.! w.1* tc r >( 
 
University of California. 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 DR. FRANCIS LIEBER, 
 
 Professor of History and Law in Columbia College, New York. 
 
 THK GIFT OP 
 
 MICHAEL REESE, 
 
 Of San Francisco. 
 


SERMONS 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. JOHN CAIRD, M.A. 
 
 M 
 
 MINISTER OP THE PARK CHURCH, GLASGOW, 
 
 AUTHOB OF "RELIGION IN COMMON LIFE," A 8ERMON PHEACHED HEFOBE 
 THE QUEEN. 
 
 NEW YOBK: 
 ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
 
 630 BROADWAY. 
 1858. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON 1. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE OP DIVINE TRUTH. 1 
 ''By manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every 
 man's conscience in the sight of God." 2 CORINTHIANS, 
 iv. 2. 
 
 SERMON II. 
 SELF-IGNORANCE 48 
 
 ""Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from 
 secret faults." PSALM xix. 12. 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE v 78 
 
 " Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 
 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the 
 sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and 
 whither it goeth : so is every one that is born of the 
 spirit." JOHN iii. 7, 8. 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 THE INVISIBLE GOD 121 
 
 " No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, 
 which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
 Him." JOHN, i 18. 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE MANIFESTATION OF THE INVISIBLE GOD 146 
 
 " No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, 
 which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
 Him." JOHN, i. 18. 
 
 SERMON V. 
 
 THE SOLITARINESS OF CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS 1G2 
 
 "I have trodden the wine-press alone." ISAIAH, Ixiii. 3. 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 
 PARTICIPATION IN THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. ... 202 
 " Rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of the sufferings of 
 Christ."! PETER, iv. 13. 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 
 SPIRITUAL REST 233 
 
 " Return unto thy rest, my soul." PSALM, cxvi. 7. 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 
 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY 265 
 
 " Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper 
 and be in health, even as thy soul prosporeth." 3 JOHN, 2. 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE 300 
 
 "All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, 
 or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things 
 to come ; all are yours ; and ye are Christ's ; and Christ 
 is God's." 1 CORINTHIANS, iii. 21, 22, 23. 
 
CONTENTS. V 
 
 SERMON X. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF CHRISTIAN RITUAL 330 
 
 " Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine 
 service." HEBREWS, ix. 1. 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 
 THE COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF CHARACTER AND 
 
 DOCTRINE 366 
 
 " Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine ; continue hi 
 them : for, in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and 
 them that hear thec." 1 TIMOTHY, iv. 16. 
 
Clje Self-dMeiuing ftature of $iiriue 
 
 " By manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every 
 man's conscience in the sight of God." 2 CORINTHIANS, iv. 2. 
 
 THE truth we receive from the 
 lips of another may either derive its 
 authority from the teacher, or reflect on him the 
 authority it contains. As the receiver of money 
 may argue, either that the money is good be- 
 cause it is an honest man who pays it, or that 
 the man is honest because he pays good money ; 
 so in the communication and reception of truth, 
 it may be a valid inference, either that the doc- 
 trine is true because it is a trustworthy man who 
 teaches it, or that the man who teaches is vera- 
 cious or trustworthy because his doctrine is true. 
 It is the latter mode of inference which is em- 
 ployed in the text. The apostle appeals to the 
 doctrine he taught as in itself a sufficient at- 
 testation of his character and credibility. The 
 
 Caird. 
 
2 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 message he had spoken was so completely in 
 accordance with reason and conscience it so re- 
 flected the profoundest convictions of the human 
 intellect, and responded to the deepest longings 
 of the human heart, that he needed no other 
 credentials in proclaiming it : it became at once 
 its own witness and his. The fragrance of the 
 heavenly deposit clung to the garments of him to 
 whom it was intrusted, and rendered him " a 
 sweet savor of life unto them" who received it. 
 The lamp of truth was not only seen by its own 
 light, but shed back its brightness on the face 
 of him who bore it. By the simple " manifesta- 
 tion of the truth, he commended himself to every 
 man's conscience in the sight of God." 
 
 That there is an order of truth, such as that 
 to which the apostle refers, every thoughtful 
 mind must be aware. As there are some truths 
 which we reach inferentially, by a process, 
 longer or shorter, of argument, deduction, dem- 
 onstration ; so there are other truths which are 
 perceived immediately and intuitively whenever 
 the mind is brought into contact with them. 
 All science is based on truths which constitute 
 
O F DIVINE TR UTH. 3 
 
 their own evidence. At the root of all knowl- 
 edge there are first principles which are inde- 
 pendent of proof, which to state is to prove to 
 every mind that apprehends them. Follow the 
 links in every chain of reasoning far enough 
 back, and you will come to a first reason which 
 hangs on no other, but is self-existent and self- 
 sufficient. Examine the contents of your knowl- 
 edge, and sooner or later you will penetrate to 
 the primary strata, which, unsupported, support 
 all besides. Of innumerable objects of thought 
 you may be able to say why you conceive them 
 to be true, or right, or beautiful ; but there are 
 some with respect to which you can give no 
 such reason, of which you can only say, I believe 
 them to be true, or good, or fair, because I be- 
 lieve them to be true, or good, or fair ; my mind 
 is so constituted that I can not otherwise regard 
 them ; they commend themselves at once to my 
 consciousness in the sight of God. 
 
 Now to this class belong many of the truths 
 of revelation. Of much that is contained in 
 Scripture the mind of man is so constituted, as, 
 immediately and intuitively, when brought face 
 
4 SELF-EVIDENCING NATUKE 
 
 to face with it, to recognise the truthfulness or 
 reality. As it needs no outward attestation to 
 prove to the tasteful eye the beauty of fair 
 scenes, as sweet sounds need no authentication 
 of their harmony to the sensitive ear ; so, be- 
 tween the spirit of man, and that infinite world 
 of moral beauty and harmony which revelation 
 discloses, there is a correspondence so deep and 
 real that the inner eye and ear, if undiseased, 
 discern at once in divine things their own best 
 witness and authority. In the original structure 
 of the soul, there is an unwritten revelation 
 which accords with the external revelation of 
 Scripture. Within the depths of the heart there 
 is a silent oracle, which needs only to be rightly 
 questioned to elicit from it a response in accord- 
 ance with that voice which issues from the lively 
 oracles of God. In one word, the appeal of 
 Scripture to the unbiassed conscience or con- 
 sciousness of man is, in great part, direct, imme- 
 diate, irresistible. It is this doctrine which I 
 now propose to explain and illustrate. As, how- 
 ever, it is a doctrine which, if unguardedly stated, 
 is extremely liable to misconstruction, I shall en- 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 5 
 
 deavor to show, in the first place, what is not, 
 before going on, secondly, to explain what is, its 
 true import. 
 
 I. By the statement that the truths of revela- 
 tion commend themselves to the conscience or 
 consciousness of man, it is not implied, that man,, 
 l/j the unaided exercise of his consciousness, could 
 have discovered them. In claiming for man's 
 spirit a power of recognising and responding to 
 the truth of God, we do not arrogate for it a 
 capacity, of itself, to originate that truth. 
 
 If there be an internal revelation already im- 
 printed on the human spirit, what need, it might 
 be asked, for any other ? If the truths of Scrip- 
 ture be so congenial to man's mind, in such 
 exact correspondence with the principles of 
 reason and conscience, might not reason and 
 conscience work out those truths independently 
 of any external aid ? What necessity for an 
 outward authority to announce to me that which, 
 by the fundamental laws of my being, I can not 
 help believing ? If the doctrines of religion ac- 
 cord with man's conscience as the principles of 
 
6 SELF-EVIDENCING NATUEE 
 
 arithmetic or geometry accord with man's reason, 
 what need for an oracle to reveal the former any 
 more than the latter ? In asserting that divine 
 revelation is self-evidencing, do we not virtually 
 assert that it is uncalled-for or superfluous ? 
 
