UC-NRLF. 
 
 B 3 
 
 
tmicciir 
 
 IIERARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFO^AC 
 
 iiLLAN & Co. have just Published 
 
 History of the Christian Church from the 
 
 Seventh Century to the Reformation. By the Rev. CHARLES 
 HARD WICK, M.A., Fellow of St Catharine's Hall, and late 
 Cambridge Preacher at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, Author 
 of '♦ A History of the XXXIX Articles." With Four Maps 
 constructed for this Work hy A. Keith Johnston. Crown 8vo. 
 cloth, 10s. Qd. 
 
 " Of the history of the Medieval Church this is a concise and 
 complete Manual. With all the chief authorities, Catholic as well as 
 Protestant, Mr Habdwick sheios himself familiar, and he has 
 diligently collected and judiciously used his abundant materials. 
 The book throughout bears mark of much learned research, and it 
 is written in a strain of candour and moderation." — Literary 
 Gazette, October 1, 1853. 
 
 " This forms one of a series oj Theological Manuals which 
 Messrs Macmillan, Cambridge, have in course of publication. If 
 the other volumes of the series are as well and carefully tvritten 
 
 as this, theological students ivill have good cause to thank them. ^^ 
 
 Clerical Journal, Sept. 22, 1853. 
 
 " It is full in references and authority., systematic and formal in 
 division, with enough of life in the style to counteract the dryness 
 inseparable from its brevity, and exhibiting the results rather than 
 the principles of investigation. MrHARDWiCK is to be congratulated 
 on the successful achievement of a difficult task." — Christian Re- 
 membrancer, October, 1853. 
 
 / " He has bestowed patient and extensive reading on the collection 
 / of his materials; he has selected them xvith judgment; and he pre- 
 / sents them in an equable and compact style."— Spectator, Sep- 
 tember 17, 1853. 
 
 " This book is one of a promised series of ' Theological 
 Manuals.' In one respect, it may be taken as a sign ef the times. 
 It is a small unpretending volume in appearance, but it is based on 
 learning enough to have sufficed, half a century since, for the ground 
 of two or three quartos, or at least for several portly octavos. For 
 its purpose it is admirable, giving you a careful and intelligent sum- 
 mary of events, and at the same time indicating the best sources of 
 information for the further guidance of the student. Among the 
 authorities thus referred to, we find the most modem as well as 
 the most ancient, the continental as well as the English." — British 
 Quarterly, Nov. 1853. 
 
 ** It is distinguished by the same diligent research and conscientious 
 acknowledgement of authorities which procured for Mr Hardwick's 
 ' History of the Articles of Religion' such a favourable reception." — 
 Notes and Queries, October 8, 1853. 
 
 " To a good method and good materials Mr Hardwick adds that 
 great virtue, a perfectly transparent style. We did not expect to find 
 great literary qualities in such a manual, but we have found them : 
 we should be satisfied in this respect with conciseness and intelligi- 
 bility ; but while this book has both, it is also elegant, highly finished, 
 and highly interesting.'* — Nonconfobmist, November 30, 1853. 
 
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PRINTED BY R. CLAY, LONDON, 
 
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THE 
 
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 BT 
 
 FEEDERIGK DENISON ,MAURIGE, M. A. 
 
 CHAPLAIN OF LINCOLN'S INN. 
 
 Cambiftige : 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO. 
 
 1854. 
 
M3^ 
 
 ^tVmbx^ fttttt. 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MEMBERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 YOUNG MEN'S CHEISTIAN ASSOCIATION. 
 
 My Friends, 
 
 According to the maxims of the world, I 
 have no right to address you so famiharly ; for as 
 individuals and as a body you are unknown to me ; 
 and till last February, I suspect that a majority 
 of you had scarcely heard of my existence. The 
 information which you received about me, at that 
 time, is not likely to make you desirous of my 
 friendship, probably will make you zealous to 
 repudiate it. Nevertheless, I thrust it upon you 
 in this rude manner, because all that I have been 
 
 ivj8760i2 
 
VI DEDICATORY LETTEE. 
 
 told of you, and of the motives wliicli liave led you 
 to form yourselves into an association, inspires me 
 with an esteem and affection which the absence 
 of any corresponding feelings on your side cannot 
 extinguish. 
 
 Though you may think me bold in speaking 
 of you as friends, you will not, I think, dispute my 
 claim to be heard by you in my own defence. An 
 eminent divine of the Tree Church of Scotland 
 selected you, last winter, as persons who were 
 fit judges of a book which I had published a few 
 months before. To all intents and purposes, he 
 impanelled you as a jury to try my treasons 
 against a higher authority than that of our Sove- 
 reign Lady the Queen. By accepting him as a 
 lecturer on the subject of my Essays, you took 
 upon yom^selves the office which he had assigned 
 you. I need not tell you, that I had no power 
 of challenging my jurors. Each one of them was 
 to decide in his own conscience whether he was 
 in possession of such evidence as would enable him 
 to pronounce a just verdict. I hope none of you 
 think that the charges were less serious, than those 
 which are brought against any criminal at the Old 
 Bailey. To me they seem immeasurably more 
 serious. They affect my moral character infinitely 
 more than a charge of some fraudulent transaction 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. VU 
 
 in relation to money could affect it. I was dis- 
 tinctly accused before you, of professing to believe, 
 of professing to preach, that which in fact I deny. 
 Ask yourselves what guilt is comparable to this? 
 If you refuse to hold intercom'se with a man who 
 has committed a forgery, — even with one who has 
 stolen a loaf, perhaps, under the strong temptation 
 of poverty, — how must you regard a man who has 
 been for years lying to God, and forging His Name 
 in support of the frauds w^hich he has practised 
 upon His creatures? This charge, and nothing 
 less than this, was brought against me by Dr. 
 Candlish. You were constituted as judges to 
 examine it. I venture to think, that as Englishmen, 
 you will hold, that I am entitled to tell you why 
 I say ' not guilty' to it. 
 
 But this is not my chief reason for writing to 
 you. I do not consider you my judges, though 
 Dr. CandHsh does. I can leave my own cause and 
 my own character to that day in which he says 
 I do not believe. The craving to justify one's 
 self is, I know well, a very strong one. How 
 strongly it has been working in me for the last six 
 months, I might find it difficult to explain to you. 
 But I have resisted it, for many reasons. I have 
 felt that it was very dangerous, to mix up petty 
 questions concerning myself with the solemnest 
 
VIU DEDICATOEY LETTER. 
 
 and deepest questions concerning man and God. 
 I have been reminded by Dr. Candlisb's book 
 of the infirmities of my temper. He has dis- 
 covered in almost every line I have written, some 
 proof of personal irritation. He has even supposed 
 that I quoted the awful words which our Lord 
 spoke to the Pharisees, respecting the damnation 
 of hell, for the sake of gratifying my spite against 
 some who had found fault with me. My con- 
 science acquits me of that enormous wickedness. 
 If I had committed it, I ought never to write 
 another line, nor to speak another word. But I 
 must have given some excuse for so dreadful a 
 suspicion, or it is hardly possible that a man of 
 ordinary candour would have indulged it. I felt, 
 therefore, that I was bound to be on my guard, 
 and rather to omit any opportunity of self-defence, 
 to let any persons who would suppose that I ad- 
 mitted the accusations against me to be true, than 
 incur the risk of mixing private passions with what 
 I believe to be the cause of God, and of His 
 Church. And most people, I should suppose, at 
 this time have some intimations, that their tongues 
 and their pens were given them for other purposes 
 than those of controversy ; and that they had better 
 let judgment go by default against them, than 
 disturb with miserable personal apologies the sor- 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. ix 
 
 rows of mourners, and the words of Christian 
 consolation. I have, therefore, allowed you to 
 fancy till now, that I have cared nothing for your 
 good opinion, or that I was totally unable to refute 
 the charges which may have robbed me of it. And 
 I should not have broken silence now, if an oppor- 
 tunity had not been afforded me of showing you, 
 without reference to anything that has been said 
 by Dr. Candlish, what kind of teaching I give my 
 ordinary hearers on the subject upon which I am 
 accused of being most heretical ; and if I did not 
 think that I might use that opportunity, to remove 
 impressions from your minds, which will hinder 
 you from understanding, not me, but your own 
 selves and the word of God. 
 
 I believe that it will be the fairest and best 
 course, not to go through Dr. Candlish's lecture 
 (for how could I hope to do justice to so elaborate 
 a discourse in a short preface?), but to select 
 some one passage of it, in which he has condensed 
 his complaints against me, — and which, at the 
 same time, touches upon topics of so general 
 a character, that I may make the vindication of 
 myself entirely subordinate to the purpose which 
 I have in view — that of explaining to you the 
 principles, which in other books, and especially in 
 this book, I have been endeavouring to assert. I 
 
X DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 take the following, because it contains some most 
 true assertions respecting me; because it is evi- 
 dently intended to wound my vanity more severely 
 than any other in the lecture ; and because it sums 
 up the imputations to which I have already re- 
 ferred, those imputations which, if they are well 
 founded, ought to exclude me from my function as 
 a Clergyman — from the Church of Christ — from the 
 society of all honest men. 
 
 " I had intended to trace slightly the author's views, 
 as developed in this book, to some of the sources whence 
 they might have been, if they have not been derived. 
 There is little or nothing that is really new in them. 
 Mr. Maurice cannot be called an original writer as to 
 matter, though his manner and style are fresh. He is 
 not probably much acquainted with the literature of 
 Protestant theology. If he is, it is the worse for his 
 candour, for in that case his misrepresentations are in- 
 excusable. He writes as if the field had never been 
 gone over before, and as if he was making discoveries ; 
 never indicating any knowlege of the fact, that all his 
 reasonings against the current orthodox and evangelical 
 doctrines have been anticipated and answered over and 
 over again. I might show the coincidence of his views, 
 as to the inward light, with those of Barclay and the 
 Friends ; the extent of his obligation to Edward Irving 
 and Thomas Erskine for his ideas of the Incarnation 
 and Atonement; and the agreement of his opinions on 
 all the leading points of Christian doctrine, with those 
 of ordinary Unitarians : with these two exceptions, 
 
DEDICATOEY LETTER. XI 
 
 that under whatever limitations, they admit a resur- 
 rection, a judgment, and a future state of rewards and 
 punishments ; whilst on the other hand, with whatever 
 explanations, he asserts strongly the doctrine of the 
 Trinity/'— Pp. 483, 484. 
 
 How thankfully do I accept the testimony of Dr. 
 Candlish to the fact, ' that there is little or nothing 
 that is really new* in my writings ! It is the point 
 which I have been labouring to establish in every 
 one of them. If he can point out even * the little' 
 which he has found new in any part of them, I shall 
 at once begin to suspect it ; nay, I shall cheerfully 
 give it up to his mercy. I have affirmed continually 
 — I have affirmed again in this book, — that I have 
 discovered nothing that what I am saying is to be 
 found in every creed of the Catholic Church ; in 
 the Prayers and Articles of the Church to which I 
 belong ; most emphatically in the Bible, from which 
 they derive their authority, and to which they refer 
 as their ultimate standard. But while I utterly dis- 
 claim novelty, which, I suppose, is what Dr. Candlish 
 means by originality in matter, there is a sense in 
 which I earnestly desire to be original myself; 
 and in which I desire that you, and all the young 
 men of England, should be so likewise. An original 
 man is not one who invents — not one who refuses to 
 learn from others. I say, boldly, no original man 
 
xii DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 ever did that. But he is one who does not take 
 words and phrases at second hand ; who asks what 
 they signify ; who does not feel that they are his, 
 or that he has a right to use them till he knows 
 what they signify. The original man is fighting for 
 his life ; he must know whether he has any ground 
 to stand upon ; he must ask God to tell him, because 
 man cannot. I have met some of these original men 
 in all classes of society, in all religious schools. 
 Wherever I have found them, I have felt that I 
 could not copy them, but that I could sympathise 
 with them ; that they did me good when I differed 
 with them most ; that they instructed me, though 
 they might scarcely know their letters. All men 
 are capable of this originality ; it is not a special 
 talent ; it comes from that earnestness of purpose, 
 that longing to find what is not dependent on 
 ourselves or on human caprice which, I believe, 
 is awakened in us by the Spirit of Truth, and by 
 Him only. If I have not this originality, may that 
 Spirit impart it to me, for to be without it is death. 
 If I have it in any measure, I shall not make any 
 one who receives any influence from me the retailer 
 of my opinions ; I shall help to put him in a posi- 
 tion in which he can unfold my imperfect percep- 
 tions and correct my errors — because I shall point 
 him to the true Teacher of him, of me, of every man. 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. xili 
 
 I am, therefore, most anxious to confess what 
 I owe not only to the Creeds and to the Bible, but 
 to those men of different communions — from every- 
 one from whom Dr. Candhsh thinks he has caught 
 me robbing. I cannot give him credit for any 
 particular sagacity in this instance. The robbery 
 was done in broad daylight. I confessed it in- 
 stantly. Seventeen years ago I declared in print, 
 how thoroughly I sympathised with Barclay and 
 the Friends, in what is called their main doctrine. 
 All that Dr. Candlish knows of my debts — ever 
 increasing debts — to my honoured friend, Mr. Er- 
 skine, he learnt from a dedication which I prefixed 
 to a volume of Sermons on the Prophets and Kings 
 of the Old Testament. He did not guess from 
 my Theological Essays that I was under obligations 
 to the Unitarians ; I said so in plain terms, and 
 that I felt bound to return the obligation, by show- 
 ing them hoAV dear those doctrines were to me 
 which they rejected. He has, however, mentioned 
 one name, which I have never uttered, publicly nor 
 privately, without honour and admiration, but to 
 which I have not done the same justice in print 
 as to the others. I will repair the fault by putting 
 that name first in my confessions here. I do it the 
 more gladly, because it is the name of a Scotchman 
 and a Presbyterian. 
 
XIV DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 (1 .) I had no personal intercourse with the late 
 Mr. Irving, and I heard him preach very rarely. 
 Though I know a few members of that Church, 
 which is, wrongly, connected with his name, and 
 respect them highly, I have no special sympathy 
 with their modes of thinking and acting. But I 
 learnt lessons from some of Mr. Irving's books, 
 which I hope I shall never forget. I recollect 
 with gratitude portions of his sermons on the 
 Incarnation of our Lord ; — by some portions 
 of them I was grieved. What peculiar views 
 he had on the subject of the Atonement I do not 
 know ; if he had any, I never entered into them. 
 What he taught me was to reverence the educa- 
 tion he had received in the John Knox school, and 
 the fathers who had imparted it to him. I had 
 not that reverence before ; I had shrunk from what 
 I believed to be hard, narrow, and inhuman. He 
 showed me, that the old patriarchs of Scotland had 
 a belief in God, as a Living Being, as the Ruler of 
 the earth, as the Standard of Righteousness, as the 
 Orderer of men's acts in all the common relations 
 of Hfe, which was the most precious of all posses- 
 sions to them, the want of which is the cause of all 
 feebleness and immorality in our age. He made 
 me perceive how entirely different their (godliness 
 was from the sentimental religion^ which consists in 
 
DEDICATORY LETTEE. XV 
 
 feelings about God ; or from tlie systemalic religion, 
 wliich consists of notions about Him. He led me 
 to see, that unless we begin from God — unless we 
 start from the conviction, that the thing which is 
 done upon earth He doefh it Himself — the belief in 
 Christ will pass into a belief in a mere Saviour for 
 us — the belief in a Spirit will be at first a mere 
 recognition of certain influences acting upon us, 
 and will evaporate at last into Pantheism. 
 
 I perceived, clearly, that Mr. Irving had not 
 acquired these convictions in England. He acknow- 
 ledged — brave man as he was — his obligations to 
 Coleridge as a teacher, at a time when such an 
 acknowledgment was perilous, almost fatal, to his 
 reputation with the circle which then paid homage 
 to the young Scotch preacher. It is no courage 
 for any man — above all, it would be no coiuage in 
 me who have no reputation to lose, who cannot 
 be in worse plight with the religious world than 
 I am — to express the utmost depth of gratitude 
 to that benefactor ; still I am sure that what Irving 
 owed to him, though it was theological lore in the 
 strictest sense, was not this theocratic faith. That 
 he brought with him ; it was part of his covenant- 
 ing, Calvinistical culture. As such I paid it, and 
 still pay it, the profoundest homage. I have learnt 
 since to honour the teaching of the English Church. 
 
XVI DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 I have to bless God for teacliing which belongs to 
 what calls itself the Catholic Church. But I have 
 found nothing in either to supersede this. I have 
 found nothing in either which is good without this. 
 I reverence it as Protestant theology in the highest, 
 purest meaning of that word, and as the very 
 ground of all theology. 
 
 Dr. Candlish has told you, that I am * not pro- 
 ' bably much acquainted with the literature of Pro- 
 ' testant theology ; if I am, it is the worse for my 
 ' candour ; for, in that case, my misrepresentations 
 ' are inexcusable.' I am much less acquainted with 
 the literature of Protestant theology, and with all 
 literature and all theology, than I wish to be ; if Dr. 
 Candlish will put me in the way of improving my 
 knowledge, I shall be most thankful to him. But 
 when he spoke of my misrepresentations of this 
 theology, he was bound, I think, to point them out. 
 I have gone, at some length, in my ' Kingdom of 
 Christ,' into a consideration of the services which 
 Luther, Calvin, and Zuinglius, have rendered to the 
 Church and to mankind. If he finds there any 
 disposition to undervalue the work which they 
 accomplished, or the principles which they brought 
 to light, I hope he will expose me. He will find 
 there very deep regrets expressed, — in which, I 
 suppose, every Protestant shares, — that they were 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. xvii 
 
 not able to agree among themselves ; very deep re- 
 grets for the divisions which have been perpetuated 
 and multiplied by men who have inherited from 
 them the negative opinions that kept them apart, 
 but who have — if we believe the statements of the 
 different reformers, such as Spener and Erancke, 
 that have risen up in their communities — speedily 
 forgotten the truths to which these opinions attached 
 themselves. I have endeavoured to trace the calises 
 of these failures, and to remove the excessive despair 
 which they commonly occasion to the student of 
 history, by showing that their jjrinciples, though 
 buried under notions and negations, are still vital, 
 and will rise again, and will become united when- 
 ever Protestants shall once more feel that they have 
 a Gospel from God, and a Gospel concerning God, 
 — not a scheme of religion to be set up against the 
 scheme of religion which Romanists maintain. The 
 Protestant of old, as I conceive, shook the vast 
 fabric of Romish despotism, because he proclaimed 
 that God Himself was justifying, and calling, and 
 redeeming His creatures ; because he threw down 
 the ladder by which men hoped to climb to heaven 
 with the proclamation, — asserted in every Romish 
 creed, denied in a thousand Romish practices, — that 
 heaven had stooped to earth. Protestants are now 
 trembling, and with good reason,- lest that despotism 
 
XVlll DEDICATOUY LETTER. 
 
 should utterly vanquisli them; because they have a 
 number of theories about justification, election, re- 
 demption; because they have their ladders which 
 are much more awkwardly constructed, and are made 
 of more flexible materials than the Romish : because 
 they deny in fact what they declare in words, — that 
 God has reconciled the world to Himself. I thank 
 Mr. Irving for showing me that this must needs be ; 
 that if Protestantism is only a religious machinery, 
 it must be a very bad religious machinery; that 
 if it assumes its higher, diviner right, it will be 
 stronger than ever it was — ^just because it cannot 
 stand alone, but will demand a humanity as wide as 
 its theology, and grounded upon that. 
 
 (2.) Mr. Irving did not, however, show where 
 I might find this humanity, or how I might connect 
 it with God. He did make me feel, by his own, com- 
 monly — desperate and abortive — attempts to bridge 
 over the chasm, that there was something wanting 
 in the teachers of his country. By observing the 
 incapacity of the great Genevan and German theo- 
 logians, from whom they had learnt, to establish 
 peace among themselves, I was led to perceive more 
 clearly where, and what this deficiency was. God 
 was the absolutely good and righteous Will. To 
 proclaim Him as the source of all good and right- 
 eousness to men, as the only mover of their wills to 
 
DEDICATORY LETTEli. xix 
 
 good, was to preach the Gospel, the doctrines of 
 grace. But how had this good and righteous Will 
 manifested itself as such ? How had it proved its 
 might against that which opposed it ? I found most 
 various answers to these questions, given by those 
 who were called orthodox and evangelical divines. 
 They were perpetually engaged in answering objec- 
 tions to their doctrines. As Dr. Candlish says, with 
 melancholy truth — though it is a truth of which he 
 proclaims me to be ignorant — they were ' answering 
 these objections over and over again.' That seemed 
 to be especially their function ; not to preach a 
 Gospel or good news to men, but to answer ' over 
 and over again' the doubts and difficulties that 
 arose in human hearts respecting their views of 
 the character of God and of His relation to His 
 creatures. The doubts and difficulties were not 
 satisfied; they were not even quelled. And of 
 what kind were they ? They were doubts whether 
 what was preached was a Gospel at all, whether it 
 was not a message of curses rather than blessings ; 
 they were difficulties whether God's righteousness 
 was asserted in this Gospel, whether it was not 
 utterly denied, whether He was not represented as 
 doing acts which He forbad men to do, as having 
 feelings, which men, according to Christ's teaching, 
 ought not to have. These mighty questions were 
 
XX DEDICATORY LETTEU. 
 
 at issue. Dr. Candlish says, they have been 
 answered ' over and over again.' If they had been 
 answered once, it Avould have been enough. That 
 is what men demand ; that is the demand which 
 must be met. You divines can justify God ' over 
 and over again ;' but has He, as your fathers 
 said, justified Himself? Has He made His own 
 righteousness clear ? Has He removed the black- 
 ness and darkness which are over it ? I do confess 
 my obligations to that other Scotchman of whom 
 Dr. Candlish has spoken, and to his friend Mr. 
 Campbell, for making me see, as I had never seen 
 before, that the death of Christ was the answer, 
 given once in the end of the world, to that demand ; 
 that in it God did fully manifest His own character ; 
 that when a man accepts that death as the revela- 
 tion of God, he owns Him as altogether righteous, 
 as altogether hating sin ; sees that His will is 
 that all should be saved from sin ; sees that when 
 righteousness and evil were brought into the most 
 tremendous of all conflicts, righteousness prevailed, 
 and evil was discomfited. 
 
 (3.) But it is evident from Mr. Erskine's book on 
 Election, that he has perceived more to be involved in 
 this behef than he, perhaps, at first, was aware of. 
 ' God,' it is said, ' was in Christ reconciling the 
 world to Himself.' ' It pleased God,' says St. Paul, 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. Xxi 
 
 ' to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach 
 Him among the Gentiles.' Was man, then, accord- 
 ing to his original constitution related to Christ? 
 Was the reconciliation of the world to God, the 
 restoration of it to its proper condition in the well- 
 beloved Son ? Was that Son really in Saul of 
 Tarsus, and did he only become Paul the converted 
 when that Son was revealed in him? Could he 
 preach to the Gentiles, who were bowing to gods 
 of wood and stone, Christ is in you ? So, * Barclay 
 and the Friends ' had said. It was very shocking 
 to agree with Barclay and the Eriends ; but I saw 
 no help for it. They said what I found St. Paul 
 and St. John saying. They said what Philo the 
 Jew, and a number of the Christian fathers had per- 
 ceived that all the prophets of the Old Testament 
 were saying ; what they perceived was implied in 
 the true words and acts of every heathen. They 
 said what I found enabled me to read the Bible 
 with open eyes; to accept its words literally; to 
 feel their connexion with each other. They said 
 what enabled me to understand the contradictions 
 in myself; to feel how the Hght had always 
 struggled with the darkness; how the darkness 
 had tried to comprehend it and could not. They 
 said what enabled me, when I grasped it and 
 believed it, to feel that I was in union with every 
 
 c 
 
XXU DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 man, however he might differ from me ; and that 
 I had nothing good in me but what belongs equally 
 to him. They said what cleared up to me difficulties 
 in the Evangelical divines, and showed me the 
 deep foundation of those doctrines which the early 
 Quakers scorned; for the sake of which some of 
 the later were disposed to abandon the teaching of 
 their ancestors. What they said discovered to me 
 the spiritual, eternal ground of those sacraments 
 which the Quakers cast aside as material and 
 earthly. It could not signify whether Barclay the 
 Quaker, or Philo the Jew, or Socrates the Heathen, 
 had had apprehensions of this truth; if it were 
 a truth, God had given it to them, and I could 
 ask Him to give me strength to hold it fast, and to 
 declare it to my fellows. 
 
 (4.) In doing so, words which I had always 
 known, but which had not the same traditional 
 hold upon me as upon many of my countrymen, 
 presented themselves to me, with a power which 
 I had never dreamed was in them. I mean the 
 words of our Articles, of our Catechism, of our 
 Prayers. I was conscious of very radical differ- 
 ences between us and the Scotch people, for whom 
 I had begun to feel so much respect; I had 
 felt that there had been, on the whole, a larger 
 and freer humanity in this country than in theirs, 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. Xxiii 
 
 with probably a greater tendency to secularity 
 and State cliurclimanship. I had been taught 
 that Scotchmen were less bound by forms than 
 we were; — and I thought that they had main- 
 tained a very brave fight against our prelacy, when 
 Charles and Laud would have forced it on them. 
 I tell you this, that you may not fancy I had any 
 strong prejudices which inclined me to see a 
 meaning in our services that was not in them. 
 But when I began to study the Articles, for the 
 purpose of discovering their theological method, I 
 perceived one characteristic contrast between them 
 and the Confession that was drawn up by Knox for 
 the Kirk ; a contrast which, it seemed to me, had 
 been unaccountably overlooked. The second article 
 in Knox's Confession is on the Fall of Man. 
 The second article in our Thirty-nine is on Christ 
 the God-Man. Not till the ninth article, do we 
 speak of the Fall; and then not historically, as if it 
 explained the condition of mankind, but morally, 
 as accounting for ' an infection and corruption of 
 nature which exists in every man of the progeny 
 of Adam, even in the regenerate/ The importance 
 of this diversity could scarcely be overrated. I was 
 sure that it could not be confined to a learned and 
 formal exposition of doctrine; I was sure there 
 must be some practical and general expression 
 
XXIV DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 of it. That expression was not far to seek. The 
 Catechism, which we teach to all children who have 
 been baptized, tells them that they are members of 
 Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom 
 of Heaven. The Prayers framed for all the motley 
 body which frequents om* Churches, assume that all 
 may call upon God as a reconciled Father. Here 
 was the article translated into life. Human beings 
 were treated as redeemed, — not in consequence of 
 any act they had done, of any faith they had exer- 
 cised ; their faith was to be grounded on a fore- 
 gone conclusion ; their acts were to be the fruits of 
 a state they already possessed. 
 
 The more I became acquainted with the parties 
 in the English Church, the more I felt the necessity 
 of standing upon this principle, that Christ is in every 
 man, if I was to use our formularies in the plain 
 literal sense. I found that literal sense evaded or 
 denied by some of the most devout men among us, — 
 because they could not reconcile it with their strong 
 conviction, derived from the express assertions of 
 Scripture, that in us, that is in our flesh, dwelleth 
 no good thing ; with their equally strong and rea- 
 sonable conviction, that we cannot be made spiritual 
 by a few drops of water, or by certain words acting 
 as a charm. I found other excellent men as zealous 
 for the literal sense of the words, — because they had 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. XXV 
 
 believed, also on the testimony of Scripture, that 
 God has called us in Christ to be sons, in a sense 
 in which men did not and could not claim that title 
 under the earlier dispensation. 1 had no dream 
 that I could reconcile these parties. I knew from 
 history and a little experience, that I should be 
 denounced as a silly coxcomb by both, if I made 
 the experiment. But for myself here was the re- 
 conciliation. I needed it for my own life, whether 
 others saw anv sense in it or not. I felt that it 
 enabled me to love and learn from the Prayers ; 
 which, if I adopted either of the opposing hypothe- 
 ses, would have tormented me continually, and have 
 forced me at last to become a Protestant Dissenter, 
 or a Romanist. Whereas while I clung to it, these 
 Prayers, instead of separating me from either of 
 the classes which repudiate and despise us, gave me 
 the power, if I would avail myself of it, of claiming 
 unity and fellowship with both. I could feel the 
 Protestant Dissenter had done a good work, in 
 asserting Protestantism to have a positive worth of 
 its own, distinct from our Anglicanism, — though it 
 seemed to me' that he had failed to realize its 
 worth. I could see that the Romanist was bearing 
 witness for an Universal Church, governed and filled 
 by the Spirit of God, — though I thought that he had 
 enfeebled and destroyed that witness, had changed 
 
XXYl DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 liis Churcli into a sect, had made that which was 
 spiritual, mundane and material, by representing 
 the belief in God as dependent on the belief in 
 the Church, and not the belief in the Church as 
 dependent (according to the Creed) on the belief 
 in God. 
 
 (5.) I have now given you a glimpse, my friends, 
 into a part of the history of my own * Christian 
 instruction.' I have shown you how a foolish young 
 man was led by his folly to seek for a wisdom, 
 which the arguments that have been repeated ' over 
 and over again* by Dr. Candlish and his friends 
 could not supply. And now I come to that part 
 of his accusation which concerns the Unitarians. 
 I will repeat his words, that there may be no 
 mistake about them. * I might show .... the 
 ' agreement of his opinions on all the leading points 
 ' of Christian doctrine with those of ordinary 
 ' Unitarians : with these two exceptions, that under 
 ' whatever limitations, they admit a resurrection, a 
 'judgment, and a future state of rewards and 
 * punishments ; whilst on the other hand, with 
 ' whatever explanations, he asserts strongly the doc- 
 ' trine of the Trinity.' That is to say. Dr. Candlish 
 told you (the 3,000 in Exeter Hall, who knew 
 next to nothing about me but what he chose to 
 tell you), that he could show that I, being under 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. XXVli 
 
 tlie most solemn pledge when I took orders to 
 teach doctrines which the Unitarians reject, and 
 having renewed, year by year, and day by day, my 
 protestation of adherence to these doctrines, am, 
 nevertheless, in agreement with those who say they 
 are false; with these exceptions, that they admit, 
 under some modification, a resurrection and a 
 judgment, — whereas I, who repeat daily the words, 
 
 * I believe that Jesus Christ shall come again to 
 
 * judge the quick and dead ; I believe in the resur- 
 ' rection of the body,' admit them under no 
 modification whatever. This is literally the state- 
 ment which he made to you, and which he de- 
 liberately printed, after he had made it. And it is 
 respecting that statement that I affirmed before, 
 and I affirm now again, It is an immeasurably 
 more horrible libel, — more destructive of my moral 
 character, — than if he had said, that on a certain day, 
 I committed a forgery on the Bank of England, or 
 that I had, in some court of justice, been guilty of 
 a wilful and corrupt perjury. That is my fixed, 
 considerate opinion. I shall be grieved, if you who 
 are, as I trust, honest men, do not share it with me. 
 I shall fear that your moral standard is not what 
 the standard of Christian young men ought to be. 
 I shall begin to think, that you judge of the mag- 
 nitude of crimes by the amount of the external and 
 
XXVlll DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 visible penalties to which they subject those who 
 commit them. I shall suspect, that you have fallen 
 into that incredulity respecting a day in which the 
 secrets of all hearts shall be made known, and acts 
 seen as they really are, which Dr. CandHsh attri- 
 butes to me. 
 
 I must do Dr. Candlish the justice to say, that 
 he does wish that I might be brought before an- 
 other tribunal than yours. The main object, I 
 suspect, of his coming to England was, not to 
 arraign an individual whom he knew to be insig- 
 nificant, but to arraign the English Church for not 
 treating me as his Church w^ould have treated me, 
 if I had belonged to it. He explained to you how, 
 if I had been subject to that jurisdiction, I should 
 have been convened, not before a college tribunal 
 for corrupting the minds of young men about the 
 one point of everlasting punishment, but before an 
 ecclesiastical tribunal for my whole scheme of doc- 
 trine, that I might show cause why I should not 
 be silenced as a Minister, and excommunicated 
 from the body of the faithful. I am perfectly 
 aware that I should have experienced that differ- 
 ence of treatment if my lot had been cast among 
 Presbyterians, or among English Dissenters. And 
 if that difference had involved a more full and 
 thorough examination into all my words and acts, 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. xxix 
 
 — if it had led to a trial according to the evidence, 
 and to a decision such as would be given in 
 Westminster Hall, or in the Court of Session upon 
 any ordinary case, between man and man, or be- 
 tween the Queen and her subjects, — no one could 
 have rejoiced more than I should have done. But 
 Dr. Candlish must permit me to doubt, whether 
 I or any man brought before one of Us tribunals 
 would have experienced this kind of justice. I 
 must suppose that he is a fair, an advantageous, 
 specimen of the temper which would prevail in 
 them. And I do say, that I should use the old 
 formula, God give thee a good deliver ance, with 
 a very solemn and a very melancholy feeling to 
 any accused man having a righteous cause, who 
 had this representative of the Scotch Free Church 
 to conduct his trial, and to pronounce his judg- 
 ment. For I cannot pretend to regard that man 
 as having in him the conditions of a righteous 
 judge — (I ask for no mercy or courtesy) who took 
 advantage of a moment when he knew that I was 
 under a stigma from a learned body in my own 
 country, and that the religious press of Great 
 Britain was almost without exception ' denouncing 
 
 ^ I am bound to name the only exceptions whicli I know ; and I do 
 it with the greatest pleasure, for reasons which will be immediately- 
 apparent. The Nonconformist Newspaper had every reason to dislike 
 
XXX DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 me, to appeal to your passions and your igno- 
 rance, and to the passions and ignorance of tlie 
 clergymen and Dissenting ministers wlio were 
 countenancing him on the platform of Exeter 
 Hall, in support of a charge which I solemnly 
 declare (and I call upon the authorities of the 
 College which has condemned me, upon the Bishops 
 of my Church who suspect me, upon all who 
 have impugned my preaching and my manner 
 of life, and who personally dislike me, — to say 
 if they know, to examine if they do not know, 
 whether I am speaking truly or falsely), is belied 
 by all that I have written or preached, by every 
 line of the book upon which he professed to 
 rest it. 
 
 Did I not then say, in that book, that I had 
 learnt much from Unitarians, and that what I had 
 
 me, as one who had defended publicly, not only the formularies of my 
 Church, but the union of Church and State. The writers in it seized 
 the moment when they might have had a triumph over me, to treat 
 me with peculiar consideration and kindness. The Guardian News- 
 paper had generally expressed for me and my writings suspicion and 
 aversion. Instead of manifesting these feelings more strongly, when I 
 lost my respectability with the class for which it was written, and 
 which it represents, that was the time in which it showed me an 
 indulgence and courtesy which was the more honourable and grate- 
 ful, because the Editor thoroughly disapproved of my opinions, and 
 approved of my expulsion. Instances of generosity so rare — as far 
 as I know, so unprecedented — in the history of religious periodicals, 
 ought to be recorded. 
 
DEDICATOUY LETTEK. XXxi 
 
 learnt from them were truths — essential truths — 
 the very staff of my being ? Have I not confessed 
 as much in this Letter ? Most assuredly. I said 
 there — I say here — that just as I accepted the 
 positive teaching of Mr. Irving, and of his Calvin- 
 istical Scotch forefathers, respecting God and His 
 righteous government, and His war against evil, 
 and did not accept that negative teaching which 
 seemed to me to weaken and darken His righteous- 
 ness, to contract His power, to make His war with 
 evil ineffectual; — ^just as I accepted the positive 
 teaching of Barclay and the Priends, respecting the 
 Inward Light, and rejected that negative teaching 
 which made the manifestation of this Light in the 
 acts of the Son of God on earth and in heaven, of 
 such small significance; — ^just so I testified the 
 most entire and cordial sympathy with the decla- 
 ration of the Unitarians, that God is pure and abso- 
 lute Love — that God is a Father ; and therefore 
 expressed the most thorough dissent from every 
 one of those negative doctrines of theirs, which, 
 as I affirmed, and in my book endeavoured to 
 prove, turn the love of God into an unreality ; into 
 an indifference to evil ; into a tolerance of the sins 
 and miseries which are destroying God's creation. 
 This language I used at the outset of that book 
 which called forth Dr. CandHsh's lecture; this 
 
XXxii DEDICATORY LETTER* 
 
 language tlie wliole of it is written to explain and 
 illustrate. I have maintained that the Unitarian 
 denial of the fact, that the Son of God — being of 
 one substance with the Father, being the Eternal 
 Word of God, the express Image of God, the only 
 Lord, and Teacher, and Guide of Man — took human 
 flesh and died man's death, and that by these acts 
 God reconciled man to Himself, justifying us in 
 Christ from all things from which we could not 
 be justified by the Law of Moses, glorifying our 
 Nature at the right hand of God, is, ipso facto, a 
 denial that God loves man, and has interfered to 
 rescue our race from the misery and curse, which 
 all history shows that mankind has felt and 
 groaned under, which each one of us groans under. 
 I have said that the denial, by the old or ' ordi- 
 nary ' Unitarians (to use Dr. Candlish's word), of a 
 Spirit, or personal Comforter, and the substitu- 
 tion for that denial, by some modern Unitarians, 
 of a vague belief in Influences or a pervading 
 universal Spirit, empties God of His fatherly cha- 
 racter, and robs us of the privileges of sons. I have 
 further contended with great — some of the ortho- 
 dox journals seem to think with excessive — vehe- 
 mence, that the denial of an Evil Spirit, of a Devil, 
 confuses the facts of the universe, our own inmost 
 experience, and the divine witness concerning God's 
 
"DEDICATORY LETTER. xxxiii 
 
 victory over evil. It is in this way, members of 
 the Young Men's Christian Instruction Society ! 
 that I have shown the agreement of my opinions 
 on all tlie leading points of Christian doctrine with 
 the ordinary Unitarians, 
 
 But there are exceptions. ' The Unitarians 
 believe in a resurrection under certain modifica- 
 tions! There, says your lecturer, I am not in 
 agreement with them. Will you hsten for a 
 moment to the ground upon which this charge 
 stands? I find the ordinary Unitarian acknow- 
 ledging, as Dr. Candlish says, a resurrection. 
 The Resurrection of Christ from the dead seemed 
 to him a proof, which he could not obtain else- 
 where, that men are immortal, that they do not 
 perish altogether, when the breath leaves their 
 bodies. I rejoiced, I said, that any had that 
 faith, because more was implied in it than those 
 who held it knew. But I contended that this 
 was not the meaning of Christ's Resurrection, as 
 St. Paul sets it forth to us. According to him, 
 Christ died for our sins and rose again for our jus- 
 tification. If He did rise to prove that we were 
 immortal, he would have, proved what the con- 
 science of men confessed, with trembhng and horror. 
 To deliver us from that horror, to show us that 
 God claimed us as His sons and daughters, was 
 
XXXIV DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 surely a nobler result of so transcendent a work. 
 It was tlie foundation of a Gospel ; the other could 
 never be. But I contended as earnestly, that this 
 emancipation of men's spirits was not the only or 
 final effort of Christ's Resurrection. The redemp- 
 tion of the hodi/ was quite as much a part of His 
 work for man; its redemption from death, the 
 grave, and hell. What I believed that orthodox 
 Christians, being in this respect ' in entire agree- 
 ment with the ordinary Unitarians,' had done, was to 
 exhaust the belief of the resurrection of the body of 
 all its force, its meaning, its consolation, by substi- 
 tuting for the resurrection of the living powers and 
 principles of which our bodies consist, the renova- 
 tion of those elements which were the signs of its 
 decay, its curse, its death. By substituting a 
 gathering together, at some distant day, of them, 
 for that gathering together of all Christ's members 
 in Him, which the Apostle spoke of, they have 
 destroyed the connexion between our resurrection 
 and Christ's ; they have justified the Romish worship 
 of relics ; they have made the reunion of the soul 
 with the corruption, which we desire to be rid of, the 
 very object of our hopes. Because I have asserted 
 in this full manner the resurrection of both spirit 
 and body as the fruit of the Resurrection of Christ, 
 I am said to be far worse than the Unitarians, in 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. XXXV 
 
 that they do, with some modifications, admit a 
 resurrection ! ^ 
 
 But they differ from me again, because ' under 
 whatever modification, they admit a Judgment.' 
 I acknowledge that they admit it, much in the 
 same way, so far as I can gather from his lecture 
 and his book on my Essays, as Dr. Candlish admits 
 it. That is to say, they admit that God will here- 
 after pronounce a certain sentence upon good acts, 
 and upon bad acts ; the sentence upon one to be 
 followed by certain rewards ; the sentence on the 
 
 * A writer in the Christian Observer for February, who has accused 
 me of philosophical cowardice, of literary dishonesty, of preaching 
 another Gospel than that which the Apostles preached, — in other words, 
 has pronounced me accursed of God and man (for who can doubt that 
 he recollected himself, and intended his readers to recollect, the words 
 in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians), — this writer has 
 charged me with holding the doctrine of Hymenaaus and Philetus, 
 that the Resurrection has passed already, that is to say, the doctrine 
 that there is no resurrection, of the body, but only of the spirit ; since 
 if men have bodies which are not risen, and they are to rise, that 
 resurrection must be future. May God help him to a clearer judgment, 
 if he wrote down the charge believing it to be true! May God forgive 
 him, if he threw it out in mere recklessness ! How one rejoices that 
 these prophets wear veils when they curse ; so that we may merely regard 
 them as representing the habit of mind in what is called the religious 
 world, not as actual living men. Very probably, when the mask is ofT, 
 they may not only be capable of ordinary humanity, but may follow 
 some of the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, which in their 
 official character they are obliged to repudiate. I ought to say, that 
 this writer has understood better than any I have met with, the real 
 issue upon which the dispute between his school and me turns. It is 
 the question whether the Fall or the Redemption is the ground on 
 which humanity rests. 
 
XXXvi DEDICATOUT LETTER. 
 
 other by certain punishments. There is to be 
 a great trial day of the universe, they think, when 
 these sentences will go forth, and when the rewards 
 and the punishments will begin. I say, I appre- 
 hend this is both the old Unitarian idea of a 
 judgment, and Dr. CandKsh's. If it was not his, he 
 would not have joined the word ' Judgment,' which 
 occurs in almost every book and every page of the 
 Bible, to the phrase ' Future state of rewards and 
 punishments,' which is to be found in no book or 
 page of Scripture, which belongs peculiarly to the 
 age that all Evangelical writers have described as 
 the Unitarian age — the eighteenth century. What 
 I have tried is to recover for the Scriptural word 
 the sense in which Scripture employs it ; a sense 
 immeasurably deeper and more comprehensive than 
 any conveyed by the eighteenth century phrase ; a 
 sense often in direct moral contradiction to that. 
 A judgment of the heart and reins, a judgment of 
 the man, a judgment of the principles from which 
 acts flow — this is what the Scripture teaches me to 
 believe in here, to expect hereafter. Under the sense 
 of this judgment — in the confidence that the Judge 
 is always at the door — it desires that I should live 
 every day and every hour; it teaches me also to 
 look for a complete day of revelation, when every- 
 thing that has been hidden shall come forth; when 
 
I 
 
 DEDICATORY LETTER. XXXVU 
 
 every creature shall be made manifest in God's 
 sight. This is that day of Christ to which I desire 
 that I myself, and that every one of you should look 
 forward ; and which I am sure will come to me and 
 to you, because Christ is the King and Lord of 
 our hearts now, — and because the word which He 
 has spoken will judge us then. And, therefore, 
 you were told that I do not admit a judgment, 
 which the Unitarians, under whatever modification, 
 do admit. 
 
 But Dr. Candlish makes a concession, which he 
 felt to be singularly liberal. He acknowledges — 
 reluctantly, but still he acknowledges — that I do, 
 witk whatever explanations, assert strongly the doc- 
 trine of the Trinity. This is the conclusion of the 
 passage I am now commenting upon. I shall 
 speak of it for a moment, since there is none which 
 more curiously illustrates the mind of the author, 
 or throws more light upon his theology. He regards 
 the Christian faith as made up of a certain set 
 of opinions — an opinion about the resurrection, an 
 opinion about the judgment, an opinion about 
 sacrifice, an opinion about the Trinity. He finds 
 me wanting in the proper opinions about some of 
 these subjects ; he finds that I entertain something 
 like what he has been used to hold about another, 
 though with explanations which puzzle him. Shall 
 I tell you what these explanations are ? I affirm 
 
 d 
 
XXXVIU DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 that when I beUeve in God the Father, in God the 
 Son, and in God the Holy Ghost, — when I give 
 glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the 
 Holy Ghost, — I am escaping from opinions. I 
 believe that I am at the centre of God's reve- 
 lations of Himself ; I believe that He has led us out 
 of our crude and miserable opinions about Him, to 
 that Name which expresses what He is in Himself, 
 what He is in relation to me, and to all the universe. 
 And, therefore, believing in the Trinity, — or if you 
 must put Him, in whom you live and move and 
 have your being, at a greater distance from you — 
 in the doctrine of the Trinity — I am at the point 
 whence all other truths radiate, and to which 
 they converge. I cannot separate the belief in 
 Christ's incarnation, or death, or resurrection, or 
 in the death and resurrection of myself, or any 
 human being, from this Name. It is the only 
 explanation of them all ; it is that which reconciles 
 and harmonizes all the brighter thoughts of God, 
 that men have been cherishing in all ages ; it is 
 that which scatters their darkness ; it is that which 
 declares to them, that there is an Absolute Root of 
 truth and good at the foundation of all things, 
 — the Eternal Father; that there is a perfect 
 Utterer and Revealer of that truth and good, — the 
 Eternal Word, the only-begotten Son; that there 
 is a Living Person, who carries out that truth 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. XXXIX 
 
 and good, and makes it effectual and triumpliant 
 over rebellious wills, — the Spirit that proceedeth 
 from the Father and the Son, and with the Father 
 and the Son together, is worshipped and glorified 
 for ever. 
 
 These 'explanations' of mine make Dr. Candlish 
 feel that our faith in the Trinity, though it may 
 be expressed in the same words, is substantially 
 different. I am most unwilling to think so. I 
 trust and believe that the ' explanations' of the doc- 
 trine, which I have read with exceeding pain in his 
 book, do not express his inward mind; but only 
 show what a hard, intellectual, logical crust has 
 formed about it. If I had not that confidence, I 
 should tremble indeed for Scotland. I will tell you 
 why. Nothing has seemed to me more beautiful 
 than the pictures of patriarchal life, which have been 
 drawn from the homes of the old Scotch Calvinists; 
 that life of which Burns, with all his hatred of 
 some of their opinions and habits, has spoken as 
 the very bulwark of his land. Now this domestic 
 life, grounded first on the authority of the father, 
 and the example of righteousness which he afforded 
 to his children, had its ultimate root in the belief 
 that God was the righteous Father, and that each 
 head of a household was to present Him in that 
 character through his own acts. But I have now 
 heard a Scotch preacher, the very head of the body 
 
xl DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 in Scotland which boasts that it preserves most of 
 the old faith, actually complaining of that idea of 
 the Trinity which makes it the ground of human 
 relations; and insisting that the idea of Persons 
 who perform certain acts of creation, redemption, 
 sanctification (which, subject to the other, I accept 
 also), is the only orthodox one. I am certain that 
 every early Church father, every sixteenth cen- 
 tury reformer, would have seen in this complaint 
 that which threatens all orthodoxy and all faith. 
 And I beseech you, young men desirous of Christian 
 instruction, if you care to restore the old domestic 
 morality, which is so fast deserting us, — if you care 
 to leave to your sons a belief which they shall feel 
 is really the ground of their hfe, — not to admit into 
 your minds these dead, official explanations of a 
 mystery, which God, in His Bible, has revealed to us 
 through our actual relations; which He would have 
 us accept as the great instrument of exalting and 
 transfiguring them. 
 
 There is another particular, in which I have found 
 Dr. Candlish strangely at variance — so far, at least, 
 as his language goes — with the maxims of his fore- 
 fathers. His objections to my mode of speaking 
 against * current' notions and habits, strike at the 
 root, it appears to me, of the office of a minister of 
 God. If he is not to be a reprover in the gate, he 
 is nothing ; if he is to confine his reproofs to those 
 
PEDICATORY LETTER. xli 
 
 with whom he is scarcely ever brought into contact 
 ■ — to Romanists, for instance — he is making his 
 work an easy and popular one enough ; but he is 
 not imitating those who denounced Popery in other 
 ages, for they did it at the risk of their reputations 
 and their lives. If he talks against the world — 
 meaning thereby the gay or fashionable world — and 
 sympathizes with what is called the religious world, 
 he may again get great credit to himself, and contem- 
 plate his own position with much contentment ; but 
 he will find, by degrees, that the world which 
 flatters him, and which he flatters, is that very one 
 whereof St. James spoke, when he said, 'To be in 
 friendship with it, is to be at enmity with God.' 
 So the prophets of old found ; so the apostles 
 found ; so the reformers found ; so it was in the 
 days when our Lord walked on earth. All had to 
 contend with the religious world of their day — He 
 most of all. What were the Scribes and the Phari- 
 sees but the most respected, and most exclusive, 
 portion of that world ? 
 
 This is a most serious question for a disciple 
 of John Knox to consider. Dr. Candlish has 
 appeared among you, not so much to denounce me, 
 as to represent and advocate the ' current' reli- 
 gious notions of the day, which he supposes I 
 have impugned. He has had no excuse for saying 
 that I have denounced any individual teacher ; if I 
 
xlii DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 had, I should have escaped many of his censures 
 which turn upon my vague use of the words 
 ' divines' and ' rehgious teachers.' I was aware 
 of the vagueness. I was tempted to remove it, by 
 quoting instances, and producing authorities. I 
 resisted the inchnation. I would not imitate the 
 religious periodicals, by denouncing men instead 
 of systems; — men, who may be blessing God in 
 their hearts, and teaching others to bless Him, 
 while they use language which seems to me utterly 
 inconsistent with all that His word declares re- 
 specting Him. While, therefore, in my Theological 
 Essays, I often spoke by name of the great Evan- 
 gelical teachers of the last century, because I never 
 felt disposed to mention them ^Wii]\ovii honour, I 
 alluded only to maxims and habits, when I referred 
 to my contemporaries. I had no need to prove that 
 the opinions and maxims exist; the groans of thou- 
 sands in religious families testify to that fact. I 
 knew very well that they might be explained away 
 — as all the most idolatrous practices, and all the 
 most subtle outrages upon Scripture and morality, in 
 Romish countries, have been explained away — ' over 
 and over again ; ' but I knew that they remained, in 
 spite of the explanations, — and I believed, that they 
 were destroying the Christianity of our land. Dr. 
 Candlish has come to England to convince the 
 rehgious world, that it is in a very right and satis- 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. xliii 
 
 factory state. Who can doubt that he will succeed ? 
 Who can wonder that the religious periodicals 
 which embody all the tempers and inclinations 
 of that which he has defended, should hail such 
 a champion? But is he doing you good by his 
 apologies ? Are they such as would have been 
 heard from one of the old men whom he reveres ? 
 Would not they have appeared as witnesses of God, 
 to show the people of Israel their sins ? Would 
 they not have called those false prophets, who said, 
 ' Peace, peace ' ? 
 
 I would say again, that I do not take Dr. Cand- 
 lish's lecture, or his book, as evidence of what he 
 himself is. I know nothing of him, personally ; 
 but I know enough of his history to be aware that 
 he has not lived to make his own countrymen 
 content with the notions, at least on the subject 
 of church government, which he supposed were 
 ' current' among them. I know that he has made 
 sacrifices to what he holds to be a neglected prin- 
 ciple. I would ask of God, that we may imitate 
 his faith, and apply it in the w^ay that it is wanted 
 in our country. I do not think, if we cherish 
 it, we shall cause any disruption in the Church 
 of our fathers. I do think that we shall be con- 
 tinually at war with the religious world, which 
 is the counterfeit of the Church, and which is trying 
 to reduce all Churches into a Babel of sects. 
 
xliv DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 I have now said all I intend ever to say on the 
 subject of Dr. CandUsh, his lecture, and his book. 
 I have to thank him for some passages in both, 
 which I had not the least reason to expect. Once 
 or twice, he has spoken of me, almost as if he 
 thought I might be a believer in Christ; he has 
 even expressed something like a sympathy with some 
 words I have written; he has half admitted that 
 I may not be merely throwing out mystical or 
 ' misty' phrases, when I have discoursed of the 
 divine Word as the great Teacher of mankind. I 
 see that some of his reviewers, in his own coun- 
 try, are scandalized and alarmed at these express 
 sions ; they earnestly beg him to cancel them 
 in a future edition. So far as consistency goes, 
 I believe they are right. He should not lead you, 
 or any, to milder thoughts of one whom he has 
 pronounced a deliberately and habitually dishonest 
 man. I value the words, however, not for my 
 sake, but for his ; or for mine only, because they 
 enable me to separate, as I always desire to do, 
 the man from the apologist and the controversialist, 
 and make me ashamed of myself, whenever, for a 
 moment, I confound them. 
 
 Having taken leave of my accuser, I wish to 
 explain, as shortly as I can, how the work, which 
 I now present to you, is connected with the subjects 
 which he has brought under yom^ notice, and of 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. xlv 
 
 which I have been speaking in this letter. My 
 desire is to ground all theology upon the Name of 
 God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; not 
 to begin from ourselves and our sins; not to measure 
 the straight line by the crooked one. This is the 
 method which I have learnt from the Bible. There 
 everything proceeds from God; He is revealing 
 Himself, He is acting, speaking, ruling. Next, 
 my desire is to ground all human morality upon 
 the relation in which man stands to God ; to exhibit 
 whatever is right and true in man, as only the 
 image and reflex of the original Righteousness and 
 Truth. I cannot base this morality upon the dread 
 of some future punishments, upon the expectation 
 of some future rewards. I believe the attempts to 
 make men moral by such means have failed always; 
 are never more egregiously and monstrously failing 
 than now. I believe that they fail because they 
 are in conformity with our notions, and not with 
 God's purpose, as set forth in Holy Scripture. 
 There I find God using punishments, to make men 
 sensible of the great misery of being at war with 
 His will; showing them the blessed results to their 
 spirits, to their bodies, to nations, to families, to 
 individuals, to the father and the child, the master 
 and the workman, to the persons who subdue the 
 earth, and to the earth which they subdue, from 
 conformity to His will. There I find the kingdom 
 
xlvi DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 of Heaven set forth as the kingdom of righteous- 
 ness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which 
 Christ, the only-begotten of the Father, came to 
 reveal ; the kingdom over our spirits, the kingdom 
 into which the poor in spirit, who renounce them- 
 selves and trust in God, enter. There I find Hell 
 set before me, as the loss of this state, as separation 
 from God, as the darkness into which those fall 
 who love darkness rather than the light which has 
 come into the world, and is shining into their 
 hearts. There I am taught, that God by all His 
 discipline and government here, is leading men to 
 fly from the darkness and turn to the light ; and 
 that they are resisting His will when they prefer 
 Hell to Heaven. There I learn to look upon the 
 future state, as even a divine of the eighteenth 
 century represented it to be, not as the commence- 
 ment of a new state of things, — but as the carrying 
 out and consummation of all God's plans and 
 government, — as the state in which the victory of 
 good over evil is no longer a question of doubt or 
 uncertainty. 
 
 Now this theology and this morality are all, I 
 think, involved in, and tested by, the doctrine of 
 Sacrifice. That doctrine I hold, as our forefathers 
 held it, to be the doctrine of the Bible, the doctrine 
 of the Gospel. The Bible is, from first to last, 
 setting forth to us the meaning of Sacrifice. If we 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. xlvii 
 
 cannot preach that that meaning has been accora- 
 pHshed, that the perfect Sacrifice has been made 
 for the sins of the whole world, that God has made 
 peace with us by the death of His Son, I do not 
 see that we have any gospel from God to 
 men. As little do I see what ground there is for 
 human morality; since that morality consists, as 
 I believe, in the giving up of ourselves. All im- 
 morality consists in self-seeking, self-pleasing, self- 
 glorifying. But I find from the history of the 
 world expounded by the Bible, that there has been 
 always a tendency in the corrupt heart of man to 
 make Sacrifice itself the minister of man's self-will, 
 self-indulgence, self-glorification. Instead of giving 
 himself up to God, man seeks to make his God, or 
 Ms gods, give up to him ; he offers sacrifices, that 
 b may persuade the power which he thinks he has 
 wi-onged, to exempt him from the punishment of 
 hii wrong. This is man's theology ; this is what 
 has produced all the hateful superstitions under 
 which the world groans. If I say that the seeds 
 of this theology, of these superstitions, are not in 
 youT hearts and in mine, I contradict the Bible, I 
 contl-adict the witness of my conscience. If I sup- 
 pos^ that there is any heathen tendency to which 
 a Christian man is not liable, I deny the fact of the 
 corruption in the heart of every man of the progeny 
 of Adam, or I suppose that, by some marvellous 
 
xlviii DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 accident, we are exempted from the operation of it. 
 I must, therefore, ask the Bible, the book of God, 
 to explain to me in what form that evil is likely to 
 appear in my age and in me; I must ask God 
 Himself to tell me how I may be delivered from it, 
 — how I may receive the true sacrifice which taketh 
 away the sins of the world, — and so be prevented 
 from accepting notions of sacrifice which increase 
 and deepen the sin of the world, which suggest 
 thoughts of God that destroy His righteousness, 
 and make Him after the image of my unright- 
 eousness, which lead men to practices that are 
 hateful to him, and destructive of themselves. 
 
 In these Sermons, I have compared these two 
 sacrifices; the sacrifice which manifests the mind 
 of God, — which proceeds from God, which accom- 
 plishes the purposes of God in the redemption and 
 reconciliation of His creatures, which enables these 
 creatures to become like their Father in Heaven by 
 ofiering up themselves ; — and the sacrifices which 
 men have dreamed of in one country or anotier, 
 as means of changing the purposes of God, of con- 
 verting Him to their mind, of procuring deliver- 
 ance from the punishment of evil, while the evil 
 still exists. If you like to read what I aave 
 written, you will see whether, as you have 3een 
 told upon authority which you are not like.y to 
 dispute, I do reject the faith of our forefathers in 
 
DEDICATORY LETTER. xlix 
 
 the might and efficacy of Christ's Cross ; whether 
 I disbelieve in His advocacy, and intercession, and 
 eternal priesthood; whether I measure the glory 
 and the end of His Sacrifice by some paltry notions 
 of my own ; whether I ask the Bible to confirm 
 those notions, or to deliver me from them; whether 
 I am introducing a ' cowardly philosophy ' which 
 shrinks from the thought of God as a punisher 
 and as a judge ; whether I am guilty of ' dis- 
 honesty' in using words in some sense of my own, 
 not in the sense in which God's word and His 
 Church have used them ; whether I am one of those 
 accursed men who rob the world of the Gospel 
 which God has sent them to proclaim in it, and 
 substitute another of their own. 
 
 1 have tried to speak of Sacrifice under every 
 aspect in which the Bible presents it. If I have 
 not connected it with the adjective Vicarious, which 
 is so favourite a one in modern theology, the reason 
 is that I did not find that word in the Bible. Nor 
 does it occur once in our Thirty-nine Articles. 
 Nevertheless, I do not object to the word. It 
 may have, I conceive, an excellent meaning. If, 
 when we call Christ a Vicar, we understand what 
 the Scripture understands when it calls Him a 
 Redeemer, a Reconciler, an Advocate, a Priest, 
 a Mediator, a Son; if when we call His Sacrifice 
 a vicarious one, we understand what the Scripture 
 
1 DEDICATORY LETTER. 
 
 understands when it says that He was set forth as 
 a propitiation, that He bore the sins of the world, 
 that He was made a curse, that He was made sin ; 
 then I hold that He is a Vicar, and that His sacri- 
 fice is vicarious in the fullest sense; for I only 
 complain of those who would evade or dilute the 
 force of these expressions. But if a meaning is 
 attached to Vicar or vicarious, which is not in 
 harmony with this language, most assuredly I reject 
 that meaning, and have taken some pains to show 
 how mischievous it has been. 
 
 I preached these Sermons with an oppressive 
 feehng that a crisis may be at hand which will try 
 us all of what sort we are : which will show whether 
 we believe in God or are Atheists; whether we 
 worship Him or the devil. But I preached them 
 also with a strong and ever growing conviction, 
 that if some of the notions of sacrifice which prevail 
 among us are doing more than anything else to 
 separate us from God and from each other, the true 
 Sacrifice, which was made once for all, will be found 
 to be a bond of peace between God and man, and 
 between all the diff'erent tribes, races, and sects of 
 men. In that bond may you and I be united for 
 ever. 
 
