-day we are concerned with the first step, leading on to both : His Incarnation—His being born into our world. What then do we see in the event of this day; in that event which fills every Christian heart with joy, in spite of adverse circumstances, in spite of national mourning P. We see this eternal and holy Son of God, becoming man. Let us take care that we get a right apprehension of this. That clear and most valuable confession of our faith which we have used this morning, will guide us aright. “The right faith is that we believe and Confess, that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man : God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds : and man, of the substance of His mother, born in the world : perfect God and perfect man : of a reasonable soul and human flesh sub- sisting : equal to the Father, as touching His Godhead ; and inferior to the Father, as touching His manhood. Who although He be God and Man: yet He is not two, but one Christ (i.e. not two persons, not two Christs, 8O God's Aemedy for Sin. but veritably and only one Person and one Christ): one, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh : but by taking of the Manhood into God "-that is, when he united the Godhead and the Manhood in Himself, becoming God and man and still remaining one Person, He did it, not by sinking, as it were, the Son of God into the Son of Man, becoming a human Person and ceasing to be a Divine Person: but by the very opposite: by continuing to be the Divine Person which He was from all eternity, and into that Divine Personality taking the nature of man. And then the Creed in its next verse further explains the same by saying, “One alto- gether : not by confusion of Substance”—not by mingling together in a confused manner that which constituted the Godhead and that which constituted the Manhood : “but,” it goes on, “by unity of Person : ” by the Divine Son of God entering, with all His Divinity entire, into our nature: taking it on Him, as St. Augustine excellently says, “from the very highest boundary of the rational soul down to the very lowest boundary of the animal body.” Now, my dear brethren, let not these considerations seem to you dry refinements of technical theology. They are, I assure you, far otherwise. They are state. ments of great doctrines, On which rest the very founda- tions of our Christian life : and I could not make to you this year what I am very anxious to make, a full and clear statement of the doctrines which form the faith of the Church of Christ, if I did not thus try to lay them out and explain them. God's Remedy for Sin. 8 I It is only left for us now to shew, how thus the foun- dation is laid for the Redemption of our race and its restoration to righteousness. The Son of God has become Man : our nature is united to the Godhead. A new and righteous seed is implanted in it : a second and perfect Head is granted. The first Adam was tried and fell ; but this new Adam shall be tried and shall gloriously conquer. The first Adam, being created Jiable to death, lost by sin the means of escaping death, and bound it as a lasting curse on himself and his posterity : the second Adam, also born liable to death, was pleased to become obedient even unto death for Our sakes ; thus condemning sin, the cause of death, in Our flesh. The first Adam brought the penalty of his sin on us, the head on the members: the second Adam suffered the penalty of our sin for us, the Head for the members. Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life : for to believe on Him is to be united to Him, and to do as He has done, and to go where He is ; and He did not perish, but rose up out of death, and was glorified, and when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of God. It is His Birth into our world which we celebrate to- day. It is the day which the church has set apart as the Birthday of Christ. It is for us a day of joy, as it ought to be. Shall we not rejoice, that our deadly wound is healed—that there is pardon and peace pro- vided for the guilty sons of men P And it need not be Surprising to any, that this our joy is not confined to devotional exercises of prayer and praise, but spreads G 82 God's ſeemedy for Sin. itself over our social life, and is, even by faithful Chris- tian men, celebrated outwardly and visibly, in mirth and gladness peculiar to the season. To forbid such mani- festations, would be surely to forget that He Who took our whole nature upon Him, came to bless it not in one part only, but altogether : came to make our desert rejoice and blossom as the rose ; and to hallow even those bodily recreations and enjoyments which sin has polluted and marred. To keep Christmas by excess and licentiousness, is to profane it, and to insult Him Whose Birth we profess to honour: to shew ourselves to have no part nor lot in Him Who was manifested that He might destroy the works of the Devil. But to keep it in peace and good-will and hearty thankfulness, gathering our families about us, and making what cheer we may, to keep an English Christmas, Open-hearted and open-hearthed, this is not to dishonour Him, but to do as He would have us, Who rose as our day-star, that we might walk in His light; Who left us His words and triumphed for us, that our joy might be full : at Whose Birth angels from heaven Sung peace on earth among men of good-will. With such joy as this no deep religious feeling need be inconsistent, no time of prayer need be incongruous, no note of praise discordant : with such joy as this not even times of national grief need interfere. For is it not this day's Birth which has taken the sting from death P is there not to-day, even for the bereaved and weeping, the joyous cry, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given 2" is not this the day above all others God's ſeemedy for Sin. 83 which calls back again, and places by our sides those who have gone before us? which fills up the gaps in families, and brings round us our long-parted friends P the day which carries our thoughts onward to that great second birth, when He Who sitteth on the throne shall make all things new P SERMON VII. (END OF THE YEAR 1855.) Clost of the 33ear. “To him that overcometh will / grant to sit with me in my throne, even as A aſso overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne.”— REV. iii. 21. THE year is fast closing upon us. Another set of hopes and fears, another whole course of conduct, will in a few days be numbered with the things gone by. It is easy indeed to say, “What is this time more than any other time 2 how does the end of the last month in the year differ from the end of any other month, of which we think nothing P” Yet even those who thus speak, can- not, I suspect, themselves escape at such a time the general feeling of solemnity. It is true, that our years are merely human and arbitrary divisions of time, as far as their commencements are concerned ; that we might as well for any truth of nature, be now in the middle as at the end of the year; that whereas we are now finish- ing our year with midwinter, our fellow-countrymen in New Zealand are ending it with midsummer. Still the year itself remains, a natural period marked out by God, C/ose of the Year. 85 and bounded by one revolution of our earth in its vast orbit. This at least is a fixed recurring portion of time : as fixed as the day, during which our globe performs one revolution round her own axis. And Surely no one will deny the benefit of such rallying points for serious thought ; no one, that is, who is not utterly careless, and without regard to his position and responsibilities. At each of them, eternity is nearer, death coming more into sight, the reality of our religion more tested ; life with its events is building up a more formidable mass behind us ; experience is becoming deeper and wider ; our strength is being ascertained, our weaknesses are more plainly exemplified ; our hearts and affections are advancing in that process which time carries on and ripens in every man, but not in every man alike ; the unfeeling is becoming harder, the man of sympathy and love kindlier, every year he lives. Something indeed of a deadening effect the world has upon us all. Without accepting the Poet's solution of the fact, the fact is no less true than beautifully described, that as we move onward in life, we are sensible that “there has passed away a glory from the earth ; ” that “it is not now as it hath been of yore : Turn wheresoe'er we may, by night or day, The things that we have seen we now can see no more.” And this is so, not only with regard to natural beauty, nor to the incidents and narrations of common life, -but the chill has a tendency to settle down over our spiritual being also. To the child and the youth, the Scripture, and its long procession of events and sayings, seems “apparelled in celestial light, 86 C/ose of the Year. The glory and the freshness of a dream ; ” but too often “the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.” And I believe we may trace the same influence even further still. As we go on, practices which once were the fresh result of lively feeling, become habits to us; the fountain which once burst up and forced its vent from our full heart, has now had its channel cut, and flows unobserved in a sluggish and Ordinary stream ; the tear has dried up from our prayers, –the light has set, that once played over the pages of our Bibles, we assist at worship, but we worship not. O what would we give, to be kneeling as we once knelt, with that bounding heart and that brim- ming eye, waiting for Our first glad meal at the table of the Lord 2 What would we give now, for one of those mighty resolutions for good, coming down on us from above, Sweeping through our being, and filling our hearts with strength P What, for that glow of indignation, when we first came in sight of the wrongfulness, the selfishness, the hollow-heartedness of the world P but alas, years have passed one after another ; and when we now kneel at that table, it takes the solemnity of a sickness, or the loss of a dear friend, or the presence of a public judgment, to awaken us to its refreshing and strengthening power; and when we now resolve for good, we are rolling the stone heavy with a hundred disappointments against the adverse steep, ever looking for the rebound, which shall crush us, and give us our labour to begin again. And we have lived long in the world, and learned to know it, and ceased to wonder at Close of the Year. 87 its enormous duplicity; have ourselves entered, it may be, into the shadow of double purposes, and studied words, and acts done for effect ; nay, have even learned to think and speak with contempt of the simplicity which is in Christ. And where, beloved, is this to end ? Year after year seems to wind round us one toil more, to rivet one more fetter on our hearts, once so nearly free. Is there then for us nothing, but defeat in the end ? Is Our life to be an ever-darkening day; our sun to set in clouds and gloom, and with no bright omen for the morrow 2 Blessed be God, there are more sides than one to this picture. Its dark and discouraging tints are un- doubtedly there ; and the man is not true to himself, whose heart does not sadden as he looks on them. But there are others there also. He that overcomeſh. Then there is light Shining in and struggling with the darkness —a conflict, year-long and life-long which, though it have its defeats, may have its victories also ; which, though its outward aspect be gloomy, may issue in glory and honour and immortality. Years bring us another lesson, than the lesson of discouragement. Though much is taken away, much is also gained ; gained, by that very loss. We are not as we were. But is the change all for the worse P Where are the specious toys, that glittered before the thoughtlessness of our childhood P Where its bounded future, its intense and Seducing present, its meagre and unteaching past? All changed ; but how The past has become for us full of rich and precious store; lessons of self-distrust, lessons 88 Close of the Year. of charitable thought, lessons of reliance on God; if we have lost bloom, we have gathered ripeness. The future has opened and widened before us. It is no longer the book of dark things, closed and put by till our play is Over ; the page lies open before us on the desk of life's business; though much in it is hidden, much is revealed to Our inner sight, which solemnizes us and stirs us to action ; it is now no longer the great unknown land, talked of as a dream and a mystery; but we are plying Our voyage thither, standing on Our watch and holding the helm ; already we begin to see its tokens float past us, and to scent the gales which come from its fields. And the present—we have learned to distrust it, and to question its testimony; have become wiser than to encumber, by loading ourselves with its fading flowers, our search for pearls that shall endure. And after all is it so true, that life's progress is entirely towards coldness of feeling and deadness of heart P Is there not another side to this also P May we not say, that though the stream in its channel is no longer the gushing and bursting fountain, yet it flows thus more freely, more constantly, with richer fruits of refreshment and larger freights of blessing 2 May we not say, that the tear which has worn its way, has won its way ? Is there to be no result for good from all the teachings of disappointment, all the softenings of Sorrow 2 The young soldier, when first he sees the enemy's lines on the opposite hill, palpitates with hope and anxiety, and is all eagerness for the fray; but because the veteran changes not his countenance, and quickens not C/ose of the Year. 89 his step, is he any the worse in the day of battle 2 Does his calm calculation, or his steady obedience, disable him for deeds of valour 2 And so we have come again to our burden—“A/e that overcomet/.” There are many, O there are many, who do not overcome ; some who never enlisted fairly under the Captain ; more who, though enlisted, have betrayed the service. For it is a conflict in which mere nature brings no victory. The ripest wisdom of the world will never overcome foes who are not of the world. The weapons of the flesh will be powerless against the enemies of the spirit. Though there be encouragement in the laying up of experience, in the gaining of wisdom, in the habitude of good, as life goes onward, all these advantages must be in Christ, or they have no power for that final victory. “He that overcometh’ has a harder battle to fight than with mere feeling, or mere details of temptation, or mere entanglement of worldiness. He has to overcome self—that great usurper, who claims the throne of his heart instead of its rightful lord ; that subtle foe, who is present with him wherever he is ; who diverts his best intentions, poisons his purest acts, lays snares for his liberty, narrows his charity, formalizes his devotion, hardens his heart, and darkens his life. It is in the dethroning of self, that the great remedy is to be sought for the deadening power of years. And what can dethrone self within a man P No rules, nor maxims, nor code of laws; for these only act on the circum- ference, and the usurper sits throned in the centre. No cutting off of the right hand or plucking out of the right 90 Close of the Year. eye : for these are but members, and the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. No power, beloved, can cast down self, but He Who is the rightful centre and Head and Lord of our being, even Christ, apprehended by personal faith, followed in personal obedience, loved with personal love. This is the only path to victory Over Self—the service of Christ. This the only way to meet the deadening influence of advancing years, to have a new life in Him ; so that when this world's Springs fail, there may be a spring within which shall never fail; even that well in a man springing up into everlasting life, which those have, who drink of the water which He gives them. And this spring may be long before it flows. Many may be the piercings of a man's heart by the boring-rod of trial and Sorrow, before it is touched, if it have once been quenched or filled up ; and as our years pass, we may be able to trace those His merciful provings and trials of us. If so, let us never regret them, never count their cost too great, if we may win this sure pledge and source of victory over ourselves, Christ in us the hope of glory. Sometimes God sees it necessary to cut off from us everything that stands between IIimself and the soul— to rob self of every stay, and force us to lean on Him. Sometimes He knows that unless tried even to this utmost extent, we shall still continue to cling to our false reliances—that we require complete insulation from all else, before we shall be willing to embrace Him chiefly and alone. But even thus grudge not any loss, if thou win Christ, and in Him overcome at the last. Close of the Year. 9 I “Aſe that overcometh.” “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world : and this is the victory that Over- cometh the world, even our faith. Who is He that Over- cometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God 2" Here again, as years pass on, we want more of Him : a firmer reliance on His work and His word, to stand among things visible and endure as seeing the invisible; a deeper insight into His amazing love, that we may not become chilled and deadened by more and more converse with the world ; more vital union with Him the Source of Life, that our life ebb not away by so much contact with death. O if you would be gaining this victory, you must labour hard for know- ledge, and obedience, and every-way realizing of Christ. The world is a dangerous enemy; ever dangerous, but more So as years pass on. Many a Christian man and woman, who was living a simple holy life in God when last year ended, is now fast captive to the world. Ac- cession of property, or repute, or preferment, has proved too powerful an inducement; and one who was moving humbly in the path of usefulness, has joined the giddy whirl—passed over from the thorny outpost under the canopy of heaven, to the glare and the lights and the festive din of the enemy's camp, and forgotten the con- flict. “In, but not of" the world—rejoicing with them that rejoice, but as those who shall give an account— blameless and harmless, shining as lights in the world— O we can never be this, unless we have fast hold of Christ. No power short of His can keep us stedfast in our Christian testimony, firm in our Christian hope, 92 Close of the Year. warm in Our Christian love, where there is nothing without to encourage us. But this is not all. “He that Overcometh’ must gain a victory over a malignant and subtle spirit who is ever on the watch to destroy him. True, that bounds are set to his malice and his power ; he shall never touch an hair of any man who maintains his hold on Christ; but O there is nothing else, that can give us the victory over the wiles of the Devil. For our Self-righteousness, our mere outward morality, the force of good teaching or good habit, he is too strong. He can take all these, and bend them to his purposes. But he can never bend faith in Christ to his purposes. Hold fast Him, the atonement for sin, and the foe shall not daunt thee with thine own guilt and unworthiness. Hold fast Him, the righteousness of God, and whatever scorn the enemy may cast on thine own good deeds and graces, thou wilt not be afraid. Greater is He that is in thee, than he that is in the world ; though thou mayest fall, yet shalt thou rise again ; though he boast, yet shall he not prevail. These then are a man's real foes in life; not the abstraction of those things which we lose with years; not any necessary deadening of the heart as we go on in age. God has made Time, and Time is good like His other works, and Time's teaching is good, if a man will use it aright. And to use it aright, is to be ever struggling on for this victory, rooted and grounded in Him who alone can give it, and only by cleaving to whom we can, at life's Solemn close, Come Out Con- querors in the conflict which is the trial of us for eternity. Close of the Year. 93 But our text is not only an implication of the possi- bility of victory—it is also a promise to the victor. The author and finisher of our faith Himself proclaims it ; Himself offers to the conquerors a prize, and pledges for it His own word. “To /aim that overcomeſ/, will / grant to sit with me in my throne.” Full of grace is the promise ; worthy of Him Who died that we might live. But does it not sound to us, as we think of it, impossible of performance 2 His throne P But hath not God highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name P Did He not die and rise and revive, that He might be Lord of the dead and the living P. How can we share His majesty 2 How sit with Him on His throne 2 Let us hear Him yet further. “Fwen as / also overcame, and am set down wit/: my Father 772 A/7s thronze.” “He also overcame.” He was made like us. He was tempted. For three-and-thirty of these passing years did the world and did Satan spread their snares about Him. The greater part of that time is hidden from us. We know nothing of the trials, the temptations, the contradictions, which He underwent during that long subjection at Nazareth ; how grievously His holy Soul was afflicted at the sins of His own, the worldliness and selfishness, and duplicity, which was living and uttering its voice all around Him. But this we do know ; He overcaſſee. He came out of that trial of childhood and youth and manhood, of purity and self-denial and temper, the Spotless Lamb of God. As such, He received the Father's approval, and the Spirit's consecration for His ministry, at those fords of 94 Close of the Year. the Jordan. In the strength of that Spirit, He met and He grappled with the Tempter of mankind. Subtle were the arguments, deep the devices, by which Satan endeavoured to turn Him from the path of self-denial, of obedience, of love; but He overcame. Then for three of these years of ours, He stood in conflict with unbelieving sinners. The world hated Him ; His own rejected Him ; His dearest ones forsook or betrayed Him. Yet in all this, in every separate detail of the combat, He overcame. For the world's hate, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do ;” for the rejection of His people, His tears over Jerusalem ; for the desertion of His disciples—“having loved His own, He loved them unto the end.” And through all His course, He pleased not Himself, but Him that sent Him ; He became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross; there was His victory over sin, and the law, and over him that had the power of death ; there He triumphed openly over every created power, and there finally overcame. What followed, was only the process of that triumph ; after that, He could not be holden of death, the tomb might not contain Him ; and after remaining here for a season to establish the truth of His resurrection, He was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And through every step of this, we may follow Him. If we overcome like Him, we shall reign with Him. If we abide in His love, conquering the world's hate by love, and for every chilling and deadening effect of time, refreshing our souls with the inexhaustible supplies of His blessed Close of the Year. 95 Spirit, we shall sit down with Him on His throne; we shall stand at last in the same accepted and spotless humanity ; accepted through Him, and spotless by virtue of union with His perfect righteousness. Yea, we shall share with Him that throne;—His victory over sin, having washed our robes and made them white in His blood ; His victory over temptation, having been tried and having received the crown of life; His victory Over the world, having while we passed through the world, lived above the world,—being not of the world, even as He was not of the world. Why then, beloved, need we put on gloom, or despond, as years pass onward 2 What if the earth be changed, and we in it 2 What if a glory pass away from nature ? What if the combat in which we are engaged have lost its romance and its freshness ; the edge of the sword be no longer sharp, nor the shield impenetrable, nor the armour bright as once ; let the battered soldier hold on, stedfast to his trust to the last ; for the day of battle is wearing onward, the sweet hour of rest is near ; and with rest, the palm of victory. And as for you whose course and conflict is yet beginning, whose hearts are full with courage, and eyes bright with hope, you too may be nearer its end than you at present suppose, and nearer its blessed prize. For it is a fight in which young and Old are struck down alike : each year carries from us the fresh recruits, as well as the veterans in the field. And our promise is alike for all ; “To him that overcomeſ/,” whosoever he be, “will / grant to sit down with me on may throne, even 96 Close of the Year. as I overcame, and am set down with my Father on His throne.” O dear friends during the year that is now coming, may every one of us stand fast in God. It may bring deeper sorrows, bitterer trials, subtler temptations, than we have ever yet known ; if they come, may we be ready to suffer, to endure, to resist, through Christ which strengtheneth us. It may come as the storm, beating On Our house and raging round its walls; may it stand in that hour, being founded on the rock. It may come as the treacherous Sunshine, to lure us out from our shelter and destroy us; may we mistrust it, and hold on fast by our God. May the new year be happy to us all, as every year must be to those who have found the secret of happiness; may the year be new to us all, an opening course of more usefulness, more grace, more humility, more likeness to Christ. Then we have nothing to fear from it : for “whether we live, we live unto the Lord ; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord ; whether therefore we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” “Therefore, my dearly beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, almmoveable, always affounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” SERMON VIII. (PREACHED IN 1856, FoR MISSIONs.) Oſije (Church, the 3Light of the CGHorſt. ‘‘ Ye are the light of the world.”—MATT. v. 14. WE read of a time when this earth, so full of fair shapes and wonderful provisions, was without form and void. It may be, that Some mighty convulsion had broken up its parts and laid it in ruins. And more than this. It may be, that the very atmosphere which is to it the vehicle of light and life, had lost its genial power. Darkness was upon the face of the deep. And then we read, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” He, the Lord that giveth life, was pleased to summon out of this confusion the arrangements and the capacities of a world. But before all this His work, one word was uttered—one element called into being, which was necessary for every function of created nature. “God said “Let there be light’—and there was light.” And from that first day to this, the natural light of this world has never failed. For it we look, and to it we trust as to a certain thing. On its maintenance, on its recurrence, every plant depends for its vigour, every H 98 7%e Church, fruit for its maturity. Under its rays, man goes forth to his work and his labour, and when those rays slope westward, he returns to his home and his rest. Such is the light which God made for nature and her wants: the world's first necessity, and most precious endowment. Yet when the sixth day of that wondrous week arrived, the Creator called into being another world not less in importance, but greater, than that which was now teeming with life and joy around. He created MAN. All the other tribes of His creation were limited in their range and capacity ; fixed to their place, defined in their instincts. Man alone He made after His own image. Man alone He created a living spirit—unlimited equally in range of thought and desire—unconfined to place, unbound by the narrow fetters of time. The natural instincts, which are the highest efforts of animal sentience, are to him merely guards and reminders necessary for his lower self-preservatives. All that is requisite for these, God has given him : but He has also given him that subtle creative power of thought, that restless love of energizing and pressing onward, that unwearied and unbounded roving of the spirit's eye from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, which constitute man a world within himself;-a system of capacities which shall never be exhausted,—of aimings which shall never cease to aspire. This world of man was the real triumph of God's creation : this the most wonderful example of His almighty power. We admire, and justly, the subtle attractions of nature around us : —the regularity and geniality of her prescribed and //ie Zight of the Wor/a. 99 narrow processes; the affinities and repulsions, by which the face of the earth is clothed with colour and beauty; but these are as nothing, in Comparison with the wonders of the spiritual world. No attraction of nature, not even that which keeps the spheres in their orbits, can compare with the sweet drawings of affection, by which the spiritual universe is held together ; no natural growth can compare with the unfolding of the immortal spirit; no combinations of nature in the flower, in the fruit, in the gem, may for a moment be ranged beside even the meanest of the beauties and the glories of thought. Nature is as she ever was ;-her stately trees succeed others which have decayed, her flocks and herds graze where others have grazed before : but not so with the spiritual world ; spirit does not supply the decay of spirit, but every spirit lives, lives on, lives for ever : the world of spirits is ever vaster, ever growing under the hand of its Creator and Father. Nature is as she was . —what her former generations were, her later ones are also : her trees and flowers, her living tribes, are what they ever have been—there is no promotion in her ranks, no onward progress in her children : each has its limit, and each passes it not. But in the spiritual world, all is change, all is progress, all is promotion. New thoughts confer new powers; new powers bring in new conditions of being. Change the face of nature, and you make but fresh combinations : let the agent pass away, and the deed passes away, and her old state is resumed. But make ever so little change in the con- dition of spirit, and it is a new creation: every, thought • e see e < * * • * e e º s tº gº tº tº _ & © e © & tº 9 g e • * * * tº e I OO The Church, unheard of before changes the universal level—adds to the capacities of that world for ever. Look onward on the one hand, and we must conceive of nature, either Continued duration under the same conditions, or a series of breaks, and renewals under other conditions equally fixed : look forward on the other, and whither shall we trace, or how shall we follow, the infinite pro- gress of the spiritual world 2 From the half-conscious gaze of the infant, to the keen glance of the mature and watchful intellect, from the savage horde, hardly emerging from bestial instinct, to the organized and educated Community, these advances, great as they Seem, are but the first partial and prefatory steps of a progress which shall last for ever. And this world, thus wonderful, thus unlimited in power and progress, has also its preliminary condition of life and action. There must be light in nature, or the plant will dwindle, the animal will pine, the world will become joyless and waste : there must be light here too in the world of spirits, or discord and confusion will reign, where harmony and order ought to be. The spirit indeed requires for its capacity of action, no physical conditions. It is not given to droop and pine, for it gathers food from realms unseen by the eye, and its stock of nourish- ment no famine can shorten. Were there no light, the spirit-world would not indeed become void and lifeless as the natural : this can never be ; its numbers cannot shrink, for none of its inhabitants can die. No, but this removes the necessity deeper : this makes its light all the more essential to it. Remove light from nature, © & Q © e º • *e" e & //e Zight of the World. I O I her powers are extinguished and she comes to an end : —-remove light from the world of spirits, its powers continue, its being terminates not, but its beauty and its glory are marred, its intent and its aim are changed : being is not brought to an end, but Zife is departed,— life, in any worthy sense of life, is gone. The darkened spirit lives on, it is true, if you will have it so : but ſhow does it live 2 Unfolding its capacities, fulfilling its ends of being, gathering love, intensifying joy, and feeding on hope 2 Oh no—these wanted the light; and the light is gone. Nor can the spirit exist on, a slothful and unenergizing mass : Such is not its nature ; it is restless, unwearied, ever trying its powers in some direction. And without light, that direction will be the wrong direction—without light, the spirits of men will go astray—wander into misery, wander into sin, wander into hopeless disappointment. Nature wants light to exist by : the spiritual world wants light to live and work by : it is nature's first condition for being : it is the spirit's first condition for well-being. And man's spirit had light—even the only light which can light it to its well-being—the light of the consciousness of God. While He was first in that world, all was sure to be in its place and Order. And when man came fresh from his Maker's hand, this was so. Love to God guided him : obedience to God ruled him : God's will was his joy, God's favour his law. Now let us draw another distinction. Let this conformity with God's appointment be established in nature, and as long as nature lasts, God will be glorified. I O2 7%e Church, The stars in their courses, the seasons in their vicissi- tudes, work His will blamelessly, and to the full of their capacity declare His glory. But in the higher world of spirits there is another necessary condition which nature has not. Wherever there is spirit there must be responsibility ; and there cannot be responsi- bility without free will. Nature, in her lower and more rigidly prescribed arrangements, cannot extinguish the light of her world : but man's spirit may extinguish the light of his. And man's spirit did extinguish that light, rather perhaps did depose it from its place of guidance and rule. Henceforward the spiritual world became anarchy and confusion. Men did not like to retain God in their knowledge. They set up self in His place : made self the centre of every movement instead of Him to Whom and Whose glory every move- ment was owed. Men loved this strange inversion of the laws of their spirits—loved the darkness rather than the light. And the result was just that which we have been asserting above—the Spirit's powers were not extinguished, but they were misapplied —not empti- ness, but mischief, not annihilation, but depravity, succeeded. The thoughts of man became only evil continually—the earth became full of wickedness. Then turn we to another portion of God's wonderful ways and works. He to Whom all things are open from the beginning, was not ignorant that all this would be—nay perfect as was the free will of the creature, it was not more perfect than God's omniscience,—and all this which happened lay enwrapped in His eternal pur- the Zight of the World. IO3 poses. Man's fall was no accident—nor was its remedy an after-thought. Sin, and sin’s sacrifice,—the ruin and the recovery of man, were all laid out in God's all- foreseeing providence. If nature decays, she possesses no power of self-renewal. Her extinct tribes she may not recall. Her faded flowers she cannot recover. Not thus did God create His more wonderful spiritual world. That the spirit should, by His aid, struggle upwards through darkness into the recovery of light, was His own purpose respecting us. For this, the Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world : for this the sacrifice to take away sin and uncleanness was pro- vided before that sin had ever been committed, or that uncleanness ever incurred. And in God's good time, that Light which was to lighten every man, came into the world. God became manifest in our flesh, and dwelt among the sons of men. He was that light. Before His manifestation, man had attempted in vain to guide himself through time to eternity. He had succeeded indeed in kindling lights everywhere, but along that path of daily life, which leads through death to the other world. The intellect, the imagination, the realms of knowledge and Science, these had been lit up with bright lamps which have never been ex- tinguished—but man's spirit—man's work in time— man's prospect for eternity,+these were yet hopelessly dark, when Jesus Came. There was indeed one partial exception. God's people of Israel, the children of Abraham His friend, had among them. His law and His testimony—were under covenant with Him by IO4. 7%e Church, sacrifice—were prisoners of hope—expecting the light and living on its announcement and promise. While the rest of the world was under darkness that might be felt, they had light in their dwellings. And that light kept increasing, as prophets one after another arose and pointed out more and more clearly Him that was to come. And the last and greatest prophet pointed out to them Jesus of Nazareth, Who appeared among them, proclaiming Himself the light of the world. His was the glory as of the only-begotten from the Father full of grace and truth. By Him every portion of man’s spiritual life has been filled with light. There is to them that believe on Him no more darkness—no Obscurity of motive—no ambiguity of guidance—no clouded mercy-seat, nor concealed purpose of God : all is revealed and opened to us. “God Who com- manded light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Now, the whole passage of man's life from the cradle to the grave, is full of light. We are no longer, as teachers, blind leading the blind,-but direct you to the glorious light of Christ's Spirit, Christ's work, Christ's example, Christ's words, for every difficulty in life, for every doubt in our spirits, for every necessity in time and every prospect in eternity. Favoured indeed are they, in the arrangements of God’s providence, upon whom this light hath shone in its fulness; upon whom He that was the light to lighten the Gentiles has arisen with healing on His wings. “Blessed is the people //e Zight of the World. IO5 that know the joyful sound : they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of Thy countenance. In Thy name shall they rejoice all day, and in Thy righteousness shall they be exalted.” But great as this blessing is, it is not a blessing to be passively received. “Whatsoever,” says the Apostle, “is made manifest is light ; ” that is, the bringing of anything into the light, and Shining upon it with the light, makes it not only manifest but itself a shining body, reflecting that light which it receives. And so when our blessed Lord stood with the multitude of His disciples on the mount whence He gave forth His pure and holy rules for their con- duct, He said to them, “Ye are the light of the world.” Even as He Himself is light, so is every one who is Shone upon by Him light also, and answerable for active participation in the work of making that light known and spreading it to others. “Arise, shine, for thy Light is come,” is the prophetic language of the Spirit to the Church. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Which is in heaven,” is the express com- mand of Our Master, Who is our Light, to every one of us. And He makes use, to shew us the reasonableness of this exhortation, of a similitude drawn from the simplest matters of common sense in ordinary life. “No man when he hath lighted a candle putteth it under the bushel, or under the bed ; but placeth it on the candlestick, that it may give light unto all that are in the house.” And simply and plainly did these first disciples understand their Lord's word. They let IO6 The Church, their light shine before and upon the darkness around them. To many a city and many a family, only a few years after the Light Himself was personally withdrawn, might it be said by them, “Ye were sometimes dark- ness, but now are ye light in the Lord.” From Jeru- Salem round about unto Illyricum, and afterwards at Rome, and we know not over what other unrecorded lands, shone that burning and shining light which the persecuted Jesus kindled on the road to Damascus. In other unknown parts, the rest of the Apostles went forth, illuminating the nations. With them there was no doubt about the nature of their Lord's command. Ye are the light of the world. Go ye into all the world and evangelize every creature. Who that put these two together, could tarry a moment in uncertainty P I need not pursue the history downwards, nor trace the shining of the light over Asia and Africa, and Europe, and into the far isles of the sea, where we sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. The churches of Britain date from times not long Subsequent to the Apostles themselves. Who first shone upon us here with the light of Christ, it is not easy to say: but there is every reason to suppose, from Our early connexion with the mistress of the world, that it came to us among the very first : nay it is almost certain, that the Claudia mentioned as Sending greeting in the last chapter of the Second Epistle to Timothy, was herself a British Christian lady of rank, married to a Senator of Rome. However it was, we did receive the light: and to pass from our first reception to our present enjoyment of it, I the Light of the World. IO7 may fearlessly say, that of all people who ever were shone upon by the Sun of righteousness, we have received the fullest measure of His rays, and have been granted the greatest facilities for transmitting them. I suppose that neither of these positions will need estab- lishing before you. I will only ask, was there ever a people like unto this people, whom God has placed in perfect freedom as to the use of His word, as to the maintenance and discussion of truth, as to the devising ways by which that truth may be communicated and elucidated P And on the other hand, was there ever a people whom He so richly endowed with breadth of empire, facility of access to the utmost parts of the earth, wealth to recommend their approach, power to obtain favourable hearing from those whom they visit P Treat, if you will, the missionary subject with all the freedom of a creative imagination—sketch out, if you will, how you conceive a nation ought to have been placed, how to have been endowed, how to have been constituted internally, how to have been led through the trying passages of her own history, in order to possess the greatest possible advantages for diffusing over the world the light which she herself has received : work out your description in every point elaborately, descend even into the minutiae of fitness, and track the least and most shifting shadows of Opportunity—and when you have described all, shew your work to any man, and he will tell you, “This is no imaginary land—this is Eng- land ” England, with her crowded ports, communi- cating with every tribe under heaven—England, with IO8 7%e Church, her free press, sending forth what she will and whither she will,—England, with her toiling Scholars, rendering the word of truth in every language upon earth : Eng- land, with her scale of human comforts, and her abun- dance of God's good gifts, unexampled in the history of the world : England, with that fixedness of purpose, that steadiness of endurance, that modesty but intensity of self-sacrifice, with which God has endowed her sons and her daughters for the admiration and for the solace of mankind ; this, and no republic of your imagination, is that which you have been depicting. And let our work of fiction be carried yet one step further. In this England, and among her loving families and peaceful dwellings, mark Out, if you will, by a process equally minute and careful, that one which shall be most favour- ably situated for this work of lighting the world far and near :—and when you have wrought out your description —when you have guarded its negative side by removing every hindrance and stumbling-block, and filled out its positive side by adding every facility and advantage, let the sketch be shewn round among us from family to family—it will prove no picture but a mirror. “This is my household—these are the advantages on which I am ever priding myself—these the absences of hindrance to good, in which we round our family board are ever rejoicing !” Yes, beloved, it is yours, and each of yours. Yours—with that purity of faith, that singleness of purpose, that unfailing and unchanging love which dis- tinguishes the Christian household in England : yours, with, in many cases before me, that ease of worldly the Zight of the World. J O9 means, those unfettered calculations how and where to act for good, which lubricate the energies of life, and set the spirit free to face even difficulties unencumbered ; yours, dwelling as it does in the midst of organs and outlets for every kind of benevolent intention, admirably contrived and efficiently worked : and let me add too, yours in the strict and solemn account which you must stand one day and give at that bar of Jesus, where every opportunity of good will be called in question—every ray of light shed on you demanded an account of from you. And thus I call on you, each family and each indi- vidual among you, to shew yourselves to be this which your Lord names you—the light of the world. I call On you, according to these your facilities and these your abundant means, to do your own part in this work— not as matter of charity, but as matter of most solemn duty. According to your place in life—according to the measure of your place here, so God expects from you, that God Who will not be mocked, that you should shine out in the darkness of the world which yet knows not Him. In this, as in all else, He will have due proportion from all of us. Blessed is the man, who never lets his display or his enjoyment outrun the measure of that which he spends on his Master's work ; but woe to him, whoever he be, however named or decked with worldly honours, who is lavish on that which man sees, and niggardly in that which God sees : who spends on himself, and spares from his God On the societies whose names appear in our notice 1 Io The Church, the Zight of the World. to-day " I need say but very little to you. They are, as you know, the great handmaid of our Church in this her work of enlightening the world, and comprehend between them by far the greater part of that work. Their labours are always in advance of their means—every farthing contributed is wanted, and indeed forestalled. At no time has their missionary work, whether we take it as one united work, or view it in the separate department of the various societies, been so full of interest, and so peremptory in its demands of obligation on Christians, as at present. The face of the heathen world is notably and rapidly changing : with a change hardly less notable and rapid, than that which followed the first promulga- tion of Christianity itself. The establishment of our Church among them in her entireness of episcopal superintendence, has given her a strength and stability which she never before possessed ; and God seems to be blessing her work in a way hitherto unknown. Vast empires are breaking up, and letting in the light where darkness was absolute before. There never was a time when the prospect was more hopeful, never one when the demands were greater. It Only remains for us, on whom under God the existence and efficiency of all this work depends, not to be wanting on our part, but now that our light is fully come, now that our opportunity has arrived, and is at its height, to arise and Shine as the light of the world, in Christ's great name, and in the power of His Spirit. 1 The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and the Church Missionary Society. SERMON IX. (PREACHED IN 1857.) QChrist the Seabíour of 3II ſtilen. “We trust in the Jizing God, Who is the Saziour of all men, specially of those that belieze.”—I TIM. iv. Io. THE present ecclesiastical season is named from the Epiphany, or manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. Now this manifestation, made as it had been in foretaste specially to the wise men from the East, and announced as it had been from of old by prophecy, when it really came, took the whole Church by surprise. The Apostles knew that He was to be the light to lighten the Gentiles: but they ever thought that this bright lamp would be kindled on Mount Zion, and the nations would flock to its shining. They had no idea that each Gentile people, and each Gentile man, would have it for his own, irre- spective of any connexion with, or present derivation through the chosen people. And they were very slow indeed in coming to the apprehension of this great truth. It was alien altogether from their habits of thought, to imagine a Gentile, as such, admitted into God's church, and placed on an equality with the Jew. The feeling I I 2 Christ the Saviour of A// Men. was far deeper rooted among them, as well as far better grounded, than the similar feeling against equality with the coloured races is at this day. And St. Paul, the only one among them who from the first entered into and carried out this great design of God, speaks of it in these remarkable terms: “By revelation He made known unto me the mystery, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise by Christ in the Gospel.” Now we are so accustomed to the assertion of and practical acting on this truth, that we can with difficulty put ourselves in the position of those who for the first time called a Gentile a brother in Christ; who saw that barrier broken down by God's own hand, which God's own hand had been for ages building up. Yet we are able, I think, to estimate, even by our very habituation to it, the importance of the question which was then at stake. We see, that if the Gentile was to be compelled to live as did the Jew, there would in fact be an end to the doctrine, in its freeness and fulness, that Christ was the Saviour of the world : that He would be the Saviour of one people, and of the world through them : and that in the promise, “In thy seed shall all families of the earth be blessed "--we should have to take the word “seed ” not of One, viz. Christ, as now, but of that nation which proceeded forth from Abraham. Besides which, the very foundations of the Gospel would thus be overthrown with regard to man's salvation thereby. Christ ſhe Saviour of A// Men. II 3 If anything, a nation, or a church, or a ministry, or an ordinance,—is to be put between man's soul and its access to Christ, the Gospel is thereby annulled and made void. All these may lead to Christ : but they must not stand in the way to Christ. “The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that Öe- /ieve?/ ?” and none may interfere with the privilege of the individual soul to receive, independently of any external mediator, the voice of God's Spirit testifying of Christ. Now all this was revealed to St. Paul ; and we need not therefore wonder at the determined stand which he made against all who would set up in any form the present Superiority of the Jew, or the obligation of the Gentile to become like the Jew. Such thoughts as these occur to us as we reflect on the subject of the Season ; and I make use of them to-day to introduce the important truth declared in our text, which lay at the foundation of the whole matter then in question. We should but very insufficiently set forth to you the Son of God as the Redeemer of man, if we did not also set forth the universality of the Redemption wrought by Him. And we should be giving very wrong ideas of that universality, did we not also shew, in what cases the Redemption wrought for all becomes effectual in man's personal Salvation. Both these points are brought before us in my text: “He is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe.” And on the two we will, if you please, spend our time and thoughts this morning, in dependence on the teaching of God's Spirit. Whether then we take the words “the living God” in I II 4 Christ the Saviour of A// Men. Our text to apply to Christ Himself, or to the Father acting by Christ, it is equally asserted that Christ is the Saviour of all men : that the salvation which He wrought is, in and of itself, coextensive with the race of man. What He did, He did for, or in the stead of, all men. If we wish to corroborate this by further Scripture proof, we have it in abundance. I will take but three of the plainest passages. St. John in his first Epistle, ii. 1, 2, writes, “If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous : and He is the pro- pitiation for Our sins : and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” St. Paul, 2 Cor. v. 14, says, “The love of Christ constraineth us : because we thus judge that if one died for all, then all died : and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him Which died for them and rose again.” In Rom. v. Io he goes further into the same truth, where he says, “As by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to con- demnation : even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” And the exposition of this truth reaches its clearest and fullest point, when he says, as in I Cor. xv. 22, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” I say, it is at its clearest and fullest, because by these words the Apostle handles the very key of the mystery of the universality of Christ's redemption : as again where he says, “The first man was of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.” Let us enter on this point more at length, for it is of fundamental im- Christ the Saviour of A// //en. I I5 portance. Adam, when he came fresh from the hands of God, was the head and root of mankind. He was mankind. She who was to be an helpmeet for him, was not created a separate being, but was taken out of him. The words spoken of him apply to the whole human race. The responsibility of the whole race rested upon him. When he became disobedient, all fell. “By one man's disobedience all were made sinners : ” and the consequence was, a coming upon all men of the sentence of death. Figure to yourselves—and it is very easy to do so, from the many analogies which nature furnishes, —this constitution of all mankind in Adam : for it is the very best of all exponents of the nature of Christ's standing in our flesh, and Christ's work in our flesh : with this great difference indeed, inherent in the very nature of the case, that the one work in its process and result is purely physical, the other spiritual as well. Adam having fallen, the head being dishonoured, the root being tainted, the whole race, derived or to be derived from Adam, the members of that head, the branches from that root, fell with him ; became unclean and tainted. The race, in its natural constitution in Adam, i.e. as each member of it is born into the world and lives in the world naturally, is alien from and guilty before God ; has lost the power of pleasing God : cannot work out its own salvation in or by any one of its members ; all being involved in the same universal ruin. “In Adam all die.” The penalty of this deflection of the whole race, viz. death, abides on us all : death physical, absolutely on all, owing to the physical deterioration of our bodies by II 6 Christ the Saviour of A// Men. reason of sin, which has made them mortal in our present sense of the word ; and death eternal, in our mature and final state hereafter, unless some remedy be devised, which shall set before us a rescue, as deep and as wide as the ruin was, from this most awful conse- quence of our fall. Now that rescue must not, cannot in God’s arrangements, come from without. It must come upon mankind from within. God's law respecting us is, that all amendment, all purifying, all renewal, should spring from among, and take into itself and penetrate by its influence, the inner faculties and powers where with He has endowed our nature. We read that - God smiles, and the face of the earth is renewed. Inanimate nature withers or buds forth at her Creator's word. But when He built up the wonderful fabrics of organized life, He at the same time introduced a law which, though He may occasionally interrupt it, yet regulates all organic change ; viz. that it should be brought about in and by the ordinary faculties and unfoldings of each tribe and each individual. And when we rise yet higher, and superadd to organized life, as in our own case, all the far more wonderful powers and faculties of spiritual being ; when we think of a race endowed with reason and memory, and guided in its affections and desires by a responsible conscience, then we may, in Our inference, rise higher also, and Say that no redemption would be effectual for man, which did not plant itself in and unfold itself from the very centre and root of his nature: that as by man came death, by man also must come the resurrection of the Christ the Saviour of A// Mem. I 17 dead : that as by man, misguided in his judgment, led astray in his affections, misusing his desires, came the fall, so also by man, establishing a perfect obedience before God, must come the recovery, the reunion with God : the re-establishment of the possibility of man being dwelt in by the Spirit of God, and being the son of God and heir of God's glory. And when I say all this must come by man, I do not for a moment mean, by any individual man among the sons of men. For in the first place, this could not be. All were tainted ; morally tainted by descent from Adam. So that none could bring in righteousness; none could plant in humanity a seed different from that which was already planted. Nor, even could any of us have done this, would the effect have extended beyond our own individual selves. You are not, I am not, no one is, head of mankind. Of what use would it be, that you, that I, that any One, should perfectly obey God, should die an unjust and cruel death, should rise again from the dead, should be received up into heaven P I am supposing of course an impossibility; but it is for the sake of combating doctrinal error, and setting the universality of Christ's redemption clearly before you. Now let us carry our hypothesis a step further. We know that our redemp- tion was effected by the eternal Son of God becoming incarnate in Our flesh. Now suppose for a moment that He, the Son of God, had become an individual per- sonal man, bounded by His own responsibilities, His own capacities, His own past, and present, and future. The Supposition is equally impossible with the other : II 8 Christ the Saviour of A// Men. but it may for an instant be made, for the purpose of clearing up a great and often misapprehended truth. If He had thus become a personal man, not one of His acts would have had any more reference to you or me than the acts of Abraham, or David, or St. Paul, or St. Peter, have. He might have set us an example ever so bright ; might have undergone sufferings ever SO bitter; might have won a triumph ever so glorious ; and we should merely have stood and looked on from without. No redemption, no renovation of our nature could by any possibility have been made. And yet I do believe that, in this nineteenth century of the Christian Church, with all the history of the doctrine of Christ's person before us, and in this land of light and of Bibles, and in this congregation of Christians, there are many whose ideas of Christ are just this that I have been mentioning; that He became “a man ; ” One individual man personally ; and as such individual man, did, for and instead of you and me, obey God, and suffer for sin, and overcome death, and sits at God’s right hand. Now let us look at the truth of the matter. Christ took upon Him, took into the Godhead which He never laid aside, the nature of man. He, the Divine personal Son of God, came and dwelt in our flesh. He did not lay aside His personality as Son of God. The very thought is absurd : for then He would have ceased to be the same person. He did not unite the Divine person with a human person, for then He would have become two distinct persons, which is equally repugnant to the necessities of truth, of being, and action. He Christ the Saviour of All Men. I IQ was, in the flesh, the personal Son of God, and that alone. But He dwelt, tabernacled, in our nature. He took it unto, and bore it upon Him in all its entireness. He took it free indeed from that taint which it had contracted by means of the first Adam's sin, for with that the pure and holy Son of God could not enter into union, and this was but its accident, not its essence: but He took it with all the physical consequences of that taint upon it—which were only misery and not sin,_ with infirmity, pain, sorrow, and death. And He, thus being the Divine Son of God, and having become the Son of man, was no longer an individual man, bounded by the narrow lines and limits of His own personality, but was and is God manifest in the flesh ; a sound and righteous head of our whole nature, just as Adam was its first and sinful head. Hence it is, that whatever He does, has so large a significanee. Hence, that when He fulfils the law, His righteousness is accepted as ours. Hence, that when He died, He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and offered, by His own Sacrifice, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world. Hence, and hence only it is, that it can be said in the words of Scripture which we have quoted already to-day, “As by the disobedience of one judgment came upon all men unto condemnation : ” viz. because all men were shut up and included in that one, Adam : “so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men y unto justification of life : ” viz. because in this case also, all men were shut up and included in that one, Christ. I 20 Christ the Saviour of All Men. So that when we speak, and rightly speak, of Christ's vicarious Sacrifice, we do not mean that one single man, Divine and innocent, offered Himself for and instead of all other individual men, so that His merits are large enough for all who choose to avail themselves of them : we do not conceive that Scripture speaks of mere pos- Sibilities and provisions made, when it says “in Christ shall all be made alive ; ” but we mean by Christ's vicarious Sacrifice, that the happy and holy Son of God did, of His infinite love to a lost race, take upon Him, into union with His Divine nature, and did clothe His personal Godhead with, that nature itself which was thus lost and ruined, and did undergo the penalty of its sin—of all its sin—and did bring it up entire out of death and the grave; and we mean by “in Christ shall all be made alive,” that from this vicarious work and sacrifice of the Redeemer, consequences not only pos- sible, but actual, flow forth to every member of Our y 5 common race, in virtue of that common membership, in virtue of their physical union with Christ in their common humanity. Whether those consequences will be to them an advantage or a disadvantage, a gain or a loss, must, from the very constitution of our nature, both physical and spiritual, depend on further con- siderations, involving the exercise of their own spiritual faculties and capacities. “Christ is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.” And into that part of our subject let us now enter : premising however just one retrospective and at the same time prospective remark, on the universality of the Christ the Saviour of A// //en. I 2 I redemption of which we have been speaking. Christ is Man. Manhood finds in Him its centre, its root, its head. And manhood is one. We have all one common nature. Therefore, Christ is for all : and to deny this in practice, to retain in Christianity pre-eminence of race or nation, was, as St. Paul very well saw, to deny the truth of Christ's Incarnation, and to make His sal- vation of none effect. He did nothing, if He did not the whole. He redeemed none, if He redeemed not all. If there existed on earth one son or daughter of Adam not redeemed by Christ, then He, Who had taken it upon Him to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, had not accomplished His work, and had died in vain. And let us see what this universality of redemption implies, as regards the sons of men themselves. It enables the preacher of good tidings to come to every Son and daughter of Adam, every outcast and degraded one of our race, and at once to lay before them Christ as theirs, if they will believe on Him. It is the key, and the only key, to the fact of justification by faith. “Believe, and thou shalt be saved.” Why? Believe in a man who died and rose again, and thou shalt be saved 2 By what law, by what capacity of our being ; could any such effect be possible P What decree of the Almighty was ever made so completely setting at nought all His eternal arrangements P No, brethren, it is not so : but it is just because Christ's redemption is a fact wide as man's nature, because He, when He suffered, rescued not Himself, but you and me and every man, and because faith is just simply the uniting I 2.2 Christ Zhe Saviour of A// //en. our spiritual being, which leads and governs the man, to this fact, is but simply asserting our claim in Christ, taking up our freedom which He hath bought for us, becoming united to that righteousness which He, our Second head, has wrought out for us, striking, with the daily voice of our thoughts and lives, into harmony with this ground tone of the life of God. Now this at once brings us to the second part of our text. In the broad sense on which we have hitherto been insisting, Christ is the Saviour of all men ; of the whole of mankind. All have an equal part and right in Christ. And on this foundation fact, the whole mission work of the Gospel is founded. We are to go into all the world, and we are to proclaim the glad tidings to every creature. What glad tidings P Even the old good news; that unto them is born, for them has died, for them pleads in heaven, a Saviour, Which is Christ the Lord. And then, when this good news has been proclaimed to them, and when it has been proclaimed to you, comes in the all-important distinction which these words bring out ; “specially of those that believe.” That redemption by Christ, which is as wide as the earth, as free as the air, as universal as humanity, is no mere physical amendment which has passed on Our whole race unconsciously : but it is a glorious provision for spiritual amendment, able to take up and to bless and to change and to renovate man's spiritual part, his highest thoughts, his noblest aspirings, his best affections. And these are not taken up, are not blest, are not reno- vated, except by the power of persuasion, and the Christ the Saviour of A// //en. I 23 bending of the human will, and the soft promptings of love, and the living drawings of desire. Where, as in the case of the infant, these cannot be, or can act but feebly, we believe in the potency of the Redeemer, as we believe in His will, to save even without the con- Sciousness of the saved. The bud which dropped unopened, shall not be charged with want of fragrance, or with having brought no fruit to perfection. But wherever there is consciousness, wherever the ear can hear the message, the heart can take it in, the will can turn the helm of life, there man must consciously, willingly, earnestly, accept and appropriate Christ's work, and be put into living spiritual union with Him, partaking of that Spirit which He won for all who believe in Him, and thus becomes one with Him in Spirit. And here is the mystery, and here is at the same time the simplicity, of justification by faith in Jesus. The mystery—for that gulf between man and God which no device of man and no merit of created being could ever pass over, is now by the accomplished work of Christ for ever filled up ; and the simplicity—for the path is so plain and so safe that the untaught, the infirm and the simple can pass over it without fear. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” He is the Saviour of all men, in that he included them all in that nature which He took on Him, and bore the whole world's sin, and opened a way for all to God —He is specially the Saviour of them that believe, in that in their case only does this His Salvation become actual and come to its ripeness I 24 Christ the Saviour of All Mem. and perfection; in them only does His Spirit dwell : they only are changed into His image: they only shall be with Him and behold His glory where He is and be perfectly like Him, seeing Him as He is. And now, dear friends, let us not hesitate to press this subject closely home to ourselves. We are every one of us redeemed by Christ. Not one was left out of His thoughts, when He undertook to be the Saviour of the world. His salvation belongs to us all. We all have, by virtue of what He has done, a claim, yea even a right to a part in Him. Blessed condition, and lofty privilege : to be able to look up where He is, glorious in His triumph, faintly discerned in the brightness of the eternal throne, and to say, This glorified One is mine ; my Head, my Advocate, my representative before God ; in one word, my Saviour. And that every one here may do ; one as well as another ; the oldest and the youngest, the wisest and the simplest. All may do it : but now comes the question of questions for every one : Are you doing it 2 Dost thou believe in the Son of God? O let there be no self-deceit here. If thou dost, then is this belief no mere superadded fact to thy life and thoughts, like a new planet or a new discovery of science, leaving thee where thou wert and as thou wert, with one idea more: if thou dost, it is not as one belief among thy many beliefs, Christ believed in as Caesar is believed in ; if thou dost, it is not as the chief of a group of thy thoughts, recurring and working when its time comes round, subduing an hour or a day to its constraint, preoccupying thee at stated seasons only : if thou dost, Christ the Saviour of A// Mem. I 25 - it is not as a coal glowing at thine heart whose warmth thy neighbour never felt, a lamp kindled within thee which the world without never saw : O no : if thou art among those that believe, one of those that have this great God manifest in the flesh for their special and actual Saviour, He is thy central fact; the one dis- covery of life; a present living power to thee; chief of all thy thoughts, constraining and subduing the rest every day and all day long ; not preoccupying thee indeed, but while it possesses, enlarging and warming and quickening thee for all other things that are true and honest and just and pure and lovely and of good report: yea, if thou believest on Christ unto salvation, He will be in thee a light shining before men ; thou wilt be in thy place and degree a pattern to others, as He is a pattern to thee. And if, while I speak, some are saying, that this is a picture of impossible perfection, I answer, with words not mine own, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His : ” I answer, that whatever you may profess and observe, whatever preachers you may hear, and sects you may join, there is but one test of believing in Christ, and that is, the fruits of faith ; a holy and Christ-like walk and con- versation. Faith without works is dead : yea is not faith at all, O may every one who has heard me to-day be able, in the midst of all self-abasement and unworthi- ness, to say with the great Apostle, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live : yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” SERMON X. (PREACHED IN 1862.) §ſtilitatles: @@Hattr mate Cºline. “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cama of Galilee, and manifested forth Aſis glory.”—JOHN ii. II. IT is very instructive, to notice the way in which the Church has chosen the passages of Scripture which are to be read on the different Sundays. Let us observe what she has done for us about this time of the year. We have passed the Nativity of Christ: His Circumcision : His manifestation to the Gentiles. Last Sunday the Gospel contained the narrative of the only event recorded as having happened during His youth. Now let us observe the six following Sundays, beginning with this one, the second after Epiphany. To-day we have for our Gospel the miracle of the water turned into wine : next Sunday, the healing of the leper and of the centurion's servant, which Occur together in Matt. viii.; the Sunday after, the three miracles of the stilling of the storm, the casting Out the devils at Gadara, and the destruction of the Swine, which also occur together in the same chapter. Then on the next Sunday, the M77&cſes : M/a/e7 made Wizze. I 27 fifth after Epiphany, we have the parable of the tares of the field : and missing the sixth, which occurs but Seldom, and has a peculiar subject of its Own, On Septua- gesima Sunday we have another parable, that of the labourers in the vineyard : and on the next, Sexagesima, that of the sower : the next Sunday to that introducing the solemn season of Lent with a Gospel pointedly announcing our Lord's sufferings for Our sins. Thus we have before us, as there are this year five Sundays after Epiphany, three Sundays of miracles, and three of parables. Our Blessed Lord's Person is the great centre of all Christian doctrines. According as you do, or do not, see clearly Who He is, and what was and is His work, you will or will not be sound in the faith, and led on to true and blessed belief in the other great verities of His religion. May God guide me to speak, and you to hear, that which is according to His will and the mind of His Spirit. We are then to speak of Christ's miracles. And first, What is a miracle 2 This is a most important question : for on the right answer to it depends, whether we understand or not of what use Christ's miracles were when they were wrought, and what purpose they are intended to serve for us now, and for the Church to the end of time. A miracle is an interference with the common course of nature by some power above nature. Thus an earthquake or a volcanic eruption is not a miracle, because it is a result, though an unusual result, of natural causes: a Comet is not a I 28 M77-ac/es : miracle, because it is, though a rare thing in nature, yet brought about by no Divine interference, but occur- ring in the course of nature herself. Divine interference might exalt either of these into miracles, by specially announcing them as sent for a purpose : as the prophetic voice of Samuel did thus exalt into a miracle the thunderstorm in the wheat harvest, when he foretold it as a sign of God's anger for Israel's sin. The healing of a disease is not a miracle, if brought about by ordinary means, although we know that God’s blessing must be given on those means; but it is a miracle if it is produced by a word, or a touch, and would at once show that he who did it possessed some power greater than that of nature and of man, nature's servant. Some power greater, I said : and I said it purposely : for all miracles do not come from God : some come from God's enemy and Ours, the devil, and from his agents and subordinate powers, The magicians of Egypt were able to perform the same miracles as Moses, up to a certain point: and we have it from the lips of Our Lord Himself, that the Antichrist of the latter days when he shall appear, shall show signs and wonders, was to deceive, if it were possible, even the elect of God. St. Paul also speaks of the same Antichrist as “him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and might and lying wonders.” Mere miracles then are no proof of a Divine mission, but only of some power from heaven or hell superior to that of man, and of nature in her ordinary working. It will be plain to you that any one who believes Waze, made M/772e. I 29 in a personal Author and Governor of nature, will have no difficulty in believing in miracles. The same Almighty Being Who made and upholds nature, can interfere, whenever it pleases Him, with the ordinary course of nature, which He has Himself prescribed. To say that He cannot do this, is to deny His almighti- ness, and consequently His existence. To say that He never will be pleased thus to interfere, is manifestly foolish and presumptuous in the extreme ; we cannot set bounds to His purposes, nor tell beforehand how He may be pleased to accomplish them. It does not follow, because we have never witnessed an unusual exertion of His power, that such never takes place. By the same argument we might refuse to believe any wonderful thing which we have not ourselves seen. Then again, every one who believes in the existence of spirits and powers of evil must allow that they exist and act only by permission of God, and for mysterious purposes of His. And the trial of our faith and obedi- ence is certainly one of those purposes. There is then no antecedent difficulty in believing that miraculous powers are granted, or have been at certain times granted, to these evil spirits, to exercise the faith of man : and Scripture positively assures us that such is the case. Whenever a man refuses to believe in miracles, one of two things must be the case: either believing the possibility of miracles, he does not think the evidence enough on which the miracle is sought to be established ; or, disbelieving their possibility, and think- ing no evidence sufficient to establish them, he must, K I 3O A/27ac/es : if he be consistent, also disbelieve the existence of or the continued government of the world by, an Almighty Creator and Upholder. We, while we believe the evidence of the Scripture miracles to be sufficient to prove them to be facts, take the former course, with regard to the recorded miracles of the Saints of the Church of Rome, and to those which she from time to time reports in our own days: we believe well-attested miracles, but we do not believe these, which we find will not bear the test of a searching examination into their facts. The unbeliever takes the latter course, when he refuses to receive the miracles related in Holy Scripture, on the ground of its being impossible or improbable that they should have happened. I say, the unbeliever : meaning he who rejects Christ and Christianity: for it is clearly impossible to receive Christ as the Saviour, and not to credit those very works to which He constantly appealed for the truth of His mission. But now it is time to return to the more interesting matter which we just now left. If there are good and bad miracles, miracles of Divine goodness, and miracles of lying spirits, one thing must be very plain to us : viz. that by miracles alone no man can be proved to be sent from God. He may be proved to be sent either from God, or from God's and man's enemy: but miracles alone will not determine which. And now we have come to the point as regards our blessed Lord Himself. Our enquiry to-day, on which we wish to gain some information for Ourselves, is, what Wa/e7 772&dle Wºzze. I 3 I were Our Lord's miracles, as regards their place in His great work 2 They held a very important place, but they did not hold the chief place, in the evidences of His mission. He often appeals to them in proof that He came from God : but He does so in a peculiar manner, and one very instructive to us. He Himself actually at one time had to reply to the charge that He wrought them by Satanic influence. “This man casteth out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.” And the way in which He answered the accusation is most instructive. He did it not by appealing to the great- ness, or even to the beneficence of His miracles alone, but by asserting that if it were so Satan would be divided against himself. Our Lord was his well-known Opponent—the man of truth, the man of purity, the man of God ; whose meat and drink it was to do God's will ; and the idea of Satan working by means of this man would imply that Satan was his own enemy, and therefore could not stand, but must have an end. And this is just the course which our Lord ever took with regard to His miracles. You will find it in St. John's Gospel most plainly set forth. There the Evangelist's purpose evidently is, not merely to relate the events as they happened, and the discourses as they were delivered ; but so to collect and group them together that they may best illustrate our blessed Lord's purpose and method of manifesting Himself to men. And you will ever find Him in that Gospel insisting on this point in atl His conflicts and controversies with the Jews, that His life was holy and blameless ; that He was I 32 A/27ac/es : a good man, and spoke good, and did good, and showed them good. This was the great and firm basis on which Jesus rested for the acceptation of His ministry and mission ; that none could convict Him of sin ; that He was like God and of God. And mozy came in His miracles; not as chief proofs, but as proofs in aid, of this pure and holy life and mission. They were won- derful works; they were suspensions of the course of nature ; this showed Him to be one endowed with supernatural power. He turned water into wine:– He spoke and the winds were silent —He commanded diseases with a word. So far the power might be from above or from beneath. But, coupled with His holy and blameless life, and His love for God and obedience to God, these words of power took another character, and became signs, St. John's usual word for them ; signs whence He came : they could have but one source,—they could not be from Satan ; He could not be a magician, in league with the powers of evil —they were proofs that He was what He asserted Himself to be, from God, and the Son of God —they became, when viewed together with the consistent and unvarying character of His teaching and life, most valuable and decisive evidences to His Messiahship. “No man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him,” said the Jewish Rabbi to Him : “the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me.” But besides that Our Lord's miracles came in aid of His spotless and holy life to prove Him the Son of Water 772ade Wºme. I 33 God, they have a distinct and most important meaning and teaching of their own. This will be best introduced by for a moment comparing them with the thousands of reported heathen and middle-age miracles which have been reported in history and legend. What was the meaning and import of all these ? What good did they do 2 What result came of them P Can any instruction be got from them, or is any meaning for men's souls concealed beneath them P But with every one of our Lord's miracles, this is otherwise. They are full of goodness to the bodies and Souls of men. Each of them has its own fitness as adapted to His great work, and to the will of the Father which He came to accom- plish. Each one tends, in its place, as St. John says of this one in Our Gospel, to manifest forth His glory: shows forth some gracious attribute, some deep sym- pathy: testifies to Him as the light, or life, or conso- lation, or Sustenance, of man and man's world. Let us take general instances, which we shall be able after- wards to follow out into particulars, in the miracles which are brought before us in the Gospels for these three Sundays. Sin is, as we have seen, the great disease of our nature, which this Divine Saviour came to heal. Bodily disease is not only a type, it is the consequence of sin. So that when Our Lord puts forth His hand to heal, or speaks the words which are followed by healing, He is forwarding at the same time that He is prefiguring and illustrating, His healing power for the whole world, for men's bodies and Souls alike : when He raises the dead, I 34. A/77-ac/es : He is conquering Death, the result of sin, and He is giving a foretaste of the day when all that are in the grave, shall hear His voice : when He feeds the five thousand or the four thousand in the wilderness, He Himself teaches us that He is not only doing a bene- ficent act to men's bodies, but is teaching them that He is the Bread of life for their souls : when He casts out devils in relief of the peculiar spiritual affliction of that time, He is teaching us that He came to destroy the works of the devil. Some of the miracles are acted parables : similar lessons of instruction are conveyed by them to those which at other times He expressed in His teaching. We have a notable example of this in the miracle of the withering fig-tree in which He sets forth to us, in connexion with His well-known parable, the barrenness, and the punishment, of unfruitful Israel. So that our Lord's miracles form a precious and most important body of proofs of His holy mission and His Sonship of God : and not only this, but they come powerfully in aid of His discourses in setting before us the truth of His divine Person and Work. We know His Power by them ; we are assured of His Wisdom and His Love. The faithful soul, in its wants and its weaknesses, finds these testimonies to His loving- kindness a rich treasure-house of personal Comfort. I will devote the rest of my sermon to considering how this is so with regard to the class of miracles to which that in our Gospel to-day belongs. That class is a very remarkable One. And it is espe- cially worthy of note, that our Lord should choose a Water made Wºme. I 35 miracle of such a character with which to open His whole course of supernatural working. For it is one in which we have not the healing of disease, not the abolition of death, not the freeing men from any of the plainer and more obvious consequences of sin, but the Supply of a want which was not a need, the ministering to mere festive joy, not to destitution and distress. It may at first sight appear strange that such a miracle should be selected by our Lord as one especially calculated to manifest forth His glory, and to cause His disciples to believe on Him. There is then all reason why we should closely examine it and try to discern its worthiness for such a place and office. Our first observation shall be this : that whereas other of Our Lord's miracles concern some particular portion of human infirmity, or Divine power and mercy, we might well expect this one, which was to begin and head them, to convey a lesson of more general nature respecting both ourselves and Him Who wrought it. And such indeed it does convey. We see Him here as the true source of all joy and happiness : we see Him in His highest and most blessed influence on man and that which belongs to man. For He came to heal and elevate and bless our whole nature, in all its wants, all its employments, all its joys. And what is it that we find Him here doing 2 The holy estate of marriage was instituted of God in the time of man's innocency. It is an institution still in full force among us, and dating from before the time of the first ravages of sin. Sin indeed has abused it, and I 36 Al/27ac/es : Counterfeited it, and interfered with its blessedness : but for all that, its own holiness and purity, and capability for blessing and elevating humanity, still remain for those who use it aright, in the faith and fear of God, and in holy forbearance and love. What occasion then so fitting for the Son of God to shew His Divine power of blessing and hallowing humanity, as that of a marriage? He might have entered the abode of sickness and healed with a word, as often afterwards: He might have stood over the bed of death and called back the parted spirit: each of these miracles would have had, as each ever has, its own deep and blessed significance: but we may venture to say, that neither of them would have spread so wide, or risen so high, in its manifesta- tion of the Redeemer's glory, as did this one. Those would regard more the means whereby the great work of Redemption was to be accomplished,—the healing of sin, the overcoming of death ; but this shews us the blessed work completed, and in its most glorious result. “These things speak I to you that your joy may be full.” This was the tendency of His discourses, and of the writings of His Apostles —and thus, in ministering to the fulness of human joy, He is going further, and shewing more completely the glory of His Incarnation in our nature, than if He had ministered to human sorrow, because under Him and in His Kingdom, all sorrow is but a means to joy, all sorrow ends in joy. “Ye now therefore have sorrow,” He says to His dis- ciples of their orphan state in the world : “but I will come and see you again, and ye shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” Water made Wºme. I 37 Take yet another view of this miracle. The gift which our Lord bestowed in it is ever used in Scripture, however it has been perverted by man's evil and sinful lusts, as setting forth to us the invigorating and cheer- ing effects of the Spirit of God on man's heart. “The Lord will make a feast of wines on the lees well refined : ” —“Come ye, buy wine and milk without money and without price: ”—these are the prophetic representations of the rich blessings of the Christian covenant. And so our Lord, in opening His treasure of these rich blessings, does so by imparting the lower gift, the type of His better and more lasting bestowal. And St. John has thought it worth while to record, that the wine which He bestowed was the best of its kind, as all His gifts are better than any other gifts; as His works of nature and His works of grace are ever the best and the noblest, marvels of skill and mercy —for He doeth all things well. - All this was manifesting forth His glory, and the character of His work on earth ; and so it was, when He turned water into wine, the baser element into the nobler, the weaker into the stronger. For thus He ever does with all that is merely ours, when He comes with His transforming power and His heavenly grace. By that power the weak becomes strong, the earthly be. comes heavenly, the transitory becomes abiding and eternal. It is He alone Who can turn the mere flashes of human joy into a holy steady flame which even the grave shall not extinguish : He alone, Who can change the sorrow of the world, which worketh death, into godly I 38 A/27ac/es : Sorrow, which bringeth forth the peaceable fruits of right- eousness :—Who bestows the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But more manifestations of His glory yet remain behind. He did all this simply by His own creative power. And the process was hidden from human view, In the vessels, or in pouring from vessel to vessel, did His power in a moment work that wondrous change, which is yearly during a whole season wrought by Him in nature, when the moisture of the earth is taken up by the vine, circulates as sap in the branch and the bud and the bloom, becomes ripened into the juice of the grape, and yet more, being by man's labour gathered, pressed, fermented, put by, after years mellows into the good wine. He, Who commonly creates by means and secondary causes, can do without them when He will ; will do without them, when it pleases Him, in the bring- ing about of His great purposes. Yet again. There is something in the very order of His course here which is instructive to us. “Thou hast kept the good wine until now,” says the ruler of the feast. Ever His best, last :-not ever His best first, as the world, anxious for present show, present effect, careless about the distant future. It is not His way to be very gracious at first, and then to cool towards His people ; to invite them to Him, and then fall back from them ; His mercies are new every morning : He giveth more grace,—grace for grace : and evermore those who have loved Him longest love Him best, those who have served Him longest can tell most of His Water 72ade Wºzze. I 39 loving-kindness. He keeps His best until last. Never, till we sit down in the Kingdom of God, shall we know the fulness of joy which is in His presence, and the pleasures which are at His right hand. There none will be disappointed : every one will know and confess that He has kept His best bestowal, till body and Soul and spirit were ready to be filled full with it. But lastly, all this He will do, not at our time, but at His own. Sce how His blessed Mother urged Him forward, being convinced in her own believing heart that He could and would do, what He eventually really did. But mark the reproof which even she earned from Him—“Woman, what have I to do with thee P mine hour is not yet come.” And so do many of us, my brethren, without half her faith and clearness of insight into His purposes, often urge Him forward for our own ease or Consolation, or as we fancy, for His greater and speedier glorification : but the same answer awaits us, if not from His lips, yet from His Providence : we shall be thrust back, and kept standing without and disap- pointed of our earnest wish, till His time is come : and then, but not till then, will He help us, and clear us, and justify us, and Save us, and glorify us:—then when we are fittest,-then when His will is ripest,--then, when it is best. Such, my beloved, are some of the lessons to be learned, some of the rich consolations to be drawn, from this one miracle of our Blessed Lord. Notice the effect in our text:—His disciples believed on Him. O may this same result be produced on every one of you. You ** I4O Miracles. Water made Wºme. have heard in these sermons of your deep need of Him, —of His eternal Godhead, His grace in becoming man for you, and now to-day of His glory as manifested by His miracles generally, and by this one in particular. And to what purpose shall I have spoken and you have heard these things, unless some hearts here be brought to receive Him for their Saviour and Lord : to trust in His power and mercy, to thirst for a share in His glory Go and think of Him, and pray to Him, and serve Him : strive by prayer, by obedience, by patience and hope in believing, for more of His spirit and His like- ness, that one day your vile body may be changed, by a far more wonderful miracle, to be as His glorious body, according to the mighty working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. SERMON XI. (PREACHED IN 1855.) Çijristian Confidentſ in Qºrouble. “And He said unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith ? Then Aſe arose, and 7 ebuked the winds and the sea ; and there was a great ca/m.”—MATT. viii. 26. IT is at least remarkable, that on this particular Sunday we should be using the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel which we have used. The time is a strange and perilous one. Without are fightings, within are fears. The vessel of the State quivers under the fierce winds and waves which assail her ; and we scarcely can tell, whose hand is on the helm. At such a time, we have been praying to Him, Who knoweth us to be set in the midst of So many and great dangers, that by reason of our frailty we cannot stand upright; we have been beseeching Him to grant to us such strength and pro- tection, as may support us in all dangers, and carry us through all temptations. At such a time, we have been reading that the powers set over us, be they what they may, are the ordinance of God ; that our duty is respect and obedience. We, as subjects, have been taught how I42 Christian Conſidence in 77°ouð/e. to serve ; and those who are or who may be our rulers, have been taught how to rule; have been reminded, that they are the ministers not of the popular will for favour, but of God, for good ; and not only this, but also that they bear not the sword in vain, and are here likewise the ministers of God, revengers to execute wrath upon them that do evil. At such a time, finally, we have been reading of that perilous voyage of the Apostles, when the sea beat into their ship, but their Lord was asleep ; when they came and awoke Him y with the cry “Lord, save us, we perish ; ” when although He reproached them with their want of faith, He arose in answer to their prayer, and rebuked the winds and the Sea, so that there was a great calm. So admirably fitted are the prayers of the Church, and her selections from Holy Scripture, to speak a word in season under all varieties of human circumstance ; to comfort, to rebuke, to exhort. And it seems to me that we should be inexcusable at this time, if we passed over all these lessons of instruction, and missed the application to Our Own circumstances so obviously deduced from the services of the day. The drift of those lessons combined may be shortly stated: it is, the Christian's confidence in the path of duty; or if that give way through infirmity, then, the Christian's refuge in the hour of danger. These disciples were following their Lord. He had set them the example of embarking ; and they had Him with them. Herein consisted the point of His reproof. How is it that ye had no faith ? No faith, in the fulfilment of that course Christian Conſidence in 77°ouð/e. I43 of which He had so often spoken to them—that seeking and saving the lost—that being come to fulfil the law and the prophets—no faith (for this happened after the great Series of parables in Matt. xiii. was spoken) in His own words respecting His kingdom—but in all these things, distrust and apprehension. They thought, that the blustering of the gale and the rude buffeting of the waves of Gennesareth were too strong for the Redeemer of mankind—that an accidental storm could overthrow the eternal purposes of God. They were not less wise than other men—but like other men they were thought- less, and timid, overtaken by fear in spite of their better judgment—betraying the mind's conclusions by the heart's infirmity. It may be that for a time their faith held out. When they first observed the wind coming down the mountain valleys bordering the lake, and ruffling the face of the waters, doubtless many a heart among them was brave and confident—“we have Him with us—what harm can befall us P” Perhaps at such a time there were some among them who even congratulated themselves on their safety—who said within them, “Had it been any other occasion, such appearances would have terrified us, but now we know we are Safe—happy are we in such a protector—happy above others around us.” Such may have been their language when danger was only approaching ; but when now the gale increased, and the waves grew more threatening and broke one after another over their bulwarks, and their boat began to fill, what heart could withstand it any longer ? Surely I 44 Christian Conſidence in Zºrouble. He was unconscious of their peril ; were He awake, this would not be. It was another form of Martha's and Mary's speech, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died ; ” and so they come to Him, and stand around Him, and resolve to awake Him. He was in His heavenly Father's hand—fast asleep, and weary—weary with teaching the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. He had that day spoken of the Sower sowing his seed—of the tares of the field–of the grain of mustard seed–of the leaven working unseen—of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price—and the net gathering of all kinds—and He was worn out with fatigue, and slept. How affecting a pic- ture, and how consoling an one for us—how full likewise of instruction | SO completely is He one of us in in- firmity—so entirely are His sympathies with the weary and heavy laden,_for He has been one of them. But though weak and weary, He is tranquil and trustful : knowing the course marked out for Him, He fears not. The waves of the sea are mighty, and rage horribly ; but yet the Lord Who ruleth on high is mightier. But now He is awakened, and hears the cry of His timid disciples, “Lord, save us ; we perish.” Before, He bore our infirmities in His body ; now, He has to withstand them in His spirit. It was but a foretaste of that gloomier night, the hour of the enemy and the power of darkness, when they all forsook Him and fled. But notice His answer, “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith P’’ “Could ye not watch with me one hour 2 ° “Is my help so precarious a thing, that you doubt it, Christian Conſidence in Trouble. I45 when you see it not Must you ever be walking by sight and not by faith ? Is it so, that at the very first trials all your confidence gives way P” But the prayer of faith, be it ever so meek, yet is heard. The Saviour does not again resign Himself to slumber, to try them still further—but He arises and rebukes the wind and the sea. When was ever such a sight seen before as this P. The weary man, who slept while the waves dashed over Him, stands with outstretched hand, com- manding the sea to be still. We have all read of the Persian madman, who in his fury lashed the Hellespont and idly cast fetters into its waters. We have all wondered at his presumption, and laughed him to Scorn in our hearts. But here is One, Who challenges the storm at its height—Who claims to command nature and expects to be obeyed. And He is obeyed ; at His word at once the leaping spray falls from the rocks ; the winds cease, and the waves are at rest ; and as those write who witnessed it, “there was a great calm.” Have we never noted, how an unusual effect in nature awes the spirit, and writes itself deep on the memory— how the gloom of an eclipse is more awful than the gloom of a twilight—how we love to read of the north with its midnight sun, or of the level round of the desert with its bright and glorious stars P So doubtless those Galilean fishermen had often seen their native lake slumbering in peace with its hills reflected in its bosom —but they never saw a calm like this, SO Sudden, so unusual, so bound to His word and following on His gesture, so visibly God's work by His anointed—so L I 46 Christian Conſidence in 7 rouðle. notably the triumph of Him Who stood in the root of humanity and inherited dominion over nature. And thus it was again as of old,—that He Who was not in the whirlwind, nor in the waves, nor in the din of the tempest, spoke to them in the still small voice of that great calm, and their Souls were at peace. And how often in their subsequent course, must this night have come back upon their minds ! Amidst per- secutions and trials, when they, “the Apostles, were set forth last as it were appointed unto death, and were made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men,” how often must the form of their Master standing on that ship's stern, and His word of power, “Peace—be still,” have risen before their minds ! When Peter slept in his prison with four soldiers to keep him, and dreamt of a bright angel coming to release him, and awoke and behold it was no dream,_Surely his waking thoughts must have been on Such scenes as this, and that other, when he began to sink through mistrust, and Jesus upheld him, saying, “Why didst thou doubt, O thou of little faith P '' And have these blessed histories lost their power for als 2 Does interval of time, any more than interval of space, divide us from our Redeemer ? O no | Con- strained by Him to embark, the Christian man, the Christian family, the Christian nation, tempts the wide waste of this world's waters. With them, and among them, is He Himself, dwelling in the heart by faith—in the midst of every two or three who are assembled in His name—found of them that seek Him. And for a Christian Conſidence in 77°ouðle. I47 while, and as long as danger is only in prospect, we feel and rest on this. “God is our hope and strength,” we say; “therefore we will not fear.” And even this is well. It is better to trust in God at any time, than to put any confidence in self, or in our fellow-men. But this our every-day trust will not do for all times. In each man's life there are storms. The waves beat into his ship and threaten to sink it. The very present help of his God seems to have forsaken him. All His former mercies, all the experience which he has had of His love, all his own consciousness of a high calling and appointed duties, and a portion in his Saviour, and a heavenly inheritance, seem to go for nothing. Present danger has unmanned him, and made him to be of little faith. And in such a state do many Christian men and Christian women remain, sometimes for long years or even for life, in hesitation or worse, in weakness or absence of trust, scarce daring to lift an eye to God's promises, or to call them their own. Well for them, if even in this infirmity they fly to the Apostle's remedy, and call upon Him Who slumbers not indeed, but yet will be sought by prayer, with “Save us, Lord ; we perish.” Better far the prayer of little faith, than no prayer at all ; for even this shall be answered. He may not indeed, as in those days of His bodily presence, arise and rebuke the winds and the sea ; He has other ways now, acting as He does by His Spirit on His Church ; but the issue is the same ; there shall be a great calm ; not the mere ordinary calm of common tranquil days, but the calm of holy resignation following 148 Christian Conſidence in 7'youðle. prayer ; a calm in the process of which His whisper within may be heard speaking to the troubled heart, a.S of old to the troubled sea, and saying to it, “Peace, be still.” With the Christian family, the case is similar. With Him among them, in Whom all families of the earth are blessed, they set forth, father and mother and little children, on their voyage through the world. And a godly household is a church within itself, with its con- stituted authorities, its heaven-appointed ministry, its daily prayer, its teaching for the ignorant, its discipline for the offending, its consolation for the mourner, its Sweet refreshments of love, and its members caring for and helping one another. But here again the voyage is not without danger and loss. Here too Christ is in the vessel; sought and found day by day, and acknow- ledged in all their ways. And they fancy themselves ready to meet all that can come on them, in His name and by His strength. If they look forward to privation or separation, they know that He will do all things well, and they think they can trust Him to do them in His own way. But His thoughts are not ours; and often- times danger comes, and trouble comes, on the Christian family, in a way of which they dreamt not. Perhaps the brightest and loveliest, the life of the circle, is snatched away; the brother, whose arm should have stayed the sister through life; or even the head, when most needed for counsel or for Sustenance. In some such unlooked- for shape, from some such unexpected quarter, does the storm descend, and the waves beat in, and the vessel Christian Conſidence in 7 rouð/e. I49 seems ready to sink:-any one but this, any form but the present—the stern reality of dreary sorrow seems to break down faith, and blot out the sun from their heaven. It is as if their Lord slumbered and minded them not. O if any such be here, if faith will not hold out, and confidence has given way,+let them fly to Him in prayer, Who has never forgotten them : the family which once saw itself complete in Him, is still complete in Him by faith; it is because there is little faith, that there is such trouble of heart, and failing of hope : He can make a peace even in mourning, which passeth all understanding—and the heavier the storm has been, the more blessed will be the great calm which shall succeed at His word. And the Christian nation—O would to God that we could appropriate to ourselves more fully that title— would that there were no misgiving when we utter those words—that our statesmen, and our citizens, sought the good of Our people more in a high and Christian spirit, and less in a time-serving and worldly one—the Christian nation goes On its course likewise, a vessel bound across the waste of waters, in obedience to Him, Who Himself is among and with the people that fear Him. Even the heathen poet could see the aptness of the similitude, who sung in strains familiar to every scholar, of the ship of the State, which new waves were about to bear into the Ocean." And the figure has now become hallowed to us by the Gospel history. Here too we may follow the same order as before. As long as * Hor. Od. i. 14. I 50 Christian Conſidence in 77°ouð/e. danger is yet future, or only threatened as near, the Christian men among us can stay themselves on God. He is with us, and what harm can happen to us P. He will never forsake them that fear Him. And so for a time we trust Him, and make our boast in His name. But there are fearful storms which befall nations, as well as families and individuals. Such a storm befell Israel, when her city was wasted, her holy and beautiful house razed to the ground, her people led away captive ; but there were those in Israel who called on their God, and He delivered them and had mercy upon them. Such a storm has again and again befallen those faithful servants of God, “whose bones lie scattered on the Alpine moun- tains cold " " through cruel persecution : but they forsook not Him, and He has never forsaken them. And such a storm is now befalling us. Neither man ought to hide it from his neighbour, nor minister from his people, that our pride is broken, and Our fair hopes are blighted. I deal here with the simple fact, which no one now is hardy enough to deny. And I deal with it as lying in the direct course of my duty as a minister of Christ. For we are, I conceive, each one of us bound, in our Several pulpits, to endeavour at this time to grasp the opportunity to imbue our people with a thoroughly Christian spirit, and to claim these great events for Him Whose messengers we are, that the solemn crisis may not pass in vain. This then is our state : we believe God to be with us; we receive His word, we unite to honour His name; He has shewn us great and signal * Milton, Sonnets. Christian Conſidence in 77°ouble. I5 I mercies even in and among His judgments : all this is for us. But just now we have much against us. The mind of the nation is troubled as it never has been before. There is but one voice, but one thought, among us ; and that one voice and thought is such as, a short time since, we would hardly have owned, or confessed that we anti- cipated. What then is the Christian's hope—what the Chris- tian's duty P To what should you and I betake our- selves at such a time 2 I speak not here of the proper and legitimate efforts which we should make as citizens : they lie not within my province. But in that which does lie within it, I know of but one course which the Chris- tian citizen should take—and that course is, prayer : prayer, earnest, importunate, unceasing. Your confi- dence has given way, your strength is Small, but you have this one refuge left. Our God has not forgotten us—our Saviour slumbers not—but He loves to be called on by His faithful people—and designates Himself as One that heareth prayer. O we do not value prayer enough, as an element in Our national prosperity. We have learned to speak coldly of it, in deference to the ways and thoughts of unbelievers, and have forgotten Our Bibles, and the pleadings and strivings of our closets. And mind I am not now speaking of special days or special forms of prayer: these may be important, if it be only that Some men's consciences cannot be satisfied without them ; but these vanish into mere insignificance, compared with the importance of really praying the prayers we already have, and really hallowing the times I 52 Christian Conſidence in 77°ouð/e. we already use for prayer. Our God is not a God Who will accept only so many new hours devoted to Him, or So many new sentences addressed to Him ; but He is a God Who hears, yea and answers, every desire of every earnest heart which is addressed to Him in His Son's name. And in prayer is our real strength at this period ; in flying to Our Saviour and crying to Him to save us. He may not answer us in the very way we desire ; He may not say at once to the tempest of war, “Peace, be still:” He may not immediately remove all the dark calamities which afflict or impend over our poor fellow- countrymen ; but in His own way, which in the end will be the right way, He will answer prayer, and glorify His name in us and by us. Pray therefore, dearly beloved, to Him, in an especial and urgent manner at this time; pray, even if it be with as little and imperfect faith as the disciples, that He will have mercy on us, and save us for His work yet to come, and make us, not in ourselves, but in and because of that work, to be, as He has before made us, a name and a praise in the earth. SERM O N XII. (PREACHED IN 1862.) 33arables: QThe Oſarts of the ſºftlb. “Aſe spake many things unto them in parables.”—MATT. xiii. 3. IN considering and applying the sacred Doctrines re- lating to our blessed Lord's Person and office, one of the chief sources of our knowledge must of necessity be found in His own discourses. He Himself said to the Jews, “I am, that which I speak unto you.” He is His own best expositor. Now in studying His discourses, one peculiarity can- not fail to strike us, which they have even amongst the sayings of inspiration itself. All these sayings are equally true, but they are not all equally deep and manifold in their meaning. Some sayings, for example, of the Apostles, are very simple and plain, and clearly have but one reference, which everybody can perceive. Then again, if the Apostles' sayings are difficult to understand, it is very often a difficulty of this kind : do they mean this, or do they mean that 2 or, out of three or four possible meanings, which shall we take 2 And I 54 A'araó/es : One man understands them in one way, another man in another way; or perhaps in the course of time some laborious student hits upon a meaning which all agree upon afterwards, and so the difficulty is solved. I do not mean to say that such is always the case with the Sayings of the Apostles: but it is beyond doubt their general character. If we now turn to the sayings of our Lord, here again we meet with many which are very plain and simple, and with many also which seem difficult to understand : but, easy or difficult, they all have this about them, that they are inexhaustible in their depths of wisdom, and in their applications to man and to man’s world. In the one case, the Divine treasure was in earthen vessels: in the other, in a heavenly. In the one case, the Holy Spirit spoke by those who were limited in their powers and knowledge, and He adapted His Divine inspiration to their human characteristics, and styles, of thinking and writing : in the other He spoke by One to Whom the Spirit was not given by measure : Who knew all things from the begin- ning ; and to Whom, even in the emptying of His glory, to which He submitted Himself in His humiliation, all the realities of things lay open. And hence too it is that, while we speak, and truly, of the peculiar style of writing of St. Paul or of St. John or of St. Peter, no one ever thought of attributing a style of speaking to Our Lord. Our very feelings shrink from such an expres- sion ; which is no mean test of its being an improper one. The reason is, that His sayings are the very ex- pressions of endless and fathomless truth ; in human The Zares of the Field. I 55 form indeed, spoken with the tongue and written with the pen, but spoken as man never spoke before, written, when written down, as faithful remembrances of what He said, and unmodified by the individual style and character of those who recorded them. And pur- suing the same thought, it is interesting and instructive to note, how the holy Evangelists have been guided to follow their individual bent, not in composing, but in choosing among, the discourses of Our Lord : St. Matthew, who loves to write of Him as the King, and of His Gospel as the Kingdom of the heavens, giving us more those discourses which set forth His glory and majesty;-St. Luke, who presents Him to us as the gracious and immortal Saviour, giving us mostly dis- courses full of His rich mercy and loving-kindness;– while St. John, whose object it is to set Him before us as the fulness of light, and sustenance and life to man, as coming to His own and rejected by them, but as loving and loved by His disciples, follows his great scheme regularly onwards, by recording for us those discourses in which all these points are one after another brought forward. After what has been said, another matter regarding Our Lord's sayings naturally comes to our thoughts. He Who knew all truth in its purest and holiest forms, what was His method of teaching 2 Let us first ask, z0/kom had He to teach P And the answer is, He had various classes of persons, very differently affected towards Him, and very differently endowed with power to understand Him, First, there would be His own I 56 Aa2-aff/es : disciples, willing indeed to listen to and appreciate what He said, but mistaken in their view of that which He came to do, and quite unable as yet to take in any explanation of it. Then there were the common people, variously disposed –for the most part hearing Him gladly, but dull of comprehension, and ready to be influenced by His enemies. Then there were these last, the Scribes and Pharisees, learned in the outward science of the law, eager for His halting, ready to catch hold of and press to the utmost against Him anything falling from His lips which should at all violate their formal and Superstitious maxims of interpretation and practice. How should the All-wise One, in His humiliation, and condescending to be as man among men, proceed in One way of teaching for all these so widely differing hearers ? Should He lay before them naked spiritual truth, such as in the unfathomable depths of His own Divine Being He contemplated P Alas, to say nothing of what those hearers were, what human ear could hear, what human soul could bear it P Should He anticipate the teaching of the Spirit Who was to come upon the Church, and set forth the mighty doctrines of atonement for sin, of justification by faith in Him, of sanctification by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost? Again, should He declare Himself the fulfiller of the types of the law—the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world P Who among them could receive these things P. When we hear, late on in His course on earth, that His very disciples questioned among themselves what the resurrec- tion from the dead should mean, we may well imagine 7%e Zares of the Field. I 57 how hopeless, in the ordinary human methods of teach- ing, it would have been to introduce topics of this kind among His audience, before He had been lifted up on the Cross, had risen from the tomb, or had sent down His Spirit from the Father. Once more;—should He become the stern and lofty moralist, and lay down to them the eternal limits of purity and of vice P Doubt- less this was His office in a sense ; and this He has done as none other ever has ; but if it chiefly moulded the form of His discourse, how were they to be gained to this teaching P He came to teach all, as He came to bless all, and to die for all. How many, think you, among those He addressed would have gathered round him to listen to the purest and truest of moral disquisi- tions P He, remember, was not one set to teach by institution of man's device : One sure of an audience, and privileged to be dull: He came with a mission higher than that from men, to seek and to save : He was to draw men with the words of interest and sympathy;- to attach them, so that they would rise up from their occupation, leave their fishing and their tax-gathering, and go after Him. Again then, what method of teaching did He choose P How did He produce the wonderful effects of which we read P Before we fully answer, let us take into account one more circumstance very essential to be remembered. Never man spake like this man. Doubtless it was a spirit-penetrating and heart-stirring thing, to sit and hear that Teacher speak. O what it must have been to look but for once on that brow, calm as the evening I 58 Aaraó/es : sky; to hear but one saying uttered in that voice, whose every tone sunk with gentle persuasion into the very depths of the being ! Well might the Lord Him- Self say to His disciples, “Blessed are the eyes that see the things that ye see, and the ears that hear the things that ye hear.” Still we know how variously even ex- cellences of speech and manner are interpreted, accord- ing to the feeling towards the speaker. What one enjoys and feels in his heart as simple earnestness, another turns away from and loathes as affectation : what one finds attractive, is repulsive to another. And doubtless so it was also in the case of our blessed Lord Himself: His enemies, in order to remain His enemies, must have had their minds poisoned against Him ; and even His Divine benignity, and His loving wisdom, can only have exasperated them more from time to time in their predetermined enmity to Him. It was when this spirit of implacable hatred first began to manifest itself, when the Scribes and Pharisees began to ascribe to the influence of Satan Our Lord's gracious miracles, that He saw fit, in His wisdom, to adopt that peculiar method of teaching of which my text speaks. “He began to speak to them many things in parables.” And what is a parable P I am not going to lay down all the distinctions which separate it from the fable, or the proverb, or the allegory: this has been excellently done by those who have written on the sub- ject: but I will only say, bearing these distinctions in mind, that a parable is a fictitious story intended to convey spiritual truth, and is of a nature such that it is 7%e Zares of the Field. I 59 always taken from what might be actual life among men. Its form is grave, as its purpose is serious. It enters into the relations of life, father and son, husband and wife, master and Servant, king and people ; into the operations of agriculture and commerce, the pursuits and ways of living among men, their differences, and their affections. In the highest sense of the word, but One Person could ever have worthily taught in parables, and that One was the Creator Himself. For it is required in such a story, that it should enter into the deep spiritual meanings which lie under all the relations and employments of life : and who knows these but God only P A mere man might make the parable fit the truth here and there : his applications of his tale might be doubted, might be criticised : he is commonly obliged to take a lower form for his instruction, and to put it into the mouths of unreasoning beings, as in the fable ; thus leaving the region of reality, and missing all the deeper purposes of the other. But when Our Lord spoke the parables in the Gospels, He Himself tells us that He did it with the view of their carrying various shades of meaning, according as men's hearts were or were not disposed to receive, or capable of apprehending them. They were in fact in this respect just what that world of beauty and truth is from which they were taken. The child rejoices in the flower that he has plucked ; its gay colours delight him, its sweet scent is pleasing to him ; the botanist makes the same flower a study, and classi- fies it, and examines its structure : the moralist, and the poet, and the painter, also claim it for the uses of in- I 60 Aaraó/es : struction and of art. And so it may be with the parable. First there is the simple story, which may interest even the heart of an intelligent child. Which of us is there that does not remember his fresh interest when a father's or a mother's voice first told him of the sower going forth to Sow, or of the lost sheep, or of the prodigal son, or of the wise and foolish virgins P Nor is this the case only with the young at one time of their lives: it is so with the simple and half-educated all their lives —with often this exception, which will lead us on to the next step in those that hear, that ever and anon some real event in their own lives, some joy or sorrow, some Overflowing of mercy, or of some bitter drop of anguish in their cup, seems to bring Out new meaning from that which they fancied they knew before. As with the AEolian harp that has long Sounded one chord only in the gentle breezes of ordinary life, at times like these the strong wind of God's Spirit rushes over the strings and awakens new and higher harmonies, unheard before. And if this is so with them, what is it with those who love to think, and to weigh, and to delve into the deeper senses of those wonderful revelations of truth P Ever- more by them are the Lord's parables seen in many and shifting lights, evermore are they heard speaking to them new and rich counsel as their need requires. None have ever exhausted their depth, none have ever so discovered their reference and connexion, that there are not new references and new connexions left for others to discover. Not unfrequently, as for instance in the parables of the unforgiving servant who had himself 7%e Zares of the Field. I6 I been forgiven, and of the good Samaritan, great Chris- tian doctrines lie beneath the surface of their tale : sometimes, as in those of the wicked husbandmen and of the barren fig-tree, they are pregnant with prophetic meaning which time shall bring out; sometimes again, as in those of the lost sheep, and of the rich man and Lazarus, they open to us glimpses into the unseen and unknown world : still more frequently, as in the great first parable of the sower, and in this one, they describe to us the state of the Church of God, in the world, and at the end of the world. And as we study each of these, and place it in new lights and connexions, more and richer meanings continually open to us, and will do so as long as we are in this realm of imperfect and still to be completed knowledge. With these remarks before us, let us spend the remainder of our time in considering the parable; that of the Tares of the Field. It forms, as we well know, one of the most important of Our Lord's parables. Of itself it would take this rank, owing to the great and world-wide interest of its Subject : and its importance is increased by its being one of those of which the great Teacher Himself has vouchsafed to give us a full and minute interpretation. First let us notice what the parable is about. It is a likeness setting forth to us the kingdom of the heavens : —by which name the Christian dispensation, or the state of the Church of Christ on earth, is generally known in St. Matthew. It represents to us a field, which is ex- plained to mean the world —and a man who has sown M I 62 Aa2-aff/es. good seed in it, who is said to be the Son of man, i.e. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Saviour. This exactly agrees with what our Lord Himself tells us of His Gospel;-that it should be preached before the end, in all nations. This preaching He Himself began ; and in His strength, and by His commission, His Apostles and those who have followed them have carried on, and still are carrying on. And that which is sown, the good seed, is the word of God —the good news of the Holy Gospel. No one need be surprised, that this very seed should be said in the explanation to be the children of the kingdom, i.e. the true servants of Christ. For it is here, as in the parable of the sower : when the seed has fallen into the Soil, and taken root, it becomes the plant, transforming the soil into itself: so that they into whose hearts the seed is dropped, when the seed grows, become them- selves the plants which that seed produces. The main principle of life and action which we follow, is not part of us : we are part of it; and it is the root and centre of our being. Thus then, and with this purpose, the good seed is everywhere dropped by the Great Sower and His servants. But this is not the only sowing that takes place. The sower of the good seed has an enemy. His enemy came while men slept, and sowed the Seed of noxious weeds over the field. This wicked act is an exercise of malice not without example even in Our Own times. I have myself known such a thing wilfully done, and made the subject of legal damages. Now notice the doctrine herein contained. This 7%e 7ares of the Field. I63 enemy, our Lord expressly tells us, is the devil. While men slept, not, while the Son of man slept, while, not the Great Head of the Church, Who never slumbers, but they who were His infirm and imperfect ministers, slept, —came this enemy, this arch-enemy of God and man, and sowed his evil seed. I have already told you that if you believed in Christ at all, you must also be prepared to believe in a spiritual world —in good and evil spirits, both employed in us, and around us. And observe here His own distinct assertion of this:—of the good by and by ;-of the evil here. These children of the wicked one,—these tares that spring up in the field of the Church, are the sowing of God's enemy, the devil —of him who is ever counterworking the blessed work of the Son of man and His agents. Nothing can be more plainly declared as a truth for us by Our Lord, than this. But we proceed. When the wheat came up, and put forth its fruit, then appeared the tares also. And now COIſ) eS the difficulty felt by the servants of the owner of the field ; “Didst thou not sow good seed P. Whence then came the tares 2 ” And So it ever is and will be in the Church. The Gospel is good ; its preaching is good ; the ordinances and Sacraments are good ; good seed is Sown, and Christ sows it. And yet how is it, that ever- more in the Church there are multitudes of bad men, unholy men, unbelieving men, growing among good men, looking like good men, partaking of all the rich privileges of membership of Christ P. How, and whence, came they P Hear the Lord's answer: “An Enemy hath I64 Aaraó/es : done this.” “They are the children of the wicked one : ” none of Christ's sowing: no growth out of the sacra- ments and means of grace : no result of men trying to be righteous overmuch : nothing of the kind ; but dis- tinctly, and as matter of fact, the result of the devil's work counteracting Christ's work. And yet silly shallow men, with all this taught and forewarned them, stand and look on upon the Church, and in the spirit of an unbelief they have not the courage to profess, whisper about, “What is the use of all this stir about the Church, —all this praying and preaching and Sacraments and ordinances P. We don’t see that men are made much better by it : we can point out as bad men among Churchmen, even among ministers, as any that are found in the world outside.” And suppose you can. Did He Who founded the Church, and who saw all her course before Him, ever lead you to expect otherwise P Nay, has He not here expressly told us it would always be so 2 That this is no excuse for the sins of Churchmen, we see by the awful end of the parable ; but it is an accounting for what will ever be found in the Church,- the mixture of good and bad men. But we now come to another feature. The servants are not only surprised, but offended, by this state of things : scandalized, that their lord's field should grow evil weeds with the wheat : “Wilt thou then that we leave our work and go and gather them up 2" Now this question represents the mind of a very large party in Christ's Church in all ages. Its acts are stamped on her history : and not only SO, but they are among us in 7%e Zares of the Field. I65 our own time also. Make the Church pure, say they : count those only the Church, who are converted to God, and live by faith in Christ: let us have a close com- munion ; none at our Table, who answer not to Our test. O how prevalent is this spirit; not among one party only, but among all parties: and how busy it ever is in men's hearts and practices. But let us hear the answer. He said unto them, “Nay: lest while ye gather together the tares ye root up with them the wheat also.” Memorable and blessed words ! How do we know, how does any man on earth know, the good from the bad, so as to be able to say, as between two men of outwardly correct life, which is, and which is not, a servant of God 2 What folly it is, as well as sin, to make the use of certain religious words and phrases, or the use of certain devotional practices or postures of outward reverence, the test of inward spiritual good in a man | What hypocrite cannot put on either of these, as much as may be required of him P And is not every age full of sad examples of hypocrites who do, and end by bringing open disgrace on the party which adopts them 2 But look on the other side. “Lest ye root up the wheat with them.” How many genuine servants of God have been discouraged, dejected, robbed of their hope, and perhaps of their faith too, by this narrow and un- christian zeal “He is not one of us ; his words and gestures and religious practices are not ours : therefore he does not belong to Christ.” This is what our re- ligious leaders and writers on either side think and say 166 Parables. The Tares of the Field. every day. And what is the effect? Discouragement, coldness of hearts, deadness to Christ's work, general distrust of one another. But what does our Lord com- mand 2 “Leave both to grow together till the harvest.” Feed both, love both, anathematize none, exclude none : make tares into wheat if you will, but destroy not God's wheat by making it into tares. For there is not the slightest fear that any tares will ever be gathered into God's barn at His harvest. Vex not and fret not your- selves. He knows His own ; He knows those who are not. At the season of the harvest, He will say to His reapers, “Collect first the tares and bind them in bundles in order to burn them.” “So,” our Lord tells us, “will the holy angels go forth at the end, and will collect out of His kingdom all the causes of offence, and will cast them into the furnace of fire : there shall be the great weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Let us not then anticipate that final separation, but rather take care above all things that at that time He find us bringing, or having brought forth, good fruit to His praise. Blessed are they who shall be thus found at His coming. For He Who is all mercy and grace, and Who spoke this parable, not to denounce judgment, but that place for repentance would be given to all, ends it with gracious and joyous words : “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” SERMON XIII. (PREACHED IN 1856.) Çjríšt the QCreator. “All things were made by Him ; and without Him was not anything made £hat was (or hath been) made.”