 Now, to all such questions the obvious an- 
 swer is, that the power to recognise truth, when 
 presented to us, does not by any means imply 
 the power to find out or originate the same truth. 
 The range of intellect which enables a man to 
 perceive and appreciate thought, falls far short 
 of that which is necessary to excogitate or cre- 
 ate thought. We may apprehend what we could 
 not invent. To discover, for instance, some great 
 law of nature, to evolve some grand principle of 
 science, implies in the discoverer the possession 
 of mental powers of the very rarest order ; but 
 when that law or principle has once been pointed 
 out, multitudes who could never have discovered 
 it for themselves may be quite able to verify it. 
 The law of gravitation was unknown to man for 
 ages, till one great mind arose, of grasp sufficient 
 to penetrate into the arcana of nature, and bring 
 to light this great secret of her order ; but, now 
 
OF DIVINE TR UTH. 7 
 
 that the discovery has been achieved, all men of 
 ordinary intellectual capacity can apprehend its 
 evidence, and satisfy themselves of its truth. 
 Viewed merely as what is knowable involved 
 in the laws of human thought all Euclid is in 
 the mind of a savage ; but whilst minds of the 
 rudest cast may easily be educated into the capa- 
 city to verify Euclid, how very few of the whole 
 human race could have struck out his discover- 
 ies for themselves ! All abstract science or 
 philosophy, in fact, is but the evolving of the 
 latent contents of our consciousness the bring- 
 ing to light by observation, reflection, analysis, 
 of those truths which implicitly are possessed 
 by all ; but though, virtually, these truths would 
 never become really ours, they would never be 
 known at all by common thinkers, but for the 
 aid which the discoveries of high and philosophic 
 minds afford them. So, again, to what is it 
 that the great poet owes the power to charm and 
 thrill the minds of men what is the secret of 
 the spell which his genius exerts over multi- 
 tudes, but this, that he gives expression to their 
 own indistinct and unuttered thoughts and feel- 
 
8 SELF-EVIDENCING NATUEE 
 
 ings to thoughts and feelings which, though 
 none but men of rarest genius could articulate 
 them, the common heart and soul of humanity 
 recognises as its own ? Millions can perceive 
 and appreciate the power, the reality, the true- 
 ness to nature, of the great writer's productions, 
 who could never themselves have produced 
 them. There are multitudes of "mute inglori- 
 ous Miltons," though there never lived but one 
 who could write the "Paradise Lost." Dim, 
 indistinct, nebulous, the thoughts of beauty and 
 truth lurk in many a mind, but it is only the 
 creative voice of genius from without that con- 
 denses and shapes them into visible beauty 
 gives to them local habitation and name and so, 
 by interpreting ourselves to ourselves, commends 
 its utterances to every man's consciousness in 
 the sight of God. 
 
 Now, to apply this principle to the case be- 
 fore us : It is obvious that the appeal of Scrip- 
 ture to man's reason and conscience does not by 
 any means imply in man's 'reason and conscience 
 a capacity to discover divine truth by their own 
 unaided exercise. Here, too, is a case in which 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 9 
 
 it is possible for the human mind to recognise 
 and identify that which, of itself, it could not 
 have found out. There may he, and we shall in 
 the sequel attempt to show that there are, in the 
 soul, latent beliefs, dim inarticulate yearnings, 
 unexplained hopes and aspirations, which are to 
 itself unrealised and unintelligible, till the out- 
 ward shining of divine truth pours light and 
 meaning upon them. There may be, and we 
 maintain that there are, inscribed on the mind 
 and conscience of man, the characters of an un- 
 known language, to which revelation alone sup- 
 plies the key, and which, read by its aid, become 
 the truest verification of that which interprets 
 them. Bring " one that believeth not, or one 
 unlearned," face to face with him who speaks 
 the Word of inspiration, and, as he listens, there 
 will be roused within him a something that 
 claims in that word a strange affinity Avith itself; 
 " he will be convinced of all, he will be judged 
 of all ; the secrets of his heart will be made 
 manifest, and so he will worship God and report 
 that God is here of a truth." In that world of 
 eternal and invisible realities to which, as spir- 
 
10 SELF-EVIDENCING NATUEE 
 
 itual beings, we belong, there are heights too 
 vast for human soaring, mysteries too profound 
 for fallen humanity, of itself, to penetrate. But 
 though by no unaided "searching" could we 
 " find out God ;" though, again, the conception 
 of a pure and holy moral law, or yet again, the 
 vision of a glorious immortality, be unattainable 
 by any spontaneous effort of human reason, yet 
 there is wrought into the very structure of man's 
 nature so much of a divine element, there is a 
 moral standard so ineffaceably inscribed on the 
 conscience, there slumbers in the universal 
 heart a desire and yearning after immortality 
 so deep and strong, that that Bible, which con- 
 tains in it the revelation of God, and Holiness, 
 and Heaven, finds in the awakened soul an in- 
 stant response and authentication of its teach- 
 ings. Divine truth, therefore, undiscoverable 
 by human reason, is yet so in harmony with it ; 
 inaccessible to the human mind, yet so accords 
 with all its half-acknowledged principles and 
 aspirations ; inexpressible by human lip, yet so 
 expresses for man things which he thought but 
 could not utter for himself that it " commends 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 11 
 
 itself to every man's consciousness in the sight 
 of God." 
 
 2. Again, in averring that the truths of reve- 
 lation commend themselves to the consciousness 
 of man, not only do we not ascribe to the con- 
 sciousness a power to discover those truths, but 
 we do not even imply that the consciousness in its 
 unrenewed and imperfect state is qualified fully to 
 recognise and verify them when discovered to it. 
 
 It might be admitted that the mind of man, 
 in its unimpaired and perfect state, is so in har- 
 mony with the mind of God as at once to echo 
 and respond to the utterance of that mind in his 
 revealed Word. But the mind of man is not 
 perfect and unimpaired. The moral reason has 
 become dimmed and distorted, so that, instead 
 of affording a perfect, unerring reflection, it 
 breaks and refracts the light of truth into a 
 thousand unreal forms and phantasms. It might 
 be possible for the inner eye and ear, if endoAved 
 with all the soundness and delicate suscepti- 
 bility of health, at once to recognise the beauty 
 and harmony of divine things ; but the vision 
 of the SQU! is blurred, the spiritual ear has lost 
 
12 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 its sensitiveness to heaven's music. How then 
 any longer can the soul be regarded as the cri- 
 terion of truth how can it be asserted that the 
 truth commends itself to every man's conscious- 
 ness ? Is not such a statement at variance with 
 that other doctrine of Scripture, that " the nat- 
 ural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
 of God, neither can he know them, because they 
 are spiritually discerned ?" And if, in answer 
 to this, it be said that there is a restorative 
 operation of the Spirit of God on the minds of 
 those who receive the truth, still it may be re- 
 joined, that it is by the truth, apprehended and 
 believed, that the Holy Spirit works in restoring 
 or renewing the mind, and that therefore the 
 apprehension or recognition of the truth must 
 be, in some sort, prior to the restoration of the 
 mind to purity and goodness. How then, again 
 may it be asked, can the truth be said to com- 
 mend itself to an impaired, imperfect conscience ? 
 How can light be perceived by blind eyes, har- 
 mony by dull or deaf ears ? 
 
 The solution of this difficulty will perhaps be 
 found in the consideration that divine truth 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 18 
 
 exerts on the mind of man at once a restorative 
 and a self-manifesting power. It creates in the 
 mind the capacity by which it is discerned. As 
 light opens the close-shut flower-bud to receive 
 light, or as the sunbeam, playing on a sleeper's 
 eyes, by its gentle irritation opens them to see 
 its own brightness ; so the truth of God, shining 
 on the soul, quickens and stirs into activity the 
 faculty by which that very truth is perceived. 
 It matters little which of the two operations, in 
 logical or in natural order, be first; practically 
 they may be regarded as simultaneous. The per- 
 ception rouses the faculty, and yet the faculty is 
 implied in the perception. The truth awakens 
 the mind, and yet the mind must be in activity 
 ere the truth can reach it. And the same two- 
 fold process is carried on in the whole subse- 
 quent progress of the soul. Light and the 
 Organ of Vision, Knowledge and the Under- 
 standing, Divine Truth and the Spiritual Rea- 
 son, grow and expand together. They act and 
 react. They are reciprocally helpful. They 
 are, each by turn, cause and effect. It is in this 
 case as in secular studies and contemplations, 
 