 Your Friend and Well-wisher, 
 
 r. D. Maurice. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SERMON L— The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel. ... 1 
 
 11. — Noah's Sacrifice 18 
 
 III. — The Sacrifice of Abraham ...... 33 
 
 IV.— Sacrifice of the Passover 49 
 
 V. — The Legal Sacrifices 67 
 
 VI. — David's Sacrifice 86 
 
 VII. — The Lamb before the Foundation op the 
 
 World 100 
 
 VIII.— Christ's Sacrifice a Redemption .... 115 
 
 IX.— Christ's Sacrifice a Deliverance prom the 
 
 Curse of the Law 131 
 
 X. — The Sacrifice of Christ a Propitiation . 146 
 
lii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SERM. XL— The Sacrifice of Christ the Purification 
 
 OF THE Conscience 164 
 
 XII.— Christ made Sin for us 182 
 
 XIII. — Christ's Sacrifice the Peace-Offering for 
 
 Mankind 199 
 
 XIV. — Christ's Sacrifice a Power to form us 
 
 after His Likeness 217 
 
 XV. — Christ's Death a Victory over the Devil 232 
 
 XVI. — Christ the Advocate 248 
 
 XVII. — Christ the High-priest 267 
 
 XVIII. — The Adoration of the Lamb 283 
 
 XIX. — The Word of God conquering by Sacrifice 301 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 THE SACEIFICES OF CAIN AND ABEL. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, Quinquagesima Sunday, Feb. 26, 1854.) 
 
 Genesis iv. 3 — 7. 
 
 ' And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain trought of the fruit 
 of the ground an ojfering unto the Lord. And Alel, he also brought 
 of the firstlings of his floch, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord 
 had respect unto Abel and to his offering : but unto Cain and to his 
 offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his 
 countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou 
 wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? Jf thou doest well, shall 
 thou not he accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the 
 door* 
 
 I BELIEVE the teacliing of the Bible on the subject of 
 Sacrifice is very methodical. By mixing together texts 
 concerning it, which are taken at random from any 
 book between Genesis and the Apocalypse, we confuse 
 our minds, and often end with holding the notions 
 which we should have held if no such words had been 
 written. Perhaps, if we have sufficient reverence for 
 the book to follow in the steps which it marks out for 
 us, we may learn something from it. We shall not 
 
 B 
 
2 THE SACEIFICES OF [SEEM. 
 
 learUj even tlien, if we forget that all true words — the 
 truest most of all — only speak to us when they speak 
 in us, when they awaken us to thought, self-questioning, 
 wonder, hope. It is not, therefore, an idle form which 
 preachers use — if it is, it must be a blasphemous form 
 — when they ask that the Spirit of God may quicken 
 and raise the hearts which the word of God is sent to 
 illuminate. To imagine that any book or any living 
 voice can give> if there is not a receiver, or that it can 
 give, except according to the measure of the receiver, 
 is to contradict all experience and all reason. 
 
 The passage I have read to you is the first in the 
 Eible which refers to a sacrifice. It has stirred up a 
 number of doubts in the minds of men. I will refer 
 to a few of them, and I will say how far I think this 
 story will resolve them, how far it obliges us to seek for 
 further light, which it does not impart, and which it 
 ought not to impart. 
 
 (1.) The first question is this : What did Cain and 
 Abel know about sacrifice ? "Were they told by a spe- 
 cial revelation that they were to ofi'er something, and 
 what they were to offer ? or had that revelation been 
 made to Adam, and did they receive the knowledge by 
 transmission ? You say, ' It may be very well to form 
 ' guesses upon this point, but who can give us any 
 ' satisfaction? The Scriptures are silent; what can we 
 * do but set up one speculation against another?' The 
 objection is a plausible one, to a great extent a sub- 
 
I.] CAIN AND ABEL. 3 
 
 stantial one, confirmed by the experience of those who 
 have travelled this road. But yet men will ask them- 
 selves again and again_, ' How did this knowledge re- 
 ' specting the way of approaching God reach men in 
 ' early days ? ' They will feel that this demand has very 
 much to do with another : ' How do we become pos- 
 ' sessed of it now ? Can we have that knowledge ? Is 
 ' it i^ot all a dream? ' The most practical issues appear 
 to be involved in some way with this inquiry; however 
 we may wish to avoid it, we find it continually coming 
 round to us and confronting us. 
 
 "VYe are bound, I conceive, never to assume the exist- 
 ence of a decree which is not expressly announced to 
 us. A decree is an open, explicit, formal thing ; if it is 
 to be obeyed, it must be set forth in intelligible terms. 
 The book of Genesis has already recognised that prin- 
 ciple. The command not to eat of the fruit of the tree 
 in the midst of the garden, is strict and definite. It is 
 proclaimed as the precept which the parents of the race 
 were to recollect and follow ; the one which they could 
 not disobey without bringing death upon themselves. 
 If another precept of wider range and greater perma- 
 nence, as definite and positive, was made either then or 
 speedily afterwards^ would the historian have left those 
 whom he wrote to instruct, to guess or divine it ? 
 
 But is it at variance with his principle, or with the 
 style of his narrative, to assume that a revelation of 
 God had preceded any acts of theirs, and was the 
 
4 THE SACRIFICES OE [SERM. 
 
 cause of them? I am most anxious to lead you to 
 notice this distinction ; it is so important for the under- 
 standing of this subject, and of the whole doctrine 
 of Scripture. I think you will find that throughout 
 the Scriptures, an announcement about this or that act 
 which it behoves a man to do or to leave undone, is 
 called a statute or an ordinance. It is said to proceed 
 from the Lord ; He makes it, He enforces it. But a 
 revelation is a discovery of Himself to a creature whom 
 He has formed to know Him. Such revelations, when 
 they mark out great epochs in the history, as that to 
 Moses in the bush did, may be recorded with especial 
 solemnity; but they are implied in every part of the 
 narrative. It is constructed upon the assumption that 
 they occur continually. The postulate of the Bible is, 
 that man could not be what he is, if God did not hold 
 converse with him; that this is his distinction from 
 other creatures ; that this is the root of all that he 
 knows, the ground of what is right and reasonable in 
 him. You cannot read the Bible narratives simply 
 without perceiving that this is the maxim from which 
 they start; people who will not acknowledge it as a true 
 maxim, talk of the language they find in the sacred 
 writings as characteristic of a Semitic people, or of the 
 infancy of civilization; but they cannot help perceiving 
 that it is there, and that the essence, as well as the 
 outward form, of the history depends upon it. 
 
 Although, then, we should certainly have expected 
 
I.] CAIN AND ABEL. 5 
 
 Moses to inform us plainly if there had been a direct 
 ordinance to Adam^ or his sons, concerning the offering 
 of fruits or animals, we have no right to expect that he 
 should say more than he has said, to make us under- 
 stand that they received this much more deep and awful 
 kind of communication. If he has laid it down that 
 man is made in the image of God — if he has illustrated 
 that principle after the fall, by showing how God met 
 Adam in the garden in the cool of the day, and 
 awakened him to a sense of his disobedience — we do 
 not want any further assurance that the children whom 
 he begat would be born and would grow up under the 
 same law. We should want a very distinct assurance, 
 and we should have reason to be very much startled 
 and perplexed if we received it, that this was not the 
 case. Certainly, we have no such intimation. The 
 history of Cain, as I shall show you presently, affirms 
 in the most simple and distinct manner, that he as well 
 as his brother was under the divine teaching, that he 
 knew he was, and that he did not lose that knowledge 
 till he had brought himself into an utterly inhuman 
 condition. 
 
 Do not, I beseech you, try to realize this conviction, 
 by imagining these two men to be different from others 
 of their kind. Conceive of them just as the Scripture 
 represents them — one as a tiller of the ground, the 
 other as a keeper of sheep. They are working just as 
 men have worked in all countries and in all generations 
 
'6 THE SACRITICES OE [SERM. 
 
 since. They look now and then to the sky over their 
 heads ; generally they are busy with the stubborn earth, 
 which they are weeding of its thorns and thistles, or 
 with the animals they • are watching and folding, 
 and following when they wander. To such men 
 there come thoughts of One who is ruling them as 
 they rule the sheep, who in some strange way makes 
 the seeds grow which they put in the ground. These 
 thoughts are altogether wonderful ; they cannot weigh 
 them nor measure them ; at times they are crushed by 
 them ; at times they are lifted up by them. No doubt 
 their parents have told them that they have a Lord, and 
 that He sees them, and that He is ordering their ways. 
 Surely it is He who is making them feel His presence, 
 urging them to confess Him. How shall they confess 
 Him?. What is the simplest of all possible methods, 
 in which they can manifest their subjection ? Ask 
 yourselves : Is it speech ? Is it some vehement phrase 
 of thanksgiving, some passionate petition ? These may 
 come in time, but they cannot come first ; they are not 
 the most childlike way of testifying homage, not the 
 one which ordinary human experience would lead us to 
 look for, when One has revealed Himself to us whom we 
 perceive but dimly, yet with whom we feel we have to 
 do. Acts go before words. The shepherd takes the 
 sheep ; he desires to present it to this Ruler, who must 
 be near him, whom he must find some way of acknow- 
 ledging. The tiller of the ground takes the fruits of 
 
I.] CAIN AND ABEL. 7 
 
 the earth ; he would present these. You ask why one 
 mode of presenting them occurs to him rather than 
 another ? I cannot tell, any more than I can tell you 
 why one mode of tillage, or one mode of folding the 
 sheep, occurs to him rather than another. There is no 
 doubt one mode which is better than another ; it may be 
 shown him in due time, if he has not found it. What- 
 ever he discovers on that subject, or any other, he re- 
 ceives. It is wisdom which is imparted to him, light 
 which comes to him from the Source of light. I do not 
 see what one can say different, or more, in the other 
 case. There, too, the suggestion of the mode in which 
 the service is to be performed is welcomed as divine ; 
 yet it is felt to be natural and reasonable. "When once 
 it has been practised, it seems as if there could scarcely 
 be another mode. The historian, however, does not tell 
 us in what way Abel or Cain offered their gifts; he 
 merely says that they did offer them. Everything is 
 done to make us feel that we are not reading of a time 
 when laws have been established which prescribe the 
 nature and method of sacrifice, — that we are in a much 
 more elementary stage of culture ; but that the Teacher 
 in each stage is the same, and that we shall recognise 
 Him in more advanced periods, if we understand His 
 lessons in this. 
 
 (2.) It has been asked again, 'Was not Abel right in 
 ' presenting the animal, and Cain wrong in presenting 
 'the fruits of the earth? Must not the first have been 
 
8 THE SACRIFICES OE [SEEM. 
 
 ' obeying a precept, and tlie second transgressing one?^ I 
 must apply the same rule as before. We are not told this; 
 we may not put a notion of ours into the text. Moses 
 does not inform us that Cain's was an illegitimate kind 
 of offering. It would have been strange if he had ; for 
 the fruits of the earth were offerings which the law 
 that was given to the children of Israel required, as 
 well as those of sheep and oxen. The latter may have 
 had a deeper significance; I shall hope to consider that 
 significance on some future occasion. But the former 
 had certainly their own honour, and the notice of them 
 here is not a disparaging one. It would appear from 
 the narrative, as if each brother brought the gift 
 which most suited his occupation. The pastoral occu- 
 pation may suggest more living and human thoughts 
 than that of the mere husbandman. The care of animals, 
 with their caprices and their affections, may call forth 
 a patience and a sympathy which are rarely found in 
 him who is only busy with the inanimate clods. But 
 our Lord revealed divine analogies in the sower and 
 the seed, as well as in the shepherd and the sheep. It 
 is not safe to disparage any work, or not to own it as 
 pregnant with wisdom and mystery. God is surely 
 present in all. It cannot be that he who in depend- 
 ence and submission offers Him of the fruits of the 
 ground, which it is his calling to rear, is therefore 
 rejected, or wiU not be taught a deeper lore by other 
 means, if at present he lacks it. 
 
I.] CAIN AND ABEL. 9 
 
 (3.) In saying this^ I have anticipated a third, and still 
 more serious question, wliich is raised by the words, 
 And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: 
 hut unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. 
 In their haste to determine why this dijfference was 
 made between two brothers, many have resorted to the 
 notion of some disobedience or ignorance on the part 
 of Cain, in the choice of his gift. I have tried to 
 show you that this opinion is not sanctioned by the 
 passage in which we should have looked for some con- 
 firmation of it. The words of this clause are still more 
 repugnant to it. When it is said, unto Abel and to his 
 offering, unto Cain and to his offering, we are led to think 
 that, at all events, the distinction is to be first sought 
 in il[iQ persons ; that the things which they bring are 
 quite secondary. 
 
 It is needful to clear our minds of this confusion, 
 though I am well aware that, when it is removed, the 
 difficulty acquires a more terrible character than it had 
 before. 'These brothers, then,' we say to ourselves^ 
 ' without having done good or evil, each testifying his 
 ' gratitude in his own way, in the way which was most 
 ' natural to him, are said to be respectively accepted and 
 ' rejected, merely because it pleased God to accept one 
 ' and reject one. Are we not then met at the very thres- 
 ' hold of the Bible — in the very infancy of our race — with 
 ' that tremendous assertion of arbitrary power, of simple 
 ' sovereignty, at the root of all things, which has driven, 
 
10 THE SACRITICES OE [SERM. 
 
 ' and is driving, its thousands to despair, its tens of tliou- 
 ' sands to Atheism? Are not the foundations of moral 
 ' order and distinction sapped at the very opening of 
 ' the records from which we derive our belief in right- 
 ^eousness and evil?^ I do not suppress the statement of 
 this doubt, because I know how many are racked by it, 
 and how many merely escape the torment by assuming 
 that the subject is one which has nothing to do with 
 them, and which it is safer not to think about. Would 
 to God we all felt how much it has to do with us ; how 
 unsafe it is to put such a subject at a distance from us ; 
 how impossible it is for us to see into the nature of it, 
 till it is brought near to us, close to our inmost being ! 
 There was never a more faithful description than that 
 which Milton gives of the way in which evil spirits 
 discuss such arguments : — 
 
 ' Others apart, sat on a hill retired, 
 In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high 
 Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will and Fate; 
 Fixed Fate, Free Will, Foreknowledge absolute, 
 And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.' 
 
 All Svho sit apart upon a hill retired' to amuse 
 themselves with such reasonings, supposing that they 
 have no concern with the crowds who are wandering 
 below — supposing that these are topics for the wise to 
 speculate about, not realities for living and suffering 
 men — enter upon them in the same temper as those of 
 whom our poet writes, and, whether their starting-point 
 is a philosophical or a theological one, arrive at the 
 
I.] CAIN AND ABEL. 11 
 
 same result. Only it is mucli more frightful when they 
 talk their cruel metaphysics in the name of God ; when 
 they put Him in place of the Fate which others more 
 reverently speak of; when they pretend to build up 
 a faith on the assumption that He is a being whom 
 men generally cannot and should not trust. 
 
 Brethren, the Bible does not lead us in this way ! 
 It shows us how we may find another and more ex- 
 cellent way. Cain and Abel, in this early portion of it, 
 are brought before us as both presenting their offerings 
 to God. But the effect is different. They feel it to be 
 different. We are not told how they came to feel it ; 
 whether any outward sign or token satisfied the one, 
 and left the other discontented. The historian has 
 not time to speak of such trifles. He only makes us 
 understand that they did know it, and that Cain was 
 very wroth, and his countenance fell. Thereby he at once 
 connects the story with human experience, — with the 
 experience of each human being. It is a fact which 
 we cannot dispute, which all the world's history con- 
 firms, that some have been the better for their prayers, 
 and some very much the worse ; that some have brought 
 sacrifices and have gone away with their countenances 
 shining as they had been angels, full of affection to 
 their fellow-men, ready to do them all good, — that 
 others have gone away with their countenances moody, 
 discontented, wrathful, ready to wreak their vengeance 
 on the first creature they met. There are these 
 
12 THE SACRIFICES OF [SERM. 
 
 extreme differences, — there may be many degrees 
 between each extreme — denoting that a blessing or a 
 curse has followed the offering. It is so in what we 
 call, formally, religious services; it is so with every 
 ordinary work and service among our fellow-creatures. 
 The Bible would not be a true book, if it did not 
 exhibit this difference to us. "We should look to see it 
 exhibited early in such a record ; for it must be one 
 of those primary characteristics of human beings which 
 will go through all periods, but which, by some means, 
 make themselves manifest from the first. Having 
 set it before us, we are left to find out much of the 
 explanation from its own after-revelations. It does not 
 anticipate the discovery which it is to make to us by 
 degrees, of the nature of Him who was governing both 
 the shepherd and the tiller of the ground. It does not 
 anticipate the discovery it will make to us, of the 
 mystery of evil, and of the sense of righteousness and 
 good, which lay in the hearts of both — because they were 
 not shepherds and tillers of the ground only, but men. 
 It does, however, hasten at once to remove that which 
 would make all these after-revelations incredible and 
 self-contradictory. It does say, that God spake to 
 Cain, and said, ^ Why art tliou loroth? and ivhy is thy 
 countenance fallen ? If thou doest well, shall thou not 
 be accepted ? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the 
 door.* It does denounce at the very outset, the notion 
 of a self-willed arbitrary being, who is making decrees 
 
L] CAIN AND AEEL. 13 
 
 for meiij what they shall be^ or what they shall not be ; 
 who of his pleasure is choosing one and rejecting 
 another. It does set before us a righteous Being, who 
 holds discourse with His creature, who treats him as 
 a being made for right, and capable of following right; 
 as only following wrong when he yields to the sin which 
 lieth at the door, and not to that righteous Guide who 
 is close to the same door, urging him to take the true 
 and upward path. It does make us perceive that Cain 
 defied that righteous Being and chose the evil guide, 
 when he denied that he was his brother^s keeper, and 
 became his murderer. It does show us that the issue 
 of this crime, not of some fatal necessity, was, that he 
 went out of the presence of God; that he became shut 
 up in his atheism. 
 
 And thus, my brethren, the Bible brings this history 
 to a test which we may all use, if we will ; by which we 
 may prove whether it is true or not ; by which we may 
 rid ourselves of hard and artificial interpretations of it. 
 We know — we positively know — what the Cain ofiering 
 is, because we have presented the like ourselves. We 
 have prayed; and then have complained, just as the Jews 
 did, that it has all been in vain, that no good has come 
 of it. We have made sacrifices, and we have wondered 
 that we got no reward for them. Perhaps we have 
 been angry that, being so good, we have not been more 
 favoured by fortune and circumstances. Perhaps we 
 have been angry that, trying so hard to make ourselves 
 
14 THE SACKIFICES OF [SERM. 
 
 good, we have succeeded so little. Perhaps we have 
 had a general notion that God could not be per- 
 suaded to be gracious to us and to forgive us, in spite 
 of all the sacrifices we have offered, and that we must 
 try others which are more costly. In all cases, the coun- 
 tenance has fallen; in all cases, we have gone forth with 
 thoughts that were anything but gracious and brotherly 
 to our fellow-men. We have thought of them as more 
 in the favour of Heaven, on one ground or another, than 
 we were ; we have felt envious and spiteful to them, if 
 we have done them no actual mischief. Assuredly, this 
 is the Cain spirit in us all; assuredly, we have often 
 been led by it ; and, if so, have we not had a proof, 
 the clearest which could be given, that it was not an 
 arbitrary Being we were opposing, but a righteous and 
 gracious Being? Was not our sin that we supposed 
 Him to be an arbitrary Being, whom we, by our sacri- 
 fices and prayers, were to conciliate ? Was not this the 
 false notion which lay at the root of all our discontent, 
 of all the evil thoughts and acts which sprung out of 
 it ? We did not begin with trust, but with distrust ; 
 we did not worship God because we believed in Him, 
 but because we dreaded Him — because we desired His 
 presence, but because we wished to persuade Him not 
 to come near us. 
 
 And does not this experience, brethren, enable us to 
 understand the nature of that true and better sacrifice 
 which Abel ofi'ered ? Must not all its worth have arisen 
 
I.] CAIN AND ABEL. 15 
 
 from thisj that he was weak,, and that he cast himself 
 upon One whom he knew to be strong ; that he was 
 ignorant, and that he trusted in One, who he was sure 
 must be wise ; that he had the sense of death, and that 
 he turned to One whence life must have come ; that he 
 had the sense of wrong, and that he fled to One who 
 must be right ? Was not his sacrifice the mute expres- 
 sion of this helplessness, dependence, confidence ? And 
 was not the acceptance of it, the pledge that the Creator 
 is goodness and truth, and that all creatures have good- 
 ness and truth, so far as they disclaim them in them- 
 selves and seek them in Him ? 
 
 If this be the case, we have had a glimpse into the 
 nature of sacrifice, and into its connexion with the 
 nature of every human creature, which we may hope 
 will expand into clearer and brighter vision. 
 
 We have seen that sacrifice has its ground in some- 
 thing deeper than legal enactments. We may have to 
 consider how such enactments aff*ect it ; how they may 
 strengthen or weaken the principle which is implied in 
 it. We have seen that sacrifice infers more than the 
 giving up of a thing. We shall have to ask how the 
 person who presents it may be enabled to give up him- 
 self, and into what errors he may fall in his effort to do 
 that. We have seen that sacrifice has something to do 
 with sin, something to do with thanksgiving. We must 
 ask the Bible to tell us what it has to do with each, and 
 how, in its application to each of these purposes, it may 
 
16 THE SACRIEICES OP [SERM. 
 
 be perverted. "We have contemplated it in the case of 
 two individuals. We ought to inquire whether the 
 principle of it belongs to society, and how the social 
 and the individual sacrifice are connected, how they 
 may be separated to the peril of the community and 
 its members. We have seen that sacrifice is offered by 
 man, and yet that the sacrifice becomes evil and immoral, 
 when the man attaches any value to his own act, and 
 does not attribute the whole worth of it to God. It will 
 be our duty to ask, how it is possible that man should 
 present the sacrifice, of which God is at once the Author 
 and the Accepter. These are questions which the his- 
 tory we have considered to-day suggests, but does not 
 answer. We shall have reason enough to be thankful 
 for it, if it has discovered to us a principle which can 
 never forsake us, or be contradicted, at any step of our 
 future progress; which will receive illustration as much 
 from our own lives as from the word of God ; which we 
 deny whenever we try to interpret the one without the 
 aid of the other. 
 
 My brethren, we are told, in the Gospel for to-day, 
 that ' as Jesus was going up with His twelve Apostles to 
 Jerusalem J He said to therrij The Son of Man shall be 
 delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spite-' 
 fully entreated^ and spitted on: and they shall scourge 
 Him, and put Him to death; and the third day He shall 
 rise again,^ The twelve Apostles, says the Evangelist, 
 'understood none of these things, and this saying was 
 
I.] CAIN AND ABEL. 17 
 
 hid from them, neither understood they the things which 
 ivere spoken.'' Those who were to be teachers of the 
 world had not yet learnt the mystery of sacrifice. They 
 heard of it from the lips of Him whom they called 
 Lord and Master. His words at present fell dead upon 
 their ears. But the story goes on — ^And it came to 
 pass, that as He was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain 
 blind man sat by the ivayside begging : and hearing the 
 multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told 
 him, that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. And he cried, 
 saying, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. 
 And they which went before rebuked him, that he should 
 hold his peace. But he cried so much the more. Thou 
 Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood and 
 commanded him to be brought unto Him; and when he 
 was come near. He ashed him, saying. What ivilt thou that 
 I should do unto thee ? And he said. Lord, that I may 
 receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him. Receive 
 thy sight; thy faith hath saved thee.' 
 
 That blind man entered into the meaning of sacri- 
 fice, into which the Apostles had not yet entered. 
 He felt his blindness. He trusted in a Deliverer. He 
 could believe that that Deliverer had given Himself up 
 to bear his infirmities and carry his sicknesses. He 
 could expect that there were wonders of His mercy, 
 which a still more complete sacrifice would be needed 
 to reveal. 
 
(18 ) [SERM. 
 
 SERMON 11. 
 
 NOAH'S SACRIFICE. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 1st Sunday in Lent, March 5th, 1854.) 
 
 Genesis viii. 20 — 22. 
 
 * And Noah huilded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean heast, 
 and of every clean fowl, and offered hurnt-offerings on the altar^ 
 And the Lord smelled a sweet savour j and the Lord said in his heart, 
 I will not again curse the ground any more for man's saTce; for the 
 imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth ; neither will I 
 again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the 
 earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and sum- 
 mer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.' 
 
 After tlie story of Cain and Abel, there is no farther 
 allusion to sacrifice in the records of the world before 
 the flood. But the meaning of these two sacrifices goes 
 through the history. The confession of dependence 
 and trust on a righteous Being, from whom life came, 
 which made AbeFs offering an acceptable one; the 
 proud feeling of Cain, that he had something to give, 
 which led to discontent when he received nothing in 
 return for his gift— which led to murder when he had 
 some one upon whom he could put forth his power, — 
 these are the characteristics of the period, because that 
 
n.] NOAH^S SACRIFICE. 19 
 
 period exhibits the cliaracteristics of human beings in 
 the simplest and earliest stage of their development. 
 The faith of the patriarchs who called on the name of 
 the Lord, — who walked with God,— who begat sons 
 and daughters, and died, — who looked for some one to 
 comfort them concerning the ivork and toil of their hands 
 because of the ground which the Lord had cursed, was 
 merely an expansion of that faith which had been the 
 blessing of Abel and the cause of his death. The 
 violence and corruption with which the earth is said to 
 have been filled, were merely the natural outcomings 
 of that unbelief in right, that confidence in might, of 
 which Cain had been the first example. Do not let us 
 say, as some have said, that Abel was a religious man, 
 and Cain an irreligious man ; that is not the Bible 
 language, either concerning them or their successors. 
 The acts of Cain are just as religious as those of his 
 brother; one brought a sacrifice just as well as the 
 other. We have no reason to suppose, that there may 
 not have been abundance of religion among those upon 
 whom the flood came. The old words are the true 
 words. Abel was a righteous man ; his sacrifice was 
 ofiered to a righteous Being : it expressed faith in such 
 a Being. Cain was unrighteous ; he believed in 
 power, and nothing else. His sacrifice was presented 
 to a power, and was designed to win its favour. It was 
 not presented to God ; it was no worship of Him ; it 
 could not be acknowledged by Him. It was the same 
 
20 NOAH S SACRIFICE. [SERM. 
 
 afterwards. Noah, we are told, was a just man and 
 perfect in his generations, and he walked with God, 
 This language is iu strict harmony with all that we 
 read afterwards in the Old Testament Scriptures; it 
 is carried out and interpreted in the New. Noah 
 reverenced right and justice; he ordered his family 
 well ; he lived in the presence of an unseen Being who 
 is right and true, and who had appointed him to be the 
 head of a family. These are the best modern equi- 
 valents we can find for the older and nobler phraseo- 
 logy. They make the rest of his life intelligible to us. 
 Such a man, seeing violence, tyranny, ill-doing, bru- 
 tality all around him, knew assuredly that this was 
 not meant to be; that God had not made the world 
 for this. He was sure it could not last; no matter 
 how many were taking part in the evil, and were 
 sanctioning it in their neighbours ; no matter whether 
 the race of Seth was defiled with it as well as the race 
 of Cain ; no matter whether the whole scheme of men's 
 lives, aye, and the scheme of their religion, was framed 
 on the notion that wrong was tolerable or inevitable, 
 and that the powers above might be bribed to overlook 
 it. Such a state of things had a curse upon it ; God's 
 own curse. He knew it ; for he walked with God. A 
 Teacher, whom he could not see with his eyes, but who 
 was with him, opened his heart to know that every 
 injustice and every lie is contrary to His nature, — con- 
 trary to the order He has established; that He is 
 
11.] noah's sacritice. 21 
 
 actually fighting against injustice and lies in His 
 universe, and in every being upon it; that He will 
 prevail. This Noah learnt, not by any sagacity of his, 
 not because he was in different circumstances from the 
 men about him, or had a finer temperament than 
 theirs ; but because he confessed the Voice of. God who 
 was speaking to him, warning him, judging him ; be- 
 cause he feared to disobey that Voice. It was the God 
 of his fathers, who made him understand this, — the God 
 to whom they had listened, and whom they had wor- 
 shipped. He had not ceased to be ; He would not 
 cease to be. With that knowledge of the past and 
 present comes also knowledge of the future. One is as 
 hard for man to read as the other. God interprets 
 each to him by the other. Noah was verily certain 
 that there was an end designed for the wickedness of 
 men. When it would come he might not know ; but it 
 would come ; — the day and the hour were determined 
 though they might not concern him. Such faith, once 
 cherished, is fed day by day ; it grows stronger through 
 the very sight of the evils which are so appalling; 
 it becomes deeper as they become deeper ; it be- 
 comes also more distinct and definite. The man who 
 holds it, acts upon it ; he goes on in a plain, simple 
 course, dwells with his family, begets sons and daugh- 
 ters. By the orderliness and quietness of his life, he 
 becomes a witness against the turbulent, self-willed 
 world, in the midst of which he is dwelling. By 
 
22 NOAH'S SACRinCE. [SEEM. 
 
 degrees lie receives light respecting the nature of the 
 punishment which will overtake that world. He is 
 taught by God how to act as a provident man should 
 act when a danger is impending: how to warn his 
 neighbours of it, that they may escape it too. There is 
 called forth in him, through his faith, the foresight and 
 wisdom, which are every day departing from the heart- 
 less, anxious self-seekers, who are in continual dread 
 of danger, and are continually hunting after safety and 
 comfort. But there is called forth in him also, by this 
 same faith, an earnest interest in his fellow-men. He 
 separates from them, only that he may be a witness to 
 them of the good which they are flying from, and 
 which he claims for himself and his family, because he 
 believes that God designs it for the creatures He has 
 formed. 
 
 If we give any different explanation from this of the 
 act of Noah in preparing the ark, we contradict the 
 words of the New Testament as well as the Old ; we 
 take the sense and moral out of the story ; we make it 
 immoral and selfish. And by doing so, we make the 
 sacrifice which Noah offered when the flood had sub- 
 sided, and he came forth into the restored world, a 
 Cain sacrifice ; we do not find in the narrative of it — 
 what is assuredly there — a beautiful and consistent 
 exposition of the reason why the Lord had respect to 
 AbeFs offering, and not to his brother^s. 
 
 There is an evident difference between this history 
 
II.] NOAH^S SACRiFICE. 23 
 
 and the one of which I spoke last Sunday. There were 
 no particulars given us respecting the form and method 
 of AbePs or Cain^s sacrifice. It was merely said, that 
 one brought of the firstlings of his flock, the other of 
 the fruits of the ground. Now we are told of an altar 
 which Noah huilded, of his choosing out clean beasts and 
 clean fowls, of his offering a burnt-offering on the altar. 
 You may have observed how accurately the form of the 
 ark is described in the previous chapter, and how all the 
 arrangements of it are referred to the divine Teacher. 
 It is assumed that a stage has come in the life of the 
 world, when the working in wood and iron is no longer 
 the fruit of men's eagerness to put forth powers which 
 they are not fit to exercise ; that these powers can now 
 be used and cultivated for the worthiest ends under 
 the highest guidance. Here, under the same inward 
 guidance, the mound of turf gives place to the altar 
 which is built ; an order is discovered in the dignity of 
 the inferior creatures ; the worthiest are selected for an 
 oblation to God; the fire which consumes, the flame 
 which ascends, are used to express the intention of him 
 who presents the victim. If you asked him to tell you 
 what these visible things signified to him, he could 
 have given you no answer. At a later time men might 
 have muttered one which would have a certain sense, 
 but not a very clear sense; now they would simply 
 act on their intuition, and let it justify itself as it 
 could. Noah would be sure that it had not come from 
 
24 noah's sacrifice. [serm. 
 
 himself; tliat God liad awakened it in him; if He 
 had something different to teach other men elsewhere, 
 so let it be. All he had to do, was to follow where a 
 light, which had not deceived him hitherto, was pointing 
 the way. 
 
 And, I think, we must all feel that there was an 
 inward progress in the heart of the man, corresponding 
 to this progress in his method of uttering his submission 
 and his aspirations. There was a certain solitude in 
 the condition of the patriarchs of the old world — not an 
 absolute solitude, for that can never be where there are 
 husbands and wives, fathers and children, where they 
 look upon the graves of those who have gone before 
 them, and upon the faces which are beginning to express 
 wonder and hope — but still the solitude of men who 
 feel that they have little to do with the greatest portion 
 of the earth, inhabited or uninhabited; who think of 
 what lies beyond their own homes only as full of crime. 
 
 But the man who came out of the ark, and builded 
 an altar to the Lord, must have felt that he was repre- 
 senting all human beings; that he was not speaking 
 what was in himself so much as offering the homage 
 of the restored universe. He had prepared an ark 
 for the saving of his house; but that ark had been 
 for the saving of the race which God had made in 
 His own image, of all the races which He had made 
 subject to that. The simple mind of a patriarch could 
 not take in so vast a thought as this ; what need that he 
 
n.] NOAH^S SACRIFICE. 25 
 
 should take it in ? It was true ; if he could not com- 
 prehend it, he yet could speak out the marvel and the 
 awe of his heart to Him who knew all. 
 
 What was Noah's sacrifice but this ? As childlike as 
 that of the man who first gazed on the strange world, 
 and could not interpret it; who first saw death, and 
 wanted to be told what it signified ; who first felt sin, 
 and would fly from it. As childlike as his ; perhaps 
 more childlike, because the oppression of ages and of the 
 sin which had been done in them, of the deaths which 
 had been died in them, was greater than that which the 
 other could experience — and therefore the need of cast- 
 ing it on some one who could bear it was greater ; and 
 because the sense of deliverance and redemption and 
 restoration — the assurance that the righteous God was 
 a deliverer, redeemer, restorer — must have been such 
 as none could have had who had not seen how all the 
 powers of the world were used for the punishment of 
 those who had braved Him instead of believing in Him ; 
 and how, nevertheless, the order stood fast, and came 
 forth fresher and fairer out of the ruin. In what words 
 was it possible to express a sense of man^s greatness — • 
 the king over the mightiest animals — and of man^s little- 
 ness in the presence of the elements which had been 
 let loose upon him ; of the intimate, inseparable union 
 between man and man ; of the bitter strifes which tore 
 them asunder ; of the awful nearness of men to their 
 Maker ; of their estrangement from Him ? How could 
 
26 NOAH^S SACRIFICE. [SERM. 
 
 he and his sons say : ' We confess that Thou hast made 
 ' us rulers ; help us to govern ; we know that the world 
 ' can crush us ; help us not to fear it, but Thee. We 
 ^ are sure that we have rebelled against Thee; we 
 ' bless thee that Thou upholdest us and unitest us to 
 ' Thee ' ? The altar, the clean beasts, the fire, and the 
 man presenting the animals to Him whom he cannot 
 see, in the fire as one of the mightiest ministers of His 
 will, these were the signs which supplied the want of 
 language, or translated the language of earth into that 
 of Heaven. 
 
 If that translation is possible, the converse is possible 
 also. The next clause of our text is an example of the 
 way in which the mysteries of Heaven may be presented 
 in the forms of earth : ^And the Lord smelled a sweet 
 savour ; and the Lord said in Ms heart, I will not again 
 curse the ground any more for man^s sake; for the 
 imagination of marHs heart is evil from his youth; neither 
 will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have 
 done.' ' How gross,^ exclaims the critic of our day, ^ this 
 ' phraseology is ! Smelled a sweet savour I How can we 
 ' tolerate such modes of speaking when they are applied 
 'to the Divine Majesty?^ Have you ever thought 
 what other modes of speech you would use as a substi- 
 tute for these? Have you ever considered whether 
 abstract modes of speech would convey the same truth, 
 half so effectually, half so reverently, as those which 
 are drawn from the wonderful senses with which God 
 
n.] I^OAH^S SACEIPICE. 37 
 
 Jias endowed us ? If these senses seem to you vulgar, 
 not full of meaning and mystery, it is a pity ; there is 
 much in what is nearest you which you have not re- 
 flected on ; you had better dwell for a while on the acts 
 with which you are most familiar, before you travel 
 round earth and to the stars. If expressions that have 
 no sensible correspondents please you better, at least 
 try to give yourselves some account of them ; if they are 
 more intellectual, be sure that you understand them ; 
 if you can ascend on these wings more rapidly into the 
 empyrean, be sure that you do ascend, and that you 
 bring some authentic and credible reports of what you 
 find there. Take care that you do not come back with 
 the blank and melancholy tidings — the most dismal 
 which human beings can hear — that there is an abstrac- 
 tion there, and not a Father ; a negation of all that we 
 possess and admire below, not one in whom is the full- 
 ness of light and glory, of which all things here serve 
 as faint hints and likenesses. Perhaps, after some 
 experience of what a phantom you have created for 
 yourselves, by merely emptying Him whom you profess 
 to adore of all that connects Him with human beings, 
 you may begin better to appreciate the book which 
 teaches us to see everywhere in the world of sense the 
 tokens of that connexion ; which shows us everywhere 
 some steps of the ladder which is set upon the ground 
 we tread, and which reaches to the throne of God. The 
 smelling the sweet savour of a sacrifice imports, I think, 
 
28 noah's sacrifice. [seem. 
 
 more vividly^ more truly^ than almost any image could, 
 the complacency and satisfaction of the God who had 
 desired men to obey Him, to confide in Him, to seek 
 Him, with acts which testified their submission, their 
 trust, their craving for more perfect communion. And 
 the words which follow as clearly intimate the progres- 
 sive, and yet the permanent, character of the divine 
 education and government. The flood was necessary 
 in one period of man's discipline and growth ; it would 
 not need to be repeated in another. It had not taken, 
 and could not take away sin ; that was not its object — 
 the imaginations of man's heart remained evil continually , 
 as they were before. But it had declared the unchange- 
 ableness of God's righteous order ; that that would bend 
 to no transgression; that that would overcome all who 
 set up mere power and disorder against it. And now 
 the same order would assert itself by the regular suc- 
 cession of seed-time and harvest, of day and night, of 
 summer and winter. Apparent breaches in the regular 
 course of events, surprising visitations, prove at times 
 what the evenness and persistency of nature proves 
 habitually — that the just God, of whom man is the image, 
 against whose laws he is so continually striving, is the 
 Author and Ruler of all things. 
 
 The foundation of sacrifice, as we find it set forth in 
 these early records of the Bible, is laid in this fixed will 
 of God; in His fixed purpose to assert righteousness; 
 in the wisdom which adapts its means to the condition 
 
n.] noah's sacrifice. 29 
 
 of the creature for whose sake they are used; in the 
 graciousness which seeks by all these means to bring 
 man out of a wrong state, to establish him in his true 
 state. The sacrifice assumes eternal right to be in 
 the Ruler of the universe, all the caprice to have come 
 from man, from his struggle to be an independent 
 being, from his habit of distrust. When the sense of 
 dependence is restored to man by the discovery of his 
 own impotence — when trust is restored by the dis- 
 covery that the Lord of all seeks his good — he comes 
 to make surrender, he brings the sacrifice which is the 
 expression of his surrender. If he is maintaining a 
 struggle with his own tendency to self-will and dis- 
 obedience, if he is striving to submit, then the sacrifice 
 is the regular expression of the purpose of his life; 
 he is learning every day that the imagination of the 
 thoughts of his heart is evil continually ; therefore, 
 he has more necessity every day of escaping from 
 himself — of escaping to God. And in doing so, he 
 is confessing the government of God over the world, 
 of which he is but one inhabitant; the ordinance of 
 seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, day and 
 nigJitj in which every man around him is as much 
 concerned as he is. He is confessing the government 
 of God over himself, because he is a man formed in 
 His image ; capable of being right only so far as He 
 reflects that image ; capable of doing right only so far 
 as he is the instrument of fulfilling: God's will. And 
 
30 NOAH'S SACRIPICE. [SERM. 
 
 that also is equally true of all about him. He desires 
 to be delivered from the darkness which hinders him 
 from entering into God's light that is shining so 
 clearly and gloriously, if there were eyes to behold it, 
 upon his whole race. I wish you to see how ever- 
 lasting and universal that principle is, which we have 
 discovered in the act of Noah, when he came forth 
 from the ark and saw that the world which had been 
 covered with waters was the same goodly world still; 
 when he felt that he and his wife and his sons and 
 his daughters had been more the objects of the care 
 and watchfulness of God than any of the things which 
 He had created, though all these had been dear to 
 Him ; when he received the sure witness that the same 
 God would be with his sons and his sons' sons to what- 
 ever part of the earth they might travel — that He would 
 never forget the works of His own hands. 
 
 And have we not an equal right to say that the 
 principle, which is expressed in the words that declare 
 the complacency of God in the burnt-oifering which 
 Noah offered upon the altar, is everlasting and uni- 
 versal ? Have we the least ground for thinking that 
 He accepts coldly and distantly the homage of men's 
 hearts, and acts, and words; that He is not well pleased 
 with it? Is not the joy with which any parent receives 
 the free habitual service of a child striving to be 
 dutiful, and the submission of one who has been un- 
 dutiful, the faint image of the joy with which the 
 
II.] noah's sacrifice. 31 
 
 Patlier of lights receives him who wishes to dwell at 
 home, as well as the prodigal who has just recollected 
 that he has a home to which he may return? If, 
 indeed, the thought intrudes itself into the elder 
 brother^s heart ; ' I have earned a right to my father's 
 ^favour by my daily offerings; who is he that comes 
 'from dwelling with harlots to eat the fatted calf?' — if 
 the thought intrudes itself into the younger brother's 
 heart ; ' By some sacrifices of mine I may purchase 
 ' again that which I had lost — I may persuade my 
 ' father to overlook my wanderings and to free me from 
 ' the punishments which they deserve at his hands,' — 
 the sacrifice of each becomes a Cain sacrifice; there 
 is no submission in it, no trust in it ; there can be no 
 sweetness in the savour of it, for there is that in it 
 which is not of God, which has no fellowship with God, 
 which is hateful to God — pride, malice, envy. These 
 habits haunt every man ; none can say, I am free from 
 them. But if he comes to offer sacrifice to God, he 
 comes to confess and seek deliverance from them as 
 from the greatest and most direful curses that can rest 
 upon him in this world or in the world to come. 
 
 These principles, seeing that they are involved in the 
 relation of man to God — in His eternal order — were 
 the same in Noah's days as in ours, the same in Abel's 
 as in Noah's. But we have learnt something from 
 Noah's sacrifice which we could not learn from Abel's ; 
 something more of the social nature of these offerings ; 
 
32 NOAH'S SACEiriCE. [SEIlM. 
 
 something more of their meaning, as following after 
 long centuries of evil, and after a wonderful redemp- 
 tion; something more of the intercourse and sympathy 
 which exist between him who sacrifices and Him to 
 whom the sacrifice is made. Noah, we felt, was re- 
 presenting the race in his sacrifice ; he was confessing 
 the evil in him, and in his fellows, which had brought 
 ruin upon the world, and was confessing the wisdom 
 which had preserved it. These are great steps onward 
 in the history. 
 
 But, after all, are we not conscious that they are 
 mere hints of truths which must be unfolded, as they 
 could not be in AbeVs sacrifice or in Noah\s? The 
 representative of humanity after the flood lived his nine 
 hundred years, and died. Has humanity no continual 
 representative? The imagination of men's thoughts 
 remained evil continually after the fire had ascended 
 from the altar. Is there no offering which has power 
 to reach the heart and to purge it ? That sweet sacri- 
 fice was presented, the flame went out, the incense 
 evaporated, and foul pestilent vapours rose from the earth 
 and grew thicker with each generation. Is there no 
 altar from which the flame is ever ascending, no sweet 
 savour, of which God may say always, ' With this I am 
 ' well pleased. For the sake of this I will dwell with men 
 ' and walk with them, and they shall be my people, and I 
 ' will be their God : and their sins and iniquities I will 
 ^remember no more' ? 
 
m.] ^ ( 33 ) 
 
 SEUMON III. 
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 3d Sunday in Lent, March 19, 1854.) 
 
 Genesis xxii. 1, 2. 
 
 * And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Ahraham, 
 and said unto him, Ahraham : and he said. Behold, here I am. And 
 he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, 
 and get thee into the land of Moriah ; and offer him there for a 
 turnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.' 
 
 I SAID some Sundays ago^ that the offering of Abel did 
 not imply a precept enjoining sacrifices, but that it did 
 imply a revelation from God. That revelation was not 
 an exceptional, or anomalous accident. It was just as 
 much presumed in the ordinary tillage of the ground as 
 in the most awful worship. The doctrine of the Bible, 
 as it comes out to us in the book of Genesis, — as it is 
 consistently evolved in every subsequent book — is, that 
 man would not be a thinking, reasonable, moral beings 
 if there were not an intercourse between him and his 
 Creator, — if God were not awakening him continually 
 to a sense of that which he has to do, and of the prin* 
 eiples upon which he is to do it. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE SACKIPICE OF ABKAHAM. [SERM. 
 
 If Revelations of this kind are not strange and irre- 
 gular, but orderly, the sacrifice whicli responded to 
 tliem seemed to be of the same character. It was the 
 most simple v»^ay, — more simple and primitive than 
 words, — in which a man could confess that there was a 
 higher Being, whom his eye could not see, who was 
 near him, acting upon him, ruling him, causing the 
 seeds which he had sown to bring forth, giving life to 
 those creatures which were His servants and which were 
 also subject to death. The wonder, awe and mystery 
 of the universe, and of that creature who alone was 
 capable of feeling awe and wonder, and of being per- 
 plexed by a mystery, came forth in that ofi'ering. It 
 explained him, though he was not able to explain it. 
 
 But it was intimated to us in this first story, that 
 sacrifice may be the expression of the two most contrary 
 feelings and states of mind; — the most contrary, and 
 yet lying so close to each other in every man that only 
 the eye of God can distinguish them, till they distinguish 
 themselves by the acts which they generate. Sacrifice 
 may import the confession of a child, who feels that 
 he has nothing, and is a mere receiver. It may import 
 the sense in a man that he has something to offei: 
 which His Maker ought to accept. It may import the 
 trust of a child depending on One from whom it believes 
 all good comes, aware that what is not good is its 
 own. It may import the hope of a man — an uncertain 
 sullen hope — that he may persuade the power he 
 
III.] THE SACmriCE OF ABRAHAM. 85» 
 
 supposes is ruling, to give him some benefit, — to avert 
 from him some danger. It may be an act of simple 
 giving up, of surrender ; it may be an act of barter, — 
 a bargain to relinquish a less good on the chance 
 of obtaining a greater. These different tempers are 
 indicated in Scripture, by the effects which follow the 
 offering of the fruits and of the animal. It ends 
 with Abel becoming himself the sacrifice, Cain the 
 murderer. 
 
 The sacrifice of Noah led us on to another stage in 
 the development of the idea of sacrifice. Trust in a 
 righteous and life-giving Being was, in his case, as 
 much as in that of Abel, the meaning of his offering. 
 The disorder and. unrighteousness of the world had 
 destroyed it ; its order had been preserved ; God had 
 upholden it and would uphold it; Noah represented 
 his own race and all the creatures that bowed to that 
 race, when he took of the clean beasts and offered them 
 to the Lord. The delight which the Lord is said to 
 have taken in that act, is the testimony that He sym- 
 pathises with His creatures ; that He recognises them 
 as meant for fellowship with Him ; that He is leading 
 them on, by all His secret government, to know that 
 that fellowship is the foundation of their intercourse 
 with each other. 
 
 The passage I have read to you, this afternoon, 
 implies what we have learnt from both the others ; but 
 it leads us much further into the heart of the subject. 
 
36 THE SACRIFICE OE ABRAHAM. [SERM. 
 
 It is very needful to remark, tliat we are not yet come 
 to the period of decrees and regulations concerning 
 worship or anything else. The book of Genesis be- 
 comes absolutely unintelligible — its distinction from the 
 one which follows is altogether lost — if we suppose the 
 patriarchs to be living under a code, or under any of the 
 conditions which belong to an organized nation. They 
 are simply men on a plain, taking care of flocks and 
 herds, dwelling in tents. Their apparent difference 
 from those who surround them is, that they have made 
 less progress in social arts and social government. The 
 real difference is, that they believe and that they hope. 
 They believe in a righteous Lord, who has given them 
 their flocks, and their man-servants and maid-servants. 
 They hope for a Seed in which all the families of the 
 earth are to be blessed. Those who dwell in the cities 
 of the plain have had their kings and armies for one 
 knows not how long. Abraham is just at the beginning 
 of the political life, which is nearly at an end with them. 
 In Egypt there are priests and sacrifices; a hierarchy; 
 a kingdom. In Assyria there are already the rudi- 
 ments of an empire, and probably works of art indi- 
 cating a knowledge of animal forms and a singular power 
 of representing them. Abraham has to learn the very 
 elements of worship, what a priesthood exists for, how 
 man comes to have that dominion over animals which 
 the monuments of Nineveh express ; how he is liable to 
 abuse that dominion till it turns into slavery. I have 
 
III.] THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM. 37 
 
 endeavoured to point out these facts to you before^ and 
 to sliow how the discoveries which prove the might and 
 wisdom and antiquity of Asiatic or African empires, 
 prove also the necessity of a society so entirely ele- 
 mentary, so purely pastoral, as that which the first 
 book of the Bible presents to us ; in order that the 
 whole civilization of the world might not turn out to be 
 its curse and its ruin, by proceeding on principles 
 utterly inverted, inhuman, false. I am now desirous 
 to apply this observation to the particular case before 
 us, to consider by what process the father of the faithful 
 was instructed in the doctrine of sacrifice, while so 
 many people around him were practising sacrificial 
 rites, and were connecting them with the outward 
 and inward economy of their lives. 
 
 A man who has been what is called lucky or fortunate 
 in all liis enterprises, may feel as if he had no one to 
 thank but himself for what he possesses, or, if anything 
 but himself, some power which does not especially want 
 his thanks, and will not set any store by them. A man 
 who has failed in whatever he has undertaken, may look 
 upon earth and heaven as if they were conspiring against 
 him. But a man who has waited long for some good, 
 which has seemed to him more blessed each day that 
 has not brought it to him, and yet has also seemed each. 
 day more improbable — who has been sure from the first 
 that, if it ever came, it must be a gift from one who 
 watched over him and cared for him, and who, for that 
 
38 THE SACEIFICE OP ABRAHAM. [SERM. 
 
 very reason, has gone on trusting that he shall receive 
 it — yes, growing in trust as the natural difficulties looked 
 more insurmountable, — such a man, when the dream of 
 his heart becomes a substantial reality, has a sense of 
 grateful joy, which turns to pain, which is actually 
 oppressive, till it can find some outlet. Yet what outlet 
 can it find? what can he do for the giver more than 
 rejoice and wonder at the gift ; more than say, ' It is 
 thine ?^ Nothing, perhaps ; but how can he say that? 
 how can he utter what he means to One who, he knows, 
 is the source of all he has, and can need nothing from 
 him ? What can he offer ? — a mere sign or symbol ? — a 
 sheep which he would slay for his own food, and which 
 he would not miss out of his flock ? — a miserable sample 
 of the fruits which the earth is pouring out to him ? It 
 must surely be something better, more precious than 
 any of these. His own heart seems to scorn such pre- 
 sents : must not the heart of Him to whom he brings 
 them? 
 
 The description I have given is precisely the descrip- 
 tion which, in simpler, truer language, the book of 
 Genesis gives us of Abraham. He has waited, longed, 
 feared, trusted, received. The child has come to him 
 in his old age, — a child to whom blessings are attached, 
 which he cannot measure, which stretch into the farthest 
 future. From him are to come as many as the stars or 
 as the sands. It is indeed a child of laughter and joy. 
 He has lived for this ; as he looks upon it, it appears 
 
ni.] THE SACRIFICE OE ABBAHAM. 39 
 
 to him the pledge and witness of an infinite, inexhaust- 
 ible life. The child has brought him nearer to God ; 
 though he has believed in him so long, it is as if he 
 now believed in Him for the first time, — so much is he 
 carried out of himself, such a vision has he of One who 
 orders ages past and to come, and yet is interested foi? 
 him, is interested for the feeblest of those whom He has 
 made. Out of such feelings comes the craving for the 
 power to make some sacrifice, to find a sacrifice which 
 shall be not nominal but real. 
 
 Many strange and perplexing thoughts invaded men^s 
 minds in past times, as they invade men's minds now. 
 When they became very tormenting, then, as now, 
 people betook themselves to some wise man. They 
 asked. What do these thoughts mean ? whence do they 
 come? what are we to do in consequence of them? 
 They got various answers. The answers, in difierent 
 places, shaped themselves into diff'erent rules and 
 maxims ; forms of service and devotion were grounded 
 upon them ; above all, sacrifices were suggested, which 
 might satisfy the desires of the creature, perhaps might 
 satisfy the demands of his ruler. The book of Genesis 
 says, ' GOD did tempt Abraham,^ It leads us back to the 
 source from which the thoughts that were working in 
 him were derived. It says broadly and distinctly, This 
 seed did not drop by accident into the patriarch's mind; 
 it was not self-sown ; it was not put into him by the 
 suggestion of some of his fellows. It was part of the 
 
40 THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM. [SERM. 
 
 discipline to which he was subjected that these questions 
 should be excited in him. It was his divine Teacher 
 who led him on to the terrible conclusion — ^ The sacri- 
 ' fice that I must offer is that very gift which has caused 
 ' me all my joy. That belongs to God. I can only ex- 
 ' press my dependence upon God, my thankfulness to 
 * Him, by laying my son upon the altar.^ If it was true 
 that he had been called out by the living and true God 
 to serve Him and trust Him and be a witness for Him — 
 if it was true that he had received his child from God — 
 it was true also, he could not doubt it, that this was a 
 command, that it was a command directly addressed to 
 him; that he was to obey it. 
 
 ' But is it not very frightful to think that such an 
 ' impression as this could be made on the heart of a good 
 ' man? — should become a fixed purpose in him? — that he 
 ' should passively surrender himself to it ? If the case 
 ^ was peculiar, if Abraham's experience was to be no pre- 
 ' cedent for other men, what is the history of the Bible 
 ' worth, what does it teach, whom is it to guide ? If it 
 ' was a precedent, then have not the followers of it been 
 ' the fanatics, whose opinions we consider signs of mad- 
 ' ness j whose open acts, being outrages upon society, states 
 ' are obliged to restrain and punish? ' I answer. Before 
 you determine whether Abraham's history is an example 
 or a beacon, try to understand what it is. You say that 
 it is ignominious for a man to be the victim of an im- 
 pression. This history says the same. It does not 
 
m.] THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM. 41 
 
 represent Abraham as feeling an impulse to slay liis 
 son^ and as surrendering himself to that impulse ; still 
 less does it represent God as designing that the man 
 should commit that enormity. But it tells us that a 
 man who thoroughly trusted God, — thoroughly believed 
 Him to be a righteous Being, — was thoroughly per- 
 suaded that He cared for him, and had proved that He 
 did by giving him a son — became convinced that this 
 God, for some reason which he could not interpret, 
 claimed his child of him again. It was a horrible 
 thought that this was the only victim with which God 
 could be content, a more horrible thought still that 
 he was to slay the victim. Do you suppose that it 
 was less horrible to Abraham than it would have been 
 to a man of less faith ? I believe it was horrible pre- 
 cisely in proportion to his faith. Eor it was all in all to 
 him to think that he was serving a true God, a Judge 
 who must do right. And here something seemed to be 
 demanded of him which was not right — which was 
 wrong. And yet who made the demand ? Whence but 
 from God had the deep conviction proceeded, that he 
 was to offer this sacrifice, and no other? An Assyrian 
 or Egyptian might have shrunk from such a deed through 
 a paternal instinct ; but there could have been nothing 
 very tremendous to him in supposing that a God had 
 decreed it. If the soothsayer or priest told him so, he 
 could have little doubt that to obey would be the safer 
 course, though he might not have courage to follow it. 
 
4S THE SACEIEICE OF ABRAHAM. [SEUM* 
 
 But with Abraham, that which was almost nothing to 
 them, was everything. To give up his confidence in 
 God, to regard Him as a man who did what He liked 
 to do, was to give up his calling, his covenant, all that 
 made existence a blessing and not a curse. Therefore, 
 he must know w^hat this contradiction signified. He 
 could not quench the thought if he tried. And what 
 comfort would there have been in such a trial ? How 
 can a man who has reposed in the justice and afi'ection 
 of a fellow-man, entertain a suspicion that he is requiring 
 something of him which is inconsistent with both, and 
 merely let that suspicion dwell as one of the citizens of 
 his heart? Will it not cause a revolt among all the rest ? 
 He can have no peace till he sees through his doubt, till 
 it is cleared entirely away. And if he has perfectly 
 trusted in his friend, if he is one to whom he has always 
 bowed in submission, who has taught him all that he 
 knows of what is right and true, he will say : ' I do 
 ' not understand this suggestion of yours. If you mean 
 ^ by it what I mean, all is over with me, — my faith is 
 ' gone. But that cannot be. I will leave nothing 
 ' undone that will help me to find out what it is you 
 ' really wish of me ; at all events, I will give myself into 
 ' your hands.' 
 
 Conceive such a trust as never can be put in the 
 righteousness of any human creature, and this is 
 Abraham's story. He must know what God^s meaning 
 is ; he is certain that in some way it will be proved that 
 
III.] THE SACEIFICE OF ABRAHAM. 43 
 
 He lias not designed His creature to do a wicked 
 and monstrous thing, and yet that there is a purpose 
 in the revelation that has been made to him; that 
 a submission and a sacrifice, such as he had never 
 made yet, were called for now. He takes his son ; he 
 goes three days' journey to Mount Moriali ; he prepares 
 the altar, and the wood, and the knife ; his son is with 
 him ; but he has already offered up himself. And now 
 he is taught that this is the offering which God was 
 seeking for; that when he had presented that, he had 
 given the real thing for which he had perceived no 
 sacrifice of a lamb or an ox could be exchanged; that 
 when the real victim had been slain, the ram caught in 
 the thicket was all that was needed for the symbolical 
 expression of that inward oblation. 
 
 And what was the reward? 'In blessing^ (said the 
 divine voice) 'I will bless thee, in multiplying I will multi- 
 ply thee^ When this secret had been learnt, — learnt in 
 this plain manner through an act,— -when he had done 
 God's will, and been so taught of His doctrine, — every 
 blessing became an actual, vital blessing; every gift 
 that might have been only an outside possession, was 
 changed into a spiritual treasure. He had become free 
 of God's universe ; for he had begun to understand the 
 principle upon which God rules it, and the law of man's 
 position in it. He had found sacrifice to be no one 
 solitary act, no sudden expression of joy, no violent 
 effort to make a return for blessings which we can only 
 
44 THE SACRIFICE OE ABRAHAM. [SERM. 
 
 return by accepting ; but that it lies at the very root of 
 our being ; that our lives stand upon it ; that society is 
 held together by it; that all power to be right, and 
 to do right, begins with the offering up of ourselves, 
 because it is thus that the righteous Lord makes us 
 like Himself. 
 
 Yes, like Himself! There was a mystery in this, 
 which Abraham could dimly and awfully look into, 
 which ages to come must unfold. I do not anticipate 
 any of the deeper truths respecting the nature of sacri- 
 fice, which were hidden in this act, and which God in 
 His own method would bring to light. I only wish you 
 to perceive how perfectly adapted this teaching was to 
 remove those falsehoods which we know beset and 
 tormented the hearts of men in the old world, and 
 which we still find are besetting and tormenting men 
 in the nineteenth century. 
 