—JOHN i. 3. THE first thing which we know of the Son of God is, that He was in the beginning with God, and was God, coequal and coeternal with the Father. He is the Creator of all things. No fact can be more plainly declared in words, than this is by the words of my text. But lest it might seem that we had rested so vast a matter on an insulated text, let us first refer you to other passages, where the same truth is no less plainly set forth. We cannot cast our eye down this first chapter of St. John, without finding that he again recurs to this statement as plain and undoubted : “He was in the world,” he says, “ and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.” The Gospels, forming as they do the record of His humiliation, do not ordinarily speak of His majesty and power. But when the Holy Spirit took of the things of Christ and shewed them to the Apostles, then we find them un- I68 Christ the Creator. mistakeably proclaiming this fundamental truth. Thus St. Paul in Col. i. 16, 17, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature: for by Him all things were created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.” And in the opening of the Epistle to the Hebrews we read, “God . . . hath in these last days spoken to us by His Son, Whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by Whom also He made the worlds.” “And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are the works of Thine hands.” I need hardly remind you, that the Church of Christ in her Creeds has borne unequivocal testimony to Christ as the Creator. In that one, which formed the confession of the great Council of Nicaea, where the Godhead of our Lord was especially asserted, we just now declared Him to be “very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father:” and then added, as a further description of His majesty, “By Whom all things were made.” I will not now dwell on the prophetic testimonies to the same truth in the Old Testament. I do not wish to-day to enter on questions of Scripture interpretation, but to state to you this great doctrine and its conse- quences simply and plainly. How numerous and how direct those testimonies are, the One sample of them already given from the Epistle to the Hebrews may Christ f/he Creator. I69 suffice to shew you. For if that Psalm, so directly addressed to the eternal God, can be claimed for the Son of God, it is obvious that similar addresses, occur almost where and in what language they may, are to be regarded as having reference to the same Divine Person. But I cannot omit some of those proofs which our blessed Lord gave during His course in the flesh, of His right and power as Creator. I find one of them in the first miracle that He wrought, that of turning water into wine. There is here no trace of delegated power, as when Moses was commanded to stretch out his hand over the rivers and they should become blood. I find another in His arising and rebuking the winds and the Sea : another in His language and act to the poor leper, “I will : be thou clean.” I contrast the one miracle with St. Paul's conduct in the storm, when he says to the terrified crew around him, “There stood by me this night the angel of God Whose I am and Whom I serve, and said, Fear not, Paul : ” and I contrast the other with that of St. Peter, when he was asked an alms by the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,_and replied to him, “Silver and gold have I none : but such as I have give I thee : ” and what was this 2 Did he say as of himself, “I will that thou rise up and walk P’’ Not so: but “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up, and walk.” I find yet rarer proofs of the Creator- ship of the Lord Jesus, as I look on in the history of His miracles. What was the twice-repeated miracle of multiplying the food of thousands, but an act of crea- j } I 7o Christ f/he Creator. tion P And it has been long ago remarked that in raising the dead, the Lord speaks and acts in a manner totally different from that of any of His commissioned Servants. “Elias,” says Massillon, “raises the dead, it is true ; but he is compelled to stretch himself many times Over the body of the child : he uses impassioned words and gestures and prayers: we see clearly that he is invoking a power above him ; that he is summoning from the kingdom of death a soul which is not at his call; that he is not himself master of death and life. Jesus Christ raises the dead as He performs the most Ordinary acts : He speaks as a master to those who, sleep that sleep of death : we see clearly that He is God of the dead as of the living, He is never more calm than when doing His greatest deeds.” These and other proofs of His Creatorship were continually breaking forth even during the period of the hiding of His majesty and power. We believe then in the Son of God as the Creator of the universe. Let us try to set this truth before us in its reality : to see with all reverence, and under the limitations and revelations of Scripture, what we mean, when we say this. The Son of God is the eternal Word of the Father : He is the expression of the Father's will acting in perfect accord with, and in pursuance of, the purpose of Him Who ruleth all things after the counsel of His own will. When then we say that the Son of God made the worlds, we do not speak as of an act of His, independent of and disconnected from the Father, for this, from the very nature of the Son of God, Christ the Creator. I 71 is impossible. Let us take the precise words of our Lord Himself on so sublime a point : Jesus said to the Jews, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do : for what- soever things He doeth, these also doeth the Son in like manner.” And in accordance with this His declaration, is the expression before quoted from the Epistle to the Hebrews, where, after it has been said that He is the brightness of the Father's glory and the very impress of His substance, it is added, “by Whom also He made the worlds; ” i.e. by Whose agency in creation the great creative purpose of the Father was carried into effect. And in our text itself, and that similar assertion in the Ioth verse, “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not,” the pre- position used both times is not that of primary origina- tion, as if Creation sprung out of the will and purpose of the Son of God ; but that of personal agency, repre- sented indeed correctly by our word “by,” but requiring this explanation in order to be accurately understood. If it were English to say, all things were made “through " Him, it would perhaps give the meaning more closely : but when we would express Such agency, we use the word “by : ” “by Whom also He made the worlds.” The creative work of the Son is then the carrying out of the creative purpose of the Father. But, be it ever remembered, not as by a subordinate agent, to whom it is said, “Do this, and he doeth it : ” for the Son is coeternal and coequal with the Father, and acts in accord I 72 Christ Z/he Creator. with Him as a Divine personal agent, delighting to do His will, and to carry out His purpose. Now let us come down to the Gospel narrative, and connect this high truth with the Lord's humiliation. We are not enough accustomed to do this. We are apt to forget His glory and His majesty in the meanness of His earthly investiture. It is not now our immediate employment to speak of the vastness and marvellous nature of that self-humiliation. We will now take that for granted, as simply evidenced by the facts of the history, and merely set against it the great doctrine of which we now speak. Endeavour then to realize in your minds, brethren, that He Who lay in the manger at Bethlehem, a helpless child, had Himself hung out as a curtain those heavens in which the star was pointing to the place of His birth ; had Himself created her from whom He Sprang according to the flesh, and whose word His youthful years obeyed. Realize in your minds that all those accessions in wisdom and stature, of which St. Luke tells us, grew up around His mind and body by the wonderful operation of laws which He Himself had made, and capacities which His own hand had im- planted. Connect this view of Him with some of the incidents and sayings of that life on earth for us. See Him fasting forty days and forty nights in the wilder- ness : subjecting His bodily frame, the work of His own hands, to extreme hunger, the natural penalty of those laws to which He had subjected its being and nurture. Full well did the subtle foe know when he came to Him, the extent of the power which He was then hiding Christ the Creator. I 73 behind the vast purpose of redemption : “If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” And our Lord does not deny the inference here implied. He does not say, “Such power is not given to the Son of God :” nay, His very first miracle, as we have said, proves that it was : that the processes of creation all lay in His hand, to carry on, to accelerate, to dispense with, as seemed good to Him. But that which He did say in reply, conveys as deep a lesson as His tacit acknowledgment did : “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Thou hast spoken rightly of the creative power of the Son of God ; but it reaches further than thou hast imagined. It can command not only that these stones be made bread, but that this body be sustained without bread, if it be His will, in accord with Whom the Son of God performs all His acts. Again, watch Him as He is teaching on that mountain, with His disciples gathered around. Mark His words when He points out to them, as excitements to their trust in God, the birds which flew over their heads, and the flowers on which they were treading. “Behold the fowls of the air ; consider the lilies of the field.” Notice this for the sake of the wonderful saying which follows. “Verily, I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Now never man spake like this. When man directs admiration to a flower, it is because he having more exquisite taste commends to others those beauties which have been overlooked, or because he has with the searching eye of I 74 Christ the Creator. Science discovered some minute adaptation of form, or combination of colours, unobserved before. If he makes Comparisons of this kind, it is mere matter of human estimate : it is all, as we say, subjective : his words are such as these: “Who would not prefer the exquisite beauty of the flower to the vain attempts of man to rival nature ?” but our Lord goes down into the secret of the flower's life, and, as in this saying, asserts that of the hidden things of creation, which no eye but that of the Creator ever saw. “In truth I say to you, that the creative skill of exquisite adaptation and colour bestowed on these (that skill which He Himself exer- cised, that colour which was prepared in His own labora- tory and laid on with His own pencil), surpasses all the applications of texture and dye, all the tinsel of metal and jewels with which the noblest of earth's kings bedecks himself.” It is worthy of our pains also, to trace in the parables of our blessed Lord the same manner of dealing with the processes and secrets of nature. All seem Open and familiar to Him. He views them, and speaks of them, not like us when we speak of them, as wonderful things seen from without and partly understood, but as of things which His own hand has made, and laws which His own wisdom has ordained. I own that such indi- cations as we are now mentioning would be far too slight to found the doctrine of His Creatorship upon : nor am I adducing them for that purpose—but to illustrate the doctrine when once grounded on other and plainer considerations. To us Christians, who Christ //e Creator. I 75 believe in Him as the Creator of all things, it is matter of deep interest to watch every simplest word that falls from Him in allusion to nature and her processes, to man and his capacities: knowing as we do that such words will be spoken not from the weak and imperfect store of knowledge which man possesses, but from those inexhaustible stores of divine wisdom, which first devised them, and brought them into being. Having then followed this great doctrine through its proofs and its illustrations, it remains that we yet speak of its references and consequences relatively to our- selves. “What think ye of Christ 2 ° is the most im- portant question which can be asked of us. According as we estimate Him rightly or wrongly, worthily or inadequately, so will our discipleship of Him be, our devotion to Him, our imitation of Him, our life in union with Him, our participation of His Spirit. Well then— “All things were made by Him.” What then is this world to us Christians? What, but a standing testimony - to the power and love of our Redeemer? And do these seem to you mere commonplace words P Do you doubt what difference it would make in our thoughts and practice if we were constantly to bear this in mind P O there need be no room for such question, if you consider aright the object of the thoughts and life of a Christian man. “To me,” said St. Paul, “to live is Christ.” “Because I live,” said our Lord Himself, “ye shall live also.” The very life of the believing Christian man, the thoughts which are the breath of his soul, the energies which he puts forth, the words which he speaks, 176 Christ the Creator. the hopes on which he sustains himself, are Christ—full of Him—just so far worth as they are penetrated by Him. He is in fact our Life—the only principle to us of real vitality. Now let me ask you a question with regard to the lower natural life of the body. Is it of no consequence to us, whether the body be entirely, or only partially penetrated by its wonderful principle of life P Is it no matter to us if a limb or two hang useless and paralyzed—no matter if the eye be dim, the ear dull, the hand trembling, the feet halting? O there is no doubt here. The natural man knows better. “Let me have,” he says, “every limb sound, every faculty per- fect.” For this he spares no pains, he grudges no outlay. He expends large treasure, he traverses vast continents, he denies himself and he afflicts himself, that he may recover the shrinking limb, and nerve the loosened frame—he suspends his employment, §nd goes into exile from his home, that he may once more feel the current of life bounding through his veins. Well may we say of men, O fools and blind | Ready to spend all this pains (and we blame it not) over the natural frame which must drop into dust and dissolve— but for that glorious and eternal life of the man, even Christ in him the hope of glory, not awakened to appreciate its loss, not caring for its absence, not desiring, or but faintly desiring its presence and com- pletion ; going on through these years, which are gathering up behind us into judgment, with the limbs of the soul paralyzed, its energies unexerted, and yet no care taken, no cost bestowed, no thought given that Christ //e Creator. 77 Christ may live and be felt through the inner life; that He may be known as He is and has revealed Himself, Whom to know truly is eternal life. Yes, brethren, it does make an immense difference in a Christian, whether he knows all or only a portion of his Redeemer. There is a miserable semi-socinian view of Christ, which is even now paralyzing the energies of many a sincere though but partial believer. It is considered enough to accept Him as a teacher—to acknowledge with the lips that He died for us—to have some barren belief of His present High-priesthood in heaven : but O how different is this from the thoughts of Him which my text ought to inspire “All things were made by Him : and without Him was not anything made that hath been made.” To him who comes thoroughly to believe and feel this truth, the earth and all that is therein puts on a different aspect. Before, it required an exertion to think of Christ. He was to him as an absent friend whose image must be recalled by an effort, and that effort perhaps the greater in proportion to the wish to recall the image. Christ was not bound up with his ordinary thoughts : not present to him when he went out and came in, when he conversed, and wrought his daily work. And an absent Christ of this kind has very little power over a man for good ; lives not in his life, speaks not in his discourse, kindles not in his eye. But after this truth has been apprehended and felt, how vast is the charge “All things were made by Him : ” then I owe to Him Who died for me and Who lives to make intercession for me, my being itself and this bodily frame * N 178 Christ the Creator. in which it is enshrined: in all I see about me, I see His redeeming love manifested ; the heavens and the earth and the sons of men and the tribes of animal life, all speak with one voice, all testify to one source of their being — one upholding and fostering hand. Wherever I turn, is Christ. Without Him was nothing made. The Cold abstraction known by the name of natural religion, which never converted a heart nor amended a life, no longer chills my thoughts as I meditate on creation : the religion of nature is to me the religion of grace. All science becomes lighted up by the Redeemer's presence. The Spirit of truth is no longer the mere right-deeming of man, but the living Spirit of Christ. And not only does the intelligent observer of creation become thus informed and elevated by recognizing the Creatorship of Christ, but the same glorious truth visits and blesses the humblest Son of toil : calls him out from stupid indifference to God's works into reverent and grateful acknowledgment of his Saviour in all things. For observe the mind of such an one towards creation around him. I will Suppose him a religious man, knowing the name and the work of Christ, and taking it to himself in faith, but taught in the usual loose and inaccurate way respecting Him in Whom he believes. For forgiveness of sin, for strength in temptation, for Salvation hereafter, he looks, it is true, to Him ; but what of the world without 2 It, he has been taught, was made by Some mighty Power or other, separate from Christ, and never associated with Him in his mind. It is a rough world ; a world full of Christ f/he Creator. I 79 trial, and of incentive to sin. And this world has nothing to do with Christ, nor Christ with it. So he battles through the world as he best may, by the light and in the strength of his more solemn hours and his resolutions at the throne of grace : but he never dreams that it is all Christ's world ; that all therein is, so to speak, part of the furniture and instruments of redemption : that the field he tills, the material which he manufactures, the loom which he works, are all, though in a different class and manner, only SO many pages of God's great testimony to His blessed Son : that every rub which the world gives him, every temptation with which it solicits him, every condition and arrangement of its objects around him, comes from the permission and subsists with the continued watchful care of Him, Who loved him and gave Himself for him. What wonder if such an one misses Christ in life 2 what wonder if he finds the world dreary and cheerless P what wonder if, while you are informing his head with Christian doctrine, his heart, which is of flesh, and beats in time to the great life of things around him, has another interest, another employment P Dear brethren, we Christians have very much to learn concerning creation. We have most of us yet to knit up the link which alone can cause the spark of Divine truth to pass through and animate creation—that link which unites it to Christ. We want, not merely for half an hour this morning, but through life, to connect Him with all the processes of life around us, with the heavens and their wonders, with the earth and her tribes, with I8O Christ the Creator. the objects which lie around our daily path, and with this life of ours itself, and the marvels and mercies of our bodily frames. So that whichever way we look, is Christ: without Him was nothing made which hath been made. In the busy city, where man crowds and Seethes around us, where the world, and the man of mere worldly taste, see all that is mean and vulgar and selfish and repulsive, even there is His power and His love : in Him all this mighty stir, all these manifold interests, consist and are held together : He is the ever- present Shepherd of all this vast wandering browsing flock: He it is Who upholds every step in safety: Who bears in His hand every life, and thinks of each one more than He thinks of Himself. It is He Who is at this moment carrying onward, with infinite and never- erring wisdom, the vast complication of all men's interests; the tangled and intertwined influences of so many thousand lives on One another. And His mighty and beneficent presence equally watches over all nature, and Ought to be discerned by us in it. From man again downward, without Him is nothing. Creation, as we long since saw, is but a part of Redemption : is but the stage, on which the Redeemer's great love is outwardly manifested. Let us end our reflections with two lessons: and the first, of warning. We say to the man of the world—to the careless inactive Christian—how can you escape, if you neglect So great a Salvation ? A salvation not con- fined to one portion of your being, and of all that you are and see, but whereof your whole being, and all C/.77% ſhe Creafor. I8 I around you, is but the instrument and the working out? Christ is not only a moral Saviour, not only a spiritual Saviour, but an universal Saviour: the Saviour of the body as well as of the soul, both of which He has made and upholds. The less excuse then for those who know Him not and obey Him not, where He is so amply and constantly revealed. And the last word, one of exceed- ing comfort. Without Him, is nothing. Let us take this fully into our thoughts, and bear it about with us in our lives. He is not an absent, but a present Saviour. In the world which He has made, there is no mischance, no misadventure, general or individual. He is not far removed, so that we need go to seek Him ; but is here and everywhere present: not our souls only, not the witness within us merely, but our bodies, and all that is around us, testify to Him Whom we love. May we so find Him and ever converse with Him, in His works, and in His world, as well as in our spiritual life, that then, when we most need Him, we may most easily find Him to be with us. SERM O N XIV. (PREACHED IN 1855.) £obe in the Details of QCreation. “The Zord is good to all : and His tender mercies are over all His works.” Ps. cxlv. 9. I HAVE previously endeavoured to answer the question, “What should a Christian think of Creation ?” At the beginning of this enquiry, I proceeded from the defini- tion which God has given us of Himself, viz.: God is Love, and from it, tracking the footsteps of Scripture and the Creeds of the Church, ventured to infer those Persons and relations in the Godhead, which our holy faith acknowledges. We thence found reason to con- clude, that Creation was an act of free condescension on the part of God; not necessary to Him, either for His being or for His self-manifestation—but the result of His love, working not by necessity, but of choice. We saw that Creation is no part of God, no emanation from Him, but called by His Almighty Power out of nothing, to serve the counsel of His will. We also saw, that the special love which prompted God in Creation, was, the love of the Father for the Son; the will of the Move in the Details of Creation. 183 Father, that by His beloved Son the glory of the God- head should be shewn forth to the utmost, in the work- ing of the Divine Spirit;-and that the created universe should be the theatre of this manifestation. Here then we take up our subject. Creation is the free manifestation of the love of God : of the condescen- sion of the Three Blessed Persons in the Trinity: of the love of the Father in willing, the love of the Son in obeying, the love of the Spirit in operating. So then Creation is a fact, a fact in time, not an existence from eternity. And a fact has a history. There was a time when it was not, and a time when it begun to be. With this history then our Bibles open. Now the fact of Creation is a miracle, it is the origination of the laws of nature, and therefore above and beyond those laws themselves. It is the first link from which all those laws proceed. And bear this in mind. Make what difficulties you will in the miracles of the Bible history—cut and pare down the marvellous as you will in the acts of our Lord and His Apostles, you get no further—for before you stands, barring your way to rationalism and unbelief, the great miracle of Creation ; and unless you can account for this by material means, you may spare the trouble of trying by those means to account for other of the acts of nature's God. If I believe, that the same Son of God Who sum- moned Lazarus out of his grave, also called up light Out of darkness, and the worlds out of nothing, it does not astonish me to see him that was dead come forth at the word, any more than it astonishes me to feel the ground 184 Zove in the /Details of Creation. beneath my feet, or to see the sun in the heavens. But if I deny the one, I must be prepared to deny the other; to deny that Jesus was that Divine Person, or if I hold that, to account for Creation without a miracle. So Consistent is faith ; so difficult is unbelief. Let us then come to this first great miracle—the Origination of nature herself. God made the world out of nothing. And we are not without examples of such miracles in our Lord's ministry. When He fed the five and the four thousand, He created out of nothing. When He turned the water into wine, He in fact created out of nothing. But in this case of original creation, the words mean more than we might at first sight suppose. Created zº/ad out of nothing P All that we see, and hear, and feel ? Doubtless ; but more than this. If we are to have objects created, we need room where to bestow them. And the mind needs this, in the very idea of objects. You cannot imagine any object, without at the same time imagining space, wherein it lies. And this space God created. It was no self-existent thing. He needs it not, for His being. It is as much part of the fact of the Creation, as the bodies which exist in it. He made it, as He made those senses which could discern it, and those minds to which it is a necessary condition in the contemplation of His works. But again, -one other condition is necessary, according to the present laws of the world, for any manifestation of God, or any act of any kind to take place;—and that condition is succession ; –what we call Time. Nothing can be done (such is the condition under which we live), without time Move in the ZOetails of Creation. 185 to do it in. The whole manifestation of God in the world is not instantaneous, though even then we could not dissociate the idea of some duration from it; but it is evolved in courses of years and centuries, in what we know as the history of the world. Now God needed no such succession as this. There are no breaks in His being, nor does He wax onward, nor decay. This time then God also created—endowed His creation with space wherein to endure, as well as with space wherein to exist. And these, the two first necessary conditions of our thought and sensation, space and time, are in fact, as regards this material universe, the two first and the two greatest of God’s works. I mention them to you, because they, though wonderful, and most important to be remembered, are very generally forgotten in Con- sidering creation. We admire the furniture of the halls of the universe, but forget to contemplate the wonderful palace itself, in which it is contained ; we see God in the events which strike the hours of His world, but we forget that the hours themselves are also the work of His hands. He made then space, for extension,-and time, for duration. And with what did He people the vast reaches of space—what sequences did He ordain, to occupy the ages of time 2 I purposely avoid, in these sermons, considerations and discussions merely scientific. We all may have access to books, and to explanations, of the highest scientific order, which, if given and received in Christian humility, may prove most valuable contributions, in detail, to our knowledge of creation, I 86 Zove in the Details of Creation. and of God. But my subject is, Divine Zove. I wish, please God, to take advantage of the coming sacred Season, to lead you through the course of God's love, as manifested to this our world ; to trace it in creation, —to vindicate it in the fall,—to discern it in the ages which introduced redemption,--to adore it in the mani- festation of the Son of God, to witness its struggle and its triumph in His Death and Resurrection, its accomplishment in His Ascension, and the outpouring of the Spirit, and finally the glorification, by it, of the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity. This being my intent, I do not wander in the inviting paths of scientific speculation, but in each case fix on that particular point in the great subject, which belongs to our onward course, and delineate that one, to the omission of others, which may be better elucidated elsewhere. I will then not answer our question by any discussion, whether God peopled more worlds than one with animated beings, but will at once come to this world of ours. And in this world, I will not stay to enquire how many ages, or myriads of ages, it existed, and through what states it passed after its first creation, and before the six days' work of which we read —but will simply take the facts which Genesis gives me, viz. that God made it in the beginning; and at a certain time, did create upon it all those ranks of vegetable and animal being, which we now behold. And of these we may remark, I. That each of them, originated by the Divine Will, was by the same Divine Will placed under certain definite laws, by which its continuance in being and Zove in the Details of Creaſion. 187 reproduction were to be regulated, and was endowed with faculties, whereby it was able to follow those laws. And here a point arises, which the Christian should never pass by unnoticed. The laws which rule the being and continuance of creation, as well inorganic as Organized, are not to be thought of as originally im- pressed by God, and then left to operate as mere natural causes ; but must be viewed as continually Sustained and enforced by His will and almighty power, ever present in all His works. There is nothing, with- out God. God is not, it is true, in creation; but God is over creation, in every one of its minutest portions and individuals. Without Him not a sparrow falls to the ground ; without Him not a flake of snow floats down the winter sky. It was a distinct act of His love, that bestowed on each little bird, so insignificant in our sight, that wonderful organization, that adaptation to its food, its habitation, and the continuance of its kind, which so far Surpasses all Our comprehension ; which we can destroy, but which we can never restore. It is a distinct act of His love, too, which bestows on each snow-flake that exquisite Symmetry of beautiful crystal- lization, which human art, at its highest, can never by imitation attain. And the portion of creation which we can see and think of as upheld by His ever-present superintending love, is as a mere fragment, compared to those vast tracts undiscerned by us, wherein that love is equally present and operative. Of the higher orders of celestial being, what tongue can speak, what mind can conceive P or of that amazing number of minutest I 88 Zove in the Details of Creation. animal and vegetable tribes, which escape alike our eyes and our microscopes? Yet over every individual of these does God's almighty Love exercise conscious superin- tendence, mindful of its existence and of its wants, ordering the course of its being, and bringing about those combinations with the beings of other individuals in Creation, equally the objects of His conscious care, on which the events of its life depend. So that the Chris- tian, as I said, knows of nothing without God. And herein is the wonder to him, the marvel of love, that God, Who needeth not Creation, should by a free act, or rather an infinity of free acts of condescension, create, uphold, provide for, bear in His fatherly care, all the great family of the universe. Herein is Love ; not the mere love of a Creator for the works of His own hands, but the love of the eternal Father, manifesting His glory by the Son, through the operation of the life- giving and sustaining Spirit, the love which was and is providing in this universe, with all its varied ranks of being, a vast theatre for the glorification of a higher love even than that of condescension, viz. the love of self-sacrifice ; and which was and is preparing, by all the dispensation of this material universe, the manifes- tation, in a higher and spiritual universe, of the Sons of God. 2. We may remark next, that in the order of the history of Creation, the various ranks of being, beginning from the lowest, proceed onwards to the highest ; but that we must not therefore for a moment dream, as some have done, of a gradual progression upwards of Zove in 4/ºe /Jeffai/s of Creation. 189 being, through the lower to the higher. The higher ranks in God's Creation have ever been that which we find them, in their laws and character, and have not evolved themselves out of the lower. He at the first created each after its kind, and planted between them barriers which they may never pass. First we read of the formation and regulation of unorganized matter, of light and darkness, of the sea and the dry land. And in this first section of Creation's history we must place all those laws, of attraction and repulsion, and of other kinds, whereby the material universe is ruled. Next we have the lowest forms of organized life in the vegetable kingdom, where the principles of growth and of perpetuation are found, without consciousness of existence or the power of locomotion. Thirdly, we have animal Organization ; life accompanied with con- Sciousness and voluntary motion. And lastly, we have, as the Creator's greatest work on this earth, man,—the highest form of animal organization, but endowed be- sides with an immortal spirit. Every one of these ranks is absolutely and entirely distinct. Remarkable as are the links of transition from the one to the other co- existent at one time, and testifying to the unity of the whole as an unfolding of One grand design, there is no reason to believe that any individual portion of Creation ever passed in succession from One rank to another; that inorganic matter ever in the course of nature assumed organization, except in the prescribed limits of succession within each rank,+that a vegetable ever became endued with consciousness, or a mere animal I 90 Love in the Details of Creation. ever passed into the number of reasoning and respon- sible beings. And such considerations as this are important to dwell on, because the wildest theories have been propounded on these subjects, derogatory alike to the observation and common sense of mankind, and, if admitted, to the glory and the love of the Creator. Now to say that beauty and order and adaptation reign through all these ranks of being, is no more than to repeat an often-told tale. Since, however, to dis- cover and to rejoice over that beauty and order will be the employment of the highest Spirits among men as long as this imperfect state lasts, and, I must believe, of all the spirits of the just made perfect in another and a more blessed condition,--why should we scruple to pause a few moments on Our way to fill our minds with a sense of God’s creative Love—to direct all, and more especially the young among you, to those glorious works amidst which they live and move, too frequently without observation ? Why should we hesitate to strengthen and deepen our Christian faith, by noting the care of our Heavenly Father in building this great palace of Love for His spiritual children P Observe then first, the consummate beauty of His arrangements in regard to mute inorganized matter. From the grand but simple law which retains the planets in their orbits, to that which forms the hidden crystals in the depths of the mine, or the frost-work on the window-pane, which melts with the first Sunbeam,_ all is full of subjects for wonder and admiration. And Move in the Details of Creation. I 9 I these feelings must be increased, when we extend our view to those latent powers which He has implanted in nature for her continuance and our use,_to magnetism, for example, and the expansive force of steam,_to the materials contained in the earth for the healing of man's body, or the exercise of his skill in works of art, or the purposes of his industry, and his commerce with his fellow-men. Many of these are already our servants; and who can tell, before another age has past, how many more new powers of nature may be discovered, or powers already known, appropriated to uses now unthought of, whereby our usefulness and our comforts may be in- creased ? And let us remember, that every such new discovery, or new appropriation, is only another testi- mony to the deep wisdom and far-sighted love of our Heavenly Father, Who, having endowed us with powers capable of almost infinite development, laid up for us beforehand a large treasury of materials in nature, on which those powers might work for good. To this portion of our subject also belong those ex- quisite arrangements of the heavenly bodies, to which we owe the recurrence of the seasons,—the alternations of seed-time and harvest, of day and night, of heat and cold, of rain and Sunshine, SO necessary for our health, and sustenance, and refreshment. Let us now rise one step, and from unorganized matter, come to organic life. And what a wonderful thing is this vital organism Life, the special gift of God, is not the result of any combination of matter. Every portion of the frame in which it resides, might be reproduced by art, but the I 92 Zove in the Details of Creation. beautiful model must wait for vitality till it is breathed down from the Creator Himself. Yet that life, which none can give, any cause interfering with material organi- zation may take away. Hence, from the combined preciousness of the gift, and this its precarious tenure, arises that anxious care wherewith life is guarded, by all who consciously possess it ; hence flows, from the very constitution of Our vital powers, the great principle of self-conservation, which pervades everything that breathes. But let us speak first of vegetable life. Who can do justice in description, or even in conception, to the pro- fusion of beauty which characterizes this portion of God's works P From the stately trees which refresh us by their shade, downward through all the lovely tribes of flowers, —then the herb yielding seed and the fruit-tree bearing fruit after his kind,-even to the minutest lichen which grows unobserved on the stone,—to the very efflorescence of decay, unsuspected of beauty till revealed to us by the microscope, and even thence doubtless downward still, through tribes of vegetable life which no naturalist has ever named, and no human eye ever Seen, all is one vast assemblage of beautiful objects, each in itself worthy to be the marvel of the intelligent mind,-each a model of symmetry of form, of faultless arrangement of colour, of creative beneficence and upholding love. God, Who has implanted in us the love of beauty, and the power of expressing that love in the works of our hands, has taught us that not the choicest effort of our skill, in texture and in colour, equals the flowers, which Zove in the Details of Creation. I 93 He has cast in lavish profusion over hill and dale, the simple lilies of the field. And when we see some of the most useful of fruits, and some of the loveliest of flowers, brought by human cultivation to a perfection far beyond the power of uncultivated nature even in her most favoured climes, what is this again, but another testi- mony to the Creator's unbounded love—what, but a declaration, that He in His condescension even to the s lower tribes of His creatures, has been no mean nor limited bestower of His gifts, but has poured them forth without stint, giving as a king, munificently, treasures which do not blazon themselves on the surface of His works, but await our patient search, and invite our diligent culture? Notice, too, how perfect are His adaptations of the vegetable kingdom to the wants and enjoyments of the higher members of His great family. On or near that vegetable tribe which is appointed for their food, are found those animals which are adapted to live and grow by it. If there is in the food any peculiar character, which would render it injurious or fatal to other creatures, in this one tribe there is found some organ, or some internal arrangement, calculated to meet the difficulty. Over the whole earth He has spread that verdant colour, which is most refreshing to sight. That grain, which of all others is the most necessary to man and to many of the animal tribes, He has made to be one of the very few plants, which are common to almost all soils and all climates. Those among the herbs of the field, which are noxious to animal life, have yet their medicinal virtues; but, inasmuch as health outbalances O I 94. Zove in the Details of Creation. disease, these are found but few and far between, whereas of life's sustenance the whole earth is full. Let me advance yet one step further, and speak of Conscious animal life, with its more complete organization, its infinite variety of sentient beings, its still more won- derful adaptations. Here again, beauty and order every- where delight us and call forth our humble adoration. There is no part of the earth, but is full of animal life— no animal, that is not a study inexhaustible in its proofs of creative wisdom and providing love. What can be a more touching testimony to the present providence of God, than the love of the lower tribes of creation for their young P It is a thing we witness every year : but why should we therefore pass it over in a Christian's thoughts of creation ? We see the birds, capable of no distant forethought, destitute of all deliberative skill, construct for their future offspring a habitation carefully and exquisitely built; we watch them, unwearied through the bright days of spring, fetching for them the food which they need, and educating them for future flight, up to the moment when that care is no longer needed, and then it ceases. But those same birds are incapable of any single improvement or alteration in their impressed and accustomed habits—incapable of receiving any knowledge, beyond that which God has created in them. And it has often struck me, that the more we think of this utter incapability of the lower tribes of creation for increase of knowledge and skill, and Compare it with their perfect knowledge and skill in that which is given to them to do, the more do we see the present and acting Alove in the Details of Creation. ſ 95 power and love of God. I see in their habits and instincts a token of Him, even more plain than is shewn by matters of higher import. They are so helpless, yet so full of needful resources; so unconscious of wisdom, yet so wise ; so reckless of the future, yet so provident ; so incapable of high motives, yet so self-devoted in their affections, that it appears to me, that between these extremes in the same beings, so wonderful, so inex- plicable, there must come in, living, and moving, and present day by day, the will of that gracious Father, the Love of that Divine Son, the working of that blessed Spirit of wisdom, Whom I know as the mighty God, Whose strength is made perfect in weakness, Who hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, Whose tender mercies are over all His works. Further in this subject we will not advance at pre- sent. Let me invite you, especially those who have leisure, and the young, to follow it out for yourselves. Study the varieties of animal life with a Christian eye, be ever ready to trace the condescending love of your reconciled Father in Christ, ever ready to recognize the workings of that Spirit Who beareth witness with our spirits that we are the sons of God. The Christian naturalist has a delightful occupation, one strongly con- firmatory of his holy faith, which, as I have said, I believe to be a foretaste of one of our blessed employ- ments in a higher state. But be not misled by any notions of a natural religion —Of finding God by going upwards through creation. Let Greece and Rome, let the dark heathen corners of the earth testify, what I 96 Zove in the Details of Creation. natural religion is worth to fallen man. If you would trace and understand God in creation, you must first find Him in His own revelation of Himself, a portion of His works just as wonderful as creation, and far. Sur- passing it in the grandeur of the proofs of His wisdom and love. Grasp Him by faith in the Bible, and then go forth into His world. Live on Him, as Father, Son, and Spirit, Covenanted together for thy redemption, and then shalt thou find Him in His works : then shalt thou hear His voice among the trees of the field, and not be afraid : then shalt thou by searching find out God, and by acquainting thyself with Him, add to thy temporal, and to thine eternal peace. I have said nothing to-day of Man, that wonder among the wonders of creation. His place in God's world, and his primitive state of uprightness, will require another sermon ; and the solemn season of Lent will bring us to the sadder consideration of his Fall, and the vindication, in it and notwithstanding it, of the same Divine Love of his Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. SERMON XV. (PREACHED IN 1855.) £obe in the QCreation of ſilan. “God created man in His own image.”—GEN. i. 27. WE have already traced the love of God in creation. We have looked on it as an act of amazing condescen- sion on the part of Him Who had no need of anything out of Himself. We have seen of what kind that con- descension was : that it was the fruit of the Love of the Father for the Son, operating by the Holy Spirit. And last Sunday we meditated on that Love, as shewn forth in the lower portions of God's works: in the creation of space and time, the necessary conditions of material existence and of progress; in the filling space with bodies inorganic and organized, each fitted for its place and work in the world : in providing for the sustenance, necessities, and propagation of life : in the conscious upholding, at every instant, of the vast family of the universe. Thus far then we have advanced ; but the greatest wonder of the Divine Love in creation yet remains. All this is made, and is very good : calculated to shew forth I98 Zove in the Creation of Man. the praise of the Father Who willed it all in Love, of the Son Who in Love created, of the Spirit Who in Love wrought throughout creation. But observe, that hitherto, all obeys fixed laws and is held down in its prescribed place. As we remarked last Sunday, barriers are raised between every rank of being and every other : a limit above, beyond which it may not rise : a limit below, beyond which it cannot fall. The lump of un- organized matter may be hewn and polished,—beautified by art and man's device : but it can never put on organic life. The vegetable may be improved by culture to a wonderful degree : but it never can be endued with consciousness and voluntary motion. The animal may be tamed, and to a certain extent instructed : but beyond the place definitely assigned to his species in the great chain of being, he can never advance. And let us combine with this last consideration the fact, that none of these ranks of being are endowed with thought or responsibility. As we remarked last Sunday, the providence and skill of the animal tribes are, within just the limits where God has willed that they should be exercised for the Sustentation and continuance of their race, exquisite and perfect: but beyond those limits they are wholly incapable of either providence or skill. If then God’s creation stopped /iere, it would indeed declare His glory and His love, but that declaration would be, so to speak, merely mechanical : a praise, without a praiser, the joy of which would be confined to God Himself, and shared by none besides : a joy of which, accordingly, the very one element in which Love Zove in the Creation of Man. I99 ever delights would be wanting, viz. the participation of it. But God's creation did not stop here. At the head of the various animal tribes, He made yet another, eminent above them all. In this tribe, animal organiza- tion is carried to its highest. That which in the quad- ruped is a comparatively insignificant member, becomes in man the hand, so wonderful in its powers, so infinitely versatile in its applications. That tongue, which the rest of animal creation possess, but which the highest among them use only for inarticulate signals, becomes in him the organ of articulate speech, so marvellous in its construction, and its uses. And of the same rich bestowal of the best of God's gifts of life and life's benefits on man, many other examples might be, and have been given. In One of its forms, we shall have occasion to recur to the subject again, before concluding. But it is not in man as the highest form of organized animal life, that we are to seek for an exemplification of the declaration in my text. His erect form, his expres- sive eye, his much-working hand,-his majesty in the one sex, and beauty in the other, these may excite our admiration, and lead us to praise Him Who made us ; but in none of these do we find the image of God. For that, we must look beyond them all. God is without body; parts or passions. The highest created being, in form and Organization,-however perfect, however majestic, however beautiful,-bears no resemblance to Him. He is above and independent of all organized matter : it sprung from the counsel of His will, it is an 2OO Zove in the Creation of Man. instrument to shew forth His love and praise, but it is not, and cannot be, in His Image. But let us advance higher. God bestowed on man, as on the tribes beneath Him, a conscious animal soul. And here let me remind you that I follow, as I always wish to do, that Scriptural account and division of man, according to which the soul, the lux) of the New Testa- ment, is that thinking and feeling and prompting part of him, which he possesses in common with the brutes that perish ; and which I will call for clearness, his animal soul. Now here again, though he possesses it in common with them, God has given it, in him, a wonderfully higher degree of capability and power. The merely sentient capacities of the animal soul in the most degraded of men are immeasurably above those of the animal soul in the most exalted of brutes, however he may be surpassed by them in the acuteness of the bodily senses. And again, in Speaking of man, we can- not stop with these animal faculties. To the brute, they are all. Sometimes indeed we see them remarkably developed. In the higher kinds of animal life, we find the passions brought under a kind of habitual govern- ment—the faculties of association become almost able to do the work of a rational principle of conduct. But when we say this, we have evidently risen as high as we can go. We have been speaking of the perfectioning of a lower into something like that which is higher : we are astonished that it is so like the higher ; we have no more to say. But in man, when we treat of this same animal soul, we do not regard it as his highest portion, Zove in the Creation of Man. 2O I we do not wonder at its exercise to any degree of per- fection : the skill of man, the prudence of man, his re- searches into nature, into science, are not viewed as mere efforts of a lower nature faintly imitating a higher : but we know that all these things are to be expected of man, —that these, and more, will continue to be exemplified in him ; in other words, that he has that within, which is superior to this animal soul, which draws it upward and onward ; which is in fact its higher soul, which animates it, as it animates the body. It is obvious then, that we must not look for God's image in man, in this his animal soul, because this is confessedly not his highest part ; be- cause it is informed and ennobled by something above it : moreover because it is naturally bound to the Organiza- tion of his material body. And this point is an im- portant one to be borne in remembrance. It is not in our mental capacities, nor in any part of our sentient being, that we can trace our likeness to God ; whenever we speak of any or of all of these in the treatment of this subject, we must look beyond them, and beyond the aggregate of them, for that of which we are in Search. What then is that part of man at which we have been pointing in these last sentences 2 that soul of his soul, that ennobler of his faculties, that whose acknow- ledged dignity raises him far above the animal tribes, with whom he shares the other parts of his being P Let us examine his position, as a matter of fact. By what is he distinguished from all other animals, in our common speech and everyday thought P Shall we not all say 2O2 Zove in the Creation of Man. that it is by this, that whereas we regard each animal as merely a portion of animated matter, ready to drop back again into inanimate matter, the moment its Orga- nization is broken down, we do not thus regard our- selves or our fellow-men, but designate every one of them as a Person, a term which cannot be used of any mere animal? And is it not also true, that to this personality we attach the idea of continuous responsi- bility—of abiding praise or blame P Is it not true, that we use the terms ‘good ' and “bad” in a totally different sense of a man and of an animal—that when we speak, for instance, of a good horse, we mean merely, One good for those uses for which that animal is given to us, without the slightest reference to individual welfare or prospects ; but when we speak of a good ſtart, we mean not a man good for this or that use, but a man in character eminent above others, happy and making happy, in a blessed state here, and with blessed pros- pects hereafter And if we thus think, and thus speak of personality, as totally distinct from anything in animal life ; and if we attach responsibility to it (for this I maintain that in matter of fact we do, and cannot help doing ; the reason I will treat by and by). To what is this personality owing 2 Not to the body, however perfect its organization ; not to the animal Soul, however wonderful its faculties; but to the highest part of man— his Spirit. And here it is, that we must look for man's relation to God. God is a Spirit ; and He has breathed into man a Spirit, in nature and attributes related to Himself: which spirit rules and informs, and takes up Zove in Zhe Creation of Man. 2O3 into itself, and ennobles, as we have seen, his animal Soul. This spirit is wonderfully bound up with the soul and the body. The three make up the man in his present corporeal State—but the spirit alone carries the personality and responsibility of the man. The body, with its organiza- tion and sentient faculties, is only a tent wherein the spirit dwells ; itself is independent of its habitation, and capable of existing without it. The spirit of man makes the essential distinction between him and the lower animals. They, as we have seen, are strictly limited in the range of their powers;–advance not, but as a whole remain the same. But the grasp and reach of man's spirit are infinite. Independent of any material fetters, it ranges freely Over space and time, the only conditions of acting to which God has subjected it. It is capable Of unmeasured progress ; and in its progress it carries with it the whole man, whom it has ennobled and en- lightened. No acquisition can Satisfy it, —no satiety clog its action;–no exertion drain its powers. All man- kind possess it alike : it is degraded in some almost to the verge of extinction, though it can never be ex- tinguished ; it is exalted in others almost to the verge of a higher state of existence, though still bound up with the infirmities of the fleshly body. Of this its degrada- tion and exaltation we shall have more to say, as we advance further in our subject. I said, that this Spirit of man is the portion of him, where we must look for his relation to God. Here it is, that he was created in God's image; not merely in having responsible, spiritual personality, but in the 2O4. Zove in the Creation of Man. character of that spirit, when he was first created. His Spirit, his divine part, that whereby he can rise to and lay hold of God, was made in the Image of God. And this leads us to the second division of our enquiry this morning, How was man's spirit created in the image of God? what ideas must we attach to these words, “the image of God P’ To this question but one answer can be given, and that in simple and well-known words. God is / ove: this is all we know of His essential character. Remember what we have said about Love being not an attribute of God, but His whole Being and Essence. From this definition we enquired, what God is : let us now enquire from the same, what man was originally created. He Who is Love, made man, man's spirit, after His own image. That is, He made man's spirit, love, even as He is love. In this consisted the perfection of man as he came from the hands of his Creator—that his whole spirit was filled with love. Now what did this imply P clearly, a conscious spirit; for Love is the state of a knowing, feeling, conscious being. What more ? as clearly a spirit conscious of God; knowing Him Who loved it, and loving Him in return. And notice, as we pass, that this consciousness of God, dimmed and almost obliterated as it has become in the degradation of man's spirit, is no acquired knowledge, but must have been innate in man's spirit at its original creation. It would be the essential condition of man being in God's image —of his being love—for he was alone with God, re- sembling only God;—and Love is towards that which is Zove in the Creation of Man. 2O5 kindred to ourselves. It was equally true then, as now, that no man could come to God unless the Father draw him ; and that drawing took place by God filling his soul with the knowledge and love of Himself. So then we must believe, that God revealed Himself to our first parent in a full and blessed manner, as the Author of life and joy, the Giver and Upholder of his being. Accordingly, we find St. Paul distinctly referring to this primaeval revelation : “For,” says he, “that which is known of God is evident within them : for God re- vealed it to them.”” But we have much more yet to follow out, with regard to the possibility of this love in man, and its working upon his character and life. How was man conscious of God 2 by what faculty was he enabled to grasp the fact that God first loved him I answer, by faith, then, as now. Faith is the organ by which the spirit reaches forth to God. We never can repeat or remember too often, that faith is “Appropriating Belief, ” not belief in the existence of God as a bare fact, distant and inoperative, but belief in Him as our God, the God Who loves us, the God Who seeks our good, the God to Whom we owe ourselves, the God Who is our portion and Our exceeding great reward. And it is essential to faith, that we should not, Speaking strictly, Åmozy all this, not have hold of every particular detail of it, not master the subject, as men Say ; this would not be faith, but knowledge. Knowledge does not draw a man upwards—does not attract his spirit in trustfulness into * Rom, i. 19. 2O6 Zove in the Creation of Man. new regions of light and life. He that knows, looks down on the object of his knowledge; he that believes, looks up to the object of his faith. We are masters of that which we know ; but we are servants of that which we believe. And therefore man, created in the image of God, loving God, dependent on God, tending upwards to God, is created in a state of faith. By this faith his love was generated,—by believing God as his God, by unlimited trust of His love, and uninterrupted return of that love. And to what does not this description imply, that is holy, and tending to elevate and bless man P Let us awhile contemplate such a state in the light of our Christian knowledge : for it must be most interesting to us to trace, in man's first innocence, the germs of those spiritual graces and gifts which are now the results of his restoration in Christ. He had then righteousness. But this righteousness was not his own ; it was a right- eousness which came by faith, which was the fruit of love. Love filled his soul, and brought him into har- mony with God's will. His rectitude was the health of his soul, the harmony of all its powers. It was natural to him, just as health is the natural normal state of the bodily powers. That righteousness, which we have now to gain back by faith in the Redeemer's atonement for our sin, to approach by repentance,—to cast off our old nature, and be born into, -was to him a matter of course: in faith he stood, in love he wrought, just as naturally as we breathe or walk. But this his nature in no way depended on his physical or mental Organization; simply on the fact, that God made him Spiritually in Zove in the Creation of //azz. 2O7 His own image—in love. And notice besides, that there was not in this, man's primitive righteousness, any- thing of merit, any more than there is in the righteous- ness of the Christian believer now. The very idea of spontaneous love excludes that of merit or desert, which is the result of conscious labour laying up obliga- tion, whereas Love is greater than all it does and brings forth, seeks to please for pleasing's sake, and repudiates the idea of laying under obligation at all. But it does not for a moment follow that, because that original righteousness was without merit, it was therefore without zworth—mere natural habit, like the innocence of an animal or of a plant. It was the high pursuit and love of good, and of God as the chief good, in and for Himself, irrespective of reward. There was no conflict with evil, there were no passions to subdue ; but the very fact of the love of God being shed abroad in the heart shews, that that original human innocence was no mere station in the ranks of being, but the germ of the very highest development of his wonderful spiritual nature. “Love,” says the Apostle, “is the bond of per- fectness ; ”" and the same command of our Lord, which we read in one place of the Gospel, “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect; ” ” in another runs, “Be ye merciful,” i.e. loving, “even as your Father is merciful.” ” So then we have advanced thus far ; that man's primal innocence was by no means a mere negative state of freedom from sin, by no means the mere accident of * Col. iii. I4. * Matt. v. 48. * Luke vi. 36. 2O8 Zove in the Creation of Man. not having yet sinned, but a glorious state of love, and faith, and righteousness, and truth, and holiness. In this his religious, his upward tendency, consisted, after all, the essential distinction between him and the lower creatures. And in this consisted his lordship over them. He stands at the summit of Creation ; a link between earth and heaven ; his body and its perceptive faculties, of earth ; his spirit, from above. But he was lord of earth, and he was in the image of God, not on account of his physical or mental Superiority, but solely from his spiritual relation to God, his likeness to Him in Love, —his upward tendency towards Him. He stands amid Creation as the priest of God ; dedicated to Him ; praising Him, not passively, but actively and consciously. And this character of man, be it remembered, is not an addition to his nature—not something merely be- stowed on him, otherwise like the brutes—but it is his very nature itself, in its primal and highest form. And therefore in every design to ameliorate that nature, this is the state, to reproduce or carry Out which, is the view and object. Just as health is the proper normal state even of the diseased body, so this state of primal inno- cence is our proper, our normal state, sinful though we be. To bring in this state again, is the great end, as regards us, of Redemption ; to bring it in, not as it was at first, but, as we shall see further on in this course,_ purified as silver in the fire by conflict and sorrow ; but still to restore it, the first love of man for God, in its fulness, its simplicity, its blessedness. One remark more. On this image of God depends Zove in the Creation of Man. 2O9 the immortality of man's spirit: not on its own nature, as some have dreamed. As it had a beginning, So it might have an end. It can only be immortal by being united to Him Who liveth for ever, God's Love called into being those who were in its own image, kindred to itself, bound to itself by Love; how can we conceive that Love annihilating again such kindred objects of its own good pleasure ? And this immortality is not removed by sin : for it lies at the root of the race, is its essential attribute, not an accident of its being. That God created man in His own image, is a fact long past, and irreversible. No delinquency of man can abolish the immortality which results from that fact. Man may darken it, may render it unutterably miserable ; but he cannot get rid of it, for in it he was created. Thus then we have witnessed the highest instance of God's love in creation to this our earth. I Ought perhaps to Say Something, in concluding, by way of apology for a Sermon, in which you have heard so little of direct Christian exhortation. But you must remember, that it is but a portion of a series, the whole object of which is to explain and exalt God's love in Christ. You must also remember, that a continuous series like this cannot and must not be broken in upon with exhortations which would tend to interrupt the continuity of thought, and mar whatever edification you might, by God’s blessing, gather from the clear treat- ment of the subject. I cannot consent, merely to please those who imagine that every sermon should contain every doctrine of the Gospel, to lose the opportunity of P 2 I O Move in the Creation of Man. carrying onward an enquiry which I hope may contri- bute eventually to illustrate and confirm those doctrines, though they be not mentioned in every sermon. Meantime, those who are really anxious for instruction may, I trust, find it in abundance, in meditating on those things which have come before us to-day ; on our posi- tion in God's creation,-made for Him, richly endowed for His service and His praise; on His image in us, marred by sin, but gloriously recovered, through justifi- cation by faith in the atoning blood of Christ,--and through sanctification by the indwelling Spirit of Love. SERMON XVI. (PREACHED IN 1854.) QBut £orb's Uemptation. “Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the dezil.”—MATT. iv. I. WE have arrived at the season of Lent, marked by the Church as one of more than usual solemnity. We are taught by the character of her services, and the general practice of Christians, to devote our meditations at this time to the subject of our sinfulness and need of repentance. For this there is a twofold reason. It is the time which introduces the commemoration of Christ's sufferings for our sins. It is fitting therefore, that our thoughts should be turned towards the heinousness of those offences which crucified Him, that we may the better learn to glorify that exceeding love which brought Him here to suffer for them. Again, it is the season in which we actually commemorate the time of trial which preceded His public ministry, during which He wrestled with the Tempter, and overcame him for us. The necessity, uses, and process of His Temptation, 2 I 2 Our Zord's 7 emptation. being thus proposed to us as subjects of thought, naturally lead us to think of our own danger, and the conflict with the enemy which is set before us. In this, as in all things, He was our pattern. Those who are to lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset them, and run with patience the race set before them, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of their faith, may see by this history how He met and baffled the tempter; what weapons from the armoury of God. He chose for the combat, and how He wielded them. I speak to-day of the Temptation itself in general : the account to be given of it as holding a place in the events of Our redemption ; its ground and necessity; its possibility, and the form which it assumed. Our Lord had now passed through that sinless infancy and youth, of which so little is revealed to us in Scripture. Thus much we know : that having emptied Himself of His glory, and become a veritable human child, He had during this time been increasing in wisdom as in age, and in favour with God and man ; that He had been gathering round Him all those accessions of experience and knowledge which ripen with our ripening years, but with this weighty differ- ence; that in Him they were unalloyed by sin ; no vanity clouded the inner vision, no pride stifled the sense of right. He had grown up in the continually increasing consciousness of His mighty mission. His conviction in opening boyhood was, that He must be “among His Father's matters; ” the argument by which Oz/7 /lord’s Zeyz//a/zozz. 2 I 2 J He enforced the necessity of His Baptism was, that “it became Him to fulfil all righteousness.” On this latter occasion, the Father testified His acceptance of the perfect obedience of Jesus. He sent the Holy Spirit to anoint Him specially for His great office now about solemnly to open. He uttered from heaven His voice, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.” From this time a new period of the Saviour's life begins. He is no longer the retired dweller at Nazareth, subject to His earthly parents. Full of the Holy Ghost, He is borne onward to His public ministry. God manifest in the flesh has been hiding His power till that flesh was mature for the mighty work which was to be done. The fulness of time is now come. But where shall that work begin P In which region of all the manifold wants and infirmities and sins of mankind shall the Redeemer's power first be proved P Let us examine how the case stood. The first Adam had met the tempter, and had fallen before him. Thus by man came sin, and by sin, death. But we have now one before us, Who is the second Adam. No man since had been what Jesus was. Jesus was not in Person a man. He was in Person one throughout— the Divine Some of God. But He had taken the man- hood into God. He had become not a man, but man ; had taken human nature into His Divine ; and in that capacity, as the God-man, He was to work our redemption. By man was to come righteousness, and by righteousness, life. It was necessary, therefore, that this man Christ Jesus should in His own Person establish righteousness 2 I 4 Our Lord's 7 emptation. for us. Now where, and what, were we ? What was that nature of ours which He took on Him, with regard to righteousness before God P It had fallen from God. But God and ourselves were not alone concerned in that fall. A subtle spirit intervened, by whose temptation the first Adam was seduced. Human nature was thus led Captive by the devil at his will. Individuals, families, nations, whole portions of the globe, had been brought by him into degradation and moral pollution. This foe the Redeemer came to vanquish. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” And His conflict with the adver- Sary must be a human conflict, begun where it is begun in us. The enemy must enter by the same avenues of Sense: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life, these must be the propensities which he expects to lay hold of in our blessed Redeemer, and in these he must be foiled. In order to this end, the encounter must be personal and close ; the attack made by the enemy must be a direct one, on the Soul of Jesus Him- self. The scene in Paradise must be acted over again, with all the subtlety of the Serpent, all his enticements and lies. And as the first Adam fell, so the second Adam must stand. As the first Adam, containing all of us, who are united to him by fleshly descent, brought himself and his race into contact with disobedience and sin, so the second Adam, containing in Himself all of us by His comprehensive taking on Himself of our nature, must bring that nature into contact with obedi- ence and righteousness. And though it is true, that His Our Zord's 7 emptation. 2 I 5 whole course was in some sense this conflict with Satan, yet here the first and decisive blow was struck. This was the crushing of the serpent's head ; the rest of the combat was but the bruising of the heel of the Seed of the woman. From this time, with one exception, the recurrence of the hour and power of darkness in Geth- semane, Satan attacks the Head no longer. That Divine Personality of our Lord, impregnable in its unity with the Godhead, that human Soul, penetrated even to its inmost depth of agony and infirmity with the firmness of holy purpose nourished in sinless consistency, these, for the most part, are the subjects of his attacks no longer. Nor are his attempts made directly on Christ Himself. Henceforth he aims at His human Body of infirmity, and by his agents, the Jewish rulers, and the Roman power, and the faithless Apostle, brings Him to rejection and cruel mocking, and a death of shame and pain. But all this was only the carrying out of the victory now gained by Our Lord. That Death was His glory, and the Crowning defeat of the Tempter. On that Cross hung the victim of Satan's enmity : but what was really accomplished 2 The death of the cross was the serpent lifted up, by which the serpent lost his power; it was the payment of man's penalty by Him Who was made in the likeness of the flesh of sin, and by that pay- ment, the bond of sin was cancelled, and the captives were set free. But the triumph thus for ever accom- plished on the cross was established in its central and most important point, in the wilderness. And this is the first and greatest reason why Jesus was led up of the 2 I 6 Our Lord's 7 emptation. Spirit to be tempted of the devil, that He might, as the inclusive Head of mankind, wrestle in His inner Spirit with that Tempter who was as yet our conquering foe and cruel tyrant, and thus might vanquish him for every one of us, so that His victory might be ours, in all its glorious consequences; so that they who put on Christ by faith, might put on this His victory, and stand above Satan and all his devices, strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, more than conquerors through Him that loved them. This was the chief purpose in the Temptation of Jesus. And beyond doubt Our great poet was right when, being about to treat of Paradise regained, he selected out of all the triumphs of our Lord, this one, as the recovery of that blissful state which by the malice of Satan and our own weakness we had lost. It was necessary then that the Saviour should undergo this conflict, as a part of our redemption. But various subordinate reasons may be imagined why such a temptation should take place, and be recorded for our benefit. Every insight into the character and motives of One Who is so much to all of us as to be our Mediator with God, our Saviour from sin, and our en- sample of a holy life, must be of the highest importance. To know that He was void of all selfishness, of all vain- glory, of all ambition,--that He had been tried by every one of these, and had stood the trial, tends highly to enhance our faith in Him as the anointed Christ of God; enables those who are to go forth in His name to teach all nations, to shew Him to them as the humble self-sacrificing Redeemer, Who came not to seek His Our Zord's 7 emptation. 217 Own, but to seek and save that which was lost—not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him. But there can also be no doubt that the temptation of Our Lord occurred as it did, and has been related as it stands in Scripture, to serve as a model for us, who are still wrestling with our subtle foe. His temptations are ours also. Distrust of our heavenly Father, pre- Sumption, worldly ambition, these sooner or later beset us all in one form or other. And it is of the highest value to us, to trace His conduct under their solicita- tions, that we may make it our own also ; to mark how He handles the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, that we may learn and practise its use for our- selves. Let us turn now to another important question : that which regards the possibility of this temptation. Granted, we may suppose it said, that such a conflict with and victory over the tempter was necessary for our Lord, yet how could it in Him assume the form of temptation to size 2 Was He not sinless 2 And how could the motions towards sin, which surely constitute the essence of temptation, and give it all its force, exist in Him, Who was one in will and action with His heavenly Father P Nor is such a question to be put from us as idle and profitless. It is well for us to study the Divine character of our Lord on all sides, and to get as consistent a view of it as we may be able; for the better we understand it, the clearer will our faith be, the more intelligent our apprehension of its great object. In answering, then, this question, we must bear in mind 2 I 8 Our Zora's 7 emptation. first, how entirely, in our Lord's case, all these solicita- tions were from without. The same may be said of the temptation of our first parents. No motions towards sin can spring up in a person who is sinless. And it has been well observed by one of the deepest writers of modern Germany, that if, as some pretend, the history of the temptation were nothing but a figurative repre- sentation of thoughts which were suggested and repelled in the mind of Jesus Himself. He never could have been Our Saviour. If such springs of evil were in Him, He never could be the spotless Lamb of God Who knew no sin, and put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. But it is manifest from this history, that they were not in Him ; they originated without Him, from the adversary personally present, who came to Him, and spoke to Him. So important is it to keep the Scripture narrative in its simplicity. But when this point is established, it may again be reasonably asked, How could such sugges- tions become to Our Lord matters of real conflict and struggle of soul, if they were merely darts which struck on the bright surface of the shield, and fell blunted and powerless Surely, in order for them to have been genuine trials, they must have found some answer within Him—must have presented themselves at least with some plausibility, which in our case deceives us and we fall, but in His, failed to deceive Him. And if such response was found in Him to the suggestions of the Tempter, we have again not a sinless nature, but one containing the motions towards sin. The answer to this is easy. Every one of these temptations was Our Zora's 7 emptation. 2 IQ grounded upon some course of feeling or desire which was in itself perfectly legitimate, Take only the first of them as an instance. Our Lord had fasted, and was an hungered. So far there was no sin, but the infirmity of that nature which He had taken on Him. The Tempter suggested to Him to work a miracle in order to serve that hunger. The suggestion so far found an echo in Him, that His “human Body, Crushed and bound down by exhaustion,” pleaded for its wants to be supplied. To this pleading one of its might have yielded, because in us it would be not merely the physical plea of an exhausted body, but the ungodly and selfish suggestion of a sinful body, in aid of the tempter without ; whereas in Him, the plea of the human body, and the human soul which shared in its weakness, had in it no ungodliness, no selfishness, no departure from His Father's will, but was met by the entire self-resignation of His spirit, and the unclouded consciousness of His place in the Father's counsels and care. And that this view is the true one, we may see by observing that other occasion when His soul was exceeding Sorrowful, even unto death. Then, the long- ing of the flesh is expressed by Him in words—“Father, remove this cup from Me ; ”—but is instantly overborne by the unshaken determination of the spirit—“never- theless, not what I will, but what Thou wilt.” The possibility, then, of the Temptation of Jesus lay in this, that the Tempter found in Him the same physical tendencies and the same desires which had in our case furnished the inlets to sin. On these he 22O Our Lord's 7 emptation. wrought. The enfeebled bodily frame of our Redeemer, —the challenge to prove His Divine Sonship—the Subtle use made of the fact that He came into the world to be a King, all these seemed to promise Success, but all these were tried in vain ; for the enemy had nothing in Him. The human nature, which in Adam had fallen from God, was here impenetrably guarded by its union with the Godhead. Next in this preliminary and general sermon let us notice the nature of these temptations. Though they are threefold,—the first to the satisfying of bodily appe- tite, the second to the proof of His heavenly Father's care, the third to the winning speedily the kingdom over the world,—yet one ruling idea pervades them all, and it is this, the accomplishing the lawful ends of His mission by unlawful means ; the descending from the high ground on which He stood as the Servant of God, the Son anointed and sent by the Father, one Who came into the world not to do His own will, but the will of Him Who sent Him, to the low and selfish ground of one who used supernatural power to serve his own appetite, who put his Father's guardian care to a vain and idle test to serve his own vanity, who became a traitor to the true King of heaven and earth to serve his own ambition. The whole was a subtilly contrived and consistent endeavour to divert our Saviour from the spiritual course of becoming Lord of the dead and the living, into another and a carnal course; from that path which, steep as it was and unpromising, was the One chosen by Divine wisdom for the salvation of the world, Our Zord's 7 emptation. 22 I into that which, however it might surely issue in discom- fiture and the enemy's triumph, was yet for the present level and alluring. It was a bold and crafty attempt to set aside the true Messiahship of Jesus, the essence of which was, to come in His Father's name, and the destiny of which was to be rejected and despised, and to win its spiritual way through the offence of the cross; and to substitute for it another false Messiahship, whose character it would be to come in its own name—which might be received by the Jews, and enjoy a short-lived popularity, and a rapid access to fame. How directly such an attempt contravened all that our Lord came on earth to teach and to do, we may see both by His replies at this time, and by the fervency with which on another occasion He rebuked His Apostle Peter, who for a moment acted the part of the Tempter in dissuading Him from His purposed sufferings and death. At once Our Lord, Who had but just com- mended him for the clearness of his confession of faith in Him, meets the hateful suggestion with “Get thee behind Me, Satan.” His replies will furnish us, please God, with the subjects of our succeeding Sermons. I will now for a moment remark upon them generally. Not only are they all made in the same spirit of holy obedience to the Father's will, but further, they are all chosen from the written word of God, and all from one portion of that word. Nor is this accidental, any more than any other saying or act of our blessed Lord. There was deep meaning in both selections. He answers not from 2 22 Our Lord's 7 emptation. Himself—He adduces no words of His own, because the very object of the temptation being to divert Him from His course as the sent of the Father, His resistance against that temptation was, to set Himself in the very central point of His true position on earth, and simply to allege against His adversary, “It is written : ” “God hath said.” Again, the point offered to Him by the tempter was this : out of His present position of humiliation, He chooses just that one thing which would tend to make Him forget the work which He had come on earth to do : “If Thou be the Son of God.” The taunt amounted to this : “Thou, the eternal Son of God, in hunger, in danger, in humble station ? Use Thy Divine power— prove Thy Godhead.” In reply to this, our Lord casts Himself back, not on His great design of redeeming love, which He deigns not to lay out before the adver- sary, but simply on the conditions of that human state which He had taken upon Him. He was here as man to fulfil all righteousness. As man, He was one, of God’s chosen people Israel : an Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised the eighth day,+bound by the covenant of the Law. To that Law therefore He betakes Himself for His maxims of obedience. It was His rule, and from it all His replies are taken. Thus His position again was impregnable. Moses, the appointed lawgiver of Israel, had uttered these commands by Divine appointment; and by them his life as an Israelite was shaped in holy Subjection. You will see by these few notices of the general Our Lord's 7 emptation. 223 subject, how full the history of our Lord's temptation is of suggestions for interesting and profitable thought. We too, in our appointed places, are called on to suffer temptation ; each of us led by God's providence into positions where our faith will be tested, and our constancy put to the trial ; and a special blessing is pronounced on those who endure it. “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trial of your faith worketh patience.” “Blessed is the man that endureth tempta- tion ; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.” 1 May we, comforted by knowing that the Lord Jesus was tempted before us, gifted with the same spirit of wisdom to resist the Tempter which was in Him, be each one of us faithful unto death, and share His glorious victory ! * James i. 2, 12. SERM ON XVII. (PREACHED IN 1855.) Çbe ſºftst $inner. “Aſe that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”—I JoHN iii. 8. IN enquiring into the first sin of man, we found that its beginnings were suggested to his spirit from without Thus the author of this suggestion becomes a subject demanding further enquiry. And the more so, because we are informed by Scripture that his working of mis- chief for man did not stop here, but continued thence- forth, and to this hour continues. He tempted the second Adam, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and endeavoured to draw Him down into self-seeking, and away from His purpose of Love. And he tempts every one of us like- wise : is the constant enemy and watchful accuser of the people of the Lord. Now what we know of this one adversary, is entirely revealed to us in the word of God. The world has no idea, and no belief, in the matter. The world either calls in question the belief of Christians respecting the Tempter, or misrepresents and caricatures 7%e First Simple?". 225 it. Credulity and unbelief as usual go hand in hand ; and those who in their serious hours boldly deny his real existence, are the prey of all kinds of superstitious fears respecting the fictitious phantom which passes by his name. But whatever the world may disbelieve, or misbelieve on the point, the subject is a very solemn one for the Christian. Nothing in the whole of Scripture is plainer than its teaching respecting the evil spirit. If he be not a personal reality, the word of God is good for nothing. No figures of speech, no accommodation to the belief of the times, no subterfuge of any kind, will suffice to wipe him out of the page of Scripture as a living and acting reality. His agency is closely interwoven with the first man's original sin; as closely interwoven with the second man's established righteousness : in fact it forms an integral part of the great whole, which if we attempt to tear away, difficulties beset us far more appalling than anything involved in the doctrine itself thus called in question. Gathering up then the testimony of Scripture respecting Satan, we learn from our Lord's own lips, that “he abode not in the truth.” ". He was one of those spiritual beings, created like ourselves in Love, and living in the love of God. In this Love, this truth of all spiritual conscious being, he did not abide. God created him good, as He did everything else that He made. God created him free, as He did every other conscious and intelligent being. In God's original creation, there was no evil. And it is a thought for us all to bear in John viii. 44. Q 226 The First Sºmmer. mind, that strictly speaking, using the word ‘thing' in its limited sense, there is no such thing as evil: I mean that abstract, separate evil has no existence, but all evil 7s persona/–resident in a person, and springing from the will of a person. So then evil is no portion of God's creation, but was brought in by the exercise of that personal spiritual freedom of will which was part of His Creation. And in every such person, evil, sin, is a Fall, a perversion of previous order and beauty, not in any way an arrangement of original creation. Now all this is very important. It shews us that evil is not an original state, like good, but all evil testifies that good went before it;--it is the depravation of good. Augus- tine deeply and excellently remarks, that all our blame of evil is in fact so much praise of Original good.” And this is the prime mischief and deformity of sin, that it has corrupted and depraved works of God so majestic and beautiful, and divine, as the spiritual natures of angels and men. The more destructive, the more de- grading we feel it to be, the stronger witness does it bear to the excellency of that which it destroys and degrades. And even so it is with this spirit, who was a sinner from the beginning, i.e. not from his creation, but, as the phrase is generally used, from the very first far distant periods of spiritual existence;—who in fact, began to sin. * De civitate Dei, xii. I. Vitio etiam magna multumque laudabilis ostenditur ipsa natura: cujus enim recte vituperatur vitium, procul dubio natura laudatur: nam recta vitii vituperatio est, quod illo dehonestatur natura laudabilis. See Sartorius, Lehre von der heilegen Liebe, i. p. I 15. 7%e F.7°sſ Sz7272e?". 227 Sin was in him no result of weakness—no distortion of a limited being endeavouring to escape into freedom He was mighty, and noble, and free. His knowledge, in extent and in depth, his spiritual gifts, in abundance and richness, his power, in range and in intensity,+all far exceeded anything we can appreciate. This is no poet's fiction, but matter of strict inference from what Scripture represents him, now, in the wreck of his spiritual nature to be. The same testimony assures us that he was one of the highest of created spirits. And all this is but according to analogies which are constantly before us. Do we not see among men the very highest natural gifts, sometimes dedicated to Love and to God's work, but often perverted to selfishness P Has not the world its heroes of selfishness, giants in the earth, workers of mischief and thinkers of mischief for man 2 Do we not See acuteness of understanding made the most able instrument in the service of falsehood 2 the noblest natures, when perverted, becoming the most fruitful of evil And is it not a temptation of these very noblest natures, to contemplate self, and exalt self? Do not all the higher forms of Selfishness, ambition, and pride, belong to the greatest minds, the noblest characters among men P Is it not out of the very strength of the strong that the fetters are woven which bind him P When then this lofty spirit fell, it was not imperfection, not weakness, which caused his fall ; but out of his very loftiness, out of his spiritual eminence, were those ele- ments constituted which, when once the perversion took place, became the powers and materials of his evil agency. 228 The First S77272e). And this again is very important ; this shows us how true it is which the Apostle says, “We wrestle,” in our conflict with sin, “not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places; ”*—how true it is, that sin springs not from the body, nor from any of the subordinate portions of our own nature, but is the work of the spirit itself, our highest and our dis- tinguishing part —arises in the very root and core of our immortal and responsible being. But it will be also important for us to trace in this first sinner, the entrance of sin. For it both may be held up as a mirror in which to see our own sin, and may also serve as a contribution to our knowledge of his agency, and to Our Successful resistance to his devices. He lived I said, in the love of God ; regarding his own high being and gifts as God's bestowal, and seeing in them all, God, infinitely above them, as his chief object of reverence and gratitude, of joy and of active energy. But he begun—and here was the entrance of sin—to allow his gaze to drop from the Highest God, his Author and Benefactor, and to rest on himself, the created and the benefited, and on those gifts which he had only received from God ; he began to honour the creature more than the Creator, to regard His gifts as his own property, and to love them as such, and as such to ener- gize with them. Thus his own will led him astray; thus the first great command to all created spirits, “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have none other Gods besides Me,”—became perverted into “I am mine own Lord * Eph. vi. 12. 7%e Firsz Sz7272er. 229 and mine own God ; I will have none other God besides myself.” Now just notice again, that these things, to which he turned instead of God, were not evil things : he himself was not evil but good ; his gifts were not evil, but good ; so that again (and this cannot be im- pressed too often) his sin was not a leaning to things evil—not an adoption of an evil course—not arising from attraction of evil without or within—but consisted simply in departure from, falling from, the Lord his God in inverting the order of Love, which sets the Highest, highest,-and placing Him below His own works. And this evil sprung solely and entirely in his own will—in its ceasing to be in unity with God, and becoming self- will. Now what was the result of this 2 The truth was no longer in him ; his love became a false love ; he became, as St. Paul expresses it, “corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; ” + “when he speaketh a lie,” says Our Lord, “he speaketh of his own ; for he is a liar, and the father of it.”” “Aſis own " is the object of his life; this stands to him in the place of God. And thus God is not only set aside and dethroned, but become his adversary. God's love is mistaken and perverted by him. God's law is in utter and hopeless discord with his aims and acts. His whole moral judgment is dis- torted by the falsehood of selfishness; humility seems to him abjectness, dependence on God, slavery; to his false subtilty, simplicity and uprightness appear stu- pidity; to his self-seeking, disinterested love appears * Eph. iv. 22. * John viii. 44. 23O The First Sz772er. foolish sentimentality ; sorrow for sin, and repentance, and prayer for grace, seem to his pride, intolerable degradation. On the other hand, greatness, in his view, consists in setting himself up as God; his independence of God and disobedience to Him appears to exalt him in the rank of being ; in opposing God he seeks his own honour, in unbending self-will his strength and Con- sistency; ambition and the love of rule lead all his actions, and gild them over in his estimation." And in giving this description, let us remember the words of our text : “He that committeth sin is of the devil.” Here you have the type of all sinners; the character of all sin. In this description, we see our own corrupt nature. In it we can verify what Scripture so often says of sin, that it is devilish; after the pattern and instigation of the first sinner. And let us also remember, on the other side, that such a con- sideration leads us to the right idea of the Tempter himself, and contradicts and does away with all those monstrous views of his nature and motives, which are current in the world, and among the unthinking portion of the Church. It leads us to see, that the great first sinner is like all other sinners—not one consciously saying “Evil, be thou my good,'” and following evil, as evil ; for evil's sake ; but one who, having fallen from truth and having no truth in him, no true judgment, follows evil, not as evil, but as good, as pleasant and desirable and flattering to his self-seeking and self- * See Sartorius, Lehre u.s.w, , i. 12 I. * Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. IIo, 3 7%e First Sºmmer. 23 I will. That which is true of all sinners, is true most especially of him who was the first,--that in them the powers and affections are, not reversed and become monstrous, but perverted from God their true and proper centre, to another centre, self, to which they are all drawn, in spite of the truth, because the truth is not in them. The representation of Satan, to which I have referred, as a mere monster of evil, alone and unap- proachable, is just one of those devices which sinners have invented,—or rather which he has invented and suggested to sinners, to put him far from them, and disguise their likeness to him. For the danger of his agency among us is this very one, that his self-deceit is the same as our Self-deceit —his temptation of our first parents was merely a repetition of that which he had first practised on himself; and his temptation of each of us is only excitement in the direction of our corrupt and Selfish nature—a drawing us onward to those departures from God, and from Love, in thought, word, and deed, to which, from Our first great departure, we are already too prone. All this, holy Scripture asserts plainly again and again. When the Jews, in their hate and unbelief, strove against the love of Christ and went about to kill Him, He said to them, “Ye do the deeds of your father.” And when they, wishing to escape the inference from these words, tried to refer them to Abraham, and even to God, He spoke to them plainly, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do ; he was a murderer from the * John viii. 4I. 232 7%e A77'sſ Szm/zer. beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own ; for he is a liar, and the father of it.” And St. John writes, “In this the children of God are mani- fest, and the children of the devil : whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” " All sin then is in its nature one and the same thing, whether in purely spiritual beings, or in us men, who are both spiritual and corporeal ; it is a falling from the love of God and others, into the love of self. If we seek for some distinction between the sin of the fallen spirits and our own, we may find it in this, which will also lead us further into the nature of the spiritual foes with whom we have to contend. In them, selfishness did not show itself in the following of desire after any material good, as when the woman saw that the fruit was pleasant to the eyes. The self-deception was purely spiritual. But, for this very reason, it was infinitely more intense, more concentrated, than in us, in whom the spirit's energy is bound down by the bands of the body. We have every reason to believe, that for them there is no recovery possible ; their whole nature, being merely spiritual, being simple, and not com- pounded like ours, is set with one purpose and all its might in the direction of opposition to God. As the angels delight to do His will, and are employed in that only, so these find their field of energy in endeavouring vainly, for selfish purposes, to thwart that will. And g * I John iii. Io. 7%e Aºzºsé Sz7272er. 233 this will account for the otherwise strange sayings of Scripture concerning the active agency of Satan for mischief, as, e.g., 2 Thess. ii. 9, “Him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of un- righteousness in them that perish ; ” that of St. Peter, “Be Sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion goeth about, seeking whom he may devour ; ”" and that of our Lord to Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat.” And for this reason also the fallen spirits are everlastingly tormented ; they believe that there is one God, and tremble at Him as their enemy, perversely mistrusting His love, and hopelessly Opposing His will. In these last sentences I have been speaking in the plural, as Scripture speaks, of those spiritual beings, be they few or many, who thus fell from Love, and from God. “Wherein, then, it may be said, ‘consists the difference between him, of whom most of our discourse has treated, and these last P Is he a mere name for them in the aggregate P or is he now One, now another, a general name for each one among them P’ Decidedly, by the most positive Scripture testimony, not either of these. He was the first to decline from his high estate ; probably also, the first in power and spiritual pre- eminence. They had the force of his bad example and his deceitful influence to lead them astray; but in him, the personal will begun the state of sin. And thus he * I Pet, v. 8. * Luke xxii. 31. 234 The First Simmer. is also represented in the word of God as pre-eminent Over them. Our Lord, in the last solemn scene of the great day, speaks of the “fire prepared for the devil and through the whole teaching of y and his angels;” Scripture on this point, we may perceive the same prominence given to one among the enemies of our Souls, who usually appears by name, whereas the rest are spoken of collectively. Now this, dear brethren, is the spirit that works in Our Corrupt nature, and has his full work in the children of disobedience. No power is permitted to him over us;–but he deceives by doubts, by lies, by representing the lesser good as the greater, by feeding and cherishing the meteor of self-love to dazzle and mislead us, and veiling the blessed light of God's love, by which we ought to be led aright. He is called in the Bible, the prince of this world; and with reason ; for this world is in its practice under his governance. It is a selfish world, a hating world, a world full of strife, and mistrust, and cold-heartedness, and impurity, and vanity, and pride, and lies; and all these rays of false light centre in him ; he is the great type and father of all these practices and feelings. He is called also the god of this world,—with equal truth. He is indeed the deity of the worldly-minded, far more really, I fear, than our just and holy God is the God of us Christians. Our acts of worship are few and far between ; theirs are abundant and unceasing. Day and night victims are being slain on his altar; strength of mind and body, youth, beauty, talent, affection, all crowding to throw 7%e A77.st Sºmmer, 235 themselves under the wheels of his car of triumph. Every hour and minute, his liturgies are repeated ; half the world's maxims of business, all its wise saws of Selfish- ness and revenge, these are its versicles; half the world's songs of merriment and of sentiment, these are its psalms and canticles: its lessons, you will find them in the world's histories, written by the world's children. All these, with one voice, are ever ringing out through God's air and over God's world, drowning with their clamour, and Shaming with their earnestness, the faint and feeble confessions of the Church. And let me say a few words on our own position, as regards this Tempter and Enemy of our souls. We live in days when, as I before hinted, the world, and even many in the Church, are disposed to call in question, or to make light of his very existence. It is our duty, as watchmen for the flock of God, to warn you of the imminent danger of giving way to any such views. The direct and solemn testimony of Scripture is entirely against them. Nothing can be plainer than its exhortations to be watchful against him, to regard him as an ever-present foe, and maintain the conflict un- flinchingly. The moment you lose sight of his agency, you lose sight of the true nature of sin, of its origin in a pure and holy spirit by declining from the love of God to self-will,—of its suggestion to our race from without, and consequently of Our race as a captive, deceived, degraded race; you lose sight of the true nature and glory of Christ's redemption, in achieving which He conquered the Tempter in moral conflict, and triumphed 236 7%e A77'sſ Simmer. Over him on the Cross;–and of the purpose of His being manifested, which was, in the words of our text, to “destroy the works of the devil.” You lose sight also of the whole truth of the Christian life and conflict, and make it to be mere stoical self-government, instead of a war against spiritual enemies in the strength of the Captain of our salvation. You fall, in a word, into the miserable error, of imagining sin to be nothing but infirmity and ignorance, and to require no remedy but more strength and more teaching; an error which has produced, and is producing so much mischief among modern systems and modern instructors. I would say then, Be ready ever, in your own religious life and con- verse, to recognize this evil spiritual agency; fear not ridicule from the shallow unbelief of the time ; if others will, while professing to believe the Bible, privately dis- credit its precise and solemn testimony, this cannot prove to me that I ought to be dishonest like them ; if others will shut their eyes to the real conflict of the Christian's life, I cannot see why I should not continue awake and watchful against those dangers. For it is not a trifling matter, but one affecting my very life; not a question of names and words, but one of stern realities, and struggles which stir the depths of my being — one on which I cannot afford to give way, or to be undecided,—for if I do, I am a ruined man. SERMON XVIII. (PREACHED IN 1855.) Çbrištian Qſemperante, “Azery man that strizeth for the mastery is temperate in all things.” I COR. ix. 25. THESE words occur in a well-known passage, in which the Apostle Paul avails himself of the local circumstances of these Corinthians to describe to them by a similitude the Christian life. Their dwelling was on the Isthmus between higher and lower Greece, where the celebrated Isthmian games were wont to be held. They were year by year accustomed to witness the training of the runners in the foot-race for which these games were famous. They well knew, that it would be perfectly useless for any one to enter his name as a candidate for the prize in that race, who had not submitted for some time to a rule of strict temperance; that in fact the prize would be not so much to him whose bodily strength was the greatest, as to him who by discipline and temperance had enabled himself to keep up exertion the longest, and husband his strength to the last. They could well appreciate that which he here writes to them : “Every 238 Christian Zemperance. man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.” And now, brethren, with our race before us— with the lists set, the conditions fixed, the cloud of wit- nesses looking on, the prize held up in our sight, let us remind ourselves to-day of this same requisite in our Christian course ; let us contemplate the necessity, in that race also, that every man who striveth for the mastery should be temperate in all things. To be temperate, in the primary sense of the word, is, to be under command ; self-governed ; to feel the reins of our desires, and be able to check them. It is obvious that this of itself implies a certain amount of prudence, to know when, at what point, to exercise this control. There is such a thing as negative, as well as positive intemperance. God made His world for our use; He gave us our faculties to be employed. If we use not the one and employ not the other, then, though we do not usually call such an insensibility by the name of intem- perance, it certainly is a breach of temperance, the very essence of which is, to use God's bounties in moderation ; to employ our faculties and desires, but so as to retain the guidance and check over them. And such being the pure moral definition of temperance, let us proceed to base it on Christian grounds; to ask why and how the disciple of Christ must be temperate. Our text will give us ample reason, why. The disciple of Christ is a com- batant, contending in a conflict, in which he has need of all the exercise of all his powers. He has ever, in the midst of a visible world, to be ruled and guided by his sense of a world invisible. For this purpose he needs to Christian Temperance. 239 be vigilant and active. He cannot afford to have his faculties dulled by excess, or his energies relaxed by sloth. In some points, notwithstanding all his best care, his enemy will prove too strong for him ; in how many more then, if he be remiss and careless. His strength will at the best flag in the race long before its end ; how much sooner, and more fatally, if he suffer that strength to be wasted on secondary objects by the way; if he allow the things of the world to hang about and encumber his course ! He strives for the mastery; and must therefore be temperate in all things. But let us carry the reason for temperance still further. In another well-known passage, the Apostle writes thus: “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life ; that he may please Him Who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”” Here we have supplied to us a higher motive than even the furtherance of our own spiritual well-being. There is one that hath chosen us to be soldiers. We have a Captain Who hath bought us with His own blood ; Who having in this as in all other things, set us a bright and perfect example, now requires of us, that we should be followers of Him in all temper- ance and sobriety. He pleased not Himself, but Him that sent Him ; SO we must not please ourselves, but Him our Lord and Saviour. And this we can only do, by living and walking in His Spirit; in the spirit which has its affections set on things above, not on things on the earth ; in the spirit of that life which is dead here below but is hidden with Christ in God. We are strangers * 2 Tim. ii. 4. 24O Christian Zemperance. and pilgrims here ; having no abiding city, but seeking One that hath foundations, whose maker and builder is God. See then the Christian's motives for temperance; surely many and forcible enough ; for on it his whole success in his course depends; on it his pleasing Him Who hath called him ; on it his whole power of glorifying his Saviour and his God. But the other part of our enquiry will principally employ us to-day, viz. as to the departments of life and conduct where the Christian's temperance must be shewn, and as to the manner of its exercise. The range of his temperance is widely enough set in our text;-“temperate in all things.” It must be universal, to be effective. If the greater part of his character be well balanced and a pattern of Sobriety, but if there be one thing in which he is intemperate, all is marred. There must be completeness, or there is not self-government. The toleration of the one unbridled desire shews not only weakness in that point, but weak- ness in the central power itself—want of subjection there to that Spirit Who is able to sanctify wholly the body, Soul and spirit of each of us. And this necessity, that temperance should be complete, sends us, so to speak, on a survey as well of the outposts of the Christian cha- racter—of its less open and less thought-of functions, to examine whether in these the completeness of which we are in search is satisfied,—as to its strongholds them- selves. Let us begin with these latter, as the most important, and as most naturally leading out to those others. Let us speak first of the main point of all. A Christian man then must be temperate in his religion. Christian Z emperance. 24. I The religion of the Christian is not a passion, carry- ing him out of his place in life and its appointed duties; nor a fancy, leading him to all kinds of wild notions, requiring constant novelty to feed it and keep it from wearying him ; nor again is it a charm, to be sedulously gone through as a balm to his conscience. None of these descriptions is worthy of the high vocation where- with he is called. It is a matter demanding the best use of his best faculties; in order to glorify his God, he must be temperate in his service, weighing both motives and consequences; not rushing Suddenly at an apparent duty, not rashly letting go a course of action because it is found fault with ; but maintaining ever the balance of his own course, and holding fast the helm ; looking above for guidance, but expecting that guidance rather in the unfolding of God's secondary purposes, than in direct enlightenment of his own perception. Many of us have lived to see much intemperance in religion ; and have lived also to see how uniformly all such excess drops off and passes away, while the great verities of faith and practice remain as they were. We have wit- nessed well-meaning men carried far out of their course by the exaggeration of certain doctrines of the Gospel, or the pushing into exclusive prominence of some com- mendable practice; but if they have really been good men, with the root of the matter in them, they have generally lived to See again the due proportion of the faith, and to regret the mischief done to the young and unwary by that their excess. Or if not, they have not unfrequently passed from one degree of excess to R 242 Christian 7 emperance. another, until they have let go the purity of the Gospel altogether. Let such examples be a warning to us; for the temptation is a subtle one, to be intemperate in religion. It is so easy to produce an effect by stepping Out of Our path —a man is so much better seen when he stands alone, than when he toils on with his brethren, —that the mere love of notoriety leads many to take eccentric ways, and insist on new views, and take up unheard-of schemes. Be we content, beloved brethren, to stand on the old ways and enquire for the ancient paths; to seek to hold the faith delivered to the saints in all its integrity, and to practise it in the quiet unseen course of our own ordinary lives, or wherever God by His Providence calls us to glorify Him. There is abun- dance of good to be done by all of us, which will put us into no prominence, and gain us no glory ; which we can reach from our place in life, and having accomplished sink back into it; good not less but more solid, for being quietly done and little mentioned. There are plenty of great truths belonging to the Gospel which we profess, requiring all our energy to live them, all Our zeal to enforce them, all our best feelings and sympathies to adorn them ; we need not run into any excess in Order to glorify God; we do not require for that purpose a high name in religious circles, nor any name at all; we require the hidden man of the heart, the ornament whose best side is turned to heaven, and its working side to earth. For such high calling, we do not want a busy tongue, ever ready with abstruse truths and theological names, and party watchwords; it will suffice, Christian 7 emperance. 243 and be far better, if we speak in ordinary times as ordinary men, and have in store the warm tone of loving encouragement for a doubting brother, the earnest affec- tionate rebuke for the closet fireside, the living reality of wayside converse which makes the heart of Our Com- panion burn within him. And our text sets before us another motive to such temperance in our religion. He that strives for mastery must be temperate in all things. O Brethren, there must be a day for each of us, when we shall strive for mastery with the dread enemies of our souls; when the foe stands near and will take no.gxcuse; when there is no world for us to flee to, no society to fall back on, no self to turn in upon with complacency, no friends to flatter us, no books to beguile us. Then the heart must summon its powers, the hand must try its grasp on the spiritual weapons, the head must hold fast its conclusions, for all will be needed. O in that day, amidst the throbbing of the anguished brow and the flutter of the last pulses of life, where will be the excesses, where the exaggerations of religion P Gone by, all gone by and forgotten ; if remembered, loathed and abjured. Nothing will then stand, but the genuine, the earnest ; that which was knit into the life and one with the whole man. In every struggle for mastery, and especially in that last one, the temperate man has immense advantage. With his belief well balanced and well tried, his building standing Solid on its everlasting foundation, he enters the Storm undaunted and passes through it unharmed ; the faith of his life is the faith of his death ; as he believed, SO is it done unto him ; 244. Christian 7 emperance. Christ's grace is sufficient for him. O may it be found with you and me, when that hour approaches, that our religion is not a heap of eccentricities and exaggerations, to be cleared away before anything solid is arrived at ; but that we have been temperate in all things; knowing whom we have believed ; testifying that which we have seen ; one with ourselves and with Christ. I proceed now to notice some of those subordinate and Outlying portions of the duty of temperance, which depend upon and at the same time illustrate the presence of the great central principle. In a man's conduct of himself, there are many classes of Occasions which call for its exercise. Next unquestionably to the spiritual life, lies the intellectual ; a portion of our being for which it is diffi- cult to make some persons feel themselves responsible at all to Him Who gave it. And no less important is the rule, here also to be temperate in all things. One of the commonest faults in mental culture is, to trifle away the mind's best powers in pushing to an extreme certain of its pursuits, while at the same time other and far more important subjects lie untouched. Let me instance this by a case which I will venture to say finds its reality not once nor twice Only among those who listen to me. Young persons grow up, moderately in- structed in those matters which are supposed necessary for an introduction into Society. With just enough knowledge of Scripture and the world's history to save them from disgrace in common conversation, they are left to themselves to pursue the rest of the path of Christian 7 emperance. 245 mental culture as they best may. But how true is it, that for the most part, from this point onward, as far as regards really solid knowledge, “their life is but a sleep and a forgetting.” The stores of youth are left to gather rust and mildew ; and what reading does take place, is almost exclusively bestowed on the works of fiction of the day. On that wide subject I am not now about to enter. I would only put in One caution : do not suppose that I am indiscriminately condemning such works. They have borne, and ever will bear, an important part in the teaching of every people ; and are as much an element to be taken into account in its history, as its wars and revolutions. I am not decrying them in the mass ; but I am pleading for temperance in all things. And the general practice is far from temperate here. By such excessive devotion to one class, and such a class of books, the mind becomes indisposed to grapple with less exciting but no less necessary subjects; we find our young people lamentably deficient in the knowledge of their Bibles, and of the history of the world and the Church ; and there is a Scorn manifested in Speaking of such studies, a characterizing of them as uninteresting and unimportant, which shews a loss of intellectual balance, and the effect of habitual mental excess. Re- member that our religion, in which we ought to be living, and hope to die, is one which will not retain its hold on the man, nor minister in full its comforts to him, unless it has been served with each of those great energies of his being, wherewith God has endowed him, and to which He has addressed His revealed will ; unless 246 Christian Zemperance. he has served it in his spirit with will and affections; in his body, with obedience and diligence for good ; and also in his mind, with weighing and judging its evi- dences, and apprehending the meaning of that word of God in which it is conveyed. No man is in any worthy Sense of the word a Christian, no man will find his religion ready for all he requires of it at solemn and trying moments, who has not employed on it his mental energies—who has not diligently sought and honestly found for himself a conviction, as to its claims on its acceptance, and its doctrinal revelations. And I need hardly say, that for such search we want mental health and strength ; that all intellectual excess enfeebles the mind, as for other serious work, SO especially and above all for this ; and that those who have, from indisposition to this work, contented themselves with an ill-considered or ill-assured faith, or sought merely the romance of religion as of everything else, will find, when they come to that inevitable struggle for the mastery, that they have not where with to gain it. Other considerations belong to this part of my subject, on which I must touch but very briefly. Many men, I may say most men, have already, by their very business of life, the central energies strongly and ex- cessively developed in One direction. This is unavoid- able ; and is indeed the arrangement of God's Providence respecting them. But it entails on the man who would be temperate in all things, an important and lifelong duty; to administer, as far as may be, a corrective to this excessive tendency; to take care, for instance, if Christian Temperance. 247 he be employed in the busy pursuits of commerce, that he become not the mere man of business, judging of all things by the low and unreal standard of mere loss and gain, ignoring the affections and biases, which do in fact lead men far more than mere self-interest ; that he do not in this process let wither up in his own heart all those softer fibres, which are the most genuine and living roots of the Gospel within him. Other similar examples will Occur to yourselves. It is a matter where each man should examine himself, and endeavour by God’s grace to administer the corrective in his own case. Another portion of this part of the duty, is, tem- perance in opinion. Every man who has lived beyond the merest beginnings of his youth, ought to know, that there are very few subjects, wherein any one is justified in being a thorough partisan of one or the other side ; indeed very few, which admit, if properly judged, of being SO Sharply marked off into opposite sides as the Conventional rules of partisanship require. The man who would be temperate in all things, is no partisan, Surrendered up to the dicta of certain leaders, bound to the defence of certain books and men, and to the con- demnation of others. He is not a slave, but a free man. He uses his judgment in the formation of opinion, a matter for which we are especially responsible, with fairness, with caution, with humility; broaching only those opinions which he has well weighed by the rules not of party but of truth, and even then in language not strong but mild ; not too powerful for his meaning, and thus committing him to more than he really has assured 248 Christian 7 emperance. to himself, but rather under than above that level, seeing that the modest man will always more or less distrust his own conclusions. This last remark suggests another portion of the duty ; I mean temperance in language in general. As a people advances onward in its history, the tendency of its style of speaking and writing is to become more and highly seasoned, and full of exaggerated phrases, and of words which owe their origin to exaggerated ideas. And this seems to be one of the characteristic tempta- tions of Our Own time, both in writing and speaking, to overstate Our Subject; to use Our strongest terms for every ordinary purpose; SO that many expressions which once conveyed the idea of rarity and super- eminence, have become epithets of everyday men and things. It is true, that not even a Christian can go counter to the tendencies on a great Scale of the day in which he lives; he is and must be, in his common habits, carried along with them to a certain extent ; but his wisdom will be shewn in being forewarned of them, and at all events not himself helping them onward. In this present matter, for instance, he will be temperate in the use of words—slow to adopt strong and exag- gerated terms, even when naturalized by usage; and endeavouring, especially in his intercourse with the young, who are most liable to the temptation, to modify the expressions used, and check the growing practice. It will occur to most of you, that many important portions of our subject have been passed over in this sermon. I wished rather to dwell on things requiring Christian Zemperance. 249 notice, but not ordinarily included in it, than to spend our time on those often and usually well-served common- places, which would at once suggest themselves to all. Still, though not treated in detail, they must not be altogether omitted. We may in this venture to imitate the great Apostle, who at the end of his Epistles, having written at length on those points most at his heart, sums up in few words the more obvious though not less solemn duties. Let me conclude then by saying, in the use of the world, be temperate ; use it for a purpose beyond it, but appropriate it not for its own sake. In mingling with society, be temperate. Intercourse is good for all men, but do not forget that solitude is necessary for all men. No one can be always dis- pensing ; there must be times of laying up also. In admiration, be temperate. It is good and noble to admire ; better to look up, than to look down. But take care to look high enough ; not to man only, but to Him Whom all men should serve, and in Whose light our judgments of all men should be made. In blame, be temperate. Let this be one of the very few duties, which must never become a pleasure. No man is so bad as we feel disposed to think him ; check then the disposition to blame, and we may hit the mark of justice, or which is better far, fall short of it and stop at that of charity. In pleasure, be temperate. We are the children of a Father, Who hath given us all things freely to enjoy; but we are also the servants of a Master Who will 25O Christian Zemperance. require an account of the deeds done in the body; rejoice then, but remember. In temper itself, be temperate. The very words carry the admonition. The heathen could say, He who rules not himself, is a slave. Thou hast the voyage of life to make. God has given thee an anchor, a compass, a helm ; drift not away then with the shifting currents, run not upon destruction before the idle winds. And as we have been wandering to-day round the circumference, let us end by rallying ourselves at the centre; as we have spent much time in surveying and strengthening the outposts, let us assemble and take leave in the citadel. The end of all this is, our sanctifi- cation by God's Spirit to God’s glory ; the perfection, not of stoical morality, but of Christian holiness. We belong to the Son of God. We are bought with His blood, justified by faith in Him, members of His body, soldiers of His army ; in every faculty of body, Soul and spirit, His servants; in our least things as well as in our greatest. And what I have said, I have said for this ; that we may be more complete in Him, more thoroughly fur- nished for His work –better labourers in His vineyard of grace, brighter guests at His banquet in glory. S E R M O N XIX. (PREACHED IN 1856.) 3Felloſuship ſuitb Christ's Şufferings. “ 7%at Z may know //im, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellozy- shift of Æis sufferings, being made conformable unto Aſis Death ; if by any means Z might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.”—PHIL. 111. IO, II. SUCH, beloved, was the object, for which St. Paul had given up all his worldly advantages, and counted them but dross. The Anowledge of Christ, in all the blessed meaning of those words, had become to him the one aim of his ambition. He counted not himself to have attained it, but was ever pressing forward, forgetting the things which were behind, and reaching out unto the things which were before. Let us in this respect be imitators of him. Let us at this season, in which the most important events of redemption come before us, dwell on each of them as presented to us in this text, the fellowship of Christ's Sufferings, the being conformed to His Death, the power of His Resurrection. The first of these will form our subject to-day. I will, trusting to God's holy Spirit to guide me in speak- 252 Feſ/ows/ift with Christ's Sufferings. ing and you in hearing, first enquire, what is meant by the fellowship of His sufferings: then set such fellowship before you as worthy to be the chief aim of the Christian's ambition. It is manifest, that there are senses in which we can have no community with our Lord in His sufferings:— in which they were peculiar, and His own. For they Were 77teritorious sufferings; whereas we have not and can never have, merit in God's sight. They were volum- taſy sufferings ; whereas all our sufferings are deserved, being entailed upon us by sin. They were also distinct from ours in degree, as well as in kind. Jesus knew all things which should come upon Him ; He saw the whole cup brimming over with woe, and every ingredient of every bitter drop to come was known to Him. This we are spared. That cup is dealt out to us in drops only. We never know whether we are not close approaching its end. At the moment when its taste is bitterest, the rest of our course may be destined, in His Providence, to be refreshed with the sweet waters of His comforting Spirit, and spent in the green pastures of His love. Then again, in absolute magnitude, His sufferings as far surpass Ours, as He surpassed us. He, standing before God as the second Adam, as the Head and root of manhood, bore upon Him the burden of all human Suffering : the chastise- ment of our peace was upon Him ; and God caused to meet upon Him the iniquities of us all. Who can tell, or imagine the crushing weight, resting on that one human frame, of all the world's Sorrow and suffering P Ae/lows/º/, with Christ's Sufferings. 253 With us, the heart knoweth its own bitterness. Our sympathies, it is true, and thank God for it, are mighty, and stir us mightily: but they do not much enlarge Our domain of suffering, bounded as it is by Our personal being and experience: the facts on which they are founded, the persons whom they concern, can be, even in the longest and most varied and associated life, but few ; and can in no case for a moment be brought into comparison with His, which embraced all,—every fact of Sorrow, and every son and daughter of Suffering, at every time from the beginning to the end. In capacity also for suffering, He surpassed us equally. It is a token of God's mercy, as well as of our infirmity, that we are ever benumbed by pain. The crash which lights On a man and maims him perhaps fatally, leaves him feeling for the moment unhurt. And even thus is it with great mental Suffering also : we know not its depth, because of its depth. Beyond a certain point, the anguished eye puts on darkness, the fevered frame subsides into lethargy. Often, in the course and pro- gress of mighty calamities, the chief sufferer endures less than they who pity him ; often, in the dark procession which follows the loved and departed, the most acute anguish is felt by those who, moving at a certain dis- tance, have room for the flowing through their memories of the acts and words of kindness, the melody of the voice and the Sweetness of the smile, not by that one who, heading them, and nearest to the dead, has lost the light of life, and moves along in blankness and half un- consciousness, the memory providentially treacherous, 254 Feſ/owship with Christ's Sufferings. the feelings mercifully benumbed. But so was it not, with Him Whom we love. As He, in the bosom of the Father in the ancient days, “measured with calm pre- sage the infinite descent,” so when in the depth of the valley of humiliation, He was ever awake with undimmed vision to each particular of His vast load of woe: there was no benumbing of His spirit by the greatness of suffering : and when they offered Him the stupefying potion, He put it from Him. In that long procession of human sorrow, of which the world's history, disguise it as they will, is but the record, His mourning has ever been first and chief and unapproachable. Look and see, whether there be any sorrow like unto His SO11 OW. But how then am I speaking of the fellowship of His sufferings P. If in so many points they were peculiarly His own, where are those other points, at which we may touch, and find community with them 2 Let us consider one more of these distinctions, and it will gently guide us into the path of which we are in search. Not only in capacity of suffering, but in the matter and form and nature of this suffering, did He surpass Our natural and ordinary standing. For what was it, which bowed down the Redeemer like a bruised reed P What was it, which forced from Him that confession, “My Soul is exceed- ing sorrowful even unto death º' Was it, think you, the mere prospect of shame and pain P Can we for a moment imagine that any fear of shame, however marked and revolting, any dread of pain, however terrible to * Christian Year. Pe//ows/ºi/ wit/; Christ's Sufferings. 255 flesh and blood, would have thus prostrated Him Who had undergone the one great humiliation of being made in the likeness of sinful flesh,_Who had been for so many years a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief? Can we for a moment Suppose, that that Courage, which has so often borne on the sons of men to torture and ignominy, foreseen and chosen, was not present in Him P No, Brethren : had the shame, and Spitting, and plucking off the hair, been all,—had the Scourge, and the crown of thorns, and the Cross, been all,—Our Holy One would never have shrunk from them ; never fallen in His agony in Gethsemane ; never uttered the great and ex- ceeding bitter cry, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me P” It was none of these things, that broke up the depths of the soul; none of these things, that shook almost to tottering that glorious and primaeval resolve ; none of these things, that divided this way and that His swift thoughts, and brought in that “neverthe- less not My will, but Thine be done.” O no, it was none of these. Death had a sting ; but it was not pain,_not shame, not the fever, and the thirst, and the last loud cry when nature gave way; it was something beyond all these, even SIN : and sin it was—the putting on of sin, the entering into the guilt and penalty of sin, the community with and imputation of that which He hated with a perfect hatred,—at which and from which His whole soul recoiled and shuddered : even this it was, which prostrated Him at Gethsemane, which agonized Him on the Cross itself. “In that He died, He died unto sin once.” Doubtless in this also He surpassed * 256 Fellowshift with Christ's Sufferings. anything which we can suffer. No human thought will ever be able to comprehend in its fulness that which the Holy One took on Him, when He became a curse for us. But notwithstanding the vast and inconceivable difference in degree of this His suffering, we seem here to have touched at length on a point where we may enter into fellowship with it. If He became sin for us, we are the sinners ourselves. He, Who knew no sin, was made sin for us : shall we, who do know sin, who were born in it, who commit it every day, know nothing of the bitterness of spirit which that entrance into it brought on Him 2 Imputed guilt crushed Him to the earth, and pierced His very soul : shall actual guilt bring to us no similar Suffering P The head on which these sins were laid, was pierced with thorns sharper than that outward Crown which bound it: shall ours, on which they properly and personally rest, be afflicted with no compunction on their account? Here then we have gained the first point of fellowship with His suffer- ings: grief for sin ; deep, earnest personal affliction for our own guilt and unworthiness. Of this, the natural man knows absolutely nothing. Terror on account of sin may throw over his soul its dark shadow : but this is not fellowship with Christ's sufferings. It is not dread of future judgment, not the apprehension of tor- ments to come, of which we are speaking : for of these He knew nothing : joy was set before Him even in the midst of His sharpest sufferings. There was no terror, no cowardly shrinking in Him, as we have seen : it was the hatefulness of sin to one Who was sinless : the loath- Fellowship with Christ's Sufferings. 257 someness of guilt to one Who was free from guilt: the utter alienation of every thought of His from that im- puted state in which He was to be reckoned and to Suffer: these, as we said, caused the keenest pangs of His passion, and of these the dweller in sin, the lover of sin, the practiser of sin, knows nothing at all. Whence then does this fellowship with His sufferings date, of which we speak P When first the Holy Spirit of God commences His work within a man, there is a stirring among the thoughts and purposes, and something begins to be felt which was never felt before. It is very possible, that the preliminaries of this state may have been terror and apprehension of consequences; but they were only preliminaries: the Spirit of God is not a spirit of terror, but a spirit shewing us the things of Christ in grace and love. And what are these new thoughts and feelings, which thus begin to stir in the outset of His work 2 They are briefly characterized by our Lord as “the conviction of sin ; ” the bringing out in a man for the first time, what sin is: not merely as that against which the natural conscience testifies, not merely as the probable cause of ruin and everlasting misery, but as a thing in itself hateful; in which light he never saw it before. And this is no wonder. The spiritual life, before this, acted not, thought not, felt not. Now, it is brought into feeling, thought, and action. The inner man begins to move with God's breath, and to become a living Soul. It begins to heave with the desires, and to go after the instincts, of its own proper being. It first recognizes the foul worm which has been gnawing S 258 Fellowship with Christ's Sufferings. at the root of life. It feels the galling of the yoke of the usurper, who is forbidding every function of its new gained vitality. It yearns and it struggles to be free. Sin is no longer the element in which the man lives and breathes. The new will, and the old will are ever at variance—the one detecting, protesting, battling onwards: the other rebelling, scheming, intriguing to mislead and to draw backwards. And here is the secret of the fellowship with Christ's sufferings: an inward state of division and conflict, beginning with the first stirrings of the spiritual life, waxing onward through all its increase, as sin becomes more hateful and Jesus more lovely; ever approaching, though at infinite distance, the sufferings of Him its pattern : so that the maturest Christian is the most conformed to them,-the oldest in His service knows most of fellowship with them. And in the train of this the Spirit's inward and Central work, follow all those outward particulars, in which the servant of the Lord is called on to be like his Master : contempt from the world around, the contradic- tion of sinners, to say nothing of those peculiar and providential dispensations of sorrow with which our heavenly Father constantly afflicts the children whom He loves: with which every son of His must, as matter of course, expect to be chastened. Dark indeed, some may be disposed to say to me, and disconsolate, is the picture which you have drawn : having no beauty that we should desire it, no charm to attract us to it. Stay then a few moments longer, while I endeavour to shew you that this fellowship with Ae//ows/ºi/ with Christ's Sufferings. 