14 SELF-EVIDENCING NATUKE 
 
 each advance in knowledge disciplines the know- 
 ing faculty, and the discipline of the faculty 
 renders it capable of still further advances in 
 knowledge. With each new problem mastered, 
 each difficult step in science or philosophy over- 
 come, the powers of observation, comparison, 
 analysis, are invigorated, the mental habits of 
 attention and application are strengthened, and 
 thus a wider range of knowledge, a larger, 
 clearer, more comprehensive view of truth, be- 
 comes possible to the mind. So, again, the ob- 
 servation of Nature both presupposes and culti- 
 vates the sense of beauty. The sight of her 
 material glory rouses the dormant imagination 
 into action ; but it needs long familiarity with 
 her presence, long and reverent study and con- 
 templation of her manifold forms and aspects, 
 till her full splendor breaks upon the chastened 
 eye. In the very act of contemplation the con- 
 templative powers are expanded, the percep- 
 tions quickened, the elements of feeling and of 
 thought purified and enriched ; and so the whole 
 mind and spirit of the observer of Nature be- 
 comes qualified for the more perfect apprehen- 
 
OP DIVINE TRUTH. 15 
 
 sion of her loveliness. In like manner the 
 powers of spiritual discernment, incapable at 
 first of recognising the full glory and beauty of 
 divine truth, become, by daily converse with it, 
 more and more qualified to know it. In each 
 act of earnest study of God's word a reflex pro- 
 cess of refinement is going on ; something of the 
 mind's dulness and insensibility is thrown off, 
 and some new touch of spiritual acuteness com- 
 municated. The spiritual appetite, growing by 
 what it feeds upon, becomes capable of assimila- 
 ting more and more of its divine nutriment. 
 The inner eye and ear acquire by exercise a 
 more and more delicate acuteness and accuracy 
 of perception ; until at last, as the result of its 
 long converse with truth, the soul learns to re- 
 cognise it with an almost instinctive sureness, 
 and with a sensitiveness on which not the 
 slightest shade of its beauty, not the most evan- 
 escent tone of its heavenly harmony, is lost. 
 Thus, impaired and defective though our nature 
 be, inasmuch as the truth restores and refines 
 the very powers by which it is recognised, 
 it may still be maintained that it " commends 
 
16 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 itself to our consciousness in the sight of 
 God." 
 
 II. Such, then, being some of the limitations 
 under which the doctrine of the text is to be 
 understood, I now proceed more directly to ex- 
 plain its true import. In what way may we 
 conceive of divine truth as commending itself to 
 the consciousness of man ? It does so, I answer, 
 first, by revealing to man the Lost Ideal of Ms 
 Nature. 
 
 The gospel is, in one view of it, the disclosure 
 to man of the true ideal of humanity, the dis- 
 covery of the perfect type of our being, lost by 
 sin, and yet recoverable in Christ. And whilst 
 man, fallen and degraded as his nature has be- 
 come, could never have found out that ideal for 
 himself, yet, when it is presented to him in 
 Scripture, there is that within him which is ca- 
 pable of recognising it as his own. For the re- 
 cognition of a lost ideal is a mental act, the pos- 
 sibility of which to a moral and spiritual being, 
 it is not difficult to conceive. The degenerate 
 plant has no consciousness of its own degrada- 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 17 
 
 tion, nor could it, when reduced to the character 
 of a weed or a wild-flower, recognise in the fair 
 and delicate garden-plant the type of its former 
 self. The tamed and domesticated animal, 
 stunted in size, and subjugated in spirit, could 
 not feel any sense of humiliation when con- 
 fronted with its wild brother of the desert, fierce, 
 strong, and free, as if discerning in that spec- 
 tacle the noble type from which itself had fallen. 
 But it is different with a conscious, moral being. 
 Reduce such an one ever so low, yet you cannot 
 obliterate in his inner nature the consciousness 
 of falling beneath himself ; you cannot blot out 
 from his mind the latent reminiscence of a nobler 
 and better self which he might have been, and 
 which to have lost is guilt and wretchedness. 
 So that, should there ever be brought before a 
 fallen moral nature, in outward form and reality, 
 a Being the noble realisation of its own lost 
 spiritual excellence the full, perfect, beautiful 
 reproduction in actual existence of that splendor 
 of moral loveliness which once was its own 
 it is conceivable that the latent instincts of the 
 soul would be roused to recognise and identify 
 
18 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 therein its lost original. Confront the fallen moral 
 intelligence with its own perfect type, and in the 
 instinctive shame and humiliation that would 
 arise within it, as at the spectacle of a glory it 
 had lost, a native nobleness from which it had 
 degenerated, there would be elicited an involun- 
 tary recognition of the truthfulness of the por- 
 traiture. 
 
 Now, such is the response which the spirit of 
 man, in the hour of contrition, renders to the 
 perfect type of moral excellence which the gos- 
 pel brings before it. For it is to be considered 
 that the sorrow and self-abasement which the 
 " manifestation of the truth" calls forth in the 
 awakened and penitent heart, derive their pecu- 
 liar poignancy from the fact, that it is a sorrow 
 not so much of discovery as of reminiscence. 
 In the contemplation of God's holy law, and 
 especially of that perfect reflection of it which 
 is presented in the person and life of Jesus, 
 the attitude of the penitent mind is that, not 
 simply of observation, but of painful and humilia- 
 ting recollection. The mental process that takes 
 place may be described as analogous to one 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 19 
 
 with which we are all familiar that in which 
 the mind goes in search of some word, or name, 
 or thought, which we cannot at once recall, yet 
 of which we have the certainty that once we 
 knew it ; so that, when at last, after laborious 
 groping, it flashes on the memory, we recognise 
 it not as a new word or thought; but as one, the 
 familiar form and aspect of which at once com- 
 mend it to our consciousness. Or the recogni- 
 tion of the truth as it is in Jesus by the awak- 
 ened soul, may be represented as still more 
 closely parallel to the feeling of one who re- 
 visits, in reverse of fortune, and after long years 
 of absence, a spot with which, in other and hap- 
 pier days, he was familiar. It is conceivable 
 that such an one might move for a while amidst 
 old scenes and objects, unconscious of any past 
 and personal connection with them ; until at last 
 something occurs to touch the spring of associa- 
 tion, when instantly, with a rush of recollection, 
 old sights, impressions, incidents, come thick 
 and crowding on the spirit, and the outward 
 scene becomes clothed with a new vividness, 
 and is perceived with a new sense of identity. 
 
20 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 The contemplation is no longer sight but recog- 
 nition ; and as every object which the eye sur- 
 veys recalls to the saddened spectator a bright 
 and better past, brings up, in contrast with 
 what he now is, the joyous, healthy, happy 
 being which once he was, it is a keener and 
 deeper anguish far, a sorrow sharpened by the 
 whet of reminiscence, which now pierces his 
 soul. 
 
 Now, analogous to this is the process which is 
 involved in the manifestation of the truth to the 
 awakened mind. In the Scripture ideal of holi- 
 ness, and in that sublime embodiment of it which 
 is presented in the character and history of Je- 
 sus Christ, the soul, when brought face to face 
 with it, recognises a something which conies 
 home to its inner consciousness with all the 
 painful reality of a lost and abandoned good. 
 If the life of Christ were an ideal of excellence 
 altogether foreign to us, the shame of the con- 
 victed conscience would lose half its bitterness. 
 Did we perceive in it only a vague grandeur, 
 which, out of the sphere of our consciousness, 
 could be only half understood by it, we should 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 21 
 
 feel no more shame in falling short of that ideal 
 than the worm in that it cannot cope with the 
 eagle's flight, or the stammering child in that he 
 possesses not the wisdom and the eloquence of 
 the sage. But the latent element that lends 
 sharpness to the stings of self-accusation in the 
 mind aroused by the manifestation of the truth, 
 is the involuntary recognition in Christ of a dig- 
 nity we have lost, an inheritance we have wast- 
 ed, a perfection for which the spirit of man was 
 formed, but which it has basely disowned. Re- 
 pentance is the recognition by the fallen self of 
 its true self in Christ. As the touched and 
 troubled heart listens to the story of that beau- 
 teous life ; as there rises before the spirit's 
 quickened eye the vision of a Perfect Innocence 
 in human form of a sublime purity with which 
 no alloy of sternness mingles, a mental and moral 
 elevation in which no trace of self-consciousness 
 can be detected, a piety rapt as an angel's com- 
 bined with the unassuming simplicity of a child, 
 as we ponder the narrative of a life of holiest 
 fellowship with God, maintained amidst inces- 
 sant toil and intercourse with men, a life of per- 
 