 The tradition in old Greece respecting the sacrifice 
 which the god demanded before the fleet could sail for 
 Troy, took possession of the minds of her greatest 
 thinkers. The tragic poet, as he recorded with such ten- 
 derness the conflict in the heart of the father, and the 
 preparation for slaying the victim, evidently felt in his 
 devout and earnest spirit, that he was celebrating a victory 
 of patriotic over paternal feeling, as well as a sublime 
 though tremendous act of homage to the rulers of nature 
 and of man. On the other hand, the Roman Epicurean 
 poet, translating the description of iEschylus in language 
 
m.] THE SACUIPICE OE ABEAHAM. 45 
 
 and in a spirit worthy of his model, expressed the most 
 intense disgust and loathing for the whole narrative ; it 
 embodied to him all the crimes of which a belief in divi- 
 nities interested in human affairs had been the origin. 
 I think that the conscience of mankind has responded 
 to the sympathy of one poet and the indignant denun- 
 ciation of the other ; that it has recognised a positive 
 truth in each, however little it may have been able to 
 bring them into accordance. In our days, we rather 
 value ourselves upon the equity and tolerance with which 
 we can admit that there is something in these opposing 
 statements; the misfortune is, that in general we 
 care but little about either. "We are impartial critics ; 
 the fear is, that we shall cease to be men, really under- 
 standing that those whom we criticise had the same 
 flesh and blood with ourselves; that there is no in- 
 firmity of theirs to which we are not subject, no right 
 and high conviction which we do not want as much as 
 they did. Depend upon it, brethren, we shall be 
 reminded by very decisive evidence of that truth, if we. 
 have been shutting our eyes to it. We have not got 
 rid, any of us, of these old dreams about sacrifices; 
 we cannot get rid of them ; they haunt us in innu- 
 merable ways; no man, or woman, or child, is 
 unaff'ected by them: no theory, religious or philoso- 
 phical, dispossesses the heart of them. The Atheist has 
 his own notion and method of immolation — his own 
 victims ; you cannot exorcise a fellow- creature of the 
 
46 THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM. [SERM. 
 
 most radical part of his being by your incantations ; 
 they will prove very ineffectual for yourselves. Soft, 
 silken phrases about the superstitions of old times and 
 the enlightenment and benevolence of the present 
 serve well, when men have enough to eat and drink and 
 little to disturb them in themselves or in their fortunes. 
 Try them in any dark hour of individual experience, 
 in any popular convulsion, with men who toil and 
 suffer, and they are found empty and hollow. But if 
 instead of pretending to disbelieve facts which the his- 
 tory of the world and of yourselves establishes, you will 
 look these facts in the face — if you will ask why this 
 notion of sacrifice has been so mighty and so mischiev- 
 ous? why you must act upon it? why you feel often as 
 if you could not act upon it without doing evil ? — then, 
 as you are in earnest, as you are seeking, not for the 
 satisfaction of your curiosity, but for the satisfaction of 
 your consciences — these old records of the world will, 
 I am sure, point your path through the mists by which 
 you are encircled, into the clear sunlight. Perhaps you 
 fancied it was a book which tolerated no difficulties, 
 which merely pronounced authoritative sentences. You 
 will find it exhibiting to you men who were beset by 
 the very perplexities which beset you ; unable to find 
 any road through them till they confessed a guide, 
 of whom they lived to testify that He would be ours as 
 much as He was theirs. Perhaps you will suppose that, 
 as it professes to contain divine revelations, it can take 
 
m.] THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM. 47 
 
 no account of those speculations of heathens, to which 
 I have alluded ; that it must treat them as profane, or 
 else pass them by altogether. You will here find the 
 practical reconciliation of those speculations, — the only 
 reconciliation which is not worse than either of them 
 separately. For it shows you why sacrifice must be 
 precious and dear in the eyes of Him who governs the 
 spirits of men ; why He cannot ask for any sacrifice 
 which a loving father would not make and a loving 
 child would not offer. And you will find in this story 
 of the method by which Abraham came to knowledge 
 and to peace, what must be your course too. You cannot 
 trust God too much. You cannot be too confident 
 that He himself is guiding you, and that every embar- 
 rassment in your thoughts, every complication in your 
 circumstances, is known by Him, is intended by Him as 
 a means to enable you to understand wisdom secretly, 
 that you may show forth the fruits of it openly. The 
 rashness that leads you to act at once upon some im- 
 pression, to make some apparently great sacrifice which 
 will startle and astonish other men, is a sign of distrust 
 and of pride. The cowardice that makes you wish to 
 stifle the suggestions of your hearts, the witness of your 
 consciences, has the same origin. Faith in the righteous- 
 ness of God gives that prudence or providence which 
 will make you wary of your footsteps, suspicious of your- 
 selves. Faith in the righteousness of God gives you that 
 courage which will enable you to move on steadily, 
 
48 THE SACRIPICE OE ABRAHAM. [SERM. 
 
 calmly, resolutely, certain tliat you will have light to 
 see what you ought to do, and that in doing it you will 
 know more of the just and gracious mind of God 
 towards all men as well as towards yourselves. 
 
 If we follow this teaching, we shall learn that we 
 must be ready to present our souls and bodies, and all 
 that is dear to us, every day as sacrifices to God. And 
 then we may leave it to Him how and when it shall 
 please Him to take these souls and bodies for other 
 services than those to which He has appointed them 
 here. It may be in the battle-field ; it may be on the 
 judgment-seat, like him whom many of you here knew 
 as the accomplished scholar and cordial friend, and 
 whose dying words of wisdom all of us should earnestly 
 lay to heart/ At sunset or at cock-crowing, on the 
 sick-bed, or in the midst of work, the voice may reach 
 any of us. It is enough for us to know whose voice it 
 is, and to what it is summoning us. It is the voice of 
 Him who made a covenant with Abraham; who has 
 made a better covenant with us. It is calling us to 
 make a real sacrifice, to present ourselves to God. 
 Then we shall see in the thicket the Lamb that has 
 been already slain ; we shall see in that Lamb a Son 
 whom the Father has offered up, and who has gone 
 together with Him in a voluntary and perfect self- 
 oblation. 
 
 1 Mr. Justice Talfourd died the Monday before this Sermon was 
 preached. 
 
IV.] ( 49 ) 
 
 SEHMON IV. 
 
 SACRIFICE OF THE PASSOVER. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday in Lent, March 26, 1854.) 
 
 Exodus xiii. 14 — 17. 
 
 * And it shall he when thy son asJceth thee in time to come, saying, What 
 is this ? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord 
 brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage : and it came 
 to pass, when Pharaoh xoould hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all 
 the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man, and 
 the firstborn of beast : therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth 
 the matrix, being males ; but all the firstborn of my children I redeem. 
 And it shall be for a toTcen upon thine hand, and for frontlets between 
 thine eyes : for by strength of hand the Lord brought us forth out of 
 Egypt: 
 
 The book of Exodus, as I intimated last Sunday, 
 introduces that new epocli in the scriptural history 
 of sacrifices, when they begin to be regulated by fixed 
 laws, to be part of a national economy. T say the book 
 of Exodus, for I am anxious that you should distinguish 
 between that and the following book, which is expressly 
 devoted to the subject of sacrifices, and of the tribe 
 which offered them. If we hurried on to the lessons 
 which are contained in Leviticus, we should miss a link 
 in the chain of instruction which is quite indispensable. 
 
 £ 
 
50 SACRIFICE OF THE PASSOVER. [SERM. 
 
 Before we study the institutions of a nation, we ought 
 to know what the nation itself is, upon what foundation 
 its order stands. The second book in the Bible contains 
 the answer to that question, as far as the Jewish nation 
 is concerned. I do not know where we can find the 
 principle of it more accurately, or livingly, set forth than 
 in the verses I have just read to you. Moses supposes a 
 son to be asking a father, in some distant time, about 
 the Passover, which he and his family are keeping. The 
 answer is simple and historical, adapted to the compre- 
 hension of a child. But the most learned Israelite 
 would have made it far less satisfactory, would have 
 well nigh destroyed the meaning of it, if he had tried to 
 give it a more profound and abstract character. 
 
 You must consider what the most ignorant of the 
 Israelites who had dwelt in Egypt had seen, — what 
 their descendants in Canaan were likely to see, — before 
 you can appreciate the force, either of the question or 
 of the answer. An organized hierarchy, as I said last 
 Sunday, most probably existed in Egypt in the time 
 of Abraham. The Scripture notices it in the time of 
 Joseph. It must have grown stronger, and have 
 introduced more complicated forms of worship before 
 the time of Moses. The wisdom of the Egyptians may 
 have concerned itself with things in heaven above or in 
 the earth beneath, with the motions of the stars and 
 the processes of agriculture, with nature and art ; but 
 we may be sure that notions respecting the objects of 
 
IV.] SACRIFICE OF THE PASSOVER. SI- 
 
 worship and the means of propitiating them, were 
 worked into every part of it, and that this was the part 
 of it which would present the m ost glaring and obvious 
 effects to the looker-on. Sacrifices of various kinds, 
 sacrifices to various divinities, sacrifices^ to procure the 
 removal of particular local evils or of recurring general 
 evils, sacrifices to avert the wrath of the gods for 
 transgressions that had been undoubtedly committed, 
 sacrifices for transgressions that were suspected to have 
 been committed, sacrifices regular and habitual, sacri- 
 fices new and unwonted for strange emergencies, all these 
 would have been seen or heard of by the slaves in 
 Goshen as well as by the native subjects of the Pharaohs. 
 Much might be hidden from both; much might be 
 done to impress both with the feeling that the priest 
 or the magician had a lore which he could not com- 
 municate : but the material part of the worship would 
 be patent ; the very object would be to force that upon 
 the attention of the most vulgar. 
 
 Therefore any Israelitish child in the Wilderness who 
 pointed to the paschal lamb and asked, ^ What is this ?* 
 may have been supposed to mean, ' Is this like one of 
 * the sacrifices which you have told me the Egyptians 
 ' offered ? Is this feast like one of the feasts they make 
 ' at their sacrifices ? If it is not so, what is the differ- 
 ' ence V And any child who said to his father in the 
 land of Canaan, ' What is this?^ would mean, in like 
 manner, ' Is this such a sacrifice as the Canaanites or 
 
52 SACRIEICE OF THE PASSOVER. [SERM. 
 
 ' the Phoenicians are offering to their Baal and Astoreth? 
 ^ If not, tell us what the difference is. Why are we not 
 ' like them ? Why do you bid us keep aloof from their 
 ' worship and their offerings?' Consider what would have 
 been the natural and expected reply to such a question, 
 supposing the principle upon which the Israelites offered 
 sacrifices had been the same with that on which the 
 Egyptians or the Phoenicians offered them. The child 
 would have heard of some great advantage which this 
 sacrifice was to buy, — of some threatened peril which it 
 was to keep off. It would have been told that the Lord 
 God of the Hebrews was mightier and more terrible 
 than the gods of On or of Ekron ; and, therefore, that, 
 if it was thought necessary to offer them sacrifices with 
 which they would be pleased, it must be far more prudent 
 and necessary to offer them to Him. The consequences 
 of neglecting them would have been pointed out from 
 past experience. ' What might not He who ruled the 
 'winds and the waves be contriving against them? How 
 ' likely was it, that He who had favoured their fathers 
 ' might desert them, and choose some more devout sup- 
 ' pliants if they neglected Him ! ' 
 
 Perhaps more refined arguments than these might 
 have been adapted to people with devout spiritual 
 tastes and instincts ; but would not you have thought 
 these, or such as these, exceedingly suitable to the con- 
 dition of the uninformed man or boy who is supposed 
 to be taking part in the dialogue ? Would not they be 
 
IV.] SACEIFICE OF THE PASSOVEE. 53. 
 
 just sucli as religious teachers, in all countries and ages, 
 have thought were desirable to impress people, not 
 capable of understanding high truths, or being influenced 
 by nobler motives, with a salutary fear of omitting 
 duties which it was needful that they should perform? 
 There can be no doubt that the legislator desired 
 fathers to give their children a deep sense of the 
 sacredness of the national service in which they were 
 engaged, of the exceeding evil that might come from 
 indifi'erence to it. For such a purpose, what course 
 could be so obvious as the one I have pointed out; 
 what other can we think of that must not be less 
 effectual ? 
 
 It is not the course, you perceive, which Moses pre- 
 scribes. We can scarcely conceive of one more opposed 
 to it than his. Instead of beginning with saying what 
 was to be gained for those who should perform this 
 service at any given time, he speaks of it as com- 
 memorating an act which was done already, which 
 might have been done ages before the conversation 
 occurred. ' By strength of hand the Lord brought us out 
 from Egypt,^ ' We are recollecting an event which 
 ' happened to our fathers' fathers, to men who were 
 ' suffering from evils which we are not suffering from, 
 ^ who were bondsmen in a land which we have not seen, 
 ' and are never likely to see.' But again, ^This sacrifice 
 'which we are offering never did purchase the good- 
 ' will of Him to whom it was presented — was not the 
 
54 SACRIFICE OF THE PASSOVER. [SERM. 
 
 * influence by whicli in past days^ any more tlian in these 
 ' days. He was moved to look favourably upon our race. 
 ' He Himself chose our fathers ; He Himself wrought 
 ' out their deliverance. The origin of it, the whole con- 
 ' duct of it, was in Him. He claimed us for his people : 
 ' by this act our fathers declared, and we declare, that 
 ' He is our King. Do you think that we want to 
 ^ persuade Him to deliver us from certain mischiefs 
 ' and evils which He has brought upon us ? Why ! we 
 ' know Him only by that name of Deliverer. We were 
 ' in bondage to a tyrant; He broke our chains. Pharaoh 
 ' was grinding down our fathers with hard tasks. He 
 ' said that He had seen their affliction and pitied them. 
 ' Pharaoh would hardly let us go out of our bondage ; 
 
 * by fire and by blood, and by the slaughter of the first- 
 ' born, He obliged him to let us go.^ 
 
 Still the child or the inquiring man might answer, 
 'This does not explain the sacrifice; that has surely 
 ' something to do with punishment and vengeance; that 
 ' must be intended to avert punishment and vengeance 
 ' from those who present it. You spoke of a slaughter 
 ' of the firstborn in Egypt, both of man and beast; you 
 ' spoke of the firstborn of the Israelites being passed 
 ' over; you spoke of their offering a lamb, and marking 
 ' the door-posts of their houses with the blood of it. If 
 ' God is the Deliverer of some, He surely executes wrath 
 ' upon others. Do you not offer the lamb and keep this 
 'feast, that you may be the objects of His mercy, not of 
 
IV.] SACMFICE OF THE TASSOVER. 55 
 
 ' His wratli V ' Most assuredly/ the answer would be, 
 if it was framed in the spirit of the one which Moses 
 gives us, 'most assuredly we do believe in a God of 
 ' wrath and vengeance — in One who executes wrath and 
 ' vengeance upon the oppressor, and this without respect 
 ' of persons. His anger may descend upon the king or 
 'the subject, upon the Israelite as well as upon the 
 ' Egyptian. It not only may, but we know assuredly 
 * that it will. His government is not one of accident or 
 ' caprice, but of fixed eternal law. He is the God of 
 ' righteousness, and without iniquity ; whatever is un- 
 ' righteous, iniquitous, sets itself at war against Him ; 
 ' He is pledged to destroy it. Pharaoh was self-willed j 
 ' he believed in might, not in right ; he became an 
 ' oppressor, and his people became oppressors of others, 
 ' while they suffered from his wrong. Therefore, the 
 ' righteous God smote them. Because He was the Deli- 
 ' verer of the poor, and of them that had no helper. He 
 ' manifested His strength against those who trampled 
 ' upon them, against the proud man of the earth. The 
 ' slaughter of the firstborn tells us what it is that 
 'causes the great visitations upon the world — what 
 ' overthrows families and kingdoms. Looked at on one 
 ' side, it is their own tyranny, and brutality, and hatred; 
 ' looked at from the other side, it is the righteousness 
 ' and truth upon which the world stands, which the 
 'powers in heaven obey, which none can transgress 
 ' without encountering that which is mightier. You are 
 
56 SACRIFICE OF THE PASSOVEU. [SERM. 
 
 ' riglit, that our sacrifice has to do with the slaughter of 
 ' the firstborn. It is therefore that we sacrifice the 
 ' firstborn of every beast being male. This is the witness 
 
 * we bear, that we hold everything of the righteous Lord, 
 ' the Redeemer; thus we declare that we look upon the 
 ' life of every animal as given by Him; thus we declare 
 ' that we do not worship this animal life in any creature, 
 ' or in ourselves ; thus we affirm that we have dominion 
 ' over it, and that we are to devote it to the use of that 
 ' which is higher than itself. But all the firstborn of my 
 ' children I redeem, I dare not treat them as I treat the 
 ' animals ; I know that they are made in God's image ; 
 ' I know that to slay them upon an altar would not be 
 ' to sacrifice them to God ; He wants them for other 
 ' services than that. But He does want them, and I 
 ' devote them to Him. I declare that they belong to 
 ' Him as much as any beast belongs to Him ; I ofifer 
 ' them up as sacrifices to Him who has redeemed them ; 
 ' I declare that every day and hour they live, they are 
 
 * to bear witness of the redemption He has made for 
 ' them — to prove, by their words and acts, that they are 
 ' servants of One who cares for them and whom they 
 ' can trust, not of a tyrant who uses them as his tools, 
 ' and whom they hate/ 
 
 This offering of the firstborn, then, — of the first- 
 born of the animals as dead sacrifices, of the firstborn 
 of men as living sacrifices, — was the dedication and 
 consecration of the whole Jewish nation. The first- 
 
IV.] SACRIFICE OF THE PASSOVER. 57 
 
 born represented its strength^ its vitality, its endurance. 
 This act signified that its strength lay only in its 
 dependence on God^s strength; that its vitality came 
 from the life which is in Him; that it would endure 
 from generation to generation, because He is the 
 same, and His years fail not. By this earliest token, 
 God signified that He had constituted a society upon 
 this divine basis ; a society which would stand so long 
 as it confessed this basis — which ivould fall as soon 
 as it tried to establish itself upon any other. What 
 was true of the nation as a body, was true of each 
 member of it. He was at once adopted into the 
 covenant; he came in under this law of sacrifice. 
 Before he could understand anything of its meaning, 
 the devotion and consecration were made on his behalf; 
 he was put into his right and reasonable position ; he 
 was claimed as a holy thing, separated to the Lord. 
 His parents were bound to assert this privilege for him ; 
 it was the pledge that they looked upon him as their 
 true child; it was the pledge that they did not look 
 upon him only as their child, but as the child of 
 Abraham; it was the pledge that they regarded the 
 child of Abraham as united by a living bond to the God 
 of Abraham. To fail in the act which denoted the 
 sacrifice of the individual infant, was to show that they 
 thought nothing of the privilege of being God^s servants 
 and witnesses ; that they did not hold that to be the 
 inheritance of their sons ; that they did not send them 
 
58 SACRIFICE OF THE PASSOVER. [SERM. 
 
 forth as the soldiers of the Invisible King. To omit 
 the general annual service which attested the redemp- 
 tion and sacrifice of the whole nation — which affirmed 
 that it was a holy nation, separated for holy uses and 
 services — was to show that they were indifferent to 
 their standing as Israelites, and were choosing out 
 some new ground for themselves. To choose that 
 new ground was, in fact, to choose a new God. Their 
 calling, as Israelites, was the calling to confess a 
 Redeemer of Israel, a righteous Being who had brought 
 out their fathers from the house of bondage. It was 
 certain that whenever they forgot this confession, — 
 whenever they became careless about the appointed 
 means of expressing it, — they would cease to believe in 
 a Redeemer at all. That name would not be their high 
 tower, their refuge from all enemies. Gradually, if not 
 at once, it would be changed for other names, indicating 
 the most opposite convictions, involving the most oppo- 
 site kinds of devotion and sacrifice ; and out of that 
 newiuame, that new worship, would proceed moral and 
 political plagues and curses, which nothing would avert 
 but a national repentance and a return to the faith 
 which they had cast off. 
 
 I wish you to think of these plagues and curses as 
 they are presented to us in the books of the Old 
 Testament, that you may judge how truly human as 
 well as divine the constitution of the Jewish nation 
 was; how necessarily it was the one because it was the 
 
IV.] SACEIFICE OF THE PASSOVER. 69 
 
 other; how exactly the Passover sacrifice and the dedi- 
 cation of the firstborn expressed the union. To say- 
 that behef in God as a Redeemer and a Deliverer is 
 easy and natural for men^ that it is their tendency to 
 accept and retain this belief, is to contradict the evidence 
 of all history. Egypt, Assyria, Phoenicia, every country 
 with which the Jews came in contact, disproved such 
 a dream. No doubt the belief was latent in every one 
 of them; the more light one has upon their mythology, 
 the more one sees that it is — the more one feels that it 
 was — the truth which lay beneath the existence of every 
 nation and sustained it. This undoubted fact is not at 
 Variance with the facts which show that there was 
 a perpetual tendency in the popular mind to let go this 
 truth, to substitute for it the worship of a tyrant — whom 
 they could rarely, through God^s mercy, contemplate 
 in one concentrated form — whom they were obliged to 
 see in a multitude of broken inconsistent forms. The 
 two parts of the evidence illustrate and confirm each 
 other. These popular tendencies, which became moulded 
 into a system by the priests who had first yielded to 
 them, were the causes of a continually increasing super- 
 stition, division, brutality, cowardice; can there be a 
 greater proof that in that which they were resisting 
 and subverting we are to seek for the unity of every 
 people, for the secret of the powers which it put forth? 
 The Bible, instead of urging any claim of special virtue 
 for the chosen people, is careful, as I have so often 
 
60 SACfilFICE OF THE PASSO^TIR. [SERM, 
 
 remarked; to point out how liable they were to every 
 corruption of other people; how every element of super- 
 stition and division was lying secretly in their hearts ; 
 how it did actually manifest itself at every new oppor- 
 tunity, under any fresh provocation from without. The 
 consistency of this testimony throughout all the hooks 
 of their History and Prophecy, is one of the most 
 curious signs of their unity, a sign which the most 
 careless reader cannot help noticing, but which becomes 
 more striking the more we reflect upon it. The 
 plague and curse of the Israelites, as it is represented 
 to us, not in one but in all of these books, was their 
 falling into the acknowledgment of tyrant gods — of 
 brute gods — their losing their faith in the High God, 
 the Redeemer. The words are so familiar, so common- 
 place, that one can hardly fix the attention of hearers 
 upon them; but what a key they are to the history 
 of the old and of the modern world! All external 
 plagues, famines, wars, are represented as means of 
 reawakening their faith, of recalling the nation and its 
 members from the idols to which they were bowing 
 down, from the accursed principles which they were 
 exalting to the throne of God. These idols, these 
 accursed divinities, were all connected with sacrifices ; 
 they demanded the continual oblation, the fire upon 
 the altar; they demanded the inward off'ering, the 
 giving up of the spirit to that which was immoral and 
 base. The heart was to confess an oppressor as God ; 
 
IV.] SACRIFICE OE THE PASSOVER. 61 
 
 then it must set up some human oppressor, or change 
 the one it had into an oppressor; then it must utter 
 itself in acts of oppression to all beneath. The sacrifice 
 to evil powers embodies all the falsehoods and crimes 
 that are at work in all directions throughout a 
 country; it gives them their sanction, their inspiration; 
 it provides for the degradation of those who are not 
 yet utterly degraded; it hinders all efforts for the 
 removal of the most flagrant outward grievances; it 
 ensures their perpetual increase. It is a Sisyphus toil, 
 to better the social maxims or the individual morality 
 of a people which has accepted devils for gods; the 
 gravitation of the stone downwards is mightier than all 
 your efibrts to force it up. But if you try the other 
 course, which so many have tried, of denouncing sacri- 
 fice as being itself an unreal and mischievous idea, 
 having nothing to dp with the life of a nation or of a 
 man — will you help the stone to ascend ? Is not that 
 a monstrous attempt to contradict the experience of 
 mankind, to resist the witness of your own consciences ? 
 You know that sacrifice has been a part of the institu- 
 tions of every people under heaven; you know that 
 every better impulse of your own spirits leads you to 
 it, that every right act you have done has been a 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Oh ! then consider manfully if there is not a better 
 course ; if it is not that which the legislator of Israel 
 took, when he explained to his countrymen in his 
 
62 SACRIFICE OF THE PASSOVER. [SERM. 
 
 own day, when he bade them tell their children in all 
 days to come, how they might resist the superstitions 
 of the surrounding world, and in themselves ; how 
 they might go forth to fight with them; how they 
 might at last extinguish them. By looking upon 
 themselves as beings surrendered and sacrificed to the 
 God of Truth, to the Deliverer of men, to Him 
 who cares for the oppressed, to Him who puts down 
 the wrong-doer and the tyrant; by feehng that they 
 held all the powers of their minds and bodies, all 
 the creatures he had committed to them, all their 
 outward possessions, as instruments for the great work 
 in which He is engaged ,• by keeping up this convic- 
 tion in their own hearts, not sufifering it to slumber 
 through neglect of any ordinances that affirmed His 
 righteous government and redemption, and united 
 them to their countrymen as His subjects; by teaching 
 these lessons to their sons, bringing them up as 
 brave, hardy, cheerful citizens of God^s kingdom and 
 of that land which He had given their forefathers ; by 
 holding all external sufferings and bodily calamities to 
 be nothing, in comparison of the moral diseases which 
 stifle and eat up a nation's spirit ; by regarding the one 
 as a necessary effect of the other, and God's blessed 
 method of curing them: thus Moses instructed the 
 Israelites that they might be a nation indeed, one which 
 would be a pattern to the nations, one which, in due 
 time, would .break the chains which bound them to 
 
IV.] SACRIFICE OE THE PASSOYER. 63 
 
 visible and invisible oppressors. Their patriotism; 
 their heathenism ; the victories which they won in their 
 weakness ; the contempt into which they fell when they 
 boasted of their strength ; the mighty blessings which 
 they have achieved for the world and have bequeathed 
 to it ; the curse that has come on their pride, exclu- 
 siveness, and money worship ; these are the witnesses 
 of the veracity of the history, of the worth and certainty 
 of its principle, which make our petty arguments on 
 behalf of either look very pale and contemptible. 
 But it is not for this chiefly that I refer to them. It 
 is because I think we have here set forth to us the 
 ground upon which every nation stands now — the 
 ground on which our nation is standing; the ground 
 which we must each of us feel to be beneath his own 
 feet, if we are not to rock and reel in any great convul- 
 sions which may be appointed for us. Let us under^ 
 stand it well. Brethren ; we too are a people dedicated 
 and sacrificed. To some power or other, good or evil, 
 we must be devoted; there is no choice about that. 
 It may be to Baal or Moloch or Mammon. It may be 
 to the Lord God of Abraham ; the Redeemer, the Holy 
 One, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ; 
 to Him from whom comes the Spirit of Truth and Free- 
 dom and Unity. Our fathers said that it was this God, 
 and not any of the others, to which we were offered up. 
 They said that when we were baptized He who breaks 
 asunder the bonds of the captive, chose us as His 
 
64 sAcmncE of the passover. [seum; 
 
 redeemed cliildren ; that tlien and there we were sacri- 
 ficed to Him and signed with the sign of sacrifice, in 
 token that hereafter we should not he ashamed to con- 
 fess the faith of Christ crucified, and to fight vaHantly 
 under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil. 
 That is our national consecration; that is our individual 
 consecration. In the strength of that, we may go forth, 
 we are pledged to go forth, against every false prin- 
 ciple, and base, dishonourable practice, that enslaves 
 ourselves and that enslaves the world. In the strength 
 of that dedication and sacrifice we are bound to eschew 
 every kind of worship and sacrifice that is not oS'ered 
 to a Eighteous and Gracious King and Deliverer; we 
 are bound to watch and suspect the growth of it in 
 ourselves and in our land, — to combat it, as it only can 
 be combated, by continually remembering the true 
 ground and meaning of sacrifice, — by continually recol- 
 lecting to Whom it is that we are given up. Who has 
 sealed us, and with what Spirit, as a witness that He 
 has accepted the ofiering and that we belong to Him. 
 And never for a moment let us try to separate, or dream 
 that we can separate, our individual life from our 
 national. Our vocation is the same in the most private 
 occupations, and when we are fulfilling what are 
 called our duties as citizens. Every duty is a civic duty. 
 We are fighting in our closets for our nation, if we are 
 fighting truly for ourselves ; our soldiers should go out 
 to open battle against the foes of freedom and order 
 
IV.] SACEiriCE OE THE TASSOVER. 65 
 
 with tlie same recollections, with the same sense of self- 
 devotion as that which we would cultivate at home. 
 Commonly they shame us : there is more simple sur- 
 render, more casting away of themselves, not for fame 
 or glory, but simply because it is their calling, their plain 
 duty, than we can pretend to in our most sacred private 
 or public acts of devotion. We should try to learn from 
 them this indifference to effect and to consequences ; 
 we should try to teach them what the true basis of it is, 
 how it is laid deep in God's own claim that we should be 
 like Him, — that we should be witnesses for Him, — that 
 we should do His work. When once we understand 
 that, self-sacrifice can never be an ambitious thing — 
 a fine way to get the reputation of saints or the rewards 
 of another world. It will be regarded as the true 
 ground of all action; that on which all the blessed 
 relations of life stand ; that upon which all the chari- 
 ties and sympathies of life depend; that which is at 
 the same time the only impulse to and security for the 
 hard and rough work of the world — for the reluctant but 
 necessary blows which are inflicted upon the miscreants 
 who abuse God given power to the service of the 
 devil, and the injury of their fellows — for the wrongs 
 which are endured by those who testify to the world 
 that the works thereof are evil. Sacrifice is the common 
 root and uniting bond and reasonable explanation of 
 all those acts which seem in the eyes of men, often in 
 the eyes of those who perform them, most hostile to 
 
 F 
 
66 SACUIPICE OF THE PASSOVER. [SEEM. 
 
 eacli other, but which God sees to be essentially alike, 
 and which in due time justify themselves as proceeding 
 from the same children of wisdom, though one may be 
 said to have a devil because he wears camels' hair, 
 and a mightier than he be called a gluttonous man and 
 a wine-bibber, because He eats and drinks with publicans 
 and sinners. But Sacrifice cannot have this ennobling 
 and mysterious power — it will be turned into self-glory, 
 and lose its own nature and acquire a devil nature — if it 
 is not contemplated as all flowing from the nature of 
 God j if it is not referred to Him as its author as well as 
 its end. Think of this as you kneel at the altar, which is 
 more wonderful than any Jewish altar because it speaks 
 of a finished Sacrifice. Think of it as you eat that 
 feast which is like the Jewish Passover, because it is 
 individual, because it is common, because it testifies of 
 God as a Redeemer, because it testifies of Him as the 
 avenger of all evil ; but which is higher than the Jewish 
 Passover, because it is human and universal, because in 
 it we partake of a Sacrifice which has been offered to 
 gather together in one the children of God that are 
 scattered abroad, — offered that they might be able to 
 off'er themselves as children to do their Father's work 
 and will. 
 
v.] ( 7 ) 
 
 SERMON V. 
 
 THE LEGAL SACRIFICES. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 5th Sunday in Lent, April 2, 1854.) 
 
 Leviticus i. 1 — 6, and part of 9th verse. 
 
 ' And the Lord called unto Moses, and spaJce unto him out of the taber- 
 nacle of the congregation, saying, SpeaJc unto the children of Israel, 
 and say unto them. If any man of you bring an offering unto the 
 Lord, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and 
 of the flock. If his offh'ing be a burnt-sacrifice of the herd, let him 
 offer a male without blemish : he shall offer it of his own voluntary 
 will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the 
 Lord. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering; 
 and it shall be accepted for him, to maJce atonement for him. And he 
 shall Mil thebidlocic before the Lord : and the priests, Aaron's sons, 
 shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the 
 
 altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation 
 
 And the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt-sacrifice, an 
 offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.' 
 
 You must now consider the Israelites as an organized 
 nation. They have the Passover, which is to remind 
 them from generation to generation that they are one 
 people, one with their forefathers, one with their de- 
 scendants, one because the Lord has redeemed them 
 out of the house of bondage, one because He is their 
 King for ever and ever. They have commandments. 
 
68 THE LEGAL SACRIFICES. [SEEM. 
 
 which tell them that they are not the subjects of a 
 capricious despot, but of a righteous Ruler, who would 
 have them know the laws by which they are governed. 
 They have an interpreter of these laws, and a set of 
 elders or heads of tribes who work with him in deciding 
 the causes which arise between man and man. They 
 have statutes, applicable to particular cases, — punish- 
 ments, awarded to specific crimes. They have, lastly, 
 a tabernacle, which goes with the people where they 
 go, — which announces to them the presence of God 
 with them, — which testifies that He is guiding them, — 
 which is said to be a meeting place between them and 
 Him, — in which a whole tribe is set apart to minister, — 
 in which a family of that tribe is consecrated to offer 
 sacrifices. What I am to speak of, to-day, is the rela- 
 tion between these sacrifices and the rest of the polity 
 as I have described it, — the relation between them and 
 the distinct Israelites who formed the congregation. 
 I have taken the first verses of the book of Leviticus as 
 my guide in this inquiry. As far as the principle 
 of the national sacrifices is concerned, they are, it seems 
 to me, all that we want. But they are the introduction 
 to a book, to other parts of which I may have occasion 
 to refer for the illustration of their meaning, and for 
 the purpose of showing how the sacrifices for the nation 
 as a body were connected with the sacrifices for its 
 individual members. 
 
 The first words of the passage show us how needful 
 
v.] THE LEGAL SACHIFICES. 69 
 
 it is that we should understand the principle of the 
 Jewish commonwealth before we examine this insti- 
 tution of it. According to the heathen notion of sacri- 
 ficC; as we considered it last Sunday, the offerings must 
 be always experiments to obtain some benefit, which 
 the power to whom they are presented can bestow, 
 or to remove some evil which it is likely to inflict. The 
 rules respecting them may have been devised by those 
 whom the people held in most reverence for their 
 wisdom or their sanctity. They may acquire fresh 
 authority from long transmission and observance. But 
 they are always liable to change. New and more ex- 
 traordinary occasions may demand higher gifts, more 
 august propitiations. Traditions may become more 
 complicated each new age, almost each new year. The 
 child has experiences unknown to the father. In- 
 fluences of the heavens upon the earth are detected 
 which had not been before observed. Crimes multiply, 
 and fears multiply with them. Who can tell that the 
 sacrifice, which was available to remove the punishments 
 which threatened one generation, or one man, may not 
 utterly fail for another ? 
 
 (1.) But here the very same voice which proclaimed 
 the Commandments on Sinai is said to announce the 
 nature of the sacrifices, and how, and when, and by 
 whom they are to be presented. The unseen King and 
 Lawgiver is here, as everywhere, making known His 
 Will. Those sacrifices, v^hich it was supposed were to 
 
70 THE LEGAL SACRTEICES. [SEIIM. 
 
 bend and determine His Will, themselves proceed 
 from it. To vary them at the suggestion of any priest, 
 or council of priests, under any impulse or inspiration 
 of devotion, or gratitude, or fear, or sense of evil, is to 
 depart from His decrees, to commit one of those trans- 
 gressions vrhich the sacrifices themselves are provided 
 to meet. 
 
 Consider how immense this difference is; how the 
 doctrine of Moses reverses all those conceptions, and 
 subverts all those motives, which are supposed by many 
 to be at the basis of sacrifices, which have actually been 
 at work in a vast majority of those who have brought 
 them and enjoined them. But consider how exactly 
 this doctrine accords with that which we found to be 
 involved in the patriarchal sacrifices, when there was 
 no precept enjoining them ; how the security of fixed 
 law carries out and expounds the principle to which 
 we found men doing homage when there was no law. 
 The difference between AbeFs offering and Cain^s, be- 
 tween NoaVs and the offerings of the corrupt and 
 violent men against whom he denounced judgments, 
 between Abraham^s and those of the cities of the 
 plain, — is precisely that which is maintained in this 
 more advanced stage of society, by the words which 
 were spoken to the children of Israel out of the taber- 
 nacle of the congregation. 
 
 (2.) That they are said to be spoken there, is the next 
 point to which I would draw your attention. The taber- 
 
V.J THE LEGAL SACRIFICES. 71 
 
 nacle, as I have just said, was the witness of God's 
 abiding presence with the people, the pledge that they 
 were to trust Him, and that He sought intercourse with 
 them. From thence proceeded those precepts which 
 have reference to trespasses, transgressions, sins ; and 
 to the methods which an Israelite, feeling that he had 
 trespassed, transgressed, sinned, was to take for obtain- 
 ing peace and reconciliation. A whole scheme of ser- 
 vices, ordinances, institutes, is arranged and appointed 
 under the most awful sanctions, by the Divine King — 
 for what end? That He may re-establish an inter- 
 course between Him and His subjects which has been 
 interrupted; that He may bring back those whose 
 hearts tell them they have wandered. 
 
 (3.) Again, it is not an insignificant point that the 
 tabernacle is represented as the tabernacle of the con- 
 gregation. There, where God dwells, is the proper 
 home of the whole people ; there they may feel that 
 they are a whole people; there they may know that 
 they are one, because He who has called them into 
 covenant with Him is One. The more the sense of this 
 unity was realized, the more easy and intelligible would 
 be the words which follow. 
 
 (4.) ^ Bay to the children of Israel^ If any of you bring 
 ' an offering unto the Lord.' It is not said, ^ You shall 
 ' bring this offering f it is said, ' If you do, then so and 
 ' so it must be brought.' The desire for such sacrifice 
 is presumed. Might it not safely be presumed ? Did 
 
72 THE LEGAL SACRIFICES. [SEEM. 
 
 not the condition and history of every people show that 
 it existed ; that it could only be stifled when the 
 strongest and deepest convictions of humanity were 
 stifled ? Wherever there was in men no sense of thank- 
 fulness, of obligation, of dependence, — wherever men 
 were entirely wrapped up in themselves, satisfied with 
 themselves, — wherever they had no sense of the past 
 being connected with the present, and the future with 
 both, — there was no movement towards sacrifice, no 
 effort to make sacrifice. Whoever cherished these 
 feelings amidst the strangest perversions and contra- 
 dictions, felt sacrifice to be a necessary and cardinal con- 
 dition of their lives, though it might be turned to the 
 destruction of the impulses which had prompted it. 
 Everything in the position of the Jew was awakening in 
 him the sense of gratitude, of obligation, of dependence. 
 He had been redeemed ; he was bound to the righteous 
 Lord who had set him free ; he had no hope of life and 
 freedom but from Him. Moreover, he was one of the 
 children of Israel; he had obligations to his fathers, to 
 his children; he could not separate himself from his 
 country. He was apprised of relationships which he 
 could not shake off"; of laws which must execute them- 
 selves whether he obeyed them or not — which he was 
 created to obey. In such a man the sense of transgres- 
 sion, of disobedience, is awakened more than in any one 
 else. His whole education serves to bring it forth in 
 him. Everything tells him what has been done for 
 
v.] THE LEGAL SACRIHCES. 73 
 
 hinij what goodness and mercy are compassing him 
 round; everything witnesses to him that there is a 
 want of sympathy with them in him : everything tells 
 him of an order that is fixed and that is blessed, and 
 that there has been disorder in him. How certain was 
 it that he would seek for some way of ridding himself 
 of his burden, and that he would be ready to ask every 
 person and thing to tell him what that way was. All 
 the nations around would be saying to him, ' Our way 
 ' of shaking off these troublesome thoughts and recollec- 
 ' tions, is to offer sacrifice. We go to the priest or wise 
 ' man ; he tells us what God we have grieved, how we 
 ' are to make amends to him. We do what he bids us ; 
 ' we take it for granted that he has told us the right 
 ' thing ; we can then go comfortably to our business or 
 ' our pleasure, and hope that all is right or will be right 
 ' in due time. Of course there are some offences which 
 ' require a greater compensation than others. Rich men 
 ' are better off than the poor : when they have committed 
 ' any huge crime, they can slaughter a whole herd by 
 ' way of satisfaction, or bring some still more precious 
 
 * gift. We must do as well as we can. One animal will 
 ' perhaps be reckoned enough in our case, both because 
 ' more are not to be had, and because poverty may have 
 
 * had some share in making us go wrong.^ 
 
 (5.) In many countries this would be the popular lan- 
 guage. It would not be exactly so in Egypt ; there 
 the animal worship would in some degree interfere with 
 
74 THE LEGAL SACEIFICES. [SERM. 
 
 the animal sacrifice. The ox might rather receive the 
 offering, than be made the victim. The command to 
 the Jew is not that he should offer any peculiar novel 
 sacrifice. He is to take of the herd and the flock, the 
 same kind of offering which Noah or Abraham would 
 have presented; he is not to fear to take it, lest he 
 should be extinguishing any divine life. The lesson is 
 a double one. The common things, the most ordinary 
 part of his possessions, are those which he is to bring ; 
 that is one part of his teaching: the animals are 
 subjects of man; he is to rule them and make use 
 of them for his own higher objects; that is another. 
 
 (6.) He, however, is to understand that the service 
 he is engaged in, is a serious one. He may easily be 
 tempted to regard it as a formality which he is to go 
 through ; but which is to be despatched with as little 
 cost to himself, either of outward goods or of thought, 
 as he can spend upon it. He must be reminded that 
 sacrifice upon these terms is a lie. The demand that 
 the victim from the herd shall be a male without hleimsh 
 is a silent admonition to him of this truth ; if it leads 
 him to reflect and question himself why such a rule 
 should be laid down for him, one part of the object is 
 accomplished; the ceremony is no longer a mere 
 ceremony ; the spirit of a man is occupied with it ; the 
 offering of the animal, he begins to perceive, is not the 
 chief part of the sacrifice. 
 
 (7.) And to assist this conviction there comes in, the 
 
v.] THE LEGAL SACRIFICES. 7b 
 
 clause which sounds so strange in an accurate and 
 formal edict, that he shall offer it of his own voluntary 
 will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation 
 before the Lord, ' After all, then, it is matter of choice 
 ' whether he will perform or neglect this service ?' 
 Certainly : if there is no sense in him of evil done, or 
 evil to be removed ; if he has committed no trespass ; 
 if he has incurred no defilement ; if he has no need 
 of reconciliation; — he is not under any compulsion 
 to approach the tabernacle. If he is a true Israelite, 
 — if he has taken any measure of that which is 
 implied in this name, — if he knows what it is to be 
 a devoted, dedicated being to God, what it is to be 
 one of a congregation, he is certain to feel that he has 
 departed again and again from his right condition. 
 But, as it is needful to assert that all sacrifice pro- 
 ceeds from the will of God, it is equally needful to 
 affirm that the sacrifice is accomplished only by the 
 consent of the will of man ; that without that consent 
 it is absolutely without meaning. 
 
 (8.) Although, however, there is this vindication of 
 choice in the act of bringing the gift, there is no choice 
 whatever as to the place at which it is to be presented. 
 The words are strict and imperative : ^ He shall offer it 
 ' at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.' ' It 
 ' is a private calamity he wishes to avert; why not oflPer 
 ' private sacrifice ? It is a sin of his own he wishes to 
 'be free from; why come forth to make this public 
 
76 THE LEGAL SACRTEICES. [SERM. 
 
 'acknowledgment of it?' Sucli questions, according 
 to the heathen views of sacrifice, were unanswerable ; 
 the whole faith of the Jew perished if he listened 
 to them. Out of those notions of private sacrifice, 
 grew everything which was superstitious, idolatrous, 
 destructive of a commonwealth. It was not the bond 
 to a common Lord that had been broken ; it was an 
 ofPence that had been committed against some special 
 power, — some avenging deity, of earth or air. It was 
 not the bond to the fellow-citizen that had been 
 broken; the individual could set himself right, without 
 any reference to father, wife, children, neighbours. 
 An altogether confused notion of the nature of evil, 
 a disbelief in the privileges which belonged to the 
 Israelites as a body, a denial that they were a people 
 called and redeemed by the one living God, a growing 
 doubt, therefore, whether there w^as such a Being — 
 these were the consequences of taking the ox or the 
 sheep to some other place than that in which the Lord 
 God had put His Name. 
 
 (9.) The victim was taken to the door of the place, 
 at which all Israelites had an equal right to appear ; 
 but the man who brought it laid his own hand upon the 
 head of it. He signified that the act was his ; that it 
 expressed thoughts in his mind which no one else could 
 know of. The crime he had done, or the disease that 
 was preying upon him, or the bitterness of spirit which 
 he could not tell to another, might all be declared to 
 
v.] THE LEGAL SACHIFICES. 77 
 
 the Searcher of Hearts : if he could not utter them 
 the act uttered them. He comes in his ignorance, 
 beUeving there is One who knows him, and has bidden 
 him come. That which is passing in him cannot be 
 weighed or measured. He cannot reduce it under the 
 head of bodily grief, or mental grief^ or stings of 
 conscience ; he cannot say how much of pleasure and 
 joy are mixed with the suffering, or whether it is good 
 or bad, animal or spiritual. What did he understand 
 of these refinements ? What could they have profited 
 him if he had understood them ? He sought to have 
 that explained to him which was utterly confused; to 
 have himself set right. There was war in him; he 
 needed peace. Some one was displeased with him ; he 
 desired to be reconciled. 
 
 (10.) And the words are as precise and strong as they 
 can be. ^ It shall be accepted for him to make atone- 
 * ment for him.'' The reconciliation which he seeks he 
 shall find. God will meet him there. God, who knows 
 what he is, — what he is suffering, — what he has done, — 
 who has appointed the conditions of his existence, — 
 who sees exactly how he has used them or abused 
 them, — to whom the past and present of his life are 
 both open — who has been making him aware of that in 
 which he has been wrong, — of that in which he is weak 
 and is likely to be wrong, — the God from whom he is 
 conscious of estrangement, with whom he is sure that 
 he ought to be at one, — He takes away that which 
 
78 THE LEGAL SACRIFICES. [SEEM. 
 
 separates them. He accepts this sign of his submission, 
 He restores him to his rights in the divine society. 
 
 (11.) And now first it is that we hear of the priests, 
 Aaron s sons. They have not suggested what the offer- 
 ing shall be, or what is likely to be the best way of 
 making it acceptable. All this is taken out of their 
 hands ; they are not even the persons through whom 
 the communication of the divine will is made to the 
 Israelites ; they are the servants of a law, as much as 
 the meanest of the people, — a law which they are to 
 execute, which they must not, at their peril, depart 
 from, to carry out any sublime notions of theirs, to meet 
 any notions which may arise in the mind of any 
 offender. The gift, the place, the atonement, are all 
 spoken of before there is any allusion to them. But 
 when they are introduced, we perceive at once that 
 their office is a most important one ; that the idea of 
 the commonwealth and of the sacrifice would be imper- 
 fect, nay, self-contradictory, without them. If there 
 was a congregation — if the individual Israelites were 
 not to have their separate sacrifices and their separate 
 gods — then there must be a representative of this unity ; 
 there must be one who acted as if they were a body. 
 If the congregation derived its unity from its relation 
 to the invisible Lord who had called out the family and 
 the nation to be His witnesses to the world, then the 
 man who expressed its unity must express its relation 
 to this Lord. There could not be a fear of his ever 
 
v.] THE LEGAL SACEIFICES. 79 
 
 glorifying himself on either of these positions, while he 
 remembered the other, and while he remembered that 
 they were inseparable. The abstracted Brahmin, stand- 
 ing aloof from the people, may believe that he is absorbed 
 into his God — that he becomes identical with him. 
 The minister of the congregation, the priest who was 
 bound by his calling to feel himself one with them in 
 all their sins and infirmities, had a perpetual witness in 
 himself that he was no God, and that he could not 
 approach to God whilst he supposed himself in any 
 degree divided from God^s people. On the other hand, 
 the priest may sink into one of the congregation, using 
 any higher lore he has received only to gratify their 
 tastes and fancies, or to gratify his own avarice and 
 ambition at their expense ; the vilest pander to all their 
 most violent passions; interested in keeping them base 
 and ignorant, lest they should see into his hypocrisy 
 and loathe him as he deserves to be loathed. But so 
 long as he remembers that ' holiness to the Lord' is 
 inscribed on his forehead — that he is consecrated as a 
 witness to the people of the actual relation which exists 
 between them and the God of truth and righteousness 
 — and of His will to put away their falsehood and evil, 
 that they may be like Him — this horrible fall becomes 
 as impossible as the other. So that, while the history 
 tells us in plain terms that the Jewish priests were often 
 not better than heathen priests, and when not better 
 were very much worse, it testifies as clearly that their 
 
80 THE LEGAL SACRIHCES. [SERM. 
 
 arrogance, and craft, and sottishness came from a disbe- 
 lief and forgetfulness of their divine and human calling, 
 — not from exaggerating its worth and sacredness. 
 
 (12.) And I believe there were lessons taught the 
 priests in this very passage, as well as in other passages 
 of this book, which would recur to them again and 
 again, and smite their consciences, while they went on 
 in an evil course, till their consciences became actually 
 seared, and they and the nation they represented fell 
 together. One of these lessons lay in their hereditary 
 succession. The limitation of this office to a family 
 signified that the priests were not chosen for their 
 individual gifts or virtues, though these would be 
 bestowed upon them freely if they remembered their 
 calling. They took nothing by mere descent from their 
 ancestors; they declared to each new age that the same 
 God who had spoken to their fathers and ruled them, 
 and held intercourse with them, and blotted out their 
 sins, was speaking to themj ruling them, holding inter- 
 course with them, blotting out their sins. And lest any 
 family conceit should spring up, as of course it would, 
 out of a vocation which, rightly apprehended, was so sub- 
 versive of it, they were reminded continually by inter- 
 ruptions in the succession, by the atrocities of priests 
 and the tremendous judgments which followed, how 
 the instrument might be dashed in pieces, that the truth 
 for which he existed to testify might be established. 
 
 (13.) The special office of the priest, as it is set forth 
 
v.] THE LEGAL SACRIEICES. 81 
 
 in this passage, was also, I tliink^ very significant to 
 him of the end for which he was appointed. He was 
 to bring the blood, and to sprinkle the blood round about 
 the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the 
 congregation. The blood_, the Israelites had been told 
 already, was the life, which they were not to eat, but to 
 pour out like water. It had been said that whoso 
 sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, 
 because in the image of God was man made, and because 
 of every man's brother would he require the life of man. 
 This blood, this life, was evidently the most sacred part 
 of the service; it is referred to in every part of the 
 institution of sacrifice ; it is connected with purifica- 
 tion. Yet it was not mixed with'the rest of the offer- 
 ing ; it was poured out about the altar, while the mere 
 animal, the dead thing, was ofi'ered as a whole burnt 
 sacrifice. I apprehend that there were lessons here never 
 to be forgotten, concerning death and life ; concerning 
 the preciousness and dignity of life ; concerning the dedi- 
 cation of that to God ; concerning the special duty of the 
 priest to be a witness that the living sacrifice is that 
 which God seeks for, that it is this which interprets the 
 mystery of death, that it is this which purifies, that it 
 is this which unites. The hint was given; the priest was 
 to think over it, to dwell upon it, to consider what prin- 
 ciples, yet to be brought out and realized, were latent 
 in it. When he tried to do the work which was 
 given him to do — when he entered with most simplicity 
 
 G 
 
82 THE LEGAL SACREFICES. [SERM. 
 
 into all that was weakest^ and all that was saddest in 
 those for whom he ministered — when he sought the 
 interpretation of one and the other from God Him- 
 self, these lessons became clear to him. Then he was 
 taught to pour out his own life blood, and not only that 
 of the beasts, before the altar; then he was taught that 
 there must be a higher and nobler blood than that, 
 poured out for the whole congregation and for the 
 human race, to purify it of its selfish corruptions, to 
 unite it with God. 
 
 Even in the perplexities of the Levitical law, such a 
 priest may have found subjects for reflection and medi- 
 tation, which may have been, in the end, more profitable 
 and instructive to him than rules which he could at 
 once have understood. It has seemed to many, that the 
 division of ofi*erings into trespass-offerings, sin-offerings, 
 thank-offerings, peace-offerings, is what logicians call 
 a cross division ; for must not the trespass-ofi^ering be 
 also a sin-offering, a peace-offering, or a thank-off"ering ? 
 The classification, though it may offend the intellect, 
 justifies itself to the heart. The desire to express 
 thankfulness may be mixed inseparably with the desire 
 to confess an outward trespass, or a secret sin. But 
 one of these desires is always predominant over the 
 other, and this predominance determines what a man is 
 likely to seek for in a sacrifice if he is left to his own 
 fancies. The divine Legislator meets him with these 
 distinct names ; they are w hat he needs ; a more formal 
 
v.] THE LEGAL SACRIPICES. 83 
 
 and seemingly accurate classification would defeat its 
 own objects. The priest who took these hints as his 
 guides and landmarks, would arrive at a deeper know- 
 ledge of himself and of his fellow-men. He would be 
 preserved from the great temptation into which priests 
 in all ages have fallen, of inventing a multitude of rules 
 for cases of conscience, which produce the evil they 
 profess to guard against, which corrupt and enslave the 
 conscience they pretend to purify and relieve. 
 
 The mixture of services for what, in the dialect of 
 divines, are called ceremonial impurities, that is to say, 
 such as have no inherent moral evil in them, with actual 
 trespasses, has been another complaint against these 
 Levitical precepts. Here, too, I think, we are forgetting 
 facts in our eagerness to make distinctions, and thus 
 lose the real and radical distinctions which we should 
 discern if we were less impatient. Bodily diseases do 
 affect the mind in a thousand ways — affect it with fears 
 of the future, with remembrances of the past, with a 
 sense of wrong. They look like punishments ; it is very 
 little help merely to tell any one who is suffering from 
 them, that they are disguised mercies. If you are 
 to make him feel that truth, you must show him that 
 the Lord of all cares for all the evils that afflict him ; 
 for every kind of torment to which he is actually sub- 
 ject, whatever name psychologists or physiologists may 
 please to bestow upon it. You must not leave him to 
 find out, by subtle self-questioning, whether there is 
 
84 THE LEGAL SACRIFICES. [SERM. 
 
 moral evil in what lie has done or thought, or how 
 much; if you do, he will involve himself in endless 
 entanglements, from which no maxims or formulas will 
 set him free. Treat him as such a being as he is; 
 show that all his experience has been foreseen, and that 
 it is not a solitary one ; let him come and cast himself 
 before the Lord, and seek the atonement He has pro- 
 mised ; so you give him real help, so you make him a 
 wiser as well as a more simple and true man. That this 
 is done ; that the difficulties which belong to human 
 beings, and which would lead them to seek all evil helps, 
 are turned to the account of good ; that the rules come 
 in where they are wanted, and do not attempt what 
 they cannot perform ; that they suggest what they are 
 unable to teach, and so leave the minds of those who 
 are disciplined by them to expand under higher and 
 freer influences; this is, I conceive, the test of that 
 legislation which is at once human and divine. 
 
 The great annual atonement, which is appointed in 
 the sixteenth chapter of this book, carries us a step 
 beyond those daily sacrifices, of which the opening pas- 
 sages speak, though the two parts of the scheme are 
 strikingly in harmony. The general like the individual 
 ofi'erings is grounded wholly upon the will of God ; like 
 them, it assumes the nation to be already a holy and 
 sacrificed nation, in spite of the sins of its particular 
 members, and of its own public sins ; like them, it starts 
 from the assumption that God is seeking to reconcile 
 
v.] THE LEGAL SACRIFICES. 85 
 
 those who have wandered, to Himself; like them, it as- 
 sumes the will of the creature to be the great subject 
 of the reconciliation ; like them, it treats the priest as 
 at once representing the holiness of the nation, and as 
 sharing its sins. But with the dead animal is connected 
 a living one, which goes away into the wilderness bearing 
 the sins of the land. The bullock that was slain, the 
 scapegoat that disappeared, suggested to the Israelite 
 these two thoughts. God can entirety take away the 
 evil of a people and of a man. If He takes it away, 
 the Mediator, the sin-bearer, must in some unspeakable 
 manner unite Death and Life. 
 
( 86 ) [SEllM. 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 
 DAVID'S SACRIFICE. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 2d Sunday after Easter, April 30, 1854.) 
 
 Psalm li. 16, 17. 
 
 * For tJiou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it : thou delightest not 
 in burnt-offering. The sacrifices of God are a hroTcen spirit : a IroJcen 
 and a contrite heart, God, thou wilt not despise* 
 
 When I spoke to you last on the subject of Sacrifice^ 
 I was considering the provisions of the Levitical Law. 
 I endeavoured to show you how strikingly those pro- 
 visions, formal and precise as they were, illustrated the 
 principle of Sacrifice, as we bad seen it unfolding itself 
 in the offerings of Abel, of Noah, of Abraham. The 
 national precept carried on the education of the Jew 
 when he was come into new circumstances, but it did 
 not alter or modify any of the lessons which he had 
 learnt among the tents of the Patriarchs. It protected 
 those lessons from perils by which they were threatened; 
 it connected them with the experience which the Is- 
 raelites had passed through in Egypt; it prepared the way 
 for fresh experiences through which they would pass in 
 
VI.] David's sacrifice. 87 
 
 Palestine. The more closely we examined the terms of 
 the command which appointed what sacrifices should be 
 offered, — how, and where, and by whom, — construing 
 those terms strictly as laws should be construed, the 
 more we perceived how they were directed against the 
 Heathen notions of sacrifice, which spring up so natu- 
 rally in the heart of man — which foster its pride, and 
 which bring it into slavery — and which had already 
 worked so mightily and fearfully in the world : the more 
 we saw how these provisions asserted the divine doctrine 
 that Sacrifice must proceed from the Will of God, and 
 is perfected when the will of man is subdued to it. 
 
 But clearly as I think these positions are established 
 by the plain words of Scripture — still more by all the 
 context of its history, by the errors of the chosen people^^ 
 and by the eflPects which ensued when they fell into the 
 habits of the people round about them — I do not wonder 
 that readers have felt something like a shock when they 
 have passed directly from the Law to the Psalms; when 
 they find Kings and Seers apparently disparaging those 
 offerings, which were so precious a part of the divine 
 economy. Our attention has been lately called to 
 passages of this kind — passages which have a startling 
 sound, and which certain critics affirm must have been 
 written by men who, secretly or openly, had revolted 
 from the national faith. The fiftieth and the fifty-first 
 Psalms were chosen for our use last Wednesday morning.^ 
 
 ^ On the Day of general Humiliation. 
 
88 David's sacrifice. [serm. 
 
 In the first, we find such sentences as these — ^ / ivill 
 take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goat out of thy 
 folds. For every beast of the forest is miney and the 
 cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the foivls of the 
 mountains : and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If 
 I were hungry, I would not tell thee : for the world is 
 mine and the fidness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of 
 bulls, or drink the blood of goats ? Offer unto God 
 thanksgiving ; and pay thy vows unto the most High : 
 and call upon me in the day of trouble : I loill deliver 
 thee, and thou shall glorify me.' In such language, 
 there is something like scorn of the notion that 
 animal offerings — the very offerings which the law had 
 prescribed and which the priest continually presented — 
 could be of any worth in God's sight. The argument 
 is stated in the broadest manner, in a way which must 
 have given offence, one would have thought, even to 
 sincere and devout suppliants. And the conclusion, that 
 the offering of thanksgiving, and the calling upon God 
 in trouble, is that which He really demands, must have 
 been urged by a number of Sadducees in the latter days, 
 if there were none in the earlier, as a justification of all 
 that they taught respecting the easiness of the divine 
 requirements and their purely moral character. The 
 fifty-first Psalm is altogether different. There is nothing 
 which can be taken for contempt of any vulgar doctrines 
 or practices. The King who speaks is not raised to a 
 higher point of view than his subjects — he is beneath 
 
VI.] David's sacrifice. 89 
 
 them all. But in the depth of ahasement, he seems to 
 arrive at the same discovery to which the other teacher 
 was led by a different route. ' Thou desirest not sacri- 
 fice ; else ivould I give it : thou delightest not in burnt- 
 offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; a 
 broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not 
 despise.'' These words^ though none were ever spoken 
 in the world that could be so little intended to perplex 
 any worshipping Israelite, nevertheless must have 
 strangely clashed with some of his most cherished and 
 familiar thoughts. Thou delightest not in burnt-offer- 
 ings ! — Why then, was it said, that the Lord smelled a 
 sweet savour when Noah brought forth the clean beasts 
 after the flood ? Why were all the oflPerings at the door 
 of the tabernacle accompanied with incense which inti- 
 mated that they were grateful to Him who dwelt there? 
 Why were they called peace-offerings, and off'erings of 
 atonement? And supposing that, in some sense, the heart 
 was a better offering than the bullock or goat, must it 
 not, according to all symbols and analogies, be a whole 
 heart in order to be accepted ? Were not Israelites 
 forbidden to offer anything maimed or broken to the 
 Lord ? Were they not to bring unblemished males of 
 the first year ? Was it not running counter to all these 
 axioms, and to that which was implied in them, to speak 
 of the heart, bruised, worn, torn in pieces, as the very 
 gift which God desired ? I do not see how any Pharisee 
 could have answered these questions. He would have 
 
90 David's sacrifice. [sehm. 
 
 tried to answer them^ by saying that the Law was divine 
 and that the Psalms were divine, and that it was not 
 his business to reconcile them, but to believe both. The 
 practical eifect of which resolution, I think, must have 
 been that he would believe neither, and would act ac- 
 cording to neither, but would believe his own notion of 
 sacrifice, and would ground upon it doctrines and prac- 
 tices which Moses and David would have hated equally. 
 But a simple, childlike man — one of those whom the 
 evangelists describe as waiting for the kingdom of heaven 
 — beginning with a strong sense of the apparent diver- 
 sity between the teachers whom he reverenced, would 
 gradually have discovered — by suffering as the psalmists 
 suffered — how truly they were the interpreters of the 
 Law, how little it could be understood except by those 
 whom God Himself trained in the school in which He 
 had trained them. Christian men living since the 
 Gospel of the kingdom, for which these men waited, has 
 been proclaimed, have been brought to the same conclu- 
 sion by the same process. And we, my brethren, may 
 find out, as they did, what the words of these psalms 
 signify, how they illustrate all that we have ascertained 
 about sacrifice hitherto, how needful they are to explain 
 the nature of our sacrifices, how they bear upon that 
 perfect sacrifice, the inestimable benefits of which have 
 been set forth in the Collect for to-day. 
 