259 Christ's sufferings is an acquirement, and a state, worthy of your highest, yea, of your only ambition. First of all, avoid this state, shrink from it, go away and think not of it, if you will. What will be the consequence 2 You think perhaps, “I shall live a far more comfortable life than those whom he has been describing. I shall go on, in happy ignorance of what sin is. I shall be troubled with none of these new thoughts, this imaginary stirring within me, this mystical life of which he spoke.” Yes, so you may. You may go on, and I fear are going on, many of you, in ignorance of, and escaping, all these things: but one thing you know well, and you cannot escape it, and you do not escape it, day by day; the terror of sin, the dread of death, the shudder which comes over you when you remember that the dream must have an end ; and then, you perfectly well know, for conscience tells it you, and no power of un- belief can contradict her, there will come suffering enough ; but not fellowship with Christ's sufferings — repentance enough, of a certain kind,-that withered and introverted repentance, which we call remorse, the gnawing of the spirit by itself;-but not repentance unto life. All this you know—all this you cannot fly from. In the whirl of life's business, in the giddy maze of fashion, work as you will, and fly where you will, these thoughts follow you and persecute you. Then I ask you, even on this your ground, is it not worth while to make an effort to be rid of your persecutor 2 Is it not worth while to present your wound for healing, instead of allowing it to go on towards mortification as 260 Kellowship with Christ's Sufferings. at present? Enter into the fellowship with Christ's sufferings, and we promise you the departure of these terrors. Learn to know what sin is, and this very know- ledge shall relieve you from the bondage of sin. Begin to grapple with the strong man armed that keepeth thine house within, by the aid of that stronger one Who shall help thee at last to bind him and spoil his goods. It may and it will cost thee suffering : I know it, and have forewarned thee. But is it not worth any suffering, to struggle into light and freedom 2 Is it not worth any present loss, if we may live freely and purely and blessedly, and die without terror, and fulfil in a higher and perfect state all the best ends of our being, in the sinless and everlasting service of Him from Whom that being came? - * So far in argument with the man of the world, and on his ground : but when we speak with the Christian on this matter, O shame that ſhe should need persuad- ing, that the fellowship of his Redeemer's sufferings is the one proposed object of his highest ambition | Why, why are we Christians put here in God's world 2 Is it, that we may do and be any of those things by which we are known outwardly in the world P. That we may push upwards in the great jostle of life—that we may, when grey hairs begin to be sprinkled upon us, be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day ? O, we know better than this : we are sent here in different places, and with different outsides, and different degrees of worldly comfort and honour: but we were all sent here for One purpose, and for one purpose only : Fe//owship with Christ's Sufferings. 261 that we might follow and be like Christ: our highest attainment is to be found not in worldly eminence, nor in fleshly luxury, not in power of intellect, nor in extent of knowledge, but in that degree, be other things as they may, in which we have put on Christ, have been clothed with His Spirit, exhibited His example, glorified His name. And in order to all this, the fellow- ship with His sufferings, of which we have been speaking, is an indispensable requisite. O that there were in us more of the spirit of those, who “rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for His name: ”’ more of the confidence, and of the ground of the confidence, of him, who wrote “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him ; ”” or of that other, who told us “not to count it a strange thing concerning the fiery trial which is to try us: but to rejoice inasmuch as we are partakers of Christ's sufferings.” ” Remember, that even He, the Captain of our salvation, made perfect through sufferings.” “ All that we { { WalS shall read of, and hear of during the ensuing weeks, was necessary for Him to go through, in order to be that which He is, “the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him.” And if for Him, in His work of lowly and spotless love, O how much more for us, in our conflict with frailty and corruption and sin Enter then, beloved, boldly into the fire of affliction : —shrink not, but be eager for this the truest and most glorious martyrdom. For you shall not walk in the re * * Acts v. 4I. 2 Tim. ii. 12. * I Pet. iv. 12, 13. * Heb. ii. Io. 262 Fellowship with Christ's Sufferings. furnace alone; He will be with you, Whose form is that of the Son of God ; and when you come forth approved, nought shall have yielded to the flames, save the bands that bound you, the lusts of the flesh, and the fetters of sin, and the evil habits of the world, from which fellowship with His sufferings shall have freed you for eVGr. SERMON XX. (PREACHED IN 1854.) (Thrist's Crošš is QChrist's (filorn. “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.”—JOHN xii. 23. AMONG the many tokens of the powerlessness of words to keep alive the ideas once conveyed by them, this is one,—that we are accustomed to such expressions as “glorying in the cross of Christ.” When first uttered, the words formed a startling paradox; and as such, the Apostle wrote them, to awaken and astonish his readers, and to set the boast of the Christian in the strongest possible contrast to the boast of the world. For a time, we may well imagine, those who read or heard St. Paul's Epistles would be thus astonished with such an ex- pression. But we first start at paradoxes, and then acquiesce in and slumber over them ; and so it has been with this one. The offence of the cross, in its first sense, has ceased. We all believe in One Who was crucified. We all have received the fact and the symbol of His crucifixion. The hated and despised instrument of the most degraded kind of execution is emblazoned on the banners of armies, borne on the shields of which families 264 Christ's Cross is Christ's Glory. are proud, built into our Christian temples of worship, and signed on us when we are first dedicated to Christ. We have ceased to be shocked, or to wonder at the cross. But is it not true, that in ceasing to wonder, we have also in Some measure ceased to reflect 2 For the paradox is as great now as it ever was. That the emblem of a male- factor's death should be thus had in honour, is as full of meaning now, as it was when the first proud Roman hearts learned to bow to the offence of the cross, and to profess One crucified as their Lord and their God. And if we do not feel this incongruity, if we regard Christ's Cross as a term naturally bringing with it glory and victory, and a thing to be boasted of, it is because we have forgotten its meaning, and are unconscious of its depths of strange and unapproachable love. O that we may this day be enabled to meditate pro- fitably on the subject which our text suggests to us, and to see how Christ's cross is Christ's glory ; how all that process of sharp suffering, ending in a death of shame, not merely leads to or issues in, but is and Constitutes, the glorification of our blessed Redeemer. May that God, Who hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised, yea and things which are not, to bring to nought things which are, purify our spiritual sight, that we may know those things which have been given us of Him. “The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified.” And when was this announcement made Christ's Cross is Christ's G/ory. 265 We might well conceive that it belonged to the sayings of that wondrous interval, when His risen body lingered among His disciples on earth, before it was received up to the right hand of God. Or perhaps that it might have been spoken to some of those spirits of the just with whom He sojourned after His burial ; that with such an announcement He might have awakened those Saints who slept, ere they left their graves on the morn of His resurrection. But to no such time do these triumphant words belong. They pertain to a season of gathering darkness, of sadness and trouble of spirit. It was within six days of that last passover, the greatest passover which the world ever saw. The one Paschal Lamb, the only true sacrifice ever offered to God, was already taken up, and awaiting His day. That final journey to Jerusalem, so full of earnest determination and affecting sympathy, was accomplished. The crown- ing miracle of Jesus had crowned the enmity of His foes. Lazarus had been called back from Abraham's bosom to the careless brethren of the household; but it had only proved that those who heard not Moses and the prophets would not be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. The long-meditated resolve had been definitively taken, to put Jesus to death. How, was not yet decided. The treachery of the recreant Apostle was not yet matured. To this gathering tempest a temporary Contrast is presented by an Outbreak of popular favour, the result of the great miracle of the raising of Lazarus. The multitudes go forth to meet Jesus. The disciples think that the kingdom of God is immediately about to 266 Christ's Cross is Christ's G/ory. appear. Down the steep of the Mount of Qlives the triumphant procession passes with pealing hosannas, and with palm-branches strewed in the way. But His own Soul, far from being elated by this semblance of a triumph, is dwelling on the things which should come upon Him, and on His own, who in their hearts received Him not. When He was come near to the city, He wept over it. And in the incident which led to the words of our text, the same is even more strikingly shewn. In the midst of the popular excitement of this day, certain Greeks, who had come up to worship at the feast, desired to see Jesus ; that is, I suppose, not merely to behold Him, which they might have done in public at any time, but to gain access to Him in private, perhaps to offer Him homage, or to derive from Him instruction and a blessing. Twice in His life on earth is our Lord acknowledged in His regal Office : Once at the beginning, when pilgrims from the East came to offer their gifts to Him Who was born King of the Jews; and now at the end, when the multitude cried, “Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.” And on both occasions distant tribes of the earth desire to see Him, Who was to be the light to lighten the Gentiles, as well as the glory of His people Israel. Two of the Apostles bring the message to Jesus. And now we enter on the train of thought which is so important for Our present purpose. Christ Himself, as the Gospel of Christ afterwards, was first to be offered to the chosen people, the Jews. Their rejection of Him was to precede the opening of Christ's Cross is Christ's G/ory. 267 an access to the Gentiles into the Church of God. But this Order was not now, as afterwards, merely a matter of decorum or special arrangement. It was now a necessary one, in the very nature of those events by which redemption was to be brought about. It was by the offering of the Body of Christ for the sin of the world, that the difference between Jew and Gentile was to be abolished, and perfect equality of access to God procured for every inheritor of that flesh of Adam, which the Lord had taken upon Him. Not till this was done, could the Gentile claim God as his God ; not till this was done, could all ends of the earth look unto Jesus and be saved. Now the approach and request of these Greeks had very near connexion with this matter. They would gain access to Jesus. But He was not sent, in His ministry in the flesh, except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Before the cross had been endured, and the grave and gate of death passed through, He could not, consistently with His plan and purpose in Redemption, minister to the Gentiles. So that His ministry to the Gentile world must be subsequent to His rejection by His own, not as mere matter of arrange- ment, but as effect is subsequent to its cause. And this circumstance is the key to the understanding and the context of this otherwise very difficult passage. On receiving the request of these Greeks, Our Lord appears at once to regard it as a sign that His hour is come; that His rejection by His own is ripe, and its crowning event prepared. Sad indeed and solemn is this event in prospect. The passion lost none of its bitterness, the 268 Christ's Cross is Christ's Glory. Cross none of its sharpness, on account of the glory which lay beyond them. We advance to sorrow and suffering, unknowing of that which shall happen, with Our Spirits strengthened to hope for the best, and sus- tained by trust in Him Whose probable care of us we shape according to our own desires ; but our Redeemer knew from the beginning all things which should come upon Him. Hope, which upholds us by counter- balancing danger, found no place in Him, in the pre- sence of absolute knowledge. The prospect therefore of all that was to come, the malice of His enemies, the desertion of His disciples, the cruel mocking and Scourg- ing, the agony and cross, must needs have weighed upon His soul with a weight to which all other human Souls are strangers. Yet for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame. Just as when He speaks of life and death in His discourses, the mere fact of natural death is absorbed in the glory of the resurrection and the life eternal,—so that He can say, “He that liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die;” So in this His own matter, when the sign occurs that His time is near, His first exclamation takes no account of the sharpness of death, but is full only of the great result of His sacrifice : Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.” Bear, I beseech you, this connexion in mind, while we advance through the rest of this singularly solemn and beautiful reply. Before the Saviour's eye rises the far-spread Gentile Church, with its vast com- panies of believers, innumerable as the grains of corn Christ's Cross is Christ's Glory. 269 which are gathered into the granaries —and then He speaks of the event which is to bring about the glorious harvest, by the simple but deep analogies of nature—of that nature which is His servant, and whose laws, as well as those of the spiritual world, He prescribed – “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” That is, His ministry, though He was the Bread of Life, the true wheat sent for the life of the world, would abide alone and profitless, but for the act of Death, through which it was to pass out into wider and nobler life, to carry forward its spiritual organization, and increase and multiply and replenish the earth. And this in accordance with the general law, common to all men, and to the Lord Jesus Himself-spoken here primarily with reference to Him- self, but passing on to us and to all who would see Jesus —that the life cherished and hoarded, like the wheat cherished and hoarded, is lost, is profitless, and without increase ; but the life hated and spent, despised in com- parison with the great ends for which it is to be bestowed, is really treasured, being kept - unto life eternal. This was His law: He spent His holy life, and He poured out His precious blood, He was not sparing of His love nor of His labour, nor of His tears; He coveted no power nor riches, nor even a home on earth ; but His self-sacrifice was His self-seeking, His humiliation was His glory, His cross was His throne. 27o Christ's Cross is Christ's Glory. And so must it be with all who would see Him, and be His. “If any man serve Me,” He continues, “let Him follow Me ; and where I am, there shall also My servant be : if any man serve Me, him will My Father honour.” The world, i.e. for which I die, must die with Me ; all who would be glorified with Me must follow in My steps; that honour which I receive from My Father shall also be his who serves and comes after Me. It is necessary for the full understanding of Christ's Cross as Christ's glory, to follow onward for a few verses in the sacred narrative. As yet, the Redeemer has been speaking of the great results of His death. But that death itself, with its attendant circumstances of shame and pain and spiritual desertion, has been ever before Him, though He thus spoke ; and at last the human feeling is suffered to break forth, “Now is My soul troubled.” In such trouble of His soul, not only are we to recognize the universal horror of death of which He as very man, had a share ; but there was a horror pecu- liar to Him as the Son of God. Death is the work of God’s enemy, the negation of God's power, the wages of Sin, the forerunner of Corruption ; and thus to meet death, for Him Who was very God as well as very man, had that in it which especially troubled His holy soul. “Now is My Soul troubled, and what shall I say P " Not, it has been well observed, “what shall I do 2 ” When St. Paul spoke of being in a strait betwixt two, departing and being with Christ, and abiding in the flesh, he says, “What shall I choose, I wot not ; ”* but | Phil. i. 22. Christ's Cross is Christ's G/ory. 27 I there is no wavering in the Redeemer's purpose ; it is Only the trouble of soul which cannot find utterance in that human speech, which though He spake as never man spake, yet sufficed not for this expression. “What shall I say ? Father, save Me from this hour.” This was the direction of the human wish ; as in Gethsemane He prayed, “If it be possible, let this cup pass away from me.” I will just remark that these words are not for a moment to be taken interrogatively, as though it were “Shall I say, Father, save Me from this hour P” All who study our Lord's discourses at all below the Surface, will at once see the impossibility of attributing to Him a form of expression so utterly unworthy of Him, or the solemnity of the time. No ; the words are a veritable prayer expressing the phase of feeling passing Over His Soul at the moment, as was that other in the garden ; but as soon Superseded as that was, by the great resolve of the Spirit in union with the Father's will : “But for this cause came I to this hour : ” for this cause, namely, to do that which is now to be done,—to bring about the very effect of which I have just spoken ; to drop into the ground and die, that much fruit may be brought forth to Thy glory. And now as then also, the prayer, “Father, Save Me from this hour,” is turned into that other, expressive of entire unity with His will, “Father, glorify Thy name.” And as then there appeared unto Him an angel from heaven strengthening Him, so now the Father Himself bore open testimony to Him before the assembled people — “a voice came from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify 272 Christ's Cross is Christ's Glory. it again.” The past glorifying of God's name was by the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh ; by His perfect obedience and unsinning righteousness ; by that of which this Evangelist says, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth : ”—and the future glorifying was to be by means of that ampler manifestation of righteous- ness in humanity by the Spirit, to which the death of the Son of God was the door and entrance. And with reference to this wider manifestation our Lord proceeds, after telling them that the voice was not for His sake, but for theirs, “Now is the judgment of this world ; now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” The hour was come for that mighty event, by which the evil that is in the world was to be detected and separated, and he who ruled and dwelt in the sinful world was to be judged and cast out of it, by the ultimate effect of the Gospel and Spirit of Christ. “And I,” He adds, “if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” The great example of Divine love shewn in the sacrifice of the Cross shall draw all men, shall become the one central event of the world. As every eye in Israel was directed to the serpent uplifted for healing and life, so shall all ends of the earth look to Me and be saved. It seems that the word “”Aſified” is purposely ambiguous, to include all that high exaltation of which the raising on the cross was but the beginning ; but mainly and primarily the Evangelist declares, “This He said, signi- fying what death He should die.” And now, brethren, we have so far accompanied our Christ's Cross is Christ's Glory. 273 Lord's discourse, that we have our subject, “Christ's cross, Christ's glory,” complete, by the declarations of His own words. It is His glory, from what we have been explaining, in this fourfold reference — I. As regards the enemy of God; 2. As regards man ; 3. As regards Himself; 4. As regards the Father. I. As regards the great enemy, it is His glory. We have seen Him during this Lent, resisting the tempter in his assaults on His stedfastness, and overcoming him. But that was not a complete victory. The devil departed from Him for a season only. He had conquered him personally, and therefore by implication for those also to whom He was to become wedded and joined by the work of redemption ; but the actual and final victory Over Satan was achieved on the cross. There the Son of God, made in the likeness of sinful flesh, suffered sin’s penalty. The blow of the enemy, aimed at the frail and disobedient head of our race, and so far successful, yet descended in its might on the strong and righteous Head of our race, and so failed of its end and was defeated. He who hoped to crush Adam, was himself crushed in Christ. He who meditated to join humanity to himself and drag it down for ever into the place appointed for him and his angels, saw with dismay humanity taken into the Godhead, and, while he was permitted to vex it and work death on it, yet rescued for ever from his grasp. This was Christ's glory, as regards the enemy ; yea, and more than this. Satan had won his victory by hatred ; Christ's victory over Satan was won by love. Satan, for his own malicious T 274 Christ's Cross is Christ's G/ory. and selfish purpose, had brought ruin and misery into a happy world ; Christ, for His glorious and blessed work, gave Himself to sorrow and suffering, His back to the Smiters, and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and His body to the cross and grave, that He might bring out the world into happiness tenfold as bright and holy as that which Satan ruined. The cross was His true triumph over the adversary, because by it, and by it alone, came in the true judgment of the prince of this world ; by it man was knit unto Christ in one Spirit, and that Spirit should convince the world of judgment, because the prince of this world was judged ; i.e. should lift man above Satan and Satan's devices, and enable him to see their nothingness and vanity, and seat him where Christ sits at God's right hand, whence he can look down on the world, and its prince, and its interests, and its follies, and say, “Yea, I count them all but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” And therefore it is, for all these reasons, that the Apostle, Speaking of Christ's triumph over the enemy, chooses the Crucifixion as the occasion of it, and says of the cross, “Having Spoiled princi- palities and powers, He made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” 2. As regards Man, the cross is Christ's glory. On it, as has been said, was transacted the Central event of man's world. All before, had reference to this ; all after, flow forth from it. The whole system of sacrifice, and atonement by types and emblems, found its fulfil- ment and its end on the cross; the whole state of Christ's Cross is Christ's Glory. 275 acceptance in which believers in Christ stand before God, the whole dispensation of the Spirit under which we live, had its origin and its commencement here. Other great events have been partial in their effects and reference; this alone is universal. Wherever there breathes a man on the face of the earth, there the cross has a deep and never-failing interest. “Jesus Christ and He crucified,” is the burden of God's message to every sinner, to look to Him and be saved. But here also was the triumph of human nature. You hear of the powers, the dignity, the excellence of human nature ; of its wonderful capacities for knowledge, its high endowments for empire, its glowing affections, its thoughts that wander through eternity. But in none of these did human nature reach its noblest height, nor bear its fairest fruit. Not in the schools of Athens, not in the forum of Rome, not in poesy, not in art, has man been most glorified ; but on the cross of Jesus. There manhood bore its only fruit of love untouched by a blight; there it was honoured, not with the frenzy of ~the poet, nor with the subtlety of the philosopher, nor with the inspiration of the prophet, but with the union of the Godhead, stooping to share its sentence of death, and to bring it through death to glory. This was Christ's glory as regarded man ; for here the wound of the world was healed ; here man became capable of pleasing God ; here that image was restored, which sin had marred. It was the blood of His cross, which made peace between God and man ; not His incarnation, nor His spotless life, not His superhuman teaching, nor His 276 Christ's Cross is Christ's Glory. rejection, nor His sorrows, but His Death, and that only. All else were accompaniments; preparations, if before, consequences, if after ; but this was the efficient and meritorious cause of man's righteousness, and this alone. This was the uplifting of the Son of man, and in Him, potentially, of all the sons of men, to His endless and boundless glory. 3. The cross was Christ's glory, as regarded Himself “To this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and the living.” He was born into the world that He might be a king ; and here we have His Lordship established, and His Kingdom inaugurated. Mark His own words to the penitent thief: “Remember me,” he had said, “when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom.” “And Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” That is, that day was the kingdom begun ; that day its royal prerogatives were exerted, and the grant of life was extended from the King on the cross to the penitent on the cross. Now passed the travail of the Redeemer's soul, on which He shall look through eternity and be satisfied. This was the moment, of which we read, that it was fixed and contemplated in the Divine counsels before the world began ; for Christ was the Lamb slain from the founda- tion of the world.” And not to man's earth alone was Christ's glory in His cross limited. We read that “it pleased the Father, having made peace by the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things to Himself; * Rom. xiv. 9. * Rev. xiii. 8. Christ's Cross is Christ's Glory. 27 7. by Him, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.” As regards all that He has made and upholds, Christ's cross is His glory. There is no act of His which so eminently characterizes Him, as that accomplished here. When the beloved Apostle was vouchsafed the vision of God's presence in heaven, he saw, and lo, in the midst of the throne was “a Lamb as it had been slain.” And besides, it is from the cross that Christ's glory in the work of the Spirit proceeds. He is that stream of living water, which flowed out from the cross to cleanse all sin and uncleanness—that river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God. “The Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified,”’ says the Apostle at an earlier period, during His ministry on earth. But when Jesus was glorified, the Spirit went forth from the Father and the Son, and has been since, and shall be ever, glorifying Christ,-talking of the things of Him, and shewing them to His people. The cross then was the highest point of the glorification of the person and work of Jesus. 4. And lastly, it was His glory, as regarded the Father. By the counsel of the Father's will, was the mighty plan of Redemption directed. The self-denying love of Jesus, His perfect obedience, His truth and righteousness, these all redounded to the glory of the Father Who sent Him ; and these all found their highest example on the Cross. Zove—for “herein is love, that God loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for Our Sins: ” Obedience—for “He became obedient unto * Rev. v. 6. * I John vii. 39 (Greek). 273 Christ's Cross is Christ's Glory. death, even the death of the cross;” Truth—for “for this end came He into the world, that He should bear witness unto the truth,” and He bore it here: Righteousness—for “He made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” And of those high and mysterious purposes of the infinite God which we cannot now fathom, wherein we know that in the depths of His counsels all evil shall be found to have been the condition and seed of good, and His wisdom shall be everlastingly justified, the cross of Jesus will still be His glory. In it His Son glorified Him, and He glorified His great name ; manifesting His wisdom, vindicating His justice, and approving His love. * In our meditations on the passion and the cross of Christ may we never forget its glory in its shame, nor on the other hand its shame in its glory. May we follow Him through self-denying love, and humble obedience, and cheerful suffering ; remembering that what was His glory, must be ours also ; that as regards our spiritual enemy, as regards Our fellow-men, as regards ourselves, as regards our beloved Saviour, as regards our Father in heaven, our truest glory is the cross. SERM O N XXI. (PREACHED IN 1862.) Çjtíšt (Trutified. “We preach Christ crucifted.”—I COR. i. 13. THESE, my brethren, are very familiar words to you : words very often quoted : very often preached upon. They are sometimes quoted, and sometimes preached upon, as embodying a particular set of views or opinions, to be distinguished from other views and opinions about religion and the church : sometimes also used as if they gave undue prominence to one among all the holy doc- trines of the Gospel. Let us try to see what they really do import: and especially at this entrance to Passion week, when the subject to which they refer is so much in all our thoughts. St. Paul, who wrote them, was employed in preach- ing, or proclaiming, the glad tidings of Salvation to two very different sets of persons. There were the Jews, who had long been in possession of God's laws and ordinances, and who in order to be influenced by what He had to say, required a sign, i.e. wanted some out- *s 28O Christ Crucifted. ward miraculous convincing proof of his assertions, and without it would not receive them. Then there were the Greeks, who had preserved no direct revelations from God, but followed the light, poor as it was, of human reason and acuteness; and they required wisdom – wanted to be shown, by argument, and logical subtlety, the force of those things which were announced to them. Now St. Paul did not comply with either of these demands, but he steered his way between them, with one object ever before his eyes, and one proclamation ever in his mouth; and that was—Christ crucified. That is, in the simple acceptation of the words, he announced to them the fact that a certain person, Whom he affirmed to be the Christ, or Messiah of the Jews, had been nailed to a cross, the Common death at that time of notorious evil-doers. To say no more of this at present, let us note the effect which it had upon both classes of his hearers. It was to the Jews, an offence. They expected their Messiah to be a great and powerful prince, who should revive the Kingdom of David, and set their nation again on high among the peoples of the earth. That He should die the death of a miscreant and a slave, wounded the pride, and offended every expectation and prejudice, of the Jew. Then as to the other hearer, there was nothing in the proclamation of this fact which could in any way flatter his love of wisdom and acuteness. It was to him foo/ishness ; simply ridiculous, for one to go about pro- claiming that a man had been crucified ;-a thing which Christ Crucifted. 28 I he could not conceive to be productive of any conse- quences at all. However St. Paul persisted, and gives his plain reasons for doing so. He says that this fact, expressed in the words “Christ crucified,” contained something which was both for Jews and Greeks the power of God and the wisdom of God : the most notable sign that could be required by the Jew: deeper far than the pro- foundest wisdom that the Greek could demand. He persisted : and the consequences were in his time, and have been since, such as to shew that he was abundantly justified in doing so. Multitudes, both of Jews, and Greeks, became, by the force of these words, changed men : forsook dumb idols, or dead works, to serve the living God : the body of believers thus got together spread into all nations, and has reformed the manners, the morals, the Social life, of half mankind. Thousands of Suffering men and women, of poor, of sick, of dying, —labourers in their toil, youth in their temptations, mourners in their desertion, penitents in their shame and Sorrow,L-men and women of all ages, all stations, all languages, have been made happy, and comforted, and strengthened, and lifted higher in the scale of being, by hearing and by knowing this thing, Christ crucified. The shameful cross on which Christ died, has been taken out of the place of Shame, and made the boast and the banner of wise and holy men : there is no memory, there is no symbol, which has ever exercised such a spell and charm Over human thoughts and ways. It is stamped on the majestic area of the Christian Cathedral, and 282 Christ Crucifted. signed on the soft brow of the Christian babe: it gilds the point of the spire which directs our thoughts to heaven, and it marks the hallowed place where we have laid our beloved ones in the earth. But all this is as nothing—nothing compared with the triumphs of the Cross within man's heart. There it is, that high thoughts have been cast down by it, and the true majesty of meekness implanted : that the Selfishness of man has been turned into self-sacrifice : that the wise has become a fool, in order that he may be wise: and the babe has received wisdom which might baffle the sage. It seems then that this conduct of St. Paul in pro- claiming Christ crucified has its justification; it seems then that his assertion about its being the power and the wisdom of God was not without foundation in truth. But may not we, my brethren, may not you and I, be permitted to enter somewhat into the grounds of this his justification, and to see on what foundation his asser- tion rests P Let this be our endeavour, in dependence on God's help. Let us try and make plain to you how “Christ crucified,” which offended the Jews and seemed foolishness to the Greeks, was, and is yet, the power and the wisdom of God. Of course the question for us resolves itself into this, —“What did this death of Christ, so inflicted, mean and imply P” Now let us carefully weigh this. Con- sider it thus. There must have been something very different indeed about this crucifixion from any other crucifixion, for this to be able to be said of it. A cruci- Christ Crucifted. 283 fixion may have been an unjust and shameful act, as doubtless thousands of them were ; it may have been a cruel act, as certainly all such were : it may have been inflicted on a holy and harmless man, on a helpless and supplicating woman, on an innocent unoffending child : it may have been the end of some pitiable, or some in- structive story: nay it may have even made great changes in the world,—have led to empires being crushed, or dynasties being founded : but I cannot see how any event of this kind on earth could ever have become the subject of St. Paul's proclamation, as this did, could ever have made such changes in men and in nations as this has, could ever have been proved to be the power of God and the wisdom of God, unless there was some- thing in it totally different from anything whatever in the history of mere worldly transactions. Perhaps you say, it may have been some very noble example ;-Some death of love for others, Some render- ing up of Self to shame and suffering that others might escape them. Well, but what then 2 Are there not in history, thank God, plenty of such examples of self- denying love P Have we not read of them from our childhood, have we not seen such among us in our own time 2 But what effect do these produce 2 Sometimes a noble effect, no doubt: a nation is stirred to honour such persons, and their names Survive as watchwords in the wreck of ages. But that is nothing, when compared to the effect of this of which we speak. What instance of noble self-sacrifice ever wrought in the conscience of a sinner, to turn him from his sins 2 What bright 284 Christ Crucifted. example of love ever made a proud man humble 2 What illustrious name of a victim to philanthropy ever cheered a dying soul, and gilded the dark valley with gleams of hope P The matter is altogether different , and again I say, there must be something in this cruci- fixion of Christ, totally and essentially distinct from all other events of the same kind. And do not suppose that I am now labouring to establish a small matter; or wasting words to shew what everybody is aware of The greatest difference I know between one man and another among us Chris- tians is that between the man who is aware of this dis- tinction and the man who is not aware of it. Let a man look on the crucifixion of Christ as the most unjust and Cruel of all recorded acts of oppression ; let him weep ever so much over the undeserved sufferings of its Victim : let him look on it as the most glorious instance on record of self-sacrificing Love, and prefer it to all others in history: with all this he knows not, he cannot know, anything of the spell which it exercised over these Jews and Greeks;–neither knows such a man, nor can he know, anything of “Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of God,” unless he knows another thing about it, which does not belong to any human event of the kind :—viz. that which St. Paul knew well, and of which he so often writes; that it was the sacrifice offered for the sin of this w/ole world. This it is—this, in connexion with the consideration of Who it was that suffered, and why He suffered, which makes this fact of Christ crucified to be all it is, and all Christ Crucifted. 285 it ever has been—the conversion of sinners, the stay of the faithful, the comfort of the mourner, the drier-up of the penitent's tears, the hope of the dying, the glory and boast of the Church of God. Keep it as a tragic tale, exalt it as you will as a mere example of human love, and it is a weapon with which you may fight against wrath and terror in vain : but give it this its own true character, let it be the propitiation for the sin of man, —and it becomes God's bow set in the cloud of His wrath, the sure sign of Covenant mercy, the unfailing pledge of reconciled love. Let us then now, my brethren, with the solemn words of this day's services in our minds, draw near to that Cross where Christ is crucified ; and try whether we cannot by what we see there justify St. Paul's resolution and substantiate his description. One hangs crucified there ; but Who is He P Is He the noblest, the most innocent, the most Self-denying of men P Alas, what were that for Our purpose P Our answer is other than this: we look on, and reply, as the Centurion, “Truly, He was the Son of God.” He has come down from heaven from the bosom of His Father, from bliss incon- ceivable and ineffable, because He, because the Father, loved the Sons of men with a love surpassing all our owers of thought. He determined from eternity to submit to this death of shame and pain, in order to pay the penalty of the wrong which the sons of men had done, and to ransom them for Himself and for their ºnal happiness in Him. | This is the account for us. There are other mysteries | \ ! % 286 Christ Crucifted. in that Death, which we may only behold afar off; but this is near to us, to every one of us. In order to this His gracious purpose, He became man like ourselves : not to reign over us, but to die for us ; rather, not to reign over us except by dying for us. Now do you not See as we stand beneath that Cross, and look upon what is done there, how it lays hold on Our hearts and weaves itself into our lives and our thoughts of ourselves P Un- worthy as I am, each one of us may say, less than the least of all God’s outward mercies, for me that Holy One was offered up ;-for my sins, as much as if my sins were the only sins in the world. But how do I know this P. By what means am I to be assured of it 2 By something in myself In the first place, and as regards its intrinsic worth, -Surely not : because if any feeling of mine is wanting to make Christ's death efficacious for me, then without that feeling it was not efficacious, and thus was incomplete. Christ crucifted, as preached by us, is an outward fact, historical and final, on which our firm belief may lay hold and rest: not an inward feeling, now here, now there, shifting as our moods and frames are changed. When St. Paul came to these Corinthians, when we come to you and proclain Christ crucified, we proclaim to you that this Lamb o God has been sacrificed for the sins of every one among you. And we call upon you to act upon this truth as the foundation of your lives and hopes. But there is more than this contained in the procla- mation. The fact itself is, it is true, applicable to every man separately, as much, as we just now said, as if there Christ Crucifted. 287 were no other man in the world. It is the very ground which this same Apostle states why he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, “because it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” But this is not the ordinary method of receiving the tidings and their consequences. Life might be sustained, if a man were alone. But it is not good for man to be alone. We are not solitary creatures in this world ; nor has God so framed the proclamation of His salvation, as to cause us to be such in receiving it. He has called out from the world, and constituted by ordinances of His own, a body of men, which we name the Church. He has commanded that such as receive this fact of Christ crucified shall be made members of that body by an Ordinance of His own prescribing, viz. Holy Baptism : that that ordinance shall be to them the token and pledge of their membership, and assurance to them of their part, in Christ crucified. And if you or I, or any baptized member of Christ's Church, is asked the question, “How do you know that that sacrifice on the Cross is the taking away of your sins and the making you acceptable to God P’’ the answer, if we are faithful and honest men, will be simply this, “Because I have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the three Persons in the blessed Trinity cove- nanted together for my salvation by that sacrifice of the Lamb of God.” But it may be said, how if a man thus received into Christ's Church,-how if one of you, my brethren, men already baptized and called Christians,—be totally in- 288 Christ Crucifted. Sensible to the great fact and its proper influence on his life, what are we to do then 2 What are we to proclaim to such an one P Are we to say, “You have yet to be admitted among the Lord's people—go and repent and believe, and come again, and you may some day be fit to receive the benefits of Christ crucified ?” No, my brethren, nothing of the kind. We are to go on proclaiming Christ crucified : to tell him not about himself, but about Christ : Christ in His Death, and in His Resurrection, and in His pleading in heaven ;- Christ in the ordinances of His Church ;-Christ in His word, and on His throne of grace. This will be the way to deal with such a man —and to tell him, “All this is yours;–Christ is yours in all these ways of imparting Himself;-draw near and partake of Him : take up this your freedom, and cast off the bondage of sin : come with us, and see the salvation of the Lord. If you will not, our course is not altered—on your own head be the blame and the condemnation.” And so we go on proclaiming, not this or that fashion of the day, not this or that religious system, but ever- more and to the end this same thing, Christ crucified : Christ the atonement for every man's sin : Christ put on in Baptism : Christ to be put on in heart and life. But, as in the Apostle's day, so now, there are two classes of persons, whom this setting forth of Christ and of Him crucified does not please. First, there are those who require a sign : who are not contented with publishing God's good tidings of salvation for all, and as a testimony to all, but require Christ Crucifted. 289 each man to shew Something in his own state, and detail something in his own experience, which may, as they think, manifest that he has a part in Christ. To these persons the offence of the Cross is necessarily great : they cannot imagine how a simple receiving of these good tidings of Christ crucified,—a humble unpretending membership of Christ's Church,-should be salvation to a man : but they want him evermore to contribute some- thing of his own, and to stand in his own strength in this matter of his salvation ; forgetting that all growth in grace, and good works, and repentance, and know- ledge, must be made on the foundation of acceptance in Christ, and not as a preliminary step to it:-that our obligation to renounce sin, and believe, and obey, were undertaken when we became members of Christ,-not in order that we might become such. Then again, this preaching of Christ crucified is not likely to please those who seek after wisdom ; after that which may satisfy their human ways of judging and thinking of things. And thus we have whole classes of worldly men and of intellectual men in our own as well as in other days, finding the preaching of Christ's Cross foolishness to them ; something beneath their notice. And when from any cause they are brought to the outward profession of belief in the doctrine, they deal untruly with it, and try to explain it away : and deny its atoning power, and apply to it the maxims and deal- ings of human wisdom, and despise those who simply receive and believe it as it is. Yet, my brethren, for all that both these say or do, U 29O Christ Crucifted. Christ crucified is still the power of God, and the wisdom of God. The effects of the doctrine of the Cross have not ceased, nor have its wonders been exhausted. For all that they can say or do, we, the ministers of Christ, will not cease to proclaim Christ crucified, as our fathers did of old. Let every one of us, in his heart and mind, be determined on this point. We of God's Church are to be in the world witnesses of the death of Christ. Not only in the ordinance which He specially appointed for this very purpose, to shew forth His death till He come ; but in our whole lives, and words, and thoughts of ourselves, this foundation fact is to underlie all, “Christ crucifted.” P say, let us defermine that this shall be so, because it requires determination and firmness in this our time. On one side we have those who want of us more than Christ crucified in religion,-and would rob us of our acceptance before God by the Cross, unless we can shew them a sign, human feeling, past experience,—the day and manner of Our Conversion,-or the like :—and on the other side we have those who would reason us out of our simple faith in the all-sufficient atonement for sin, and try to persuade us that we have no sin at all, or that Christ's death was not a sacrifice for its remission. May we by God's grace stand firm against both : ministers determined to proclaim, people resolved to hold fast,--both fixed in purpose to become witnesses to, Christ crucified. And thus will the mighty Power of the Cross be made known in Our hearts and lives— thus will self be thrown down, and Christ and His Love Christ Crucifted. 29 I set up as our central motive :—thus will the taint of our old nature be purged away by the virtue of that blood which cleanseth from all sin ; and thus too will God's wisdom in this His appointed salvation become gradually and surely revealed to us :—not by signs and tokens which may be watched and recorded, - but by the ripening growth in a life of grace, and the increasing knowledge of our Master and Saviour Jesus Christ. Especially at this time would I recommend to you these thoughts and this determination. Each day this week we shall be following the sacred narrative in its record of that Holy Death of our Lord of which we have been speaking. Now therefore, if ever, is an opportunity given us of strengthening this foundation of our Christian life, and renewing our vows as Soldiers of the Cross. May this week, with its sacred commemorations and solemn readings of Scripture, and daily liftings up of the Cross in our sight, root and ground us in the Apostle's determination, to know nothing, for this world or the next, as the centre of our motives, and the source of our hopes, save Jesus Christ and Him crucifted. SERMON XXII, GOOD FRIDAY. (PREACHED IN 1856.) QTonformity to Çürist's Beatſ). “That Z may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellow- ship of His sufferings, being made conformable zenzo His death ; ºf by any means Z might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.”—PHIL. lll. IO, II. WE have spoken of the fellowship of our Lord's suffer- ings. We saw in what particulars those sufferings were peculiarly His own, and in what points they were ap- proachable by us, so that we might share them with Him. And we found the main track of this latter con- sideration to lie in this ; that His keenest sufferings were due, not to terror nor to physical pain, but to His having entered into the imputed guilt and actual penalty of sin. And here we seemed to approach common ground. The sin, which lay heavy on His soul, is our sin : the im- puted guilt from which He shrunk in the garden, is our actual guilt : the being forsaken of God, which forced from Him His cry on the cross, was the consequence of our forsaking God, and wandering every one to his own Com/ormity to Christ's Death. 293 way. We found then that conviction of sin, contrition for guilt, a broken heart for our own unworthiness, was the inlet into the fellowship of which we were in search. We did not, on that occasion, go much further than this. The fellowship with His sufferings seemed so great and mysterious a thing, that we were principally anxious, in the prospect of this week's contemplation of them, to ascertain how such community was brought about : to lay down its preliminaries, as consisting in the sense of sin abiding in and afflicting the Christian in his daily spiritual course. But to-day, a further expansion of the same subject is brought before us: “being made CON- FORMABLE TO HIS DEATH.” First let us consider shortly the words themselves. The participle, “being made con- formable,” is not here a past participle, as when we use “being made,” for “ſaving been made,” but it is a present participle. And this is an important fact:—it implies that the process of being made conformable is going on, and will continue to go on, through life. The conforma- tion, be it what it may, is not an act of a moment, not an act like justification, simultaneous with the exercise of true faith on the Son of God; but it is a gradual and a life-long process: So that the Apostle, at this late period in his career, when he was a prisoner at Rome, and looking to depart and be with Christ, speaks of it as yet being carried on, and as being the object of his future desires. Next, as to the meaning of the word itself “Being made conformable" does not exactly carry its own explanation with it. “Being conformed ” would perhaps be simpler and better. At all events, let 294 Conformity to Christ's Death. us keep the word “conformed,” as, by its composition, exactly representing that which is intended. It is, being cast in the same form ; being brought into such a com- munity and likeness, that one sketch, one outline, one shape, will represent both. Well then, we are now prepared to enter on our subject. This shaping in the form of Christ's death, is one of the Christian's earnest endeavours and most cherished objects in life. No advantage of birth, no distinction of rank, no triumph of intellect, no extending and pervading empire of his will, -nothing in short that tempts ordinary men of the world, can attract him in comparison of this. Now at the outset, my brother or sister, who hast come here this solemn day to com- memorate the death of Christ,-art thou a Christian P Yes, born, called, reckoned a Christian : but ART thou a Christian P “How am I to know P give me a test to try myself by.” Well, behold one here. Art thou aiming in life at this conformity to the death of Christ P We will not yet enter into details; but I put the broad question—and O may God's searching Spirit drive it home into the inmost chamber of thine heart, that it may there meet thine unveiled and unmasked self— Hast thou any such object in thy life?—You have heard of Christ crucified ; you have beheld to-day that wondrous scene enacted before you : that Death ;-that Cross. Is it a mere tale of suffering 2 a mere Scene of woe P a mere proof of love? Or hast thou that Death before thee in another and a livelier and a closer Sense, as thy pattern,--that to which thy daily prayer is, to be Conformity to Christ's Death. 295 conformed,—that to which every stroke of the battle of life, every pang of the spiritual conflict, every prayer, every scripture, every sermon, brings thee closer 2 Then let us proceed. “Conformed to His Death.” Well, I trust some of us are striving for this likeness daily — but how conformed P What is the shape, that we must be like P What the outline, to which our lives are to approximate P It is plain to you, that we might again travel over the ground of last Sunday with regard to His sufferings, and shew you that there are senses in which that Death cannot be ours : its meritorious, its sacrificial character, these were His, and His alone. But I must to-day leave it to yourselves to supply these exceptions. I cannot dwell on them now. The positive part of Our subject is so vast and important, that it will take all our time, and more than all our power, to set forth. I want to-day to persuade some soul here to this conformity : I want to begin by God's help a work in Some One among you, who may at that day stand, as my crown and my joy, awakened in His perfect likeness. Well then beloved, we must take the old ground of Sunday as to this positive part of our subject: His Death was “a deat/, UNTO SIN. In that He died, He died unto sin.” And we may say at once, that all conformity to His death must be conformity begun, continued, and completed, by death unto sin. Now we spoke on Sunday of Suffering on account of sin. But that is a very different thing from DEATH unto sin. Suffering and death—how totally distinct; how separated always from one another | Have you ever watched by 296 Conformity to Christ's Deaf/. the bed of agony; supported the suffering form on your arms; eased the position of pain, till no new positions could be devised ; borne the day long, and the night long, with the tossing and the unrest—the sensitive eye and ear and touch, and the prolonged querulousness of wearying anguish 2 And then have you continued watching, till that solemn hour when the agony ceased, and the face that rested on your arm lost meaning, and the eye became glazed, and the features wonderfully calm, and you laid down your burden in peace and hope, and departed 2 O then you have known the difference between suffering, and death —between the one Condition,-sensitive, agonized, wakeful, and the Other, unnoting, immovable, closed to sense and to pain. Now distinct as these states are, they may and do coexist in the Christian's spiritual life. Fellowship with Christ's sufferings, this is the restless, endless conflict of the believer's course, ever raging, ever dis- tracting, ever wearing and wearying him : conformity to Christ's death, this is the deep calm of indifference to sin, and to the solicitations of Satan, and to the allure- ments of the world, which is ever setting in together with, and over against, the conflict. It is true that these two are in somewhat different portions of his being, or the paradox would be an absolute contradiction. The conflict with sin is carried on at the surface, and also very much beneath the surface—even in the region where the two wills, the old and the new, are ever struggling and wrestling for the mastery; and some- times its more terrible paroxysms seem to penetrate, Conformity to Christ's Death. 297 and shake, and threaten to carry away the whole man, and its din almost prevents the whispers of the Spirit from being heard : but there is an inner depth, in which the peace which passeth understanding has its hold and reign :-and there, in that centre of his being, is this death to sin going on —this moulding into the likeness of Christ's death, as regards sin. There, in his deepest resolves, and his inner thoughts and motives, every Christian is being conformed to the death of his Lord. As He died to sin, passed out by His death from the penalty of sin, from the imputation of sin, from all Com- munity with the sin which He had taken upon Him, so that after that death. He had no more to do with sin– it was separate in all its consequences from Him as it ever had been in all its acts—and through and in Him it was taken away, put out of sight, crucified and nullified –so, each in his degree, the brethren who are being made like Him are becoming dead unto sin ; losing part and interest in it; gazing on it no longer as on a living and alluring form, but as on a Cold and nerveless statue : weaned from its existing power, alien- ated from its motives and objects: the distance ever widening between it and them —the breach ever more and more irreconcileable. This deadness to sin is the first and most essential element of conformity to the death of Christ. Indeed if carried out into its details, and specified in its various departments of results on the Christian, it may be said to comprehend the whole of that conformity. In order to do this at all instructively, we must now 298 Conformity to Christ's Death. enter somewhat into the method by which it is brought about. And here let me guard you against supposing that I am speaking to you of any mere strong action of the will,—any acquired philosophical indifference to sin and temptation. In the Christian's life, we know of no such moral prodigies as these : out of the Christian's life, we mistrust and disbelieve them. Sin is too strong for any resolve of the human will ; depravity is too deeply seated in my nature and in yours, for any such effort to render us inaccessible to its enticements. No ; in Our Christian life, CHRIST is first and midst and last : and no mere moral strength or determination can be put beside Him, or reckoned on as accessory to Him in His great work. “This (and no other) is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” This dead- ness of which I have spoken, this being conformed to Christ's death, is brought in, is carried on, is completed, by faith. When I first see Christ linked to me by the bonds of God’s everlasting covenant, then faith begins its work within me;—then, and not till then, the first utter dislike to sin, as sin, is bred in my heart ; the first loathing of the new creature, as even the new-born child can shew loathing of and aversion from that which is alien to its being. So that of faith comes this dying to sin ; but of faith in what 2 Let us be precise in laying this down, for it is of immense consequence. To trace the onward progress of this conformity, from its first yearnings in the newly turned Convert, to its accom- plishment when we wake up in His perfect likeness, must be very instructive to us, who are being kept by Conformity to Christ's Death. 299 the power of God through faith unto salvation. And the answer to our question is, of faith in Christ's DEATH ; in the shedding of His blood on the cross for sin and on account of sin, for my sin and on account of my sin : faith in the atoning Sacrifice of Christ—its neces- sity and its efficacy. Then alone does sin appear to me in its proper hatefulness, when I see that this it was which helped to bind Him and nail Him there : when I can enter into my Redeemer's great woe, and under- stand what it was that caused it. Then, seeing that He bore the penalty of that sin on purpose to deliver me from its guilt and power, seeing that nothing less than the precious blood of Christ could accomplish this, and that that blood DID accomplish it, I become knit unto Him and weaned from sin,_crucified with Him unto sin ; SO that, though the motions towards it are yet felt in my body, and give me constant pain, and occasion me a life-long conflict, yet in my heart I have no disposition in its favour ; the attraction which rules my being is towards Him, not towards it. So that it is not by any stoical power of the will that sin is overcome in the Christian ; but by faith in Christ's death, conformity to that death, increase in likeness to Him Whom not having seen he loves, and proportionate increase in unlikeness to sin, which seeing day by day he hates ever with more perfect hatred. But let us follow out this conformity to His death into some of its attendant circumstances. We have seen it in its total Severance from sin and sinners. But where were they meantime P Did they rest quiet 2 3OO Conformity to Christ's Death. Did they allow this everlasting protest against the pollution of sin, against the selfishness of sin, against the hatefulness of sin before God, to be lifted up in peace Ah no : there they were beneath His cross, SCOffing at Him and aggravating His death-pangs, Satan rested not, but was more than ever busy round the Lord at that dark hour. It was the time of his power—the strong exercise of his utmost malice. And SO will it be with us, beloved, if we are going through this process of conformity to that death of the Lord. Sin and the devil will not let us alone in its various stages. The nearer we approach in likeness to Him, the more will His enemies treat us as they treated Him. “As they treated Him 2 ” you may say.—Yes, although the manner and the time and the course of trial and persecution be different. No longer by the scourge, and the crown of thorns, and the Cross, but by mockery and scorn, by coldness and alienation, which in Our present state of ripened social order are weapons as powerful as any outward persecution was then,_-will sinners and the world testify their dislike to us, if we be His in reality and not only in name. Again, that death of His was a death to all mere human ambition. Whatever projects His followers may have formed for Him of glory and dominion on earth, were at once defeated and dissipated by it. “We trusted it had been He Who should have redeemed Israel.” Wouldst thou be conformed to that death P Just so it must be with thee. Thy fondly cherished hopes of earthly distinction must be laid down at the Conformity to Christ's Death. 3O I foot of His cross : thou must be content, as far as they are concerned, to be stripped and nailed to the cross of shame, and made a spectacle to men. “We Once con- ceived well of him, but he is become one of those saints, and our expectations are disappointed.” In conformity to that death, read the death-blow to all other ambition. This was the very mind of the Apostle in our text. It was at the sacrifice of all other things, that he was con- tented to lay out his energies for the attainment of this end. And once more, and as comprehended in this list of things resigned for Christ,-all self-righteousness is sacrificed and nailed to His cross in those who are made in the likeness of His death. His was the only meri- torious death ; and by conformity to it, we do not bring with us, but we enter into, this its incommunicable pro- perty. The only merit which faith allows me, is that which I find complete and sufficient for me in the dying and sacrificed Jesus. Mine own, as it was imagined and valued and cherished before, is cast away, at once, utterly, and for ever. If I am being conformed to His death, I am nothing —nothing, as ground of hope : nothing as cause of fear. All my unworthiness, far too great to allow me ever to stand before God, is laid upon Him, and so is no reason why I should fear the standing before God : in fact, I have gone into Christ, and am complete in Him, and so need nothing of my own for Christ's work and my share in it;-but for loving Him, serving Him, glorifying Him, all I have and am,_my energies, my affections, my life and all its powers. 3O2 Conformity to Christ's Death. Nor should we entirely dismiss such a theme without One look onwards. “If we be dead with Christ, we shall also live with Him.” This, it is true, is no part, strictly speaking, of our Good Friday subject, but belongs to that glorious day of triumph which is at hand, and to that other portion of our text, which speaks of the power of His resurrection. Still, it should never be put out of view. The Christian should never end with Calvary, nor with the mortification of the body, nor with deadness to sin; but ever carry his thoughts onward to that blessed consummation, to which these are the entrance and necessary conditions. Well then, beloved, let us be of this mind,-that we will count all things but dross that we may be con- formed to Christ's death. Ye who are alive to the world, pursuing its objects, valuing its pleasures, seeking its good opinion above all things, look on that Cross lifted before you to-day, and behold a worthier aim for your energies. Contemplate that shamed, that soiled, that wasted Form, which hangs there. You are not accustomed perhaps to such sights in the world—it may seem too coarse for the delicate eye of refinement, too exciting for the comely mediocrity of feeling of the world's good breeding. For once never mind all this. Break bounds as regards the world, and stand and gaze there. Feed thine eyes with that sight, ease thy bur- dened spirit with that sorrow, even till that despised Form is to thee the most precious thing in the world ; even till that loathsome sight is the very delight of thine eyes; even till to become like that crucified One is the Conformity to Christ's Death. 3O3 chief yearning of thine heart, the chief prayer of thy spirit, the chief prize for all thine energies to strive for. And ye, beloved brethren in Christ, who are thus being conformed to Christ's death, to whom Calvary is very dear, and His cross your glory and joy, O let every fresh occasion like this kindle anew your desires to be planted in the likeness of His death—not only by the profession of your baptism, in which you stand as members of His visible Church, but by that inward reality of moulding by the sanctifying influence of His Spirit, by which is assured your place in the Church of the first-born, and your right by His blood to stand among the elect of God. Be this day a new stage in our progress. As we are about to meet to feed on Him by faith, so may we, by spiritual assimilation of that heavenly food, be strength- ened to advance in likeness to Him, and refreshed in our weary pilgrimage by that blood of Sprinkling which cleanseth from the guilt and dread of Sin. SERMON XXIII. EASTER DAY. (PREACHED IN 1856.) QIbe 330ſort of Christ's 33 ºutrection. “That Z may know Him, and the power of Aſis resurrection, and the fed/owship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death ; Žf by any means Z might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.”