22 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 sistent self-sacrifice, undimmed by one thought 
 of personal ease, or one act of selfish indulgence 
 a life in which love, tender as a mother's, 
 grew more fervent amidst ingratitude, waxed 
 stronger and deeper amidst insults and wrongs 
 received at the very hands of its objects; in 
 one word, as inspiration summons up to the 
 awakened mind the spectacle of a perfectly holy 
 human life, the deepest instincts of our nature 
 are stirred to discern herein its own lost ideal 
 the type of excellence after which it may have 
 vaguely groped, but which it never realized till 
 now. " Here" is the soul's involuntary con- 
 viction " Here is that conception which haunt- 
 ed me ever in my sinfulness, yet which I never 
 fully discerned till now ; here is that Light to 
 which my darkened conscience was vainly 
 struggling, that standard to which my dim sense 
 of a Right I was abusing, a Purity I was sully- 
 ing, a home of my spirit's peace and innocence 
 I was forsaking, ever unconsciously pointed. 
 And in this my vague and shadowy Ideal now 
 become the Real, in this which gives to the fan- 
 tasy of my weak and wavering imagination cor- 
 
OFDIVINETKUTH. 23 
 
 rectness, condensation, reality, in this truth of 
 life in Christ Jesus there is that which ' com- 
 mends itself to my conscience in the sight of 
 God.' " 
 
 2. Again; the truth as it is in Jesus com- 
 mends itself to our consciousness, not only in 
 revealing to man the Lost Ideal of his nature, 
 but also in discovering to him the mode of regain- 
 ing it. The Scriptures appeal to man's nature 
 for a verification of their account, not only of 
 the ruin that affects it, but also of the mode of 
 recovery ; they claim from the conscience not 
 only a response to their description of the dis- 
 ease, but also a recognition of the suitability and 
 sufficiency of the remedy they prescribe. The 
 gospel awakens in man's breast an echo to its 
 teaching, first, in the mournful acknowledgment, 
 " this is the purity and peace I have lost," and 
 then in the joyful recognition, " this, and none 
 but this, is the mode of regaining it." 
 
 No state of mind can be conceived more dis- 
 tressing than that of the man who, voluntarily 
 or involuntarily, is falling below his own ideal. 
 To have within me the conception of a high and 
 
24 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 noble standard with which my own perform- 
 ances are in miserable contrast, the vision of a 
 beauty and excellence which I admire and 
 honor, but which, in all that I am, and all that 
 I do, I practically disown ; this is a condition 
 the painfulness of which no mind can long en- 
 dure. For a man's own comfort, he must either 
 forget his ideal, or strive to realise it ; banish 
 from his mind the thought of his lost purity and 
 happiness, or set himself to regain it. 
 
 It would be mistaken kindness to take a 
 child, whose destined lot in life is a lowly and 
 penurious one, and let him live in a home of 
 wealth and refinement long enough to familiar- 
 ize him with the tastes, habits, feelings of a high 
 social sphere ; for by so doing you would only 
 awaken in his mind unsatisfied desires, and ren- 
 der him wretched in his humble condition by 
 the consciousness of a standard far above its re- 
 sources. Or take the poor member of some 
 rude and savage race, and permit him to reside 
 in a civilized country till his mind has become 
 in some measure receptive of the ideas, and ac- 
 customed to the amenities, of civilization, and 
 
OF DIVINE' TRUTH. 25 
 
 then send him back to his former haunts and 
 companionships. Would not the result of such 
 a discipline, in all probability, be that which has 
 sometimes been witnessed in the contact of bar- 
 barism with civilisation profound melancholy 
 in the remembrance of a lost social elevation, or 
 recklessness in the attempt to forget it ? But 
 such illustrations fall far short of the misery of 
 a mind on which has dawned the true concep- 
 tion of the nobleness of human life, the lofty 
 ideal of moral greatness in Christ Jesus, whilst 
 yet its own life is one of selfishness and sin. 
 To such a mind there are but two ways in 
 which it can attempt to regain its lost tranquil- 
 lity viz., either the miserable and ineffectual 
 way of reckless self-forgetfulness, or the true 
 and Christian way of earnest aspiration and en- 
 deavor to reach its own ideal, and become that 
 which it admires. 
 
 Now, the gospel not only brings before man 
 the true representation of his lost perfection and 
 glory in Christ Jesus, but it so meets and adapts 
 itself to the soul which is in the attitude of 
 aspiration after that perfection, that the whole 
 
 Caird. 
 
26 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 conscious nature recognises and responds to the 
 provision that is made for its wants and exi- 
 gencies. 
 
 The great obstacles to the soul's recovery of 
 its lost ideal are obviously these two the sense 
 of Guilt and the consciousness of Moral Weak- 
 ness ; and the two great needs, therefore, of 
 every awakened mind, are the need of Forgive- 
 ness and the need of Moral Strength. And it 
 is in meeting and supplying these wants that the 
 truth as it is in Jesus commends itself most pro- 
 foundly to the consciousness of man. 
 
 (1.) The soul aspiring after holiness craves, 
 to take the former of these, deliverance from 
 Guilt ; and to that deep-felt want the gospel re- 
 sponds in the revelation of God in Christ Jesus. 
 Consider how it is that the sense of guilt re- 
 presses aspiration and energy in the awakened 
 mind, and what, consequently, is the precise 
 nature of that deliverance from guilt after which 
 it longs. In some respects the analogous case 
 of the debtor's embarrassments may help us to 
 conceive of the needs of the guilty soul. When 
 a man becomes deeply and inextricably involved 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 27 
 
 in debt, we know that his condition is often one 
 of deplorable incapacity and weakness. Debt 
 acts as a dead-weight on a man's energies. He 
 who rises day by day to the consciousness of 
 obligations which he can not meet, who sees no 
 possibility of extrication from pecuniary diffi- 
 culties, not seldom loses all elasticity of mind 
 becomes spiritless, languid, enervated. He has 
 no heart to enter on any new work or enterprise 
 so long as the past, with its hateful involvements, 
 is ever confronting him. Do what he may, he 
 feels that no eifort of his can do more than cleai 
 off a mere fraction of the burden that oppresses 
 him, and so the main stimulus to exertion is 
 gone. Unable to retrieve the past, he perhaps 
 resigns himself with a dull hopelessness and in- 
 activity to his lot ; or, feeling that he can not 
 make matters better, becomes careless how he 
 makes them worse. What this man wants in 
 order to rouse him to effort, is to cut off his con- 
 nection with the past, to sweep away its accu- 
 mulated and insoluble obligations, and let him 
 have a fair start in life again. Or, again, it may 
 aid us in conceiving of the needs of a soul con- 
 
28 SELF-EVIDENCING NATUEE 
 
 scious of guilt, if we reflect on the depressing 
 influence often produced by loss of character and 
 reputation in the world. A man who has lost 
 caste in society, has lost with it one of the most 
 powerful incentives to effort. The atmosphere 
 of mistrust and suspicion which past misdemean- 
 ors create around the erring, has a notorious 
 tendency to crush hope and energy within him. 
 The incitements of sympathy, honor, public 
 opinion, no longer act upon him. The impossi- 
 bility of regaining his lost place in the respect 
 and estimation of society, quells hope and ambi- 
 tion in his breast ; and, aware how bad is the 
 opinion which is entertained of him, he perhaps 
 becomes careless how much he deserves it. If 
 he could begin life anew if the hateful Past, 
 with its indelible memories, could be annihilated 
 it might be different with him ; but that 
 dreadful Past haunts his thoughts, is reflected 
 from the looks of his fellow-men, disturbs and 
 oppresses him wherever he goes. Do what he 
 may, men will not think well of him, and he 
 perhaps abandons himself to the wretched con- 
 tentment of despair. 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 29 
 