 I. The fiftieth Psalm exhibits the chosen race as sum- 
 moned to answer for itself before its divine King. God is 
 
VI.] DAVID'S SACRIFICE. 91 
 
 calling to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that 
 He may judge His people* This people is marked out in 
 the next verse^ as saints who have made a covenant with 
 Me with sacrifice. It is assumed^ therefore, that the 
 nation is holy, and that God has claimed it as holy by 
 taking it into covenant with Himself. The covenant 
 cannot be separated from sacrifice. 1 have shown you 
 how this principle was embodied in the institution of 
 the Passover ; how the ordinance which established that 
 sacrifice — how every part of the service itself — testified 
 that Israelites were a dedicated, devoted, sacrificed 
 nation. The first-born were consecrated as representa- 
 tives of the whole people. They were redeemed from 
 death, but not redeemed from this condition. The 
 animal was a dead oficring; they were living off'erings. 
 The great trial or judgment, then, which the Lord of 
 the land is making of His subjects, has this issue : Have 
 they acted as if this were their state ; as if they were 
 dedicated, sacrificed creatures ? He is God, even their 
 own God. Have they understood this to be the case? 
 have they believed that He was their God, and that they 
 were His saints, — His sanctified, redeemed creatures? 
 Let them not put the cause upon a diff'erent issue from 
 this ; let them not suppose that God is reproving them 
 for their sacrifices or their burnt-offerings, because they 
 were not always before Him. He does not want these ; 
 the cattle on a thousand hills are His. He wants their 
 acknowledgment of Him, He wants their trust. But 
 
92 DAVID'S SACRIFICE. [SERM. 
 
 what had they to do ivho declared His statutes and 
 boasted of His covenant, yet remained wicked ? Did 
 not they know that His purpose in taking them into 
 covenant with Him was to reform them; to separate 
 them from their evil ; to deliver them from the adulte- 
 rous, deceitful, slanderous tendencies of their nature? 
 Did they suppose that God wanted to be fed with their 
 beasts ? Did they not know that they needed to be made 
 right men by Him ? Oh, miserable delusion ! they 
 fancied Him altogether such an one as themselves ! — 
 one who could be bribed as they were bribed ! They 
 had not yet learned, after all His teaching and discipline, 
 that their duty and their blessiug was to submit to 
 Him, that He might make them like Himself. 
 
 Here was, indeed, a wonderful exposition of that 
 falsehood which was leading the Israelite astray in all 
 the periods of his history ; the falsehood which turned 
 him into an idolater in one generation, into an inso- 
 lent denouncer of idolaters in another. He did not 
 look upon God as his God, as his Deliverer, as his Judge, 
 as his Reformer ; he did not yield himself to Him as His 
 subject, as His redeemed creature, to be purified, to be 
 renewed. He had never understood what it was to be 
 sacrificed himself. But he could, if need were, produce 
 a hecatomb of oxen to be sacrificed ; he supposed God's 
 toleration of his sins was to be purchased, and that this 
 was the purchase-money. The mockery of such a 
 notion by the psalmists is terrible, but not dispropor- 
 
VI.] DAVID'S SACMPICE. 93 
 
 tionate to tlie monstrousness of the evil which it was 
 condemning. It is that mockery which comes out of the 
 burning heart of a man who knows God to be righteous 
 and true; and who sees that men are making a god 
 like themselves, and are strengthening themselves in 
 their lies and their crimes by regarding him as the 
 patron of them. But the mockery is only a translation 
 into words of that which is embodied in the whole law 
 and ritual of Israel. The Psalmist draws out the 
 inmost sense of the book of Leviticus, when he says, 
 that ' if God were hungry, He would not tell them.' In 
 all the institutes which that book contains, God is 
 commanding a people, with whom He has already made 
 a covenant, what they shall do in order to testify that 
 they are in that covenant, and that they have broken it. 
 They are righteous, for He has chosen them and united 
 them to Himself; they have distrusted Him; they have 
 forgotten that they are a righteous people ; they have 
 chosen ways of their own. By their oflPerings of beasts, 
 they acknowledge that it is so; they take up their place 
 as Israelites; He accepts them. What pride and false- 
 hood to suppose that an act, which was the confession 
 of sin, had some meritorious power ! What blasphemy 
 to think that the instrument by which God chose to esta- 
 blish peace between Himself and those who had revolted 
 from Him, was a successful contrivance of theirs to 
 conciliate Him and induce Him to overlook their revolt ! 
 II. No one could have taught his countrymen these 
 
94 DAVID'S SACUIFICE. [SEUM 
 
 lessons who had not learnt that he needed to be judged 
 and reformed, that he could not judge and reform 
 himself; that the Searcher of hearts, the King of his 
 land, was doing that work for him ; that in doing it He 
 was fulfilling the covenant which He had made with 
 the Israelites -, that to submit freely and frankly to that 
 process was the man's part of the covenant, was the sacri- 
 fice which God above all others demanded of him. And 
 this is the link between the fiftieth and the fifty-first 
 Psalms, which in outward characteristics are so dissimilar, 
 and yet in which we found a striking correspondence 
 on the subject of sacrifice. The circumstances which 
 suggested this last Psalm do not aiFect its nature, but 
 I shall assume the old tradition, which few have ever 
 disbelieved, that it is the confession of David's sin against 
 Bathsheba and Uriah. We may believe that the King did 
 not say. Thou desirest no sacrifice, else would I ffive it, 
 without having made the experiment. It was a most 
 natural thing for him to betake himself to the Taber- 
 nacle which he had frequented before; to make his 
 gifts there more costly than in former days ; to per- 
 suade himself that if other men's transgressions were 
 forgiven, his, who had fought so many battles for the 
 Lord, and sung so many songs to Him, would certainly 
 be overlooked. Why did not the result answer to his 
 expectation ? Why, after the priest had duly presented 
 the whole burnt- offering — had praised him, perhaps, 
 because his devotion and bounty were greater than 
 
VI.] DAVID'S SACRIFICE. 95 
 
 ever — did lie return to his house, with his countenance 
 fallen, with the same weight on his heart as before, with 
 his moisture still like the drought in summer? That 
 singing men and singing women should not avail to 
 give him ease, he might have expected. But the sin- 
 offering, the trespass-offering, the peace-offering — could 
 not they do it? What did the Law mean — what did 
 the whole service of the Tabernacle, the ordinance of 
 the Passover — mean, if this were the case? This at 
 least was clear : he was not at peace. His conscience 
 told him so ; his endeavours to persuade himself that 
 the voice which spoke to him there was not the voice of 
 God utterly failed. God evidently did not delight in 
 David's burnt-offering more than He delighted in 
 Cain's. 
 
 But the next step was a much longer and harder one. 
 . A man who has begun to negociate and traffic with 
 his Maker will not quickly give up the hope that he 
 shall find something to sacrifice sooner or later which 
 He will be content to receive. To part with this hope, 
 to sink humbly on the knees ; to say. Against thee I have 
 sinned ; I have done this evil in Thy sight — how is this 
 possible ; — what brings a man to this ? And what kind 
 of offering is this ? David knew at last what it was. 
 It was the sacrifice of God. He had not brought him- 
 self into that posture : God had brought him into it. 
 He had corrected him and broken him. He had pre- 
 pared the sacrifice. He had shown him that this was 
 
96 DAVID'S SACEiriCE. [SERM. 
 
 what he wanted. This great saint, and singer, and king 
 of Israel, must positively understand that he has nothing 
 whatever to do, but to say, ' I am what thou knowest 
 ' I am. Thou hast found me out. Thou art right, and 
 ^ I am wrong. I give up the struggle.^ That was the 
 ultimate result. Now he believed that God was a 
 Righteous Being who hated sin, not one who overlooked 
 it in king or peasant, that He was willing to take it 
 away from king and peasant, to give each of them a 
 right heart. That now became his one desire. Not to 
 be a deceiver, not to keep his secret; but to be a right 
 and true man; to have his inmost spirit laid bare, 
 that every cheat might be purged out of it. 
 
 Here was the explanation of the strange fact that 
 a broken heart was better than a whole one ; that the 
 maimed offering might be presented by the Israelite, 
 who was to bring only of the firstlings of his flock. 
 The sacrifice was a 7nore complete, a 7nore entire one, 
 than he had ever yet presented. He had never, even, 
 in his days of early shepherd faith, even when he threw 
 himself away in battle, so absolutely and unreservedly 
 given up himself. The discovery that he had nothing 
 to present, that he was poor and worthless, was the 
 discovery that he belonged wholly to God, that he was 
 His, and that his sin had consisted in withdrawing 
 from his allegiance, in choosing another condition than 
 his true and actual one. 
 
 So subtle are the inventions of human pride that 
 
VI.] David's sacrifice. 97 
 
 even these words of David — these words of simple 
 renuneiation — have furnished food for it. * We are to 
 ' bring/ says the casuist, ' humble and contrite hearts. 
 ' And, therefore, it must be ascertained what contrition 
 ' is, and how much of contrition is needful to constitute 
 ' a true repentance, an acceptable sacrifice.' In what 
 delicate scales have men's tears and sorrows been 
 weighed out by divines, to know whether they answered 
 to this standard ; how the hearts and consciences of 
 suffering and penitent men have been, not tormented 
 merely — that is nothing — but made utterly insincere 
 and false, by their efforts to apply the rules and test 
 their own condition I And vain it is to point ont, in 
 mere words, that as long as a man fancies that he has 
 contrition, or any other present, to bring to God, in 
 order to make himself acceptable, so long he is not really 
 humbling himself; he is not confessing that he is a 
 sinner; he is not giving up himself. Vain it is, I say, 
 to point this out in words, for these words may be 
 abused as much as any other. But God makes this 
 known to a man in fact ; His discipline brings us 
 to understand it inwardly; that discipline cuts through 
 the webs which we weave for ourselves, and breaks 
 the spirit actually, not according to the maxims in 
 books. 
 
 And it is by breaking the man's spirit that He 
 restores it to its true freedom and greatness. The 
 child away from its home, seeking paths of its own, 
 
 H 
 
98 David's sacrifice. [serm. 
 
 joining itself to any citizen of the country in which 
 it is wandering, feeding upon husks, at last hungering 
 and wishing for the bread of hired servants, comes to 
 recollect that it has a father, that it is one of a family. 
 It asks for its home ; it finds that the Father has been 
 seeking for it ; — in knowing what He is, it begins to 
 know itself. This is the history of King David ; and 
 his history is written that each man may read his own 
 in it. The Book of Psalms is the most wonderful book 
 in the world, because it is the most universal ; because 
 in it saints and seers and prophets and kings prove 
 their title to their great names, by finding that they 
 have a greater name still, — that they are men; that they 
 are partakers in all the poverty, emptiness and sinful- 
 ness of their fellow-creatures ; that there is nothing in 
 themselves to boast of, or claim as their own; that all 
 which they have is His, who would have all to know 
 Him and to be partakers of His holiness. And there- 
 fore this fifty-first Psalm is, as it seems to me, the 
 real explanation of all the Psalms, and of the continual 
 references which they contain to another and higher 
 King than David. It was, and is most natural, that the 
 Jews reading of such a King, and honestly persuaded 
 that he must be what the name Ki7ig imports, should 
 have rejected the notion of a broken-hearted man — 
 a man of sorrows — as not at all answering to the idea 
 of such a ruler and conqueror. Till they are brought 
 as low as David himself was brought when he poured 
 
/ 
 
 vl] David's sacrieice. 99 
 
 out this confession, tliey will not, from all the argu- 
 ments and evidences in the world, find how that riddle 
 is solved ; they will not know why only such an one 
 could be the King, because only such an one could be 
 the sacrifice. And we too, brethren, we who are wont, 
 perhaps, to think of Him more as a sacrifice than as 
 a king, may have need of the same deep humiliation 
 before we can know what His Sacrifice is, or who could 
 truly offfer it. We may build up for ourselves a notion 
 of some one who has come to off'er a great and gorgeous 
 present to the Lord of all, which has changed His 
 mind towards His creatures ; we may unawares thrust 
 into our Christian faith those heathen notions of sacri- 
 fice against which God's witnesses before the flood, — 
 when the world rose out of it, — on the hill Moriah, — 
 amidst the idolaters of Egypt, — in the Wilderness, — 
 in the royal city, lifted up their voices. But if we are 
 brought, as one of the psalmists says that he was, as all 
 really were, to a horrible pit where no ground is, we 
 shall find that there is one Rock, and only one, on 
 which we can place our feet — the rock on which pro- 
 phets and apostles alike stood — the Name of Him who 
 said, Lo, I come, in the volume of the Book it is ivritten 
 of me — not to alter Thy purpose, but — to do thy will, 
 God, 
 
( 100 ) [SEBM. 
 
 SEEMON VII. 
 
 THE LAMB BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, '''Sd Sunday after Easter, May 7, 1854.) 
 
 1 St. Peter, i. 18—20. 
 
 * Forasmuch as ye Tcnow that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things^ 
 as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition 
 from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a 
 lamb without blemish and without spot : who verily was fore-ordained 
 before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last 
 times for you.' 
 
 It is not my intention to dwell at present upon the first 
 of these verses, though I should be very sorry if you 
 did not remember how closely it is connected with the 
 two last. How the death of Christ is the redemption 
 of men, in the strictest and fullest sense of that word, I 
 hope to consider in a future discourse. It is of Him as 
 fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, that 
 I desire, in all fear and reverence, to speak now. I 
 believe the subject rises naturally and necessarily out of 
 that on which I addressed you last Sunday. 
 
 The scriptures of the Old Testament have led us, step 
 by step, into a deeper apprehension of sacrifice. The 
 
VII.] THE LAMB. 101 
 
 humiliation of David, which showed him that he had 
 nothing of his own to oifer ; that he must come empty- 
 handed, broken-hearted, to receive of God that which 
 He alone could give, a right and true spirit — this humi- 
 liation, while it seemed to undermine the legal doctrine 
 of sacrifice, actually vindicated it, and placed it on its 
 proper ground. The corrupt and heathenish notion of 
 sacrifice, against which the law had been protesting, was 
 uprooted by the principle to which David gave utterance 
 in the fifty-first Psalm. Sacrifice was brought out in 
 its fullest and most radical sense, as the giving up, not 
 of something belonging to the man, but of the man 
 himself. Till he made that oblation, he was in a wrong 
 state. When it was made, he was in a restored state, 
 — in the state in which God had intended him to be, a 
 dependent creature, a trusting creature, capable of 
 receiving his Maker^s image. 
 
 Although this experience was so personal in the case 
 of David, although it must be personal in the case of 
 every one who goes through it, I maintained that it 
 was, for that very reason, human experience. David is 
 taught that he is not better than other men; he is 
 taught that his very sin has consisted in separating 
 himself from other men, in claiming for himself the 
 privilege of doing them an injury; he is taught that he 
 must be on a level with them all before he can be what 
 he ought to be himself. This is one of the paradoxes 
 of life, one which we must be all made in some way to 
 
103 THE LAMB BEFORE TUE [SERM. 
 
 understand. No man lias attained the true elevation 
 of humanity till he feels that he is not above any 
 human creature; no one can be really an individual 
 till he has confessed that he is only one of a kind. 
 But with this two-edged paradox, another still harder to 
 take in was involved. If there could be one who never 
 did lift up himself above his brethren_, who never 
 claimed to be anything but the member of a kind, must 
 he not be the perfectly righteous man, and yet must he 
 not be in sympathy and fellowship with all sinful men as 
 no other ever was ? Must he not have a feeling and 
 experience of their sins which they have not themselves ? 
 Is it not involved in the very idea of such a being that 
 he sacrifices himself? 
 
 David could not stop here ; he had learnt that the 
 sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; he had learnt that 
 God does not only accept this sacrifice, but prepares it. 
 The law had taught him, his shame and humihation had 
 taught him, that God is the Author of every true sacri- 
 fice ; that it originates in His will, and therefore fulfils 
 His will. Could it be otherwise in this, the highest 
 case of all ? If there ever were such a righteous man, 
 if he ever did offer himself as a sacrifice, must not that 
 sacrifice, in the strictest and most eminent sense, be 
 the sacrifice of God ? Must He not, in some wonderful 
 way, prepare it, originate it, offfer it ? 
 
 We sound a great depth here ; but it is a depth into 
 which men were led not by speculation, but by misery 
 
VII.] FOUNDATION OF THE WOULD. 103 
 
 and anguish, by the sense of sin which was in them- 
 selves, by the sense of a death which they shared with 
 all their race. It was not in the schools, from any 
 illuminated or initiated teachers, it was in their closets 
 when they had to confess that all their illuminations 
 and high conceits had failed, when they felt as if they 
 had no standing-ground at all, when they were on the 
 brink of despair, that, these truths appeared to them 
 as solid and eternal resting-places for themselves 
 and for all. I say for all, because this was the very 
 discovery that gave them comfort, and the only one 
 which could. They were not only taught — ' If there is 
 ' such a righteous man, then he must and will offer such 
 ' a sacrifice as this, and that sacrifice must be a sacrifice 
 ^of God.^ But their hearts said also, God leading 
 them to the conclusion, ' Such an One there is, and such 
 ' an One will be manifested. His existence is implied in 
 ^ all we are thinking, feeling, doing. Some day he will 
 ' make it clear by a transcendent act, an act pregnant 
 * with the mightiest consequences to the vjorld, that 
 'He is.' 
 
 Here, then, is the point at which the Old Testament 
 teaching meets and falls into that of the New. The 
 Church has always recognised it. The fortieth Psalm 
 is quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews as anticipating 
 and expounding the New Testament idea of sacrifice; it 
 has been incorporated into our Good Friday service for 
 that reason. Although, therefore, I might trace the 
 
104 THE LAMB BEFORE THE [SERM. 
 
 unfolding of the doctrine of sacrifice through the pro- 
 phets, and show how dihgently they were employed in 
 protesting against the heathen abuse of the idea, in 
 warning their countrymen against the appearances of 
 that abuse amongst themselves, in pointing out the only 
 counteraction of it ; yet, as I have travelled over this 
 ground before in sermons addressed to you, I shall 
 assume that the hints which we • have derived from so 
 many parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, fairly set forth 
 the principle as it is revealed in them, and shall go on 
 at once to consider how far the lessons of the apostles 
 are in accordance with it. 
 
 No one can doubt that this passage of St. Peter is a 
 capital and classical one upon the subject. It is con- 
 tinually referred to as a leading authority ; the words, 
 'Lamb without blemish and spot,' point at once to the 
 Passover, and to the memorable sentence of John the 
 Baptist when he saw Jesus walk and spoke of Him to 
 his two disciples. Even if the expression, 'precious 
 bloody was not introduced into the passage, the asso- 
 ciation with the Passover would at once prove that St. 
 Peter was directing our thoughts to a sacrifice. The 
 rest of the passage assures us that it is a sacrifice of 
 God to which the apostle refers; he speaks of the 
 Lamb being ' verily fore-ordained before the foundation 
 ' of the world.' 
 
 I must remind you that 'fore-ordained' is not the 
 literal rendering of St. Peter's phrase. Our translators. 
 
VII.] POUNDATION OF THE WORLD. 105 
 
 no doubt, sni^^osed fore-known and fore-ordained to be 
 equivalent expressions ; they understood the logic of the 
 predestinarian controversy; for that very reason they 
 were less attentive to a philological distinction vrhich 
 we cannot afford to neglect; since conclusions have 
 been founded on the one word, for which the other 
 offers not the least justification. The text has been sup- 
 posed to mean that, before Adam fell, a remedy was 
 provided in the counsels of God for the consequences of 
 that fall. It was fore-ordained that Christ, the Lamb 
 of God, should yield Himself a sacrifice, that those who 
 believed in Him might be delivered from the penalty of 
 the original transgression. 
 
 You will all remember how beautifully this divine 
 arrangement is expounded in the third book of Paradise 
 Lost. I refer to that passage, not merely because you 
 must be more familiar with it than with any more 
 formal theological statement, but because, by so doing, 
 I am exhibiting the popular theory to the greatest 
 possible advantage. Milton represents the Father as 
 full of love to His creatures, but as determined to assert 
 the claims of justice and righteousness. Sin, once com- 
 mitted, must draw death and ruin after it. What doc- 
 trine more entirely commends itself to our conscience ? 
 What doctrine is written in clearer sunbeams on the 
 pages of Scripture? And how much of that which 
 follows is equally in accordance with the testimony that 
 God has borne in His word and in the heart of man : — 
 
106 THE LAMB BEFORE THE [SERM. 
 
 * And now without redemption all mankind 
 Must have been lost, adjudged to death and hell 
 By doom severe ; had not the Son of God, 
 In whom the fulness dwells of love divine, 
 His dearest mediation thus renew'd. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Behold me then, me for him, life for life 
 1 offer; on me let thine anger fall. 
 Account me man ; I for his sake will leave 
 Thy bosom; and this glory next to thee 
 Freely put off, and for him lastly die. 
 Well pleased on me let Death wreck all his rage. 
 Under his gloomy power I shall not long 
 Lie vanquish'd. Thou hast given me to possess 
 Life in myself for ever. By Thee I live, 
 Though now to Death I yield and am his due, 
 All that of me can die ; yet that debt paid. 
 Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave 
 His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul 
 For ever with corruption there to dwell : 
 But I shall rise victorious, and subdue 
 My vanquisher, spoil' d of his vaunted spoil. 
 ****** 
 
 Then with the multitude of my Kedeem'd 
 Shall enter Heaven long absent, and return, 
 Father, to see Thy face, wherein no cloud 
 Of anger shall remain, but peace assured 
 And reconcilement ; wrath shall be no more 
 Thenceforth, but in Thy presence joy entire.' 
 
 This voluntary oblation made by tfle only-begotten 
 Son, because ' in Him the fulness dwells of love divine' 
 — and attracting the infinite complacency of Him whose 
 image He was — what can so entirely correspond to that 
 idea of sacrifice which we have traced in the older 
 records ? Must not this be the very root of all sacri- 
 fices, the consummation of all? Why, then, have the 
 most ardent and afibctionate admirers of Milton^s 
 
VII.] FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. 107 
 
 character and genius mourned over those parts of his 
 poem which contain these colloquies of the Father with 
 the Son ? Why did he himself slide into Arianism, in 
 his scientific divinity, though his poetry expressed such 
 a feeling of the perfect unity of the Son with the 
 Father? I apprehend that our dislike of those artificial 
 arrangements which mingle so discordantly with the 
 music of his song, grows in proportion to the awe and 
 reverence with which we accept its inward meaning. 
 I apprehend Arianism is inevitably involved in these 
 arrangements, because they confound time with eter- 
 nity, and because while we dwell on them we cannot 
 feel, however much we may desire it, that the Mind 
 which demands justice and denounces evil, is one with 
 the Mind in which lives all mercy and forgiveness. 
 
 Is this theory, then, found in the words of St. Peter ? 
 I know that some neologians of our day will say 
 instantly, ^ Of course it is. He was a mere vulgar Jew. 
 If you ask whether it is in St, John, or in the Gospel 
 which passed by his name, the answer might be dif- 
 ferent.^ Such language is very peremptory. But surely 
 it is not enough to make assertions without examining 
 the documents upon which they profess to be founded* 
 Look into this passage. See whether the theory of an 
 arrangement made before the Fall, with reference to it 
 and its consequences, is there, or whether we have put 
 it there. See whether what is there does not corre- 
 spond most exactly with what we find in the disciple 
 
108 THE LAMB BEFORE TEE [SEEM. 
 
 who was St. Peter's companion before and after the 
 Resurrection; whether the correspondence does not 
 add one link to the chain of evidence, which shows that 
 he who has given the most simple and childlike record 
 of our Lord^s acts and words was not a dry systematic 
 theologian of the second century, who basely and blas- 
 phemously forged the name of the beloved disciple to 
 endorse a lie. 
 
 There was one, St. Peter says, who was verily fore- 
 knoivn before the foundation of the world. What would 
 such words seem to denote, but that there was one 
 whom the Father of all knew, and who, in the fullest 
 and most intimate sense, knew Him, before the earth 
 or the lowest part of the dust of the world was formed ? 
 "What is this but that which the Book of Proverbs had 
 said already, when it spoke of Wisdom as one brought up 
 with Him; His inmost counsellor? What is it but what 
 was afterward gathered up in the wonderful sentence. 
 The Word was with God and the Word tvas God. 
 Without Him was not anything made that was made. 
 The Book of Proverbs goes on to say, that His delights 
 loere loith the sons of Men. St. John had said. In Him 
 was Life and the Life was the Light of Men. It must 
 then be all important that men should know Him, 
 from whom their light comes, in whom their life dwells. 
 But how could they know Him ? How could they look 
 into the Eternal secret? What apprehension could 
 they have of that life which He had with the Father, 
 
VII.] FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. 109 
 
 tliat life whicli does not belong to time and its acci- 
 dents^ that life which can only be spoken of as eternal? 
 St. Peter assumes that we could know nothing of it, 
 that all our guesses about it must be wild guesses, 
 mere dreams derived from our own earthly associations 
 and discoveries, if this life had not been manifested. 
 But the veil, he says, has been withdrawn which hid 
 His divine nature, His relation to the Eternal Father, 
 from us. And how has it been withdrawn ? He has 
 appeared in our world, in our nature; He has sacrificed 
 Himself. In that sacrifice we see what He is — what 
 He always has been. His acts here, plain and palpable, 
 done among men, done for men, have shown forth that 
 perfect filial obedience to the Creator of all things, 
 that entire filial union with the Eternal Father, which 
 is the ground of the universe and the ground of our 
 humanity. 
 
 I think if we had no other words to guide us than 
 those in the text, we should be forced to put this con- 
 struction upon them. And then this fore-knowledge of 
 whicli it speaks, instead of being a provision that 
 is contingent upon human events and human will — 
 instead of being an anticipation, which every devout 
 man shrinks from attributing to Him to whom all 
 things are naked and open, to whom past, present, and 
 future are one — becomes the communion of will and 
 purpose in the persons of the Godhead, our belief in 
 which saves us from the necessity and the horror of 
 
110 THE LAMB BEFORE THE [SERM. 
 
 ascribing self-will to the Author of all; and enables 
 us to see how a perfectly loving will can only be 
 uttered and shown forth by one who enters into it, and 
 yields himself to it. 
 
 That this obedience should be the means of recti- 
 fying the disorders of the universe, of bringing back 
 the state of things which self-will has broken and dis- 
 turbed, of re-establishing the kingdom and righteous- 
 ness of God, of renewing and subduing the hearts of 
 human beings, this is what we should with wonder and 
 trembling expect ; this is what corresponds so blessedly, 
 so perfectly, to the deepest prophecies in the spirit of 
 mankind; this is the very Gospel which has brought 
 light into the midst of our darkness, life into the 
 midst of our death. But we must not change and 
 invert God's order to make it square with our condi- 
 tion ; if we do, it will not meet the necessities of that 
 condition. We must not start from the assumption of 
 discord and derangement, however natural to crea- 
 tures that are conscious of discord and derangement 
 such a course may be ; we must begin with harmony 
 and peace, and so understand why they have been 
 broken, how they have prevailed and shall prevail. 
 
 It is for this reason, I conceive, that the apostles, 
 when they dwell so continually upon the effects of the 
 divine and human sacrifice in taking away sin and 
 utterly removing all the effects of it, yet lead us back 
 to a ground of sacrifice in the divine nature; in that 
 
VII.] EOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. Ill 
 
 submission of the Son to the Father, that perfect unity 
 of Purpose, Will, Substance, between them, whence 
 the obedience and fellowship of all unfallen beings, the 
 obedience and fellowship of all restored beings, must 
 be derived, and by which they are sustained. Believing 
 such a mystery of a Will commanding and a Will 
 obeying, and of a Spirit uniting both, to lie beneath 
 all the order of nature, all the actions of men ; there 
 comes forth from both the same testimony to the Crea- 
 tor and the Father. 
 
 The poet has boldly spoken of Duty as the lawgiver 
 to which all nature bows, and from which all her grace 
 and beauty proceeds: — 
 
 ' Flowers laugh before thee in then* beds, 
 And Fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
 Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, 
 And the most ancient Heavens through thee are fresh and strong.' 
 
 And, doubtless, the more we studied the secrets of 
 nature, and entered into her most intricate relations, 
 the more we should be impressed with the sense of 
 government and obedience — of a law which all things 
 confess, and to which all yield unresisting homage. We 
 should see that life and productiveness are the effects of 
 even and regular submission ; that tempests and whirl- 
 winds, and whatever tumults break the monotony of the 
 world, are themselves proofs that it is not under the 
 sway of a dead law, but of a living one ; of a Lawgiver 
 who guides and controls its energies, and makes them 
 
112 THE LAMB BEFORE THE [SERM. 
 
 serve still higher purposes of His will. And so we are 
 led from the wonderful machinery and mysterious powers 
 of the physical universe — the wheels within wheels 
 which a living spirit guides, where there is such intri- 
 cacy and such simplicity — to that moral world, all the 
 elements of which appear to be continually clashing with 
 each other, where disobedience and self-will have tried 
 to make themselves the law. It is through this con- 
 fusion that the light breaks in which illuminates the 
 other world, and shows us the secret of its loveliness. Men 
 are taught that the death which has come into the world 
 is a sign and pledge that all their life is from God ; 
 they come with the dead animal to make that confession 
 and yield themselves to Him. Men, seeing the punish- 
 ment of a violent and disobedient world, confess by sacri- 
 fice that the earth can exist only by submission to a 
 living and gracious Ruler. Heads of families find that 
 sacrifice is the only bond which can keep fathers and 
 children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, at 
 one. God calls nations out of a chaos of turbulent, 
 warring elements. They find that sacrifice must keep 
 them from relapsing into endless war. Individuals 
 discover that all right-doing has its ground in sacrifice, 
 and they find, when they have offended, it is because 
 they liave chosen to break loose from the law of sacri- 
 fice. So it is proved that obedience and sacrifice are the 
 very conditions of truth and righteousness, that they 
 belong to man who is made in God's likeness, because 
 
VII.] FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD. 113 
 
 they are involved in tlie very character and being of God 
 Himself. 
 
 This wonderful trutli, so utterly contradictory to all 
 the notions which men had formed to themselves of 
 their Creator^ when they had supposed Him to be a 
 mere power, who might exercise capricious vengeance 
 upon them, and whom they were to conciliate by their 
 sacrifices; — and yet which was implied in those very 
 sacrifices, and in every act of real obedience and devo- 
 tion, by parent, friend, warrior, sage — in every act 
 which had been acknowledged as truly acceptable to the 
 gods — in every dream of gods who themselves deigned 
 to be deliverers of men ; this truth, I say, had been 
 unfolding itself gradually to the seers and sufferers 
 among the chosen people. The Bible is a history of 
 the discovery. But surely St. Peter^s words are true 
 to the letter. The manifestation of this perfect Son of 
 God, — of this Lamb, in whom dwelt the very law of 
 sacrifice, whose whole mind and heart were fashioned 
 into conformity with it, who never swerved, or broke 
 loose, from it — this manifestation was reserved for the 
 latter days. Though men have stumbled, and do 
 stumble, at the records of the life of Jesus of Nazareth; 
 though they can find innumerable reasons for not 
 accepting these records^ and though the inconsistent 
 unbelief of Christians has often justified their suspicion; 
 yet there has been a witness, in the hearts of successive 
 generations of poor, and sorrowing, and sinful people : 
 
 I 
 
114 THE LAMB. [SEKM. 
 
 'This is tlie history of a sacrifice — of a man who is 
 ' making a sacrifice, — of a sacrifice of God/ They may 
 have been utterly unable to arrange these thoughts in 
 their minds, to explain them according to a theory; 
 miA, therefore, they have been ready to accept any 
 theory which has been made for them. But the moral 
 conviction : ' This is the Lamb of God ; this is He in 
 ' whom we see the very mind, and will, and purpose of 
 ' Him who created us ; this is the Lamb of God, in 
 ' whom we see the perfect surrender of a man to that 
 ' will and mind of God ' — this conviction, unable to put 
 itself into words, has breathed itself out in the prayers 
 and agonies of tens of thousands of men and women, 
 on sick beds which no priest has visited, in lonely 
 dungeons which no philanthropist has heard of. The 
 heart and reason have afiirmed in opposition to all the 
 cavillings of unbelief, ' He who perfectly sympathised 
 *"with us in our evil, must be the man who is free 
 ' from all evil ; He who has entirely given up Himself 
 ^ to death, must be the mighty God.' 
 
VIIL] ( 115 ) 
 
 SERMON VIIL 
 
 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A REDEMPTION. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday after Easter, May 14, 1854.) 
 
 1 St. Peter, i. IS, 19. 
 
 'Forasmuch as ye Icnoio that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, 
 as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received hy tradition 
 from your fathers ; hut with the precious blood of Christ, as of a 
 lamb without blemish and without spot.' 
 
 Last Sunday I inquired into the force of the words 
 which follow these. I wish to consider^ to-day, how the 
 sacrifice of the Lamb, who was foreknown before the 
 foundation of the world, is connected with Redemption. 
 I desire that we should limit ourselves to that question ; 
 reserving the consideration of other subjects, such as 
 Remission, Propitiation, Intercession, for future occa- 
 sions. Great inconvenience, I think, has resulted from 
 a loose habit of confounding the ideas which these 
 words express, as if they were not capable of separate 
 illustration. I am satisfied that there is no such careless- 
 ness in the Scripture use of them; that each has a 
 
116 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A REDEMPTION. [SERM. 
 
 distinct sense of its own, and will bear, and reward, a 
 distinct investigation. Then we shall know how har- 
 monious they are; how they all converge to one point; 
 how they illustrate and unfold the Divine Mind. 
 
 But before I enter upon this examination, I wish to 
 show you how the remarks which I made last Sunday, 
 bear upon a topic, which happens to be occupying the 
 minds of many thoughtful people at this time, — a topic 
 in which moral and physical science have become rather 
 curiously blended. Many years ago, a Scotch Divine, 
 whose remarkable abilities were even less remarkable 
 than the benevolence and nobleness of his heart, pub- 
 lished some sermons upon the connexion of Revelation 
 with modern Astronomy. Assuming, what he supposed 
 to be the settled opinion of scientific men, that our 
 system contains a multitude of worlds, and that each 
 of these worlds may have as many intelligent inhabitants 
 as our own, he grappled with the question : How such 
 a doctrine was consistent with the enormous importance 
 which the Christian revelation seemed to attach to the 
 creature — Man ? : How it was possible, that such an 
 insect, as he would appear to be, in the midst of such 
 an universe, could be the subject of a great scheme of 
 Redemption, in which the Son of God was the agent? 
 It was answered, that modern science does not only 
 lead us to think of the great, but of the little ; that 
 the wonders of the microscope are as overwhelming 
 as those of the telescope; that it does not diminish 
 
VIII.] CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A REDEMPTION. 117 
 
 our idea of the Creator, to believe that He is con- 
 triving for the very minutest of His creatures; that^ 
 in thinking so, we acquire a new sense of His wisdom 
 and greatness, as well as of His love; that the economy 
 of our redemption, — place us as low as you will in the 
 scale of intelligences, — make us numerically as in- 
 significant as you will, — may explain the depths of 
 the divine resources to the admiring students and 
 worshippers of innumerable worlds, or systems of 
 worlds. 
 
 It has been argued recently, by an anonymous writer, 
 of great talent and most various information, that the 
 hypothesis on which these Discourses proceed is not one 
 which the latest scientific discoveries encourage; that 
 it is more likely that we are alone in the universe, than 
 that we are surrounded by creatures having capacities 
 at all similar to ours ; that, if we hold that opinion, we 
 are free from the difficulty, which it required all the 
 ingenuity and eloquence of the Scottish divine to dispose 
 of; that then Ave may understand perfectly, why our 
 fall, and our sin, and our deliverance, should assume 
 what, otherwise, would seem so disproportionate a place 
 in the divine order. 
 
 On the scientific question, I can, of course, presume 
 to say nothing, except that whatever is true must be 
 satisfactory; that the most beautiful dreams and the 
 most exquisite reasonings are good for nothing, if they 
 are at war with that which is; that moralists and theo- 
 
118 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A REDEMPTION. [SERM. 
 
 logians never can liave an interest in maintaining any 
 proposition that is physically unsound. Eut as some 
 have thought that Christianity would gain an advantage, 
 if it could narrow the dimensions of the intelligent 
 universe, — that it would be well for us, because we are 
 believers in Scripture, to snatch at the hope, which the 
 probable absence of an atmosphere in the moon holds 
 out, that every part of creation, except our planet, may 
 be tenantless — I think it is very needful, that we should 
 ask ourselves, whether we have this motive for looking 
 unfairly at the evidence; whether, if the next wave 
 of scientific discovery should sweep us from the ledge 
 on which we had found a temporary standing, we should 
 feel our theological position more insecure. I believe 
 that, so long as we fancy our transgressions and 
 sins form the groundwork of the divine Revelation, — 
 so long as we think that the purpose of the Creator 
 was turned into a new and strange direction, by the 
 evils of men perpetrated or foreseen — so long we 
 shall be uneasy when we think that myriads may be 
 living under the law of the same King and Father, of 
 whose history we know nothing. This restlessness 
 will be experienced most strongly by those who feel 
 how glorious a principle that of Sacrifice is ; how 
 impossible it is to imagine a blessed world in which it 
 does not exist. For if that which seems to be the 
 source of all good to God's intelligent creatures is 
 contingent upon the existence of Sin, we could scarcely 
 
VIII.] CIIRIST'S SACRILTCE A REDEMPTION. 119 
 
 bear — awful and monstrous as the assertion may sound 
 — to conceive of intelligent creatures without sin. 
 But if sacrifice is implied in the very Original of the 
 universe — if it is involved in the very nature and being 
 of God — if it was expressed in the divine obedience of the 
 Son before the worlds were^ — if the manifestation of it 
 in the latter days, was to take away Sin, because Sin and 
 Sacrifice are the eternal opposites — then indeed we may 
 believe that the telescope will only give us another sense 
 of the truth, which the microscope has already revealed, 
 that every conceivable multiplication of worlds, and of 
 spiritual creatures, will only manifest some aspect of 
 that love which was gathered up in the Cross of Cal- 
 vary. I do not think that these remarks are a digres- 
 sion from the proper subject of this discourse; I believe 
 they are a suitable preparation for it. 
 
 When the Scriptures speak of Christ^s Sacrifice as a 
 Redemption, you will find that they give the word its 
 simplest and most natural force. 'Blessed be the Lord 
 God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His 
 people,^ is the burthen of all the songs of the New, and 
 of the Old, Testament. God is assumed everywhere to 
 be carrying out the deliverance of His people, who are, 
 therefore, assumed, by some means, to have fallen into 
 captivity. The sacrifice is a means to this end; the 
 means which God uses ; the power by which He ran- 
 soms the enslaved captive. 
 
 Set this thought, I beseech you, distinctly before your 
 
120 cueist's saceifice a eedemption. [seem. 
 
 minds, and then compare it with what you know of the 
 effects which heathens attributed to their sacrifices — 
 yes, and wdth the notions which you have yourselves 
 connected with sacrifices. There is, at the root of both, 
 I am satisfied, an acute sense of some oppression, from 
 which the suppliant wants to be set free ; and of a 
 Deliverer, who may be willing, or may be induced, to 
 undertake his cause. But does not this thought mingle 
 with the whole service ? ' The oppression I am suffer- 
 ' ing comes from the Lord of the universe ; from the 
 ^ highest power of all. He has laid it upon me : and, 
 ' in order to shake it ofi', I must first secure the aid of 
 ' some powerful ally ; next, I must do a number of 
 ' slavish acts — acts which I feel to be very burdensome 
 ' and oppressive, but which it is worth while to go 
 ^ through, for the sake of escaping heavier penalties 
 ^ which may overtake me if I neglect them?' Is not 
 this the habit of feeling which you detect in many 
 who submit to religious duties in Christian lands ? 
 Have you not detected it in your own hearts ? And 
 is it not the very reverse of that idea of sacrifice which 
 we should recognise, if we associated it, as the Scriptures 
 do, with the idea of redemption ? 
 
 Determine, at all events, which view of the subject, 
 whether it agrees or jars with our habits, is most con- 
 sistent with that doctrine of sacrifice which we have 
 been discovering in the Old Testament. The great 
 truth of all which has come out before us, is that the 
 
viil] Christ's sacrieice a redemption. 121 
 
 sacrifices were God^s sacrifices^ — not merely in that they 
 were off*ered to Him, but in that He originated and 
 prepared them. And^ when they assumed the most 
 legal and precise form, they were appointed expressly 
 to commemorate a redemption of the Israelites, — a re- 
 demption accomplished for them with a high hand, and 
 a stretched out arm, by the Lord God of Israel, — a re- 
 demption from an actual tyrant. 
 
 Still the thought will present itself: 'Whatever may 
 ' have been the case with the Jews, the redemption, the 
 ' spiritual redemption, we. Christians, speak of, is surely 
 ' from some evil inflicted or threatened by God — ^justly 
 ' inflicted and threatened — deserved by us, no doubt, — 
 ' but still proceeding from Him.-* As the object I pro- 
 posed to myself was to discover what the Scripture 
 teaching is, I can only answer this question by referring 
 you to the passages in which the word occurs. Take, 
 first, our own passage : ^Forasmuch as ye know that ye 
 were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and 
 goldj from your vain conversation received by tradition 
 from your fathers ; but with the precious blood of Christ, 
 as of a lamb ivithout blemish and without spot.' There 
 is no difiiculty in giving this language a definite signi- 
 fication. St. Peter was writing to a set of people — 
 chiefly Israelites — who were scattered through diff'erent 
 provinces of Asia. Their coodition explained to him 
 what he had read in the Law and Prophets, what he 
 had experienced himself. The Law speaks of the sins 
 
122 chuist's saceitice a redemption. [serm. 
 
 of the fathers as being visited upon the children. The 
 Prophets show_, how idolatrous notions respecting God, 
 — the confusion of Him with the works of His hands, 
 with the powers of Nature, with evil and malignant 
 persons, — increased from generation to. generation ; 
 the falsehood of the father growing falser still in the 
 children, till the sense of truth, and with it the sense 
 of righteousness and moral order, became nearly extinct. 
 Such a growth of corruption in habits and notions, — 
 such a continual alienation from the mind of God, — they 
 led, not heathens, but their own countrymen, to expect, 
 if they forgot that they were a chosen people, if they 
 became mere receivers of traditions from their fathers, 
 not believers in the Lord God of their fathers. The 
 moral state of the Israelites, as described in the Old 
 Testament, at various periods, is precisely that of a 
 people sunk in a vain conversation — in a low habitual 
 idolatry and heartlessness, which had begun in one age, 
 and had been transmitted, with fresh accessions, to the 
 next. The scattered Jews in the provinces of the 
 Roman empire, whether they retained a strong sense 
 of their separation, and held intercourse chiefly with 
 each other, or whether they mixed with the heathens 
 round about them, must have presented striking exam- 
 ples of this degeneracy. To them St. Peter came 
 preaching of Christ, the Son of David, the Son of God, 
 who had come down from heaven, not to do His own 
 will, but the will of Him who sent Him, ^\\\o had 
 
VIII.] CHRIST'S SACKDICE A REDEMPTION. 123 
 
 made the one sacrifice which took away the sins of 
 the world. The message was received by some of these 
 degraded Jews. It became to them the message of 
 a new life. The grovelling thoughts of God, which 
 had been accumulating for years in their own minds, 
 which had been the deposit of centuries, were scattered 
 to the winds. The old words, which they had heard, 
 that He was the Redeemer and King of His people, 
 awakened to life in them. These words prepared them 
 for the new, and still more astonishing, news, that 
 this King was a Father, that He claimed them as His 
 children, that they might arise and go to Him, in the 
 faith that He had owned them, accepted them, deli- 
 vered them. 
 
 St. Peter could turn to these people, and say boldly: 
 ' You have been redeemed from your vain traditional 
 ' notions, and from the degeneration that was consequent 
 ' upon them ; you know that you bave. And recollect 
 ^ now, recollect always, who has redeemed you. You 
 ^ cannot think that I was the author of the blessing, 
 ^ because I declared it to you. My message must have 
 ' been a lie, if it came from me ; I was as much in- 
 ' volved in these traditions, as ignorant of God, as you 
 ' were. He has raised us out of that ignorance. But 
 ' consider again the extent of the redemption. I did 
 ' not tell you of a Father, who cared for you, the 
 ' dwellers in Pontus and Galatia, above all the otlier 
 ' people of the Earth. I told you of a Lamb of God 
 
124 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A REDEMPTION. [SERM. 
 
 ' who took away the sins of the world. It was the 
 
 * belief in Him which lifted you out of your miserable 
 
 * subjection to visible things, out of your dark and 
 ' slavish notions concerning God, out of your dread and 
 ' horror of Him ; are you not conscious that it was ? 
 ' You believed that in Him God has manifested His 
 ' own fatherly will; you acknowledged Him who had 
 ' given up Himself, as your King. Hold fast this 
 ' faith ; remember, now and ever, that it is God Him- 
 ' self who has redeemed you out of bondage of which 
 
 * none can understand the bitterness and cruelty so 
 ' well as yourselves. And the ransom-money, the 
 ^ price of your redemption, has not been corruptible 
 ' silver and gold. It has been the blood of His 
 ' only Son. He has made this mighty offering of 
 ^ that which is dearest to Him, that He might bind 
 ' you to Himself, that He might vindicate His own 
 ' fatherly love to you, and claim you as His adopted 
 ' sons.' 
 
 There might arise a great many questions, in the 
 hearts of St. Peter's disciples afterwards, about the 
 meaning and operation of this sacrifice ; he might 
 reply to them in various ways, as he does in this letter. 
 But with these questions he has no direct business 
 in the present passage. The one thought, ^ You have 
 ' been delivered out of an actual bondage, not an 
 ' imaginary or a technical one ; and this has been the 
 ' process of your deliverance,' occupies him here. He 
 
VIII.] CHRIST'S SACiliriCE A REDEMPTION. 125 
 
 connects an experience of their minds with d^' fact. He 
 treats that fact as the manifestation of an eternal law 
 of Sacrifice; of a Person in whom that law was perfectly 
 realized. 
 
 I have been anxious that you should dwell upon this 
 particular instance of the use of the word^ because it 
 illustrates the practical method of the New Testament 
 teachers, as well as the principle which is embodied 
 in their Gospel to mankind. But I do not wish to rest 
 upon that single instance. St. PauFs circumstances 
 were very different from those of St. Peter : the habits 
 of their minds were different ; the people whom they 
 taught were very different. 
 
 Let us take an example, then, of the use of the same 
 word from him. He is writing to Titus, who was 
 settled in Crete ; the overseer of a Church, in which 
 the Gentile element was probably predominant. St. 
 Paul is telling him, with the authority of an apostle 
 and a father, what lessons he should impart to his 
 flock. Here is the summary of the doctrine : 'For the 
 grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to 
 all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and 
 worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and 
 godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed 
 hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and 
 our Saviour Jesus Christ ; who gave himself for us, that 
 he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto 
 himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Titus ii. 
 
126 CHRIST'S SACHIFICE A REDEMPTION. [SERM. 
 
 11 — ]5. Here you have a phrase different from St. 
 Peter's, — a more comprehensive one. Instead of ' the 
 vain conversation received by tradition ' we have 
 ^ from all iniquity^ — avofila^;. But surely the spirit of 
 the two passages is essentially the same. The bondage 
 of the Cretans, as of all men, was to irregularity, 
 disorder and lawlessness. They were slaves, because 
 they were separated from the true spring and source 
 of order j because they were living as if He were not, 
 as if some other than He were, their Ruler, and the 
 Ruler of the universe. But His grace had shone forth 
 upon all men. It was a saving, delivering grace: one 
 that rescued from ungodliness, and from the lusts of 
 the world; one that produced a righteous, self-restrain- 
 ing, manly, devout, life ; one that kindled the hope 
 and expectation of a still brighter shining forth of the 
 glory of God, and of Jesus Christ — who gave up Himself 
 for the very purpose of redeeming us from evil, and 
 making us zealous of good works. Here, as in the other 
 case, the redemption is clearly connected with the 
 sacrifice. God is said to manifest His own grace 
 through that sacrifice. Christ surrenders Himself to 
 do the will of God; and the result of that surrender 
 is, that men may be rescued from a state which is con- 
 trary to the will of God — a state of separation from 
 Him, and of consequent immorality, lawlessness, and 
 moral debasement. 
 
 I have quoted, I believe, the only two passages in 
 
Vlll.] CHRIST^S SACRIFICE A REDEMPTION, 127 
 
 which the simple verb Xvrpoco occurs, with the excep- 
 tion of one, in St. Luke's report of the walk of the dis- 
 ciples to Emmaus, where they say, ' We thought that it 
 had been He which should have redeemed IsraeV There 
 is, however, a very remarkable passage, in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, in which the substantive Xvrpcocn^ occurs. 
 It is this, ' That Christ being come an High Priest of good 
 things to come, by a greater, and more perfect, tabernacle, 
 not made with hands, — that is to say, not of this building ; 
 neither by the blood of bulls and calves, but by His own 
 blood. He entered in once into the holy place, having 
 obtained (or found) eternal redemption for us. For, if 
 the blood of bulls, and of goats, and the ashes of an 
 heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying 
 of the flesh ; how much more shall the blood of Christ, 
 who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself to God, 
 purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living 
 God?^ I must, hereafter, consider this great passage 
 for another purpose ; I refer to it now because it con- 
 nects so remarkably the obtaining of redemption with 
 the offering of the blood of Christ ; and because it ex- 
 plains so fully, what the writer's idea of redemption is. 
 He who vindicated for us a right to enter into the 
 presence of God, and enabled us to enter into it — ^He 
 who purified the conscience from dead works, that it 
 might serve the living God' — He has found the redemp- 
 tion for us. As if he had said — ' Do you not know that 
 ' there has been an oppression on your conscience, a 
 
128 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A REDEMPTION. [SERM. 
 
 ' tyranny which you could not shake off ? Do you not 
 ' know that this oppression arose from a sense of sepa- 
 ' ration from God^ of being at war with Him ? Do 
 ' you not know that, while you have that sense, you 
 ' cannot pray to Him as a Father, you cannot serve 
 ' Him as a living God? And can any one emancipate 
 ^ his own conscience from this bondage ? Does not 
 ' God emancipate it, when, instead of asking you to 
 ' make the sacrifices which you feel that you cannot 
 ^ make, He proclaims His gracious will in that Son, who 
 ^ perfectly does His will, by offering up Himself?' 
 
 When we have entered into these applications of the 
 word — Redemption, and when we have tested them, by 
 considering what vain habits, handed down from our 
 fathers, what iniquity, what bonds of conscience, we 
 have need to be delivered from, and by asking ourselves 
 what but the belief in a sacrifice made by God will 
 deliver us from them; — when we have proved their power 
 in another way, by considering whether there is any 
 power that is effectual to break the chains of supersti- 
 tion, and of moral corruption, which Christian or Pagan 
 nations have inherited, and are wearing — then we may 
 be able to appreciate the force of some of those passages, 
 in which St. Paul carries out the same idea into heights 
 and depths, which at first make us dizzj^, and yet which are 
 continually visited by men of all ranks and intellects, — 
 nay, to which they are driven by the every day sorrows 
 and trials of earth. He speaks of redemption, that is 
 
VIII.] CIIFvIST'S SACflinCE A REDEMPTION. 129 
 
 tlie forgiveness of sins ; lie speaks of a redemption of 
 the body, which is burdened with the weight of sick- 
 ness and death ; he speaks of a redemption of the whole 
 creation, which is still in travail, but shall be delivered, 
 and shall enjoy the glorious liberty of the sons of God. 
 These are hints of mighty themes upon which I do not 
 purpose to dwell, because I would rather you found out 
 for yourselves how they all belong to the idea of the 
 one Sacrifice, how inseparable they are from it. But 
 there is one help which I can give you in that search, 
 by directing you to some sentences which our Lord 
 spoke when He was Himself on earth. The word 
 \vTpov, which is translated (rightly, I should suppose) 
 ransom, was used by Him in one of His discourses, 
 which is reported in the twentieth chapter of St. 
 Matthew. I should like you to reflect upon the occa- 
 sion on which He used it. It was when the mother of 
 Zebedee's children had asked that her two sons might sit, 
 one on the right hand, and one on the left, in His king- 
 dom. The other ten apostles, we are told, showed great 
 indignation at the two brothers. ' But Jesus called them 
 unto Him, and said. Ye know that the princes of the Gen- 
 tiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great 
 exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so 
 among you : but whosoever loill be great among you, let him 
 be your minister ; and whosoever will be chief among you^ 
 let him be your servant: even as the Son of tnan came 
 not to be ministered unto, but to ministe7% and to give His 
 
 E 
 
130 CHEIST^S SACRIPICE A REDEMPTION. [SEUM. 
 
 life a ransom for manyJ' I do not think it is just in 
 that place we should have expected to find this phrase. 
 We speak of the unspeakably costly ransom which 
 Christ offered for the redemption of man, and we speak 
 truly. He teaches us wherein the costliness of it con- 
 sisted. He humbled Himself; He became a servant; 
 He was the servant of all. Here was the sacrifice with 
 which God was well pleased ; here was the costly obla- 
 tion; here was the mighty ransom by which the One 
 was able to deliver the many. The lowliest of all was 
 the One who most showed forth the glory of God's love; 
 the lowliest of all was the One who could alone exercise 
 God^s power on behalf of His creatures. That power 
 was a redeeming power ; that power came forth when 
 the Son gave up His Spirit to His Father; that power 
 becomes effectual for us, when it redeems us from our 
 pride, when it breaks that chain which has kept us 
 in slavery to the Spirit of Disobedience, which has 
 hindered us from serving the living God. We know 
 the meaning of the Eansom, we understand the great- 
 ness of the Sacrifice, when we give up the craving to be 
 chief of all, and ask for the Spirit of Christ to make us 
 the servants of all. 
 
TX.] ( 131 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 
 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A DELIVERANCE FROM THE CURSE 
 OF THE LAW. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 5th Sunday after Easter, May 21, 1854.) 
 
 Galatians ill. 13, 14. 
 
 * Christ hath redeemed us from the cume of the law, "being made a curse 
 for US: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree : 
 that the Messing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through 
 Jesus Christ ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through 
 faith' 
 
 As I proposed in my last sermon to examine the uses 
 of the word Redemption in the New Testament when 
 it is connected with sacrifice^ you may wonder that 
 I passed over such a memorable text as this. I passed 
 it over, because I thought I should treat the subject 
 more fairly, if I confined myself to the word \vTpov, 
 its compounds and its cognates. The verb 'redeemed' 
 here is not one of these. This, however, is not one 
 of the cases, of which there are many in the Epistles, 
 that ofibr a fair ground of complaint against the authors 
 of our version, for adapting the same rendering to two 
 different words. It would be difficult, perhaps, to find 
 
132 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A DELIVERANCE [SERM. 
 
 a better equivalent tlian that wliich they have chosen 
 for either expression. €?he mere word here does not 
 suggest the thought of ransom quite so directly as 
 those of which I spoke last Sunday, it means simply 
 ^ to buy out ;' but the idea of a slave for whom a friend 
 obtains freedom, not by arms, but by purchase in the 
 market, is always present in it. Although it sometimes 
 occurs without any distinct allusion to price or pur- 
 chase-money, as in the phrase. Redeeming the time, yet, 
 generally, that is not only implied, but forced upon our 
 notice. It is so in that celebrated passage, in the fifth 
 chapter of the book of Eevelation (where, indeed, the 
 simple verb ^70/5 a fo) is used), ' Thou art worthy to take 
 the book, and to open the seals thereof : for thou wast 
 slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of 
 every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.' It is 
 so assuredly in the sentence before us, where Christ is 
 said to redeem us from a curse, by becoming a curse 
 Himself. 
 
 I might, therefore, at once assume, that the purchase 
 spoken of here came under the same principle with 
 the ransom or redemption which we read of in the 
 Epistle of St. Peter, and in the 'Epistles to Titus and 
 to the Hebrews. T might take it for granted, that, in 
 one case as much as in the other, God was spoken of as 
 delivering His creatures from an oppression under which 
 they had fallen, and as bringing them back into their 
 true and rightful service, which is perfect freedom. 
 
IX.] FROM THE CURSE OF THE LAW. 133 
 
 I might assume that Sacrifice was the method^ the only 
 method,, by which the chains that bound man^s spirit 
 could be broken, precisely because they were chains 
 on a spirit, not on a mere animal. I might trace here, 
 as I traced before, that union and co-operation of the 
 will of the Father with the will of the Son, which was, 
 as St. Peter taught us, before all worlds ; which lay 
 at the very ground of creation, but which was never 
 manifested in its fulness till the Son yielded up Himself 
 to the death of the Cross. 
 
 I know, however, that there are associations with the 
 phrase, ' curse of the Law' which greatly interfere with 
 this belief. I do not say how far these associations are 
 produced^ or promoted, by one system of theological 
 teaching or another. I do not profess to trace them to 
 their origin. I am sure that they haunt you and me- 
 I am sure it requires an effort, and a very careful effort, 
 to disengage ourselves from them, because they are 
 intertwined with very righteous and sacred feelings ; 
 and because, at the same time, they gain great strength 
 from tempers and habits, which, though not righteous 
 or sacred, are very natural to us all. Every Englishman 
 understands, and confesses, that Law has its root in the 
 mind of God, that it is one great utterance of His mind. 
 He feels that the decrees of Law must be executed ; 
 that no tenderness or graciousness towards individual 
 offenders, or towards a multitude of oflPenders, ought to 
 suspend or weaken their execution. The curse of the Law 
 
134 Christ's sacripice a deliverance [serm. 
 
 he feels is something very tremendous indeed ; how can 
 it be other than the curse of God? But if it is this, 
 when Christ is said to redeem us from the curse of Law, 
 can anything else be meant, than that He redeems us 
 from the curse which God Himself had denounced, and 
 was prepared to enforce, against His creatures? that He 
 stepped in, as their Advocate, to shield them from His 
 Father's indignation; that He oflPered His blood which 
 was an adequate purchase-money or ransom from it ? 
 
 I wish you to perceive, not how startling this view of 
 the subject is, but how readily it presents itself to us as 
 a most logical and consistent explanation of the apostle's 
 meaning ; how it conspires with a belief which is sound 
 in itself, and closely akin to the habits of our national 
 character ; how it appeals, also, to our sense of an evil 
 in ourselves which requires the most wonderful process 
 for its extirpation. I have no hope of overcoming such 
 influences as these by merely arguing, that, if this be 
 the true and scriptural statement of the case, we must 
 abandon all the conclusions respecting Sacrifice which 
 we have deduced hitherto from an examination of 
 Scripture, and adopt that theory of it which patriarchs, 
 lawgivers, prophets, apostles seem to have agreed in 
 denouncing. Unless this particular phrase, curse of the 
 Law, and the special aspect of redemption which St. 
 Paul connects with it, can be explained, without resort- 
 ing to the hypothesis I am speaking of — unless the ex- 
 planation can be shown to be more in accordance with 
 
IX.] PKOM THE CUKSE OE THE LAW. 135 
 
 the teaching of the apostles than the popular one — we 
 shall talk in vain about general principles, or inferences 
 from the course of the Bible history. But it seems to 
 me, that, if we will suffer St. Paul to be his own inter- 
 preter — not in some other part of his writings, but in 
 that part wherein this sentence occurs — we shall find 
 our way into such an apprehension of the subject, as 
 will make the doctrine of Christ becoming a curse that 
 He might redeem us from a curse, not the confutation, 
 but the most perfect illustration, of the principle, that 
 the loving Will of the Father is the moving cause of the 
 deliverance of man, and of the Sacrifice by which that 
 deliverance has been accomplished. 
 
 The Galatians had, at first, accepted St. Paul as the 
 preacher of a Gospel. News concerning the God who 
 made them was what they wanted; that which the 
 tentmaker of Tarsus brought them was emphatically 
 good news. He reminds them in his letter what it 
 was. ' God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made 
 under the law, to redeem them that were under the 
 law, that they might receive the adoption of sons.^ 
 They had a right to believe that. The God of the 
 whole earth had said that He was their Father. It 
 was not a mere name ; He had given them a sign of 
 His adoption ; He had promised, with that sign, to give 
 them His Spirit in their hearts, that they might call 
 upon Him as their Father. If they believed this 
 message, they received the sign. St. Paul asked them 
 
136 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A DELIVERANCE [SERM. 
 
 wliether they merely received that ? Did there not come 
 with it a joy, and thankfulness, and wonder — a filial 
 feeling such as they never had before ? But, very soon, 
 teachers came among them, who said that tlie Gospel 
 was, after all, but a preparation for the Law. They 
 had been, the most part of them, Gentiles, worship- 
 pers of false gods, with none of the privileges of the 
 chosen race of the children of Abraham. ' Did they 
 ' really fancy that they were to spring at once into the 
 Hiighest condition which human beings could enjoy? 
 ^ Did they deem that they were to be in as good a con- 
 ' dition as those who had for centuries been under the 
 ' divine discipline, who had the law and covenants ? 
 ' '^Yliat a monstrous supposition ! The man Avho had 
 ' encouraged them in it was manifestly imposing upon 
 ^ them, tempting them to their ruin. Baptism was good, 
 ' but it was the induction to a higher good. If they 
 ' would be circumcised, then, indeed, they might benefit 
 ' by the coming of the Christ into the world ; for He 
 ' had come mainly to expound the Law, to bring back the 
 ' religion of the old times, which the modern teachers had 
 ^ corrupted, to make that the religion of the whole earth.' 
 The doctrine was most plausible; when is not a 
 doctrine that leads men into slavery plausible ? The 
 Galatians received it ; the preacher of the Gospel was 
 discarded as a dangerous sophist ; the preachers of the 
 Law were hailed as wise and moral guides, who could 
 show those who followed them an old and safe road to 
 
IX.] FROM THE CUllSE OF THE LAW. 137 
 
 heaven. St. Paul meets his opponents in this letter. 
 He asks for no quarter, and gives none. He regards the 
 question as one of life and death ; one upon which the 
 moral slavery, or freedom, of the nations of the earth 
 depended. He believes equally that the understanding 
 of the Old Scriptures depended upon it. These Judaisers 
 he will not admit to be Jews ; they know nothing of 
 their own privileges, or of the end for which God had 
 chosen their fathers. 
 