— PHIL. iii. Io, I I. “THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION.” These, beloved, are the words which will employ our attention to-day. Of the other things here joined with them, the fellowship of His sufferings, and conformity to His death, we have already spoken. Now you will observe that the Apostle manifestly sets this, the power of His Resurrection, in the highest place. It is not put first as being the intro- ductory step leading onward to those others : but it is put first as being the inclusive whole, and they follow as the component parts :—as if he had said, “That I may know the power of His Resurrection,-and, in order to that, the fellowship of His sufferings, being made con- formable to His death.” That this is so, is manifest, by the Apostle returning again, after having mentioned 7%e Power of Christ's Aesurrection. 305 those others, to this, as the final and resulting object of them : “If by any means I might attain unto the resur- rection from the dead.” Now these last words are also important, as indicating very plainly wherein he places the power of Christ's resurrection : viz. in bring- ing him to the participation of it in a similar resur- rection. And this alone, if diligently and faithfully followed, will, I believe, prove sufficient to guide us through the consideration of our subject. The power of Christ's resurrection is shewn in the resurrection of His people. We shall find that this proposition has many sides and views in which it may be taken. May God open our eyes to see them, and enable me to lay them out profit- ably before you. First of all then, what is the event itself, the resurrec- tion of Jesus, of which this day especially, and every Lord's day in the year, are the joyful commemorations 2 Of WHOM is it the resurrection ? Lazarus was raised from the dead by Christ : wherein did Christ's own resurrection differ from that of him whom He loved P In two most important particulars. Lazarus underwent no change, from suffering, death-doomed flesh and blood, to a body of the resurrection. As he entered the tomb, so he came forth from it. Then, which is closely depen- dent on this, -Lazarus died again. His was in some sense a resurrection : but it was no part of the resurrec- tion, of which the Lord is the example and first-fruits. For “Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more.” He brought up His body out of the grave changed and X 306 The Power of Christ's A&esurrection. glorious, with no more infirmity, no more blight of sin, upon it. So far the distinction is important : but so far is a very little way. Suppose Lazarus, suppose any of the sons of men, had been veritably the first-fruits of them that slept, had passed out through the grave and gate of death to the glorious and completed resurrection. Doubtless one thing would have been thereby mani- fested,—that the way for man was open, and had been Opened : but to shew that, is not now my view in putting the case. Suppose that by some means, the action of which was peculiarly exerted on himself, such an one could have entered into incorruptibility, as indeed Enoch and Elijah have entered into it, without death, let us again ask ourselves the difference between such a resurrection and that of our Lord. Such a resurrection, be it ever so complete and faultless, could extend only to the man himself in its effects. The expression, “the y power of his resurrection,” would in this case have no proper meaning for you and me. It might be powerful as an example, powerful as an encouragement; but power of its own it would have absolutely none, not extending beyond that one example of individual glori- fication. Well then, how is our Lord's resurrection dis- tinguished from such a supposed case ? How does it get power which may pass on to another besides the person immediately concerned P An indifferent person reads the history. He hears of one Jesus of Nazareth, Who died and rose again. He sees reason to believe this, and he does believe it, as an event in history. But 7%e Power of Christ's Resurrection. 307 what has this to do with him, 2 How can the mere fact of a man having arisen from the dead about the year of the world 4030, affect his prospects P By way of prece- dent, as we hinted, it may affect them. What man has done, man may do again : and such a fact would testify, that Somehow, and by some one, death had been over- come, and the way of life opened. But HOW, and BY WHOM If he urges this enquiry, he finds that this same Jesus of Nazareth claims to be the person by Whom, and His resurrection the method by which, this glorious consummation was effected. And then on further examining this claim, he sees, that this man Cer- tainly was no ordinary man : that He, being man, made Himself God ; gave Himself out as God ; one with the Father, and possessing power in virtue of that union which no other man ever possessed. He finds that Somehow or other this Jesus claimed, and is believed, to have suffered on the cross the penalty of the world's sin. All this is very strange, and points to a person whose standing and attributes have in them something peculiar and unprecedented. Then let this enquirer go on further. Let him meet and question ordinary professing Christians on this topic. Let him ask them, “How can you tell me that a man, one of us, but in some mysterious manner united to the Deity, would be selected out as a sacrifice for all our sins, and rise again that all we might rise again P What justice, what reason is there in such an arrange- ment 2" What could ordinary professing but unthink- ing Christians answer him P “It is written, and we 3O8 7%e Power of Christ's Resurrection. believe it.” A very humble answer ; and for those who have no power nor capacity for intelligent thought, a sufficient one for faith to lay hold on : but for men with their Bibles in their hands,--which do not claim any Such blind reception, but demand search and enquiry, and promise enlightenment and revelation of the things of God, an utterly insufficient, an entirely indolent, and merely formalistic answer. What has Jesus to do with you personally P. Where is the union, in broad matter of fact, between Him and you, by virtue of which union that closer union of faith and spiritual life may be knit up, in which I would hope many of you are walking and growing P And the answer is one which lies at the very foundation of all knowledge and appre- ciation of this matter: viz. that this Jesus was God manifest in the flesh : that He was not two persons,— as Some of the ancient heretics absurdly and self-con- tradictorily maintained, and as many modern Christians are unconsciously holding for want of a few moments' thought on the subject, but one glorious divine Person throughout : the Son of God, Who came from the bosom of the Father;-and that that glorious Divine Person took into His Godhead our perfect manhood, our body, and our infirmities, and our faculties, and our inheritance of Sorrow and shame and death. And this humanity He took on Him not as you and I have it on us, bounded by the limits of a single personal being, so that what we do or suffer cannot pass on in its appropriation to a brother or to mankind,--but He took it on Him in its entirety,+perfect manhood—So that He became as The Power of Christ's Aesurrection. 309 thoroughly and completely its root and Head, as Adam was its root and Head : He stood before God in the Centre of it, and He extended over the whole circum- ference of it ; and in it, of this created world, of which man is constituted the lord and king : and in God's sight all humanity and all man's world is summed up in Christ, and holds together in Christ. Now what is the consequence of this P All that Christ does, suffers, obtains, enters into, He does, suffers, obtains, and enters into as this head and root of humanity, not as an individual man,—one among the Sons of men about the year of the world 4030. So that all humanity is concerned and interested,—nay more, involved,—in all that He does, suffers, obtains, and enters into. He dies :—on that cross man is lifted up : On that cross man's sin, the sin of the world, is crucified : on that cross your sin and mine,—all sin that ever was, is, and will be, is, as in God's sight, put away :—and “a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, offered for the sins of the whole world.” Once in the end of the world did He appear to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Well then, follow on. After the cross, the tomb. Watch that wasted and withered Frame, majestic in the calmness of death, taken down by faithful and loving hands, wrapped in spices with mournful and affectionate care, borne along by Joseph and his men, the holy women looking on to see where He was laid. Well may ye bestow care—well may ye touch and look almost with shrinking reverence: for it is the SON OF 3 Io 7%e Power of Christ's Alesurrection. MAN Whom ye bear away ; in that form is summed up your humanity and ours : that form is the type and sum of the creation of God ; ye, no fabled bearers of heaven and earth, and all that is therein In that tomb was death's universal triumph : there lay the Head of our nature, bruised and crushed, and all are with Him : —there was the central example given of the fearful and shameful truth, L.In Adam ALL DIE. Here was the Savage wish of the profligate tyrant of Rome become reality ; all mankind had but one body, and the stroke of Death had descended at once on all. Here was the greatest testimony that ever had been given, that the wages of Sin is death. Now the meaning and power of the death of Jesus will I trust have been somewhat opened to us: that He was cut off but not for Himself: that when He died, when He was buried, not a man about the year of the world 4030, not one as Enoch,- not one as Elijah, not one as Lazarus, but God manifested in our flesh—God tabernacling in us and our nature, died, and was buried : and therefore with Him and in Him, all we, all humanity, mankind in its largest and widest sense, every man, woman, and child from Adam to the end, died and was buried. O en- deavour to apprehend and comprehend this very simple and very glorious truth : without it, we cannot speak, and you cannot know, anything at all of the power of His resurrection : and simple as it is, glorious as it is, lying as it does at the very base and foundation of all our belief, asserted as it is plainly and repeatedly in Scripture, and plainly and repeatedly again in our The Power of Christ's Aesurrection. 31 I Common Prayer and Offices, I will venture to say that in these our times there is not one Christian in ten, who ever yields it a hearty assent when propounded ;- who does not shrink from the assertion, and from the consequences of it. Some of those consequences we shall have to deal with by and by : but meantime let us go on to apply it to the terms “the power of His resurrection.” We asked the question a quarter of an hour ago, How can His resurrection have any power P. How can it extend beyond Himself? Need we ask such a question now 2 If these faithful and careful ones bore into that tomb the dead form of the Son of man,—of our collected and concentrated humanity;--if there WE lay with and in Him, watched by ministering angels, during that solemn and mysterious pause in the Life of our life, who cannot tell what happened, when that same form was lit up again with the returned spirit— when the Godhead again entered into its fleshly taber- nacle,_or rather, having taken down its frail and temporary tent, entered into its new-built and eternal temple—when those lacerated feet begun their glorious and onward march of triumph, and those pierced hands unfurled God's banner of everlasting victory He rose not alone :—we, beloved, WE—our humanity, in its whole reach and extent, rose with Him —this mankind, of the myriads on myriads of which you and I are units, burst out from that tomb in and with Him, and stood complete in His resurrection. For as in Adam all die, EVEN SO in Christ shall ALL BE MADE ALIVE. Even so : 312 The Power of Christ's Resurrection. —without one jot of abatement or difference : as death is co-extensive with manhood—so is resurrection co- extensive with death. Now we see something of the power of His resurrec- tion ; but it is as yet only a little. Because Christ rose —Owing to the power of His resurrection—all men shall rise again with their bodies. It cannot however be the participation in this power, after which the Apostle will strive, to the relinquishment of all other objects: for of this all men are partakers. Yet let us contemplate even this somewhat more closely. Because Christ has risen, your body, and mine, and the bodies of all men, shall be resuscitated from the dust of death and live for ever. Now what was this, but a bestowal of infinite mercy and grace upon the whole of mankind ;-this bringing im- mortality to light, and vanquishing death for us all P Still, to what does it amount 2 The body shall be re- vived and live for ever ; and this by virtue of the resurrection of Christ. But where is, and what is, the man himself? He is not the body : he was not the body when the body lay mouldering in the grave; he is not the body now that it is raised again fresh in immortal youth, and with unwearied capacity of acting and suffering. No –he is what his spirit has made him ;-and the rescue of the body, -man's lower part, does not involve in it, nor bring with it, the rescue and exaltation of the spirit, his higher part: this is a loftier, a more glorious, and independent work. And so we bave the necessity, in order for Christ's resurrection to • ** © e © The Power of Christ's Resurrection. 313 should be not only one of mankind, knit to Christ in the flesh, raised in the body by Christ's resurrection ; but that he should be also brought under the power of Christ's resurrection in his spirit, knit to Christ in the spirit, knowing the power of that resurrection in his loftier and responsible part; that part which leads him in time, and leads him for eternity. And this is not common to all mankind;—O no. Of us, the sons and daughters of men, who shall all arise because Christ hath risen, and live everlastingly in the body, because Christ is alive in our nature, vast, alas, will be the multitudes who will rise, not to be where Christ is, not to be in the highest state of man to all eternity, but to be banished from His presence: to be under an eternity of condemnation : and just for this simple and incon- trovertible reason, that they have lived without Christ, loved, without Christ, Ænown, without Christ, aspired, without Christ –have never known Him, never loved Him, never followed Him ; and so cannot abide His presence, and cannot share His glory. And now we seem to have arrived at an inference which will help us in what we have yet to say: viz. this, that there has been won for man by this resurrection of the Lord a further glorious possession,-a victory within a victory: not only the immortality of the body, but the eternal life of the spirit in all its glory and blessedness : and that as that immortality of the body is for all who are united to Him in one common flesh and nature, so this eternal life of the spirit is for those who are united to Him in spirit, who know Him and love Him and 314 The Power of Christ's Resurrection. serve Him, and are led by and dwelt in by that same Holy Spirit of which He was full, and which as God's Crowning gift, His resurrection won for us. And over them and for them. His resurrection has such power, that as it can repel the seeds of corruption from these frail bodies and endue them with everlasting freshness and strength, so it can expel the seeds of spiritual decay from these spirits of ours, plant in them the new seed of divine life, clothe them with unwearied vigour and un- fading beauty and spotless purity, and cause them to live and rejoice in the presence of God His Father for ever and ever. This compound blessing, the undying immortality of the body, coupled with the eternal life of the spirit, constitutes the resurrection from the dead, to which the Apostle found it worth his while to sacrifice all he ever valued in order to attain ; and this is what is uniformly meant in Scripture when the resurrection of God's people is spoken of Body, soul, and spirit, they shall rise with the Lord ; like Him, in everlasting freedom from sin and decay and Sorrow ; raised to the highest perfection of which created being is capable. But this power of His resurrection does not begin to be exerted in the next life ; does not then first act, when the mute clay bursts out into Songs of praise. It is acting all through the Christian's course below— simultaneously with that conflict, which is the fellow- ship with Christ's sufferings—simultaneously with that dying to sin, which is the conformity to His death. And its action is shewn here by the springing up and waxing onward of that new life in His Spirit which, 7%e Power of Christ's Aesurrection. 3 15 expanded and glorified, shall continue its action through eternity. Here, the Christian is risen with Christ : here, he has begun his eternal life. And how does he know this—how do others know it 2 By the same signs in all cases : by the manifestation of this life of the Spirit in his walk and conduct : by the fruits of the Spirit abounding in him : by love, joy, peace, long- Suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, being found shewn forth in him and flowing from him ; by his yearning after a better and holier state ; by his seeking the things which are above where Christ is, Setting his affections on them, and living accordingly. And this again is a worthy object for a man to live and strive for ; nay it is the only worthy object, com- prehending as it does all others, for any man to live and strive for. This it was that the Apostle desired above all things —that he might be like Christ his risen Lord ; that the life of the Spirit of Jesus might be in him and abound ; that his course here might be so spent, that in that glorious first resurrection of the people of the Lord, he might not prove to be a cast- away, but stand in his lot and be found in Christ accepted and perfect. And even so may we, dearly beloved, having heard of these things, claim and ensure the happiness of doing them. Living as we do in an age of words and differences, of assumed lofty belief and deplorably de- ficient practice,—may we this Easter season gain this as the result of our religious services and our medita- tions,—an assurance, deep as Our lives, constant as the 316 7%e Power of Christ's Resurrection. breath which we breathe, that He of Whom we have been hearing and speaking is not a Christ to dispute about, not a Christ to theorize on, not a Christ to judge other men by, but a Christ to LIVE BY, to REST UPON, to be MADE LIKE UNTO. May we bear away from the thoughts of His passion and death and resur- rection, a larger portion of His Spirit than we ever before inherited —Knowing more of Him —entering more into the fellowship of His sufferings, being more thoroughly conformed to His death, and, above all, being more entirely brought under and possessed by the power of His resurrection. This day, beloved,—the best day in the year, be- cause the fullest of Him and of that life which dwells in Him, naturally reminds us of another day and another meeting, which may be very near to us. In the power of His resurrection we then shall all stand wakened from the dust of death, clothed with our bodies, before Him, the Son of man, the Head and rightful judge of our common nature. In that power we shall come up out of our graves, having put off decay and put on immortality. And then shall come the sifting and winnowing by Him Whose fan is in His hand ; and He shall throughly purge His garner : and when the chaff has been cast out, in the loftier power of His resurrection, and the assembly shall stand before Him ; —not all for whom He died, but all in whom He lived : —a great multitude of all people and tongues in whom is the life of the Spirit. O my dear friends—my flock beloved in the Lord, shall we be among this second The Power of Christ's Resurrection. 317 assembly—we, complete in that hour 2 all that worship here, triumphing there P all that keep Easter to-day, keeping it in that day likewise P. It is for us to go home and determine this :—or better still, it is for us to determine it round the table of Him Who died and is risen again for us, and offers us the tokens of His love, to feed and refresh our souls. As we answer this, as we resolve on it, as we carry out the resolve in the power of His resurrection and His Spirit, so will our lot be : So shall we be won or lost for ever, SERMON XXIV. (PREACHED IN 1854.) Qſì) : 3.0 rb is 33 is em. “Because / live, ye shall ſize also.”—John xiv. 19. THE Lord is risen. O words of joy after the night of mourning ! words of triumph after the shame of defeat the height of glory after the depth of dishonour ! The Lord is risen. The tomb is empty. One after another, single or in groups, the little band of His followers hasten to the sepulchre. The first company indeed had gone on far other errand. The hurry of the evening of the preparation, on which He was cru- cified, had permitted only scanty care to be taken of His beloved remains. True to their office and their character here as ever, with love surviving the death of hope, the faithful women came to supply this lack of service, bringing with them spices and ointments for His Body. But they were met by celestial messengers of glad tidings, “He is not here, He is risen : why seek ye the living among the dead P” The Lord is risen. But when He rose, no eye beheld. None was permitted to witness that mysterious reani- 7%e Zora! as A'zsezz. 3 I 9 mation of the body long silent in death, that casting off of the cerements which bound it, that passing out from the sepulchre closed and sealed, before the angel had descended, or the earthquake taken place, or the stone been rolled away. The Lord's shame had been public. Multitudes gazed on His emaciated form as He hung on the cross, and scoffed at the King of Israel dying the death of a recreant slave. When men have been put to public shame, they demand that the repara- tion shall be public also ; because they are chary of their fame, and think they can afford to lose none of the estimation of their fellows. But it is the glory of God to conceal a matter; and the triumph of His Blessed Son no multitude witnessed; no Apostle was spectator of that fact, to which it was afterwards the office of all the Apostles to witness. God, Who looks to the end from the beginning, can afford to hide His mighty works, which shall be manifested in their due time, and wisdom justified of all her children. The Lord is risen. Again and again, through that strange day of uncertainty, and fluttering hearts, and awakening hopes, are the words Sounded in the ears of the incredulous disciples. First came Mary Magdalene and her company, with their vision of angels ; but their tidings were rejected as idle tales, and they believed them not. Peter and John had, it may be, been already convinced, and had gone, despairing perhaps of con- vincing the rest, to their own homes. Then come thick and fast the repeated evidences that it is indeed so, and no idle tale. What wonder, if on such a day, it should 32O 7%e Zora! is A'zsen. be found impossible to reduce the various incidents to precise order of time, or to piece them exactly together P Scarce believing for joy the evidence of their senses, each treasuring his own cherished proof that the Lord had risen, what wonder if afterwards, when the narra- tives came independently to be drawn up, they should seem to interfere and clash with one another ? What day of unexampled revulsion of feeling would not pre- sent the same phaenomena 2 I have been told, that after a lamentable catastrophe, which unhappily signalized the first opening of those wonderful lines of communi- cation which now traverse everywhere this and other countries, several truthful and prudent persons who were eye-witnesses of it, met together and conferred on what they had seen. Every one was sure of the fact : that remained, the basis of all their testimony, undoubted, and alas too patent to all. But my informant assured me, that apparent discrepancies characterized their nar- ratives, precisely similar to those found in the records of this day of the Resurrection. It seemed impossible to piece them together. Each saw intensely, and felt keenly, and remembered exclusively, his own side of the sad transaction. And had there been exact accordance in every minute point in the accounts of this day's events, it would have been to my mind a considerable weaken- ing of the joint testimony of the Evangelists. It would have been unnatural in the last degree, that men whose hearts all this day were throbbing high with hope and fear, could have so accurately and SO calmly obtained a detailed chronological account of all that happened ; 7%e Zord as A'zsem. 32 I as unlikely, as that mariners, scattered in the wild tempest, could see over the huge waves which separate them, or enter keenly into the pursuit and narration of any escape, but their own. Had I found such exact accord, I should have been much more disposed to sus- pect collusion, to imagine that the Evangelists had seen one another's accounts, and fitted them into their own, than now, when everything bears the impress of truth, —of four true narratives, delivered independently of one another, all under Divine inspiration and guidance, but that not extending to the removal of the phaenomena of human character, or nullifying the influence of circum- stance and feeling on human narration. The Lord is risen. Let us come to the fact itself. Whichever band of women came first to the sepulchre, —whether the Saviour met the first or the second, or Mary Magdalene alone,—whatever be the clue now lost to us, which could, if preserved, have led us safely through the tangled history of the hours of this day,+ no fact on earth has ever been so strongly attested ; from so many various points, by so many independent witnesses, in spite of such cruel discouragements. And what is the fact 2 What do these words, “The Lord is risen,” imply, with regard to Him, and with regard to us He Zives. In Him was life. He was the Prince, the Author of Life. He submitted to die for the sin of the world. Dire was the necessity,+fearful the con- trast ; the Lord of Life, to die. And thus it was im- possible that He should be holden of death. For a Y 322 The Lord is A'isen. time appointed by the Father, foreshadowed in type and prophecy, His Body lay in the tomb, His Spirit dwelt in the abode of the departed ; but it was not for death to triumph over Him ; corruption was not suffered to scatter that fearful and wonderful frame, which had been the tabernacle of the living God. And after that appointed time had past, He lived again in our nature ; He resumed the body of the flesh temporarily laid aside; He resumed not, for He never laid aside, the human soul, which was taken into and united with the Divine Spirit; He became again strictly and entirely Man. But no longer the Man of sorrows; no longer subject to weariness and pain and death ; in that He died, He died unto sin once ; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. He has resumed the body of His humanity, but it is now a glorified Body, a Body freed from the laws to which He before submitted it, of space and motion ; a Body retaining indeed its distinguishing features and marks,—the print of the nails on His hands and feet, the wound of the spear in His side ; still no longer the body of our vileness, but the Body of His glory. Not as others rose from the grave, did He rise. When Lazarus was called forth by Him with the renewed . breath of life, he dwelt for a time on the earth, and returned again to dust; but when Jesus rose from the tomb, He dwelt awhile on the earth, and was received up into glory. He had life in Himself. As He could not be holden of death, so He could not return to it. He ever liveth. As man, at this moment, with that same Body of glory in which He was taken up from us, 7%e Zora' z's A'zsezz. 323 He sits at God's right hand, above all majesty and power and dominion, and every name that is named, in heaven and earth and under the earth. He liveth :—and now what does our text announce to us from His own lips as the consequences of that His life 2 “Because I live, ye shall live also.” Immense consequences shall result from this resumption of His Body, and reunion of it in its resurrection form to His Godhead and His glorified Humanity. Let me for a moment recapitulate the substance of my sermon on the morning of Good Friday. It was my object then to give a consistent and scriptural account of the effect of the death of Christ. I said that in it our human nature paid the penalty of sin in its head and root. One died for all ; and therefore all died ;-and sin, the sin of the world, was put away. That body which hung on the cross, was His Body; but it was ours also, the common property of Our whole race; and by the sacrifice of it we are cleared of guilt before God, and accepted by Him. When we look on this His Body, we look on the second Adam, as truly the head and repre- sentative of all our race as the first Adam was, when he stood alone in the world, with us all summed up in him. Now carry on this view from the cross through the grave to the resurrection. With Him we died ; I am at this moment speaking of all humanity, the godly and ungodly, the converted and unconverted, the saved and the lost:—in and by His death the sin of the world, regarded as one sin, was removed, and thus the whole race died in their Head. What then was the Resurrec- 3.24. 7%e Zora! is A'zsem. tion 2 What, but the resurrection of the whole race likewise P “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Words cannot be plainer; and it is to be observed that though by shallow modern theology it has been attempted to evade their force, and to under- stand them “shall all be made alive who shall live,” no such idea was entertained by the ancients, even by those who did not generally go deep into doctrines. They, as well as all the best of the moderns, take the words in their plain simple unlimited meaning. And undoubtedly such has been the effect of the resurrection of Christ. “In Christ shall all be made alive.” There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the un- just. In this lowest, but evident sense, “because He lives, we shall live also.” Every body of man shall one day be reanimated ; known, as His Body was known, by its distinguishing marks and features; built up again by Him Who built it up at first,-and reunited to the human Soul, which has been waiting in the abode of the departed the fulness of the Father's time. But it may be said, has Christ's resurrection then won for us no more than this, -which after all amounts, in the case of a vast number of mankind, to an eternity of woe 2 Let the objector pause, before he urges this consideration. Does he not himself acknowledge Life to be a precious gift of God—so precious, that in what- ever depth of misery he is involved, provided only reason retain her sway within, he will submit to any privation, risk any danger, face any foe, rather than part with it? If man have made this life a burden, which is in reality 7%e Zora! as A'zsenz. 3.25 God's precious gift, does this diminish, or should this bring into question, the beneficence of the Creator P And so likewise is it here. Christ's resurrection hath brought in life, life glorious, life eternal; life whose real and best state it is, to be ever with God ; in God's kingdom, and beholding Christ's glory, and doing His work. What if they who choose to abide in sin, who do not choose to come to Him that they may have this best life, turn His gift into a curse—life eternal into eternal death ; have we any right to arraign His redeeming love for man's unworthiness P His gift is Life.’ “because I live, ye shall live also : ” that nature which died on His cross, which went down into His tomb, came up out of that tomb with and in Him, and therefore man, every man, shall in body, Soul, and spirit, live for ever; whether in bliss or in woe, is left for every man to choose, and by that choice he shall be judged. Such then is the result of Christ's resurrection on a//, —on, as I said, the godly and ungodly, the converted and the unconverted—the real Christian and the heathen Christian alike. But that higher and more glorious phase of this eternity of existence in the risen body, for whom it chat reserved 2 Let us endeavour by God’s , help to enter into this matter. And in order to it, we must say a few words on the Scriptural account of the constitution of man. Unfortunately this latter has been somewhat disguised by representation in our own lan- guage, which is essentially an unphilosophical One, and incapable of representing the accurate distinctions of that tongue, which God prepared in the Schools of 326 7%e Zora! is A'zseme. Athens and Alexandria to receive the Gospel of His Son. The Scripture account of man describes him as composed of Body, Soul, and Spirit. The former we possess in common with all organized matter ; the organization being nobler as we advance upwards through the tribes of creation, and reaching its highest point in man. The Second, the soul (I speak now in the proper, not in the popular sense of that term), we possess in common with all conscious beings. It is that which is the seat of the instincts and appetites and affections ; and as the body, so this is found in various degrees of inferiority or dignity in different tribes of animals, reach- ing again its highest in us. We possess in it not only all that the lower animals have, but superadded to that, the power of thought, and those faculties which charac- terize the action of the human mind. Then thirdly, beyond and above the soul with its desires and faculties bodily and mental, is the Spirit, which we alone of all created beings on this earth possess. The spirit—the seat of the reason, and of the Conscience, and of our responsibility, is immortal and imperishable. It is that lofty part of man's inner being in which he com- munes with the Deity: it is that part wherein dwell all convictions of Sin, all apprehensions of Christ, all testi- monies of God's Spirit ; in a word, all his better and higher life. Now in the worldly and the ungodly, this highest part of their being is crushed down, superseded, neg- lected, made subservient to the flesh—to the animal soul and its desires. The natural understanding, darkened 7%e Zora! is A'isen. 327 by the lusts of the flesh, is allowed to supersede the higher faculties, and such persons are called in the word of God unspiritual, or mentioned by an epithet for which our language has no correspondent word, but which I can represent to you by telling you that for the animal worldly soul the term is boxſ, and that these persons are called luxucoſ. We render it “carnal,” which is unfortunate—for it does not mean men of the flesh merely (although these are often elsewhere opposed to men of the spirit), but men who only care about their souls, their animal, intellectual, worldly life, and have no care for their spirits, their immortal, divine, spiritual life. Now we are ready to draw the distinction, and to answer the question which I asked above.—A// are united to Christ in the flesh. His Body was our Body; and the unbeliever, as well as the believer, is one flesh with Christ. All have the same animal and intellectual sout/ which Christ took upon Him ; all, unbeliever as well as believer, are sharers in the immortality which He con- ferred on Our nature by His resurrection, as far as this is concerned in it. All have the same immortal spirit: but here Comes in the difference. The man who has degraded that Spirit by which he should have reached Out after God, who has never sprinkled it with Christ's atoning blood, nor had God's Spirit dwelling in it, he shall live for ever in One sense, by virtue of the resurrec- tion of Christ, by which he in his humanity is united to Him — but how live for ever ? In no spiritual life or enjoyment of God, in no apprehension of Him ; for he has rejected the Son of God ; his spirit has been crushed J 2 8 The Zord is A'isen. down and set at nought in this state of preparation ; has been enslaved to sin, and to the lower powers of his nature ; his animal soul has never been purified and raised, his body never made the temple of the Holy Spirit; and thus for him is reserved a final state of banishment from the presence of God and disappoint- ment of all the high ends of his being, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” But in the opposite case of the spiritually minded, of those who have learned to look above the world and its animal enjoyment and its intellectual power and pride, and to seek after the Father of their spirits by believing on the Son of His love, they are united to Christ not only in the flesh, not only in the animal and intellectual soul, but in the spirit also. This highest part of their humanity is made one with Christ. It is cleansed from the guilt of sin by His atoning sacrifice appropriated to them by faith. It is led by the Spirit of God, renewed by His quickening influence, dwelt in by Him, and made by degrees holy as He is holy. They alone are truly risen with Christ, in the full and blessed sense of the words. They are dead, and their life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is their life, shall appear, then shall they also appear with Him in glory. Let us here take up the description in the inspired words of St. Paul, speaking in the course of the very same argument which I am now pursuing, to believers in Christ: “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. The Zord as A'isen. 329 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin ; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adop- tion, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God : and if children then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.”” So then, dearly beloved in Christ, that do truly receive Him as your Saviour, and are walking by the faith of the Son of God, because He lives, we shall live also : live, not in the sense of mere eternal existence, but in the glorious sense of being changed, body, soul, and spirit, into the perfect image of our Redeemer. Our bodies, now the source to us of temptation to sin, of pain and sorrow, which must soon become more and more feeble, and at last yield to death and decay, shall be brought up Out of the grave, changed so as to be like unto His glorious Body, free from sin and disease, the fit temples and ready instruments of blessed spirits; our * Rom. viii. 9-17. 33O The Zora! is A'isenz. Souls, no longer subservient to grovelling appetite, nor subject to the misuse of their powers, shall be for ever employed in loving Him and searching into His works, and His perfections, and the mysteries of His love; and Our spirits, quickened and penetrated by His Spirit, made One Spirit with Him, shall be lifted into holier and more rapturous states of beatitude than we can now even faintly conceive. O glorious day, when it shall once more be said, not of the personal body of Christ merely, but of His whole mystical body, the Lord is risen—when the dust of death shall burst into life, and the ambient air shall hardly suffice for the utterance of the chorus of praise ; —when long-lost friends shall clasp one another with the embrace of eternity, and never-forgotten voices once more be heard ;-when the risen Saviour shall once more walk among us, and our hearts shall burn within us as He expounds to us the things concerning Himself;- when the disciples shall again be glad at Seeing the Lord—shall awake up in His likeness, and shall be satisfied. O may the Father, in Whose power are the times and seasons, look down on this weary world now again enter- ing on the death-throes of a bloody war, and shuddering under His heavy hand ;-may He in mercy shorten the night of weeping, and bring in the morning of joy. May the Son, our pitiful and mighty High Priest, our risen and glorified Redeemer, soon finish His intercession in the Holy Place, and come forth and bless us; may the Zhe Lord! is A'isen. 33 I Spirit, Who out of darkness and anarchy created light and order, move now again in the end of the world over our troubled and dark waters, and bring forth from them ere long the everlasting Day, which no night shall quench. SERMON XXV. (PREACHED IN 1854.) QBut ſort's Charge to 33¢ter. “Aeter was grieved, because Jesus said unfo him the third time, Zozest Zhou Alſe 2 And he said unto Him, Zord, 7%ou knowest all things ; 7% oz, Ánowest that Z love 7% ee.”—JOHN xxi. 17. A PECULLAR interest attaches to the period between our Lord's Resurrection and His Ascension. Before His death, wonderful as it was that the Son of God should be manifested in the flesh of man, we lose sight of the wonder, and become accustomed to His human words . and acts. It is the presence of the Godhead, which appears to us strange and exceptional during His humi- liation. His Divine utterances, and exertions of power, seem almost like a protest against the infirmities and sorrows of His humanity. But how all has changed, as soon as He has passed through the grave and gate of death. Now, it is the human element for which we look with such intense interest. We expect Him to be super- human—to be awful in presence, Sublime in discourse. Death, and all of which death is the result, have no more anything in Him. The man of Sorrows has ceased Our Zora's Change to Aeter. 333 to grieve: the forsaken of God is accepted : the crucified One is triumphant and glorious. At this time then, His human utterances are inexpressibly affecting. When the humbled and afflicted Jesus sought for sympathy from His chosen ones, “Stay ye here and watch with Me,”— we hardly felt as if we heard anything unusual : but when the risen and glorified Jesus seeks for assurance of human affection, we are stirred almost to tears. It seems to take the humble wayside flowers of our earth and plant them in the paradise of God—to sanctify our friendships and exalt our sympathies, when we find them no unworthy companions for the joys and glories of the Redeemer's triumph. Let us turn from the Master to His disciples. What a strange time it must have been for them—what a time of expanding hopes, and prospects vast and uncertain. How the past was now lighted up with glorious remem- brances—how words long forgotten and little understood came forth one after another into meaning—how each parable put on fresh beauty, each miracle fresh wonders of mercy. The cross, a few short weeks since, what was it P. The defeat of all their hopes, the darkest spot in all their memories ; the lowest deep of abasement in their Master's life of disappointment and failure. But O what is it now P Not hope's defeat, but its ground : no longer their shame, but their glory; the brightest proof of Divine love, the perfection of their Lord's obedience. How full were their hearts of these thoughts, —not yet distinct, not yet grouped into their several places, nor assigned their doctrinal results in the spirit 334 J Our Lord's Charge to Peter. and destinies of men, but crowding one on another, each almost too vast for human feelings to sustain. And at the same time, how variously must each Apostle's own previous character, and words, and acts, have been inter- woven into this tangled web of memories of the past. Something of grief, something of self-reproach, must have mingled in the thoughts of all. For they had all boasted at the approach of His hour of darkness : they all had forsaken Him on its arrival. The exceeding heavi- ness which weighed on His soul, had pressed yet heavier on it, because they, His own, His chosen friends, left Him alone; slept, when they should have watched with Him; fled, when they should have stood by Him. But if all felt thus, what shall we say of him, who was the first to confess, and the first to deny his Master 2 Can we suppose that that look, which the buffeted and suffering Jesus turned on him in that hour, had faded from his memory that he had forgotten those bitter tears which he shed in his repentance on that eventful night P. We may discern especial tenderness towards him in our Lord's words and acts after the resurrection. He might well have imagined, that that bright dawn of joy to the rest, was to be no morning to him : he who had so basely and so repeatedly denied Jesus, could he with any likeli- hood expect that Jesus would acknowledge him in His glory? Had he not heard from his Master's own lips, “Whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny P" With these thoughts, how would his heart bound with recovered hope at the first words of the Lord to the women at the Sepulchre, “Go your way, tell His Our Zora's Change to Peter. 335 disciples, and Peter, that He goeth before you into Galilee.” But again, others had seen Him that morning. Will He shew Himself to His fallen Apostle One traitor had miserably perished : why should the other escape and be honoured 2 The denial in words, what was it but a betrayal P Should he, though named among the disciples, ever see his Lord again till he should behold Him in judgment P If such forebodings were in Peter's mind, Jesus met and removed them all. Not only were comforting words sent to him, but he was honoured as the first of the Apostles to whom Christ appeared, as the first undoubted messenger of the glad tidings to the rest. The two who had gone to Emmaus, on returning with their Strange and joyful tale, found the eleven assembled and them that were with them, saying “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared unto Simon.” So far then for the proof, which is never wanting, that Jesus is very pitiful and of tender mercy. So far for Aſis dealings with the penitent, who will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. But we may well conceive, that more than this was wanted : more, for Peter himself: and more for the Church, which as an Apostle he was to guide and teach. For himself, because he might be tempted to think lightly of his sin, if it could be thus lightly passed over ; and for the Church which, without some special word from its Divine Head, might, in Subsequent con- flicts of opinion and authority, reject an apostleship, which rested only on surmise and inference, however reasonably founded. This double purpose I conceive to 336 Our Lord's Charge to Peter. have prompted the questions which our Lord on this occasion put to His Apostle. The whole circumstances are full of deep and solemn interest. A portion of the apostolic band had returned for a time to their old employment as fishermen on the sea of Galilee. It was our Lord's own announcement, that He would go before them thither ; and St. Matthew tells us that the eleven went to a mountain in Galilee where Jesus had appointed them. Here therefore we find them, at some time between the Resurrection and the feast of Pentecost. All night they had been toiling, and had taken nothing. Just so it was, more than three years before, when Jesus first summoned Peter, James, and John to follow Him. Many things must have served to remind them of that other incident ; and doubtless it was so arranged, that they might recall it to mind. For the two had many points of similarity, and also some instructive points of difference. Some of these will come before us as we pass on. After the night of dis- appointment and toil, when the day dawned, they see a stranger standing on the shore. His first address seemed to them no more than the customary question of some mercantile enquirer, anxious to purchase the fruit of their night's fishing. Nor did they recognize Him, when He ordered them to cast their net in a particular spot, and they should find. When however the net became full, and they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes, the disciple whom Jesus loved, ever deepest in knowledge of his Master and readiest to discern Him, said unto Peter, “It is the Lord.” All the incidents of Our Zord's Charge to Peter. 337 that former occasion came full and fresh upon his mind. It was the Lord, acting over again that miracle which first deeply impressed them with His power and their own unworthiness. It was as when some combination of Outward circumstances brings before us a long- forgotten scene with all its words and its details—as if time had gone back, and were beginning from thence again. And here, as at the sepulchre, we have the characters of the two Apostles strikingly illustrated. It was for John to discern : but for the eager and warm- hearted Peter to act. First of the band he cast himself into the Sea to meet his Lord. How different from his manner on that other occasion, when he fell at Jesus' knees, saying “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Not that he knew his own sinfulness less, but that he loved his Saviour more. His had been that true repentance unto life, which draws a man closer to Christ ; not that worldly repentance, which would banish God from the thoughts by way of finding relief. I need not minutely follow all the subsequent inci- dents. I would only just ask you to think on the little Company Seated at their meal on the shore, with the risen Saviour Serving among them, giving them bread and fish likewise—and no man venturing to ask Him, “Who art Thou ?” knowing that it was the Lord. How exalted the joy, how deep the reverence which possessed their minds. How God loves the humble and lowly. Not only in the humiliation of Jesus did He move among His disciples as one that served, but in His glory He ministered to the simple band of fishermen on the Z 338 Our Lord's Charge to Peter. beach of Gennesaret. But other thoughts rise upon us as we pursue the narrative. The frugal meal was now Over, which was to bear no inconsiderable part in the future testimony to His resurrection : they had eaten and drunk with Him, after He rose from the dead. So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these ?” “Is it so true, that though all men deny Me, thou wilt never deny Me? Thou wert eager but just now to meet Me with joy; is that eagerness real and hearty " Observe the exquisitely tender and delicate character of Our Lord's question. Call it a reproachful one if you will –and no doubt there is somewhat of reproach in it : but it is the reproach of One Who knows the heart which He is piercing, and chastises in gentleness and love. Not a doubt is cast on the fact of his love ; it is simply his former boast which is called in question,-- and even that in no spirit of unkindness, but of exceed- ing affection. “More than these *-how these words must have gone into the depths of Peter's soul. Yes, he felt that he did love his Lord more than they all. First of the band he had ever confessed Him ; first of the band he had come out to Him that memorable night on the dark and stormy Sea ; he had ever been yearning to follow Him, yea even to prison and to death. But O what a lesson of shame and self-distrust did these words bring —more than these he felt he loved, but these had never denied Jesus, he had ; openly and repeatedly, in a craven moment of cowardice, he had declared with solemn asseverations, “I do not know the Our Zord's Charge to Peter. 339 man.” But it was not the first time that the penitent's heart had been wrung with the remembrance of his unworthiness. He had passed through the first burst of Self-condemning anguish, and had learned that important lesson for all true penitents, that genuine self-abasement leads men to cast themselves more entirely upon God. “He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord ; Thou knowest that I love Thee ;” “My heart is open to Thee ; it is wretchedly weak, and has lamentably fallen ; but Thou knowest that it is not a double heart; love to Thee is its element, its life, its joy.” “Jesus saith unto him, Feed My lambs.” “Take, by My own appointment, that high office from which thy fall might seem to have deposed thee; be the bringer of many into the fold, the indicator of fresh pastures to My people Israel.” Again the Solemn question is repeated, dropping, however, the comparison, so as to make it more directly personal ; and, we may well imagine, with that increased earnestness of manner and fixedness of look, with which we utter words whose definite reference we wish to be observed. Doubtless the glow of shame was deeper, and the troubled heart beat more tumultuously, but the same humble answer is returned, and the Divine Commis- sion renewed, with this time a slight variation—“Shep- herd My sheep ; ”—“be the instrument of leading and ruling the maturer disciples of My flock in those ways which I shall point out to thee for them to walk in ; ” a caution not unneeded, if we remember the wavering conduct of this Apostle in the first recognition of Christ's purpose towards the Gentiles in after years. 34O Our Lord's Charge to Peter. A third time He saith to him, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me 2 " But we may notice, that whereas on each previous occasion the word which we render “lovest” is the usual one for the love which man bears to God, love mingled with reverence, and Peter's reply has each time employed another word, more commonly used of the love which a man bears to his friend, an equal to his equal, here our Lord drops the more distant term, and adopts Peter's own word of deep and personal affection." Our English tongue, poor and coarse in minute distinc- tions of feeling, has but one word, “love,” for both ; but the difference in the original is very touching and sig- nificant. It is this time the closest and most searching enquiry into the yearnings of the heart. “Art thou indeed My friend—am I dear to thee P” Then comes that beautiful touch of nature which our text contains— “Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me 2 ” He was grieved, not only that the question was so often repeated, but because this third enquiry fell heavy on his conscience. Thrice had he denied, and thrice is he questioned. What indeed was the reproach, compared with the sin P. How eager are we to get rid of the memory of our frailties—how intolerant of that, be it ever so much below our real deserts, which reminds us of them. “He said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.” “Why shouldst Thou, before Whom all hearts are open, any longer probe the weakness of Thy servant P My heart, in its feebleness and in its strength, * Before, it was āyatrás pe; now, pixels we. Our Zord's Change to Peter. 34 I lies bare before Thee ; Thou knowest its most hidden thought, and seest it full of love.” “Jesus saith unto him, Feed My sheep.” But here again in the genuine text, we have an affecting difference, hardly to be recog- nized in our English. It is the diminutive, by which in all tongues, affection is expressed ;-the choicest sheep of any flock,-the little ones, whom none must Offend." Feed them—minister to them the food of the Spirit— speak and write to them who were as sheep going astray —but are returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls.” Let us just notice, before we pass on, how beautifully these words of our Lord are illustrated by the position and writings of St. Peter. He was the first, in God's providence, to open the door of the fold both to Jews, on the day of Pentecost,-and to Gentiles, in the house of Cornelius. And in his epistles he recurs again and again to this pastoral image. “The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the Oversight thereof, not by con- straint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.” ” But let us also notice, how far all this is, as is everything in Scripture and early Church * Bóo ke Tà Tpoğātić wov. * I Pet. ii. 25. * I Pet. v. I-4. 342 Omr Zora's Charge to Peter. history, from giving any countenance to the foolish dream of a primacy among the Apostles, by which the Church of Rome, pretending to have been founded by this Apostle, which she was not, seeks to enforce her claims of dominion over the consciences of men. No- thing can be further from the character of the whole narrative—nothing more inconsistent with St. Paul's Sayings regarding him, nothing more contradictory to his own expressions of his position and feelings. We see in him a warm-hearted and earnest disciple of Christ, full of love for his Master, and no doubt taught self-dis- trust by his bitter experience. His place among the Apostles was ever the most forward while our Lord was on earth ; and after the Ascension, he was the foremost and honoured instrument of founding the Jewish and Gentile Church ; the first built on of the twelve founda- tions of the holy city, which are the twelve Apostles of the Lamb ; and in this sense, according to the literal, and in my view the only possible meaning of Our Lord's promise, the Stone on which the Church was built. But very soon in the apostolic history, his light wanes before the brighter splendour of the great Apostle of the Gentiles ; and beyond all question, if we are to ask who was the first of the Apostles, the answer must be St. Paul. That Peter did follow his Divine Master to prison and to death, we know from the prophecy follow- ing our text. Eventually, though not as he once meant it, he laid down his life for His sake; and proved the genuineness of that love which he here so affectingly asserted. Our /lord's Charge to Peter. 343 And now, beloved, we have somewhat to learn from our simple narrative. First, from the words and demean- our of our Lord ; and then from those of His Apostle. How tender and considerate He was in all He here said, I have before observed. But let me observe it again, to bring it home to ourselves. We too have to do with Jesus. And we have no reason to feel that He will deal more harshly with us than He did with His penitent disciple. He is full of compassion. Man may reproach us—load us with bitter words—delight in our anguish ; but Jesus never reproaches, or if He seems to do so, His words are full of love as well as of chastisement. Man may strike wantonly, and strike again when we are down, and follow it up to Our ruin ; but Our Saviour does not so. He wounds only as the physician wounds— that He may heal. His wounds are to question our love ; not that He needs to enquire into it, but that we may enquire into it, and prove ourselves, and test the reality of our love for Him. And He will come to us with such questions. He is not a friend who will have our love taken as a mere matter of course. O no, brethren — our love for Him is to be our hold, our dependence, our stay, in uncertainty, in danger, in difficulty; and He will ever have us to be leaning on Him in our dark and rugged path,-will ever be feeling for us and assuring our grasp of Him. Therefore He tries His chosen ones, and comes to them with bereavements and sicknesses, and depression of spirit, and afflicting judgments ; all these are His ways of enquiring, “Lovest thou Me P’’ And if they are repeated again and again, why should 344 Our Zord's Charge to Peter. we murmur at this P. We are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. Such remindings are but the crook of the chief Shepherd, bringing back His sheep that they go not astray. And from the penitent Apostle too, we may learn. First, his humility. He casts himself simply on his Lord. He knew what a broken reed self was to lean upon. He had once trusted to himself; he had sown in Self-confidence, and had reaped tears and shame. And have not we too had some sad experience of the same kind? Have we never gone forth champions, and re- turned traitors P. Have we never spoken as if we would stand for Christ against an army, and then fled at the first sight of a foe 2 O brethren, let us ever distrust ourselves, and cast ourselves on Christ. Let us not be drawing highly-coloured pictures to ourselves of our devotedness, our faith, our love—exalting Ourselves, to be abased ; but rather simply renounce all self-esteem and boasting, and fly for our refuge to “Lord, Thou knowest.” “Thou knowest my unworthiness —every denial of Thee, every broken resolution, every secret sin, I would lay all before Thee, and rest on Thy loving-kindness and tender mercy.” And then learn his simplicity and single-mindedness. “Thou knowest that I love Thee.” O happy soul, which can thus lie bare before God's searching eye and assert its love for Him And why may not every one of us be thus happy? Dismiss bye ends and double purposes—give up the fruitless and disappointing attempt to serve the Our Zord's Charge to Peter. 345 world and God at the same time—though in weakness, and in fear, and in self-abasement, yet in singleness of purpose, cleave to the blessed Jesus; follow Him simply, Singly ; lay aside every weight and the sin that easily besets you, and run the race,—with His love to urge you onward, His grace to nerve you by the way, His example,_yea more, Himself—for your object and goal. Thus will His questionings and His chastise- ments not be in vain, if they knit your hearts to Him. And thus if we have, alas, all of us followed Peter in his denials, shall we also follow him in his affec- tionate devotion, and inherit the promise made to him, “Whither I go thou canst not follow Me now—but thou shalt follow Me hereafter.” But can I part from the interesting scene which we have been looking on to-day, and forget that we too this morning are to be the guests of our risen Saviour— that He invites us, as He invited His disciples, to come and eat at His table P that we shall sit with Him a short hour on the shore of the troubled sea of life, ministered to by Him P And what though we shall not see Him there with our bodily eyes, nor handle Him, nor feed on Him in any corporeal sense, may we meet Him there in spirit; may we discern His spiritual presence, while we partake of the symbols of His body and blood ; may something of that deep joy and reverence be shed abroad in our hearts, which the Apostles felt, when they knew that it was the Lord. And amidst the solemn Self-questioning which such sense of His presence will 346 Our Zora's Charge to Peter. raise in us, when we are overpowered with our own way- wardness and unworthiness and forgetfulness of Him, may each of our hearts yet burst forth in the warmth and fulness of entire devotion, “Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.” SERMON XXVI. (PREACHED FOR THE SCRIPTURE READERS’ SOCIETY, 1857). QChrist out $pepperú. “A am the good Shepherd.”—JOHN x. II. WE have seen Jesus, Who was subjected to the suffering of death in pursuance of His purpose in Redemption, raised gloriously from the dead, and taken up to God’s right hand in heaven. We have accompanied Him, through deepest humiliation and keenest suffering, to the height of His well-earned triumph. And here, ac- cording to all human analogy, Our consideration of Him would cease. When the poet or writer of fiction has brought his hero to the height of success, his work is done. Further, he does not expect his readers to ac- company him. Struggle and conflict are exciting: but the even tenor of successful repose is monotonous and dull. And not in fiction only, but in real life also, to have succeeded, is ordinarily enough. There is that in success, which if it does not ultimately satisfy, at least for the time satiates the man. Most persons are content to prosper for prosperity's sake. More prosperity, more influence, more of the same pleasing material for self- 348 Christ our Shepherd. flattery, many indeed are ever desiring, and ever grasp- ing: but few men, it seems to me, seek for and employ Success as a means to an end better than that success itself. Their success is their best moment; and from it, they decline. But the man Christ Jesus, how was this with Him P Victory more glorious, triumph more com- plete, than His, it is impossible to conceive. How did He use it 2 We know, that He did not count His previous equality with God a thing to be eagerly grasped, or make it matter of self-enrichment. How was this with His resumption of that glory, yea of that glory brightened and intensified ? If the crown of the universe carried no self-congratulation, what, when it glittered with the gem of Redemption, brighter than all that were there before ? If we pursue this question to a reply, we shall find it as wonderful as that other was. He put aside His previous glory in order to suffer and die: He won His present triumph in order to tend and lead, and shepherd, His poor and wandering flock below. “I am the good Shepherd,” are words which do not apply to the days of His humiliation, but to the days of His glory. And the Church has done well to choose them for her gospel during this season, when we have done for the present meditating more immediately on His sufferings, and are looking on Him risen and exalted. This then was the purpose of Christ's exaltation ; this the result of His success. He is exalted to be a leader and a Saviour. As such, we will consider Him to-day. And in examining the similitude contained in the words “I am the good Shepherd,” it will not be Christ our Sheff/herd. 349 necessary that I should dwell on circumstances, or explain allusions, which must be more or less familiar to you all. The position, the duties, the affections implied in the word shepherd, we have long been in the habit of appropriating to our Blessed Lord : and we do not want to be told, that He is, and does to His people, the chief of what is there implied. But it seems to me, what we do want in this as well as in other matters relating to our faith, is this ; to have these general truths, from the application of which, couched as they are in wide and abstract terms, we are ever apt to slip away, brought home to our daily cares and common lives ; and to be shewn where and how they practically press upon us as we move about and hold converse in our ordinary work. Let us then strive to knit up this link in our minds between our triumphant and exalted Saviour, and the common-place matters of the every- day world, as far as regards this His office of the good Shepherd. First of all then, let us take the widest possible range. The vast family in heaven and earth, all created being, is under His guidance as the risen and exalted Redeemer. Not only has He created all things, not only does He uphold all things by the word of His power, but by virtue of Redemption, He exercises a peculiar and special government over all things. How- ever little we may be able to enter into the detailed meaning of such a closer relationship being established by Redemption, of the fact itself there can be no doubt, Scripture directly asserts it again and again. After our 35C) Christ our Shepherd. Lord had risen, in words to which I shall have again to call your attention by and by, He says, “All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth.” And St. Paul, speaking of the purposed end of all that Christ did and suffered, says, “To this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” And again he writes that the Father, having made peace by the blood of the Cross, by Christ reconciled to Himself all things which are in heaven and earth. So that there can be no doubt, in the mind of the thoughtful Christian, that the relation to God. through Christ, and if so the relation to Christ Himself, of the whole universe, has been changed by the great events of our Redemption : that our Blessed Lord has become in a closer sense than before, the guide and overseer and shepherd of the vast and innumerable flock of created beings, since He was born at Bethlehem, since He was crucified on Calvary, since He rose trium- phant over death and hell, and was received up into glory. But if now we narrow our view from those vast reaches of space which lie beyond our utmost compre- hension, to this world of ours in which we live and move, we can have no doubt here, that by virtue of Christ's work in Redemption, He has taken into and upon Him- self the government and guidance of this world in a close and peculiar sense ; and that this truth can never be sufficiently borne in mind by Christian men. We are all indeed aware, that there is and has been in history an ignorant and fanatical application of this great truth : but this has just been because it was not understood in Christ our Shepherd. 