 Now, such analogies as these may aid our 
 conceptions of that obstacle which guilt presents 
 to the soul that is longing to regain its lost 
 moral glory. Like debt, conscious guilt hangs 
 upon the awakened spirit, and clogs its energies. 
 Of what avail any new effort to be good, so long 
 as that record of neglected duties and responsi- 
 bilities confronts it ? The utmost exertion is in- 
 sufficient even to meet the demands of daily duty 
 much less can it serve to wipe off the old score 
 of guilt. Each day but adds to the undischarged 
 and ever-growing debt; and the burden on the 
 conscience, do what the man will, becomes 
 heavier and heavier. If he could but begin life 
 anew if the past could be lived over again if 
 the troubled soul could be made to feel as if the 
 past had not been, and all its accumulated obli- 
 gations were swept away if the conscience were 
 left free to enter, with all the elasticity of inno- 
 cence, on a new life of duty, then there might 
 be hope for the future. But no earthly power 
 can effect such a discharge. Nothing can dis- 
 sever the soul from its terrible responsibility for 
 the debt of sin. So again, like the ban of social 
 
30 SELF-EVIDENCING NATUKE 
 
 condemnation, guilt, reflecting in the conscience 
 the divine disapproval, incapacitates the soul for 
 effort. But all such analogies are but partial 
 and inadequate representations of the moral 
 hindrance of guilt. For debt, however, heavy, 
 is not, in the nature of things, insoluble or un- 
 transferable ; but guilt is. There is at least the 
 possibility that the insolvent man may, by re- 
 doubled exertions, or by some unexpected access 
 of fortune, or by the intervention of a friend, be 
 freed from the depressing responsibility for the 
 past. But in sin the aroused conscience feels 
 that there is a certain strange indelibleness. 
 8m, once committed, can not be unsinned. No 
 conceivable earthly resources can ever pay off 
 the debt which a guilty deed involves, and there 
 is no possibility of transferring the obligation to 
 another. The man, again, who has compromised 
 himself with human society, may, by lapse of 
 time or removal from the scene of his misdeeds, 
 escape from the depressing influence of social sus- 
 picion and mistrust. But from the ban of Omni- 
 science there is no such escape. Infinite Justice 
 is independent of space and time. It knows no 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 81 
 
 locality, no lapse of ages can wear out its 
 hostility to a sin. Nay, even if it could be con- 
 ceived capable of such leniency, it would be in 
 vain. If God, by a simple act of oblivion, could 
 pass over the awakened sinner's guilt, his own 
 conscience would not suffer him to forget it. 
 He would be " the wrath of God unto himself." 
 The aroused conscience does not want a mere 
 act of amnesty. It craves for the condemnation 
 of its sin, in the very agony of the desire to be 
 freed from it. It sympathises with the law by 
 which itself is condemned ; and no good-natured 
 clemency, no slight or easy pardon nothing 
 will satisfy it, unless the sin be branded with 
 the mark of the law's offended majesty be ex- 
 posed to the righteous wrath of that awful and 
 absolute Purity it has offended, unless the 
 culprit sin be, as it were, led out to execution, 
 and slain before it. 
 
 Now, it is this deep necessity of the awak- 
 ened spirit, which, in the revelation of God in 
 Christ, the gospel meets a revelation in the 
 person, life, and death of Jesus, which includes 
 at once the most complete condemnation of sin, 
 
32 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 and the most ample forgiveness of the sinner. 
 For here,, for one thing, we have set before us, 
 in the Person of Christ, Infinite Purity taking 
 the very nature of the guilty into most intimate 
 union with itself; and surely this, to the 
 troubled conscience, is no slight indication of 
 divine forgiveness. It were no light thing for 
 some poor outcast from society, if, while brood- 
 ing over its misery and despair, some good and 
 holy man should, setting all false dignity at de- 
 fiance, come to the home of infamy, and offer to 
 that poor child of sin and shame his love, his 
 friendship, his affiance. Abandoned of society, 
 lost to others' respect and to its own, yet yearn- 
 ing for one ray of hope or comfort, what cheer- 
 ing, what hopefulness, what new life would re- 
 animate that saddened spirit when it discovered 
 itself not so utterly lost as that a gentle, pure, 
 and good man, could not love and care for it ! 
 But here, in this revelation of God in Christ, is 
 the assurance that that Holy One, in whose 
 presence angelic purity grows dim, stoops to 
 take the very nature of the guilty, and blend it 
 in mysterious affiance with His own. Surely 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 33 
 
 the trembling heart may cease to despair of it- 
 self, or regard the past with hopeless despon- 
 dency, when that very Being, in whom all law 
 and right are centred, who is Himself essential 
 Holiness identified in His very being with abso- 
 lute Good, condescends to wed the nature of 
 man, guilty and fallen though he be, into closest 
 affinity with Himself. But more than this : the 
 gospel brings relief to the self-condemned spirit 
 by exhibiting Infinite Purity, not only conde- 
 scending to assume the nature of the guilty, but 
 also in that nature passing through a history 
 which brings it into ceaseless contact with sin 
 in all its undisguised hatefulness and hostility 
 to God. As if it were designed to prove to the 
 most alarmed and desponding conscience that it 
 is from no inadequate perception of man's guilt 
 that mercy is extended to him, the Purity of 
 heaven Incarnate exposes itself to a long-con- 
 tinued contiguity with evil in its most hateful 
 forms ; permits itself to be pierced with all the 
 anguish that sin's hostility could inflict upon it ; 
 stands with the sensitive front of innocence the 
 mark of all the poisoned arrows from sin's 
 
 2* 
 
34 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 quiver; suffers earth and hell to brand upon 
 that holiest, gentlest spirit, as if in letters of 
 fire, sin's hatefulness ; and at last yields up it- 
 self as sin's victim into the hands of death. Yet, 
 with all this, from first to last, infinitely loving 
 right, unerringly cognisant of man's guilt, taking 
 the full guage of the abhorrent nature of that 
 which He forgave, Jesus is seen with mercy 
 ever on His lip, forgiveness, compassion, love to 
 sinners in His every look and act. And finally, 
 the gospel permits us to think of Christ as one 
 who, in conveying pardon to guilt, instead of re- 
 laxing the strictness, or bringing slight on the 
 unbending rectitude of God's law, offers up the 
 grandest possible tribute to its majesty and the 
 most awful atonement for the sins that infringed 
 it. Here, therefore, in this gospel of Christ is the 
 most ample provision made for the guilty spirit's 
 needs. Though my sin cannot be literally un- 
 sinned, though the past is irrevocable, though no 
 moral act once done can ever be annulled, yet 
 surely in this my trembling heart may find the 
 rest for which it craves the assurance that the 
 past may be forgotten, and that sin is blotted 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 3~> 
 
 out by an act in which its guilt is most fearfully 
 condemned and expiated when I behold the 
 the very God who is Law, Righteousness, Abso- 
 lute Justice, in human form offering Himself up 
 to the death to save me. 
 
 (2.) The other great obstacle to the re- 
 attainment of the lost perfection of our nature 
 is, as I have said, Moral Weakness, the con- 
 scious inertness and impotence of the soul in its 
 endeavors after holiness ; and it is in providing 
 for this need of man's spirit also that the gospel 
 commends itself to the consciousness. 
 
 It is in the attempt to reach its Lost Ideal 
 that the soul becomes aware of its own moral 
 weakness. It is not when the sick man lies 
 prostrated by disease that he feels most his own 
 feebleness, but when he begins to rally, and at- 
 tempts to rise and walk, it is then that, by the 
 trembling step and tottering limb, he becomes 
 aware how his strength has been wasted. When 
 despotism has so quelled a nation's spirit that it 
 cares not to put forth the feeblest resistance to 
 its thraldom, it is not then that it is in a condi- 
 tion to discover the hopelessness of its bondage ; 
 
36 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 but when, the spirit of insurrection roused, the 
 attempt has been made to throw off the hateful 
 yoke, and made in vain, it is then that, in the 
 strife and pain and mortification of discomfited 
 rebellion, it learns by bitter experience the ter- 
 ribleness of that power which keeps it down. So 
 it is not when sin holds undisturbed dominion in 
 the soul, but when the new ideal of holiness 
 dawns upon its vision, when the first faint 
 rallying efforts after God and duty begin to be 
 made, it is then that, in the feebleness of its 
 resolutions, and the miserable ineffectiveness of 
 its attempts to be good, there is forced upon 
 it the painful conviction of its own moral weak- 
 ness. And then, too, rises the intense longing 
 for spiritual help. " Of what avail," is the un- 
 conscious utterance of its hopelessness and its 
 aspiration " Of what avail my knowledge of 
 this glorious moral beauty in Christ; of what 
 use my perception of the noble thing humanity 
 might become, when this only serves to mock 
 my misery by the spectacle of unattainable 
 good ! Tell me not of the beauty of goodness, 
 the hatefulness of sin, the blessedness of a holy 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 37 
 
 life. I know it I admit it ; but all this is but 
 to talk of health's joyous activity to the para- 
 lytic, to point out to the poor slave the freedom 
 for which he sighs in vain. Help me. Show me 
 how to reach the ideal of good that is before me. 
 Oh for some gift of power, some heaven-sent 
 strength to nerve my enfeebled energies and 
 arm resolution with ability to fulfil its aims !" 
 