 To this point he especially addresses himself. They 
 wished to be Abraham^s children; they wished all men 
 to be under the Law, as they had been. The two 
 wishes were incompatible. Was Abraham under a 
 Law ? No ! he was under a blessing. The covenant 
 with him did not mean, if Moses spoke truly, that 
 he was commanded to do certain things, and to leave 
 certain things undone. It meant that the Lord of all 
 declared Himself to him, and took him to be His friend. 
 And the Covenant was to be a universal one. The 
 tenor of it was : ^ In thee, and in thy seed, shall all the 
 families of the earth be blessed.' This was the ground- 
 work of the Jewish nation. This was the groundwork 
 of all the righteousness of its first father. He believed 
 the God who had spoken to him, who had given him 
 this promise; so he rose to the stature of a righteous 
 man. He became like the Being who had adopted him. 
 
 But the Law, St. Paul goes on to argue, was no part of 
 this blessing. Its function was of a different, a directly 
 
138 chkist's sacrifice a deliverance [serm. 
 
 opposite kind ; it was added because of transgressions. 
 And what it did was to pronounce a curse upon those 
 transgressions. It denounced death against them. 
 ' What is it then/ he asks, ' that you, the preachers of 
 ' this new Gospel to the Galatians, want for yourselves, 
 ' and for them ? Do you wish to be under a curse ? 
 ' Is that the great benefit which belongs to the chosen 
 ' people, that the great boon it is to confer on the 
 ' world ?^ 
 
 The question was a startling one ; but it was not 
 merely startling; it came from the inmost experience 
 of St. Paul himself; it appealed to the experience of 
 the Jew. St. Paul had gloried in the Law as much as 
 any of them could do. He had boasted of the wonderful 
 advantage he had over the Gentile world in possessing 
 it. And, by degrees, it presented itself to him as 
 a tremendous sword which was hanging over him; 
 which was ready to slay him, whom it seemed so greatly 
 to favour. In the strictest sense, it cursed him. It 
 made him conscious of evil within him which cut him 
 off from God, which made it impossible for him to 
 trust God, though he found that it was the very charac- 
 teristic of Abraham and David, and of all the heroes of 
 his race, that they did trust God. The Jews, generally, 
 might not have felt all, or a thousandth part of what 
 the apostle liad felt, because they were less in earnest; 
 but they knew very well that they were not trusting 
 God, — that they dreaded Him, fled from Him, looked 
 
IX.] FROM THE CURSE OP THE LAW. 139 
 
 upon Him as having given them a Law which they 
 were to boast of, but which they could not keep, which 
 set them above other nations^ and made them more 
 miserable than other nations. It could not be other- 
 wise ; according to the eternal principles of the universe 
 and of God^s nature, it could not. Law, St. Paul dis- 
 covered, serves this purpose in the education of a man, 
 or of a nation. It awakens the sense of evil ; it shows 
 them that they are at war with themselves and with 
 God ; it cannot make them right and good ; it cannot 
 bring about any peace between them and God. 
 
 Was, then, this effect all that God designed for Jews 
 and for men ? Was it the first thing that He designed 
 for them ? Clearly not, unless the covenant with Abra- 
 ham was a delusion. The blessing preceded the curse ; 
 the blessing which declared by its very terms that it 
 was for all. If the Jews wished to be children of 
 Abraham, they must assert a higher and nobler position 
 than that of being the receivers and subjects of a Law. 
 They must say : ' God is blessing us, and the world 
 ' through us ; God is calling upon us to trust Him, as 
 ' the source and root of all blessings. And this Law, 
 ' which comes with its tremendous curses, is part of 
 ' our discipline, to teach us what our condition is with- 
 ' out God ; what we are when we are not trusting 
 ' Him ; when we are seeking to make ourselves righ- 
 ' teous in any other way, but by believing in His righ- 
 ^ teousness. The Law is our schoolmaster, to bring us 
 
140 CHUIST'S SACllIFICE A DELIVERANCE [SERM. 
 
 ' to the knowledge of that Mediator in whom the pro- 
 ' mise was made. It was a secondary subordinate dispen- 
 ' sation, of infinite worth as a means of leading us to that 
 ' primary truth of our relation to God in this Mediator, 
 ' on which the covenant with Abraham stood; apart 
 ' from which it would have had no force or validity/ 
 
 The more you read this Epistle to the Galatians, the 
 more, I am persuaded, you will see that the argument 
 of the apostle, from first to last, is a refutation of the 
 doctrine, that we are first to learn what God is, what 
 His will is, from the Law which curses, and then to ask 
 whether there is no escape from its terrors and its 
 penalties. He insists upon the priority of the Covenant 
 to the Law, of the blessing to the curse. He insists 
 upon it, that the blessing, which appeals to faith and 
 trust, expresses the mind of God, and that the Law, 
 which appeals to fear, is made necessary by the false 
 condition into which men have brought themselves 
 through distrust of His promises. And then he an- 
 nounces Christ, the Mediator, as coming forth to fulfil 
 the blessing which God had laid up for men in Him, 
 and to redeem them from the curse and separation 
 which they had brought upon themselves. ^ He has 
 redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having been 
 made, or become, a curse for usJ The curse which 
 the Law pronounced upon men was death, death 
 in its most odious, most criminal, shape; and He 
 underwent it, an actual, not a fantastic crucifixion, — 
 
IX.] FROM THE CUUSE OF THE LAW. 141 
 
 the sentence of tlie rebel and the slave. Do you ask 
 how this act effected the purpose of redeeming any, 
 or how many were included in the benefits of it ? The 
 question is, indeed, most difficult, if by redemption you 
 understand in any sense the deliverance of man out of 
 the hand of God, the procuring a change in His pur- 
 pose or will ; then there is need of every kind of subtle 
 explanation to show how the means corresponded to 
 the end. But if you suppose that it is the spirit of a 
 man which needs to be emancipated, a spirit fast 
 bound with the chains of its own sins and fears, then 
 I do not see what proof, save one, can be of any avail, 
 that a certain scheme of redemption is effectual. Ap- 
 peal directly to the captive. See whether the announce- 
 ment, that the Son of God has died for him, does dissolve 
 that horror of God, that feeling of Him as the tyrant, 
 the forger of bonds, the inventor of a curse, by which he 
 has been possessed. 
 
 If the spiritual bondage is not real, of course the 
 spiritual redemption is not real. But the whole history 
 of the world, of every portion of the world, for six thou- 
 sand years, proclaims that it is real ; that this is the 
 bondage from which men are seeking by all contrivances 
 to break loose; that all material bondage is but the 
 accident and result of it. If the way of deliverance 
 from it has been found out in some corner of the world, 
 civilised or uncivilised — if it is a way that is available 
 for human beings actually tormented with the sense of 
 
142 CHRIST^S SACRIEICE A DELIVERANCE [SEEM. 
 
 evil, actually dying, — then let us know of the way, let 
 us try it. But the sacrifices that ascend from ten 
 thousand altars to powers of sky, and earth, and air, to 
 the Spirit of Evil far more than to the Spirit of Good, 
 declare : ^We have not found it; we never shall; till you 
 ^ can tell us of some sacrifice which shall be of God ; 
 ' one which proceeds from His will, and not ours ; one 
 ' which fulfils His wdll and not ours.' 
 
 It is such a one of which St. Paul speaks, when he 
 declares that ' Christ has redeemed us from the curse of 
 the Law, having become a curse for usJ It was the enun- 
 ciation of his old message with a new clause, which the 
 objections of his opponents had brought out, and which 
 deepened and strengthened that to which it was added. 
 He had preached to the Galatians of a Father who had 
 sent His Son into the world ; he had bidden them 
 take up their place, as sons of God. The Judaisers 
 would cheat them of that position, and send them back 
 to the Law. St. Paul declares, that the act which 
 proclaimed them sons was an act of redemption from 
 the Law. It had been a useful pedagogue ; it denoted 
 that they had not yet been recognised as children ; that 
 they were still in servitude. Now the hour of eman- 
 cipation had arrived. The Son of God had owned them 
 as kinsmen. In death. He had proved Himself their 
 brother ; in rising from the dead, He had claimed His 
 Father as their Father. 
 
 I need not tell you what is involved in the use of this 
 
IX.] mOM THE CUKSE OF THE LAW. 143 
 
 Roman comparison. The emancipated child always 
 had been a child ; he did not become so when he was 
 allowed to put on the manly gown; that was only the 
 time when^ his preparatory discipline having been com- 
 pleted, he could be safely trusted with the knowledge 
 of his dignity, when he could do the acts of a freeman 
 and a citizen. 
 
 St. Paul takes the analogy in the length and breadth 
 of it. There was a period, during which it was needful 
 that men should be learning their condition; should 
 be working through many strange experiences to the 
 discovery that they were spirits ; should be feeling after 
 the Father of their spirits. During that time He was not 
 forgetting them. When they were stooping most to 
 visible things, when they were least aware of their high 
 parentage. He was awakening in them desires which 
 nothing they saw or heard could satisfy or could quell. 
 By laws He was controlling their indulgence in things 
 mischievous to them ; was making them aware of their 
 own low tendencies ; was teaching them to shudder at the 
 sight of themselves. Then, sending forth His Son in 
 their likeness. He raised them to the state for which 
 He had created them; He redeemed them from the 
 vassalage into which their own sins had brought them ; 
 He redeemed them from the vassalage which He had 
 Himself ordained for their education. They were no 
 longer under the Law as a curse ; they were no longer 
 under the Law as a pedagogue. They could not any 
 
144 ciihist's sAcmriCE a 'Deliverance [serm. 
 
 longer contemplate deatli as God^s curse, cutting tliem 
 off from Himself, for Christ had endured it. They 
 could not any longer submit to be servants of a rule, for 
 Christ had come to make their state filial, to give them 
 the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 
 
 St. Paul was, at least as well aware as we can be, 
 of the false inferences which might be drawn from this 
 Gospel, of the miserable notions of liberty which might 
 be built upon it. He is occupied, in the latter part of 
 this Epistle, in protecting his doctrine against these 
 dangers ; not by weakening and diluting it, but by 
 bringing out, in its full strength, that promise of the 
 Spirit, of which he speaks in the last words of my text. 
 The Spirit of Christ could not lead them into any of 
 the acts which were inconsistent with the life of Christ. 
 The Spirit of God could not tempt them to violate any 
 portion of the Law of God. He would teach them to 
 delight in that Law after the inner man, as David did, 
 because it discovered God^s will to keep his creatures 
 from the evils which enslaved them and separated them 
 from Him. They could carry out in their conduct the 
 highest meaning and intent of the Law, having that 
 love to each other which is the fulfilment of the Law. 
 ^But,' he says, ' if you bite and devour one another, take 
 heed lest you be not consumed one of another.' If you 
 exhibit all the mind and temper of the flesh, against 
 which the Law is directed, assuredly you bring your- 
 selves within the curse from which Christ has redeemed 
 
IX.] MOM THE CURSE OF THE LAW. 145 
 
 you. But is that the effect of your believing the 
 Gospel, or of disbelieving it; of acting as if Christ 
 had redeemed your race, and brought it nigh to God, 
 or of listening to teachers who lead you to suppose 
 that you are at a distance from Him, and that He is 
 your enemy ? 
 
 Which doctrine caused the Galatians, in the first 
 century, to bite and devour each other ? which causes 
 English Christians, in the nineteenth century, to do the 
 same? 
 
( 146 ) [SERM. 
 
 SERMON X. 
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST A PROPITIATIOIT. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, Sunday after Ascension Day, May 28, 1854.) 
 
 Romans hi. 20 — 27. 
 
 * Tlcerefore hy the deeds of the law there shall no flesh he justified in his 
 sight : for hy the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the right- 
 eousness of Ood without the law is manifested, heing witnessed hy the 
 law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is hy 
 faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that helieve : for 
 there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the 
 glory of God; heing justified freely hy his grace, through the redemp- 
 tion that is in Christ Jesus : whom God hath set forth to he a propi- 
 tiation through faith in his hlood, to declare His righteousness for the 
 remission of sins that are past, through the forhearance of God; to 
 declare, I say, at this time his righteousness : that he might he just, 
 and the justifier of him which helieveth in Jesus' 
 
 My special object in this sermon is to consider tlie 
 meaning of the word Propitiatiorij which occupies so 
 prominent a place in the passage I have read to you. 
 But you will observe that the idea of Redemption, which 
 has occupied us for the last two Sundays, is as much 
 dwelt upon here as it was in the Epistle of St. Peter, 
 or in the Epistle to the Galatians. The two words 
 evidently point to different necessities of man, to dif- 
 
X.] SACRIFICE OF CHllIST A PUOI'ITIATION. 147 
 
 ferent aspects of the divine purpose. Yet they are 
 brought together; the apostle treats them as insepa- 
 rable. It is in Sacrifice they find their meeting point. 
 
 I could wish that you would read the letter to the 
 Romans by the light of these sentences ; that you would 
 trace the principle which is unfolded in them, as it 
 works itself out through all the reasonings, exhorta- 
 tions, expositions of national and human history, and 
 revelations of personal experience, which are found in 
 that wonderful book. But I shall be content if you 
 wdll fix your minds on these two or three verses, and will 
 notice a few of their more obvious characteristics. 
 
 (1.) The first that would strike you is, that the Right- 
 eousness of God is the subject, the groundwork, of the 
 apostle^s discourse. He assumes that it is the pur- 
 pose of God to make His own righteousness known. 
 He assumes that what man wants is that His righteous- 
 ness should be made known. Nor does he for an 
 instant distinguish between the revelation of God^s 
 righteousness and the revelation of Himself. He sup- 
 poses that God is the righteous Being ; that He is this, 
 and nothing but this ; that to be acquainted with Him 
 is to be acquainted with Bight in its very essence and 
 substance, with that Bight which is the ground of all 
 we think, and do, and are. 
 
 (2.) Next he affirms the Law testifies of this right- 
 eousness of God, but that it does not bring any man 
 to the knowledge of righteousness ; on the contrary, it 
 
148 THE SACRIFICE OF [SERM. 
 
 brings him to the knowledge of sin. You will re- 
 member that this was one great point in the argument 
 which the apostle held with the Galatians, and with the 
 teachers who wished to bring them under the Law. 
 The Law, he showed them, could not make any man 
 right; could not bless any man. Its office was to 
 make him feel that he was wrong ; its power lay in its 
 curse. 
 
 (3.) Thirdly, he says that the righteousness of God 
 manifests itself in another way than by Law, namely, 
 in the Person of Jesus Christ ; and that, so manifested, 
 it is effectual to make men righteous ; it is effectual to 
 confer a blessing. And this righteousness, he says, 
 comes through the faith of Jesus Christ. I will not stop 
 to dispute whether he means through the faith which 
 Jesus Christ had in His Father— that is, perhaps, the 
 more obvious and natural construction — or through the 
 faith which a man has in Christ ; for I think that one 
 meaning involves the other, and that neither will be 
 complete without the other. At any rate, he affirms that 
 this righteousness came through Jesus Christ upon all 
 who believe, all who confess it, and trust it when it is 
 manifested in Him; upon all, without exception, be- 
 cause all have sinned, all have come shoi^t of the glory 
 of God ; all are convicted by God's Law, whether deli- 
 vered in stones, or only speaking in the conscience, 
 of having that in them which is at war with this 
 righteousness. 
 
X.] CHRIST A PROPITIATION. 149 
 
 (4.) As this righteous Being makes men conscious 
 of their evil by the Law, and manifests His righteous- 
 ness to them in His Son, so He is declared, in the 
 next verse, freely to justify them by His grace, through 
 the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. I must remind 
 you, that the word justified is the cognate verb to the 
 adjective which we translate righteous. I do not say 
 that the translators ought to have kept up the analogy 
 of the words; perhaps they could not; perhaps they 
 attempted it more than we suppose, seeing that the just 
 man and the righteous man were more nearly identical 
 in their days than they are in ours. Still I do not 
 doubt they put a force upon the phrase ^justified/ 
 which would not have been expressed by the phrase made 
 righteous. They were afraid to use that form of expres- 
 sion, lest it should seem to intimate that men became 
 righteous in themselves, and are not, as our Article 
 expresses it, ' accounted righteous only for the sake of 
 Jesus Christ/ I believe that fear had a most reasonable 
 ground; though there may have been another fear as 
 reasonable, to which they were not equally alive. They 
 dreaded lest men should fancy they had a righteousness 
 of their own; and that dread no one could entertain so 
 strongly as St. Paul. But they did not tremble as 
 much as the Apostle did, lest men. should suppose that 
 the judgment of God was not according to truth ; lest 
 they should ever charge Him with acting upon a legal 
 fiction. St. Paul discovered that frightful mistake in 
 
150 THE SACRIFICE OF [SERM. 
 
 his own countrymen ; they thought they were better 
 than the heathen, because God was favouring them, 
 and treating them a.s righteous, while they were com- 
 mitting the same evils as other men. His whole reason- 
 ing, in the second chapter, had been aimed at this 
 delusion ; he had been affirming the commonplace, 
 which had become a paradox, that good is good in a 
 heathen, that sin is sin in a Jew. He could not 
 advance one step in making them understand his 
 Gospel, while they held the contrary opinion. When, 
 therefore, he goes on to speak of God justifying the 
 Jew and the heathen equally, he has prepared both to 
 understand that they can have no real righteousness 
 but that which they derive from God ; and that they 
 possess it in Him by renouncing it in themselves ; that 
 they have it when they trust Him ; that they have it 
 not when they distrust Him. And, connecting this 
 with the manifestation of God's righteousness in his 
 Son, he affirms that God has freely justified them, or 
 made them righteous, in that Son; that in Him He 
 has acquitted them of their transgressions, and owned 
 them as belonging to Him. If they believe that this 
 is the intent of His acts, if ihej acknowledge this to 
 be the object of His revelation, they rise up right, true, 
 justified men. 
 
 (5.) Next, then, St. Paul says, that this righteousness 
 and justification comes upon them through the redemp- 
 tion that is in Christ Jesus. The word, you will perceive. 
 
X.] CHEIST A PROPITIATION. 151 
 
 carries precisely the signification which it bore in 
 all the cases we have examined hitherto. They who 
 were enslaved by the vain conversation handed down 
 from their fathers, who had thought of God as like 
 themselves, who had regarded Him as an enemy, were 
 ransomed by the precious blood of the Lamb from that 
 intolerable bondage j those who were chained by their 
 own iniquity were enabled to lay hold on a righteous- 
 ness that was not their own, and yet which they could 
 claim as their own; those who felt that the Law was 
 cursing them, and cutting them off from God, were 
 brought nigh to God, were able to call Him Father. 
 This, which we found St. Peter and St. Paul asserting so 
 emphatically in the other passages, comes out, if that is 
 possible, more clearly, more fully, here. God is Himself 
 the Redeemer, the Deliverer, of a spirit out of the 
 fetters which it has forged for itself. He delivers it in 
 the way which it feels and confesses to be the only 
 possible way. It could not know God, it could not 
 be released from the self-will which is contrary to God, 
 if He did not meet it in sacrifice, if He did not Himself 
 make the sacrifice which it can accept as the fullest 
 revelation both of His righteousness and of His for- 
 giveness. 
 
 (6.) We are thus brought to the words, ' Whom God 
 hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His 
 blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of 
 sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.'' 
 
152 THE SACRIFICE OF [SEEM. 
 
 You are aware^ probably, that many have objected to 
 our version of the word ikaa-rrjpLov, and have contended 
 that ' mercy-seat ' should be substituted for it. You 
 may think perhaps, since I have dwelt so much upon 
 the desire to make the powers above or beneath joro- 
 pitious, as the characteristic of Heathen sacrifices, that 
 I should eagerly join in this complaint, and urge this 
 alteration. But I do not feel the least tempted to take 
 this course. It seems to me that our rendering is, on the 
 whole, a right and satisfactory one ; and that we should 
 lose, not gain, if we forgot that the word had presented, 
 and did present, to the minds of those whom St. Paul 
 was addressing, whether they were his own countrymen 
 or Gentiles, all the associations which had belonged to 
 the most degrading devil-worship. I do not conceive 
 that it was the function of an apostle to cast aside old 
 forms of expression, and to strike out new in a mint 
 of his own. I imagine that he was to take those which 
 he found, just as they were, defaced by the wear 
 and tear of centuries, debased by the adulterations of 
 the weak and of the wicked, of the dupe and the im- 
 postor, and to bring out, by severe tests, the pure 
 metal, as well as the image and superscription with 
 which it had been originally stamped. He did recollect, 
 doubtless, thankfully and wonderingly recollect, the 
 mercy-seat in the tabernacle and the temple, as ex- 
 pressing the true idea of propitiation. But he did not 
 look upon that mercy-seat as enshrining a peculiar, 
 
X.] CnmST A PROPITIATION. 153 
 
 esoteric doctrine^ with wliich the world at large had 
 nothing to do. He who had established the mercy- 
 seat was the Lord God of that earth from which the 
 foulest steam of human sacrifices was ascending to the 
 Baals and the Molochs. He was testifying, there, that 
 from Him came freely down the blessings which they 
 were hoping to buy of these gods; that He blotted 
 out the transgressions of which the worshippers were 
 seeking, by the cruellest oblations, to escape the penalty. 
 And now the God of Israel, and the gods of the nations, 
 were no longer standing aloof in distant defiance ; they 
 were in closer conflict than when Dagon fell prostrate 
 before the ark. Christ had come to fulfil the promises 
 made to the fathers. Christ had come a Light to lighten 
 the Gentiles. Hebrew was no longer the tongue in 
 which the mystery of a living and righteous God was 
 to enshrine itself. In the language of Heathen civili- 
 zation, in the beautiful forms which generations of 
 polytheists had consecrated to the service of demigods, 
 of beings like themselves, was the Eternal Son, the 
 brightness of the Father's glory, to utter His voice, and 
 claim the homage of those whom he had not been 
 ashamed to call His brethren. What business had 
 those to whom this new and mighty instrument had 
 been intrusted, to cast away any one of the modes of 
 thought and speech that had received an idolatrous 
 taint and impregnation? Why was the Spirit given 
 them but that men might hear, in their own tongue. 
 
154 THE SACEIFICE OF [SERM. 
 
 purged and regenerated, as the lips that spoke it were, 
 by His living presence and power, the wonderful works 
 of God ? 
 
 Far then from pleading that the words 2\ao-/>to9 and 
 IXaarrjpLoy had not the sense which we should gather 
 from all the history of the Heathen world that they 
 must have had, or that this sense was not one which 
 would naturally suggest itself to the readers of the 
 Epistle, baptized men though they were, I would earn- 
 estly press the reflection on you, that any other view 
 of the case is incredible; and then I would ask you to 
 observe with what a divine art and wisdom the apostle 
 vindicates the word to a Christian use, showing that 
 for that use its Heathen signification must be — not 
 modified — but inverted. 
 
 The opening of the twenty-fifth verse at once ex- 
 plains the method of the apostle's teaching : ' Whom 
 God hath set forth to be a propitiatio7i' Try, if you can, 
 to translate that language into the Heathen notion of 
 a propitiatory sacrifice. You want something to make 
 God propitious, or favourable, to you. You wish you 
 could find something mighty enough, transcendent 
 enough, which you might be sure would have that effect. 
 Does St. Paul follow out this line of thought ? Does 
 he say, ' The mighty transcendent means of bringing 
 ^ God to be at peace with you is here ' ? No ! but he 
 introduces Him as setting forth to us the One all-suffi- 
 cient, all- satisfactory evidence that He has made peace 
 
X.] CHUIST A PROPITIATION. 155 
 
 with us. Placing himself on the old Jewish ground, 
 affirming that all good must come down from the Lord 
 of all, that He must be the standard of righteousness, 
 and the author of righteousness, to man, the standard 
 and the author oi forgiveness to man, he raises that 
 principle to its highest power; he affirms that the 
 barrier between God and His creatures is removed by 
 Himself, is removed freely without money and without 
 price, and that the act of His Son in shedding His 
 blood is the authentic declaration of that removal. He 
 does not stop here ; as a Jew he could not, still more 
 as a believer in Jesus Christ he could not. The mercy- 
 seat in the tabernacle was not merely a sign that the 
 Jews were adopted and acknowledged as a righteous 
 nation by God, and that He was willing to restore 
 those who had forgotten their high calling; it was the 
 witness of a fellowship and intercourse between Him 
 and His people. ' There will I meet with thee' was 
 the form which denoted its perpetual purpose. Christ's 
 death could not, according to St. Paul, be a propitiation, 
 if it did not prove and declare Him to be the Mercy- 
 seat, the living Mediator, in whom God meets with His 
 creatures, and in whom His creatures meet Him. 
 
 (7.) I reserve this great subject of Intercession for 
 another and fuller consideration. But I could not pass 
 it over, lest the words, faith in His blood, which are 
 such prominent words here, should be emptied of one 
 most practical and blessed part of their significance. 
 
156 THE SACRIFICE OF [SERM. 
 
 If we do not receive that blood as the sure witness that 
 we are admitted into God's holy and blessed presence, 
 that we have the awful privilege of drawing nigh to 
 Him always, we cannot be said to believe in it ; it does 
 not give us that trust in God of which sin has robbed 
 us. I am quite willing, however, to dwell chiefl}^, 
 though I dare not dwell exclusively, on the remission 
 of sins that are past, as the effect of this declaration 
 of God's righteousness. Never, for a single instant, 
 ought we to make light of that craving for pardon, 
 that sense of an infinite burden of evil already com- 
 mitted, which has given rise to every confessional and 
 penance that has existed, or does exist, in the world. 
 There are some who would persuade us, that to dwell 
 on that which has been, is a mere device of priestcraft; 
 that, provided we can do the right thing now, we may 
 be well content, whatever we may have to reproach 
 ourselves with, in the years that are gone by. To them 
 the prayer of the Psalmist, ' Remember not the sins of my 
 youth,' seems to be the utterance of a vain and self- 
 tormenting superstition. Dear brethren ! do not let us 
 delude ourselves with these half-truths, which sound so 
 exceedingly plausible, which prove, in experience, so 
 utterly worthless. We do feel the sins of our youth, 
 we are assaulted every day and hour by thoughts, 
 words, acts, which we have left years behind us. Do 
 we think we get rid of these facts, by adopting a theory 
 that they mean nothing? But what a melancholy thing 
 
X.] CHRIST A PllOriTIATION. 157 
 
 it would be for us, if tliey did mean nothing ! "What a 
 proof it would be that man is a being who does not 
 look before and after; that he has not the conditions 
 of a rational, voluntary, spiritual creature I Ascribe to 
 him these conditions, and of necessity he becomes 
 incapable of forgetting that which has been once a part 
 of himself, that which has belonged to his own sub- 
 stance ; it cleaves to him ; centuries and millenniums 
 cannot divorce it from him. And, oh ! are we not 
 deeply and awfully aware that recollections which we 
 would give worlds to preserve, recollections of forms 
 and faces, and loving words spoken, and loving acts 
 done, may pass away from us, almost, it would seem, 
 into utter darkness; while words and acts, that we 
 should like to bury thousands of fathoms deep, survive, 
 and reappear, like the ghost of Ban quo, at men's feasts 
 — at God's feast — to make the present and the future 
 dark alike ? 
 
 What avails it to talk against priestcraft when these 
 things are so? I admit that priestcraft makes enor- 
 mous, frightful, use of these states of mind; but if they 
 were nothing, if they could be cast off by an easy 
 effort, or charmed away by a little metaphysical talk, 
 all its devices might be treated with very great indiffer- 
 ence. How do they come into operation? how is it, 
 that, in its very worst form, the trade of the Priest, 
 as distinguished from his glorious and divine vocation, 
 may be as mischievous and as gainful a one now as it 
 
158 THE SACRIFICE OF [SERM. 
 
 was in any past generation ; that it may be most suc- 
 cessful with the most refined classes of society ? 
 
 If those old recollections, which come back with such 
 appalling force, belonged altogether to ourselves, if they 
 pointed to no One against whom we have sinned, I sup- 
 pose that suicide would be the continual refuge from 
 them. And yet what a refuge! How completely the 
 prince of Denmark expressed the madness of that 
 experiment, when he said that there might be dreams, 
 and more frightful dreams, in the sleep after death 
 than in any before it. But the supposition is an im- 
 possible one. Every one does connect the images of the 
 past distinctly or indistinctly with God; his theory 
 may be an atheistical one, but the fact of conscience, 
 the sense of evil, brings back the phantom which he 
 thought he had banished for ever. It comes back 
 as a phantom. As such, the false priest speaks to 
 it. He devises means for making the man less afraid 
 of the dark image which he has cast from himself. He 
 tells him that there is a chance of the past being over- 
 looked, that this act and that act increases the chance. 
 And in the meantime, the man actually feels a relief 
 from having told his wrong. The clearing of the 
 breast has helped him, he is sure of that. And the 
 punishment that has been imposed upon him is not 
 without its own comfort. It is a witness to him 
 of moral disciplhie. It suggests thoughts of a process 
 by which not merely the past evil may be cured, but by 
 
X.] CHRIST A PROPITIATION. 159 
 
 whicli he may be cured. What a dawn of light is this ! 
 How it might brighten into perfect day, if there was 
 only a voice to say to him, God hath set forth His Son 
 as a propitiation, and a mercy-seat, to declare His 
 righteousness for the remission of the sins that are past. 
 If God could be declared to the man as the Propitiator 
 — as the Being who puts away sins because He is right- 
 eous, because He would not have the man tied and 
 yoked to evil, because He would make him his free and 
 true servant; if, instead of this declaration being 
 merely made in words, the fact of Christ's death could 
 be proclaimed as the sure declaration of God's right- 
 eousness in the forgiveness of sins ; how would the man 
 feel that neither suicide nor atheism was the refuge 
 from the past, but faith in Him who knows it all, who 
 is, and was, and is to come ; faith in Him, as mani- 
 fested in the sacrifice of His Son ; faith in Him, as 
 desiring to make us partakers of His own righteous 
 mind ! How naturally would this faith find its full 
 expression in confession to Him who so thoroughly 
 understands the length and breadth of the evil, who 
 sees it not, as man sees it, through the blundering, 
 stammering phrases of the penitent, and who so much 
 more desires the deliverance and reformation of the 
 offender than he has even yet learned to desire 
 it ! How cheerfully should we, holding fast this faith 
 in such a Being, accept His punishments — of what- 
 ever kind they be, — as the tokens that He is edu- 
 
160 THE SACRIFICE OP [SERM. 
 
 catingj disciplining, purifying the child whom He has 
 adopted ! 
 
 But the theory of a propitiation, not set forth by 
 God, but devised to influence His mind, — of a pro- 
 pitiation that does not declare God^s righteousness in 
 the forgiveness of sins, but which makes it possible for 
 Plim to forgive sins, though He is righteous, — this 
 scheme changes all the relations of the Creator and 
 creature; this scheme does build up a priestcraft which 
 subverts utterly the morality of the Bible, because it 
 first subverts its theology. 
 
 I know, brethren, that it would be easy to obtain a 
 favourable hearing from a Protestant people, if I were to 
 denounce this priestcraft as it presents itself in Romish 
 countries, or among those who imitate Romish practices. 
 I do not think I underrate that danger, or regard it as 
 a distant one. On the contrary, I feel sure that the 
 confessional and the whole scheme which is connected 
 with it, must prove stronger than that which we oppose 
 to it — and that atheism may prove stronger than either 
 — if we do not earnestly consider with ourselves whether 
 we are not sanctioning the principle which supports all 
 the practices we condemn ; whether we are not practi- 
 cally renouncing the faith of our forefathers, while we 
 are ready to denounce our brethren for forsaking it 
 in name. Those mighty words, ^ That He might be 
 just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus j 
 are entirely stripped of their meaning by the strange 
 
X.] CHRIST A PROPITIATION. 161 
 
 interpolation of the word yet. They are supposed to 
 say that God is just, and yet that, in consequence of 
 Christ^s offering, He can justify those who believe in 
 Him. Thus the whole argument of St. Paul, the 
 whole Gospel of St. Paul concerning GoD, is deliberately 
 effaced and contradicted. God does not manifest His 
 righteous will and purpose, His righteous character, 
 in the death of His Son ; but, through the agency of 
 that death, a certain notion of justice, quite distinct 
 from the righteousness with which St. Paul uniformly 
 identifies it, is satisfied; and so a certain portion of man- 
 kind may be excused the penalty of their past ill-doings. 
 It is only the accidental blending of this opinion with a 
 higher faith, which is utterly at variance with it, that 
 has ever served to make it effectual for any moral 
 purposes. It will be found more utterly powerless 
 for such purposes, more perilous to morality, more 
 perilous to all reverence for God, to all belief in 
 Christ's sacrifice and satisfaction, every day and hour. 
 It must bring forth its proper and legitimate fruits in 
 the most degraded, most heathenish kind of Komanism 
 — such a form of it as has not existed in any previous 
 century — or else it will drive men into the most defying, 
 reckless infidelity. 
 
 But there is hope, not only for ourselves, but for aU. 
 If we will go to the law and testimony, instead of merely 
 boasting of them, and declaiming against others for not 
 going to them, — if we will let the Bible speak to us in its 
 
 M 
 
162 THE SACRIFICE OF [SERM, 
 
 own clear, broad, intelligible language, and will let it 
 hew in pieces all the notions and traditions by which 
 we have been corrupting and disguising the truths that 
 would have made ns free, we shall again have a 
 Gospel, not for Protestants, but for Romanists, Jews, 
 Turks, Infidels, for all who have been setting up a 
 righteousness of their own, and yet prove in a thousand 
 ways that they can never be satisfied till they submit 
 to the righteousness of God. 
 
 And then the words of the beloved disciple will be 
 found to be in perfect harmony with those of the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles. I shall have to speak here- 
 after, for another purpose, of those words in which he 
 declares, that we have an Advocate with the Father j 
 Jesus Christ the righteous j who is the propitiation for 
 our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the 
 whole ivorld. But I cannot pass them over here ; be- 
 cause, if you will read them in connexion with the first 
 chapter of the Epistle, you will see how marvellously 
 they sustain that doctrine of propitiation which St. Paul 
 preached to the Romans. The object of St. John is 
 expressly to bring a message concerning Him who was 
 from the beginning ; to proclaim Him as the Light, in 
 whom is no darkness at all. And Jesus Christ is set 
 forth as the Propitiation by the Great Father of all, 
 that He might be declared in this character, that the 
 sins of them and of the world might be taken away. It 
 may be that this Gospel sounds even broader, freer. 
 
X.] CHRIST A PROPITIATION. 163 
 
 than St. PauPs. But it is not really so. In the fifth 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Romans he declares, that 
 ' as by the offence of one^ judgment came upon all men 
 to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one^ 
 the free gift came upon all men unto justification of 
 life.'' We cannot enlarge the force or application of 
 such a Gospel. God will confound us, if we dare, by 
 any arrangements of ours, to narrow it. 
 
( 164 ) [SERM. 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 
 'THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST THE PURIFICATION OF THE 
 CONSCIENCE. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, Whitsunday, June 4, 1854.) 
 
 Hebrews ix. 19—27. 
 
 * For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to 
 the law, he took the Hood of calves and of goats, with water, and 
 scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled loth the hook and all the 
 people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath 
 enjoined unto you. Moreover, lie sprinkled with blood both the 
 tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things 
 are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is 
 no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things 
 in the heavens should be purified with these; hut the heavenly things 
 themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered 
 into the holy places made toith hands, which are the figures of the true; 
 but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us : 
 nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth 
 into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must he 
 often have suffered since the foundation of the world : hut now once, 
 in the end of the world, hath he appeared, to put away sin by the 
 sacrifice of himself 
 
 If the Church called upon us to accept a certain set 
 of opinions, each denoted by a certain specific name, 
 it would not be fitting that I should continue my dis- 
 courses on Sacrifice when we are keeping Whitsuntide. 
 The death of Christ we should regard as one subject. 
 
XI.] SACRIFICE PURIFYING THE CONSCIENCE. 165 
 
 the descent of the Spirit another ; to mix them together 
 would be an outrage upon theological order. But since 
 we are taught to look upon every high festival as an 
 occasion for celebrating the Eucharist — since this par- 
 ticular festival is one of those for which a special 
 thanksgiving is appointed in our Communion Service — 
 we are reminded that we cannot separate the Sacrifice 
 of Christ from any part of our faith, or any act of our 
 worship; that it is the interpreter of all, the bond 
 which unites them together. 
 
 And, since Whitsunday is the day which speaks of 
 the establishment of God^s new covenant with men, 
 ^ I will put my laws into their hearts j and in their minds 
 will I write them^ there is another reason for speaking 
 to you from the passage which I have chosen. That 
 passage refers, as the chapter from which it is taken 
 refers, as the whole of this Epistle refers, to the dif- 
 ference between the old covenant and the new ; between 
 that which is said to have been established by law, and 
 that which is said to have been confirmed with an oath ; 
 between the covenant of servants and the covenant of 
 sons. This is the primary subject of the text and of 
 the letter. If you would understand the other part 
 of it, the part which I am most anxious to bring before 
 you this afternoon, that which speaks of the remission, 
 or taking away, of sins, and which is the proper sequel 
 to what was said at the close of the passage I considered 
 a week ago, you must attend to this portion of the 
 
166 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST [SERM- 
 
 writer's statement first. He does not begin with speak- 
 ing of the blood which purged the vessels of the taber- 
 nacle, or of the blood which washes away sins. He 
 begins from the words of Moses, ' This is the blood of 
 the testament which God hath enjoined unto you ;' he 
 compares that with the blood which is the bond of the 
 higher and diviner covenant, or testament. If we follow 
 this order, in considering the lessons which he teaches 
 us, we shall enter, I think, much more fully and satis- 
 factorily into the meaning of this book, which is com- 
 monly and rightly regarded as the book, on the whole 
 question of Sacrifice. 
 
 I. (1.) First, he describes to us the character of the 
 Mosaic economy in the words, ' When Moses had spoken 
 every precept to all the people according to the Law,' 
 Here we have the Legislator, the man who is telling 
 the people what they are to do, and what they are not 
 to do. He does not speak of himself. They are not 
 his own decrees which he is proclaiming ; they are the 
 eternal laws of God's government. He who breaks 
 them violates his allegiance to God, and incurs death. 
 They are not precepts for one man here, and one man 
 there, they are for all the people. Each man, by being 
 a man, comes under the obligation of observing them. 
 
 (2.) But, next, we are told that Moses declared the 
 people who were subject to this Law to be under a 
 divine covenant y constitution or testament, I use all 
 three words, not meaning to determine which expresses 
 
XI.] THE PURIFICATION OF THE CONSCIENCE. 167 
 
 best the sense of the original. Perhaps there is some- 
 thing in the phrase which cannot be adequately ex- 
 pressed by any one of these English parallels. We 
 have need to draw something from each of them. It is 
 a constitutiouj or order, which God has established, 
 which He has created them to obey. It is a covenant^ 
 for it is grounded upon a previous promise, and assu- 
 rance that they are His people, and that He is their 
 God. It is a testament, because both the curse and the 
 blessing of it are in some wonderful manner connected 
 with death. 
 
 (3.) This is the third point upon which the writer of 
 the Epistle dwells, and it is a cardinal one. ^ Moses took 
 the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet 
 wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the 
 people.^ Here the death of certain victims, the blood 
 which is shed when they are slain, is made the pledge 
 and assurance that God has taken them to be his 
 servants. This is their consecration; by this they are 
 sealed, redeemed, devoted to Him. I have no need to 
 dwell more on this topic ; I have dwelt on it so recently 
 and so frequently; I have shown you that the Pass- 
 over service implied this sacrifice and dedication of 
 the whole people to God. He took them by that act 
 to be His; He acknowledged that He had redeemed 
 them for His service. They were as much given up to 
 Him as the animal was given up to Him. They were 
 not slain as that was slain ; but the sprinkling of the 
 
168 THE SACRITICE OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 blood, which was, at once, the sign of the death of the 
 creature, and in which was its Hfe, was the witness that 
 they were offered up as sacrifices to God, that they had 
 no life but what He gave them, that that life was to be 
 used for Him, restored to Him. 
 
 (4) This blood was, therefore, a sign of purification. 
 They were holy creatures ; God had made them so ; for 
 He had bound them to Himself. They were holy, for 
 He was holy ; and everything they had to do with was 
 holy. Whatever they used was a vessel of ministry, 
 an instrument given them by God for His service. It 
 was sprinkled with the blood with which they were 
 sprinkled ; it had the same token of dedication, conse- 
 cration, sacrifice, which they had; it was redeemed from 
 all corrupt uses, as they were. 
 
 (5.) Then he goes on a step further. ' Without 
 shedding of blood is no remission.^ Here we pass from 
 the making of the covenant to the transgression of it. 
 The people are a holy, dedicated people. They have 
 been told what acts are in conformity with this condi- 
 tion, and what are at variance with it. They can dis- 
 obey the Law; they can break the covenant, if they 
 choose. God is holding them by His living bonds to 
 Himself; but those bonds may be snapped. They can 
 come under the law of death if they like it. Each man 
 of them, at some time or other, does like it. He tears 
 himself from the right order ; he takes the curse instead 
 of the blessing; he becomes its bondsman. The act 
 
X.I.] THE PURIFICATION OE THE CONSCIENCE. 169 
 
 done, the result is inevitable. Riglit cannot become 
 wrong, or wrong riglit. The fetters of evil are no 
 imaginary fetters, but most real. Can the man break 
 them? Does he wish them to be broken for him? 
 God promises him remission^ the sending away of his 
 transgression. The blood which was the sign of his 
 union to God, is also the sign that that union is 
 renewed. The blood of the calf was sprinkled on him 
 once, as the token of his union to God and his purifica- 
 tion. The calf must be presented again, its blood must 
 be poured out before the altar — in token that he submits, 
 ^and desires to be treated again as an Israelite, — ^in 
 token that God puts away his offence and treats him as 
 an Israelite. ' Without shedding of blood there is no 
 remission,^ 
 
 Here the case for the old covenant is closed. Each 
 one of these particulars has been distinctly brought 
 before us, and pressed upon our attention ; we are made 
 to feel how they bear upon each other. Then the 
 writer passes to the contrast. We are to learn how 
 each of these ordinances, so true in itself, so full of 
 purpose and significance, is unfolded, and the inmost 
 power and principle of it brought forth, in the Gospel 
 of the Son of God. 
 
 II. (1.) ^ It was therefore necessary' he says, 'that 
 the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified 
 with these; but the heavenly things themselves with 
 better sacrifices than these' I am sure the question 
 
170 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 must sometimes have occurred to a reader of this 
 sentence : ^ How can heavenly things need to be purified 
 ' at all ? Are they not pure in themselves ? And what 
 ' can these heavenly things be ? What have we to do 
 ' with them ? How can we be interested in them ? ' 
 
 I hope no one will dismiss these inquiries from his 
 mind till he has got some satisfaction upon them. It 
 is not a subject on which we should tolerate loose or 
 vague notions. 
 
 If you will recal the phrase which occurs, not once 
 or twice in the Gospels, but in almost every parable 
 and discourse of our Lord^s, ^ the Kingdom of Heaven; ' 
 and if you will try to ascertain from any one of those 
 parables or discourses what force it must bear; you will 
 not think that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 is using strange or unfamiliar language here. If the 
 Kingdom of Heaven is ' like a Sower who sowed good 
 seed in his field,' or ' like treasure hid in a field' or ' like 
 a merchantman seeking goodly pearls^ it must denote, 
 one would suppose, the spiritual world, in contrast to 
 the natural world. The spirit of man contemplated as 
 the subject of God's teaching and government, must 
 be one of the heavenly things which may be likened to 
 the things of earth ; which may dwell among them, but 
 which cannot be confounded with them. To these the 
 writer of the Epistle must refer ; these he must com- 
 pare with other things, which he calls the images or 
 the patterns of them. The one he must speak of as 
 
XI.] THE PURIFICATION OE THE CONSCIENCE. 171 
 
 belonging expressly to the new and higher covenant, 
 the other to the old. 
 
 You shall hear how he illustrates his own meaning 
 in an earlier passage of this chapter^ one to which I 
 alluded in a former sermon, and of which I shall have 
 more to say hereafter : ' But Christ being come an High- 
 priest of good things to come, by a greater and more 
 perfect tabernaclcy not made with hands, that is to say, not 
 of this building ; neither by the blood of goats and calves j 
 but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place , 
 having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the 
 blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer 
 sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the 
 flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who 
 through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to 
 God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the 
 living God?* I do not quote this passage now on 
 account of its allusion to the blood of Christ, but that 
 you may see what the things are which the writer 
 affirms that this blood is to purify. The conscience is 
 that thing which is set in contrast with t\iQ flesh. This 
 is that in man which is related to heaven, to the invi- 
 sible, to God the Judge of all ; as the hands and feet 
 are related to the earth on which we tread. Although 
 it is of heavenly origin, although it testifies of a relation 
 to that which is perfectly pure and holy, it is affirmed 
 to need purification, to require that God Himself should 
 purify it and redeem it, and claim it as His servant. 
 
172 THE SACEIPICE OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 (2.) Now, that which is the instrument of purifying 
 this spiritual or heavenly thing, must be, the writer 
 affirms, better than that which purifies the mere earthly 
 thing which is the pattern of it. The distinction is one 
 which we have traced already through various passages 
 of St. Paul's writings. It is a distinction which every 
 man recognises in himself, when he begins to reflect. 
 ' The acts which I do, fall under the cognisance of law; 
 ^ they are performed through the agency of my body ; 
 ' they belong to the outward world. But /, the doer 
 ^ of these acts ; /, from whose thoughts and will they 
 ' proceed ; I, from whom the good or the evil of them 
 ' must come; / cannot be the mere subject of the law 
 ^ which pronounces whether they are right or wrong, 
 ' which awards to them praise or punishment. I over- 
 ' look these acts ; but I must be overlooked by Him 
 ' from whom that law proceeds. I want to know how 
 ' He regards me. I doubt Him, suspect Him, fear 
 ' that He regards me as an enemy. I know that He 
 ^ must consider me not merely as a wrong-doer, but 
 ^ as being wrong myself. I dare not face Him. I want 
 ' to hide myself from Him, to find some secret place 
 ' where He cannot discover me. It is my conscience 
 ' which is thus skulking, and cowardly, and base. It 
 ' is that which wants to avoid the light, all the while 
 ' that it confesses the presence of the Light. It is that 
 ' which wishes to disbelieve in the truth, to disbelieve 
 ' in God. Is it not defiled ? Does it not need some 
 
XL] THE PURIFICATION OF THE CONSCIENCE. 173 
 
 ' wonderful purification ? And can the blood of bulls 
 ' and of goats J and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the 
 ' unclean^ purify it in any wise V 
 
 Some say, that if God fdj^^ses that they should, per- 
 haps they might; the writer of the Epistle mocks at 
 their seeming piety. He says, again and again, it is not 
 possible that they should do this. Deny the words, if 
 you please, but they are written. The writer is speak- 
 ing of a God of righteousness and order, of a God who 
 had made a creature in His own image ; and he says it 
 is not possible, it cannot be, that such a creature should 
 be purified by a mere decree. The blood of bulls and 
 goats cannot make us clean. We must have a better 
 sacrifice than these. 
 
 In the pattern with which the writer presented us, 
 we are led, first, to think of the Covenant, by which 
 God had declared the people of Israel to be holy, and 
 which He had sealed and confirmed with blood. This is 
 also the first point to which he has called ^his reader's 
 attention in the counterpart. A great part of the 
 Epistle is occupied with an argument to prove that the 
 old Covenant implied an actual Mediator ; that no legal 
 enactments and arrangements could create a union 
 between God and man; that they presumed one, and 
 pointed to one. The revelation of this Mediator he has 
 assumed in the fifteenth verse, as the foundation of the 
 New Covenant or Testament. We cannot be satisfied, 
 so the writer reasons, with anything less than such 
 
174 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 a revelation; with anything less than the assurance 
 that there is a real High-priest, not one established 
 by a formal ordinance, not one sprung from an earthly 
 tribe, — a living Son of God. But seeing that the same 
 conscience which makes this great demand, witnesses 
 also of the transgressions which have separated us from 
 God, there could be no revelation of such a Mediator, 
 he goes on to maintain, which did not imply a redemp- 
 tion ' of the transgressions that were under the first 
 Testament^' The man had been convicted of evil acts 
 by the divine Law ; had been convicted of a positive 
 alienation of mind and heart from Him who had given 
 that Law. To be told that the transgressions were 
 forgiven, was good ; this was what the sacrifices under 
 the Law had told him ; but it was not enough ; it was 
 chiefly precious for the hint and hope it gave of some- 
 thing more. The alienation must be removed; the 
 man himself must be atoned with his Maker. This 
 was a far deeper, and more wonderful thing than the 
 mere pardon or oblivion of offences. No arbitrary sign 
 or token could denote this reconciliation ; no sacrifice 
 that was merely offbred by the sinner, even though it 
 was fixed and established by God. There was need of 
 ' better sacrifices ' than these. I scarcely need stop to 
 remark, that by ' better ' the inspired writer means not 
 higher in degree, but difierent in kind; he does not 
 oppose one amount of costliness to another ; he opposes 
 a living, voluntary sacrifice to a dead, involuntary one ; 
 
XI.] THE PURIFICATION OF THE CONSCIENCE. 175 
 
 he contrasts the sacrifice of one who stands in an actual 
 relation to God and to man, with the sacrifice of some- 
 thing which implies no such relation, which is a mere 
 thing that a man can use or destroy at his pleasure. 
 Only a living sacrifice, he intimates, could be the bond 
 of a living covenant between man and his Creator, of 
 a covenant which should declare that their union stood 
 on an eternal, unchangeable ground, that it was upheld 
 in a Divine Person, the High-priest of the universe. 
 
 (3.) That this is the primary idea of the passage, the 
 next sentences abundantly prove: ^ For Christ is not 
 entered into the holy places made with hands, which are 
 the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to 
 appear in the presence of God for us.^ The great ques- 
 tion of men in all ages was : * Who shall ascend into the 
 * Heavens for us; — who shall break the great barrier 
 ^ which separates us from the Invisible Euling Power ; 
 ' from that pure and holy Being of whom our con- 
 ' sciences speak, before whom they tremble?' In this 
 question the great contradiction was implied, that the 
 man felt he belonged to this heavenly world; that it 
 was his proper home ; that he could not live without 
 God; and that he was a hopeless exile; that he must 
 wander abroad, and find comfort where he could, 
 amongst things which were beneath him, and for which 
 he did not inwardly care ; that God and he must be at 
 strife, now and ever. This was the mournful wail 
 which was going up from the whole Heathen world ; 
 
176 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 whicli was expressed in every kind of sacrifice that cried 
 for mercy to gods conceived or inconceivable; which 
 was expressed in every form of sensual indulgence and 
 gratification; the heart testifying: 'We must have 
 ' earth, for we cannot find heaven ; we must eat husks 
 ' of swine to the fill, for, oh ! how dreadful it is to 
 ^ remember, even for a few minutes, that we have the 
 ' responsibilities of men — of spirits ! ^ 
 
 And this was the answer : ' The Father of all, who 
 ' seemed at so vast a distance from you, in that cold, 
 ^ dreary heaven, and yet whom you tremble lest you 
 ^ should encounter in every dark night, beside every 
 ' tomb ; whom you dread as the author of your misery 
 ' and death ; as one who may inflict a deeper misery, 
 ' a more hopeless death upon you hereafter, has sent 
 ^ His only -begotten Son to take your nature upon Him, 
 ' to die your death. He has been here in these dark 
 ' nights, amidst these tombs ; He has been in the 
 * tomb ; He has risen out of it ; He has gone, not into 
 ' some figurative holy place, but into the actual holy 
 ' place, which your hearts tell you of, which all temples 
 ' and altars and priesthoods witness of. Christ is with 
 ^ God His Father. And now the Father, in whose 
 ' presence He is, declares that sacrifice of His to be the 
 ' bond of peace between Him and you. That is the 
 ' pledge and witness of His covenant with you ; with 
 ' your own very selves ; with that in you which has 
 ' shrunk from Him, which has wished that it could 
 
XT.] THE PUEITICATION OF THE CONSCIENCE. 177 
 
 ' banish Him. The blood, not of goats or calves, but 
 ' of His own Son, of the Eternal Mediator between Him 
 ' and you, is the assurance that He regards you as His 
 ' sons and daughters ; that He gives you the Spirit of 
 ' His Son in your hearts ; that your sins and iniquities 
 ' He remembers no more.' 
 
 (4.) This was the Gospel to the heathen world ; this 
 was the ground of a Church on earth, of a society of 
 men who could claim a filial relation to God, who 
 could recognise this living sacrifice as the reconcilia- 
 tion of earth and heaven. But the writer of the 
 Epistle knew too well, too experimentally, what the 
 tendencies of the human heart are, how ready it is to 
 disbelieve in the liberty with which God has made it free, 
 and to forge chains for itself, to stop at that point which 
 might serve the proper climax of his great argument. 
 He adds — ^ Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, 
 as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year 
 with blood of others; for then must He often have suffered 
 since the foundation of the world: but now once in 
 the end of the world hath He appeared to put away 
 sin by the sacrifice of Himself J He knew well that in 
 the Christian Church, amongst baptized men, amongst 
 those who had come under the new covenant, in that 
 Church of Palestine to which he was writing — though 
 it dwelt on the spot where the one off'ering had been 
 made, where apostles had first proclaimed the ascent of 
 Jesus Christ as the eternal King and Redeemer, and 
 
 N 
 
178 THE SACRITICE OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 the Giver of redemption, where the Spirit had come 
 down to witness a fellowship for all nations, of a union 
 of the world that is seen with that which is unseen 
 — though all the events which the Gospel proclaimed 
 had only been a few years ago transacted — he knew well 
 that there and then were those who would crave for the 
 signs which spoke of an unaccomplished sacrifice, for the 
 hope which the blood of the ox and calf gave that the 
 transgression of the day might be blotted out ; for the 
 promise which the entrance of the high priest into the 
 holy place held out, that heaven might at some distant 
 day be opened to those who would bring penitence and 
 sacrifice enough to purchase an entrance into it. 
 
 All these delusions and diseases of the heart, con- 
 scious oipart of its misery, unaware of its great neces- 
 sity, were rampant then, would be rampant, he was 
 sure, under every form, in every section of that Christen- 
 dom to which he looked forward. And therefore he 
 sets down this great warning, this mighty assurance and 
 comfort, to all who will receive it, that the Mediator, 
 He of whom all covenants and sacrifices had been testi- 
 fying, for whom all periods had been waiting, had been 
 manifested once in the crisis or winding-up of the ages 
 to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Supposing 
 a merely formal sense is given to the word sin — sup- 
 posing it is taken to mean the violation of some de- 
 crees which have been imposed upon men by the will 
 of a Being who could decree whatever he pleased — this 
 
XI.] THE PURIFICATION OF THE CONSCIENCE. 179 
 
 announcement could give no rest to tlie conscience. 
 But he lias guarded himself against this perversion of 
 his meaning; his whole Epistle has been one continued 
 protest against it. Sin has been brought before us in 
 its inward radical signification ; sin as the disease of 
 the will ; sin as conscious separation from a pure and 
 holy will. Every attempt to substitute any less inward 
 and essential definition of its nature for this, the writer 
 discards, because he is a practical man^ who is presenting 
 an actual remedy for an actual disease, which he must 
 trace to itr, principle, which he cannot hope to cure by 
 treating some of its superficial symptoms. Any attempt 
 to substitute a less universal and essential definition 
 for this, he discards likewise, because he is a divine, 
 because he has a message from God to His creature, 
 because he dares not betray his trust and misrepresent 
 the Lord who has made him the steward of His myste- 
 ries. But taking this to be the sin which man needs to 
 be freed from, from which God desires to set him free, 
 he declares that the one Sacrifice, made once for all, is 
 the assurance of a union and reconciliation with God, 
 and therefore of the full remission of sins. He proclaims 
 it in this character to the world ; he lays it down as 
 that which makes the new covenant well ordered and 
 sure, for all nations, for all mankind. But in doing so, 
 he testifies how the sins of each day, — the conscious 
 evils of those who have broken the covenant of their 
 God, — who feel that their continued transgressions are 
 
180 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 as great as those of the heathen, and less excusable, — 
 who feel that their inward alienation from God is as 
 deep and thorough as that of any heathen can be — may- 
 obtain this perfect remission. As the blood of calves 
 and goats, with which the Jewish testament was sealed, 
 which had sprinkled the people, the booh, and all the 
 vessels of the ministry, was also the sign that the parti- 
 cular offences against that covenant were forgiven; so 
 the blood of the Son of God, which is the pledge of our 
 original adoption to God, the witness that we are His 
 accepted children, is that which purges the conscience 
 from dead, selfish works, to serve the Living God, 
 Receiving it as the seal of an everlasting bond that was 
 established before the foundation of the world in the 
 well-beloved Son; receiving it as the witness that God 
 is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever — the same 
 in His hatred of evil — the same in His desire to 
 deliver men from it ; — this blood becomes that remission 
 of sins, that purification of the spirit from the guilt 
 or guile which is the essence of sin, that assurance of 
 divine forgiveness for the acts which have flowed from 
 it, that token of restoration to the house and family 
 of the Father from whom we have wandered, which 
 nothing else in heaven or earth could be. 
 
 And wherein lies its power? The writer of the 
 Epistle asks you the question. He knows that you can 
 answer it. He knows that there is One standing at the 
 door of your hearts with a light to show you what is 
 
XI.] THE PUEIFICATION OF THE CONSCIENCE. 181 
 
 in them, with a voice that is bidding them open to 
 receive Him. The light which shows you your evil is 
 the light of His own and His Father's love ; the voice 
 by which He wooes for admission is, ' Have I not sacri- 
 ' ficed Myself for you ? Does not my blood say that 
 * Sin and Death are not your masters ? Does it not 
 ' say, There is an eternal life in Me, of which you are 
 ' the inheritors ? Am I not willing to come in and sup 
 ' with you, to give you that bread which is my body, 
 'that wine which is my blood, as the assurances of 
 'forgiveness, of a death to evil, of a new birth to 
 ' righteousness ? Have I not ascended on high that 
 'the Spirit in which I oftered Myself to God might 
 ' come among you, and might sit in tongues of fire 
 ' upon you, to make you the witnesses of my death, of 
 ' my life, to the world V 
 
183 ) [SEKM. 
 
 SERMON XII. 
 
 CHEIST MADE SIN FOR US. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, Trinity Sunday, June 11, 1854.) 
 
 2 CORINTHIAKS V. 21. 
 
 ' For he hath made him to he sin for us, who hnew no sin; that we might 
 he made the righteousness of God in him.' 
 
 This verse is commonly interpreted by tlie addition 
 of a word. He hath made Him to be a Sin OFFERING 
 for us, who knew no sin ; that we might be made the 
 righteousness of God in Him. You will not suspect me 
 of objecting to the word which this paraphrase intro- 
 duces. I have endeavoured, for many weeks past, to 
 show you that the revelation of God is the revelation 
 of a Sacrifice. And though I have maintained that 
 sacrifice is entirely independent of sin — that the most 
 pure and perfect state we can conceive, is the state 
 of which sacrifice is the Law, — I have contended, as 
 strongly, that nothing but sacrifice can take away sin. 
 This was the subject of my sermon last week. We 
 learnt from the Epistle to the Hebrews, that Sin lies 
 much deeper than the ofi'ences and transgressions 
 which are the outward manifestations of it ; that it has 
 its seat in the Conscience. The legal sacrifices, the 
 
Xn.] CimiST MADE SIN POE US. 183 
 
 Epistle tauglit us, were good, as means of doing 
 away with transgression^ of restoring the offender to 
 his right position as a member of the divine common- 
 wealth. But sacrifices of this kind, he said, were 
 totally inadequate to take away Sin, for they could not 
 reach the conscience. The sacrifice of a Son who came 
 to do His Father's will, who entirely gave Himself up 
 to do it, did reach the conscience; it did take away 
 sin. How rightly then may this sacrifice be called a 
 Sin- Offering ! What possible objection can any reader 
 of Scripture raise against such an expression? 
 
 But this is the very reason why we should be most 
 careful not to alter the language of the Apostle, or to 
 substitute for it language of our own. We have seen 
 what errors men have fallen into, in their attempts to 
 conceive the nature, and object, and effects of sacrifice. 
 We have seen how much it has been the design of God's 
 revelation of Himself to deliver us from these errors, by 
 setting forth its true relation to Him and to man, to 
 the perfect righteousness and to the creature who has 
 wandered from that righteousness. We have seen with 
 what carefulness Evangelists and Apostles have brought 
 out before us one and another aspect of this offering, 
 contrasting it with the counterfeit notions which men 
 had devised for themselves. 
 