35 I its fulness and universality. Men called themselves the people of Christ, and their own clique the Church of Christ, and their own sway, the government of Christ : and so, whether by setting up vicegerents of Christ on earth, or by fancied spiritual connection with Christ in heaven, they in fact robbed Christ of His rights in that world which is all His, one as well as another, one church and one people as well as another. He rules and orders and arranges the process of things here below, in accord- ance with the will of the Father, with which He is in perfect and unbroken union. Each people on earth has its place appointed, and the bounds of its habitation, and the course of its progress, and the extent of its influence : and according to every advantage given, will He require work for Him and with Him : and such work when done, or in as far as it is done, is of Him and for His purposes. Man proposes, God disposes--- this we all acknowledge : but the Christian acknowledges it in a peculiar sense—not as merely asserting that the will of the governor of heaven and earth is supreme, but as claiming for his own Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, the lordship and rule over the chances and changes of human affairs, and the ordering of the unruly wills and affections of sinful men to the furtherance of His own high and glorious purposes. We have then advanced thus far : but it is plain that so far from exhausting, we have not even yet approached the full and proper meaning of the term shepherd, and the office thus designated. Christ rules and orders the universe, and thus He may be said to be its Shepherd : . 352 Christ our Shepherd. He governs and arranges the nations and events of this world, and so far He may be said to be its Shepherd : but all the inner recesses, so to speak, of the meaning of that word, do not seem to be reached by either of these. It is true, that both of these might be so pressed as to seem to include some of them. For instance, all the care of a gracious Providence for the weak, all the provision for the hungry, all that merciful consideration which tempers affliction generally to the sons of men, which stays the rough wind in the day of the east wind, these may be properly said to belong to His fond pas- toral care : His tender mercies are over all His works. But we have not yet approached the meaning of these words, “I know Mine own, and am known of Mine : ” nor of those others—“Lovest thou Me 2 then feed My sheep : ” nor of these, “Take heed to yourselves, that ye feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.” So that we are now brought to a sense even closer than any of these, in which our risen and ascended Saviour is the good Shepherd : in which all the tenderness of that character, all the individual near- ness, all the constant personal vigilance felt and leaned on, may be filled up and realized. And such a sense is plainly before us in Scripture and in common life. If we ask, to whom does it belong 2 Scripture tells us of those who hear His voice and follow Him : of those who see the Son and believe on Him, of those who listen to Him and obey Him ; and common life yields an answer likewise, and marks off, though not with an infallible line of demarcation, a body of men who receive and honour Christ our Shepherd. 353 Christ in daily life, as distinguished from those who do not receive nor honour Him. I say the line of demarca- tion as drawn by man is not an infallible one. It is most true. Man has drawn it closer and closer and closer, but has ever been convicted of mistake in his estimate. First, there is the wide circle of the visible professing church of the baptized, regarding which all will confess that the tares in it are very abundantly mingled with the wheat; next, there is the narrower circle of what are called strictly religious people, careful in doctrine, accurate in outward practice, using certain terms which appear to designate men in earnest and men persuaded of and living up to, saving truths. And as regards this second and smaller enclosure, it is won- derful that men's eyes are not opened, after the many lamentable examples which we have seen, to the fact that it is as little to be depended on as the other : that a man's being what is called a serious man, and using evangelical phrases, is not one whit more guarantee for his being one of the Lord's people, than his being a bap- tized man, or than his being a man at all. Then there is again that line drawn narrower still, which includes a few chosen and tried ones, whom we think we may hold up to Ourselves as patterns and very certain examples of that of which we are in search. But here again, man's estimate may fail, and has often failed : and the blank dismay of many a family whose head has been reputed such an one, and then suddenly found worthless, may testify, how much reliance may be placed in human deeming, where the seeing of the heart is concerned. 2 A 354 Christ our Shephera. Whole churches have been deceived : the elect, in man's estimation, have proved men of treachery and lust and blood: close communions have become bywords for fraud and hypocrisy ; and in the seat of the pretended vicar of Christ on earth, have sat murderers and adul- terers. And why do I allege these things P. How does it belong to my subject, to descant on the imperfection of human judgment in marking out the elect of the Lord Over whom He is in the most especial sense, the good Shepherd 2 For this reason, brethren, and in this manner: that nothing is commoner with the world than to allege this very imperfection as a proof that there are no such people of the Lord at all : to bring forward every lamentable instance of frailty in the profession of religion, as shewing that all religion is worthless, and the facts on which it is based, unreal. To these shallow reasoners, we answer, it is not so : you know well, that the corruption of the best is ever the worst : you do not thus judge in other things ; for example the assumption by a villain of the simplicity and innocence of youth does not shew that the simplicity and innocence are not real and are not good, but that they are ; in fact proves their reality, not their unreality ; and so it is here too. The sanctity which the hypocrite puts on is in itself a thing genuine, a thing whose power is acknowledged, or he would not need so to use it, and would not, so using it, succeed in his object. The Lord Himself testifies to the existence of His people, and common life testifies to it likewise : testifies as I said not infallibly, but still with a voice which none can fail to hear, and which none Christ our Shepherd. 355 do fail to act upon. Scorn, coldness, neglect, ridicule, persecution, all these are tributes to the reality of that life of God which God's people lead in the world. On the other hand, the good fruits of their labours of love, far, alas, too few, but still many, and genuine, prove that there are among us somewhere, men in earnest, with Christ's love in their hearts constraining them. The Lord has a people among us; not perhaps where we think we find them—more likely to be with the last than with the first ; but wherever they are, of these is the Lord Jesus, in His glory, the peculiar and personal good Shepherd. He knows them, and they know Him, even as He knows the Father and the Father knows Him. These are wonderful words ; but there can be no doubt that such is His own assertion : nor can there be any, that such assertion points to intimate personal knowledge, totally distinct from mere historical assent to matters of fact respecting Him. Of these, who believe in Him and obey Him, He says that they are His : that the Father gave them to Him : that none shall ever pluck them out of His hand. Let us follow awhile His pastoral care of these His people, and the consequent condition of and effect in themselves. First then, He is their almighty Shepherd. His goodness to them is not mere good will limited by another's power : but what He desires for them, that He has full power to bring about. Lamb of Christ, wherever thou art, however low down in the scale of thine own wishes and His precepts, however feeble, 356 Christ our Shepherd. however unworthy, thy Shepherd is able to do all for thee. Rely on Him. Cast thyself on Him. Live by Him, not by thyself. Hope in Him : grasp that hope fast, and never give it up. He can, and He will. Enemy of Christ, whoever and wherever thou art, however up- lifted by talent, by station, by experience, above the weakest of His little ones, think not to prevail against them : they shall triumph, thou shalt fail and be ashamed : their Redeemer is strong; their Shepherd is almighty : O be prevailed on and cast in thy lot with them, and thus and only thus shall it be well with thee after all. Again, He is for His people an ever-watchful Shepherd. “He that keepeth Israel never slumbereth or sleepeth.” O thou weak and timid one, who lovest thy Saviour, and longest to follow Him closer, and to be more like Him, but through the many and unfailing attacks of the foe canst not, as thou wouldest, see His footstep nor catch His voice,—here is comfort for thee. Thy Shepherd is ever vigilant; no device of thine enemy is there, which He has not fathomed and limited, and every step and access of which He is not watching. Thou art not drifting by chance before the Storm ; but He is on board thy vessel, His hand is on thine helm, His ever-open eye is scanning for thee the dark and heaving waters. The sunken rocks He knows ; the perilous coast He knows ; and if thou wilt but trust to Him, and not take upon thee to supersede His guidance, that steering of His shall bring thee in His time to the haven where thou wouldest be. Christ our Shepherd. 357 Moreover, He is a tender and compassionate Shepherd: not one of a different race who cannot sympathize with His flock ; but, in all that tries and harasses them, one of themselves. Who can tell the alienation which must ensue between Him and His, if this tie were broken P Let us measure by our sense of the consequence of its defect, its infinite value now. We can go to Him for everything. In converse with Him in prayer, and in our secret thoughts, there is no infirmity, no shortcoming, no sin, which we ever need be afraid to utter to Him : He has borne them all : He knows their weight, and has Himself sunk under it. If shame burn in our cheeks, O what shame can be equal to His, when He, the Lord of glory, hung, stripped and pierced and soiled, the Sport of His enemies P. If pain rack our frames, His surpassed it all : if dread apprehension of the future shoot its pangs across us, we know one Who when His soul was exceeding Sorrowful even unto death, prayed and said, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me.” He is indeed a Shepherd fitted for a weak and afflicted and struggling flock ; to encourage the timid, to support the failing, to aid the helpless, to fold to His heart the Scouted, the anathematized, the forlorn, the desperate ; to give rest to all the weary and heavy laden. “He shall feed His flock like a shepherd : He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.” Then once more, He is an all-wise Shepherd. The past, the present, the future, all lie open to Him. What is best for His flock, He only knows and He knows 358 Christ our Shepherd. entirely. In no respect is the comparison more appro- priate than in this. We are ever like sheep going astray : wandering each to his own way. Many spots seem to us pleasant to feed in, which are full of unseen danger. Many pastures taste to us fresh and Sweet, which are rank with deadly poison. When the wolf comes in sheep's clothing, we recognize him not. We want one to determine our course and to choose for us : one to advise us of approaching peril and point out to us a way of escape. And such an one is our good Shepherd. He can tell, which way will lead us right, and He will prevent us from having our own way to Our destruction, if we lean upon and follow Him. Some- times indeed He may permit us for awhile to stray ; may let us make trial of that which our hearts thirsted for ; and failure and shame may be the immediate con- sequence: but it is to teach us a lesson of reliance on Him : to shew us by our own experience, that if He be indeed our Shepherd we cannot want, however nature may sometimes rebel against His present guidance. Lie still then, little flock, assured by His almighti- ness, guarded by His watchfulness, rooted in His sympathy, and safe in His unerring wisdom. Seek no other shepherd, for He is all-sufficient. Question Him not, nor distrust Him. Every hour of common life, He sustains, He watches, He pities, He guides you. Nothing which you feel a desire or fear to do, is too small for His notice : nothing too great for His power. However unpromising life may seem, He will bring out of it Christ our Shepherd. 359 blessing and joy: however obscure and devious your course may be, He will shine upon it with light in the end : for thus saith the Lord God, “Behold I, even I, will both search My sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh his sheep in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered, so will I seek out My sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the dark and cloudy day.” Yea, beloved, He will in the end refresh our souls : He will make us lie down in green pastures, and lead us forth beside the waters of comfort. And now I might conclude by saying a few words to those who know not and care not for this good Shepherd : who are contented to be guided by the world's customs and their own sense of their own in- terest ; to walk in the light of their own eyes and the hearing of their own ears. But I must leave so solemn a matter as pleading with them for their soul's life, to a time when I can make it the chief subject and burden of a sermon : if by any means I may persuade some of them to forsake the vain leader they have chosen, and to take this good Shepherd for their guide. Till then I must leave with them what has been said to-day, and end with One general consideration, appropriate to our announced object this morning. Christ is the chief Shepherd. It is His will, that under Him there should be others, not almighty like Him, not, alas, watchful nor compassionate as He is, not gifted with infinite wisdom, but weak and remiss and erring men, still his under-Shepherds in the lead- 36O Christ our Shepherd. ing and feeding of His flock. The first whom He ever thus commissioned, was one who had denied Him thrice : and His shepherds ever since have been not less fallible than he was. But He ordains that such there should be ; and when He uttered those words, “All power is given unto Me in heaven and earth,” He added, “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” Moreover, He appointed that they should take heed for His flock and provide under-shepherds again to themselves, so that no part of His church may be without guidance and pasture. And it is His saying, that the workman is worthy of his hire : His Apostle's that they who minister to the Gospel should live of the Gospel. Now it is for an important class of these under-shepherds that I ask your contribution to-day, for our Scripture readers, who subserve the work of the clergy in this vast accumulation of great cities which we call London. I need not explain to you their work, further than to say that it is that of pioneers and helpers to the ministers of Christ more properly so called ; and that it may be, and I have every reason to think has been made, most valuable and indeed in- dispensable, as such an exploration, and means of over- seeing these districts, whose crowded population, and continual changes of inhabitants, Outstrip any unassisted efforts of their ministers to keep them properly and pastorally in hand. May God grant that your own knowledge for your- selves of the care and power of the great chief Shep- herd, may make you deeply anxious that others should, Christ our Shepherd. 36 I by these ministrations of under-shepherds, be brought to know and depend on the same. May He arouse in you an ambition, which will indeed be a glorious and worthy one, to gather, out of the poverty and misery and ignorance of these streets accessions to that one flock under the one Shepherd, which He shall one day gather to Himself, and which shall feed with Him for ever in the blessed pastures of His heavenly kingdom. SERMON XXVII.1 (PREACHED IN 1856.) Qſì)f $alt that baş lost big $about. “Af the salt haze lost his sazour, wherezwith shal/ it be seasoned 2 ” LUKE xiv. 34. THESE words of our Lord bring us at once, as Chris- tian citizens, into contact with the most fearful and difficult problem of our times. If there ever was a people since the first promulga- tion of the Gospel, who from their position, their political advantages, their commercial influence, ought to be able practically to fulfil the noble office of being the salt of the earth, it is our own nation. And in some measure, I do trust we are answering to this character. Let us not conceal either side of the picture. We need en- couragement as well as exhortation. To some extent, we have held forth the word of truth, and are doing the work of evangelizing the world. Some grains of the salt yet possess and exert their conserving and quicken- ing power. But very many have lost their savour. In the midst of this Christian people, there are large * This Sermon was also preached for the Scripture Readers' Association. 7%e Sa/# that has lost his Savour. 363 portions of the social body which are utterly without power for good, and not only so, but themselves the subjects of moral and spiritual decay. It is a frightful and unwelcome fact to think of, but so it is : that there are vast numbers among us now, who though called and reckoned among Christians, are not Christians, in any real sense of the word : who are without the ennobling influence of Christianity over their outward life, without its sanctifying power over their inward life. These are the salt that has lost its savour. With such salt, in the physical world, the case, as Our Saviour's words go on to state, is hopeless. The mere material, once endued by God's creative hand with vivid and salutary qualities, and having lost those qualities, no man may requicken nor restore. And thus too it would be with mere animal life. The loss of vital power no human means can remedy. Of both these we can only say, “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away.” In neither case is there bestowed the gift of self-guidance, of Conscious reflection and determinate action. In neither of them is there responsible freewill, able of itself to fall,—able to seek his help from whom is every good gift, again to rise. But with man's spirit, thank God, it is not so. Here, the Salt may lose its Savour, and be again seasoned. Here, we are in a higher region of being altogether. Here, God acts, according indeed to the same analogies, and consistently with the same unchangeable attributes, but by different and higher laws belonging to the spiritual kingdom. And here it is not as in Creation, 364 Zºe Sa/º f/a/ / as Zost Azs Savour. where He carries on His mysterious agencies in secret and alone. In the far nobler work of recreation and regeneration, He condescends to accept His people as His fellow-workers. By persuasion, by preaching, by the ordinances of grace, all administered by human means, He is pleased to carry on the conversion of the Souls of men, and the restoration to life and vigour of the dead and withered members of the Church. And He is also pleased to leave very much within our choice, in dependence on His teaching, the means whereby such restoration may be effected. If then, as regards the physical world, the question of our text be one only to be answered negatively and in despair, in the spiritual world it becomes one of great importance, and demand- ing anxious care in its answer—“If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned P.” Let us endeavour to deal with this question to-day, in some of its aspects which most nearly concern our- selves. And in order to do so, I will ask you to look abroad over this, or any other metropolitan district. Here, as usual, one half of the population knows nothing of the other half: not even their existence. It is often my lot to hear it questioned in society, whether we have any poor in this our district. I have heard the greatest Surprise expressed, on first informing persons that the houses in such streets as New Quebec-street and Adams- street contain a poor family in almost every room. Now what are these poor families 2 what, with respect to their Christian state, its privileges and its duties 2 And by saying “What are they P " I do not mean;–in 7%e Salt that has lost his Savour. 365 every case, at the present moment: I would hope that Some little impression has been made on them by this time : but I mean, what are they as we find them— before we begin to work on them—as they are, left to themselves P Being nominal Christians, do they act as Christians ? Do they constitute the salt of the earth 2 Let us contemplate the real state of facts. To the majority of Our poorer neighbours here in London, the Gospel of Christ is, as a present thing and rule of prac- tice, utterly unknown. Whatever they may have learned of Christian duty in early life, in the school, or at home, is for the most part dead for want of stirring up and reminding, or overborne by the constant and unre- lenting demand of secular labour. If they have had pleasure in thinking and hearing of matters somewhat above the level of their Ordinary Occupations, it was an effort which required Sustaining, and it has not been sustained : the result of a stimulus administered for a moment, whose effect Soon passed away. There has been none to uphold these former partial elevations: none to repeat and deepen those transitory impressions. Everything around tends to degrade them ; everything to efface whatever good may at any time have been written on their hearts. We see but too often the proof of this in the utter abandonment of every attempt at comfort in their wretched homes : the resignation to disorder and uncleanly habits, the absence of self-respect and family respect, which are evident to any one who enters. Too often again, the actual entanglements of worldly embarrassment are wound hopelessly round them. 366 7%e Salt that has lost his Savour. Sometimes unavoidably, sometimes through improvi- dence, itself often the result of a reckless and aimless condition, they are year after year becoming more deeply involved, their scanty meal ever scantier, their few comforts ever rendered fewer by pinching necessity : their rent-book a testimony against them which they dare not face nor think of, the pawn-shop the depository of all which once made life tolerable to them. There are scores of families round us, almost within hearing of these words, in a condition more or less approaching that which I describe. And some one might expect me to say, “O ye who never knew what it is to scheme for the next meal—ye with whom to be sensible of a want is only a preparatory relish to enjoy its satisfaction, think of such as these—feel for them and with them l’’ Yes, the appeal would be a perfectly legitimate one :— you may and you should do this —but this, alas ! will not remedy the mischief—no, nor all the relief you could bestow, though it is your duty and your privilege to bestow relief. You might sink untold thousands, and you could never fill this gulf: you might multiply your poor-rates and your charitable funds an hundredfold, and you could not remove this state of things. He that is reckless would be reckless still: and the more SO, with abundance to draw upon. He that is ungodly would be ungodly still. And why? Because the salt has lost its savour. The mischief is not without, -it is within. The wretched houses, the rent-books, the pawn-shops, are but symptoms —are but the efflorescence of a deep- seated disease:–and if we are wise, we shall aim not at 7%e Sa/# //a/ / as Zost / is Savour. 367 putting them to rights, except where grievous distress and impending ruin call for ready rescue –but we shall aim far deeper –we shall be ever musing on and seek- ing an answer to the question, “Wherewith shall it be Seasoned P” And this is just the question which has been occupying so many Christian hearts, and employ- ing SO many Christian hands, now for some years in this our land. I called it the most fearful and difficult problem of our times : and every one who has fairly grappled with it will bear me out in saying so. Whether we look at its magnitude, or its complications, or the many failures and disappointments in the accesses to the work, or the necessary tardiness and scantiness of the apparent success obtained,—or again at the many disheartening differences which are likely to break up and disorganize united endeavours, in every direction difficulties seem to abound. Of one thing we may be certain : that the evil is far too vast and manifold for any one Scheme, any one institution, any man or set of men to grapple with. No special philanthropic agency will so much as touch the whole matter, however widely and efficiently supported. Each one of these, alone, is but opposing a feeble resistance for a time to the vast and gathering mass as it rolls and plunges downward. Even the forest trunks give way before the snow-slip, and you see them lying crushed and powerless in its devastated tract. And so it will be here, with any one philanthropic scheme, any one predominant idea in generous minds. All must work together—aye, and more than all that are now at work. And here you 368 7%e Salt that has /ost Az's Savour. must forgive me for going somewhat wide—for rambling Somewhat Out of logical connexion, and speaking of Some of those means which are being used, or have yet to be used, to re-season the vapid and corrupting mass. At the very outset we are met with a thou- sand difficulties. In this our tangled social forest in England, where every undergrowth is of nature's own strength, and every root gnarled and twined into the rock where the seeds have silently dropped for centuries, it is so hard to work a path in any direction,-so difficult to eradicate any sapling weed, however noxious, that it is far easier to see Our way, than to make our way, be the necessity ever so urgent. And this hindrance operates on every one of these schemes of philanthropy, impeding and Saddening their course, retarding and often marring their result. “Improve the dwellings of these poor people.” Yes; of all mere remedial measures, doubtless this is the most obvious and lies nearest the surface. But how slow the progress —how distant and almost hopeless the result. Here and there, as opportunity occurs, shew and offer . them better homes, homes where the common decen- cies of life can be observed, and on which a poor man may look with honourable satisfaction. Noble is the endeavour—pregnant with good ; and every blessing be on those who forward it. But how long must it be, before it can reach our portion, and other portions, of the London of former days, where almost every window lights a family. You may legislate. Yes, but where to begin interfering, where rent, and the wages of labour, 7%e Sa/Z //a/ /has ſosz Azs Saz'oºz". 369 will stop you at the very threshold P Here is just one of those cases where the operation of the ameliorating Scheme seems so distant and partial, that any general effort would be by most men almost despaired of. Yet here I would say to those engaged in it, “Labour on. Your hope, under God, must be in that re-seasoning, however distant, of the working classes with the prin- ciples of self and family respect, which, in some portion of them, your improved dwellings are already bringing about.” Then again : “Improve their Sundays.” By all means. The general observance of the Lord's day in Our land is perhaps the most powerful instrument and the surest pledge for future good, which we possess. But again, How 2 For here once more we are beset with difficulties. To speak but of one very obvious branch of the subject : the question of what is called church- accommodation for the poor, is and has been but very imperfectly understood, except by those who personally know those poor and their wants. In their present state, and with that remarkable mixture of pride and shyness which characterises then, you have obstacles on either hand. They will never frequent in adequate numbers the churches where their betters in worldly position resort: on the other hand, they never will heartily em- brace the offers of that which is professedly put forward as a poor man's church. Still, in this as in the other matter, let us ever go forward with energy and with hope. The salutary influence of the ministry of the Church in a poor and neglected district will, under God's blessing, 2 B 37O 7%e Sa/# that has lost his Savour. do so much in attacking the evil at the root, in the hearts, I mean, of the people, that we may hope a Considerable giving way of both these prejudices will follow, and the path be smoothed for future exertions. Still we want a better understanding of the way to bring the Church to the poor, and the poor to the Church. It is obvious that the Church must enlarge her bounds, and Somewhat relax her stringent outward framework of practice, if she is, in the present alienated state of the lower classes, ever to win them for good : that she must condescend to the requirements of the disease with which she has to deal, and be content, at the sacrifice of some outward matters of precedent and rule, to become all things to all men ; must first conquer herself and her own sons, in order to conquer these her alienated ones : must bring back the Straying sheep, not by standing on the walls of the fold, and calling to them, but by herself venturing forth into the untried and pathless wilderness, and suffering her outward Comeliness to be defaced by the rude briers of the way. But here again we are met by difficulties, at present insuperable. Whatever salu- tary change may be demanded, however urgently expe- rience of the Church's usefulness is required, the Church is utterly powerless in the matter. Here again however, our way is to work on and hope on. There is very much . that we can do, even in this direction, privately and unobtrusively. Of One such agency I will speak by and by. But we are now on the improvement of their Lord's day. We have spoken of its positive side : we have seen its difficulties. The negative side is beset with as 7%e Sa/# that Æas /ost his Savour. 371 many. It seemed to be shewn to us last year, that let the working classes desire never so much to have their day of rest uninterrupted by trading, there always will be a sufficient number of those directly interested in Sunday traffic to prevent them from obtaining their purpose. And here once more, Our hope must be in the re-seasoning, however distant and apparently hope- less, of this latter mass which at present proves Our hindrance to good. We must be content to work slowly, and thus surely; on individuals, and thus on numbers; and though the goal may be far off, we shall thus ensure every step towards it being a safe One, and shall at length secure a Sunday rest for the overworn mechanic or Small tradesman, a few years later perhaps, but possessing the immense advantage of being one of our national spontaneous growths from healthy seed,—not the transplanted and sickly Scion of forced legislation. You will be easily able to apply remarks of the same character to those various other agencies which are at work for this most salutary and beneficent purpose. All are carried on with toil and under disappointment ; all are small things, compared with the enormity of the evil with which they contend. But we want them all : we can spare none of them. I do not say to each among you, support them all : but I do say to every one, sup- port and be interested in Some one or more of them. Schools, reformatories, all Our institutions for all benevo- lent purposes, are but too little for the work before us. And some agencies, as I hinted, must be brought to bear, which have hitherto been but sparingly employed. I 372 7%e Salt that has lost his Savour. would mention, as far the most important among these, the agency of wide-spread personal sympathy. Gather its necessity from our text and the way in which we have enforced it. Your poor neighbours want not reliev- ing so much, as re-seasoning with the Christian mind. Where can they get that living and working influence, except by contact with Christian minds themselves P Incomparably greater and more blessed than all existing philanthropic agencies among them, would be that of large and generous personal sympathy and intermixture with them on the part of the higher classes. Make them friends, and you have half won them for Christ. And it is easy, O it is very easy to make friends of them. Their Sympathies have not perished, any more than your Own. In those wretched houses, in the midst of hopeless want and all the loss of life's comforts which I have described to you, there survives self-denying love, fond attachment, devoted gratitude. Even in some of the most destitute, and, one would think, the most hardened to suffering, the tear flows as often for another's woe as for their own. The work is as full of promise as it is full of difficulty : and by an enlargement of sympathy and personal inter- course, I am persuaded that, while the promise would be ripened and realized, the difficulties would be rapidly lessened and put to flight. Those who can persuade, need not legislate ; those who have won the victory by love, may lay by every other weapon. And in the access to this part of the work, there are really no diffi- culties which the most ordinary resolution may not entirely overcome. I do not speak hypothetically, but 7%e Sa/# that has lost /his Savour. 373 from experience of my own and of others, when I say, that there is no part of our own district, in streets or in mews, which the feeblest and most timid female might not visit with perfect comfort and propriety, and with every prospect of doing much and lasting good. And now I must commend to you one portion of this work of re-seasoning, which has been taken up, and with great advantage, within these few years. I mean that on which Scripture Readers are employed. The Scrip- ture Reader is a layman working under the minister of the parish, whose business it is to seek out, visit, and read the Scripture to every family and person such as I have been describing. He keeps a regular journal, which is given in weekly to the clergyman ; and as may be well imagined, his help is most valuable. Much can be done by him, being a layman, which a regular minister could never do. Unbelievers of the lower classes will seldom open their minds to us. They are afraid of our standing and professional education, or they are alienated from us by misconceived political notions respecting the Church to which we belong. But to him they will for the most part open freely; and as he is trained for this special purpose, he is able often to answer their doubts and sometimes to win them over to the faith. Besides, the general effect of bringing Scripture and Divine sub- jects before the people, at stated and no distant intervals, is most salutary. One result I believe we had on Good Friday, and last Sunday, in the considerable increase of our communicants from among the middle and lower ranks of our brethren in Christ. 374 7%e Sa/# that has /ost his Savour. I have thought it better, brethren, to-day to put before you the great subject of the state of our poorer brethren, that it may be to you matter of earnest thought and active Christian exertion. Let what has been said act on you with reference to our particular object to-day: and in bestowing on it what God has enabled you, remember that you are thus, though very far from satis- fying the very difficult problem—yet at least contribut- ing, by promoting the reading of God's word and the knowledge of His Son among them, in a very direct manner to one answer to the question, “Wherewith shall they be seasoned " SERMON XXVIII. (A ConFIRMATION SERMON, 1856.) QThe Camitet #9tart. “ Unite my heart to fear Thy name.”—Ps. lxxxvi. II. A NUMBER of our young people who are with us to-day, are about, before the end of the week, solemnly to take on them the service of God in the ordinance of Con- firmation. Let us avail ourselves of the opportunity, for them and for all of us, to review some of the foun- dations of the Christian life: in dependence on His blessing, from Whom comes every good and perfect gift. The words of our text occur in the midst of a prayer of David, full of humility and confidence mingled to- gether. It may be enough to quote the first verses, in order to strike the key-note of the whole: “Bow down Thine ear, O Lord, hear me: for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul, for I am holy : O Thou my God, save Thy servant that trusteth in Thee.” “Poor and needy” —“holy and trusting in God.” So it is with every one who serves Him in truth. Poor—how poor, God teaches him, and time teaches him, every day : needy—how full 376 7%e United! Aſeará. of wants, he knows not at first, but as the realities of his spiritual life open to him, his wants ever recur, ever expand before him : yet at the same time, holy : dedi- cated to God's service, named by Christ's name, living and feeding in the fold of God: and at the same time, trusting in Him ; having learned the charm and power of those blessed words, My GoD : having God for his Master, his Redeemer, his upholder, his friend : and looking forward, when flesh and heart faileth, to have Him as his portion and exceeding great reward. It is such an One, SO compounded of human weakness and Divine strength, so poor and helpless in himself, so en- riched and invigorated in his God, who prays the prayer of our text, “ UNITE MY HEART TO FEAR THY NAME.” The prayer, you will observe, begins with a general request, and then points it to a particular object. “UNITE MY HEART"—make it one : and for what ? “TO FEAR THIY NAME.” Let us take each of these separately. “ Unite my heart.” O who that knows the fickleness and inconsistency of the human character, of his own character, will not join in this prayer P Who will not recognize the immense importance in every pursuit and employment of having the heart at one, the character consistent? Beautifully and powerfully could a great philosopher in heathen times express his deep feeling of the need to a man of consistency and unity with him- self: “Methinks,” says Plato, “it would be better for my lyre to be out of tune and discordant, and even the 7%e United A/eart. 377 chorus of singers whom I lead, yea, better for the whole world to be at variance with me and contradict me, than that I in my own person should be out of concord with myself and self-contradicting.” Yes, brethren, anything is better for a man than a distracted, unharmonized, inconsistent character. To spend pre- cious time in counteracting and crossing out ourselves, is more than any of us can afford, in this short life, in which so much is to be done. Yet with how many is this the case ! I speak not now of that progress of gradually ripening opinion and judgment, which is the necessary condition of all thoughtful minds: I require not that a man's mature age should be brought to be measured by the unripe words and hasty inferences of his youth : it were better indeed and happier for him, if the whole life unfolded itself gradually and consistently, “the child the father of the man,” the promise of child- hood, and the early essays of youth, leading on without a break and naturally to the full vigour of his manhood : more blessed indeed, if that childhood were past in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that youth in learning his Father's will,—that manhood in the active glorifying of Him : but of this progress, or of the lack of it, I am not speaking now. Few of us, I suppose, can look back many years, without being sensible of more than a mere expanding change : few, who are not con- Scious, that while they have purchased some experience, it has been at the reluctantly paid price of much of their former self-confidence. But what I do reprobate is this, —that the same man, at the same time, should be un- 378 7%e Ozzfea. Aſea.7%. certain, Self-counteracting, divided against himself—in words, in acts, in the influence of his character over others. I know it may be alleged in answer, that there. is ever a conflict in the best of men, and the holiest of Christians, between the flesh and the spirit, between the law of God in the mind, and the law of sin in the members;–between the good that he would do, and the evil that is, notwithstanding, present with him. But this is obviously no answer: for it is this very conflict which the prayer in my text aims to regulate : it is this very imperfection which brings about the conflict, from whence also springs the inconsistency which I lament : and for deliverance from which I seek for the uniting and harmonizing Spirit of God. In the heart, yea and in the life, this conflict will ever be going on. The further we advance in the Christian's course, the closer and more deadly it will become. The more the mist clears off, the plainer shall we see our enemies, and the more eagerly shall we be busied with them. Yet though Originally owing to the same fatal cause, it is not alto- gether in the direct practical course of this conflict that the inconsistency lies of which we speak. Nay, it is often most evident in those who have never engaged in earnest in the battle with evil; and it is often most effectually cured, by putting on the Christian armour and going forth in earnest to the fight. It is, in one very prevailing form, a trifling, wavering, inconstant spirit: the standing idle in the market place of the world, of a man who has not yet found his vineyard to work in, or who having found it, is weary of the work. 7%e Unizłed Heart. 379 It is very often incident to youth and inexperience. Anxious to appear like others in Society, the young often profess strong opinions, and take decided courses, with regard to matters on which, from their very limited experience, they can know but little : they become strong upholders of this or that side in difficult ques- tions, imitating, and going beyond, the partisanship of their elders. And hence, from this very pertinacity, comes fickleness and self-contradiction. As, by widening experience, the light of truth breaks in here and there, the young heart, if brought up under purifying and hallowing influences, is ever susceptible of just and generous impressions: and these very often clash with the artificial or traditional views before so strongly up- held, and bring about inconsistency and confusion. And these thoughts lead us to one remark ; that with the young especially, one of the first conditions of this unity of heart is, a humble and conscientious adoption of opinions. Do not, I would say to our young friends, entangle yourselves, in the battle before you, with armour which you have not proved. Better defence to you will be the simple sling and stone of one conviction tried by your own experience, than all the panoply of Saul. Take not up the opinions expressed by your elders, because you have heard them,-nor catch the tone and manner of positive assertion at Second hand from another. He may have been wrong in so speak- ing : or he may have had his grounds, which you know not. It may perhaps be thought that I am now dealing with mere intellectual matters. But I assure you it is 38O 7%e Ozzited A/earſ. not so. Once break in on the conscience in its secret and sacred office of the regulation of thought and adop- tion of Opinion, and far more mischief is done, than to the intellect only. Once induce the conscience to desert the helm on any pretext, and the vessel, with all its freight, will drift with the uncertain wind. These are days of talk: days when opinions of some kind are broached by all we meet: and I own I have thought that Some of the disunion of men's lives, and incon- sistency of their practice, and scattering of their energies, is owing to want of conscientious watchfulness in the adoption and profession of our opinions, and of a jealous and God-fearing check over ourselves, in the temptation to rush into partisanship. And while on this matter, it seems quite in the course of our subject to put in a warning against two mistaken lines of conduct which we see around us. One of these is, a listless apathy to the formation and expression of opinion : a carrying Out of an idea, that a man may be consistent, by being nothing : a boast of not meddling with matters which lie by the side of our way in life, and so imagining that we shall avoid getting into difficulties with regard to them. Such is frequently the course of the mere idle and use- less lover of pleasure : such too of the man who suffers himself to be entirely sunk and absorbed in the daily routine of life's business. But it is not thus that we pray our hearts may be united. God has placed all of us in the world, not to shrink from, but to grapple with, and master by His help, the difficulties which surround 7%e United! Heart. 38 I us. The tree that would strike roots for eternity, must not shrink from the incessant buffeting of the winds, nor from sometimes waving to and fro in the tempest. Beware, my young friends, of escaping from inconsist- encies into idleness. God sent you here to glorify Him : and it is among the trials of your day, and the difficul- ties of your actual path, and the duties which spring out of circumstances studied and understood, that your glorifying Him must have its scope and exercise. Better even be inconsistent among the energies of life, than faultless, because motionless, in the slumber of death. The other alternative, adopted it is to be feared far more frequently, is that of cherishing an artificial con- sistency, for mere consistency's sake : professing and upholding a set of Opinions, or a line of action, which is supposed to be proper and creditable, or even due to a man's own former Course, or present position, while the inmost soul does not go along with that profession and maintenance. And notice, that I am not speaking of the tangled necessities of statesmanship, or the expe- diency which so often and so properly leads men to adopt and advocate that which is practicable, rather than that which is desirable. In outward life, which is a working forward not alone, but through and with a mass of hindrances, a man must move on compromise, if he will move at all : he who would wait to act till all his convictions could be carried out, and every one of his wishes satisfied, would in fact do no service at all. It is not of such matters that I speak: though even here I might say, that it must always be remembered, 382 7%e Ü772 fed! //earſ. that though conscience may condescend to inferior tools for her work, she must never handle forbidden ones: must take care that her compromise be only with lesser and weaker good, or at all events with waning not with waxing evil. But I speak now of a man's inner life — of the unity or inconsistency, not of those practical measures, for obtaining which he must jostle with a crowd, but of those inward convictions, in being true to which he stands alone under God's eye. And here I Say, that it is lamentable, to see men punctiliously up- holding an accredited opinion which we have reason to know they do not themselves hold : to suspect, that beneath the calm and apparently consistent Superficial demeanour, there is an inward struggle going on, nay sometimes fought and settled, of which, and of the result of which, we are allowed to see nothing : to be aware, that the language of strong condemnation or decided approval is but the result of effort, a part well acted, or a habit skilfully acquired, but that all the while the heart is false to it—by sympathizing with the con- demned, despising the approved, carrying on a life of its own within the life which all men see. O it is by such men and such lives that mighty Systems of wrong have grown up under the semblance of right: by such, that vast fabrics of conventional belief have been upheld for power's sake and for gain's sake, long after their spirit has departed : it is in spite of such men, that the God of truth has broken these systems to pieces one after another, and has strewn the history of His world with the wrecks of these fair-seeming fabrics. Dear 7%e Ozz7ted! //earſ. 383 friends, let us not be consistent thus. Our prayer does not run after this sort, “Unite my acts, that I may make } } me a name and become great : ” but far otherwise— “Unite my heart that I may fear Thy name.” You, my younger hearers, are by no means unconcerned in this part of our exhortation. You will find it a strong temptation, when you see all going well with you, to keep all well at any risk : as the world's utilitarian maxim runs, and it has few more dangerous or unchristian,— to let well alone. You may be flowing on calmly with the stream of the society in which you live. All is harmony and peace : your domestic or your social sky so pure and still, that the mere flutter of a wing would disturb it. And let it be so, as long as it is GOD's peace. But if His breath begin to stir within thee, if His Spirit begin to move over the face of those tranquil waters, check not, and belie not, His creative power. Thine inward convictions are more Sacred, than any outward peace. Thou art placed in a state of trial and of con- flict. It is not the time for rest. Break not without cause any Scene of peace—any union of hearts and opinions : but always remember, that thou wast not sent here to enjoy such peace, or to keep such union, but to toil and battle onward with God's help and thine own energies, in truth and singleness of heart, and noble disregard of mere incidental, mere artificial consequences. Leave results to God. If He is working in thee, He has work for thee. If it be His will that peace should be broken, it is, that better peace may be made. We are not without abundant and very plain warnings, 384 7The United! //earſ. and it is in this matter that they speak to us in these more Christian days, that if we will be Christ's dis- ciples, we must be prepared, if need be, to leave father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and houses and lands, yea all we have, even good name and good pro- spects, for His sake. Thus far, though we may seem in these latter re- marks to have been already trespassing on the second part of our subject, we have mainly spoken of the general need, and of the qualities and limits, of inward con- sistency. Let us henceforth treat of the particular object in view. Unite my heart TO FEAR THY NAME. Now it is plain to all, that these last words, “to fear 7% y name,” must have a meaning very far removed from that of mere dread or terror of God. This he may have, and has, whose heart is not united : the inconsistent and the unprincipled, even in his worst moments, has the bitter drop of the terror of God and His judgments abiding at the bottom of his soul. Besides, such a terror is as un- reasonable, as it is undesirable. A heart at unity with itself cannot be in disunion with the chief object of its being : and that object is, to serve and glorify Him, Who is its Creator and Redeemer. Manifestly then, we must seek here for another definition of fear than mere dread : and to that definition our last consideration will guide us. Take that consideration in this form. If our hearts are to be brought into real and wholesome unity, it must be by the objects of their affections being in their right relative places. An united heart, for instance, cannot place Him in a low or Secondary position of affection 7/*e Ozzzzed A/earſ. 385 and regard, Whom nature and reason themselves combine to place first. If it be so, conscience will ever and anon be bearing testimony against the disproportion,-and infinite disunion will be the result. No : if we would be consistent men, God must be first in everything. And if so, HOW first P Remember, God is, with us, not a barren fact, not a mere approved opinion, but a personal Being : as much a personal Being, as any one of Ourselves : the object to us of love, of fear, of hope, of desire. If then such a personal Being be in our united heart's esteem, first in our regards,--what, I ask, will be our prepon- derant feeling towards Him P. It will depend very much, doubtless, on what we know of Him. The history of heathen philosophy has sufficiently shewn us, that if a personal God is the mere guess of man's mind, the mere inference of his reason, the heart's best feelings will not, as matter of fact, be excited towards Him at all. We are not led, as to our passions and desires, half so much by what we can reason Out, as by what we accept as matter of belief. And here my young friends will remember that I am treading very close to ground already gone over with them in our confirmation class. We there endeavoured to shew you the nature and grounds of your promising, and of its having been promised for you, that you should believe all the articles of the Christian faith : that it was laid down by the Church in the full conviction that the revelation which God has given us of Himself in Christ is so plain, so well-grounded in evidence, so salutary for man to receive, that such a promise was in fact no more than a pledge taken for 2 C 386 7%e Onzfed! //earſ. you, and your ratification of it will be no more than the renewal of that pledge on your own part, that you will act as reasonable persons, alive to your own best interests, and conscious of the best feelings of your nature. I remind you of the considerations by which I shewed this ; I must assume it to be so now. I must assume that the man who desires his heart to be in unity and consistency with itself, receives God's revela- tion of Himself in Christ. And thus receiving it, I return to our yet unanswered question,-What will be his pre- dominant feeling with regard to God P You may say perhaps, Love : and doubtless it is true : but then it is not exactly the love which he feels to a fellow-creature. Several elements of that love are necessarily wanting. His love to God can contain in it no compassion, no active helpful sympathy, no allowances of charity: these, and other qualities of human love, are here out of the question ; for God can never want us, nor Our help. Again, in his love to God, other elements will be present, which are not found in human love : for ex- ample, perfect reliance, not as a casual feature, as in the love of a child to a parent, not as an exaggeration and forgetfulness of proper self-dependence, as in violent attachments, but as the very essence and duty of his love itself. No man can thoroughly love God, unless he give himself up to Him, and be ready simply to hear and accept His will. And just So we might go through the other affections of the heart towards Him, and shew that there is that in them all, which is not in the same affections exercised towards a human object. Well then, 7%e Uzzzfed! //earſ. 387 I ask, how may we best define this essential difference— how account for it? Does it not arise from this, that God is far, far above us ;-that He is perfectly holy, just and true —that He sees and guides all Our courses, doing all things well;-that His power is infinite, and His majesty infinite ;-that He dwelleth in light un- approachable, and therefore is to us a very different object for our affection from any mere brother and sister of our own kind 2 And is it not, in fact, the awe, which is the necessary result of these attributes of God, which thus pervades all our affections when directed towards Him P Is it not, to come now to the term before us, this wholesome and necessary FEAR of God, which forms, after all, the godly man's predominant feeling towards Him 2 Not terror, not dread of Him, but just that which causes him to regard God differently from any other object of his affections: to regard Him as ever present, ever to be thought of, ever to be obeyed, ever to be trusted : which hallows and lifts his love, which warms and cements his service, which adds reverence to his prayer, solemnity to his praise ; which is, in fact, the Sun in the heaven of his life P. It is for, and towards this fear of God above all other objects, that we want our hearts united. If this is so, the first consequence will be, that our motives will be consistent. We shall not be acting from a selfish desire now, and a generous impulse then : openly and frankly to one man, and covertly and craftily to another : but this fear of God will abide as a purifying influence in the very centre of our Springs of action : 388 7/he United //earſ. His eye ever looking on us, His benefits ever constrain- ing us. Half the inconsistencies in the world are com- mitted to win favour, and gain repute —as the fickle multitude sets one way or the other, men change their course to please and to be thought well of ; this will not be so with him whose heart is united to fear his God : let them praise, or let them blame, it is One Who wavers not, Whose favour he wishes to secure. And let me forewarn you, my young friends, that though this path of singleness of motive may seem to you beset with trials, it is in fact the easier, as it is assuredly the safer and the more full of glory in tº." end. Though the quiet and conscientious servant of God may often rest long in obscurity, God generally in the course of His Providence vindicates him in the sight of men, even here. And if this be not so, what matters it P Much, for them who believe this life all : –for him who looks for new heavens and new earth, little or nothing. To them with whom this world is their scene of display, it is much, if that display be marred : to him with whom it is but the robing-room for eternity, it is as nothing for his present imperfect array to be sneered at and vilified, if he may stand in that day approved in his Saviour's righteousness, and resplendent in bright garments of praise. And union of the heart in God's fear will save you also from grievous or fatal inconsistency in opinion. Where truth is so large and deep, and our fathoming lines are so short, it cannot be but that we should often guess wrongly at the depth, conceiving of it merely by 7%e Üzzzzed A/eart. 389 our own power to sound : and hence will always be seen in the best of men certain inconsistencies, certain in- firmities of opinion, certain weak points in what they think an invulnerable and perfect system. From these you can hardly escape:–for after all, a man's belief, as well as his practical life, is and must be, in Some measure a compromise. But as in Our journeys, SO in our lives;–we should ever seek the shortest passage, where we cannot think continuously ; should aim at avoiding those broad and patent gulfs between tenet and tenet, which make some men to be living contradic- tions. And he does this most effectually, whose heart is united to fear his God. Not exempt from other men's failings, he is saved from other men's recklessness, and has a tenderer and a safer conscience in the matter of forming and holding opinion. You may not find such a man faultlessly consistent in his theological system : the junctures between some truths which mutually repel may be clumsy and manifest : but in all that concerns the living affections of the heart and the truths that guide the life, he will be able to give a reason of the hope that is in him, and to give it in power. The words of such an one shall come with strength to convince, and sweetness to persuade. His tree may not hang to the outward sight so thick with fruit, as that of others: but all that is there, is clad with the bloom of healthy ripeness, without blight, without hollowness, fit for the Master's use. To such a life then, my young friends, we invite you, we invite all : to a life whose convictions, whose energies, 39C) The United A/earſ. whose affections, are united in the fear of the Lord your God. We ask you to bind with this golden cord your Otherwise scattered energies: that their work in the world may be blessed, and a blessing. We do not invite you to large professions of religion :-to a system of Set words and approved phrases, maintained in spite of the heart's misgivings, carefully applied as a rule to condemn others, utterly set at nought as applied to men's own selves. We have enough of such lives about us, enough of their fruits in speaking and in printing, to the disgrace and disunion of the flock of Christ. We do not invite you to a mere life of Outward regularity, a round of religious duties, in which the warm affections bear no part, and from which the bright smile and the cheerful greeting must be severed off as things secular : in receiving you into full membership of our Church, we bid you not to such meagre and ill-assorted fare; but we want you, from the day of your confirmation onward, for honest and thorough Christians; we want you in your closets, to wrestle together with us in continual prayer to our common Father in Christ, for more grace, more union, more charity, more power over evil –we want you in the intercourse of life, cheerful, and loving, and refreshing, because of the clear spring within,_ helping the burden of Sorrow, mingling in the chorus of joy: we want you, when we have to stand against many on the part of Christ, to be by our side with true heart and fearless hand : we want you at that table of the Lord, gathering strength from time to time with us, for fresh stages of this earthly journey; and we want you, 7%e O722/eaſ A/eart. 39 I O we want you then, when we shall spring from the dust of the earth at the call of our heavenly Bridegroom ; we would present you then faultless with exceeding joy: that this congregation of the faithful, and we their ministers, may then stand before the presence of the throne, and say, “LO, we and the children whom God hath given us:”—“behold those whose hearts on earth were united in Thy fear;-behold them now, one with us, one with each other, one with Thee, through the boundless ages of an unbroken eternity of peace, and love, and joy.” SERMON XXIX. (PREACHED IN 1854.) QBur # ord's 33ſºngton. “A go to prepare a place for you.”—JOHN xiv. 2. IN these few and simple words does our Lord announce to His disciples the necessity and the object of His removal from them. They are words obviously bearing a figurative meaning ; not to be understood as of one really gone to make ready a material abode for the reception of His disciples, but as of one gone from us in pursuance of a great Divine plan, which required that the state for which God intended His people should be made ready for them, and they for it; and both these parts of His great design were to be accomplished by our Lord ascending up to the right hand of the Father. Let us consider then to-day,+the necessity of His departure from us ; the accomplishment and process of that departure ; and its Consequences as regards His Church. -. Had the Lord Jesus remained with us here below, various great ends of His mission must have rested unfulfilled. He had indeed put away sin by the sacrifice Our Zora's Ascension. 393 of Himself. That cross had been uplifted, on which the sinner was to look and be saved. He had risen, victorious over death and the grave. But both these great events, His crucifixion and His resurrection, were but steps in the way of the greatest event of His whole appointed course, the glorification of His manhood, and of us in Him. Had He remained below, we may not say that this could not have been ; because it is not for us to limit God to any defined place in His workings ; but according to His own declaration, it would not have been. He ever treats of His reception to the Father as His great exaltation and the entering into His glory. Without this, the manhood in Him, our whole nature which He bore, was justified, was quickened ;-but it was not glorified. Again it was not the purpose of God in redemption, merely to clear us from guilt, nor merely to place us in acceptance, but to renew us after the Divine likeness, to build up again, infinitely more glorious for the conflict with sin and suffering, that image, which in our first parents had been ruined. And this Our Lord again and again taught His disciples, could not be accomplished, without His being taken from them. It was to be the especial work of the Holy Spirit dwelling in and operating on men's hearts ; convincing them of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And this Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the builder up and strengthener of mankind, would not come, unless Our Lord first went to the Father ; unless He reunited Himself to Him from Whom He had come forth to suffer and to save. 394 Our Lord's Ascension. Thus when He ascended up on high, He received gifts for men, that God might dwell among them : the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, and our glorified Redeemer became the channel of grace and light, that light which is the spiritual life of men. I will not dwell more now on this part of our subject, because it will come before us in all its detail on that day, when we commemorate the descent of the Spirit on the Church. Moreover the Ascension was necessary for the manifestation of Christ's sovereignty. “To this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and the living.” He had laid aside—emptied Himself of His glory, when He came into this world. And no manifestation of Imajesty here below could ever have been equivalent to the resumption by Him of the glory which He had with the Father before the world was—still less to the acces- Sion of glory with which Redemption has crowned Him. And consequently we read that “God raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.” And I mention this His sovereignty here, as being intimately connected with that of which we have already spoken, the gradual change to be accomplished in Our world, during the period of His removal from us in the * Rom. xiv. 9. Our Zora's Ascension. 395 flesh. This sovereignty is not to be at once established, but by degrees. “Sit thou on My right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.” “We see not yet,” says the Apostle, “all things put under Him.” Man, in God's great work of Redemption, is not to be crushed down, and subjugated as under the feet of a conqueror, but leavened by gradual influence and persuaded —and the kingdom of the Redeemer to be established by the use of human means in the course of revolving ages. As we see in the natural formation of this earth, that one state of things has succeeded another, all less favourable to our existence and well-being than the present one, till at last that number of states had been passed through, that happy balance of physical influences reached, which should cause this earth to afford place for man's habitation, and teem with plenty for his sup- port —so it is God's pleasure that it should be likewise with the moral and spiritual world : that the reign of truth and peace shall not be established in a moment, but through the conflict of hostile influences, by the superposition of many unfavourable, or less favourable conditions of individual and social humanity, till at length the state of grace and knowledge and love has been brought in, upon which the full glories of the final kingdom are destined to arise. And thus ages on ages lie in the Divine mind between Christ's glorification in heaven, and His glorification in His Saints on earth ; but to all those ages the Ascension was the first neces- sary introduction : it opened the door of grace in heaven, through which shone out the dawn of glory. 396 Our Zord's Ascension. Again, it was necessary for us, and for the accom- plishment of this great end,-that Christ should not be present, but absent from us. It was through sense, the inferior portion of our being, that the deceits of the tempter had won their way into man's heart. It is through Sense that the world persuades men to cleave to it, as their supreme good. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life, have no tendency to draw men upwards, or to assimilate them to God. As long as Christ was known after the flesh, as long as their eyes could see Him, their hands handle Him, the disciples were bewildered with low and sensual apprehensions Concerning Him. Even to the last, as on this very day, On the path from Jerusalem to Bethany, they ask Him, “Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel ?” It was doubtless most important, for the purposes of festimony, that they should See and hear and handle Him, and eat and drink with Him ; but it was equally important, and necessary for their introduction into the higher state of the dispensation of the Spirit, that they should trust to sense in this matter no longer. “Because thou hast seen Me thou hast believed : blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” Faith, not sense, is to be the medium by which the dis- ciples are to hold communion with their Master, under the dispensation of the Spirit. The evidence of sense is to be put by and disregarded in spiritual things, and man is to be led by a principle far higher than and inde- pendent of it: the result it is true of the testimony of those who saw and heard Him, but itself as enduring as Our / ord's Ascension. 