 Now, the gospel commends itself to the con- 
 sciousness by responding to this deep want of 
 the spirit also. For it reveals to the soul Christ 
 as not only outwardly the Ideal, but inwardly 
 the Hope and Strength of humanity. It would 
 go no little way towards meeting the needs of a 
 soul conscious of lofty desires and low attain- 
 ments of high aims and miserable perform- 
 ances if, in its loneliness and its weakness, 
 there should be granted to it the perpetual pres- 
 ence and guardianship of some lofty angelic na- 
 ture. Imagine what it would be, if, amidst all 
 your conscious moral weakness, some bright and 
 loving spirit from the heavens should assume 
 the task of watching over you. Think what aid 
 it would afford you in your religious life weak, 
 
38 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 wavering, perplexed as you often are to have 
 a guardian spirit, strong with heaven's strength, 
 and pure with heaven's purity, ever near you. 
 Think how all your better nature would be stim- 
 ulated, your evil self repressed, the whole moral 
 tone of life elevated and ennobled, if, wherever 
 you went, the sweet, bright, hallowing sense of 
 that loving spirit's presence hung around you 
 like an atmosphere. Conceive of him accom- 
 panying you into all scenes of temptation, and 
 whispering, in the moment of irresolution, the 
 prompting word of counsel, warning, or remon- 
 strance ; in -all perplexities imagine your spirit- 
 friend ever at hand to solve your difficulties and 
 point out the path of duty : in the world a pre- 
 sence that gave dignity to life's humblest, coars- 
 est cares ; and in your lonely or meditative 
 hours still beside you, breathing the air of hea- 
 ven into your solitude, and by his converse, ele- 
 vating thought, enkindling devotion, and causing 
 the whole soul to swell with high resolves and 
 holy aspirations. What a boon were this to 
 weak and wavering man ! How would each 
 poor self-distrustful spirit leap forth to welcome 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 39 
 
 such ennobling companionship ! Or would it 
 not be still better a blessing still more ade- 
 quate to your needs if not an angelic visitant, 
 but Jesus Christ, your divine Lord Himself, 
 should return in visible form, and in like man- 
 ner as of old He frequented earthly homes, so 
 come and abide in yours. Let any contrite soul, 
 longing for the goodness it cannot reach, per- 
 turbed by the evil from which it cannot escape, 
 think what it would be to have Jesus of Naza- 
 reth dwelling for a single year with it as a fa- 
 miliar companion and friend. Imagine that, 
 when in your conscious spiritual weakness your 
 cry for help ascends to the throne, that glorious 
 Saviour should hear, and in answer condescend 
 Himself to leave yonder heavens, and for a 
 while share your lot on earth, however lowly, 
 and abide beneath your roof as your ever-pres- 
 ent Counsellor and Guide. What a home would 
 that be where such a presence rested ! What 
 an atmosphere of heaven would pervade it ! 
 What a resource would its happy inmates pos- 
 sess in all difficulties and perplexities ! What 
 holy ardor, what strength for duty would fill 
 
40 S E L F-E VIDENCING NATURE 
 
 every heart ! If this blessed presence and 
 guidance were offered to us, would not each 
 self-distrustful soul hail it as a boon inestimable ? 
 Would not the response of the spirit be 
 " Come, my Saviour, for sorely I need thy 
 presence ; my thoughts are confused, my affec- 
 tions languid, my purposes weak and wavering. 
 Come, my Saviour, and with thee my whole 
 being shall grow bright and strong !" 
 
 But if an outward presence or guardianship 
 such as this would meet the soul's needs, how 
 much more fully are they met in that which is 
 the great crowning blessing of the gospel the 
 dispensation of the Spirit. For, if angelic guar- 
 dianship would be a boon to any soul, if the 
 attendance of a guardian spirit, counselling, 
 prompting, strengthening, would help us in our 
 spiritual life, here we have this, and more than 
 this, actually bestowed upon us. A Spirit, 
 would we but realize His presence, is ever with 
 us to prompt each holy thought and nerve each 
 pure resolve. If Christ, as an outward visitant, 
 would be eagerly welcomed, if it would be a 
 blessing to have him dwelling for a season with- 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 41 
 
 in our home, here, in the dispensation of His 
 grace, we are told of a blessing greater still of 
 a presence of Jesus not within the house merely, 
 but nearer and closer still within the breast 
 within the heart. To every soul that will re- 
 ceive Him, that very Jesus who departed as a 
 visible presence from this earth, comes back as 
 an inward and invisible Comforter. As really 
 and more intimately than when men beheld His 
 countenance, and listened to His words of love 
 and power, Jesus is with us still. If it would 
 strengthen you in your difficulties and struggles 
 to know that He is near, to hear Him speak, to 
 take hold of His strengthening hand, know 
 that He is nearer still than this. Every pure 
 thought that rises in your breast is Christ's sug- 
 gestion; every holy desire and resolution the 
 proof that He is at hand ; every kindling of the 
 spirit into devotion the unconscious recognition 
 by the spirit of His heavenly presence near. 
 Open the door of the heart to Him, and the very 
 mind and soul of Jesus will pass into yours ; 
 your spirit will be suffused with His ; the very 
 heart of Jesus will be beating within your breast 
 
4:2 SELF-EVIDENCING NATUEE 
 
 Christ will be " in you the hope of glory." 
 say, weak and wavering soul, is not this all 
 thou needest in order to be holy, peaceful, 
 strong ? As a reviving cordial to the fainting 
 body, does not His divine grace commend itself 
 to the inmost consciousness in the sight of God ? 
 
 The subject which we have now examined 
 suggests to us, in conclusion, an obvious lesson 
 as to the universal responsibility of man for the 
 belief of the truth. For the evidence on which 
 divine truth bases its claim to our reception, is 
 one cognisable and appreciable by all. It ap- 
 peals not to man as an educated or intellectually 
 accomplished being, but to man as man. It 
 requires no intellectual effort for its recognition. 
 It addresses itself not to any faculty in man 
 which is developed only in the minds of the 
 few, not to his logical or reasoning powers, but 
 to that higher reason, that moral nature, which 
 is common to all. Its appeal, in one word, is 
 mainly, not to the head, but to the heart. No 
 one who listens to the message of divine truth, 
 can excuse his neglect or rejection of it by 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 43 
 
 pleading intellectual incapacity by saying that 
 he is incapable of following out a process of his- 
 toric proof, or of weighing elaborate arguments, 
 and investigating subtle trains of reasoning. If 
 the truth as it is in Jesus were a philosophy, 
 such an excuse might be valid. If it pre-sup- 
 posed, in order to the reception of it, the same 
 powers which qualify, for instance, for the in- 
 tellectual and critical study of the higher mathe- 
 matics or metaphysics, then would its evidence 
 be utterly beyond the range of the vast major- 
 ity of men, and the humble and illiterate might 
 justly be exonerated from all responsibility for 
 their ignorance or unbelief. But the gospel is no 
 philosophy. The truth of Christ is to be veri- 
 fied, not by the critical intellect, but by the 
 common heart and consciousness of humanity. 
 Wherever there is a heart that throbs with the 
 common sensibilities of our nature wherever 
 there is a soul capable of love, and pity, and 
 tenderness, and truth there is fit audience 
 and sufficient attestation for the gospel. The 
 lisping babe, that stammers forth its first prayer 
 of wondering awe and love to the great Father ; 
 
44 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 the poor day-laborer, whose intellect never 
 ranges beyond the narrow round of his daily 
 toils ; the weak, worn sufferer, stretched on the 
 bed of pain, incapable of the faintest approach 
 to consecutive thought or reasoning, bereft of 
 almost every other power but the power to love 
 and pray these as much, nay more, than the 
 most erudite assemblies of high and philosophic 
 minds, constitute the auditors to whom the gos- 
 pel appeals for the verification of its claims. 
 