 This is, evidently, one of the passages which is to 
 instruct us in the character and effects of the Divine 
 Sacrifice, which is to show wherein it consists, and for 
 
184 CHRIST MADE SIN FOR US. [SERM. 
 
 what end it was presented. How dare I, then, put in 
 the phrase which I want to have explained, as if T 
 understood it sufficiently without the Apostle^s help? To 
 make me know what God^s Love to man was, how He 
 reconciled the world to Himself, St. Paul says, He made 
 Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin. That I may 
 not be forced to inquire what these wonderful words 
 import, I coolly and deliberately take all the force out 
 of them. He sets me before a startling antithesis, that 
 I may meditate upon it. I destroy his antithesis as 
 if it were an idle figure of speech, and insist that the 
 same word should mean two different things in two 
 different clauses of the same sentence. Could you bear 
 to see any writer who was not an Apostle, whom you 
 did not recognise as a canonical writer, ti^eated after 
 this fashion? Would you not say to his interpreter, 
 ' Either the man whom you undertake to expound is 
 ' not worth your trouble ; he is one who uses words at 
 'random, he does not understand himself; or else 
 ' you are behaving most unfairly and irreverently to 
 ' him ; you are not grappling with his thoughts, but 
 'putting yours in the place of them^? Is the case 
 altogether changed because we are listening to a man 
 who is uttering, as we believe, the oracles of God; 
 because he is speaking of the question which most of all 
 concerns us, and on which we are most liable to make 
 mistakes ? Are we at liberty to play with his modes 
 of speech just as we please, to thrust in among them 
 
Xn.] CHRIST MADE SIN FOR Us. 185 
 
 any inane tautological formula, — as if for the very- 
 purpose of escaping from the truth which he would 
 make known to us ? 
 
 No one can seriously think over these words, ^ He 
 hath made Him to be sin for us, which knew no sin' 
 without feeling that the paradox which is in them is 
 meant to be in them ; that the Apostle purposed to force 
 it upon our attention ; that if he could have avoided it 
 he would; but that he had no way of avoiding it, 
 without mangling and distorting the message which he 
 was appointed to deliver. If you read over the memo- 
 rable passage with which this sentence winds up, 
 beginning with those words in the second chapter, in 
 which he speaks of his ministry as a savour of death 
 unto death J and of life unto life ; in which he declares 
 that he does not corrupt the word of God, but that as 
 of sincerity J as of God, in the sight of God, speaks he in 
 Christ; you will scarcely persuade yourselves that he 
 ended with a mere verbal contradiction which was to 
 surprise us, and which he expected us to find some 
 easy method of explaining away. Between these two 
 points of his discourse, he has been speaking of the 
 ministration of righteousness and the ministration of 
 condemnation ; of the glory that was under a veil, and 
 of that which was unveiled, and therefore might be 
 presented with plainness of speech ; of renouncing the 
 hidden things of dishonesty ; of commending himself by 
 the manifestation of the truth to every man's conscience 
 
186 CHEIST MADE SIN FOR US. [SERM. 
 
 in the sight of God. He has been declaring that all 
 must be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ ; 
 that if he is beside himself it is to God, that if he is 
 sober it is for their cause ; that the love of Christ is 
 constraining him, because he thus judges, that if One died 
 for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, 
 that they which live should not henceforth live to them- 
 selves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again. 
 He had just been gathering up all that he had written, 
 all that he had ever spoken to the Corinthians, in the 
 words, ^ All things are of God, who hath reconciled us 
 to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the 
 ministry of reconciliation ; to wit, that God was in Christ, 
 reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their 
 trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the 
 word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors 
 for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us : we 
 pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.' 
 The verse before us is the climax of these vehement 
 protestations, of this appeal to God's judgment, of 
 this declaration of God's will to men as accomplished 
 in Christ, of this earnest exhortation to men not to 
 refuse the gift which has been bestowed on them. Can 
 you seriously believe that at this moment he adopted a 
 phrase to describe the work of his King and Redeemer, 
 which was strange and ambiguous, either from careless- 
 ness or through the paltry vanity of a rhetorician ? 
 No, my brethren, this is doing just what the Apostle 
 
Xn.] CHRIST MADE SIN FOU US. 187 
 
 is protesting that lie dares not do^ what he warns us 
 not to do : It is handling the word of God deceitfully. 
 We may think that it is our business to extricate the 
 writers of the New Testament from apparent contra- 
 dictions ; but we have no such vocation. They are as 
 well aware as we can be^ that their language sounds 
 perplexing ; they know that it must sound so. All sin 
 is contradiction ; if you speak of it, you must denote it 
 by words that cross and seem to confute each other. 
 Unless men were spirits, you could not complain of 
 them for acting as beasts; unless they proved every 
 moment that they were framed for fellowship and 
 mutual dependence, you could not blame their selfish- 
 ness ; if you were not sure that they were intended to 
 obey God^s gracious will and to walk in His ways, you 
 could not accuse them of ruining themselves by deter- 
 mining, each one of them, to have a will and way of his 
 own. You may get rid of the strife by ignoring either set 
 of facts ; by assuming that there is no moral order, or by 
 pretending that it is not resisted. The man may come 
 to think his transgressions are themselves laws ; the 
 delusion is easy enough, it is one of the signs of his 
 derangement, and he may adapt his phraseology to this 
 conception. It may be consistent with itself, but for 
 that very reason, it will be inconsistent with much of 
 what he feels and knows. 
 
 Keeping these thoughts in mind, and beseeching the 
 Holy Spirit to lead us into those depths, in which. 
 
188 CHUIST MADE SIN FOE US. [SERM. 
 
 without His guidance, we must be utterly bewildered 
 and lost, either through the cowardice which shrinks 
 from the light, or through the boldness which stumbles 
 on in the darkness, let us ask what St. Paul can intend 
 by saying that Christ was ^ made sin for us, though He 
 knew no sin.'' 
 
 1. There was a time in our Lord's life on earth, we 
 are told, when a man met Him, coming out of the tombs, 
 exceeding fierce, whom no man could bind ; no, not with 
 chains. That man was 2^ossessed by an unclean spirit. Of 
 all men upon earth, you would say that he was the one 
 between whom and the pure and holy Jesus there must 
 have existed the most intense repugnance. What Pha- 
 risee, who shrank from the filthy and loathsome words 
 of that maniac, could have experienced one-thousandth 
 part of the inward and intense loathing which Christ 
 must have experienced for the mind that those words 
 expressed ? For it was into that He looked ; that which 
 He understood ; that which in His inmost being He 
 must have felt, which must have given Him a shock 
 such as it could have given to no other. I repeat 
 the words ; I beseech you to consider them ; He 
 must have felt the wickedness of that man in His 
 inmost being. He must have been conscious of it, 
 as no one else was or could be. Now, if we ever 
 have had the consciousness, in a very slight degree, 
 of evil in another man, has it not been, up to that 
 degree, as if the evil were in ourselves ? Suppose the 
 
Xn.] CHRIST MADE SIN EOR US. 189 
 
 offender were a friend, or a brother, or child, has not 
 this sense of personal shame, of the evil being ours, 
 been proportionably stronger and more acute ? However 
 much we might feel ourselves called upon to act as 
 judges, this perception still remained. It was not 
 crushed even by the anger, the selfish anger, and impa- 
 tience of an injury done to us, which, most probably, 
 mingled with and corrupted the purer indignation 
 and sorrow. Most of us confess with humiliation how 
 little we have had of this lively consciousness of other 
 men^s impurity, or injustice, or falsehood, or baseness. 
 But we do confess it; we knoAv, therefore, that we 
 should be better if we had more of it. In our best 
 moments we admire with a fervent admiration — in our 
 worse, we envy with a wicked envy — those in whom we 
 trace most of it. And we have had just enough of it to 
 be certain that it belongs to the truest and most radical 
 part of the character, not to its transient impulses. 
 Suppose, then, this carried to its highest point, cannot 
 you, at a great distance, apprehend that Christ may 
 have entered into the sin of that poor maniac's spirit, 
 may have had the most inward realization of it, 
 not because it was like what was in Himself, but 
 because it was utterly and intensely unlike ? And yet 
 are you not sure that this could not have been, unless 
 He had the most perfect and thorough sympathy with 
 this man, whose nature was transformed into the like- 
 ness of a brute, whose spirit had acquired the image of 
 
190 CHRIST MADE SIN FOR US. [SERM. 
 
 a devil ? Does the coexistence of this sympathy and 
 this antipathy perplex you ? Oh ! ask yourselves which 
 you could bear to be away ; which you could bear to 
 be weaker than the other? Ask yourselves whether 
 they must not dwell together in their highest degree, 
 in their fullest power, in any one of whom you could 
 say, ' He is perfect ; He is the standard of excellence ; 
 ' in Him there is the full image of God/ Diminish by 
 one atom the loathing and horror, or the fellowship 
 and sympathy; and by that atom you lower the cha- 
 racter ; you are sure that you have brought it nearer 
 to the level of your own low imaginations ; that you 
 have made it less like the Being who would raise you 
 towards Himself 
 
 2. I have taken a single instance, because you can 
 better apprehend the whole truth in that instance, and 
 because from it you may understand that I am not 
 speaking of abstractions, but of that which concerns us 
 as human beings, as conscious sinners. But now carry 
 on your thoughts beyond that particular man with the 
 unclean spirit : carry them to any man in the crowds 
 whom our Lord fed, and to whom He preached : carry 
 them to these, because they were specimens of the race ; 
 because His knowledge of their evils is that which He 
 must have had of the evils which are in all the world ; 
 because His sympathy with them is the sympathy 
 which He must have had with all who bore their nature ; 
 — and then you will, I think, begin to doubt whether St. 
 
XU.] CHRIST MADE SIN FOR US. 191 
 
 Paul could have diluted the language which you find in 
 the text without cheating us of a divine treasure. If he 
 had said that Christ took upon Him all the consequences 
 of our sins, would this have been an equivalent for the 
 words, 'made Sin?' There might be a deep meaning 
 in that assertion. The sympathy which I have spoken 
 of, extended, as we know, to all the ills of which men 
 are heirs. The evangelist says, speaking of His healing 
 the sick. Himself took our infirmities and bare our sick- 
 nesses ; as if every cure He wrought implied -n actual 
 participation in the calamity. He endured in this 
 sense the consequences of sin in particidar men ; He 
 endured the death which is the consequence of sin in 
 all men. But men have asked more than this. Their 
 superstitions show how much more is required to satisfy 
 them ; they have asked for some god, or demigod, who 
 could not only sympathise in their sorrows, but in their 
 evil; they could only conceive of sympathy coming 
 through participation of it ; the gods must do like them 
 — be like them, or they are cold and distant objects of 
 reverence. The demand is indeed monstrous ; all the 
 perverseness and bewilderment of sin lie in it. But to 
 get rid of the falsehood of the desire, you must vindicate 
 its truth. Here is the vindication ; He knows no sin, 
 therefore He identifies Himself with the sinner. That 
 phrase, identifies Himself with the sinner j is somewhat 
 nearer, I think, to the sense of the apostle than the 
 phrase, takes the consequences or the punishment of sin. 
 
192 CHEIST MADE SIN FOR US. [SERM. 
 
 But still, do you not feel liow much feebler it is than his, 
 feebler in spirit more even than in form ? It conveys no 
 impression of the sense, the taste, the anguish of sin, 
 which St. Paul would have us think of, as realized by 
 the Son of God, — a sense, a taste, an anguish, which 
 are not only compatible with the not knowing sin, but 
 would be impossible in any one who did know it. The 
 awful isolation of the words, ' Ye shall leave Me alone' 
 united with the craving for human affection in the 
 words, * With desire I have desired to eat this Passover 
 with you' — the agony of the spirit which is gathered in 
 the words, ' If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me/ 
 with the submission of the words, ^ Not as I will, but 
 as Thou wilt/ — above all, the crushing for a moment 
 even of that one infinite comfort, ' Yet I am not alone, 
 because the Father is with Me/ when the cry was heard, 
 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ?' — these 
 revelations tell us a little of what it was to be made 
 Sin ; if we get the least glimpse into them, we shall not 
 dream that the Apostle could have spoken less boldly, 
 if he was to speak the truth. 
 
 We might for a moment wish to translate his language 
 into that which we find elsewhere, respecting the taking, 
 or bearing of sins. The force and the worth of these ex- 
 pressions I believe to be unspeakable ; they correspond 
 to some of the most inward and deep, however per- 
 verted, necessities of the human spirit. A man feels 
 that he is carrying a burden ; it is his own ; no one can 
 
XIT.] CHRIST MADE SIN rOB. US. 193 
 
 share it with him ; his friend, his wife, doss not know 
 what it is ; he asks to be freed from it, but that seems 
 asking to be freed from himself. Is there one higher 
 than himself who knows what it is, really, actually ? 
 Could he bear it ? could he take it away ? The question 
 is asked with strange and awful doubt. How can that 
 be possible ? how can I transfer to another that which 
 is so absolutely and inherently mine? Yet there is 
 such a necessity for a friend who would be willing to 
 do this ; such a witness that there must be one willing 
 and able to lift us out of misery by any participation in 
 it, that the heart bounds even at the distant rumour of 
 an act which declares that its hopes were not delusions. 
 There is no selfishness in that first exulting bound ; it 
 is the deliverance from selfishness ; the recognition of 
 one in whom selfishness has no place ; who can do all 
 and suffer all for love. But selfishness may soon in- 
 trude itself into these thoughts, and may convert the 
 whole message of a sympathising friend, who bears our 
 burdens, and so fulfils the law of love, into a scheme by 
 which we escape from the penalty of our misdoings 
 through His endurance of it. Even that scheme is 
 so closely involved with the sense of an infinite Charity 
 and Compassion, has so evidently risen out of it, that 
 no one should touch it with a rude or careless hand. 
 Till we are convinced that the tree is dying from the 
 pressure of the fungus which has attached itself to it, 
 we cannot have courage to incur the risk of tearing 
 
 
 
194 CHRIST MADE SIN FOR US. [SERM. 
 
 one from the other. And if we make the attempt, it 
 must be with no instruments of ours. A man using 
 carefully the Scripture language, and the Scripture 
 analogies — resolving to follow them steadfastly out — 
 and then applying them, first of all, to the detection 
 and exposure of his own crude notions and fancies, will 
 acquire by degrees the power of discerning between 
 that, in the popular statements respecting Theology, 
 which he must cling to for life and death, and that 
 which he must part with that he may preserve the 
 rest. 
 
 The text is a strong instance. Those expressions 
 concerning Christ bearing sins, which we meet with so 
 often, sound much less difficult and more natural than 
 the apostle^s phrase, being made Sin. But if we look 
 seriously at that, we find it explains the others, and 
 gives them the full force which, in our use of them, they 
 are apt to lose. We quickly attach to them some coarse 
 and material sense ; we suppose it is possible to transfer 
 that which belongs to the conscience and spirit, as we 
 might give up a schedule of debts to one who undertook 
 that he would discharge them. Comparisons which, if 
 they are resorted to with exceeding caution, sometimes 
 assist the fancy, but which do not go directly home to 
 the man himself, the actual sufferer and sinner, may 
 so entangle us, that they take the place of the very 
 truths which we would illustrate by them. But the 
 words, made sin, carry us out of these and beyond them ; 
 
Xn.] CHKIST MADE SIN EOU US. 195 
 
 they lead us directly to the spirit of man ; they become 
 monstrous if they are tried by any other tests than its 
 tests. So triedj they set forth just that which man asks 
 heaven, and earth, and hell to tell him of — one who 
 knows all his evil, one who enters into it, feels it, 
 because He is not soiled and debased with it ; one who 
 does this, because in no other way can He raise a volun- 
 tary and spiritual creature out of a voluntary and spiri- 
 tual death to a right and true life. 
 
 For the Apostle goes on, ' that we might be made the 
 righteousness of God in HimJ Here, as everywhere, 
 St. Paul declares that it is the end of all God's acts and 
 dispensations towards men, to make them righteous ; 
 to bring them out of that condition which they have 
 chosen for themselves, — the condition of distrust, aliena- 
 tion, sin, — and to bring them into that state for which 
 He has created them, of dependence, trust, union with 
 Him. He is declared, here as everywhere, to be the 
 only Reconciler of His creatures. Here, as everywhere, 
 they are assumed to have no righteousness but His ; 
 none but that which they obtain by owning Him and 
 confiding in Him. The giving up of His Son to take 
 upon Him their flesh and blood, to enter into their 
 sorrows, to feel and suff'er their sins; that is, ' to be made 
 Sin :' the perfect sympathy of the Son with His loving 
 will towards His creatures. His entire sympathy with 
 them, and union with them; His endurance, in His 
 inmost heart and spirit, of that evil which He abhorred ; 
 
196 CHRIST MADE SIN FOR US. [SERM. 
 
 this is God^s method of reconciliation; by this He 
 speaks to the sinful will of man ; by this He redeems 
 itj raises it, restores it. The acts which express His 
 love to man; the acts by which the Son of God 
 proves Himself to be the Son of man ; these are the 
 means of destroying the barrier between heaven and 
 earth,, between the Father and the children ; the means 
 of taking away the sin of the world. In each man the 
 sin — the alienation and separation of heart — ceases, when 
 he believes that he has a Father who has loved him, and 
 given His Son for him; when he confesses that this 
 Son is stronger to unite him with his Father and his 
 brethren, than sin is to separate them ; when he is sure 
 that the Spirit of the Father and the Son will be with 
 him to resist all the efforts of the spirit of enmity 
 and division to renew the strife. 
 
 But this faith of the individual man implies much 
 more than the deliverance of his own soul. In the great 
 annual act of atonement among the Jews, the priest 
 laid his hands upon the head of the scape-goat and 
 confessed over him all the iniquities of the children of 
 Israel J and all their transgressions and all their sins, put- 
 ting them upon the head of the goat, and sending it away 
 into the wilderness, that he might bear their iniquity into 
 a land not inhabited. Thus the whole body of the people 
 were taught that God, who had accepted them as a holy 
 people to Himself, purified them, as a body, of that which 
 had set them at war with Him. The individual Israelite 
 
Xn.] CHRIST MADE SIN FOR US. 197 
 
 could not be satisfied with his own sin-offering or peace- 
 offering, unless he was thus assured that he belonged to 
 a redeemed and purified society. In like manner there 
 is no sure peace and freedom for the conscience of any- 
 one man under the New Covenant^ while he thinks only 
 or chiefly of peace and freedom for himself. The sin 
 which he supposes he has cast aside will appear again ; 
 it will seem to him as if it was not the blood of sprinkling, 
 but his own momentary act of faith, which had purified 
 him from it. But if we believe that Christ has taken 
 away the sins of the world, we are led to a deeper and 
 safer foundation upon which our hopes may rest. For 
 then we see beneath all evil, beneath the universe 
 itself, that eternal and original union of the Father with 
 the Son which this day tells us of; that union which 
 was never fully manifested till the Only-begotten by the 
 Eternal Spirit offered Himself to God. The revelation 
 of that primal Unity is the revelation of the ground 
 on which all things stand, both things in heaven and 
 things in earth. It is the revelation of an order which 
 sustains all the intercourse and society of men. It is 
 the revelation of that which sin has ever been seeking 
 to destroy, and which at last has overcome sin. It is 
 the revelation of that perfect harmony to which we 
 look forward when all things are gathered up in Christ; 
 when there shall be no more sin, because there shall be 
 no more selfishness ; when the law of sacrifice shall be 
 the acknowledged law of all creation; when He who 
 
198 CHRIST MADE SIN POR US. [SERM. 
 
 perfectly fulfilled that law — the Lamb that was slain — • 
 shall receive blessing, and honour, and glory, and power ; 
 when the confession of His Name shall be felt and 
 known to be the confession of the Father of an Infinite 
 Majesty in whom He delighted, and of the Holy Ghost 
 the Comforter, who proceedeth from Them, and with 
 Them is worshipped and glorified for ever. 
 
xm.] ( 199 ) 
 
 SERMON XIIL 
 
 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE THE PEACE-OFFERING FOR 
 MANKIND. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 2d Sunday after Trinity, June 25, 1854.) 
 
 Ephesians II. 11 — 18. 
 
 * Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who 
 are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision 
 in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, 
 being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from 
 the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the 
 world : but noio in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are 
 made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath 
 made both one, and hath broTcen down the middle wall of partition 
 between us ; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of 
 commandments contained in ordinances ; for to make in himself of 
 twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile 
 both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity 
 thereby : and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, 
 and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access 
 by one Spirit unto the Father.' 
 
 The name Atheists — ' without God' — which St. Paul 
 here bestows on the Ephesians, before they became 
 Christians, is the very one by which they and the other 
 heathens described the Jews, and still more the Chris- 
 
200 Christ's sacrifice the [serm. 
 
 tians. The absence of all visible images was conclusive 
 evidence to the idolaters of the second century, and 
 probably also of the first, that the disciples of Jesus 
 had renounced all worship and believed in nothing. 
 That the charge should be reversed, that those who 
 acknowledged a multitude of gods should be spoken of 
 as having no God_, and this in a letter addressed to the 
 inhabitants of a city with an illustrious temple, and an 
 image that was said to have fallen down from Jupiter, 
 is very startling. 
 
 The word is made more pointed and remarkable by 
 that which accompanies it: they were without God 
 ' in the world/ The world had seemed to them full 
 of gods. It comprehended, of course, not merely the 
 earth upon which they trod, but the firmament, the sun, 
 and moon, and stars, whatever seemed necessary to 
 complete the order, whatever ministered to the wants 
 of those who dAvell on this planet. Each grand object 
 that men beheld denoted a god; was probably the 
 habitation of a god. Every hill had its own ruler ; 
 every river and fountain had some one who had caused 
 it to spring forth, and who presided over it. Could 
 men who thought this be without God ? Had they not 
 rather an excuse for saying that those who emptied the 
 universe of its celestial character, who denounced the 
 worship under hills and green trees, merited that stigma ? 
 
 The Apostle, who had declared in the Epistle to the 
 Romans, that through his countrymen the name of God 
 
Xni.] PEACE-OEFERING EOR MANKIND. 201 
 
 was blasphemed in all lands, knew what pretext there 
 was for this opinion; how much Jews had actually 
 done to shake the faith of other people, giving them 
 nothing in the place of it. He knew, by still more 
 terrible evidence, what a deep-rooted Atheism there was 
 in the hearts of some who were sons of Abraham, and 
 were signed with the sign of his covenant. He knew it, 
 for he had felt it ; he had been conscious of Atheism, — 
 of something more than mere negative Atheism. There 
 had been in his spirit such a horror of God, such a wish 
 to be rid of Him, as he could never have ascertained, by ■ 
 mere observation or discourse, to exist in any human 
 creature. And what made this discovery more dreadful 
 to him was, that the very aspect of the Divine Being 
 from which he shrunk, was that in which it was the 
 glory of his country to present Him. A mere power 
 he could have faced ; it was from the E-ighteous King 
 and Lawgiver, of whom the commandments spoke, that 
 he could have wished the mountains to hide him, even 
 if they crushed him. 
 
 But if it were so, why did he speak of the Gentiles 
 as being without God? Why did he treat it as a great 
 calamity of theirs that they were aliens from the com- 
 monwealth of Israel ? Because, brethren, it was through 
 this tremendous experience that the Apostle was 
 brought to understand what manner of Being it was 
 who had revealed Himself to his fathers, and why they 
 had testified so continually. He is a God nigh, and not 
 
202 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE THE [SERM. 
 
 afar off. He found that it was a Father of spirits who 
 had been declared to the chosen race : that He had 
 chosen them as witnesses of His government over their 
 spirits ; of His Presence there ; of His care for them ; 
 of His sympathy with them. He found that this was 
 the meaning of the Covenant of Promise which He 
 had given them, the meaning of all their history and 
 discipline. He found that it was the meaning of that 
 Law which had seemed to put him at such a frightful 
 distance from God, to pronounce him an enemy of 
 God. It showed that there was in him and in every 
 man that which God hated, and which hated Him. It 
 showed that this was the very thing from which 
 God had separated them and redeemed them, and 
 which He was teaching them to regard as He re- 
 garded it. 
 
 Now, then, it could not but appear to him Atheism — 
 — living without God — for men to have ten thousand 
 gods in the world, on the outside of them, while the 
 God of their spirits, in whom they were living and moving 
 and having their being , this Lord and Ruler of them- 
 selves, was not known. St. Paul did not slight, as his 
 speech in Lycaonia so clearly shows, any of the tokens 
 which God was bearing by rains and fruitful seasons, 
 of His presence with men in one country or another. 
 But these tokens, as he said, were so many calls and 
 messages to the spirit of man, to turn from dumb idols 
 to Him who was feeding the body with bread and the 
 
Xm.] PEACE-OrrERING EOE MANKIND. 203 
 
 heart with gladness. He did not slight, as his speech 
 at Athens shows still more evidently, the testimonies 
 of poets, or philosophers, or mythologers, to the truth 
 that men were God^s offspring, or that there was an 
 unknown God, and that He was not far from any of 
 them. But all these testimonies were so many proofs 
 that to make God in the likeness of art and man^s 
 device, was to project Him to a distance, that they 
 might flee from Him and not be haunted by His pre- 
 sence. It was the impulse of an atheistical spirit; the 
 more that impulse was obeyed, the more atheistical, 
 the more alienated from the righteous God, the God 
 of the hearts and reins, they must become. And while 
 this godlessness continued, they were also hopeless. 
 They were seeking to escape from themselves, as well 
 as their Maker; to avoid looking at the realities of 
 their own condition. They had an inward certainty 
 that they could not do so always ; that some day the 
 truth would meet them, and force them to confront it. 
 The future, therefore, was drearier and darker than the 
 present. So, he said, it had been with the Ephesians ; 
 they knew that it had. What had caused any difference 
 in their state of mind? The same revelation which 
 had brought Saul the Hebrew from a state of inward 
 war to peace; from an unutterable dread of God, to 
 trust in Him as a Father. ^ Noiv in Christ Jesus, ye 
 who were sometimes far off are made nigh by the blood 
 of Christ J He, from whom they were turning away, — 
 
204 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE THE [SERM. 
 
 to shun whose presence they would have taken the 
 wings of the morning, or have made their bed in liell, — 
 presented Himself to them as one who was seeking after 
 them, claiming them as His children, sending His own 
 Son to earth, to death, to the grave, to hell, that He 
 might fetch them home. The blood, the actual human 
 blood which had been poured out, testified of a human 
 life in Christ — of an union with them. But the love 
 which came out in His death, signified a deeper life — 
 the life of God. It was the love of a Father, exhibited 
 as Love only can be exhibited, in sacrifice ; it was the 
 love of a Brother, reflecting that love, consummating the 
 sacrifice in death. It spake not to the eye that gazed 
 on idols of wood and stone, not to the slavish fear that 
 crouched before powers in earth and sea and air. It 
 spoke to the man himself; to the being who used these 
 eyes ; who was beset with these fears. It roused him to 
 the recollection of the Being about the bed and about 
 the board, who could not be beheld in the likeness of 
 anything above or beneath, whom the heart trembled 
 to hear of, and yet in whom it was created to trust 
 and to live. It assured him that there was One in 
 whom that Being could be well pleased ; One in whom 
 He could meet His creatures; One who had poured 
 out His life-blood, in obedience to His will, for their 
 sakes. The Cross, the blood, said all this, and infinitely 
 more than this, to the spirit that had been losing itself 
 amidst world gods, and was just beginning to dream of 
 
XIII.] PEACE-OITERING TOR MANKIND. 205 
 
 its Father's house. St. Paul knew how poor words were 
 as a translation of all the secret love-messages and 
 pledges which the blood of Christ carried to the wan- 
 derer. He resorted to explanations when they were 
 necessary; he always joyfully returned to the language 
 which implied an act, sufferings, a person. The Spirit 
 who governed him would not suffer his explanations to 
 put themselves in place of that which they were to 
 explain, or to hinder the direct communion which the 
 living symbols expressed and kept up. 
 
 St. Paul's own education as a Jew, enabled him to 
 see a further truth which the Gentile, however simple 
 and serious his faith might be, was only beginning to 
 apprehend. The Covenant of Promise — the Common- 
 wealth of Israel — witnessed that God had adopted and 
 still cared for Israelites, stiff-necked as they were. 
 That had been a source of comfort and pride to him 
 till he had perceived that the law demanded actual 
 righteousness ; and certainly not less from the Jew than 
 the Gentile. Then the thought of a formal covenant 
 could no longer sustain him, or in the least diminish 
 his terrors. Now when he had seen in the cross of 
 Christ the full revelation of the God of Abraham, he 
 perceived also the deep and true foundation of that 
 divine election, which he had taken to be artificial and 
 arbitrary. The Cross told him in whom it was that 
 God had elected them, in whom He had blessed them 
 with all spiritual blessings. It showed him the Eternal 
 
206 CHEIST^S SACRIFICE THE [SERM. 
 
 Mediator, the Living Word, in whom God had created 
 the worlds, in whom He had held converse with the 
 sons of men. It unfolded the mystery of the past; 
 the Law, the Prophets, the Priesthood, the Sacrifices. 
 But it took away the exclusiveness, the merely Jewish 
 character, of them all. Thej were witnesses of the 
 Man, in whom God looked not upon the sons of 
 Abraham, but on the sons of men, in whom He would 
 at last gather together all things, both which are in 
 heaven and which are in earth. 
 
 This revelation or manifestation of Him in whom God 
 had chosen the Apostle of the Gentiles, in whom He 
 had chosen Hebrews and Gentiles equally to be holy and 
 without blame before Him in love, is the peculiar subject 
 of the Epistle to the Ephesians. That being the case, 
 if the dry and artificial rules and arrangements of 
 divines had governed the mind of the Apostle, we 
 might expect to find less in this book concerning the 
 Atonement, or reconciliation by the Cross of Christ. 
 That doctrine, one might suppose, would be treated of 
 somewhere else; it would not intrude itself while a 
 difi^erent portion of the system was receiving exposition. 
 But the method of St Paul, as any one who reads any 
 of his Epistles with seriousness will soon convince 
 himself, utterly repudiates those trammels. He is 
 teaching of God, and Man ; what the relations between 
 them are ; how it has pleased God to establish them, 
 restore them, make them known ; He is not announcing 
 
Xm.] PEACE-OITERING POU MANKIND. 207 
 
 certain conceptions which we may reduce under classes 
 or formulas that we find convenient. I am far from 
 wishing you to forget the names and titles by which, 
 both in popular and learned treatises, what we call the 
 doctrines of the Gospel are denoted. They may be of 
 great value to us, if instead of translating the New 
 Testament phrases into them, we ask the New Testa- 
 ment to tell us what they signify, to show us the bonds 
 of living connexion between them, to remove the con- 
 fusions which torment us when we think of them. 
 For this purpose I have considered those different 
 aspects of Sacrifice, which associate themselves with 
 Redemption; with the deliverance from the curse of 
 the Law; with propitiation; with remission of sins; with 
 Christ as the Lamb known before the foundation of 
 the world; with Christ as made Sin for us, though 
 He knew no sin. It has been impossible, in reflecting 
 on any one of these thoughts, not to speak of Recon- 
 ciliation. The idea of it is involved in each one of 
 them. But, as I observed before, though the Peace- 
 offering under the Law implied the existence of sin, 
 and a desire to be delivered from it, — though the 
 Sin-offering implied a want of peace, and a search 
 for it, — still they were kept distinct in the Mosaic 
 economy, and their separation served a wonderful 
 purpose in the education of men — leading them to 
 perceive the diff'erent needs of their spirits, and how 
 He who had awakened them, was supplying them. 
 
208 chkist's sACRincE the [serm. 
 
 For the same reason, we are underrating the power 
 and results of the all-perfect Sacrifice, if we assume 
 that, because there can be no Kedemption or Pro- 
 pitiation without Reconciliation and Atonement, we 
 have, therefore, no need to give the last a separate and 
 solemn consideration. 
 
 Though I took an unusually long passage for my 
 text, it might be better for the sense of it if I had gone 
 further back still, and led you to reflect on the con- 
 nexion in which it stands with the fourth verse. ^ God, 
 who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He 
 loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened 
 us together with Christ, {by grace ye are saved.)' That 
 verse removes all doubts about the question, whether 
 the Apostle is here, as in the Second Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, representing God as reconciling the world 
 to Himself, or whether he has departed from all his 
 usual habits of thinking and speaking, and is, for once, 
 supposing the first movement to be from the side of 
 man. There is nothing in the verses I have read 
 which could in the slightest degree warrant the sup- 
 position. But when it is said, in the fifteenth verse, that 
 Christ has abolished the enmity, even the law of com.- 
 mandments contained in ordinances, that He might make 
 in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and 
 that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the 
 Cross, there is an opening for a theory drawn from 
 the heathen notions of sacrifice; we can make the 
 
XIII.] PEACE-OITERING FOR MANKIND. 209 
 
 Apostle's words, by a few outrages upon their letter, 
 and by destroying their spirit, echo and confirm it. 
 Taking them with those that precede them, — recol- 
 lecting that the aim of St. Paul, in all his letters, has 
 been to trace the whole economy of the universe, and 
 of the redemption of men from their wicked works and 
 the enmity which they had caused, to God's original 
 purpose, to His creation of man in the eternal Son — 
 we gain a glimpse of the nature of Christ's peace- 
 offering, and of its effects on mankind, which illumi- 
 nates all the past history of the world, as well as all the 
 saddest experiences of individuals. 
 
 The Gentile was seeking God where He was not to be 
 found, invoking Him when He was not near. Con- 
 science made a coward of him ; he was afraid of the 
 Lord of his spirit, whose rebukes sounded so alarming ; 
 he made himself other lords out of the things which he 
 looked upon, and asked them to save him from himself. 
 The Jew, unable to find a refuge in the forms of the 
 world, forced to think of God as speaking to him and 
 commanding him, would fain have destroyed the Being 
 who, he thought, was ready at any moment to destroy 
 him. God presents His only-begotten Son to both, as 
 the true image of Himself, as the perfect Righteousness 
 which the Law enjoins; He gives Him up for all, as the 
 assurance that there is a bond between Him and His 
 creatures, which no rebellion of theirs, which no law of 
 His, could set aside. By this mighty offering. He 
 
 P 
 
210 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE THE [SERM. 
 
 breaks down the middle wall of partition between tbose 
 whom He seemed to favour and those whom He seemed 
 to curse. The blessing of the one is found to be a curse^ 
 unless it has led him to the living trust in God, not in 
 his own privileges. The curse of the other is found to 
 be a blessing, if it has led him, in weariness and sorrow, 
 to cry for a Teacher and Deliverer of his spirit. One 
 Man is proclaimed as the King and Saviour of both. 
 The signs of His royalty, the marks of the Victor, are 
 the prints of the nails. By these he establishes His 
 right to the trust and the obedience of His creatures ; 
 by these He justifies His eternal relation to God. These 
 are the sure testimonies that God has atoned Man to 
 Himself; that there is no distinction of favoured or 
 neglected race. He is our Peace ; the centre of union 
 and fellowship between the tribes of the earth; the 
 Destroyer of whatever there tvas in themselves, of what- 
 ever there see7ned to be in the divine ordinances for the 
 teaching and correction of men, which set them at war. 
 Humanity, which had heretofore stood in these appa- 
 rently hopeless divisions of Jew and Gentile, — while 
 yet it was evincing itself, by the most undoubted proofs, 
 to be essentially the same in both — the same in its con- 
 scious evil, the same in its certainty that this evil was 
 the strife against a good, for which it was created — 
 humanity henceforth stands united in Him. He has 
 made in Himself of twain one new man, so making 
 peace. Henceforth, to treat any man as an alien from 
 
Xni.] PEACE-OFFERING FOR MANKIND. 21 1 
 
 God, as cut oflp by any legal sentence from Him, was to 
 deny Christ's death; to say that God had not made 
 the great Peace-offering ; that the Cross had not removed 
 all which gave one advantage over another. 
 
 ' For,^ he goes on, ^ through Him we both have access by 
 one Spirit unto the Father.' This is the climax of the 
 doctrine, and yet also the foundation of it. The access 
 to God is the highest conceivable blessing which any 
 creature could obtain. To have the right of approach- 
 ing Him without dread, to be warranted in calling 
 Him, Father, — to be sure that that which binds us 
 to Him is mightier than all that is making us feel at 
 a distance from Him, — this is that fruit of the Atone- 
 ment which, if we really knew our own wants, we 
 should perceive must be greater than all others. 
 And yet it is beneath all the rest; no other has any 
 reality apart from it; the peace with our fellow-men, 
 the freedom from terror of the future, the hope of 
 good things to come, all lie in that. It is not possible 
 to conceive of an atonement with man, which has not 
 its basis in an atonement with God. It is possible — 
 for it has been done — to conceive of an atonement, 
 which means the removal of the punishment or conse- 
 quences of the war into which man's distrust of his 
 Creator has brought him, without the ceasing of the 
 war itself. But such a conception sets at nought the 
 meaning of words ; the teaching of Apostles ; the 
 needs of man ; the Gospel of God. It is a dead 
 
212 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE THE [SERM. 
 
 formula of the schools, which, because it is of itself 
 soulless and skinless, the hearts of men fill out with 
 their own great cravings and hopes, with their terrible 
 sorrows and fears ; and so turn it sometimes into a 
 living faith; as often into a dark superstition; a scheme 
 for persuading God to be at peace with that evil against 
 which He has declared eternal war ; a scheme for 
 proving that He is still at enmity with a great majority 
 of that race with which He has made peace in the 
 blood of His Son. 
 
 I know too well what a temptation there is in all 
 our hearts, to think that such words as the Apostle 
 uses are not altogether safe words; that we must con- 
 tract his amazing declaration, that all barriers have 
 been taken away, that men are reconciled and atoned 
 to God in Christ ; that this Atonement is the fulfilment 
 and manifestation of His original purpose, when He 
 created all things in Christ ; that He is Himself the 
 Peace-maker — the Author and Finisher of the sacrifice. 
 Every harsh and selfish word we speak, and act we do, 
 our indifi*erence, coldness, hardness of heart, makes 
 the feeling stronger that there must be some exaggera- 
 tion in these phrases, or that we have misunderstood 
 them, or that they do not apply to us, or that we ought 
 not to hold them forth as true to other men. But if a 
 thousand internal demonstrations have convinced any 
 of us that the hardness, coldness, cruelty of heart 
 grows stronger and nearly invincible, as we forget or 
 
XIII.] PEACE-OITERING POR MANKIND. 213 
 
 disbelieve the fact of this Peace-offering, and the truth 
 of the eternal union between God and His creatures in 
 Christ, which it impHes, — and that the only cure for 
 them lies in casting aside all notions that we can make 
 that peace for ourselves which God has made, and all 
 dream that it has been made for us more than for any- 
 outcast in the world, — we may well be afraid of yield- 
 ing to a conviction which is most natural, just as every 
 sin is natural, but which, no one who has traced its work- 
 ings in himself can believe to be salutary and divinely 
 imparted. 
 
 If we set before ourselves some higher result of our 
 religion than this, ' / will arise, and go to my Father ;' 
 if we suppose that there is some better morality than 
 that which comes from the Spirit of Righteousness 
 and Truth; some more exalted divinity than that 
 which brings us to renounce ourselves and put our 
 trust in God ; we shall be continually thinking that a 
 message, which only tells us that God has made peace 
 with us in His Son, which only speaks of a divine 
 Sacrifice offered once for all, which only declares that 
 through Him who has offered it we have all access in 
 Spirit to the Father, is not enough for us ; that we must 
 find out some mode of applying that Atonement other- 
 wise than by presenting ourselves and the universe in 
 the strength of it before God, some other way of cleans- 
 ing our consciences from dead works than by receiving 
 this assurance that He would have us serve the living 
 
214 Christ's sacrieice the [seem. 
 
 God. But^ if we are in the world to live^ and act, and 
 suffer, this, I think, will do for us ; and nothing less 
 than this will. We shall not want to find out from 
 some subtle divine why the righteous Law of God made 
 a sacrifice necessary. The Law of God will tell our 
 hearts better than we can, that there is something 
 wrong in them. It will tell them, that that wrong 
 comes through separation from a living God ; from our 
 selfishness and unlovingness. And, therefore, we 
 cannot, if we let our consciences and reasons speak, be 
 slow to confess that it is He w^ho must make peace 
 with us; and that there can be no sign of peace so 
 fully expressing His nature, so exactly meeting our 
 evil — so mysteriously extracting it — as this of sacri- 
 fice. If we want more, God will teach us more as 
 we pray to Him, as we present to Him the Sacrifice 
 which taketh away the sins of the world, as we offer 
 up our own bodies in sacrifice. If we want more, 
 God will teach us more when we do not shrink from 
 carrying the words of reconciliation to them that are 
 afar off, and them that are near; when we show by 
 tokens which men can understand, that we do believe 
 that Christ is their peace, and that the peace which is 
 in Him passes their understanding and ours ; but that 
 it can keep them and us in the knowledge and love 
 of God, and of His Son. The text I have been 
 speaking from this afternoon, declares to us the true 
 foundation of the modern w^orld. Tlie old world 
 
XIII.] PEACE-OrFERING FOR MANKIND. 215 
 
 existed to testify of the distinctiou between God and 
 His creatures ; of the separation which sin and death 
 had made between them. Its lessons can never be 
 obsolete ; every day should make us understand better 
 their deep and eternal import. The new world exists 
 to testify of the atonement of God and His creatures, 
 of their union and fellowship with each other, on the 
 ground of the Sacrifice that He has made. When we 
 enter into the greatness and glory of our own position, 
 as a Church bearing witness of the Atonement to man- 
 kind, we shall have such a sense of the awfulness of God's 
 Nature and Being as we never had before; we shall 
 have such a sense of the evil which sets men at strife 
 with the goodness and blessedness, which is embracing 
 and seeking to subdue them, as we never had before. 
 We shall not strive to build up the wall of partition 
 between men which He has broken down, but we shall 
 feel and confess, each in himself, as we never did, the 
 opposition between the spirit and the flesh. We shall 
 not put Adam in the place of Christ, or build our 
 morality and divinity on the fall which proclaimed men 
 sinners, when Christ's obedience has proclaimed them 
 righteous ; but we shall feel more than ever what that 
 sin is, which leads men to distrust Him who has taken 
 it away. We shall not doubt that Christ is, and ever 
 has been, the perfect Mediator between God and man, 
 and that in Him all have access by one Spirit to the 
 Father; but we shall ask ourselves with tenfold 
 
216 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE THE PEACE -OITERING. [SERM. 
 
 earnestness, how it comes to pass that we live so atheist- 
 ically, so hopelessly, in the world, — how it comes to 
 pass that we can bear to act as aliens and outcasts, 
 when we have been made fellow-citizens with the 
 Saints, and of the Household of God. 
 
XIV.] ( 217 ) 
 
 SEEMON XIV. 
 
 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A POWER TO FORM US AFTER HIS 
 LIKENESS. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 3d Sunday after Trinity, July 2, 1854.) 
 
 Philippians II. 6—12. 
 
 * Let this mind he in you, which was also in Christ Jesus : who, being in 
 the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God : but 
 made himself of no reputation, and tooJc upon him the form of a 
 servant, and was made in the likeness of men : and being found in 
 fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto 
 death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly 
 exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name : that 
 at the name of Jesus every Jcnee should bow, of things in heaven, and 
 things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue 
 should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
 Father.* 
 
 I HAVE spoken to you of various effects which the 
 writers of the New Testament attribute to the sacrifice 
 of Christ_, and have inquired how they connect the 
 effects with the cause. Here St. Paul speaks of a cer- 
 tain state of mind which he wishes the Philippians to 
 possess. He had been exhorting them ' to do nothing 
 through strife or vain-glory ; but in lowliness of mind each 
 to esteem the other better than himself,^ He had bidden 
 
218 CHRTST^S SACKmCE A POWER [SERM. 
 
 them ' look not every man on Ms own things, but every 
 man also on the things of others.' Very desirable advice, 
 which they had, perhaps, often heard before, of which 
 they knew the value, by the mischiefs which followed 
 when they disregarded it. But what help lies in such 
 experience ? Who can keep the commandments the 
 more, because he hears them twenty, or fifty, or a 
 thousand times, and because he finds the inconvenience 
 of breaking them? Things are done through strife 
 and vain-glory by those who have all good maxims by 
 heart; there is an inclination in each man to esteem 
 himself better than others, which gives way to no 
 aphorisms, and to no evidences that they are better 
 than he is. Is there any stronger power before which 
 it may give way? St. Paul believed there was: if he 
 had not, he would have been silent ; for he knew what 
 was in others, as well as in himself; and he had no 
 pleasure in tormenting them, or in making professions 
 which he could not perform. 
 
 (1.) 'Let this mind be in you, which was also in 
 Christ Jesus.' So our translators render the passage; 
 faithfully, I think, to the spirit, if not to the letter, of it. 
 The apostle tells the Philippians, as he told the Co- 
 rinthians, that they may become actual partakers of the 
 character or mind of Christ ; nay, that if they were not 
 partakers of it, they were misunderstanding their own 
 position; they were choosing a position which did not 
 belong to them. The thought that was in Christ — the 
 
XIV.] TO rORM us AFTER HIS LIKENESS. 219 
 
 thought that possessed Him, he declares to be the 
 right thought, the true thought; that which should 
 possess and govern all human beings, that to which 
 all things above and beneath must at last be subjected. 
 And he then goes on to show us what this thought or 
 mind of His is, and how it expressed itself. 
 
 (2.) ' Who, being in the form of God, thought it not 
 robbery to be equal with God' Those who object to 
 the doctrine of the Church concerning the unity and 
 consubstantiality of the Son with the Pather, claim 
 that this passage should be translated differently ; that 
 it should be taken to mean. He did not eagerly grasp at 
 being equal with God. I do not think that they gain 
 much for their cause by that alteration; there are 
 philological difficulties in the way of it ; still, on the 
 whole, it more nearly corresponds with the tone and 
 purpose of this passage, than the ordinary version. 
 ' Being in the form of God,' — being, as the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews puts it, ' the brightness of His glory, and the 
 express image of His Person,' — it was, nevertheless, not 
 His way of proving His divinity, to grasp at divine 
 power and glory. That was the lofty ambition of the 
 sinful creature : ' We shall be as gods, knowing good 
 and evil.' He gave precisely the opposite sign and 
 testimony of what He was. He emptied Plimself. He 
 gave up the bright and glorious form. 'He took upon 
 Him the form of a servant.' The earthly creature 
 wished to assert its relation to God by climbing to the 
 
220 CHRIST'S SACETPICE A POWEE [SERM. 
 
 stars. The heavenly Being, ' He ivho was in the form 
 of God,' asserted His relation by stooping ; by depriving 
 Himself of that which was His ; by adopting conditions 
 that were altogether unlike His. 
 
 (3.) We are not to make this statement stronger 
 and more startling, by substituting our notions for 
 St. Paul's. The heathens, we know, dreamt of gods 
 who became incarnate in brute creatures. That would 
 have seemed to them a much greater abdication than 
 the one which is spoken of here. If we adopt the 
 theory of Sacrifice, which creeps into all our minds — 
 a theory which represents it as most heroical, when it 
 most contradicts our reason — that conclusion must 
 also be ours. But the apostle could conceive of nothing 
 higher or more blessed than God's order ; every de- 
 parture from it, under whatever pretext, must be evil. 
 Here was none. Christ, being the perfect image of the 
 Father, was the image after which men were created. 
 The relation between Him and our race was implied in 
 its existence. If His voice called all things out of 
 chaos, it gave man the power to name things, to know 
 each other, to confess a law. To become one of the 
 race when He was the Head of it — to become a servant 
 when He was the Lord — this was an act of deep and 
 loving condescension : but there was nothing in it 
 irregular and anomalous; the glory of it is, that it is 
 the fulfilment of an original and divine purpose — that 
 it is the means of removing the discord and anomalies 
 
XIV.] TO PORM US APTER HIS LIKENESS. 221 
 
 that were resisting that purpose. How necessary it is 
 to keep this distinction in remembrance, you will per- 
 ceive as we proceed. 
 
 (4.) St. Paul explains further his expression_, ' taking 
 on him the form of a servant,' by another : ' being made 
 in, or having become in, the likeness of menJ You will 
 not imagine that St. Paul could intend, by this language, 
 to give any countenance to the notion which gained so 
 much hold in the Church afterwards, that Christ was 
 not really a man, but only had the appearance of a 
 man. That notion he often repudiates in direct terms ; 
 every word he writes denounces it implicitly. But the 
 likeness of men stands in vivid contrast to the form of 
 God. He was the original man, the type of all creation; 
 as it is expressed in the Epistle to the Colossians, ' the 
 first-born of every creature,' Now he assumes the con- 
 dition of individual men -, he puts on the fleshly acci- 
 dents which belonged to them, as He had before stood 
 to them in the closest spiritual relation. In the words 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the second and third 
 chapters of which should always be read in illustration 
 of this passage : 'Forasmuch then as the children are par- 
 takers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took 
 part of the same.' I do not quote the end of that verse, 
 because that assigns another effect of the death of Christ, 
 of which I hope to speak next Sunday. But the taking 
 part of the flesh and blood, of which the children were 
 partakers, those ^ whom He was not ashamed to call His 
 
222 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A POWER [SERM. 
 
 brethren,' tliose whom He was to claim as children of 
 His Father, because they always had been so, — this is 
 another way of stating the truth, that He came in the 
 likeness of men. 
 
 (5.) He goes on: 'And being found in fashion as a 
 man, He humbled Himself To be in that fashion, in 
 that earthly mortal mould, was the commencement of 
 the humiliation, but not the consummation of it. He 
 did not, when in that fashion, take any of the higher, 
 grander, positions which sinful and dying men could 
 still vindicate for themselves. He did not become a 
 statesman, or warrior, or poet. But, entering into all 
 human experiences and thoughts — understanding, 
 therefore, inwardly, what these differences are among 
 us, and how we feel them — He yet claimed the peasant 
 condition instead of them ; a position which identified 
 Him with all men, with the lowest men, instead of one 
 which raised Him above any. And this whilst He was 
 doing regal acts, and was suspected of wishing to make 
 Himself a King; while He was enduring the jealousy 
 of popular teachers, because the people felt Him to be 
 a Prophet ; while the priests were hating Him, as one 
 who had Holiness to the Lord really inscribed on His 
 forehead. 
 
 (6.) He felt all these reproaches, and knew what was 
 to be the issue of them. Death, therefore, was before 
 His eyes ; not merely the ordinary death which He had 
 implicitly taken upon Him when He was m^de flesh. 
 
XIV.] TO FORM US AFTEE HIS LIKENESS. 223 
 
 but the death of a criminal — ^ the death of the cross.' 
 He was ' obedient ,' the apostle says, even to death j not 
 as some one may, perhaps, suppose the word to mean, 
 obedient to death, as if that was His master, but 
 obedient to His Father, to the point of undergoing 
 death, even though it involved agony and the sense of 
 desertion. 
 
 (7.) This obedience, so carried out to this final point, 
 is the reason, St. Paul says, why God has highly exalted 
 Him, and given Him a name that is above every naine. 
 His prayer was — ^ / have glorified thee on the earth : I 
 have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And 
 now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with 
 the glory which I had with thee before the world was^ 
 Of that prayer, his words and acts, as they are recorded 
 by the evangelists, are the exposition; every one of them 
 is the glorification of His Father, the sinking of Him- 
 self. The Sermon on the Mount is nothing but a setting 
 forth of the name, and kingdom, and will of His Father, 
 — of His desire to make all holy as He is. Every deed 
 of love to those tormented with plagues and sicknesses, 
 every parable to the multitude, every discourse with 
 His disciples, was letting His light shine before men, 
 that they, seeing His good works, might glorify His 
 Father in heaven. That was the work which He came 
 to do, and which He finished when He gave up the 
 ghost. The perfect Son, by His obedience, had revealed 
 the perfect Father ; the Absolute Goodness had come 
 
224 CHRIST'S SACUIEICE A POWER [SERM. 
 
 forth in all the relations and sympathies of the man. 
 One act of self-assertion, of self-glorification, would 
 have dimmed the image, would have made the vision of 
 truth and love which was presented to the creature 
 imperfect. There was no such act. All was self-denial, 
 self-surrender ; the love of the Father worked mightily 
 and unresisted in the heart of the Son, till it was broken 
 and offered with the whole body and soul as a complete 
 sacrifice. And then came the triumph of the man, the 
 restoration of the creature made in the image of God to 
 its native home, the exaltation of the body redeemed 
 from death to the right hand of the Father. God has 
 highly exalted Him in that flesh which He had taken, 
 and has given Him a name above angels, and princi- 
 palities, that at His name, and in His name, every "knee 
 should bow; that all creatures should feel and confess 
 Him — not as the Word, the Son of the Father, only, but 
 — as Jesus the crucified to be the Lord, the King and 
 Ruler of men ; — still to the glory of Him whom He has 
 glorified, from whom He came, in whom He dwells, to 
 the glory of God the Father. 
 
 (8.) This, then, is the mind or thought that was in 
 Him ; this is the mind or thought which has vindicated 
 itself against the high, self- exalting thoughts, by which 
 men have been divided from each other, by which they 
 have defied God. When St. Paul preached Jesus Christ, 
 and Him crucified, he preached that in obedience, 
 humiliation, sacrifice, dwelt the mighty conquering 
 
XIV.] TO EORM US APTER HIS LIKENESS. 225 
 
 power — that power against whicli no otlier in earth or 
 heaven could measure itself. And his words have not 
 heen confuted by the experience of ages; they have 
 been confirmed by the facts which seem at first sight 
 most at war with them. Do you ask why the soldiers 
 of Islam, in the first centuries after Mahomet, or in any 
 subsequent centuries, prevailed against those who had 
 the sign of the Cross on their banners ? The only answer 
 that can be given is, that there was more of this thought 
 or mind of Christ, more of humiliation, and obedience, 
 and sacrifice, in them than there was in their opponents. 
 They prevailed not through their denial of Him, but 
 through their implicit recognition of Him. So far as 
 they had zeal, faith, union, — so far as they sought to 
 magnify God's name, and to give up themselves, they 
 were His soldiers, not the Prophet's ; they succeeded 
 because the incarnate Son of God was highly exalted, 
 because there was a name given Him which is above 
 every name. Because all power was given Him in 
 heaven and earth. He would not suffer those who called 
 themselves His servants to blaspheme His Father and 
 to corrupt His brethren. Go through the history of the 
 world, of the Church, of individuals, you will find it 
 the same. So long as you creep along the ground, and 
 ask why this man, or this party, or this faith, overcame, 
 and that was subdued, you may be continually disposed 
 to doubt and arraign the Providence that directs all 
 things, to charge God foolishly. But ascend above the 
 
 a 
 
226 CHRIST'S SACJEliriCE A POWER [SERM. 
 
 mists of earth to the clear heaven where Christ sits at 
 the right hand of God_, and the eternal Law becomes 
 manifest which brings these discords into harmony. The 
 Will that rules the nniversC; the Will that has triumphed 
 and does triumph, is all expressed and gathered up in 
 the Lamb that was slain. Beholding Him, you see 
 whence come the peace and order of the world, whence 
 comes its confusion. The principle of sacrifice has been 
 ascertained once and for ever to be the principle, the 
 divine principle; that in which God can alone fully 
 manifest His own eternal Being, His inmost character, 
 the order which He has appointed all creatures, volun- 
 tary and involuntary, to obey. The name of Jesus is the 
 name to which all the intelligences of the universe refer 
 themselves, and all the energies and impulses of the 
 unconscious creation. They bow to it, as denoting the 
 only source of their strength ; they bow in it, as con- 
 taining the only secret of their humiliation. If they 
 did not confess Jesus to be the Lord of all, they would 
 fall into all strife and separation, each seeking to be 
 Lord himself, each supposing that the more he could 
 lift up himself, the more he could depress his neighbour, 
 the greater would be the triumph, each discovering at 
 last that in this effort lies all weakness and ruin. If 
 they did not bow in the name of Jesus to' God the 
 Father, they would never feel that He WAS their Father, 
 and that they were His children, that He had given 
 them their distinct tasks to fulfil, that He was imparting 
 
XIV.] TO FORM US AFTER HIS LIKENESS. 227 
 
 to them a common Spirit. This, therefore, is the law 
 of the heavenly world ; knowing which, we need not 
 care how little we know about hierarchies of angels, and 
 their attributes and relations ; because we are sure that 
 this must be the centre of their unity ; that they must 
 do the commandments of Him who gave Himself up to 
 die, hearkening to the voice of His words ; that as He 
 did nothing through strife and vain-glory, so neither 
 can they ; that as He was lowly, so must they be ; that 
 as He lived for others, not for Himself, that must be 
 their life ; that they must be ever acting, because He 
 is inspiring them with His ever-acting love ; that they 
 must be always at rest, because He is ever resting in 
 His Father's love. 
 
 (8.) Such a vision of the victorious, all-governing 
 thought or mind of Christ is brought before us in this 
 passage ; but the vision was good for nothing except as it 
 carried home the word to the heart of the PhiUppians — 
 ^ Let this mind he in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.' 
 And in these words there lies the greatest wonder of all. 
 That angels and principalities should have the mind of 
 Jesus Christ — that they should be like Him, and do like 
 Him, — this is conceivable ; but that a set of jarring 
 people — Jews, Greeks, Romans — with exclusive national 
 feelings, each with a separate interest and prejudice of his 
 own, should have this one mind; that it should be reason- 
 able, that it should be possible to bid them have it, this is 
 what we find it so hai'd to believe. And it is hard, and 
 
228 CHRIST'S SACRIFICE A POWER [SERM. 
 
 it was as hard for tliem to believe it as it is for us. "We 
 understand, as we read St. PauPs Epistles, what work 
 an apostle had to keep peace in the Churches, — yes ! 
 and how very poorly he could perform the work. The 
 great discovery he made was, that he could not perform it 
 at all ; that there were elements of strife in himself, and 
 in those to whom he wrote, which no skill or arguments 
 of his could bring into order. The difficulty was not 
 less with baptized men than with others ; it was greater. 
 Their spirits had been stirred to their very foundations ; 
 it was not only the ordinary strife and self-interest of 
 the world which were exciting them to war ; a host of 
 new thoughts had been awakened within them, each of 
 which might give birth to heresies and hatreds. Oh ! 
 what remorse and misery would have been in the thought 
 of having founded societies with such principles of 
 sorrow and mischief in them, if he had not felt that 
 beneath them all lay that uniting mind of Christ, that 
 divine Sacrifice, the name which can make the proudest 
 spirits bow. But these He had been sent to proclaim 
 in the midst of a fighting world ; in them, he was certain, 
 lay the secret of eternal power and reconcilement. He 
 could say to them all — ^You have these different 
 ^purposes, and notions, and interests, and wills; all 
 ' attempts to stifle them because they are inconvenient, 
 ' to crush them under some general rule, to adjust them 
 'by some benignant compromise, has always proved 
 ' abortive, and always will. Instead of extinguishing 
 
XIV.] TO rOUM us AETER, HIS LIKENESS. 229 
 
 ^ them^ I have been the means of awakening you to a 
 ' consciousness of them . But I have done this, because 
 ' I know who is at the centre of all these different lines 
 ' of thought, and purpose, and will of yours ; in whom 
 'they all meet; I know whence those springs of life 
 ' within you, which seem so full of turbulence, proceed. 
 ' I can tell you who is ruling you, and with whom you 
 ' are fighting. I can tell you how the power which is 
 ' in the Ruler of heaven and earth may become a power 
 ' in you. The meaning of your baptism, of your calling 
 ' to be members of a Church, is, that He makes you 
 ' sharers of His own mind ; that He promises you His 
 ' Spirit every day and hour to overcome that in you, 
 ' and you, and you, which is disposed to set up a sepa- 
 'rate mind, a mind of your own, in opposition to it. 
 ' The best good tidings I can declare to you, and to the 
 ' universe, is that you need not do that. You can be at 
 ^ peace ; He has made peace for you. You can give up 
 ^ yourselves ; He has given up Himself for you. You 
 ' can claim your place in the heavenly order and 
 ' harmony ; He has brought you into it, breaking down 
 ' the barrier of self-will which made our world an exile 
 ' from it.' After eighteen centuries, do the words sound 
 more hopeless than ever ? Does it seem more incredible 
 than ever that there should be peace in the world, quite 
 incredible that there should be peace in the Church ? 
 Do you begin to despair of it in your households, in 
 your hearts ? I would not make any one think less 
 
230 Christ's sacrifice a power [serm. 
 
 sadly of tlie strife wliich lie sees around him, and feels 
 within him. The more sad it makes him, the more 
 seriously he will ask himself — ' Whence comes it ? 
 ' what is it that we have lost ? what is it that we want ? ' 
 And the answer will come in due time ; it comes from 
 want of a Centre of Unity. That Centre men will seek 
 for, high and low; in one sect and school, then in 
 another ; in one dogma and another, in one man and 
 another, in one city and another. They will seek, and 
 will not find, till they come to the cross of Christ, till 
 they ask for the spirit of self-sacrifice ; till they believe 
 that He is highly exalted in order that He may bestow 
 it upon His Church and family, and that He will bestow 
 it upon that Church and family when they confess that 
 God has sent His Son to be the Deliverer of it. 
 