397 seeing Him Who is invisible, and hearing a voice which speaks not outwardly and audibly, but in the recesses of the believer's heart. Thus we are drawn above that which we see and among which we dwell, up to that place whither Christ is gone before ; and our affections being set on things above, and not on things on the earth, our life hid with Christ in God, we become changed in will and desires—have our home and citizen- ship above ; and where our treasure is, there is our heart also. But another great necessity for Our Lord's removal from us, is the work of His High Priesthood in heaven. He is gone into heaven, there to appear in the presence of God for us. As the High Priest of old took of the blood of the Sacrifice, and sprinkling it on himself and the vessels of the tabernacle, went into the Holy of Holies to offer it to God for the people, so our High Priest Jesus Christ, having been offered for sin, has taken His own precious blood into the heavenly place itself, and there pleads with the Father for us. “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous :” and every guilty sinner in this world has by Him access uninterrupted and direct, for himself, to the Father for pardon and peace. For all these reasons, it was necessary that our Lord should be withdrawn from us. And we may well con- ceive that when the reasons were so powerful and weighty, the fact would be patent and undoubted. And so we learn that it was. Jesus had now been forty days among His disciples: not always visible to 398 Our Zora's Ascension. them, but at certain times manifesting Himself, and speaking to them of the things concerning the kingdom of God. On the last of these days, He was in the midst of them at Jerusalem, discoursing with them as had been his wont. Together they went by the accustomed way out of the city to the Mount of Olives. In the former of the two accounts which St. Luke has given us, he specifies Bethany as the place to which He led them : * in the latter and more detailed narrative, they return from the Mount of Olives.” We may well conceive that the former is a general and undefined statement, Bethany being the district on the other side of the hill; and the latter the precise one, ascertained subsequently by the Evangelist on the spot itself. Nor is there any reason to doubt the correctness of tradition, which points out the summit of the Mount of Olives as the place of the Ascension. Having arrived there, He lifted up His hands and blessed them : and as He blessed them, He was parted from them. He ascended visibly through the air, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. Thus open, thus undoubted, was His removal from them. Had He merely ceased to appear to them any longer, it might have been left in doubt what was become of Him: His own words might indeed, in the course of the Spirit's teaching, have been rightly understood, and the results of His going to the Father made gradually plain to the Church : but they might also have been misunderstood : whereas now all obscurity is removed from them : the Apostles saw the Son of Man ascend up where He was * Luke xxiv. 50. * Acts i. I2. Our Zora's Ascension. 399 before : and His Ascension into heaven is an article of the Christian faith, founded on the irrefragable testimony of the whole apostolic body. And now let us consider the results of this great event, with a view to our own faith and practice. First, it is the token to us of the entire acceptance of the Saviour's finished work in our nature. In Him Our humanity is glorified, is received at the right hand of God. We have such an High Priest, Who is seated on the Father's throne. Let us rejoice in the strength and completeness of our salvation. Let us rejoice, that in the Man Christ Jesus we are united to the Godhead, and God dwells among us by His Spirit. Then again, He is there to prepare a place for His people. Every event in His government of the world, every dispensation of His providence towards them, every year and every day as it passes, is a portion of that preparation. And when it shall have been completed,—when the last sinner shall have been reclaimed, and the last tear of suffering shed, and the last weapon of conflict wielded, the angelic promise shall be fulfilled ; “that same Jesus, Which was taken from us into heaven, shall so come in like manner as He was seen to go into heaven.” “If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also.” Our first lesson then from this day's subject is, ever to look on the world's progress, and Our Own, as parts of this great preparation, and ever to be waiting and longing for the glorious event at its end. At times, the course of the world being peaceably ordered by God's govern- 4OO Our Zora's Ascension. ance, improvement seems to advance rapidly, the Church of Christ is fast extending, all is hope and encouragement ; at other times, as at present, all is full of dreary anxiety and dread uncertainty,+none knowing whither our God is leading us, and all men's hearts failing them for fear of those things which are coming on the earth. Let us learn to look on all these vicissi- tudes, as the dark and mysterious, but certainly advanc- ing footsteps of Him Who is preparing a place for us. Perhaps again our own lot is full of strange incon- sistencies and disappointments ; when we hoped most, behold fear ; the reeds on which we leant have gone into our hands and pierced them ; health gives way, or friends are few, or riches make themselves wings and leave us : —but let us learn to regard all such events as the dealings of Him Who is gone to prepare a place for us, and us for it. And His coming to us again, -O beloved, however it may be a matter of uncertainty as to time among even Scripture students, however it may be scoffed at by the world or the worldly religious, let us never forget to wait for Him from heaven ; to look and long for the day of the Lord, and pray in the language of our Church, “that it may please Him shortly to accomplish the number of His elect, and hasten His glorious kingdom.” Next, let the Ascension of Our Lord draw our present thoughts and affections to the place whither He is gone before. Let us learn heavenly mindedness. Heaven is set forth by Him as Our pattern ; “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” I know it is difficult, in the Our Zord's Ascension. 4O I midst of the busy world, and with all its interests and employments thick around us, to live in an unseen state, and to feel our rights and our joys to be there, and to look for our promotion there, and not here ; but faith is accustomed to difficulties ; and as we before said, where the treasure is, there will the heart be. If we really love Our Saviour—if that form of the ascended Jesus is ever before our sight as an object which we delight to dwell on, if His glorified humanity is to us the Spring of our joys, and the centre of our interests, the world may catch our fleeting thoughts, and employ our less earnest attentions, but He will have all our serious determinations, all our deepest affections; the world may be our tabernacle, but the place where He is will be our home. And then His merciful Intercession should come before us to-day, in immediate connexion with the fact of His Ascension. “He is the Way—no man cometh to the Father but by Him.” And that blood which, in the work of His High Priesthood, He offers to the Father as the full and sufficient sacrifice, atonement, and satisfaction for the sins of the world, must be sprinkled On Our hearts by faith, and become to us the double cure of Our sin,_Saving us from its guilt and its power. And O what boldness should it give us in prayer, what Constancy and importunity, to reflect that we have such an One to plead for us in heaven, one Whom the Father ever hears;–in Whom our weakest petition is strong. How earnestly should we look for the answer to our Supplications — seeing that He hath promised “what- 2 D 4O2 Our Zord's Ascension. soever ye shall ask the Father in My name, I will do it.” Let me conclude with a few words respecting this day itself, and the ordinance of which we are about to partake together. The day of the Ascension, as you will have seen by what has been said, possesses a deep interest in the view of the Christian ; has as good a claim for Observance as that of our Lord's birth, or that of His Crucifixion. It is in fact the great completion of His work of Redemption ;-the seal set to all the rest,-and the introduction to the dispensation of the Spirit under which we live. And on this day, the ordi- nance of the Lord's Supper has an especial propriety and solemnity. It is the commemoration of Him Who is gone from us ; it is the spiritual realizing of His presence with us which He promised to His Church “all the days even to the end ; ” and it is to-day peculiarly significant as looking on to the future. Who can Connect the partaking of the symbols of Christ's Body and Blood with His being above preparing a place for us, and not think of the day when He will drink of the fruit of the vine new with us in the kingdom of God 2 To us, as Protestants, this day is important, as bringing before us its testimony to the pure and true doctrine of the ordinance. No argument can be so strong against the idolatrous fiction of transubstantia- tion, as the fact of the Ascension. “Our Lord's Body and it is, as Our Church y is in heaven, and not here ; expresses it, “against the truth of Christ's natural body, that it should be at the same time in more places than Our /lord's Ascension. 4O3 } } one.” In contemplating Him received to the right hand of the Father, we see a decisive proof, that our partaking of Him in this sacrament is not material or corporeal, but spiritual ; that the Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed partaken, are so partaken by the faithful and by them only. And the great fact of to-day will also save us from the more refined, but hardly less erroneous view, of some among Ourselves, who have tried to persuade us that in the Sacraments only we hold communion with the humanity of Our Lord. That Humanity you have seen exalted to the Father's throne ; but it is not the less ours for its exalta- tion. In the humanity of Christ, every son and daughter of Adam has a share according to the flesh, so that He is the common Head of us all and our representative before God ; and whosoever cometh to the Father by Him shall be received, without priest or other mediator, without formal Ordinance or prescribed method of approach. And into the glorification of that Humanity, pregnant as that word is with many blessed meanings— justification, Sanctification, preservation through faith to Salvation—only those can share who are begotten again by the Spirit into that life which Christ lives—who have spiritually died unto sin and been born again unto righteousness. And of this life, however the sacraments are the symbols and assurances, the Holy Spirit alone in the heart and life is the bestower, the upholder, the perfecter. May this day's event be to us in all these ways profitable and full of edification. May we, like the 4O4. Our Zora's Ascension. apostolic band of old, after witnessing the Lord's Ascen- Sion, return to our homes with joy, with our hearts lifted up to Him where He is ;-and may we be found, as they were, continually in the temple, praising and blessing God ; in the duties of our daily lives, and on these Our Solemn occasions, testifying that we have a Master in heaven, for Whose coming we wait, according to His word. SERMON XXX. (PREACHED FOR THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL, 1854.) QĐur #,Drö's 3|ašt (QHorūs. “Ae said unto them, 7%its it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repenzance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, Öeginning at Jerusalem.”—LUKE xxiv. 46, 47. THE last command of a friend who has left us is com- monly regarded with more than usual interest. What- ever else men forget, they remember this. It is connected with a moment sacred in their recollections. The last glimpse of the familiar form receding from their view, the vessel long watched amidst the distant haze, these or similar remembrances are linked to those words. Nay, sometimes they were the last uttered on earth. The blanched lips faltered them out into the ear bowed down to catch them,--the last intelligence of the eye lit up their meaning, and they sound on, clear and audible, through the years of silence and separation that follow. The words of the dying, O how we treasure them : how full they are to us of seeds of action,-how deep we lay them in our hearts ; how the widow lives 4O6 Ozz7 /lord’s Alasz Word's. On them, how the orphan grows up under their shelter ; how the world is wrought upon, and empires are swayed, and ambition transmitted down, and wars kindled, and mighty changes brought in, and the end hastened on, by the maxims and the mandates of dying men And our dear friend has been taken from us : not the friend of one family, but of all the families of the earth : the friend of Man,—He Who loved us and gave Himself for us. He departed, not from amidst the tears of a weeping household,—not from the bed of suffering ; but He was lifted from His gazing disciples, and went up into glory in their sight. They watched His receding form, not carried over the broad earth, or the yielding pathways of the sea, but borne upward through the air, and received by the clouds of heaven. Never since then has Jesus manifested Himself to His Church. In vision indeed, a few favoured ones have seen Him in their hours of trial, ready to defend or counsel them : but never has He visibly come among His disciples since that day on the Mount of Olives. Has He then uttered any parting words, on which the fond memory may dwell ? Was His last farewell accompanied with any mandate, which may lie deep in the hearts of His friends, and stir them to action for His sake P Let us examine the sacred records. The first Gospel does not relate to us His departure ; but it does evidently relate His parting words : “Go ye and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost—teaching them to observe Only ſloyd's ſlast Words. 4O7 all things whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the end of time.” In the concluding passages of the second Gospel, the command is similar, but even more pointed ; “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” In the third Gospel, we have the words of our text: “He said unto them, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” And in the more detailed account of the Ascension in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we read : “Ye shall be witnesses unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” So that we have here four distinct testimonies, that Our Lord's parting words were a plain command to His Church to preach the Gospel among all nations, to make disciples of all nations, to preach repentance and remission of sins among all nations, to witness for Him unto the uttermost parts of the earth. Thus affectingly and solemnly was the Missionary work bound upon the Church. And when we look back on Our Lord's departure as every Christian does look back at the present season, and enquire, Is there no last command for me to observe, – no parting words for me to treasure up, nothing said at that moment under the power of which I may live my life, into the fulfilment of which I may cast my energies 2 the answer is plain and clear, Yes, there is : “Go ye, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” This is the last sound of that voice which Spake as never man 408 Ozz7 /lord’s Zasz Word's. Spake ;—this the utterance which yet vibrated in the air as He was borne upward, and which still speaks on in the ear of every one of His faithful followers—“Evange- lize the world”—“Rest not till all know Him”—“At home and abroad let Him be preached, His cross up- lifted, His Redemption announced, His word dissemi- nated, His houses of prayer rise and be multiplied, His ministers be sent, and His name be glorified.” If we need a comment on His last command, we may take it from His own providential dealings, and the acts of His first disciples. From His providential dealings: Who, when His Gospel was to be spread far and wide by the power of persuasion, prepared the way, by carrying over the then civilised world that language of persuasion and philosophic thought, in which the Evangelists and Apostles were to write ; Who scattered His people the Jews into every town in Asia and Europe, ready to receive earnestly, or earnestly to canvass and oppose, the message of the Gospel; Who Consolidated the wonderful fabric of the Roman Empire to hush the world into comparative peace, with its roads traversing great continents, along which His messengers might travel, and its laws to protect them from the violence of men ; and Who then, when all was ready, and the message was to be borne Over Europe and Asia, summoned out of the seat of the scorner a man for the work, who, uniting the birth of the Jew, the education of the Greek, and the civil privileges of the Roman, became all things to all men to win them, and from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum preached the Ozz7 /lord's Masſ Iſora's. 4O9 Gospel of Christ. Thus far one fragment from the vast testimony of His Providence; and then gather the same from the acts of His first disciples. No sooner has the Spirit filled them with power from on high, than His parting words began to work in them. First in Jeru- Salem, as His mandate prescribed, they testify, with marvellous success: at one time it seems as if the Opposition of the Sanhedrim was about to be overborne, and the whole people would turn and look on Him Whom they had pierced ; “a great company of the priests were obedient unto the faith : ” all men held the Apostles in reverence, and they were in great favour with the people. But it was not to evangelize Jerusalem alone that their Lord had commissioned them. He Himself gave the signal for their wider dispersion. The death of the first martyr scattered them everywhere, preaching the word. In Samaria first, then in Syria and Cilicia, in Cyprus, throughout Asia Minor, in Macedonia and Greece, in Crete, in Malta, in Rome and Italy, we find churches founded, before the Scripture narrative closes : and we have the Apostle Paul speak- ing of an intended journey into Spain. It is true, that early ecclesiastical tradition is uncertain and little to be trusted : but on this point, with all its defects, it leaves no doubt, that the Apostles carried out the Missionary work by separating into distant countries: for as soon as the mist clears off which separates the region of Scripture from that of the history of the Church, we find Africa, and Eastern Asia, and Western Europe, full of Christian communities long ago founded and prosper- 4 IO Our Zora's Zasz II’ord's. ing. And since then, though the Church has passed through ages of darkness and degradation, her Mis- sionary work has never been entirely forgotten. It is to this that we owe our knowledge of the religion of Christ; and I may add, in its train, every blessing that we possess for time or eternity. It is from this that many an enterprise has originated, which has been full of mighty consequences for mankind. Let it never be forgotten, that in the midst of an age of religious degra- dation and ignorance, the enthusiasm which fired the breast of Columbus, and bore him over the dark and unknown Western Ocean, was not merely the thirst of discovery, but the ardent desire to extend, according to his knowledge, the kingdom of the Redeemer. And in later times, after great and deplorable neglect of this bounden duty of Christians, it has pleased God to pour out on all branches of the Church an increase of the Missionary spirit. You are all more or less familiar with the names and work of the various institutions which are employed at present in the work of evange- lizing the world. You have already heard, in the Queen's Letter, something of the history of that vener- able Society for which I plead this morning. I will not therefore spend your time in going over this ground, but will rather enter with you on a matter far less under- stood, the responsibility of our nation, and of ourselves as individuals, as regards this last command of our Saviour. Undoubtedly the command presses on us as a nation: and that in a degree in which no nation has Oz/7 / ord's Zasz Word's. 4 II ever yet been affected by it. It has never, and nowhere, found such facilities for its fulfilment, as in our own age and by ourselves. An empire on which the Sun never sets, a restless thirst of discovery, a busy desire to push commerce to coasts never approached by the mariner, a most abundant supply of the word of truth in all the languages of the earth, these are our facilities. We have spoken of the Providence of God which prepared the way for His Gospel by spreading one language of human thought, and one empire of order and tran- quillity: we have spoken of its vast roads along which the great Apostle travelled, and its rights of citizenship which shielded him in the hour of peril. But we have seen greater things than these. The arrangements of God's Providence for bringing in the Redeemer's king- dom are now carried out on a far larger scale. We may well compare with the providential dispersion of the Jewish people of old, the dispersion in our day of the Anglo-Saxon race, the great assertors of personal and religious freedom, the possessors and disseminators of God's word. Are we to preach the Gospel among all nations? We want, for this, a standing-place among them. God has given it to us. By powers unknown to former ages, our hundreds of thousands are wafted over the seas to distant lands. In the year but one last past, 368,OOO persons, more than a thousand a day, left our shores for all parts of the globe. One great empire has sprung from us in the West: another is rising into life, rapidly as an enchanter's vision, in the vast South- Eastern Ocean : others may be preparing elsewhere. 4 I 2 Out?” Mora's Zasz Word's. All is full of strange promise and frequent uncertainty. Centres of attraction for the covetousness of men have appeared in the earth's most unpromising places: thither myriads have flocked, and are flocking still. A vast empire hitherto shut to our evangelizing efforts, is being shaken to its foundations, and strange rumours reach us which seem at least to point to no distant possibility of pure Christianity being introduced there. Meanwhile to each and all of these scenes of Christian labour, com- merce has provided access more speedy and more wonderful than was ever furnished by the roads of imperial Rome. Nor should I omit, in recounting our facilities for this great work, the societies themselves by whose efforts it is carried on. In times gone by, what would the busy citizen, what would the retired female have done towards Christianizing the world P And was it not a sign of God's agency, that when He was about to bestow on us these unexampled powers and opportuni- ties, it arose in the hearts of a few men to combine their efforts for this purpose 2 Is it not a further sign of His agency, that from this small beginning, such great re- sults have followed P that so many and SO effective are now the societies formed for works of charity and mercy, that every one may aid according to his or her power, however otherwise Occupied, however retired and personally feeble And what shall we say of the amount of this world's means which God has put into Our hands for aiding such societies P. Need any good work languish, because Our Zora's Zasz Word's. 4 I 3 s & i. England cannot afford to support it 2 Let Our vast schemes undertaken for convenience or for luxury, witness what we can afford to lay out on any object when it pleases us. Let the wealth and display of this great city witness ; Our Streets of palaces, Our lines of splendid equipages, our costly banquets. These are the real tokens of what we have, and what we can do. God then has bestowed on us all these things. He has placed us, for religious exertion, foremost among the nations of the earth. He has put into our hands such opportunities as no people ever had till now. He has provided us with instruments whereby we may avail Ourselves of those opportunities; and lavished on us abundance of wealth to make those instruments effective. It is clear then that we are, as a Christian nation, deeply responsible for carrying on the evangelization of the earth. Now it is comparatively easy to comprehend individual responsibility, but not so easy to define and apply the responsibility of a nation. When we press home the question, upon whom is it to fall P each one contrives by some means to elude his own portion and to cast it on others. Sometimes men speak as if governments alone were responsible for national duties to God and man. And doubtless this is so, in states where the government exercises all the power, and the citizens themselves none ; where voluntary enterprise is checked or forbidden, and all that is done must be done officially. But it cannot be maintained in countries like ours, where the act of the government is the offspring of the opinion of the people; where the absence of all 4 I4. Our Lord's Zasz Word's. restriction on the rights of conscience makes it neces- sary, that certain most important matters, about which men conscientiously differ, should be left to such volun- tary enterprise entirely. This is a necessary condition of a perfectly free state. You cannot give entire liberty of conscience in religion, and yet bind the providing for the performance of purely religious duties on the legis- lature. If you do, you must of necessity wound the consciences of some citizens, which is contrary to your constitution,-or you must, by paring off one by One all those portions of religious duty on which there are Con- scientious differences, at length have such an unreal and spiritless religion, as to be no longer worthy of the 11a. II) C. Now this result is exceedingly important, as tending to define national religious obligation. It must not and cannot be discharged officially by direct acts of the governing power; but it must be discharged by volun- tary combinations of those who think and feel alike on religious matters. The state has its duties towards these voluntary societies : to foster them by removing obstructions out of their way, by making the legitimate action easy and effective : but it must not attempt to do their work. A great mistake is often made with regard to indi- vidual responsibility, occasioned by this word “volun- tary.” Men are apt to think that combinations which are voluntary in not being enforced by government, are also voluntary so that they may join them or not as they please. They forget, that these very societies are the Our Zora's Zast Words. 4 I 5 only means whereby national religious responsibilities can be discharged by the bodies of which the nation is composed, and that the support of them is the incum- bent duty of every individual member of those bodies; that they are voluntary only in a political sense, but in a religious one strictly obligatory. And such is the case with our relation to the Society for which I am pleading to-day. To subscribe to the Missionary Societies of the Church, is not a matter in which we have any of us a choice : it is our bounden duty. Our Lord's command makes it a sacred obligation to us. If we can say “I will fulfil that command by going and preaching the Gospel,” and Our training and position in life be suitable, well and good ; and would there were more who said and did so ; but if we are in God's Providence otherwise situated, and remain at home, then we are bound to aid in the work to the utmost of Our means. Nay, it is a part of our inheritance of freedom, as we have seen, that such obligation lies on us; and Surely we shall not be found claiming and enjoying the liberty, and then shrinking from and repudiating the duty consequent on it. It may suffice for me to say, that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, having advanced by the blessing of God from very small beginnings, now is, with its active and efficient colleague, the Church Mis- sionary Society,+the great instrument in carrying out the Missionary work of the Church of England. Your Saviour's last Command presses on you all this morning. This is Our Missionary Sermon properly so called for the present year. We ask you to aid in carry- 4 16 Our Zora's Zasz Word's. ing out your Redeemer's last words, and in extending the kingdom of peace and love. We ask you as a Con- gregation well able, and I fully believe thoroughly willing, to prove yourselves among the foremost in re- sponding to Our Sovereign's command, to secure the purity of the Gospel to the distant portions of her empire, and in each one to hold up the light to the heathen wandering in darkness, that they may believe on Christ and be saved. - One thing let me entreat you. Before you resolve, pass the matter over more seriously through your minds; view it in its bearings on time and eternity, on this: world’s benefit and the next world’s account ; and so give, as you will wish you had given, when we stand together before the judgment seat of Christ. SERM O N XXXI. (PREACHED IN 1854.) (The C&Hork of the £olp Spirit. S < “And they said unto him, We haze not so much as heard whether there he any Aſoly Ghost.”—ACTS xix. 2. I THINK I must be speaking the mind of many here present, when I say, that of all the departments of our Christian teaching, none is so unsatisfactorily served, as that which should set forth to us the doctrine of the operations of the Holy Spirit. We confess the Holy Spirit to be one of the three persons in the Godhead, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and the Son ; yet it cannot be denied, that practically we do not recog- nize Him as such, either in giving Him honour, or looking for His aid. We acknowledge Him to be the originator, the upholder, the finisher, of the spiritual life in the soul ; but we too often lose sight of His agency, and forget our own admissions respecting Him. We recog- nize His descent upon the Church to have been the great result of all that the Lord Jesus did, and the accomplishment of the promise of the Father by the Son ; and yet Christians in general have an exceedingly 2 E 418 The Work of the Holy Spirit. vague idea of the effects of that descent : what difference it made between those who lived after it and those who lived before it : what practical every-day meaning it has for us, in this nineteenth century after the event. We read in our Bibles of the Spirit “bearing witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God ; ”' that “hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit Which He hath given us : ”” yet we hardly presume to inquire what this testimony of the Spirit is, for fear of falling into enthusiasm or Superstition. And thus in the Christian Church thousands live and die, not so much as knowing whether there be any Holy Ghost: hearing His name, and now and then listening to sermons on Him and His work, but having no real lively interest in what they hear respecting Him. Now it must be plain to us all, that such inconsis- tency on any point is much to be blamed ; and equally plain, if we would think on the matter, that this is a subject on which we can least of all afford to be back- ward or ignorant. Nothing can be plainer or more solemn than the declarations of Scripture on it. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” ” And the whole course of pro- phecy goes to establish the immense importance, and the high privileges, of the dispensation of the Spirit which should come in in the latter days—and which begun with His descent of the day of Pentecost. Let us then consider to-day the office and work of the Holy * Rom. viii. 16, * I John iii. 24. * Rom. viii. 9, 14. The Work of the Holy Spirit. 4 I 9 Spirit under the Christian covenant. And may He Himself be with us in an especial manner, while we are thus employed. * I will speak of Him first, as imparting His influence in consequence of the finished work of the Lord Jesus: as the great crowning blessing of redemption —the unspeakable gift, for which eternal thanks are due to God. The end of Redemption is, to unite us to God.' to make us partakers of the Divine nature. Christ having put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and having overcome death and ascended up to the right hand of God, has taken, in the fulness of the words, the glorified manhood into the Godhead, so that it is inseparably bound up in, and abides in, that glory which He had with the Father before the world began. And remember, that that Manhood which Jesus has united to the God- head, is not His as a human individual, so that the blessings of its glorification should be confined to Him ; but while it is His, in that He dwelt in it and made it His own in the incarnation, it is ours, the property of all our race ; and thus He is the Root, and Head, and King, and Sum, and Representative, of all mankind,-- of the one blood of which God hath made all nations to dwell on all the face of the earth. Now mark the consequence of this headship to all the race. He is the Head of the manhood, we are the members. Un- worthy members there are, dead members, paralyzed members ; there are professing members, made so by the special covenant of Baptism ; there are also spiritual ***~- -*:º 42O The Work of the Holy Spirit. members, joined to the Lord, not in the flesh only, but by the Spirit ; but in this widest sense in which God's Covenant is drawn, A//are members, every man, woman, and child, of every nation under heaven, in this primary Sense. Let us for a while dwell on this wide universal sense in which Christ is the Head of our humanity, with reference to the gift of the Spirit. The exalted Head is in union with God ; in sweet accord with the Father, filled in every thought and feeling with the Holy Spirit of wisdom and power and love. And He, the Head, being thus knit to the Father, and full of the Spirit, has become to the members the channel of spiritual influence. Through Him the Holy Spirit descends on the sons of men ; and through His finished work alone; because He, in our nature, is exalted to the right hand of the Father. And when that consummation of His work was accomplished, He shed forth this, which the Jews and faithful men present saw and heard, and of which we have read to-day ; as a token to His Church of the bringing in of the new dispensation, the Holy Spirit descended visibly and audibly, and the effects were apparent and immediate. Spiritually speaking, that communication was now first established, first since the separation of our race from God by sin, by which grace was freely and constantly imparted to the sons of men from the Father of grace and life and knowledge. From that moment mankind were in a new relation to God, in which they never were before that moment. No prophet nor saint of the Old Testament, with all his dignity of place in the theocracy, all his special inspir. …” 2. 77%.e Wozá of the Holy Spirit. 42 I tion, all his visions and converse with God, ever stood in the same place, as regards access to God, as each One of us stands now. Not Enoch, who walked with God ; not Abraham, His friend ; not Moses, who spake with Him face to face ; not David, the man after His Own heart ; not Isaiah, whose lips the Seraphim touched with a coal from the heavenly altar, none of these, ‘highly favoured as they were in their day and under their dispensation, is to be compared for a moment with the simplest child since the day of Pentecost, in respect of Spiritual privilege. Our Lord's own words are plain on this point : “Verily I Say unto you, among them that are born of women, there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist ; notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven, is greater than he.” “The prophets and the law prophesied until John.” He was greater than they all, because he stood on the very threshold of the spiritual temple; but he went not in ; whereas we are born and brought up and dwell in its inner courts, and have unlimited access to its very holiest place. Now, brethren, this on which I am insisting is not a mere theological distinction for precision's sake, but is of immense importance, and very little understood or appreciated. Take a large number of average Christians—take many among the clergy themselves, and they will tell you, on a first view of the subject, that the Old Testament Saints had the same access to God by the Spirit as we have. It is true, that their error will not stand a moment before examination by the standard of Scripture, or careful thought ; but so little 422 The Work of the Holy Spirit. do men go by Scripture, and so little careful thought do they commonly bestow on spiritual things, that you will find this same error repeated in books, and in sermons, and in conversation, year after year, by men really in earnest about the things of God. And thus we lose sight of the gift of the Spirit as the great end and result of redemption, and when such a day as this comes round, we look about us, not knowing what it has to do with our present condition,--why the Spirit was given, or in what sense He is with us now, and was not with the Church before. To this point let us now come. The disciples were commanded by our Lord at His ascension not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, said He, ye have heard of Me. What promise of the Father ? Nothing can be clearer than His own explanation : “For John,” said He, “truly baptized with water : but ye shall be baptized with the * They were then Holy Ghost not many days hence.” to wait for that promised Holy Spirit, Who was to be to them more than ever Christ was when He was with them ; for the benefit of Whose coming it was even expedient that Jesus should go away from them. They did wait accordingly ; and you know the result. With the power of sound, and with the vision of flame, God the Holy Ghost came among them ; God came to dwell with men, not this time incarnate in the flesh, not this time to suffer and to die, but God in His own proper spiritual essence came down into man's Spirit –God * Acts i. 4, 5. Zhe Work of the Holy Spirº. 42s came, not to sojourn in the tent of humanity, but to dwell in His own glorious spiritual temple, to fill the hearts of men with light, to tune the voices of men to utter His praise; to turn corruption into never-fading brightness, to make the desert bud and blossom as the rose :-to regenerate and renovate and bless this man- hood of ours, by His ever-abiding presence. And what were His operations—how signified—how assured to the Church—how brought down to us P. The mighty rushing wind,-the tongues of fire, the utterance in various languages, the miraculous gifts that played like flashes of guardian light round the cradle of the infant Church,-were these His chief or His only works— these all that we know of His abiding presence 2 Long ages since, this question was answered. Come with me for a moment into the barren Arabian wilderness, bristling with its torrid peaks, the home of the Law. There, on the mount of God, was the truth declared on this matter. In the entrance of a cave, wrapped in his mantle, stood Elijah the man of God. He had fled from persecution and bitter disappointment. He had taken refuge in the place where his great predecessor had communed with Israel's God. His soul sunk within him. But God called him by his name. “What doest thou here, Elijah P” In his anguish, he appealed to the Lord God of Hosts. He complained, and Jehovah came. “Behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord ; but the Lord was not in the wind ; and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord 424 The Work of the Holy Spirit. was not in the earthquake : and after the earthquake a fire ; but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.”" And even thus it was on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Ghost was not in the mighty rushing wind ; nor in the tongues of flame; no, nor in those gifts that adorned and followed His advent: these were but the heralds and pursuivants of His approach ; He Himself is a Spirit, spiritual,—and His own real descent was into the spirits of His people, there to testify of Christ in the still small voice of inward persua- sion ; there to shed abroad Christ's love ; there to take of the things of Christ and shew them to men ; there to testify of the sin of unbelief on Christ, of the righteous- ness of the manhood in Christ, of the wisdom which is His own gift through Christ. This gift was to be permanent ; not temporary, as that of working miracles, or speaking with tongues. It was to be universal; not confined to a favoured few, nor to one race or family, but wide as our common manhood, bestowed alike on Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, bond and free, male and female, young and old, no limits confine it, but the limits of that race which the Lord took upon Him. And when St. Peter stood up with the eleven to explain to astonished Israel that which had come to pass, he selects out of the wide choice which prophecy gave him, one passage; “This,” says he, “is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel ; It shall come to pass in those days, saith the Lord, that I will pour out My Spirit upon A // Flesh.” * I Kings xix. I I, 12. 7%e Work of the Holy Spirit. 4.25 And now we may press for an answer to the question, In what sense did the Holy Spirit now abide with men as never before ? I answer, first, as testifying of Christ. You have already seen the way in which the whole work of the Spirit in a man begins, continues, ends, in the Lord Jesus. To manifest Him, to draw men to Him, to bring them into captivity to His easy yoke and light burden,_this is the Spirit's operation in the human heart. And this it never could be, before Jesus was glorified. The testimonies to a Saviour to come, were necessarily vague and enigmatical ; not the subjects of firm personal reliance nor of blessed assurance, but only just prophetic glimpses into the far distance,—enough for those days, to keep the saints waiting on the Lord their God, but not to be compared for an instant with the work of the Spirit now. There could be then none of that sweet sense of reconciliation with God, which the Spirit keeps alive in the heart of the faithful man ; none of that constraint of heart and life, which is brought about by the Spirit's exhibition of Christ's exceeding love for us. So that the whole office and work of the Spirit became new and of a higher order, inasmuch as the truths with which it is now concerned were before unknown. “We speak,” says St. Paul, “the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew : for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which 426 The Work of the Holy Spirit. God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” " Next, the Spirit has wrought since the day of Pente- cost as He never wrought before, in the testimony which He bears in the heart of every individual believer. We do not read of any such direct access to God granted to individual men in ancient times. They were compelled to approach Him by ways distant and laborious, with costly sacrifices, and with hindrances interposed ; other men were placed between them and their God ; they had not yet the Spirit of adoption, whereby they could look on God as their reconciled Father, and on themselves as His children, in the liberty of love. But since the gift of the Spirit, we need no external approach to the Father of our spirits, no priesthood to stand between us and God; every man among us, living under the cove- nant whose sure seal is the blood of our great Mediator, and whose first promise is that God will give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, may draw near in full assurance of faith, and humbly claim his place as an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ; may yearn upward, and reach onward, in the earnest expectation of the creature waiting for the manifestation of the Sons of God. This is another great characteristic of the dis- pensation of the Spirit, that all hierarchical distinction between man and man is for ever abolished, all sacrifice superseded, except the abiding efficacy of the One Sacrifice, shed abroad in the heart of the Spiritual man,— and each believer however humble, made to be a king * I Cor. ii. 7–Io. The Work of the Holy Spirit. 427 and a priest unto God in an intimate and a glorious and efficacious sense, such as neither king nor priest nor prophet nor psalmist ever knew of old. And therefore it is truly lamentable to find men under this higher dispensation still clinging to the weak and beggarly elements from which it has for ever delivered all the faithful; talking of grace derived through a succession of priests, of sacramental sacrifices, and sanctity Of time and place, giving us access to God. It is a shame that any of us should be found, with Our Bibles in Our hands, listening to such men, and surrendering Our high individual prerogatives of access to the Father by the Son through the Spirit. I know nothing that speaks worse for the religious intelligence of our days, or for the right understanding of the Scriptures among us, than that such men should have been listened to as they have been, and should have led away so many from the truth as it is in Jesus. I cannot but see in it one lamentable consequence of forgetting the proper work of the Spirit, and allowing it to keep its place in formal confession only, not in living reality. Again, the indwelling Spirit of these latter days of the Church is eminently the Spirit of wisdom. The humble child, walking by the light of this Spirit, is wiser than his teachers if they have Him not. The advancing Christian is taught of God more and more the way in which he should go, and please his heavenly Father. The matured believer, rich in experience as in years of the Lord's service, is enabled to look down on the world and all that is in it, and Count it but dross in comparison 428 The Work of the Holy Spirit. of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. All this is the work of the Holy Spirit, un- known, unappreciated, despised, by the world without, who have not seen Him, and therefore do not believe on Him, but a treasure peculiar to this higher dispensa- tion, wrought in those who are united to Christ, and have the mind of Christ, by virtue of their being pos- sessed and penetrated by the Spirit of Christ. And as following immediately on this individual work of the Spirit, He is the Comforter, in a sense in which the ancient saints never knew Him. He testifies that we are the sons of God—gives us firm assurance that the storms of life—the trials of dejection and disappointment and bereavement—are all working together for Our good ; bringing home to our hearts, that our beloved Saviour was tried before us, and causing us to feel that our sufferings are but links of union to Him—that our part in Him is not imperilled, but assured, by our being called to follow Him through the Cross to the Crown. And lastly, to return to our first point, the Spirit of God now abiding among us is a transforming Spirit; not merely enlightening, nor merely comforting, nor merely conferring the adoption of sons, but changing us into the image of God, begetting in us a thirst to be like Him Whose sons we are ; to have done with sin, and to cast off corruption, and to put on perfect holiness. The more the Spirit reveals of Christ, the more the believer yearns to be like Christ: “We all,” writes the Apostle, “with open face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory 7%e Work of the Holy Spirit. 429 to glory, as by the Lord the Spirit.” And the end of this progressive change will be, the fulness of assimila- tion to our glorified Redeemer, in that day of which it is 'said “when He shall appear we know that we shall be like Him : for we shall see Him as He is.” Thus, beloved brethren, I have endeavoured to re- mind you of a few of the great truths which especially belong to our commemoration this day of the descent of the Holy Ghost. We then become possessors of the crowning blessing of our redemption ; of that for which Christ was born and suffered and bled on the cross ; of that which we never could have had, but for that His finished work ; of that which makes a marked difference between the Jewish prophet and the Christian child. Let me remind you also, that the gift of the Spirit is not a precious advantage belonging to some Christians, but a necessary qualification for all Christians. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” Christ in the next life, unless you are taught and led by this Holy Spirit, of Whom we have been speaking to-day. You may serve the world well, you may serve your Country well, you may make for yourselves a name and a fame here, without the Spirit of God; but you cannot serve God at all, without His Spirit. Did you ever reflect seriously on this P or have you been accus- tomed to look on this whole subject as an unreal one, leading to fanaticism, and best abstained from by sober men of the world P O believe me, the unreality is all * 2 Cor. iii. 18 (Greek). 43O The Work of the Holy Spirit. on your side,-the Sobriety all on ours. Go, and abandon the unreality of a half-believed Bible, and awake to the sobriety of men who have a glorious eternal inheritance, and are living in its prospect. Plead' in prayer with the Father to give you the Spirit of His beloved Son, which He is pledged never to withhold from them that ask Him ; and thus becoming real men, and men in earnest, walking in the Spirit, grow in grace and in the knowledge and service of Christ. SE R M O N XXXII. (TRINITY SUNDAY, 1862.) Qſbe £20lp QTrinity. “A'aptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Aſoly Ghost.”—MATT. xxviii. 19. IF we reflect by Whom these words were spoken, and when, we cannot fail to see that they require more than ordinary consideration. First of all, they form un- doubted part of the sacred text. There are some few verses and expressions which are found in some of our ancient authorities and not in others ; but this is not the case in the present instance. The words are found in all and received by all. They were spoken by our Lord Himself as part of His last command to His disciples before His Ascension : “Go ye and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” When we consider that our Lord rarely if ever Speaks formally of what we now understand by Christian doctrines;–that He for the most part, and with hardly any exception, left these for the future Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to reveal in His due time, it does appear Somewhat sur- 4.32 . The Holy Trinity. prising to hear from the mouth of the Lord Himself SO very plain a declaration of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. For manifestly this, and nothing else, can be the import of the words in our text. The Name, into which the future converts into Christianity were to be baptized, i.e. into the confession of, and trust in, and obedience to which, they were to be admitted by that ordinance,—could be none other than that of the God Whom Christians were to worship. And in consequence the plain inference from Our Lord's words,-followed as they are by the assurance, “And lo I am with you alway, even to the end of the world,”—can be no other than this : that the God Whom His followers, even to the end of time are to confess, worship, and serve is to be known as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And this is not all. The position given to this doctrine by these words of Our Lord is as remarkable, as the declaration of the doctrine itself. You will observe, that it is not introduced somewhere in the pro- cess of a long and difficult discourse, as a deep truth which the mature disciple may some day arrive at- a thing the confession and comprehension of which may be the object of a Christian's ambition ; but it is made a principal portion of the One great simple command- ment, which Our Lord gives to those who were to be the Founders and Governors of His Church; thus teaching us that it is primary and indispensable. And further notice the place which it is to hold in the Christian life of future disciples. It is to come, not far on in their course, not as the result of much teaching, 7%e Holy 7% inity. 433 and the use of their reason ; but as the very first funda- mental fact, on which their baptism, and its Covenant state is to be founded. “Unto what name wast thou baptized 2 ” would naturally be the very first question asked of the Christian convert, or the Christian child. And then, in all cases where our Lord's command has been obeyed, the answer would at once be, “Into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” So that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not a thing which may or may not be held, according as a man apprehends it or not ; not a thing which may be kept out of sight, or held back in our instruction or preaching, or which may be reserved till understanding shall be mature ; but it is the very first thing to be pro- fessed and taught. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the name of the God Whom Christians worship. This every Christian ought to know ; in the grounds and reason of this his belief, every Christian ought to be instructed. First it is our duty to believe it, then to prove it and confirm it: this is ever the order for us. Life is too short and our nature is too rebellious, for it ever to be prudent, or safe, to keep our belief back till we are per- Suaded of everything respecting the objects of it. We believe in Christ. Christ has commanded us to be baptized into the name of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This faith therefore we receive ; this command we obey. If the truth thus conveyed to us, that there are three Co-equal Persons in the one God Whom we confess, be 2 F 434 The Holy 7 rinity. a dark and difficult one for our understanding, it is only one out of a hundred other things which in our present imperfect state we cannot comprehend, but yet are con- Strained to believe, and should be foolish indeed if we denied. If on the other hand things are found in Scripture, or in nature tending to clear up, and to confirm, this great doctrine, these we thankfully receive, and turn them to their proper account : not resting our faith upon them but using them to cheer and encourage us in the maintenance of our faith : using them moreover as its outworks and defences, in our struggle for God's truth with those who do not hold it themselves. All the indirect inferences from Scripture, all the distant analo- gies from nature, would never have revealed to us the doctrine of the Holy Trinity: the plain words of our Lord have revealed it, and then these other things come in aid, shewed that God’s word and God's works are full of tokens that it is so. But now from these considerations about the doctrine, let us come to the doctrine itself. What is it 2 First, what is it not P It is not, that the one God has been pleased to reveal Himself to us in three different attri- butes, or three different modes of working, whether we take this as applying to successive revelations at different periods of time, or to revelations co-existing at one and the same time. It is not, that God is Power, is Love, is Wisdom : it is not again, that the Old Testament history reveals His Power, the Life of the Lord His Love, the dispensation of the Spirit in which we live, 7%e Holy 7 rinity. 435 His wisdom ; all this may be very true, and very good for us to think of, and it may be closely connected with, and flow from the doctrine of the Holy Trinity ; but it is not itself that doctrine. These things no special revelation in words would have been needed to teach us : they are but views and distinctions of our own reason, collecting from facts. - Nor again is the doctrine to be thus expressed, in a matter slightly differing from that cited above —that God, one and the same Divine Person, was pleased in old time to be known by men as the great universal Father, then after that as the incarnate Son, then after that again as the indwelling Spirit. For such an idea would not only not be that which our Lord's words in the text express, but it would be wholly inconsistent with it. Our Lord's words set before us Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as the living and abiding God of His Church to the end of time : co-existing, and to be confessed and believed in together : whereas this idea would represent each one of these as belonging only to one dispensation in time, and then giving place to another. Nor again have we any right to say, that this reve- lation of God, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is only for us, and has no connexion with the real essential nature of God Himself. Against this idea, the use of the doctrine made in Scripture testifies. If we are to understand Holy Scripture as setting forth plain facts in plain words, we surely cannot avoid the conclusion that this distinction into Three Divine Persons is not On 6 regarding us alone, but One subsisting in the eternal 43 The Holy 7%rinity. and essential nature of God Himself. However little we can ourselves understand of that nature, thus much is certain : that purposes and operations are ascribed to each of these sacred Persons, absolutely requiring that they should be, not merely aspects of the Deity as con- Cerned with mankind, but self-existing, and, however mysteriously united in the Godhead, capable from eter- nity of separate and independent action. To show you that this is so, I would direct your attention, by way of one example among many, to the Apostle Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. That Epistle, so close in its argument, so minutely and skilfully contrived in every point of its arrangement, is thoroughly constructed, in its larger portions or chapters, in its paragraphs, nay even in its single sentences and phrases, on the basis of this doc- trine of the Holy Trinity. And in this its arrangement, we ever find distinct and personal action ascribed to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the Father counselling our Redemption, calling us with His holy calling : the Son, putting in force the Father's will by giving Himself for His Church, and setting us the great Pattern of Love ; the Holy Spirit, carrying out in us and on earth, and through the ages of time, the great purposes of Redemp- tion : giving to man through the Son his access to the Father. It is only in this light, of the separate personal existence and agency of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that St. Paul's words and sentences in this wonderful Epistle carry with them any coherent and intelligible meaning And now, by discussing and repudiating these several 7%e Aſo/y 77-inity. 437 inadequate views of the doctrine, we have very much prepared the way for speaking of it as it really is. It is then, this ; we worship one God in three Persons, and three Persons in one God. First, Ome God in Three Persons, to worship or con- fess more than one God, would be folly, and would be superstition. It would be folly. For the whole testi- mony of the history of man serves to show, if that of nature herself did not enough declare to us, that in the recognition of One Supreme Power as Creator and Governor of the world, lies the only secret of a religion which can harmonize and purify and elevate our con- flicting passions, our bewildered thoughts, our yearning affections, our jarring responsibilities. And it would be superstition : if at least that term means, abject religious devotion to inadequate and unworthy objects. For if we confess gods many and lords many, who and what are they P. They must be the creatures of our own reason, or imagination ; deified influences, moral or natural ; different in different climates, under different circumstances, and in the views of differently constituted In 621). To us therefore there is but one God : the Father, the Creator, the Giver of all : One in all His operations, consistent with Himself, however it may appear other- wise to us who only see the lower side of His works: infinitely powerful, though His designs appear to us from time to time to be thwarted : infinitely good and loving, though to us evil and sin may seem to prevail : infinitely wise, though foolishness may be laid to His 2 F 3 4.38 The Holy Trinity. charge by Our poor and blind reasonings. This recog- nition of one God is we are persuaded the only safe- guard for man : the only light that will guide Him through moral darkness and cheer him amidst the fearful discouragements of this unintelligible world. I said that the history of man shews us this. Where the unity of God has been held fast, there we find more or less the bright track of moral purity, in spite of all adverse in- fluences, running through the ages of a people's history ; where this has been lost sight of, there have followed inevitably moral degradation, and neglect of the testi- mony of conscience. And therefore we are not surprised to find God Himself, in the laws and ordinances laid down for His chosen people, making this, the unity of His Godhead, the one essential point, impressed on them again and again, and most jealously guarded against infraction. For it was their very life. And though we live not among professed idolaters, and are not in danger of worshipping in groves and at idol altars, it is also our life, as it was theirs. One God then we worship. Whatever else may be revealed respecting the Deity, we are quite certain that this fundamental truth, God is One, cannot be interfered with by it. Let none of us therefore for a moment think, and let not any adversary of the Faith presume to say, that in Our Confession of the Holy Trinity, we are letting go the Unity of God. That any should do this, and believe what they say, is surprising. The assumption of the name Unitarian by those who deny the doctrine of the Trinity has ever struck me as shewing 7%e Holy Trinity. 439 how little is understood by them of the essential con- ditions of that holy doctrine itself. But again, we are firmly founded on the confession of One God, so in that one God we confess and worship Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We not only address Our adoration and our prayers to that one God, understanding, as we do so, that in that one God these Three Persons are united : but we address our adoration and our prayers to each of these Three Per- sons separately, as for example in the opening of the Litany. God the Father made us, God the Son re- deemed us, God the Holy Ghost sanctifieth us. To God the Father we pray, as to our Creator and Upholder, as to Him Who ordereth all things after the counsel of His own will, as to Him Who ordained from the first the wonderful and gracious process of our Redemp- tion : to God the Son we pray, as to Him Whom the Father hath anointed to be a Prince and a Saviour for us : as to Him Who can feel for our infirmities, having borne them upon Himself-Who intercedes for us in heaven, and will One day come to be our Judge : to God the Holy Ghost we pray, as to One ever present among us and in us, dwelling in our hearts, the life-giving Lord of our spirits, the Comforter, Who is to lead us into all the truth, to help us, to enlighten us, to make us holy. Through the Holy Spirit we have access by the Son unto the Father. Let us observe further, that the whole Three Persons of the blessed Godhead are covenanted together in unity for our Redemption. The Son of God, laid down His 44O The Holy 7 rinity. life of Himself, and yet according to the commandment of the Father: the Holy Spirit came down upon the Church, proceeding forth from the Father and from the Son, and being the promise of the Father, won for us by the obedience and sufferings of the Son ; and those who shall be found worthy in the end to sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb, are known to our Blessed Lord as “they whom the Father hath given Him,” of whom He will not lose one. In Christ the whole building of the Church is said to be framed together, growing unto an holy temple in the Lord, builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. And as to our further knowledge of this great truth, the Creed in which we have this morning confessed it embodies shortly and well the things most necessary to be held and remembered. That these Three Divine Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal, is most certain from that which is revealed respecting them. However in point of time the revelation of God the Son the Redeemer may have come after that of God the Father the Creator, and the revelation of God the Holy Ghost the Sanctifier may have followed on the promise of the Father fulfilled owing to the finished work of the Son, yet in the existence of the divine Persons there is no such priority, or such existence could not be an essential and eternal truth. Again, however God the Son in His humiliation may be inferior to the Father, and however in the amount of mention and prominence in the Gospels and Epistles, God the Holy Spirit may seem to fall beneath the Father and the Son, yet we are sure that in 7%e Aſo/y 7 rinity. 44. I the essence of the divine Persons there is no such in- equality, or each could not be fully and personally God, in the unity of an indivisible Godhead. Such then, my brethren, is the great doctrine, which forms on this day the subject of the humble meditations of the Church. And being such it closes the great pro- cession of Christian doctrines of which, during this year we have been treating. For in it we see all completed : the revelation of God to man on earth fully made : His relation to us, and His existence as He is in Himself, disclosed to us as completely as Our present imperfect condition admits. Let me remind you of the fulness of the grace and blessing thus conferred on us. Thus, in the considera- tion of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity manifested to us, Behold what manner of love the Father hath be- stowed on us. By the Son of His Love, He hath adopted us out of our state of sin and ruin to be His children, and hath given to us the promise of a glorious inheritance, even of the possession and enjoyment of Himself in the perfection of our being for ever. Behold how the Son hath loved us : coming down from His glory emptying Himself of His power, be- coming one of us, obeying, teaching, healing, suffering, dying, triumphing, in our behalf-and now pleading for us at the throne of the Majesty on high. Behold how the Spirit loveth us: taking up His abode in our unworthy and disloyal hearts, striving with His good against our evil—witnessing amidst all our self- will and disobedience, that we are not forsaken of God, 442 7%e Holy 77-inity. that we are still His children, still heirs of His heavenly kingdom. And with what exhortation shall I conclude, better than with that of St. Jude, framed as it is on the very basis of this holy doctrine P “But ye beloved, building up yourselves in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep your- selves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” - By HENRY ALFORD, D. D. LATE DEAN OF CANTERBURY. AVew Adition. Aour Vols. 820. IO2.s. THE GREEK TESTAMENT, With a critically Revised Text ; a Digest of Various Readings; Marginal References to Verbal and Idiomatic Usage ; Prolego- mena ; and a Critical and Exegetical Commentary. For the use of Theological Students and Ministers. Sold separately. Vol. I.--THE FOUR GOSPELS. 28s. Vol. II.-ACTS TO 2 CORINTHIANs. 24.s. Vol. III.-GALATIANS TO PHILEMON. 18s. Vol. IV.-HEBREWS TO REVELATION. 32s. AVew Zdition. Zwo Pols. 4 Aarts. 8vo. 54.s. 6d. THE NEW TESTAMENT FOR ENGLISH READERS : Containing the Authorized Version, with a revised English Text, Marginal References, and a Critical and Explanatory Commentary. Sold separately. Vol. I, Part I.--THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. I23. Vol. I, Part II.-ST. John AND THE ACTs. Ios. 6d. Vol. 2, Part I.--THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL. I6s. Vol. 2, Part II.-HEBREWS TO REVELATION. 16s. AVezv AEdition. Crown 820. 9s. LIFE, JOURNALS, AND LETTERS OF HENRY ALFORD, D.D. Edited by his WIDOW. With Portrait and Illustrations. RIV/AVG TO AVS : LOAWDOAV. 2 Ll– O Ō CC Li ] > 2 I O ¿?-- ğ}}* ·* …， : ----; : ：（ ¿ ×××××××××××××׺ §§§§§}{\ſi§§§§§§§¿șx，$£§§§§§-¿ſaeº. aegae §§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§#88;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;-§§§§§§§ ſ， ši）:§§|×$§§§§§§§$$$$$$$$$$$$$§），§§ģț¢#№ºaei:§§§ ſ_{aeaeae8 gºa，* -ae№rº） 3 9015 O6513 6163