 It is true that the highest minds may fitly 
 occupy their ratiocinative powers in the investi- 
 gation of the evidence, and the systematic study 
 and development of the truth. But let us never 
 confound the gifts and acquirements necessary 
 for the theologian with those of the believer. 
 The powers sufficient to perceive and know and 
 relish, are ever to be distinguished from the 
 powers that are needed in order to theorize.. It 
 may imply much intellectual power to draw out 
 and digest the theory and laws of music, but 
 many who know nothing of the subject theo- 
 retically can sing and be delighted by song. 
 And to make a man relish music, a good ear is 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 45 
 
 better than all the analytic powers in the world. 
 It may demand the most subtle intellect to dis- 
 cuss metaphysically the theory and laws of 
 beauty, but no such powers are needed to gaze 
 with delight on the glory of the grass and the 
 splendor of the flower. In investigating the 
 problem of the foundation of morals, metaphys- 
 ical minds of the rarest order have been em- 
 ployed for ages ; but to honor an unselfish or 
 noble act to perceive and hate baseness and 
 selfishness to appreciate what is pure and lovely 
 and of good report needs qualities which no 
 metaphysic skill can confer, and yet which may 
 be found in the garret or hovel where rude and 
 unlettered poverty dwells. And so it is not 
 the scholar's or the theologian's acquirements 
 that best qualify for apprehending and appre- 
 ciating the evidence of the truth as it is in 
 Jesus. These may be indispensable for the 
 theoretic analysis and development of the truth, 
 but the consciousness of spiritual need the 
 yearning after pardon and reconciliation with 
 God the orphan instincts of the spirit towards 
 its lost Father the contrition, the humility, 
 
46 SELF-EVIDENCING NATURE 
 
 the meek trust and self-devotion of an awakened 
 and earnest soul these are the qualities which, 
 apart from all theologic talents and attainments, 
 constitute the humblest, rudest mind that pos- 
 sesses them, a deeper critic of divine truth than 
 the profoundest intellect or the rarest scholar- 
 ship. The truth of the gospel, hid from the 
 wise and prudent, may be revealed to babes. 
 Ages of intellectual study will not serve to 
 teach that of the gospel's truth and power, 
 which may be learned by one upward glance of 
 a tearful eye at the great Deliverer's feet. 
 Honor to those who bring their genius and 
 their intellectual lore to the service and illus- 
 tration of the truth ! But be your gifts of 
 reason what they may, to you, as capable of 
 knowing it as bound to receive it, the gospel 
 appeals. Open your heart to it yield up your 
 spirit to its blessed teachings pray for the 
 grace and guidance of the Spirit of God, and the 
 truth will constitute to you its own evidence. 
 It will carry conviction to your heart of hearts. 
 As you listen to it, the music of a heavenly 
 voice will steal upon the inner ear ; a beauty 
 
OF DIVINE TRUTH. 47 
 
 that is not of this world a beauty more glori- 
 ous far than that which sits on mountain and 
 stream and forest, will shine forth upon the in- 
 ner eye of faith, in the discernment and recog- 
 nition of which the Truth will " commend itself 
 to your consciousness in the sight of God." 
 
- porann. 
 
 " Who can understand his errors ? Cleanse thou me from secret 
 faults." PSALM xix. 12. 
 
 TT -i ^ F a ^ kinds of ignorance, that 
 bJhKM. It.] . 
 
 which is the most strange, and, 
 
 in so far as it is voluntary, the most culpa- 
 ble, is our ignorance of Self. For not only is 
 the subject, in this case, that which might be 
 expected to possess for us the greatest interest, 
 but it is the one concerning which we have am- 
 plest facilities and opportunities of information. 
 Who of us would not think it a strange and un- 
 accountable story, could it be told of any man 
 now present, that for years he had harbored 
 under his roof a guest whose face he had never 
 seen a constant inmate of his home, who was 
 yet to him altogether unknown ? It is no sup- 
 position, however, but an unquestionable fact, 
 that to not a few of us, from the first moment 
 of existence, there has been present, not be- 
 
S E L F - I G N O R AN C E. 49 
 
 neath the roof, but within the breast, a myste- 
 rious resident, an inseparable companion, nearer 
 to us than friend or brother, yet of whom, after 
 all, we know little or nothing. What man of 
 intelligence amongst us would not be ashamed 
 to have had in his possession for years some 
 rare or universally admired volume with its 
 leaves uncut ? or to be the proprietor of a re- 
 pository, filled with the most exquisite produc- 
 tions of genius, and the rarest specimens in sci- 
 ence and art, which yet he himself never thought 
 of entering ? Yet surely no book so worthy of 
 perusal, no chamber containing objects of study 
 so curious, so replete with interest for us, as 
 that which seldom or never attracts our observa- 
 tion the book, the chamber of our own hearts. 
 We sometimes reproach with folly those persons 
 who have travelled far, and seen much of dis- 
 tant countries, and yet have been content to re- 
 main comparatively unacquainted with their own. 
 But how venial such folly compared with that 
 of ranging over all other departments of knowl- 
 edge, going abroad with perpetual inquisitive- 
 ness over earth and sea and sky, in search of 
 
 Cird. 3 
 
50 SELF-IGNOKANCE. 
 
 information, whilst there is a little world within 
 the breast which is still to us an unexplored 
 region. Other scenes and objects we can study 
 only at intervals ; they are not always accessi- 
 ble, or can be reached only by long and laborious 
 journeys ; but the bridge of consciousness is 
 soon crossed ; we have but to close the eye and 
 withdraw the thoughts from the world without, 
 in order at any moment to wander through the 
 scenes and explore the phenomena of the still 
 more wondrous world within. To examine other 
 objects, delicate and elaborate instruments are 
 often necessary ; the researches of the astrono- 
 mer, the botanist, the chemist, can be prosecuted 
 only by means of rare and costly apparatus ; 
 but the power of reflection, that faculty more 
 wondrous than any mechanism which art has 
 ever fashioned, is an instrument possessed by 
 all ; the poorest and most illiterate, alike with 
 the most cultured and refined, have at their com- 
 mand an apparatus by which to sweep the inner 
 firmament of the soul, and bring into view its 
 manifold phenomena of thought and feeling and 
 motive. And yet, with all the unequalled facil- 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 51 
 
 ities for acquiring this sort of knowledge, can it 
 be questioned that it is the one sort of knowl- 
 edge that is most commonly neglected ; and 
 that, even amongst those who would disdain the 
 imputation of ignorance in history or science or 
 literature, there are multitudes who have never 
 acquired the merest rudiments of the knowledge 
 of Self? 
 
 What has now been stated as to the too com- 
 mon neglect of self-knowledge in general, is em- 
 phatically true with respect to that branch of it 
 to which the text relates. It is the moral part 
 of our nature with reference to which defective 
 knowledge is at once the most common and the 
 most dangerous. As a matter of curiosity, an 
 object of interesting study, every intelligent man 
 should know something of the structure, organi- 
 sation, laws, and processes of his physical and 
 of his intellectual nature ; but as a matter, not 
 of curious interest merely, but of the last and 
 highest necessity, we ought to be acquainted 
 with our moral nature with the condition of 
 our hearts in the sight of God. The care of our 
 bodily health we may depute to another, and the 
 
52 SELF-IGNORANCE. 
 
 skill of the physician may render our ignorance 
 of physiology of little or no practical moment ; 
 to be unacquainted even with our intellectual 
 nature, inobservant of its operations and mis- 
 taken as to its character, may lead to no conse- 
 quences more serious than vanity, self-conceit, 
 an undue reliance on our own opinions ; but 
 when our ignorance relates not to the body but 
 to the soul, not to the head but to the heart, no 
 language can exaggerate its danger. For the 
 care of our spiritual health, the moral culture 
 and discipline of the soul, we can never depute 
 to another; no friend on earth can be the soul's 
 physician, or free us from the burden of our sol- 
 itary responsibility with regard to it ; and un- 
 noticed errors in the heart, unlike intellectual 
 deficiencies, not merely affect our temporal con- 
 dition or our social reputation, but may issue in 
 our eternal ruin. 
 