 The aspect of Sacrifice which I have been con- 
 sidering to-day, is closely connected with that of which 
 I spoke last Sunday. Of Christ, the Peace-ofi*ering, 
 the Atonement of God with man, and of man with 
 man, St. Paul spoke of to the Ephesians. Here he 
 connects that peace-offering more directly with the 
 sin-off*ering. The sin of the world is its self-will, its 
 self-gratification. The Apostle bids us behold the 
 Lamb of God who takes away that sin by obedience 
 to His Father, by emptying Himself of glory, by 
 humbling Himself to the likeness of the lowest of His 
 creatures. By that sin-off'ering. He proves Himself to 
 be the Lord of all. When we yield ourselves to Him 
 
XIV.] TO PORM US AFTER HIS LIKENESS. 231 
 
 as the Lord of our spirits, He gives us His lowly mind, 
 and so gives us peace. But the passage to-day brings 
 out more distinctly than the other did the truth which 
 our Lord taught His disciples, when He took a little 
 child J and set Mm in the midst of them, and said. Verily, 
 I say unto you. Whosoever shall be converted, and shall 
 become as this little child, the same is greatest in the 
 kingdom of heaven. ' What can we do ?^ we sometimes 
 ask, ' when there are so few examples of heroic virtue 
 ' about us ; so few great saints who can enable us to 
 ' see in our common life the mind of Him who wrestled 
 ' with our enemies V When God sends us such spe- 
 cimens of Himself, let us be thankful for them ; let 
 us try and learn from them all we can. But, in 
 the meantime, we can do without them. There are 
 children all about us. — Christ bids us learn of them. 
 There are poor despised people all about us. — Christ 
 was of no reputation. There is death among us, — not 
 heroical, but ignominious death; and it was because 
 He underwent such death, that God has given Him a 
 name that is above every name. 
 
( 232 ) [SERM. 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 
 CHRIST'S DEATH A VICTORY OVER THE DEVIL. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 4th Sunday after Trinity, July 9, 1854.) 
 
 Hebrews ii. 14, 15. 
 
 * Forasmuch then as the children are partaTcers of flesh and Mood, he also 
 himself likeivise tooh part of the same; that through death he might 
 destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; a7id 
 deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject 
 to bondage.' 
 
 I ALLUDEDj last Sunday, to the opening clause of these 
 verses. The words, 'Forasmuch as the children were 
 partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise 
 took part of the same^ proved,, I said, clearly, that there 
 was a relation between Christ and men which did not 
 depend upon flesh and blood, which did not commence 
 when He assumed our nature, which was the reason of 
 His assuming it. The more you consider the previous 
 part of this chapter, the more, I think, you will feel 
 that it is the intention of the writer to make us con- 
 scious of this truth. In the sixth verse he quotes the 
 eighth Psalm : * What is man, that Thou art mindful of 
 him ? or the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? Thou 
 
XV.] Christ's death a victory over the devil. 233 
 
 madest Mm a little lower than the angels . . . Thou hast 
 put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that 
 He put all in subjection under hinij He left nothing that 
 is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things 
 put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little 
 lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned 
 with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God 
 should taste death for every man. For it became Him, 
 for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in 
 bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of 
 their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He 
 that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of 
 one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them 
 brethren, saying, I will declare Thy Name unto my 
 brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I sing 
 praise unto Thee. And again, I will put my trust in 
 Him. And again. Behold I and the children which God 
 hath given me.' 
 
 That Christ is here put forth as fulfilling the words 
 which were spoken of man on the creation day ; as exer- 
 cising that dominion over things which was committed 
 to man, finally; as triumphing over the death which 
 denoted the humiliation of man, is evident to the most 
 careless reader. But we are not permitted to stop 
 here. Passages are quoted from the Old Testament, 
 in which the divine Word of God speaks of human 
 creatures as His own brethren, in which He says that 
 He will declare His Father^s Name to those brethren. 
 
234 CHRIST'S DEATH [SERM. 
 
 in wliicli He speaks of trusting in God as if He were 
 one of them. That this is the meaning of the writer, 
 there has never, I believe, been any doubt among his 
 commentators. Nor have they failed to perceive that 
 the principle, of which these are instances, may be 
 applied to the interpretation of the Old Testament gene- 
 rally. We have not, I think, followed out the hint 
 which he has given us, as much as we might have done, 
 and as we were bound to do, considering the authority 
 of the teacher. But we have all acknowledged, to some 
 extent, that the language of psalmists and of prophets 
 would be unintelligible, if we did not suppose that 
 Christ, the divine Word, was speaking in them and 
 through them, was discovering His own sympathy with 
 those to whom they were sent, through the sympathy 
 which He awakened in their hearts. If a holy man 
 sorrowed over the sins of his countrymen, or of the 
 world, or of himself, he felt that another, who was 
 higher than he was, had first experienced that sorrow, 
 and had imparted it to him. His joys, his hopes, must 
 have had the same source. No single man could have 
 known them in their depth and power. There must 
 be some one in whom they were all gathered up, some 
 universal Brother, to whom each particular brother 
 owed his place in the family and the affections which 
 corresponded to it. 
 
 There must, therefore, be a deep below even this. 
 It is indicated in the words, ' It became Him, for whom 
 
XV.] A VICTORY OVER THE DEVIL. 235 
 
 are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing 
 many son^s unto glory, to perfect, or initiate, the Captain of 
 their salvation through sufferings.' The ground of tliat 
 brotlierhood, wliicli the passage is setting forth, lies in 
 the will of Him who has created all things. He does 
 not regard men as included in these things. They are 
 sons ; they are to be saved or delivered out of the mass 
 of things in which they have lost themselves. He 
 purposes to bring them to glory, to His own glory, to 
 a knowledge of Himself. The Only-begotten is the 
 deliverer. That He may be so fully, He is initiated 
 through sufferings. He enters into the inmost mystery 
 of human sorrow. He becomes acquainted with grief; 
 it is His bosom companion. Men have had familiarity 
 with it in its different forms and measures. He has 
 familiarity with it in its root and essence. To give 
 Him this perfect fitness for His work of a Leader and 
 Saviour — a work which could never be performed for 
 His creatures if they were apart from Him — which im- 
 plies the most entire fellowship and incorporation with 
 Him, became, he says, the Father of all. It belonged 
 to the character of His inmost being that so it should 
 be. In no way but this does that character and inmost 
 being fully declare itself; this interprets all other 
 manifestations of it. What ultimate explanation, then, 
 must not be weaker and less satisfactory than this — 
 ' It became Him ? ' 
 
 This idea of the humiliation and incarnation of Christ 
 
236 Christ's death [seum. 
 
 is essentially the same with that in the passage of the 
 Epistle to the Philippians^ upon which I spoke last 
 week. The difference is, that Obedience and Humility- 
 were the aspects of the sacrifice which were brought 
 out prominently before us there — that Sympathy is the 
 great subject here. That sympathy, as the necessary 
 qualification of a Priest, as implied in all he does and 
 all he is, we hear much more of as the Epistle proceeds. 
 Through it the writer is enabled to teach us a truth, 
 which when first stated it is most hard to apprehend, 
 that when the Sacrifice is perfect, and the Priest is 
 perfect, they must be one. That great argument 
 I shall not touch upon to-day. There is another pre- 
 sented to us in the words, ' that through death He 
 might destroy him which had the power of death, that is, 
 the Devil, which will be enough, and more than 
 enough, for one discourse. It might be expanded 
 through a series of discourses ; the whole doctrine of 
 sacrifice might be deduced from it ; but I only take it as 
 describing one of the effects of our Lord's death, con- 
 nected closely and inseparably with reconciliation and 
 propitiation, but still distinguishable from them. 
 
 I do not think the word Diabolus is ever used in 
 the New Testament without a direct reference to its 
 derivation and meaning. There are other words, — the 
 Tempter, the Adversary, the Destroyer, which all 
 point to the spirit of evil ; but they denote him by 
 different characteristics, each of which we have used to 
 
XV.] A VICTORY OVER THE DEVIL. 237 
 
 remember, and -which we should not mix carelessly 
 together. The Accuser, or slanderer of God and of 
 the brethren, is the title which appertains to this 
 passage. We shall not enter into the sense of it, if we 
 substitute any other title for that. 
 
 Whatever our theories are about the existence or 
 non-existence of an evil will, about the personality or 
 impersonality of that will, about the influence of that 
 will upon us, — we all know, as a matter of fact, that 
 whispers do come to us — certainly brought from no 
 visible lips, — which take the form of accusations, cruel 
 and malignant accusations, against persons who may, 
 or may not, have done us wrong; who may be our 
 enemies, or who may be very dear to us. All the 
 horrible suspicions and questions which have been 
 wrought into men's brains and hearts, and which have 
 destroyed the peace of their lives, — even if there has 
 been some conspiring human demon, some lago or 
 lachimo, to strike the spark, to light the tinder, has 
 yet — we feel it, and we confess it by a hundred phrases — 
 a deeper source. We say it is within us, and we 
 say rightly; but yet we know that down in those 
 depths which the vulture's eye has not seen, there is a 
 slanderous voice speaking to us — suggesting thoughts 
 which we did not originate, which we shrink from, 
 which being rejected, return again ; which may cause 
 most anguish and torment to those who most resolutely 
 defy them. I say boldly, — these are facts. / do not 
 
238 chuist's death [serm. 
 
 try to explain them. The Scripture explains them to 
 me^ by telling me of an Accuser of the brethren,, of one 
 who seeks to divide us from each other ; and I accept 
 this statement, not trying to get rid of it by any 
 analyses or refinements, because I can find no other 
 which accounts so well for an awful individual expe- 
 rience, or so well connects it with that which goes on 
 in every man. 
 
 But the same secret whispers which seek to set a 
 man at war with his neighbours, strive also to set him 
 at war with himself. The discontents, the terrible 
 visions of the past and of the future, which every man 
 has been conscious of — which seem to many as if 
 they made up the sum of their existence — whence do 
 they come? At first we think from without. We 
 lay them to any annoying circumstances, to any dis- 
 agreeable fellow- creature. The same discoveries, which 
 we cannot be deceived in, bring them nearer home. 
 They must have more to do with us than with anything 
 about us. They seem to move from us, and yet towards 
 us. There springs up in us, we cannot tell from whence, 
 a desire to be freed from this vile state of mind, this 
 self- torment. But the moment the efibrt at reforma- 
 tion begins, there begins a suggestion of discouragement 
 and despair. The evil that has been done is brought 
 against us ; the evil that is with us still, is brought 
 against us. Both are arguments, why we cannot obtain 
 freedom, why we should not crave for it. Is this 
 
XV.] A VICTORY OVEE THE DEVIL. 239 
 
 accusation from ourselves? Is it from conscience? 
 Surely, conscience must be much mixed up with it. 
 But conscience cannot be an enemy of reformation, — 
 cannot bid us continue in evil. It must be one who 
 is perverting all the witnesses of conscience, who is 
 using them to keep us from ever being what con- 
 science says we ought to become. It must be an 
 accuser, a slanderer; — not one clothed in flesh and 
 bones, — but a spirit. 
 
 There is one more discovery still to be made. This 
 spirit is the slanderer and accuser, not only of our 
 brethren, not only of ourselves, but of God. Is it 
 not so? Are not we hearing Him accused every 
 moment of the day ? Is not every feeling of pain 
 turned into an argument that the Ruler of the world 
 has an ill-will to us? Is not every comfort a proof 
 that He is leading us into temptation ? Is not the sin 
 of some men a proof that He has created them to 
 perish ? Is not the righteousness of some men a proof 
 that He is partial ? Is not that sense of evil in our- 
 selves a proof that He has woven nets about us, from 
 which we cannot escape, that He may have the pleasure 
 of destroying us ? Is not that consciousness of inability 
 to escape from an evil a proof that He has sentenced 
 us to inevitable bondage? We know that we have had 
 thoughts of this kind, that they come back to us con- 
 tinually, sometimes nakedly, sometimes in fine court 
 dresses. We know from their words and their acts that 
 
240 Christ's death [seem. 
 
 it is the same with all who belong to our race. Is there 
 not an accuser of God with them continually ? 
 
 The words of my text point to the greatest and most 
 decisive argument of all, by which this accusation is 
 supported. The Devil, it boldly says, was he who had 
 the power of Death. Whatever reasons some higher 
 and better teacher might suggest to men for trusting 
 God, for believing that He intended good to them, and 
 not evil — whatever rains from heaven and fruitful 
 seasons might tell them. Death was the answer to them 
 all. That was the great ordinance for the whole race, 
 for the whole creation. That stopped all the projects 
 of the individual man ; that made all purposes of im- 
 provement abortive ; that made schemes for the future, 
 which, nevertheless, we must always be devising, 
 ridiculous. That cut off all the bonds of family, of 
 tribe, of nation. That made a man's concern for his 
 children's children idle dreams. That said. Talk of your 
 freedom as you please; there is this death always 
 waiting to crush it at the last. Talk of Nature, 
 with its teeming, ever renewing life; its mornings 
 after midnight, its springs after winter, as much 
 as you will. But this declares, — With men and the 
 inhabitants of the world you have nothing more to do. 
 You may go somewhere else, possibly ; you may dwell 
 in some unknown solitude. But the thoughts which 
 have been formed in you here, the life you have led 
 here, the persons you have known, — they are over. 
 
XV.] A VICTORY OVER THE DEVIL. 241 
 
 This was one part of tlie argument ; one demonstration 
 that God meant nothing by the universe He had formed, 
 or that He meant destruction by it ; or that His pur- 
 pose, if it was a gracious one, had been defeated. But 
 there was another road to the same, or a more fearful, 
 result. The accuser could say, ' In spite of ail these 
 ' witnesses against you, you have a feeling that you shall 
 ' go on, that you must go on, after this death ; yes, and 
 'that everything which you have been doing, seeing, 
 ' feeling, here, must have an influence on your state there ; 
 ' that you can part with nothing. It is true, frightfully 
 ' true. Everything must go on ; you must go on. And 
 ' every bad thought you have thought, and every bad deed 
 ' you have done, is bound to you now ; will be bound to 
 ' you for ever. God has pronounced His sentence of death 
 ' upon you for those thoughts and deeds, and He will 
 ' execute His sentence to the utmost. Do what you can 
 ' to hide yourselves from Him. Avert His wrath, if it 
 ' is possible. Forget Him, if you can. Try to appease 
 'Him, if you cannot forget Him. Wliat can be so 
 ' dreadful as to be brought into His presence ? ' 
 
 Thus speaks the Accuser to you and to me ; thus spoke 
 he to the generations of old. The Epistle says that there 
 came forth an answer to his whispers ; that the answer 
 is a complete one ; that the moment we accept it, his 
 chain is broken for us : because God has in truth 
 broken it for our race. ' By death Christ overcame him 
 that had the power of death j that iSj the Accuser,' By His 
 
 B 
 
242 CHRIST'S DEATH [SEHM. 
 
 own death He tore in pieces that web of calumnies 
 against God, as if He were compassing the ruin of His 
 creatures, as if He were wishing them to abide in their 
 evil, as if He were not upholding the order and har- 
 mony of His own creation, but was indifferent to it, 
 and was permitting discord to prevail in it. No words 
 could have shown that the Spirit of Lies was the author 
 of the distrust which men felt in their Creator ; that 
 he was separating the children from their Father. A 
 mighty transcendent act must supply the demonstra- 
 tion. God perfects His only-begotten Son through 
 death. That which was said to be the clear declara- 
 tion that men are regarded by God as enemies, be- 
 comes the sign which Christ gives of His Son ship; as 
 the Eesurrection is the great sign v.hich He, of whom 
 are all things and by whom are all things, gives that 
 He owns Him as His Son. Christ bears death not in 
 obedience to an inevitable fate, but to a loving will; 
 not because the tyrant has conquered the earth and 
 those who dwell upon it, but as an eternal testimony 
 that he has not conquered it — that it belongs to the 
 Creator, not to the Destroyer. Death seems to make the 
 great and final chasm, — of which all other separations 
 were but dim prophecies, — the chasm between the Father 
 and Him in whom He delighted. Death is made the 
 pledge of Their eternal union; the pledge of Their 
 infinite satisfaction in each other. That union is 
 shown to be the ground of every other. The satisfac- 
 
XV.] A VICTORY OVER THE DEVIL. 243 
 
 tion of God in His Son is His satisfaction with the 
 world whose nature that Son bears. His death is the 
 vindication of their death ; they have a right to accept 
 it as a sign of adoption, as an assurance of reconcilia- 
 tion; as a proof that God_, initiating them through 
 suflPerings, is crowning their work, is preparing them for 
 a higher work. They have no right any longer to 
 speculate about individual deaths, and what they de- 
 note. Here is the Universal Death — the death of 
 the Head and Brother of mankind; that is the only 
 test and explanation of its nature; that is the only 
 one to which we dare refer when we would understand 
 the meaning of the universe and God's purposes to it. 
 When we fall back upon our thoughts and experiences, 
 and reason and speculate upon them, we fall back into 
 the hands of the Accuser. Then frightful recollections 
 of what we have been, and of the evil we have seen in 
 others, and of the sin of the world, raise such a mist 
 and darkness, as wholly shut God out of our sight. It 
 seems as if each death were sending some new creature 
 out of the region of His government, out of the circle 
 of hope, into an unknown abyss over which some malig- 
 nant power may preside. This thought recurs again 
 and again, oh ! under what multitudes of strange 
 forms and seemly disguises, — cloaking itself with reli- 
 gious, even with Christian, arguments; always with 
 the same effect ; always bringing the spirit into bond- 
 age to the fear of death, always leading it to distrust 
 
244 CHRIST'S DEATH [SERM. 
 
 of Him who is seeking for His sheep in all the thickets 
 and on all the crags to which they have wandered ; who 
 is watching for the children who are feeding upon 
 husks, and perishing with hunger. But when they 
 turn from their miserable attempts to solve the mystery 
 for themselves, to Him who entered into the mystery 
 for them, that He might bring light out of darkness; 
 when they turn to the cross and to Him who died 
 upon it; when they determine to learn there what 
 death is, and what man is, and what God is, there and 
 only there ; then they find their bondage turned into 
 freedom. The incubus that sat upon their hearts and 
 took away their breathing is gone ; that which made trust 
 impossible is the warrant for it ; the cause of despair is 
 the foundation of hope ; that which seemed to enclose us 
 within time, and. to make all beyond it terrible, is that 
 which tells us that the Eternal has triumphed, and that 
 Christ has manifested that Eternal Life which was with 
 the Father, and over which death has no power. 
 
 And thus we understand those words of St. Paul : 
 ' The sting of death is sin, the strength of sin is the Law.' 
 Death is utterly horrible as long as it is linked to that 
 distrust of God which is Sin, and the root of all sins ; 
 so long as it keeps that up in our minds ; so long as it 
 teaches us that our safety is in flying from His presence. 
 And the Law which pronounces us to be sinners, which 
 makes us inwardly conscious that we are, and yet which 
 we are sure proceeds from God, aggravates that dis- 
 
XV.] A VICTORY OVER THE DEVIL. 245 
 
 trust ; and, if it comes alone, makes us wish that we 
 could be atheists. ' But thanks be to God/ he goes on, 
 'who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ' Thanks be to that God whom we have counted 
 our enemy, who we supposed had pleasure in our 
 death, for conquering the very enemy we accused Him 
 of sending among us. Thanks be to God, for giving us 
 the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, through 
 Him who has been made sin for us, knowing no sin ; 
 through Him who has made the one free, perfect, 
 voluntary sacrifice which takes away the sin of the 
 worJd. Thanks be to Him for giving us the victory, 
 not over death only, but over him who had the power 
 of death, who changed all the witnesses which God was 
 bearing in our hearts and consciences that we had 
 forgotten Him, and that we could not live without Him, 
 into reasons for turning away from Him. Thanks be 
 to God, that we can now answer the Accuser with these 
 words : ' We know what death is, for Christ has died. 
 ' We know that His death is the proof of God's eternal 
 ' love, the pledge that He has reconciled the world to 
 ' Himself; the encouragement to draw nigh to Him ; 
 ' the assurance that a new and living way is opened into 
 ' His Presence, and that in that Presence is fulness of 
 * joy.' For now the accuser of the brethren is cast 
 down, he that accused them before God day and night. 
 Now we are sure that there is not an accuser, but a 
 Mediator between us and our Father; that the Son 
 
246 chkist's death [serm. 
 
 of God and the Son of man is with us and with Him. 
 By the blood of the Lamb and the word of His testi- 
 mony, we can answer the charges which the Accuser 
 brings in our hearts against ourselves, for Christ has 
 made us one with Himself; against our brethren, for His 
 death is for us all, the bond of peace between Him and 
 us ; against God, for it is God Himself who justifieth 
 us, who then can condemn ? It is Christ who points to 
 His own sacrifice for the sins of the whole world ; what 
 power in earth and hell can prevent us from drawing 
 nigh in the might of that Sacrifice to the Father of all? 
 And if death does not separate us from Him, or from 
 those who are with us on earth ; if the death of the 
 cross is the one way of reconciling us to Himself and 
 to each other — how can it separate us from those who 
 have passed through the veil ? Sin is the divider ; there 
 is no other. When we eat that flesh and drink that 
 blood whereby the victory has been won, we may be 
 sure that there is fellowship with all, wherever they are, 
 who have overcome. We may not know it, because 
 we have not resisted to blood striving against sin, and 
 therefore do not feel the power and mystery of that 
 Sacrifice which takes away sin. But perhaps if God 
 gives us grace not to love our lives to the death; 
 if He makes us willing to sacrifice ourselves for His 
 glory and the good of men, the communion may become 
 very real even here. Helps greater than the old world 
 dreamed of, when they spoke of mysterious champions 
 
XV.] A VICTOEY OVER THE DEVIL. 247 
 
 descending to the fight, may be granted to those who 
 are struggHng hard with the Accuser. At all events 
 they will prevail at last ; for God has made the death 
 of His Son the Gospel of peace to men with Him, and 
 the Gospel of everlasting woe and damnation to every 
 power which would divide men from Him. 
 
( 248 ) [SERM. 
 
 SERMON XVI. 
 
 CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 5th Sunday after Trinity, July 16, 1854.) 
 
 1 John n. 1, 2. 
 
 * My little children, these things write I imto you, that ye sin not. And 
 if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ 
 the righteous : and he is the propitiation for our sins : and not fm' 
 ours only, hut also for the sins of the lohole world.' 
 
 I DO not know whether we ought to complain of our 
 translators for rendering the same word ^ Advocate ' in 
 this passage, which they rendered ' Comforter^ in the 
 fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters of St. 
 John's Gospel. It was not a sufficient reason for intro- 
 ducing a new word, that the subject which is brought 
 before us here is different from the one of which our 
 Lord is speaking to His disciples there. St. John might 
 have thought that it was very desirable and important to 
 denote the Spirit of Truth, who should testify of Christ, 
 who should bring all things to the remembrance of the 
 disciples, who should convince the world of sin, and 
 righteousness, and judgment, by the very same title 
 
XVI.] CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. 249. 
 
 which he gives here to Jesus Christ the Righteous. 
 Interpreters have no business, in any case, to act as if 
 they were wiser than their author, and to guard against 
 confusion by departing from the course which he has 
 adopted. But, on the other hand, the translators may 
 have felt that the word which they had selected, not 
 without strong warrant of reason, in the Gospel, would 
 not convey the full sense of the Epistle. They must 
 have reflected, that if etymology was the only thing to 
 be considered, no word could be so accurate as Advo- 
 cate — one who is called to our aid — to represent the 
 force of TlapciKkriTo^, But they may have reflected also 
 that it had acquired, from use, a signification which 
 corresponded far less happily to the description which 
 is given of the work of the Divine Spirit; whereas, every 
 part of that description signifies comfort or strength, 
 which the weak, who are unable to speak for them- 
 selves, derive from the presence of a friend and helper. 
 In the passage before us, they may have dreaded 
 less the technical associations with the word Advocate; 
 they may have felt that, in its primary meaning, 
 it was what they required, and that the phrase ^ Com- 
 forter' would have been quite out of place. I own I 
 should have thought them more cautious and more 
 reverent, if they had chosen their equivalent carefully, 
 and then had rigidly adhered to it, at least when they 
 were translating from St. John ; but so much is to be 
 learnt from their variations, not only respecting the 
 
250 CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. [SERM. 
 
 processes of their own minds and the history of 
 theology, but respecting the truths which the Bible sets 
 forth, that we may have possibly full compensation for 
 their error, if error it is to be called. 
 
 I have touched upon this point, because it has an 
 important bearing upon the meaning of the text, and 
 also because it connects the subject upon which I wish 
 to speak to-day with that of which I spoke last Sunday. 
 The Accusing Spirit who is said in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews to have had the power of death till Christ 
 tasted death for every man, misrepresents the mind and 
 will of God towards us, the acts and dispositions of our 
 fellow-creatures, our own moral condition. He leads 
 us to suspect an enemy in our Father, an enemy in 
 every brother, an enemy in our own heart. The more 
 we know of these inward accusations, of their subtle 
 complications, of the way in which they pervert the most 
 undoubted facts, and the most authentic witnesses of our 
 consciences into falsehoods, and arguments to evil — the 
 more horror we feel of a power near to us, acquainted 
 with our secrets, bent upon our ruin. We may state 
 the conviction to ourselves in the most various forms ; 
 but we have it one and all, and we cannot shake it off. 
 No ; nor is there any emancipation from it, but in the 
 acknowledgment of that other Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, 
 who is also with us, who is also acquainted with all that 
 is passing in us, who knows recesses in our spirits which 
 the other does not know, who reveals to us God as a 
 
XVI.] CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. 251 
 
 Father; those whom we had taken to be His enemies 
 and ours, as belonging to a family which He has begotten 
 and redeemed ; ourselves as members of that family* 
 To have such a Spirit ever near, ever ready to come 
 when we call upon Him, able to lay bare the sophistries 
 by which the Spirit of distrust and lies is urging us to 
 despair, able to show in every fact which is the excuse 
 for his sophistries, arguments for confidence and hope — 
 this, indeed, is the fulfilment of the promise — 'I will 
 send you an Advocate [or Comforter), ivho shall abide 
 with you for ever.^ 
 
 But our Lord says — 'He shall not speak of Himself ; 
 He shall testify of me J What do these words signify ? 
 The accusing Spirit forces us into the understand- 
 ing of them. He says to us — 'You may have good 
 ' desires, right impulses, divine resolutions ; these may 
 ' be inspired by some gracious power. But though God 
 ' vouchsafes all these benignant influences to you, you 
 ' are not really nearer to Him than you were before. 
 
 * A chasm, which none has traversed, divides you from 
 ' Him. Who shall ascend up on high into that myste- 
 ' rious world of light where He dwells ? Perhaps, the 
 ' gifts which He bestows on your minds and hearts may 
 
 * have something more wonderful and celestial in them 
 ' than the gifts of corn and wine which He bestows on 
 ' your bodies ; but they do not constitute any closer 
 ' bond between you and Him than those do. One man 
 ' has more of them than another, but how miserably 
 
253 CHETST THE ADVOCATE. [SERM. 
 
 ' poor is the condition of the best ! What a sense he 
 ' has of insufficiency, of hollowness, of evil ! Nay, is not 
 ' this sense strongest in the best ? Do not they accuse 
 'themselves most of being sinners? Is not this the 
 ' only reason why any men in the world have any comfort 
 ' or repose, that they do not think of God, and of their 
 ' distance from Him, and of the offences they have com- 
 ^ mitted against Him ? The moment these thoughts are 
 ' awakened, what shame, what misery, what self-loathing, 
 ' what struggles to attain a good that is never reached, 
 ' to avoid an evil that is never escaped, follow in every 
 ' case ? Is it less so among Christians than others ; less 
 ' so among those who say they have this Spirit, this 
 ^Comforter, with them? Are not the testimonies which 
 ' He bears to their manifold transgressions, to the radical 
 ^ evil from which these transgressions flow, the cause of 
 ' their unhappiness ? ^ 
 
 ' He shall testify of Me.' This Spirit shall answer 
 these accusations, not by reminding you that you have 
 done one good work or another, or that you had one kindly 
 affection and right desire, or a thousand ; that you have 
 different dispositions and affections from your fellow- 
 men, and have had a trust and hope of which they gave 
 no signs ; not by such miserable, ragged comfort as this, 
 which fails in every great crisis, which a fit of pain or 
 the recollection of a single evil act or unkind thought, 
 or the discovery of a wrong in yourself which you never 
 knew to be in any one else, or the discovery of some- 
 
XVI.] CHEIST THE ADVOCATE. 253 
 
 thing right and good in a man you took to be an outcast 
 from God, which you never knew to be in yourself, or 
 any single revelation of your own character such as God 
 in His mercy will not suffer you to want — may sweep 
 away in a moment. The Spirit of Truth does not 
 sustain His office as an Advocate and Consoler by 
 feeding you with wind ; but He says — ^ The Accuser 
 ' speaks to you as men conscious of separation from God. 
 ' You have that consciousness ; you feel that it is an 
 ' evil thing, a sin, to have it. Why do you feel it ? 
 'Because there is a bond of union between you and 
 ' God, because that bond is one which existed before all 
 ' evil was in the world, and because no evil can destroy 
 'it. Therefore your conscience tells you that you are 
 * wrong for being separate from God, seeing that your 
 ' right and proper state is one of union with Him ; seeing 
 'that you are created for that state in Christ Jesus; 
 ' seeing that you were redeemed for that state in Christ 
 ' Jesus.' 
 
 This is what St. John had been telling his little 
 children in Ephesus in the commencement of his 
 Epistle. He first told them of the Word of Life which 
 had been manifested, of that Eternal Life which was with 
 the Father ; that he had heard this message from Him, 
 that God was Light, and in Him was no darkness at all ; 
 that he delivered this message to them that their joy 
 might be full, and that they might have fellowsliip with 
 the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ; that if 
 
254 CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. [SEEM. 
 
 they walked in darkness, they would not have fellow- 
 ship ; but that if they walked in the light, as He was 
 in the light, they would have fellowship with each other, 
 and the blood of Jesus Christ would cleanse them from 
 all sin ; that if they said they had no sin, the truth was 
 not in them ; that if they confessed their sin, God was 
 faithful and just to forgive them their sin, and to cleanse 
 them from all unrighteousness. 
 
 In these words, the Apostle, taught by the divine 
 Spirit — the Comforter — does not give them any joy, or 
 peace, or hope, by telling them of some good thing 
 which they had received in themselves, but of a Life 
 and Righteousness which was in God, and which Christ, 
 the Son and Word of God, had shown forth; by telling 
 them how they might be raised out of themselves, 
 and be made partakers of it. To believe in Christ as 
 the Righteousness of God, and as the Mediator between 
 God and man, was, therefore, the true deliverance from 
 sin. The blood of Christ, which declared this righteous- 
 ness, and the imion of man with God, cleansed away 
 the sin of all who really sought God, and wished to be 
 in His Light. It assured them that there was no chasm 
 between them and God ; it assured them that nothing 
 but a refusal to believe in the message, ^ God is Light ; 
 Christ has been manifested/ could create the chasm. 
 
 And therefore he begins the next passage of his Epistle 
 with the words — ' My little children, these things write 
 I unto you, that ye sin not.' In this way ; — by accepting 
 
XVI.] CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. 255 
 
 this great news of God and of His Love^ and by turning 
 to God in Christ, you arise out of sin, for you rise not 
 of yourselves ; you become righteous, for you become 
 one with Him who is righteous. ^ And if any man 
 sin,' — if he loses sight of this truth, and sinks back into 
 himself, and so becomes evil, — ^ we have an Advocate 
 with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,^ The final 
 blow is not given to the Accuser till these great words 
 are uttered. At each act of transgression he renews 
 the argument. You are again evil — consciously, in- 
 wardly evil. You cannot deny it. After all that has 
 been done for you, the bond is broken again. And then 
 come the old efforts to restore the union, and bring 
 about the reconciliation. The sin-oflPering and peace- 
 ofi'ering must again be presented ; the first-born of the 
 body must once more be given for the sin of the soul. 
 The Father of all must be persuaded to forgive the sin 
 which the child has committed ; which means to excuse 
 the penalty which the child has incurred. 
 
 St. John cuts short all such schemes, and the argu- 
 ment by which they are justified, with the words, ^ If 
 any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, 
 Jesus Christ the righteous.^ It is not true that the 
 evil act now, any more than before, has severed the 
 bond between the creature and the Creator, between 
 the child and the Father. The Lamb slain before the 
 foundation of the world, the Lamb slain on the cross 
 at Calvary, is still the Lamb in the midst of the 
 
256 CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. [SERM. 
 
 throne ; He, in whom God created the worlds ; He, in 
 whom God has loved the world; He whom God has 
 given up for the world ; He is still, as ever, the 
 Mediator, in whom we are at one with Him, in whom 
 we may draw nigh to Him. No possible act by which 
 man denies and sets at nought that eternal law of the 
 universe, can make it cease to be a law. God's con- 
 stitution cannot perish, because men's consciences teU 
 them that they are violating it, and that by no other 
 law can they live. 
 
 He who understands this to be the case, will not 
 endure to remain under the yoke of sin. As long as it 
 is a question, whether he cannot find out some way 
 of adjusting the quarrel, of pacifying the judge, he will 
 tamper with the evil, get as much enjoyment of it as he 
 can, hug it with a mixture of love and loathing. When 
 he knows that there is a way out of it, and that God is 
 eading him along in that way, and that Jesus Christ 
 the righteous is the way, he will desert the false and 
 dark road in which he has been walking, he will begin 
 to think of God as a Eefuge and a Father. 
 
 Christ speaks of Himself as the Way to the Father. 
 The beloved disciple, who records that expression, 
 speaks of Him as the Advocate, or Paraclete, with the 
 Father. If we apply what was said of the word Para- 
 clete in its other application to this case, we shall not 
 easily suppose that Christ is called an Advocate be- 
 cause He beseeches the Lord of all to do any act which 
 
XVI.] CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. 257 
 
 it is not His own perfect Will to do. But He, who 
 knew what was in man, saw how natural such a thought 
 would be to the sensualised and darkened heart. 
 Therefore, he used those remarkable words in his last 
 conversation with His disciples — the one in which He 
 spoke of sending them the Comforter : ' / say not that 
 I will pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself 
 loveth yoUj because ye have loved me, and have believed 
 that I came forth from God,' This was said an hour 
 or two before all those disciples forsook him and fled. 
 He surely intended them to understand by it, that His 
 Father's love was not the consequence of any act 
 of His, of any petitions of His ; but that His acts and 
 petitions were pure, and holy, and divine, — because 
 they were the expressions of the Father's love, because 
 they were the exact and perfect response to it. The 
 same inference follows still more directly from the 
 passage which introduces the text. The whole of it, as 
 we have seen, turns upon the assertion, that Christ 
 showed forth the Life that was first in God ; that He 
 brought the assurance, which was so much at variance 
 with the notions of men, that He was Light, and in 
 Him was no darkness. 
 
 I am almost ashamed to argue this point with you. 
 For when did any righteous advocate seek to pervert 
 the course of law, and to bring any partial influence to 
 bear on the mind of the judge? When did he acknow- 
 ledge to himself any other object than that of aiding 
 
258 CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. [SEEM. 
 
 the judge's own desire to ascertain the truth? And if 
 this is so among us, who are so imperfect ; if we feel 
 that any other rule than this is immoral, and that all 
 practice ought continually to be rectified by reference 
 to this standard ; how can we ever attribute an advo- 
 cacy to Jesus Christ the righteous, which is of any 
 other character, which would defeat the ends of right- 
 eousness ? It is most needful that we should clear our 
 minds upon this subject, and should allow no notions 
 which are deduced from the impure habits of earth, to 
 soil our idea of the kingdom and order which is alto- 
 gether pure and holy. We can cast stones at other 
 people with great readiness ; we can complain of the 
 carnal and dark thoughts which prevail in some coun- 
 tries, respecting the intercession and advocacy of saints, 
 and of the way in which those thoughts have darkened 
 the sense of actual right and wrong in the minds of 
 those who cherish them, and have turned them away 
 from the service of God to the service of vanity. We 
 may make the complaint, and in fear and trembling 
 bless God for having freed us from some of the tempta- 
 tions to an error, which is akin to all the worst tenden- 
 cies of our hearts, as it touches very closely upon some 
 of their higher and better aspirations. But if we suppose 
 we are free from the evil part of this tendency, because 
 it can only take this form of pleading for the prayers 
 of saints ; or that it will not take that form, or some 
 more corrupt and idolatrous form in our country, and our 
 
XVI.] CHEIST THE ADVOCATE. 259 
 
 own selves, unless we are watching against the root and 
 principle of it; we shall find, too late, how we have been 
 deceived. So long as there is the least lingering 
 thought that Christ is an Advocate for us, to protect us 
 from the wrath or ill-will of the Father ; that He has 
 some affection or tenderness for us which the Father 
 has not ; so long there lies in us the germ of all the 
 corruptions that we attribute to Popery ; yes, and of all 
 that do exist, and ever have existed, in Paganism. I 
 say the least lingering thought; for we are often very 
 indignant when we find our belief put into words. 
 "We may say, honestly, we have not meant that ; it is too 
 shocking. And yet we may be cherishing a principle, 
 often acting upon it, suffering it to lie side by side with 
 some better one, which we never try to separate from 
 it, — and this principle, if we dared express it, would 
 take the shape we shrink from. I, therefore, earnestly 
 conjure you all, for the sake of yourselves, and of your 
 children, who will surely carry into its developments 
 any falsehood which you have allowed to remain in the 
 seed, that you bring your feeling about this advocacy 
 of Christ to the light and test of the Scriptures. I have 
 tried to show you, for I consider it important to do so 
 in this congregation, that, even if we give the word 
 its forensic signification, it will not support any such 
 conclusion as the one I have condemned, until we 
 have made that signification dishonest and immoral. 
 "But, I must again remind you, that this forensic sense 
 
260 CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. [SERM. 
 
 does not properly appertain to the original word. The 
 Paraclete is the Advocate only so far as he is the 
 person who may be always called in as a friend, adviser, 
 helper, counsellor. In this sense, the Spirit is said to 
 be a Paraclete. In this sense, if we follow the ana- 
 logy of Scripture, Christ the righteous is said to be the 
 Paraclete with the Father. In the language of the 
 Book of Proverbs, 'He was with Him, as one brought up 
 with Him before the worlds were.' In the language 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ' He is the brightness 
 of His Father's glory, the express image of His Person' 
 To believe that He who has been manifested to us, who 
 has taken our nature, who has died our death, is indeed 
 with Him, and that not as an accuser but a brother ; 
 is the sharer of His counsels ; the utterer of His inmost 
 heart; that in Him, and not through any other 
 medium. He sees us, so that we may verily claim to be 
 righteous, because He is righteous ; at one with each 
 other, because He is one with all of us ; at one with 
 the Father, because He is one with Him; this is, 
 indeed, strength and comfort, and a mighty power, for 
 casting down the accuser; a powerful warrant for 
 repelling and throwing off our sins; for flying from 
 every enemy into God's holy presence. It would 
 be an ineffectual defence against one who charges us 
 with that essential radical evil, which is contrary to 
 God's Nature, and makes us incapable of blessedness, 
 to say : ' But we have an Advocate, who urges His 
 
XVI.] CHftlST THE ADVOCATE. 261 
 
 * prayer and His Sacrifice, to save us from the conse- 
 ' quences or punishment of this evil/ Such a conception 
 darkens all our apprehensions of the mind of Him 
 with whom we seek to be reconciled, and of Christ 
 who came to reveal His mind. It bewilders, instead 
 of purging, the conscience. But to be able to say; 
 ' We know that there is at the right hand of God one in 
 'our very nature, one who has sounded the depths of 
 
 * death and the grave, and hell ; one, in whom He 
 ' delights ; one, in whom He has reconciled the world 
 'to Himself; one, in whom He is eternally reconciled 
 ' to it j' this is emancipation, not from the darkness 
 of the future only, but from the misery of the present, 
 and of the past. In it lies not that peace which the 
 world gives and takes away, but the peace of God which 
 passes all understanding. 
 
 And here, then, lies the connexion between this 
 subject of Intercession, and that of Sacrifice. That 
 you may feel how they are related, I have joined 
 the first verse of this chapter with the second, though 
 that is one upon which I have spoken already, when 
 I was trying to ascertain the meaning of the word 
 Propitiation, and the use of it in the Epistle to the 
 Romans. We saw there how altogether foreign that 
 idea of the tXacr/^o? or IXaorTrjpiov, which identifies it 
 with some attempt to make God propitious, was from 
 the mind of either apostle. The IXaa-^o^, or Pro- 
 pitiation — for I did not object to the word when we 
 
263 CHmST THE ADVOCATE. [SEEM. 
 
 had found the divine signification of it — was set forth by 
 God; it was declared to be, just as the Mercy-seat in 
 the Old Tabernacle was, just as all the sacrifices in 
 that tabernacle were — His own declaration of His own 
 will and purpose to men; His own way of reducing 
 their will and purposes into submission to His, into 
 harmony with His. Christ, in this mighty and 
 wonderful sense was declared to be the Propitiation, 
 because He was the manifestation of God's righteous- 
 ness in the forgiveness of sin; because His sacrifice 
 and offering up of Himself was at once the most 
 perfect exhibition of the will of the Father, and of the 
 voluntary surrender of the Son to this will, of His 
 delight to do it. Such a Mercy-seat, such a Propitia- 
 tion, such a restoring of the lost, such a reconciliation 
 of God with his rebellious children, the Cross of Calvary 
 was. The Cross gathered up into a single transcendant 
 act the very meaning of all that had been, and all that 
 was to be. God was there seen in the might and power 
 of His Love, in direct conflict with Sin, and Death, 
 and Hell, triumphing over them by sacrifice. But if 
 this was so, that Cross must testify of Him who is 
 with the Father now exhibiting that obedience of 
 which this was the consummate token. It must 
 testify of Him who lives for ever and ever, upholding 
 all things and all men, by that obedience; who will 
 be always the Mercy- seat, the Propitiation, the Living 
 Bond between God and His universe. The reconcilia* 
 
XVI.] CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. 263 
 
 tion has been made in Him, by His Sacrifice. It can 
 continue only in Him; there can be no intercourse 
 and fellowship between heaven and earth, except in 
 Him. Whenever any other way than this shall be 
 devised by men ; any way to God by their own high 
 imaginations, or by their intercessions and sacrifices; 
 or by the intercession and sacrifice of any intermediate 
 power and helper; then it must be proclaimed more and 
 more loudly : ^ None of these schemes can avail you ; 
 ^ they will not deliver you from sin; they will fasten the 
 ' chains of sin more closely about you ; they will bring 
 ' your consciences into the very bondage from which 
 ' God is seeking to set them free. One Sacrifice — the 
 ^ Sacrifice of God Himself — has been made once for all. 
 ' He who has offered it, is the Mediator between you 
 ' and God. You can only know what God's mind and 
 * will is toward you and to all men, when you behold 
 ^it in His acts — His sufferings; these tell you that 
 ' there is an Unchangeable Friend, an Eternal High- 
 ' priest, in whom the Creator and creature are for ever 
 ' atoned.' 
 
 I have touched here upon the topic which I said last 
 Sunday it was a special object of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews to expound, the essential connexion between 
 the Sacrifice and the Priest ; neither being perfected till 
 they were united in the same Person. I shall not 
 follow out to-day that great subject, which has so many 
 aspects, of the deepest concernment for all times, and for 
 
264 CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. [SERM. 
 
 none more tlian ours. Bat in preparation for what I 
 
 may, if God permit, say of it hereafter, 1 would earnestly 
 
 remind you, tliat I have been preaching to-day the 
 
 doctrine which was proclaimed with such power at 
 
 the Reformation ; the doctrine which made the whole 
 
 world at that time to shake and upheave. I have been 
 
 preaching it, not as it was preached then in the terms 
 
 of St. Paul, but in the terms of St. John. There is the 
 
 most essential and absolute agreement between them. 
 
 God the Father has justified us from all things from 
 
 which we could not be justified by any law. Christ has 
 
 redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a 
 
 curse for us. Christ has come, made of a woman under 
 
 the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 
 
 The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are 
 
 sons of God. This is St. Paul's Gospel. We declare 
 
 unto you the Eternal Life, which comes from the Father, 
 
 in whom is light and no darkness. We declare unto you 
 
 Christ the Paraclete with the Father, the Propitiation 
 
 for the sins of the whole world. And it is the Spirit 
 
 that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. This 
 
 is St. John's Gospel. Oftentimes we fancy that we 
 
 accept the one, while we turn away from the other; 
 
 but there will come a sifting which will show us 
 
 whether we believe either. It is possible for men to 
 
 speak much of justification, and to suppose that it is 
 
 some act of theirs which justifies, not God Himself; 
 
 it is possible for them to speak of Christ's redemption, 
 
XVL] CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. 265 
 
 and to suppose that He redeems them out of the hands of 
 God, not brings them to Him ; it is possible for them to 
 speak of the Spirit bearing witness that they are sons of 
 God, and to suppose that its witness depends upon some 
 feelings, or tempers, or experiences which separate them 
 from their fellow-creatures. In that case, the faith 
 which we boast of as having descended to us from the 
 Reformation, is a mere heirloom, not a possession at all ; 
 and all the warmth with which we proclaim our determi- 
 nation to keep it, only shows that we feel how insecure 
 our title to it is. And then we must go to St. John's 
 words. We must affront men — for it is the greatest 
 affront to the proud religionist — with the declaration of 
 God's absolute and universal truth and love ; with the 
 assertion that Christ is the Propitiation for the sins of 
 the whole world ; that He is the Intercessor and Priest 
 for man; and with the awful words — awful to every one 
 who hears them, most awful to us who preach them : 
 ' If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is 
 a liar ; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath 
 seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?' 
 These words, not by their softness and tenderness, but 
 by their tremendous severity, drive us to some other 
 ground of hope than our own belief or our own feelings. 
 They force us back upon God's love in Christ as the 
 only refuge from our unbelief, as the only power by 
 which we can be reformed. They force us to say, 
 ' Father, we have sinned against our brother, and 
 
266 CHRIST THE ADVOCATE. [SERM. 
 
 'against thee; oh, deliver us from our sins — from 
 ' our distrust, our heartlessness, our hopelessness — in 
 ' Him, and for His sake, whom thou lovest, and who, 
 'because thy love was burning Him and consuming 
 ' Him, gave Himself up for us all, that we might enter 
 ' into thy presence, and be partakers of thy nature/ 
 
xvn.] ( 267 ) 
 
 SERMON XVII. 
 
 CHEIST THE HIGH-PRIEST. 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 6th Sunday after Trinity, July 23, 1854.) 
 
 Hebbews V. 1 — 10. 
 
 * For every high-priest talcen from among men is ordained for men in 
 things jpertaining to God, that he may offer hath gifts and sacrifices 
 for sins: who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that 
 are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed loith inr 
 firmity. And hy reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also 
 for himself, to offer for sins. And no man taTceth this honour unto 
 himself, hut he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ 
 glorified not himself to le made an high-priest ; hut he that said unto 
 him, Thou art my Son, to-day have I hegotten thee. As he saith also 
 in another place, TJtou art a priest for ever after the order of Mel- 
 chisedec. Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up 
 prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him 
 that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he 
 feared; though he were a Son, yet learned he ohedience hy the things 
 which he suffered ; and being made perfect, he became the author of 
 eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; called of God an 
 high-priest, after the order of Melchisedec' 
 
 Every reader has perceived that two priesthoods are 
 spoken of in this passage, and in the Epistle to which 
 it belongs ; one is designated by the name of Aaron ; 
 one, by the name of Melchisedec. But it should be ob- 
 served, that in the case of the two priesthoods, as in 
 
268 CHRIST THE HIGH-PEIEST. [SERM. 
 
 the case of the two Covenants, of which I spoke last 
 Whitsunday, we are told, first of what is common to them 
 both ; then of the points which distinguish them. 
 
 I. Having spoken, at the end of the last chapter, 
 of Jesus as the High-priest who had passed into the 
 heaven ; who was touched with the feeling of men's 
 infirmities ; who had been in all points tempted like as 
 men were, yet without sin ; through whom they might 
 draw nigh to God with full assurance of faith; the 
 writer proceeds to declare the characteristics which 
 must meet in the priest, those which belong to the very 
 nature and essence of his office. Every high-priest 
 taken from among men, is ordained for men, in things 
 pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and 
 sacrifices for sin. There is great carefulness and elabo- 
 ration in this definition. Each clause, and each mem- 
 ber of each clause, has been weighed and stands out 
 distinctly. Where there is any vagueness the vague- 
 ness is suggestive ; we see why there could not be 
 greater accuracy without a further and higher explana- 
 tion ; we are led on towards that explanation. 
 
 The Jew would feel instantly, — the words of his 
 Law being his instructors, — that he must learn what 
 was implied in the existence of the priests generally, 
 from that which was true of Aaron the high-priest. 
 He must not ascend to him from those who belonged to 
 his race and progeny; he must understand them from 
 what was first declared of him. The high -priest, there- 
 
XVII.] CHRIST THE HIGH-PRIEST. 269 
 
 fore, forms the subject of tlie definition ; of him it is 
 said that he is taken from among men ; He must be one 
 of the race ; he must not be above it, if by above is 
 meant estranged from it — having interests of his own or 
 a character of his own, which keep him at a distance 
 from any of its members. And this because he is 
 ordained for men. He is to act for his people, he is 
 to represent them. Every sentence in the books of 
 Exodus or Leviticus, which treats of the functions of 
 Aaron, assumes this to be the case. He bears the names 
 of the twelve tribes upon his breast-plate; each man 
 who comes to the door of the tabernacle claims that he 
 should speak and act for him. He was to speak and act 
 for the nation, and for the individuals who composed it in 
 various capacities. Even the leper who was separated from 
 the congregation, who proclaimed himself unclean, had 
 a right to demand the inspection and help of the priest. 
 But however various, however earthly, some of those 
 duties might seem to be, they all imported that he was 
 ordained for men in things pertaining to God. His 
 existence presumed the existence of an Invisible Being 
 with whom men had to do : presumed that this Being 
 was not separate from men, but was governing all, even 
 the vulgarest events of their lives. The priest stood 
 forth before his countrymen as a continual witness of 
 this truth. If God was not ; if He was a great way off; 
 if He was only an ultimate postulate, a Hercules' Pillar 
 of the universe; not a living, acting, working Being; 
 
 e 
 
270 CHRIST THE HIGH-PRIEST. [SERM. 
 
 not one seeking to keep up an intercourse with His 
 creatures ; then the priest meant nothing. His name 
 and position were a lie; he had no business in the 
 world, and the world had no business with him. Still 
 there is a phrase necessary to denote him, which is 
 perplexing, and which is intended to perplex us. He 
 is ordained, or set up. Who ordains, or sets him up ? 
 How does he come among a people, or gain any authority 
 over them ? Do they establish him ? Does a mere 
 law or decree of one age or another establish him? 
 Whence, then, proceeds the decree ? How does it dis- 
 tinguish its object ? Whence arises the obligation to 
 obey it? These questions must not be answered for 
 a while. It is the very design of the Epistle to make 
 the Jewish Christian pause and consider whether he 
 knew the answer to them, and how it might be arrived 
 at. In the meantime the writer proceeds to a point in 
 his description about which there could be no hesi- 
 tation. The high-priest is appointed ' to offer gifts and 
 sacrifices for sins,^ This, all would admit, was his prin- 
 cipal, his characteristic, function ; whatever else he did 
 must find its explanation in this. The men from whom 
 he was taken, the men for whom he stood, required 
 that he should present their gifts and their sin-offerings 
 to Him from whom they believed their good things 
 came ; to Him against whom they believed they had 
 sinned. If he was God^s priest, if the office was not a 
 dream, it was not only man who demanded the gifts 
 
XVn.] CHRIST THE HIGH-PRIEST. 271 
 
 and the sacrifices. God demanded them; God ap- 
 pointed them. Again, whatever was his function — 
 whatever special act he had to do — there was a condi- 
 tion or character presupposed in that work ; presupposed 
 in all that had been said of his being taken from men — 
 of his speaking for men, — of his presenting offerings for 
 the sins of men. He must have the capacity of sympa- 
 thising with them. He must know what they are want- 
 ing, suffering, seeking for. This sympathy cannot be 
 limited to the wise, to those who know the right and 
 the wrong, to those who have an apprehension of the 
 Divine Will. It cannot be limited to the well-behaved, 
 the respectable, the orderly. It must be emphatically 
 with those that are ignorant and out of the way. And 
 it cannot be obtained at second hand ; not through the 
 condescension and tenderness which a being exempt 
 from peril may feel for those who are exposed to it. 
 The only security for the kind of compassion which his 
 service demands from him, is that he himself is com- 
 passed with infirmity ; that he knows the evil, inwardly, 
 intimately, which other men suffer for, and need to be 
 loosed from. 
 
 ^ By reason hereof y' the writer goes on, ' he ought, as 
 for the people, so for himself to offer for sins. The 
 sacrifice is not something which has to do with them 
 and not with him. It has not more to do with them 
 than with him. On the contrary, the sacrifice for the 
 nation can only be presented by a man who is one of 
 
273 CHRIST THE HIGH-PRIEST. [SERM. 
 
 the nation — a participator in its evil doings, and in its 
 punisliments. And he is not fit to present the sacrifice 
 for any individual if he thinks that he is exempt from 
 the secret root of the evil, whence the evil that indivi- 
 dual confesses has been derived ; if he supposes himself 
 free from the possibility of falling into his evil act; 
 if he does not think that the principle is more 
 malignant, more directly opposed to God, than the 
 act is. 
 
 But the word that was left in a certain dimness and 
 mist must be cleared up. The idea of the priest is not 
 satisfied by this description of the sympathising man, 
 any more than by the description of the mere ofiicial 
 who presents the gifts and sacrifices : ^ No man,' it is 
 said, ' taketh this Jionour unto himself, but he that is 
 called of God, as was Aaron,'' A great many, unques- 
 tionably, had taken this honour to themselves, in every 
 country of the world ; they had claimed, on the strength 
 of a sagacity and knowledge above their brethren, a 
 right to teach them about invisible things, about the gifts 
 and sacrifices which would make them most acceptable 
 to the rulers of the world above or below. But they had 
 all assumed a vocation; they had all brought tokens, 
 such as they were, of a divine appointment. Only so 
 far as they could make these tokens credible to the 
 people for whom they professed to speak and act, had 
 they been honoured at all. Everywhere, therefore, peo- 
 ple confessed that the true priest should come to them, 
 
xyil] chkist the high-pkiest. 273 
 
 though he must also come from them — that God must 
 send him ; though he must not be a superior angel or 
 demigod, who knew nothing of them and could not 
 care for them. The writer, without saying that the 
 priests of other nations had not a divine vocation, — 
 without saying that they may not have mixed the false- 
 hood of their hearts with truths which came to them 
 from heaven, — assumes that the high-priest of his 
 nation, that Aaron, was called of God. He was writing 
 to Jews ; he had not, therefore, to make good the posi- 
 tion. Nor might he, perhaps, have taken that pains, if 
 he had been addressing Gentiles. To each race — to all 
 men — the calling must make itself good by the effect 
 which it produces, by the testimony which is borne of 
 it in the hearts of individuals and in the life of societies; 
 if God does not support it by better evidences than 
 those which are put forth by apologists, they will prove 
 very impotent indeed. The Jew, who had been faithful 
 to his light, knew what he owed to the conviction that 
 God had established an intercourse with His creatures ; 
 that he had not left them to grope in idolatry and 
 devil-worship — propitiating malignant powers, in groves 
 and high places, with human victims. The Gentile who 
 had been involved in that misery, did not want argu- 
 ments to persuade him that, if he was raised out of it, 
 God must point the way, and lead him along in it. 
 But the Jew did want to know that the law, which had 
 appointed Aaron and his sons to their work, had some 
 
 T 
 
274 CHRIST TEE HIGH-PRIEST. [SERM. 
 
 deeper foundation than itself, or than an arbitrary- 
 purpose in the Lawgiver to select one people and 
 exclude others. The Gentiles did want to know that 
 the law which appointed Aaron was not one that said 
 to them, — ' You have no part or lot with God ; there 
 ' is no priest or sacrifice appointed for you. You 
 ' must go on making priests and inventing sacrifices 
 
 * for yourselves, and so become each day more igno- 
 
 * rant and out of the way, more alienated from the 
 ^ mind and will of Him who created you, more inca- 
 ' pable of finding Him out.^ I say, both Jew and Gen- 
 tile wanted to be told whether there was an actual, 
 original, eternal relation between God and them; or 
 whether it was an artificial, legal, formal relation, which 
 institutions had created, and which would perish if 
 they perished. But, if possible, the Jew required this 
 information more than the Gentile; for if no such 
 eternal relation existed, the holy men of his land had 
 been walking in a shadow, had been uttering visions 
 when they had seen nothing; had been deceiving 
 their countrymen and themselves. Those who put the 
 Law and the Covenants, and the Sacrifices and the 
 Priesthood, for the God who had appointed the Law 
 and the Covenants, and the Sacrifices and the Priest- 
 hood, or supposed that they created the bond between 
 Him and His creatures, of which they bore witness, 
 were hastening towards the deepest unbelief — far more 
 rapidly than those who had come to fancy that all the 
 
XVIT.] CHRIST THE HIGH-PKIEST. 275 
 
 divine signs and ordinances were mere names and 
 fictions. 
 
 II. Accordingly, this is the subject to whicli the writer 
 of the Epistle continually recurs, and which is promi- 
 nent before all others in our text. But now that we 
 are come to the point, at which we pass from that which 
 is common in the priesthoods to that which separates 
 them, you will observe how skilfully the transition is 
 effected, and how much pains are taken that we shall 
 not forget the resemblance between the eternal priest- 
 hood and the temporary. ' Even so,^ he says, after 
 asserting Aaron to have been a priest who did not take 
 the honour to himself, but was called to it by God — 
 ' Eveti so Christ glorified not Himself to be made a high- 
 priest, but He that said unto Him, Thou art my Son ; 
 this day have I begotten Thee^ Here was the original 
 and divine appointment, — that which lay beneath the 
 divine decrees and ordinances which had been esta- 
 blished upon earth, and which, by their nature, were 
 confined to particular nations and tribes. This eternal 
 and absolute "Will of God is the root from which all 
 the order of the universe proceeds. But this Will can 
 only express itself in a divine Relation — ' Thou art 
 my Son.' The Sonship of Christ is the basis of all 
 intercourse between God and man. The possibility of 
 a priesthood — the fact of a priesthood — rests upon that 
 relation, and not upon any law spoken on Sinai, or at 
 the door of the Tabernacle. The writer of the Epistls 
 
276 CHRIST THE HIGH-PRIEST. [SERM. 
 
 had been already exhibiting this Sonship as the founda- 
 tion of the Jewish economy. He now fixes on that part 
 of the economy which, though it had been confined 
 by tribe barriers, had yet always seemed on the point of 
 bursting through those barriers, and asserting its divine 
 character. He takes a well-known passage from one of 
 the Psalms; he claims it as a witness that faithful Jews 
 demanded another kind of priesthood from that which 
 they prized and loved as God's gift, — that they demanded 
 it because God Himself had educated them to feel the 
 need of it. He investigates the nature of the priesthood 
 which the Psalmist must have intended to indicate by 
 the name Melchisedec. He shows, from the time to 
 which Melchisedec is assigned in the book of Genesis, 
 and from the brief record of Abraham^s homage to him, 
 that he could not have belonged to the chosen race, or 
 have holden his office in virtue of any tribe designation. 
 Nothing is said of his parentage or birth, or of the 
 origin of his authority — yet he is called a priest. And 
 he Psalmist recognises a priesthood like his, as the one 
 from which every other is derived — as that for which 
 every other must be a preparation. Bringing the two 
 passages of the old Scriptures together, the writer of 
 the Epistle affirms that they explain each other. The 
 order of Melchisedec is established by the words, 
 ' Thou art my Son.' The manifestation of the Son is 
 the fulfilment of the Psalmist's longing ; the revelation of 
 the priest for men in things pertaining to God, of Him 
 
XVII.] CHRIST THE HIGH-PRIEST. 277 
 
 ^Yllo is in the truest, fullest sense called of God to be a 
 high-priest. 
 
 But liow could one so called,, possessing so transcen- 
 dent a dignity, sympathise with those that were ignorant 
 and out of the way — not as a stranger, but as one 
 sharing their guilt, compassed with their infirmity? 
 This is the question with which the last passage in the 
 text grapples. ' Who in the days of His fleshy when He 
 had offered up prayers and supplications, ivith strong 
 crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him 
 from death, and was heard in that He feared; though 
 He loere a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things 
 which He suffered.' You will recognise in this descrip- 
 tion just what every higher painter has striven to set 
 forth in the Man of Sorrows : not only a passive, sub- 
 missive sufferer; but one who agonised, who resisted 
 unto blood, who trod the winepress alone. Tiie strong 
 crying and tears, the sense of death, are just what the 
 Evangelists present in a few simple, awful words, when 
 they relate the night in Gethsemane ; just what the 
 Church has attributed, not to a single moment of our 
 Lord's life in the flesh, but, in a most wonderful sense, 
 to the whole of it. The conflict, as it is set before us, 
 here as well as there, is intensely personal. An unutter- 
 able horror is assailing the Son of God; He is crying 
 for deliverance from it. What is this horror ; how may 
 we dare to conceive of it ? The words on the Cross 
 utter what it was; but for them we must be silent. The 
 
278 CHRIST THE HIGH-PEIEST. [SERM. 
 
 sense of separation from the Father; the sense of a 
 mass of evil, around, above, beneath, pressing upon 
 Him, belonging to Him, v/hich was contrary to God, 
 which was tearing the world from God — this, surely, 
 if we may trust the words of inspiration, was that death 
 — that eternal death — from which He cried to be deli- 
 vered. But in entering into that anguish, in bearing that 
 death, in casting Himself upon His Father to deliver 
 Him from it, He was entering into human anguish. He 
 was bearing man^s death, He was acquiring that com- 
 passion for the most ignorant, for those who had wan- 
 dered furthest from the divine fold, which none can 
 have who is not compassed with infirmity. "What sacri- 
 fice could be like this ? what could a High-priest of the 
 universe offer that was so absolutely His own; so much 
 His very self? And yet, what sacrifice could a high- 
 priest of the universe offer, that was so entirely for the 
 sins of the world ? Thus, therefore, is that mighty dif- 
 ference between the two offerings, which I dwelt on in 
 a former discourse, inseparably connected with the dif- 
 ference between the two priests. The one enters into 
 the holy place every year, with the blood of others ; 
 the other comes in the end of the world, to put away 
 sin by the sacrifice of Himself. We are told there, 
 that the blood of bulls and calves could not put away 
 sin; because sin is separation from God, and their 
 blood could establish no connexion with God. Here we 
 have the whole reason why His blood could take away 
 
XVII.] CHRIST THE HIGH-PRIEST. 279 
 
 sin; because He who offers it is one with God; because 
 under all the pressure of that which divides from God, 
 He cleaves to Him, trusting in Him through all, certain 
 that neither life nor death, nor principalities nor 
 powers, shall be able to separate Him — or therefore the 
 nature which He has taken — from His Father's love. 
 
 Therefore, these strange, amazing words are added. 
 ' Though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by those 
 things which He suffered' Everything which threatened 
 that obedience, brought it out more fully, more per- 
 fectly; each new experience was to Him anew lesson in 
 trust and dependence. Nothing was anticipated; each 
 moment brought its own battle, its own strength, its 
 own victory. The effort of faith that was needed for 
 the boy would not have sufficed for the youth ; but it was 
 perfect for its own occasion. The temptation after the 
 baptism could be answered with the words, ' Get thee 
 behind we, Satan. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, 
 ' and Him only shalt thou serve / the temptation in the 
 garden could only be met with, ' Father, if it be 
 possible, let this cup pass from me;' the temptation 
 on the Cross must be overcome with, ^ Father, into thy 
 hands I commend my Spirit,^ In each state there is a 
 new exercise of obedience; but the complete Son is 
 only manifested in the final one. 
 
 And having been heard in that strong crying, and 
 having been perfected through that death, ' He is become 
 the Author of eternal salvation to all that obey HimJ 
 
280 CHRIST THE HIGH-PRIEST. [SERM. 
 
 In His own person He has vindicated for them the 
 right of Sonship ; the privilege of fellowship ; the 
 salvation from that death which consists in separation 
 from God ; the eternal life which consists in union 
 with Him. The Priest has asserted His name, has 
 made the Sacrifice, has established His office. That 
 office is to last for ever ; founded upon His filial rela- 
 tion ; embodied in His self-oblation ; holding mankind 
 now and always to Him who created us in His image, 
 who has delivered us from the foes which assailed His 
 only-begotten Son, who in Him has adopted us to be 
 sons. Oh, never for a moment let us think of the 
 Sacrifice apart from the Priest; or the Priest as separate 
 from those for whom he prayed, that they might be one 
 with Him ! Never let us think of the Priest as another 
 than the Son who was before the worlds were; or of 
 the Son as doing any work but that to which the love 
 of the Father called Him, and His own obedience 
 fulfilled ! 
 
 It is this idea of sacrifice, not as first rising from man 
 to God, but as coming down from God upon man — as 
 exhibited in His acts, as expressing and accomplishing 
 His will — which I have been tracing through the his- 
 tories of sacrifice which the Bible records, beginning 
 from that of Abel ; and which I have contrasted with the 
 proud sacrifice, whereby man seeks to escape from the 
 punishment of the sin he has committed, and to convert 
 God to his own evil mind. All who trusted God and 
 
XVn.] CHRIST THE HIGH-PRIEST. 281 
 
 gave up tliemselves, felt that there must be an obedience, 
 and a sacrifice which was the ground of theirs; an 
 obedience and a sacrifice which was essentially divine, 
 and, therefore, essentially human. We have now 
 reached the climax of these histories. I shall endeavour, 
 indeed, to show you in two more sermons how all our 
 present life, how all our thoughts of that which is to 
 be for ourselves and the world, are determined by this 
 great principle. But for the satisfaction of the awful 
 doubts and anxieties, of which all schemes of sacrifice 
 have been the expression, my text of this afternoon is 
 sufficient. It solves the great sphynx riddle. That 
 riddle presents itself under various aspects to various 
 minds. There are some who feel themselves lost amidst 
 the multitudinous forms of Nature, and of that other 
 world which Art has called into existence; and who 
 ask whether there is no Centre on which the soul can 
 repose, without hiding itself in its own darkness and 
 solitude ? Believe that the Creative Word is the source 
 of that endless variety of objects, of those thoughts 
 which are ever creating or begetting new thoughts, and 
 new images; believe that that Word has been made 
 flesh and dwelt among us, and you have the Centre you 
 seek. You need not refuse to reverence Nature or Art, 
 and yet you may find your life and dwelling-place in 
 God. There are some who feel that a crowd of events 
 and incidents and activities is pressing out the life of 
 individuals; that all personal sorrows and hopes are 
 
282 CHRIST THE HIGH-PRIEST. [SERM. 
 
 stifled amidst general interests, — and who would fain 
 assert that each soul is sacred and infinite. Believe in 
 one, who was in all points tempted like as we are; 
 who bore the sins of each man on Himself; who was 
 heard in that he feared; who has entered into the 
 presence of God, to utter the cry of every captive, to 
 present the blood that is shed for every man ; who is 
 yet the King of all, the Head of the Church, the Priest 
 of the Universe ; and you can find that the individual 
 man is only the more distinct, and the more wonderful, 
 because he is but one of a Society. There are some 
 who are overwhelmed by the miseries of the earth, on 
 which mountains of evil seem to have been growing, 
 from the day that Adam fell. Believe in that strong 
 crying of the Son of Man, and the Son of God. Be- 
 lieve that it was heard against sin, death and hell; then 
 we shall be sure that every tyranny, and every anarchy, 
 is falling before Him ; that every enemy of the earth 
 and of God must be put under his footstool; that peace 
 and freedom must prevail wherever strife and slavery 
 have been, because God has willed it, and Christ has 
 done his will on earth as it is done in heaven. 
 
XVIII.] ( 283 ) 
 
 SERMON XVIII. 
 
 THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 7th Sunday after Trinity, July 30, 1854.) 
 
 Revelations i. 5, 6. 
 
 * Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own hlood, 
 and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father ; to 
 him he glory and dominion for ever and ever. A men* 
 
 Many persons seem to fancy that the Apocalypse con- 
 sists mainly of prophecies, or intimations concerning 
 that which shall come to pass in the latter days. That 
 it contains such prophecies, — that its lessons respecting 
 the future should be deeply pondered, because they are 
 lessons upon which we may act — not mere guesses 
 about times and seasons, with which we may amuse 
 ourselves — I thoroughly believe. But I do not think 
 we shall find out their precious import, unless we dwell 
 earnestly upon such a passage as the one I have read 
 to you ; the language of which, you will perceive, points 
 to that which is, and to that which has been done. 
 Some may suppose it a mere interjectional sentence. 
 
284 THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. [SERM. 
 
 tlie expression of a strong passionate feeling, not a part 
 of the substance of the work, not one whicli can give lis 
 any hint respecting its character. The more you read 
 the Apocalypse, the more you will feel that thanks- 
 givings and doxologies of this kind are inseparable from 
 its texture; that you would lose its meaning and 
 purpose if you lost them. Flourishes of rhetoric do 
 not belong to a Bible : they belong, least of all, to that 
 book of the Bible which gathers its previous revelations 
 into one ; which explains the very nature of revelation ; 
 which shows us in whom, and for what ends, God has 
 revealed Himself, and does reveal Himself in one age 
 or another. 
 
 But such a book is the very one, in which words that 
 can no longer be profaned to purposes of ambition and 
 display, acquire their full force as expressions of the 
 mind of God, as the echo of that mind in man. He 
 that bore witness of the Word of God, and of Jesus 
 Christ, and of the things which he saw, had learnt that 
 from that Word all the life of things and of men was 
 derived ; that the crucified man was that Word made 
 flesh ; that all his visible acts of power and meekness 
 were the outcomings of that which eye had not seen 
 nor ear heard. He had learnt that the Word had 
 been on earth, and suffered and died, that the enslaved 
 spirit and body of his creatures might be set free, that 
 the tongue of the stammerer and of the dumb might be 
 loosed, and might speak plainly. He was claiming the 
 
XVIII.] THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. '285 
 
 redemption whicli had been won for him, he was 
 exercising the freedom of a spiritual creature, when he 
 sent back his ascription of praise to Christ, who had 
 loved him and emancipated him. 
 
 According to one reading of the text, the word loosed,' 
 or ' emancipated,^ ought to be substituted for our word 
 Svashed.' I do not say which is the best reading; 
 there are internal, as well as external, arguments in 
 favour of each. The word ^ blood, ^ and the analogy to 
 Eaptism, made our translators partial to one phrase ; 
 the perpetual allusions to Redemption in connexion with 
 sins, may incline some to adopt the other. A more 
 important hint is conveyed by a change of the tense in 
 the preceding word afyaircavTi for a^airriGavTi. ^To 
 Him who loveth,^ for ' to Him who loved us.^ The 
 present tense seems certainly more in harmony with 
 the spirit of the beloved disciple generally, and with 
 the context of this passage particularly. A third varia- 
 tion in this passage introduces some difficulty into the 
 construing of it ; for ' kings,^ in the last clause, we are 
 told that we ought to read ' kingdom.' In that case 
 we can only suppose that St. John here, as in many 
 other places, was falling back into Old Testament forms 
 of expression ; that the phrase ^ kingdom of priests,' with 
 which he was familiar, was dwelling in his mind ; and 
 that he did not take any pains to translate it gramma- 
 tically into the language in which he was writing. The 
 meaning cannot be essentially different from that which 
 
286 THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. [SERM. 
 
 our version embodies. I shall, therefore, adhere to it. 
 Let us now consider the passage clause by clause. 
 
 I. ' To Him that hath loved, or that loveth,' Since there 
 cannot be a moment's doubt that Jesus Christ is the 
 object of this ascription, the thought may easily intrude 
 itself, ' After all, it is to Him, and not to the Father, 
 ' that the most inspired teachers turn in their moments 
 ' of rapture ; His love presents itself to them as their 
 ' real strength and consolation; upon it they rest; what 
 ' lies beyond it is dark, if not terrible.' That you may 
 understand how far this suggestion is reasonable, turn 
 to the opening of the fifth verse ; consider the titles by 
 which our Lord is there denoted. Pause especially on 
 the first of them. He is called ^ the faithful witness.' 
 A faithful witness to what ? St. John must interpret 
 himself : ' This is the message/ he says, in his first 
 Epistle, ' which we have heard of Him, and declare unto 
 you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at alV 
 Or, take the report which he gives of our Lord's own 
 last prayer with his Apostles, on the night before the 
 crucifixion, that which we were reading iu our course 
 of lessons yesterday : ' righteous Father, the world 
 hath not known Thee ; but I have known Thee, and these 
 have known that Thou hast sent me. And I have declared 
 unto them Thy name, and will declare it ; that the love 
 wherewith Thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in 
 them.' Jesus Christ, according to St. John, according 
 to Himself, is the faithful witness of His Father. The 
 
XVIII.] THE ADOKATION OP THE LAMB. 287 
 
 world had not kuown Him; it had suspected that in 
 Him there was some darkness_, some enmity towards 
 His creatures ; but He had known Him^ and had come 
 forth to testify that in Him was no darkness at all. 
 Whatever love there was in Christ was first in Him, with 
 whom He dwelt, and from whom He came. Whoso 
 saw Him saw the Father. And so far is the Evangelist 
 from dwelling upon this love as something separate from 
 the love of God, as more worthy of the creature^s trust 
 and reliance, that he can only depend upon it and rejoice 
 in it, because he regards it as the perfect image and reflex 
 of that which is the Nature and Essence of God. 
 
 Most true, however, it is, that St. John does demand 
 a love which has not remained hidden, but which has 
 come forth into light and manifestation; most true it is 
 that he only pretends to know the unfathomable depth 
 below, through that form and those acts which belong 
 to the region of human thought, and sympathy, and 
 obedience. Christ has been the faithful witness of the 
 Eather by bearing death, and being the first-begotten 
 from the dead. Unless He had sounded the abyss of 
 human misery, He would not have disclosed the abyss 
 of divine love ; unless He had gone through that misery 
 and risen out of it. He could not have vindicated the 
 divine love from the greatest calumny of the Evil Spirit 
 against it. And unless He were indeed the Prince of 
 all the kings of the earth. He could not have brought 
 the love of heaven to bear upon the government and 
 
288 THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. [SERM. 
 
 transactions of the earth, nor have offered to the sons 
 of earth a continual refuge from their oppressors in the 
 Judge, before whom they are ever standing and receiv- 
 ing their sentence. Be assured, then, that Christ only 
 can love any because He dwells with Him who is love, 
 and comes forth from Him ; and that we never shall 
 understand that love, if we do not behold it in the acts 
 and sufferings of the Mediator. 
 
 II. To Him that loveth us. What is the limitation of 
 this us ? How are we to know who have been, who are 
 included in it ? St. John was the beloved disciple, the 
 disciple who leaned on Christ^s breast at the Last Supper. 
 He does not fear to give himself the name ; writing in 
 his old age, with his heart humbled and broken, he still 
 dares to claim it. And why may we suppose that the 
 Divine Spirit permitted this boldness, and urged him 
 to it ? I think, because that Spirit was teaching and 
 compelling him, more than all the other disciples, to 
 show forth Christ's love, as having no partial ground, 
 as resting on the eternal ground, and, therefore, as 
 comprehending all within its circle. Supposing St. 
 Paul or St. Peter had used this all-embracing language, 
 it might have been said : ' Yes, but there was a special 
 ' graciousness, a peculiar affection, altogether different 
 ^ from that which went forth upon you — how different 
 ' from that which goes forth upon mankind!^ St. John 
 can say, ' Even so; I was the object of that affection; 
 ' I was permitted to experience it. I never knew the 
 
XVIII.] THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. 289 
 
 ' fulness and tenderness of it better tlian I knew it at the 
 ' Last Supper. And this is ray privilege ; to announce 
 ' this love to you, that you may share it, that you may 
 ' have fellowship, as I have, with the Father and with 
 ' his Son, Jesus Christ.' I do not know how the axe 
 could have been laid to any notions of a limited love, 
 bestowed upon certain qualities, or attracted by a 
 certain faith, more completely ; or yet how it could be 
 shown more completely that the love of Christ is not 
 vague philanthropy, but personal, and living, meeting 
 and awakening all the qualities and tendencies of the 
 creatures on whom it is bestowed. Supposing we had 
 the Epistles and Revelations of St. John, without 
 being told anything of the relation in which he stood 
 to the Son of man while he was upon earth, we might 
 have been lost in the thought of a benevolence too vast 
 and vague for any individual sympathy. If we had the 
 record of St. John's place among the disciples, without 
 hearing him declare the message which he had received 
 from Christ, and which it was his work to proclaim 
 to men, we should have found a precedent and a 
 warrant for all that glorification of difi^erent saints, as 
 objects of Christ's partial regard and mysterious favour, 
 which have been so common, and so hurtful, in some 
 parts of the Church ; a kind of warrant for the notion, 
 more prevalent in cur day and more mischievous, that 
 there are circles and schools which He favours, to the 
 exclusion and condemnation of mankind at large. Now 
 
290 THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. [SERM. 
 
 that the individual and the universal are so wonderfully 
 combined in the lessons and the life of the same man; 
 now that we know this to have been the great and 
 distinguishing reward which was conferred on him 
 above others, that he should tell all men what God felt 
 to them, and had wrought for them ; we are able to 
 enter through the disciple into the mind of the Master,, 
 who suffered for all and for each ; through the Master 
 into the mind of the Father, who rules in the armies 
 of heaven, and without whom not a sparrow falleth to 
 the ground. 
 
 III. ' To Him that washed us.' ' Hath washed^ might 
 be better, but there is no question that this word is in 
 the past. Be the word XvaavTL or Xovaavrc, the tense 
 is the same. The Apostle is often very inattentive 
 to tenses; he adopts a Hebrew freedom in the use 
 of them ; as if he would infuse into us the great Hebrew 
 truth, that God is, and was, and is to come; that the 
 Eternal has no portions nor divisions. But here he 
 is exact : the washing or the deliverance has been 
 effected; He that loveth us, hath given us this one 
 solid and satisfactory proof of his love, the only 
 one which could enable us to appreciate it, or partake 
 of it. 
 
 The second 'us' must, according to all reasonable 
 interpretation, have the same force and dimensions as 
 the first. Those whom He has washed, or set free, are 
 those whom He loves. Yet there is a pretext for 
 
XVIII.] THE ADOKATION OF THE LAMB. 291 
 
 confining the word in the one use^ which did not exist 
 with respect to the other. Sins, as I have contended 
 throughout these sermons, are actual, not metaphorical, 
 chains. They bind the spirit as truly, as consciously, 
 as material fetters ever have bound the body. Every 
 one has, in a more or less degree, the sense and 
 certainty of this bondage. The less we have of it, the 
 more passively we are slaves; every attempt in man 
 to raise himself is a tacit acknowledgment of it. But 
 if so, how can we speak of these chains as having been 
 actually broken for any one; how can we dare to 
 speak of them as broken for all? Punishment we 
 migV^v think of as remitted for a whole set of beings, 
 for a whole race ; but sin, the cause of punishment, 
 that of which each person must accuse himself, which 
 is so intensely individual and inward; how can we 
 for a moment speak of that as washed away, or taken 
 from us, while we feel it in ourselves, while we see it 
 multiplying and bringing forth new fruits in the 
 world ? 
 
 The question must be asked over again in this year 
 1854, — it must be asked as if it had never been asked 
 before; though the Bible, the Christian Church, the 
 Gospel which God has sent us to preach, have had no 
 other purpose than to answer it. Unless we have 
 courage to say to men, here and everywhere — to men 
 of whose condition we know nothing, except that it is an 
 evil one — ' The chain of sin has been loosed for you — 
 
393 THE ADORATION OP THE LAMB. [SERM. 
 
 ^ you have been cleansed from sins, emancipated from 
 ' sins, by the blood of Christ' — we have no message to 
 deliver from heaven to earth — we should not run, for 
 we have no tidings which our brethren are concerned 
 to hear. Unless we have courage to say in the most 
 respectable, most religious congregation or circle of 
 Englishmen, — ' So long as any of you abide in evil 
 ' practices, and habits, and principles, so long are you 
 ' slaves, in spite of Christ's redemption', — we are false 
 witnesses of God, we are deceiving people with pro- 
 mises that will not be performed, with names and 
 phrases that will prove their ruin. How may two such 
 opposite statements be reconciled? How may •'/e at 
 once say, ^ The emancipation has been effected ; 
 ' nothing can be more complete : there is a liberty with 
 ' which Christ has made us free, one and all' ; and yet 
 acknowledge the more strongly, in the full length and 
 breadth of it, the fact of the world's misery and wicked- 
 ness; the fact that every man is a participator in it, 
 and must seek every day a fresh purification, — must 
 confess every day how great a weight is sitting upon 
 him, — how feeble all those energies are with which he 
 tries to cast it off? 
 
 You will see at once, if ycu turn to the confessions of 
 different Churches, that they have been exercised with 
 this difficulty, and that every one of them has attempted 
 to assert the fact of a full and complete redemption, 
 without explaining away experiences which it especially 
 
XVIII.] THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. 293 
 
 behoved them to recognise and to encounter. Our own 
 Church is particularly distinct and strong in affirming 
 the doctrine of the text. It speaks of Christ being ' A 
 ^ sacrifice, not only for the original guilt, but also for the 
 ' actual sins of men.-' The expression is remarkable : it 
 takes for granted the redemption from original guilt — 
 from guilt you will observe, not punishment — as that 
 which was the common admitted belief of the whole 
 Church, and goes on to affirm — what had been denied 
 in a most practical manner — what the reformers were 
 especially raised up to assert, — that the sacrifice was also 
 the perfect means of deliverance from the sins which 
 men were committing day by day. All I wish is, that 
 preachers and hearers should enter into the sense of 
 these words ; that they should not merely repeat them, 
 or confess their adherence to them, while, in fact, they 
 are contradicting them, and setting up a directly oppo- 
 site doctrine in place of them. 
 
 If we try to understand what man is, what the rela- 
 tion between God and man is, from the fall of Adam ; 
 if we take that as determining the condition of our 
 race ; we set at nought the letter and still more the 
 spirit of our article. We deny that original guilt is 
 taken away by the Sacrifice of Christ ; we deny that 
 that Sacrifice has established a perfect reconciliation 
 between God and His creatures. And then whatever 
 efforts we make to give a sense to the other words 
 of the sentence, — however we may persuade ourselves 
 
294 THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. [SERM. 
 
 tliat we do get rid of our actual sins by believing in 
 Christ's sacrifice, — we shall find ourselves in continue,! 
 embarrassments ; explaining away the strong statement 
 of yesterday by the weak one of to-day; trying to 
 persuade men that they are redeemed, and pardoned, 
 and new creatures ; and then calling upon them to find 
 reasons and proofs in themselves, which they honestly 
 confess they cannot find, why these blessings, which 
 others have not, belong to them. Whereas, if we will 
 start, as the Church does, from the Incarnation and 
 Sacrifice of Christ, as being a full declaration con- 
 cerning man and God ; a full revelation of the nature 
 of both, and of the causes which have separated them ; 
 a full proof that in Christ they are for ever atoned; 
 then the sins of each particular man are interpreted by 
 that one all- comprehensive statement of our Lord — ' He 
 will convince the world of sin, . . . because they believe 
 not on Me.' There is no original guilt separating our 
 race and kind from Him who created us in His own Son. 
 The Eall is a fact in history, just as the Bible presents it 
 to us ; but it is not a fact from which we can dare to 
 deduce the Law under which we are living and acting : 
 for the Bible, in setting forth Christ as the Son of God 
 and the Son of Man, as the Bedeemer and Restorer of 
 man to his union with His Father, and to all the spiri- 
 tual freedom and prerogatives which that union implies, 
 proclaims to us another Law, the only human Law ; that 
 law in our members which resists it, and brings us into 
 
XVni.] THE ADORATION OE THE LAIiIB. 295 
 
 captivity, being altogether inhuman, one that separates 
 us from our brethren as much as it separates us from 
 God. 
 
 Believing in Christ, we believe this ; not believing 
 in Him, we treat that law in our members as if it were 
 some fatal necessity which forced us to sin ; we yield to 
 it ; we become utterly enslaved by it ; the appetite in 
 us lives; the man in us dies. And what slays the 
 tyrant and raises the dead? Nothing but this same 
 news. ' Christ has come to deliver you ; He has taken 
 ' your nature and died for you.' The spirit, in its deep 
 death-sleep, hears that voice, which had mingled in its 
 dreams with the songs of earth and the laughs of evil 
 spirits; it starts up with a wild fright; it finds that 
 its true Lord and Brother was inviting it back to its 
 native home. And how else does it recognise Him, but 
 by that blood-token, by the hands and side, as having 
 this right over it, this fellowship with it ? What can 
 it say but ' Thou hast set us free. Thou hast washed 
 ^ us from our sins in Thy blood. This united Thee to 
 ' our death ; this is the assurance that we are sharers in 
 'Thy life.' 
 
 IV. It is a King that our spirits cry for, to guide them, 
 discipline them, unite them to each other ; to give them 
 a victory over themselves, a victory over the world. It is 
 a Priest that our spirits cry for, to lift them above them- 
 selves to their God and Father ; to make them partakers 
 of His nature, fellow-workers in carrying out His pur- 
 
,296 THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. [SERM. 
 
 poses. Christ's Sacrifice is the one authentic testimony 
 that He is both the King and Priest of men. But 
 since He is come to make them like Him — since He 
 has taken their flesh and blood that they might have 
 His Sonship — they have a portion also in all that 
 appertains to that Sonship. ' He has made us, says St. 
 John, ' kings and priests unto God and His Father' The 
 kingly right of government over the earth, which was 
 assured to him at creation, is redeemed for him in 
 Christ. Earth is the instrument of his purposes, not 
 the mistress who may command him. But she is so, 
 while he reclaims that other more precious prerogative 
 of ruling himself, which Christ has also asserted for him. 
 which in Christ^s might, while he depends upon Him, he 
 can exercise. And so we understand why kingly autho- 
 rity has been so venerable and dear in men^s eyes ; why 
 it has also been at times so intolerable. While the 
 King acts as God^s minister, ruling himself, treating 
 earthly things as gifts and talents for the use of men, 
 he serves to awaken the sense of kingliness in his sub- 
 jects. They become free in their spirits, and they have 
 the self-restraint, the obedience of men. But when he is 
 a slave, they become slaves ; with the restless conviction 
 that they were made for something better, meant to be 
 like him who governs them; with the ignorant and 
 fantastic dream that they should be better, if they could 
 put themselves in his place, and have his opportunities 
 of self-indulgence and self-destruction. He is the true 
 
XVIII.] THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. 297 
 
 King^ who sacrifices himself that he may raise up a 
 generation of kings ; who are like him in proportion as 
 they have his spirit of sacrifice. 
 
 And so it is with the other ofiice. The Son of God is 
 the Priest for ever, the sympathising Priest touched with 
 the feeling of man^s infirmities; because He is filled with 
 the holiness and love of God ; bearing their sins, because 
 He is one with the All-Righteous. And He comes to 
 make us priests; to give us all the power of offering up 
 spiritual sacrifices to God ; of offering up ourselves ; of 
 feeling with our brethren; of bearing their burdens; 
 of entering into the holy place with them and for them; 
 of presenting to them the image of Christ^s Father and 
 their Father. Just so far as any priest on earth does 
 this, just so far will he obtain the recognition that is 
 good for him ; not a better recognition than His Lord, 
 but one that is the same in kind. He will help to raise 
 up priests to God among those who do not bear that 
 name officially. He will be ever leading men on to 
 that spiritual freedom, without which they cannot serve 
 the God whose name is the Redeemer. And it is 
 because we who are named priests of God have so 
 grievously forgotten this calling; have not believed 
 that we possess it; have brought men into bondage 
 instead of freedom; have neither felt with them nor 
 with Him who loves them, and has washed them in 
 His blood; it is for this reason that we hear complaints 
 of our craft which are just and reasonable, though the 
 
298 THE ADORATION OP THE LAMB. [SERM. 
 
 men who utter them may have a very dim and confused 
 sense of the liberty which they want ; and may only 
 desire to be rid of us, that they may not be reminded 
 of their spiritual rights, and may sink into brutes with- 
 out compunction or remorse. 
 
 Therefore, brethren, this is the sum of what the 
 Apostle tells us in this great ascription, and of what 
 I have been trying to say to you in these Sermons on 
 Sacrifice, — that we are all raised to a new and regene- 
 rate condition in Christ, — and that this is our true 
 human condition, — and that it is one which we may all 
 of us claim, — and that we shall only claim it when we 
 believe that there is a Son of God and a Son of Man, 
 who has delivered us by dying for us, and when we 
 vindicate as the highest gift He can endow us with, as 
 the greatest fruit of His Cross and Passion, the spirit 
 of self-oblation, the spirit in which He offered Himself 
 to God. Then we shall know that the Gospel is not 
 a cunningly devised fable; then we shall be certain 
 that the blood has been poured out, that the redemp- 
 tion and reconciliation has been made; then we shall 
 enter upon our kingly and priestly life. And since that 
 life must be for our brethren as well as for ourselves, 
 for men of every caste and character, we ought to 
 know how we have a right to regard them ; what we 
 have a right to tell them, respecting themselves and 
 respecting Him who created them. While we are un- 
 certain about that point; while we do not know whether 
 
XVIIT.] THE ADOExiTION OF THE LAMB. 299 
 
 we are to fly from tliem as devils^ or to recognise them 
 as children of one Father ; whether we are to esteem 
 them as creatures whom he has doomed to destruction, 
 or creatures whom He seeks to rescue from the destruc- 
 tion into which they fall through ignorance of Him, 
 and of His purposes to them; I cannot understand 
 how we can think one hopeful thought or speak one 
 helpful word. But in believing the fact which our 
 Catechism and our Articles, and the Bible far more 
 mightily than either, proclaim, that man is a redeemed 
 and restored creature, we do not, — as I have tried 
 partly to show you to-day, as I hope more fully to show 
 you next Sunday, — blink any of the facts which prove 
 that the world is lying in wickedness; or check any of 
 the hopes that it is to become a habitation of right- 
 eousness; we do not make ourselves fairer than we 
 are ; or lead any one to wish and pray less that he may 
 rise to a holier and purer condition of being. The 
 Sacrament of the Lord's Supper gathers up into itself 
 all that I have been saying to you on Sacrifice ; yea, 
 and all that the Apostle is saying in the wonderful 
 passage I have been commenting on. And while at that 
 Feast we give thanks for a Sacrifice, an oblation and 
 satisfaction, that has been made once for the sins of the 
 whole world; while we join with angels and arch- 
 angels round the throne, in praising for that finished 
 Sacrifice which sets forth, as nothing else can, the 
 thrice holy name of God ; we come also to confess sins 
 
300 THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB. [SERM. 
 
 in ourselves, of which the remembrance is grievous, 
 and the burden intolerable. We come to seek a 
 Redemption for our own souls and bodies, and for the 
 whole creation, from that travail and death which the 
 Son of Man underwent for all. We come as citizens 
 of a commonwealth over w^hich Christ is the King of 
 Kings and the High-priest, in which we ourselves are 
 kings and priests; but we come certain that, unless 
 God feeds us with the flesh and blood of His Son, 
 we have no power to fulfil any of our tasks in that 
 kingdom, to enjoy any of its immunities and rights. 
 Our confidence is that He has provided the spiritual 
 food, that He does awaken the spiritual appetite; 
 that the blood of the Lamb which has been shed, 
 has taken away the sins of the world, and that it has 
 power to take away the bitterness, and cowardice and 
 torpor which are our daily individual sins. We can in 
 that festival, we can in every act of our daily lives, give 
 thanks unto Him who has washed us from our sins, 
 and made us kings and priests to God; we can say. 
 Glory and dominion be unto Him for ever; for we 
 believe glory and dominion are Plis for ever. And 
 we are sure that to this prayer and ascription of ours, 
 God has given and will give His own Amen. 
 
XTX.] ( 301 ) 
 
 SERMON XIX. 
 
 THE WORD OF GOD CON-QUERING BY SACRIFICE. 
 
 (Lincoln's Inn, 8th Sunday after Trinity, August 6, 1854.) 
 
 Revelations xix. 11 — 17. 
 
 And I saio heaven opened, and heJiold a white [horse ; and he that sat 
 upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he 
 doth judge and make war. His eyes were as aflame of fire, and on 
 his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no 
 man Tcncw hut he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped 
 in hlood : and his name is called The Word of God. And the 
 armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed 
 in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp 
 sword, that with it he shoidd smite the nations : and he shall rule 
 them with a rod of iron : and he treadeth the wine-press of the 
 fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture 
 and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of 
 Lords.' 
 
 There have been many discussions about the time and 
 place in which the battle described in this chapter has 
 been^ or shall be fought. I do not know which of the 
 opinions on the subject is entitled to most regard. 
 Each of them, I think, must have its value, for I find 
 it difficult to conceive of any place and of any time, in 
 which the combatants spoken of by the Apostle have 
 
302 THE WORD OF GOD [SERM. 
 
 not been fighting with each other ; I am quite sure 
 the fight will be more terrible before the end comes. 
 Whatever place may not be the scene of it, I am con- 
 vinced England cannot claim to be that place. To 
 whatever distant times it may be prolonged, I would 
 tell you with all -earnestness, that we who are met here 
 this afternoon are in the midst of it now. The thought 
 may be an alarming one — if we lay it to heart, it will 
 be; — but it is also a very cheering one. I know not 
 any which may give us so much purpose and so much 
 hope. 
 
 Are there any gifts which we feel to be so needful 
 for us, as these? Are there any which we are so 
 conscious of wanting? What a number of utterly 
 purposeless men and women do we meet with, as we 
 journey through the world ! What noble powers do 
 we see going to waste, because there is nothing to fix 
 and concentrate them on one object ! What fine afi'ec- 
 tions are squandered upon nothing, or upon a multitude 
 of nothings ! What precious stores of information are 
 accumulated only to be dissipated in talk ! How, in 
 severe moods, one condemns these misusers of time and 
 opportunities ! how, in kindlier moods, one mourns over 
 them ! Yet, in the midst of our censures or our sorrow, 
 "what proofs we have that we are labouring under the 
 same infirmity! How continually we are reminded 
 that we, too, have been chasing shadows ; that we have 
 been drawn aside after one tempting projector another; 
 
XIX.] CONQUERING BY SACRIPICE. 303 
 
 or that we have been merely revolving in a circle ! 
 How many times onr conscience whispers to us, that we 
 have been merely carried along a current of customary 
 notions and observances ; that our acts have been deter- 
 mined by accidents and circumstances, not by our will ! 
 And how much has the indifference and listlessness 
 which we witness to do with want of hope ? How 
 strenuous, we are sure, some of the laziest people about 
 us might become, if they had but any goal in the dis- 
 tance which might some day be reached. If for a 
 moment they do catch sight of such a goal, if they only 
 fancy that they do, what a movement there is in the 
 midst of their torpor; how the dry bones shake, are 
 ready almost to come together, to start up, to live. But 
 it seems as if these impulses were to become rarer and 
 rarer. We feel sometimes as if we were born into a 
 busy, and excited, and yet into an exhausted age ; when 
 men, even boys, have become prematurely wise about the 
 vanity of human wishes j when the words of preachers 
 about the emptiness of pleasure and ambition, and the 
 poor results of study and enterprise, are all too readily 
 taken for granted. I do not mean that we pursue 
 pleasure or profit less, but we pursue them without 
 exhilaration. The appetite must be kept alive by con- 
 tinual excitements. The ordinary tradesman, and the 
 man of fashion, seem as if they both required gambling 
 to give them an interest in their different pursuits, and 
 to preserve them from utter vacuity. 
 
304 THE WORD OF GOD [SERM. 
 
 We have succeeded in persuading people that they 
 have nothing to live for, that death has set its mark 
 upon everything. They say, reasonably enough, that 
 they do not want to come to church to be convinced of 
 that, they are convinced of it already. Unhappily, we 
 have convinced them of nothing else. We have spoken 
 to them of a future state, which shall be altogether dif- 
 ferent from the present state. But, they say, that all 
 the visions we have given them of it, when we wish to 
 describe it in fair and glowing colours, are vague and 
 indistinct ; that there is nothing in them which a man, 
 who is either occupied with the world, or sated with it, 
 can take hold of. And if there were, they say they 
 are reminded in all our discourses, that they have no 
 part or lot in these anticipations. The happy future 
 belongs to a few souls, who are fenced round, and 
 distinguished, by inward signs and outward badges, from 
 the race of which it is their misfortune to be members. 
 The future state has nothing to present to that race 
 generally but images of gloom and horror. So men 
 on all sides of us affirm, and whether their complaint 
 is reasonable or exaggerated_, true or false, the result is 
 evident. There is a decay of hope, and of all the moral 
 strength which hope awakens. Men are not content 
 with what they see about them, far less content with 
 themselves, yet they do not look for anything higher 
 or better. They do not think it is worth while to 
 struggle to retain that which they have, any more than 
 
XIX.] CONQUERING BY SACRIFICE. 305 
 
 to grasp that which they have not. They expect changes, 
 they assume them to be inevitable. But they expect 
 no good from them, more than from the continuance 
 of that which they find so wearisome. There is a 
 sleepy, dreary, fatalism into which we are settling down. 
 The sleep is disturbed from without by the noisy clatter 
 of disputing sects, and by the groans of suffering multi- 
 tudes. It is disturbed from within, by dreams of what 
 we ought to do, of what we might be. We need some- 
 thing more than an earthly or a human voice to break 
 that slumber, and prevent it from passing into death. 
 
 I believe that voice is speaking to us in the text. 
 I need not repeat what I have said to you so often, 
 that the opening of heaven, in this book, and elsewhere 
 in Scripture, does not imply the discovery of a distant 
 or future paradise, but of that kingdom of God which 
 is in the midst of us ; the divine order which is hidden 
 from the eye, but apart from which nothing that the 
 eye beholds has any meaning or substance. What was 
 opened to the Seer at this time was then, as I believe, 
 the mystery of our human condition, of the world within 
 us and without us, of the power which is working for 
 every man and against every man, of the relation in 
 which every man stands to one of those powers and to 
 the other, of the purpose which may govern every 
 man's life, of the sure and certain hope which is set 
 before mankind, a hope of which every man is an inhe- 
 ritor, if he does not disclaim his manhood. Blessed 
 
 X 
 
306 THE WORD OF GOD [SEEM. 
 
 be God ! it is no sweet Arcadian picture of felicity 
 
 whicli is offered to us here. Behind, indeed, there are 
 
 visions of a most glorious peace, of a wonderful order, 
 
 of a new Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven. 
 
 But the way to them is through battle and blood. If it 
 
 were not so, these visions would have nothing to do 
 
 with us. We should say. They may be for some beings 
 
 of another mould, but we cannot be intended to realize 
 
 them. It is true that the Person whom St. John 
 
 saw, when the heaven was opened to him, was the same 
 
 whom Isaiah calls the Prince of Peace. But mark how 
 
 Isaiah introduces his description of that Prince, on 
 
 whose shoulder the government was to be : ' For every 
 
 battle of the warrior is with confused noise and garments 
 
 rolled in blood. But this shall be with burning and fuel 
 
 of fir e.^ The battle which was to assert the Name, and 
 
 vindicate the rights, of the Child that was born, of the 
 
 Son that was given, would not be less terrible than 
 
 other battles. The very essence of all that was fiercest 
 
 in them, would be in it. If all peace was the efflux of 
 
 that peace which dwelt in Him, all war would be the 
 
 expression and outcoming of that in which He was the 
 
 Leader and Champion. 
 
 It is then very necessary, brethren, that we should 
 not lose ourselves in the sublimity of the Apostle's 
 language ; that we should not cheat ourselves with the 
 miserable notion that he is dealing with fine oriental 
 hyperboles. We must be assured that he is speaking 
 
XTX.] CONQUERING BY SACRIFICE. 307 
 
 of the most intense reality^ that he is spurning fictions, 
 that he would make us acquainted with facts, that his 
 language is the most divine most inspired he could 
 find, but that it is only language still ; that the truth 
 it speaks of, the truth which we may know in ourselves 
 and in the history of the world, the truth which we 
 shall certainly know one day to be at the root of both, 
 is far deeper than any forms of human speech. And 
 St. John's is not, as some people may carelessly ima- 
 gine, difficult or unintelligible language. It is particu- 
 larly clear and transparent. We may cloud it with our 
 conceits, we may interpose a number of shadows, thrown 
 from ourselves, between it and our consciences ; but 
 if we will let it bear directly upon them, they will 
 recognise its force, they will not wait to have it trans- 
 lated into which is feebler and more formal. To some, 
 the language of symbols may seem unsatisfactory; 
 some may even denounce it as idolatrous and profane. 
 They may speak as they like ; but if they will have the 
 Bible, they must have symbols ; they must be content 
 to let God speak to them through the forms of sense, 
 because they are His forms, and because no others 
 could convey His meaning to the hearts which He 
 desires to take it in, so well as they do. 
 
 I do not, therefore, stop to give you some abstract 
 equivalent for the image of a white horse and One that 
 sat upon him. You know, far better than I can tell 
 you, what an impression of human dignity and lordship 
 
308 THE WORD OF GOD [SEEM. 
 
 that likeness has made upon men in all generations, 
 and does make upon us now. This impression is not 
 the effect of any peculiar or artificial training. You do 
 not receive it from a picture or a piece of sculpture, or 
 because you have been familiar from boyhood with the 
 Homeric epithet for the hero. That epithet would 
 have no force, if it were not an expression of act-aal 
 human feeling ; if it did not bear witness to that autho- 
 rity over the animal — over all the lower creation — 
 which belongs to our race in virtue of God's original 
 fiat. Here, then, we have the representation of this 
 human authority and vicegerency, the Person in whom 
 it was first vested, by whom it is really exercised, from 
 whom it descends upon mankind, or upon any man. 
 
 The first titles by which the Horseman is described 
 are Faithful and True. The old chivalry recognised 
 and adopted these names. They denoted the knight 
 who knew what his calling was. Gentleness in blood 
 and in behaviour, might be his greatest and most 
 necessary ornaments, but faithfulness and truth were 
 to be the substance of his character. In men, like 
 Louis IX., who at all acted up to their profession, we 
 perceive at once that these words express the ideal 
 which they set before themselves. What we are told 
 here is, that they did not make that ideal. It was not a 
 beautiful phantom projected from their own minds, the 
 apotheosis of that which they had thought and dreamed. 
 The Faithful and True Knight actually existed; they were 
 
XIX.] CONQUERING BY SACRiriCE. 309 
 
 but receiving a few imperfect graces corresponding to His 
 graces, — a few partial treasures out of His fulness. 
 
 Oftentimes it was the hardest thing for them to dis- 
 criminate between the right and the wrong — the false 
 and the true — in the men who served them, and in 
 those with whom they acted. They were sometimes 
 deceived by hypocrites, they were sometimes unjust to 
 honest people. Still they knew they had the faculty 
 of judgment ; they were permitted to exercise it in the 
 open tribunal, in the ordinary business of life. They 
 exercised it most safely and rightly towards others, 
 when they dealt strictly and honestly with themselves. 
 But in these secret transactions, also, they were liable 
 to be imposed upon. Bribes which corrupted the 
 judgment might be received with less sense of crimi- 
 nality, when they were pronouncing on their own acts 
 and thoughts. There must be a judge over them, over 
 their subjects, over all men. This Faithful and True 
 Knight, the Apostle says, is the E/ighteous Judge ; the 
 discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart ; the 
 perfectly clear and equitable and effectual divider be- 
 tween that which is, and that which is not, — between 
 the real thing, and the counterfeit which waits upon it. 
 
 To believe that there is such a Judge at the heart 
 of society, close to the heart of each man, is an infinite 
 security that the crude and random apprehensions, and 
 the selfish schemes, of individuals, or of ages, shall not 
 have power to make good evil, or evil good, however 
 
810 THE WOED OE GOD [SERM. 
 
 they may labour to do so. But yet the knight and 
 king on earth demanded more than a judge over him 
 and over his fellows. He felt that their wrongs needed 
 to be redressed, that the weak must be raised, and the 
 giants who trampled on them put down. How noble, 
 often, were his efforts to this end ! How salutary the 
 example which they presented to mankind ! Yet what 
 confusion was there in the very best of these efforts, 
 when directed by the best men ! What an excuse after 
 ages have had for saying, that the devotion and sacrifice 
 which were exhibited in them were thrown away ! nay, 
 that they sometimes wrought positive mischief ! How 
 certain it is, that when the knight began to idolise his 
 own work, and to perpetuate the mere forms of it, he 
 became himself an oppressor, whom it was right and 
 useful to dislodge by ridicule from the position which 
 he could no longer honourably fill ! What need, then, 
 was it, that the true knight should ask in his own day, 
 that the student of history should ask in our day, 
 Whether there is no permanent defender of the weak, 
 no permanent avenger of the evil doer, who knows 
 exactly which are the humble who need protection, 
 which are the proud that need to be abased; who is not 
 misled by appearances in one case or another; who is 
 bound by the forms and circumstances of no period or 
 locality ; who can compel the forms and circumstances 
 of all periods and localities to serve His righteous 
 purposes ? 
 
XIX.] CONQUERING BY SACRIFICE. 311 
 
 In righteousness^ says the Apostle, shall this faithful 
 and true Knight, both judge and make war. We look 
 upon this great war, which has been waged among men, 
 and upon that. We ask ourselves, Was it just ? was it 
 necessary ? We are often puzzled for the answer ; but 
 we feel that the question is a reasonable one, that there 
 are enormous differences between different wars ; that 
 with the objects of some, we can, in a great degree, 
 sympathise; that some we must almost entirely con- 
 demn ; and yet, that with respect to the actors in one 
 as well as the other, there may be something to admire, 
 something to denounce; and that the habit of pro- 
 nouncing a promiscuous approbation, under the plea 
 that war is in itself glorious, — or, under the plea 
 that all war is destructive, and, therefore, must be 
 hateful, effaces moral distinctions, and is injurious to 
 the conscience. Then again, how we are perplexed 
 when we find that wars we had reason to think un- 
 righteous have produced blessings ; and that wars from 
 which we could not withhold our sympathy, have tended 
 to demoralise a land. All these observations, and the 
 conclusions we found upon them, are utterly be- 
 wildering ; and the refuge which we seek, in attributing 
 all to a fixed necessity, is more disheartening still. But 
 if there is One who in righteousness maketh war ; who 
 is aiming distinctly, and with no double or doubtful 
 end, at the extirpation of falsehood, at the vindication 
 of truth : then we may understand how all things that 
 
312 THE WOED OF GOD [SERM. 
 
 seem to thwart His purpose, are at last helping 
 to forward it; then we may see, also, why every 
 fraudulent and selfish plan of ours, however it may be 
 designed to defend His power, is stamped with His 
 curse, and is part of that which He is pledged to 
 destroy. 
 
 All the time that I am saying these things, I feel 
 how likely you are, because I know how likely I am, 
 to think : ^ Yes ; this conception of the Apostle's is a 
 ' very fine one. Such a Knight, and Judge, and Warrior, 
 ' men have always talked about, or sighed for. It is a 
 ' proof of their greatness that they can construct such 
 ' a glorious specimen of Humanity, and can invest it 
 ' with Divinity.' A proof of our greatness ! Only 
 take in the sense of the next words, — only reflect on 
 them till you have made them your own, — and then 
 say, whether St. John is not making you feel your 
 littleness, your nothingness, the darkness and evil that 
 is in you, by bringing before you One who looks into 
 you, who sees you through and through, who has a 
 right to command you, of whom you can know nothing, 
 till He has first known you, and made you know your- 
 selves. ^ His eyes were as a flame of fire ; and on His 
 head were many crowns, and He had a name written that 
 no man knew but He Himself.^ That — that is what you 
 want ; that is what you are trying to conceive of ; be- 
 cause He has first conceived you and your whole race. 
 Oh ! if there is no such an One, — no one whom we 
 
XIX.] CONQUERING BY SACKIPICE. 313 
 
 cannot measure and fathom^ but who measures and 
 fathoms all that is within us; — no one who is King 
 over each of us, and over the whole intelligent and 
 voluntary universe, as well as over all nature — who has 
 these many crowns ; — no one who can say, ^ The Father, 
 ' and the Father only, knoweth the Son, as the Son, and 
 ' the Son only, knoweth the Father' ; what a mere chaos 
 is this which we call a creation, what a dream of a 
 shadow is man ! 
 
 The Apostle, St. John, declares that there is such 
 an One, and that ' He is clothed with a vesture dipped in 
 blood.' We have heard of His fidelity, of His truth, 
 of His clearness of vision, of his royalty, of his person- 
 ality. One sign is needful still to identify Him. These 
 garments speak of a Sacrifice. He has been slain — He 
 has given up himself — it is His own blood with which 
 He is stained. Thfs is the token that His faithfulness 
 and truth have encountered the spirit of selfishness, 
 the great enemy of both, and have prevailed; this 
 shows that no one dark film dims the insight of the 
 Judge ; that no one partial inclination sways, to right 
 or left, the sceptre of the King ; that the Name which 
 He bears is not that of some separate individual, but 
 of the Man, the Brother and Head of Men. And that 
 Name cannot, therefore, be expressed in the terms 
 which belong to our nature, though it is so intimately, 
 and inseparably involved with that nature, and with its 
 interests. His Name is called THE Word oe God ! 
 
314 THE WORD OF GOD [SERM. 
 
 You might have expected, when you had been told 
 of the vesture dipped in blood, to have heard another 
 Name than this; one which speaks of Humiliation, 
 of Sorrow, of Death. But if once we catch the least 
 glimpse into the mind of St. John, we perceive that 
 there can be no gulph between these ideas ; that the 
 very object of his whole teaching and life is to bring 
 them together, so that we shall feel that the divine 
 Word can only be known as the Lamb which was slain ; 
 that the death and sacrifice of the Lamb are nothing 
 except as they reveal that Filial Word, who was in the 
 bosom of the Father, and who has declared Him. 
 
 Dear brethren, if in the few broken hints I have 
 been giving you respecting the nature and effects 
 of sacrifice, I have, in any measure, been able to bring 
 this thought home to you, — to make you perceive that 
 the Cross of Christ makes known to us Him, in whom 
 we are created. Him by whom we consist, Him who is 
 the source of righteousness, of strength, of life to 
 every man, because He is Himself the Eternal Son 
 of God, and because by His acts he declares to us what 
 God is working in us, to will, and to be, and to do — then 
 I am sure, that what remains of this passage will come 
 back to you in hours of overwhelming sadness ; when 
 you are thinking of those whom you have conversed 
 with on earth, and whom you see no more ; when the 
 crimes and miseries of the actual world, and the cen- 
 turies during which they have been growing, press upon 
 
XIX.] CONQUEUTNG BY SACRIFICE. 315 
 
 you witli an intolerable weight ; when your own feeble- 
 ness and incapacity for struggling with the pettiest 
 temptation, for overcoming the most ignominious habit, 
 seems to make it almost monstrous that you should 
 be troubled about the transactions of the world, or the 
 doings of other men. 
 
 Is it nothing to remember that the Word of God is 
 not now treading the winepress alone, but that the armies 
 which are in heaven are following Him upon white horses, 
 clothed in fine linen, white and clean ? Is it nothing to 
 think, that every true and faithful man who has ever 
 wrestled with his own evil, and with the evil of his 
 brethren, with the world the flesh and the devil, 
 has been Christ^s soldier, cheered by His voice, 
 inspired by His Spirit ? Is it nothing to think, that you 
 have seen but the beginning of their warfare, — when they 
 were just learning the use of their arms, and wielding 
 them very awkwardly, (and how little did you know, 
 how little they knew themselves, of the severest con- 
 flicts they were passing through !) — but that now they 
 have entered upon a new stage of their service, and 
 have profited by their sorrowful experience and many 
 failures, and rule the things to which they often 
 yielded subjection, and confess and obey the Leader, 
 from whose yoke they so often broke loose? Is it 
 nothing to believe, that now they appreciate each other 
 better, and are not misled by appearances, and are not 
 separated by hard thoughts, but feel that a common 
 
316 THE WORD OF GOD [SERM. 
 
 bond unites them, that the same banner is over them, and 
 that they have been purified by the same blood from the 
 vain wishes and petty vanities which kept them asunder? 
 Is it nothing to think, that now they understand us 
 and sympathise with us, as they could not do before ; 
 because, if they are more awake to our evils, they are 
 more earnest to deliver us from them ; and because 
 they see us no longer as separate from Him who has 
 loved them and us, and given Himself for us? I say, 
 brethren, we have a right to cherish these thoughts 
 about those who have gone before us. For we are not 
 to judge them by our poor jaundiced sight, which 
 oftener rests upon blemishes than beauties, even when 
 we desire to discover them; but we are to contem- 
 plate them in the light of the great Sacrifice ; robed 
 and covered with Christ^ s vesture ; we are to believe 
 that He who is in the midst of the throne is feeding 
 them, as He fed them during their pilgrimage through 
 the earth on which He died. If, indeed, they were 
 purchasing a place for themselves there, by their sacri- 
 fices here, we might tremble for the best of them ; but 
 it is He, the Word of God, who has purchased for 
 them the privilege and the power of sacrificing them- 
 selves. He has redeemed them from the miserable 
 death of independence and selfishness, that they may 
 lead the true and pure life of obedience and self- 
 surrender. Do not, then, conceive of them as 
 dwelling in some distant, unknown region, where 
 
XIX.] CONQUERING BY SACKIEICE. 317 
 
 they possess some felicity from which you are ex- 
 cluded. Think of them as still caring for the earth, 
 and for the country, and village, and homestead in 
 which they learnt their lessons of humility and 
 trust; think of them as struggling that these may 
 become fit habitations for Eighteousness and Peace 
 to dwell in. 
 
 But if we may comfort one another with these words 
 concerning those who have fallen asleep, what comfort 
 can we find when we look upon this earth, and the 
 portions of it which we have most to do with, and see 
 in them the habitations, not of Eighteousness and 
 Peace, but of Tyranny, and Superstition, and Atheism ? 
 What happy dreams of that which has been, or of that 
 which may be to come, can make us endure the sight of 
 that which actually is ? No such dreams assuredly can 
 help us much. But these words that tell no dream, that 
 contain no soothing music, that are full of sternness and 
 terror, may be of mighty strength to us, if we will con- 
 sider them rightly. ' And out of His mouth goeth a 
 sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations ; 
 and He shall rule them with a rod of iron ; and He 
 treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of 
 Almighty God.^ Cannot we mitigate the severity of 
 this passage a little? May we not make a slight 
 allowance for the Jewish education even of the Apostle 
 of Love ? God forbid ! As long as there is oppression, 
 and anarchy, and evil in this world of ours, they are 
 
318 THE WORD OF GOD [SERM. 
 
 cowards, and enemies of their species and traitors to 
 charity, wlio would wish one word here to be milder 
 than it is, who do not rejoice that every word has its 
 real counterpart. How utterly mournful and unbear- 
 able is the history of mankind, if we do not believe that 
 wars, and plagues, and pestilences, that revolutions in 
 kingdoms, that the convulsions of Churches, have been 
 authentic testimonies that the Son of God Himself is 
 calling those whom He had set as stewards over His 
 household to answer for their trust ; that He is pro- 
 claiming the captive and the slave to be His — the 
 purchase of His own blood; that He is uttering, and 
 bringing forth into act, the fierceness and wrath of 
 Almighty God against those who are destroying the 
 heritage which He has redeemed. Oh, believe that it 
 is not some other, but the Saviour of the world, the 
 meek and lowly Jesus, who is executing this wrath and 
 vengeance of His Father. Ask that it may burn on, 
 till all that is resisting His love, and hindering the mani- 
 festation of it to mankind, be utterly consumed. Accept 
 every message of it, when it comes near to ourselves, as a 
 witness that there is some abominable thing, the fruit 
 of our selfishness, which must be destroyed, and which 
 God has doomed. Kern ember, that when Christ pre- 
 vails, it is over human wills ; that as long as these are 
 refractory, the battle must still go on ; that when He 
 enters His new Jerusalem to claim the triumph of the 
 conqueror, the multitude that go before and that 
 
XIX.] CONQUERING BY SACRIFICE. 319 
 
 follow, will sliout with their hearts and lips, ^ Hosanna! 
 Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,'' 
 And, therefore, whatever holds the will in bondage, 
 whatever makes these tongues incapable of praising 
 their true King, must be swept away, that He may be 
 known for what He is ; that His heavenly glory may 
 not be for ever hid behind the clouds which have been 
 drawn up from the earth. And this may reconcile us, 
 nothing else can, to that which is the most dismal 
 spectacle of all — the decay of faith in the Churches, 
 which have been called out to witness of the Word of 
 God, to testify that He is the King of kings and Lord 
 of lords. It must be shown, by clear and manifest 
 tokens, that the universe does not, as they have sup- 
 posed, stand upon their faith, their holiness, their sacri- 
 fices ; that it stands upon Him who is faithful and true, 
 upon His all-perfect Sacrifice by which God has recon- 
 ciled the world to Himself. So long as a Church, as 
 any Church, bears witness of this truth, so long it will 
 be doing its work, and the armies of heaven and He on 
 the white horse will be working and fighting with it. 
 Eut when one Church or another, under whatever pre- 
 text, inverts the principle of sacrifice, and puts the 
 acts of man in place of the act of God, and denies that 
 He has redeemed and restored mankind in His well- 
 beloved Son, and that His mind towards men is one of 
 Peace and not of evil ; it becomes a plague and curse 
 to the earth which it was appointed to bless, and the 
 
320 THE WORD OF GOD [SERM. 
 
 sharp sword which goeth out of the mouth of the Word 
 of God will cut it asunder. 
 
 Once more, brethren, let us not be cast down, nor lose 
 our heart and hope, for anything that we may feel 
 within, any more than for anything that we may see 
 around us. When the world seems most desolate of 
 God's presence, most rushing downward by its own im- 
 pulse and gravitation to a deep abyss, the Word of God 
 who created it, is still upholding it, and directing the 
 movements of it, let them be ever so irregular and 
 tortuous, to His own gracious and glorious ends. When 
 it seems most, as if all acts and all events obeved a law 
 of selfishness, that law is really producing nothing, 
 accomplishing nothing ; it is merely intercepting, for a 
 little while, by its feeble, insolent, vacillating rebellions, 
 the calm, onward march of those armies which obey the 
 true law of the universe, the law of sacrifice. A man 
 may ask in sadness and bitterness : ' But how can 
 ' I ever be joined to these armies ; how can I ever yield 
 ' to that law ? If self be but a rebellious power, yet in 
 ' me it seems a victorious one. I try to oppose it, but 
 ' each hour it comes upon me with fresh might. The 
 ' trophy of yesterday is exchanged for the more shameful 
 ' defeat of to-day. I shall be forced to yield at last, 
 ^ however I fight. I may as well yield at once.^ When 
 any man says this — as we all have said it in the misery 
 of our hearts, in mockery of the better convictions that 
 were working in us, — oh, let him recollect, that He, from 
 
XIX.] CONQUERING BY SACRIFICE. 321 
 
 whom those holier desires have proceeded — weak as 
 they may seem, ineffectual as they have proved — ' hath 
 on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, King oe 
 KINGS AND Lord oe lords.^ The secret of strength, 
 friend and brother, of all moral purpose is to assure 
 thyself that thou art not engaged in a battle between 
 two portions of thy own nature. It is Christ in thee who 
 is inviting thee, urging thee, commanding thee, to 
 every brave, and true, and earnest effort. And in His 
 commandment is life ; what He bids thee do. He will 
 enable thee to do. The might of His own sacrifice is 
 with thee. He who gave up Himself without spot to 
 God, will enable thee to ofiPer thyself, an acceptable and 
 reasonable sacrifice, to do His will, to glorify His 
 name. 
 
 And with moral purpose will come hope. When 
 we think of Christ as a Being at a distance from us — 
 who has merely done a mighty work ; when we eat the 
 bread and drink the wine in remembrance of an absent 
 Friend, not as pledges of a near and present one ; the 
 pressure of evil that crushes down our faith, and 
 hope, and love, seems to make the past redemption 
 wholly unavailing for our great necessity. But Christ 
 in us, as St. Paul told the Colossians, is the hope of 
 glory. What we want is not that we should attain some 
 separate and selfish bliss, but that He, who has been 
 striving with us all our lives through, to deliver us from 
 the separation and selfishness which have been our 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE WORD CONQUERING BY SACRIFICE. 
 
 torment and our curse, should finally effect His own 
 purpose; that He should be manifested to us, and to 
 the world, as the King who has va,nquished by sacrifice ; 
 that we should be His willing servants, the free children 
 of His Father, formed into one family and body by His 
 blessed Spirit for ever. Amen. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Some readers will detect a resemblance between certain passages in 
 these Sermons and the Sermon of Archdeacon Hare, On the Law of 
 Sacrifice. Though I have not read that Sermon recently, I may have 
 often fallen into the train of thought which is there followed out so 
 carefully ; it is quite possible that I may have unconsciously adopted 
 some of its expressions. Having joyfully confessed obligations to some 
 with whom I have no natural sympathy, it must be a great satisfaction 
 to own them in the case of a dear friend. I would observe, however, 
 that the plagiarisms must be looked for in the ethical passages of this 
 volume, to which, I trust, no devout reader will take exception; for 
 whatever is offensive in the theology, I am alone responsible. 
 
 A very learned work, expressly on the theology of this subject, 
 appeared in the course of last year. I feel that it would be an imper- 
 tinence to say how far the sentiments in a book so unlearned, so merely 
 practical as this, differ or accord with those which Mr. Thompson has 
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