 Yet the text suggests, what all experience 
 corroborates, that it is a man's moral defects that 
 are most likely to elude his own scrutiny. 
 There is a peculiar secresy, an inherent inscru- 
 tability, about our sins. Bodily disease or in- 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 53 
 
 jury, in the great majority of cases, manifests 
 its presence by pain so obtrudes itself on our 
 consciousness, that it is impossible for the sick 
 man to be long unaware of his danger, or indif- 
 ferent to its removal. But it is the peculiar 
 characteristic of moral disease, that it does its 
 deadly work in secret. Sin is a malady which 
 affects the very organ by which itself can be 
 detected ; it creates the darkness amid which it 
 injures us, and blinds the eyes of its victim in 
 the very act of destroying him. If there be 
 any bodily disease to which it is analogous, it is 
 to that fatal malady which often cheats the sick 
 man into a delusive tranquillity, the deeper and 
 more deceitful in proportion to his danger. And 
 if the unconscious cheerfulness of the dying be 
 sometimes both strange and sad ; if it has ever 
 happened to us, as we looked on the wan and 
 wasted countenance on which consumption had 
 set its ghastly seal, to listen with mingled won- 
 der and pity to the words of unabated hopeful- 
 ness from the sick man's lips, surely more de- 
 serving of our pity is he who, all unaware of his 
 spiritual disease,- is hastening on, in undisturbed 
 
54 SELF-IGNORANCE. 
 
 tranquillity and self-satisfaction, to everlasting 
 despair and death ! 
 
 Now, it is this self-concealing tendency of sin, 
 and the consequent difficulty of forming a right 
 estimate of ourselves, to which the Psalmist re- 
 fers in the prayer of the text " Who can un- 
 derstand his errors ? cleanse thou me from se- 
 cret faults !" And what I now purpose, in 
 following out the train of thought here sug- 
 gested, is to point out to you a few of the 
 causes or considerations which serve to explain 
 the self-ignorance of the erring and sinful mind. 
 
 I. One reason why the sinful man does not 
 " understand his errors" is That sin can be 
 truly measured only when it is resisted. It is im- 
 possible to estimate the strength of the principle 
 of evil in the soul till we begin to struggle with 
 it ; and the careless or sinful man the man 
 who, by supposition, is not striving with, but suc- 
 cumbing to sin, cannot know its force. So long 
 as evil reigns unopposed within the soul, it will 
 reign, in a great degree, unobserved. So long 
 as a man passively and thoughtlessly yields up 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 55 
 
 his will to the sway of worldly principles or un- 
 holy desires and habits, he is in no condition to 
 measure their intensity scarcely to discover 
 their existence. For in this, as in many other 
 cases, resistance is the best measure of force. 
 The most powerful agents in nature, when un- 
 opposed, do their work silently and without at- 
 tracting observation ; it is only when some 
 counteracting power arises to dispute their sway 
 that attention is drawn to their presence and 
 their potency. The rapid stream flows smooth 
 and silent when there are no obstacles to stay 
 its progress ; but hurl a rock into its bed, and 
 the roar and surge of the arrested current will 
 instantly reveal its force. You cannot estimate 
 the wind's strength when it rushes over the 
 open plain ; but when it reaches and wrestles 
 with the trees of the forest, or lashes the sea 
 into fury, then, resisted, you perceive its power. 
 Or if, amidst the ice-bound regions of the North, 
 an altogether unbroken, continuous winter pre- 
 vailed, comparatively unnoticed would be its 
 stern dominion ; but it is the coming round of a 
 more genial season, ,when the counteracting 
 
56 SELF-IGNORANCE. 
 
 agency of the sun begins to prevail, that re- 
 veals, by the rending of the solid masses of ice, 
 and by the universal stir, and crash, and com- 
 motion over the face of nature, the intensity of 
 the bygone winter's cold. 
 
 Now, so too is it in the spiritual world. Sin's 
 power is revealed only in the act of resistance. 
 No agent more potent, and none, if undisputed, 
 more imperceptible in its operation. In many a 
 worldly and godless heart it reigns viewless as 
 the wind silent as the smooth and rapid 
 stream. Rule in whatever form it may in 
 selfishness, or worldliness, or pride, or ambi- 
 tion, or covetousness, or sensuality sin often 
 breathes over that inner world an influence, not 
 only as stern and withering, but also as still and 
 unobtrusive as an unbroken winter's cold. On 
 the other hand, resistance discloses it. When 
 the aspiration after a purer, nobler life begins to 
 rise within the breast, and the long-passive 
 spirit rouses its energies to check the pride of 
 evil, to force back and stay the current of un- 
 holy desire and passion ; when the softening 
 principle of divine love and grace begins to 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 57 
 
 thaw the icy coldness of a godless heart, then it 
 is that the soul becomes aware of the deadly 
 strength of sin. Often the sense of guilt breaks 
 upon the awakened spirit with all the strange- 
 ness of a discovery. With the rise of its new 
 and higher consciousness there comes upon the 
 soul the feeling of a hitherto unrealized burden 
 a heavy and intolerable weight of evil, re- 
 straining and crushing back its new-born ener- 
 gies. Hitherto at ease in the embrace of sin, 
 when the vision of God dawns upon the spirit, 
 there is a yearning to get near Him, and an im- 
 patience and galling sense of bondage in that 
 which keeps it away from Him ; as when a 
 child, contentedly reposing in a stranger's arms, 
 no sooner catches a glimpse of the parent than 
 it struggles and stretches out towards the loved 
 form, ill at ease in that embrace in which it had 
 till now unconsciously rested. Nor is it only in 
 the first struggles of penitence that sin is re- 
 vealed in its true character to the soul. With 
 every increase of spirituality, whatever of evil 
 remains in it becomes more repulsive to its 
 keener sensibilities, more irksome to its aspiring 
 
 3* 
 
58 SELF-IGNOKANCE. 
 
 energies. Faults and errors, unapparent or 
 venial to its former consciousness, become in the 
 higher stages of the spiritual life more and more 
 odious ; and in the purest and best actions more 
 of evil is now discerned than formerly in the 
 basest and worst. The quickened conscience 
 feels the drag of sin at each successive step the 
 more heavy ; and as the believing spirit yearns 
 with an intenser longing for the life of God, with 
 a more indignant impatience does the cry break 
 from the lip" Who shall deliver me from the 
 body of this death ?" 
 
 II. Another reason for the self-ignorance of 
 the sinner is That sin often makes a man afraid 
 to know himself. The suspected existence of 
 something wrong in the soul makes us shrink 
 from self-inspection. Strange though it may 
 seem, the state of mind is by no means an un- 
 common one in which a man has a latent mis- 
 giving that all is not right with his soul ; yet, 
 from a disinclination to know the whole truth 
 and to act up to it, refrains from all further ex- 
 amination. There are few men who do not know 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 69 
 
 a little of themselves ; multitudes whom that 
 little so disturbs that they refuse to know any 
 more. Ever and anon, even in the most careless 
 life, the veil of custom drops, and the soul 
 catches a glimpse of its own deep inward wretch- 
 edness ; but the glimpse so terrifies that few 
 will look again. The heart of a sinful man, laid 
 bare in all its nakedness to its own inspection, 
 is a sight on which it would be terrible to look 
 long ; and most men prefer the delusive tran- 
 quillity of ignorance to the wholesome pain of a 
 thorough self-revelation. 
 
 And yet, this voluntary ignorance, where in- 
 terests so momentous are at stake, strange in 
 itself, becomes the more strange when contrasted 
 with our conduct in other cases. In the affairs 
 of this world men will, indeed, often shun the 
 sight of inevitable evils, and refuse to disturb 
 themselves by the contemplation of calamities 
 which it is beyond their power to avert. But 
 where the suspected evil is not beyond the reach 
 of remedy, in most minds there is a disposition 
 of quite an opposite character a disposition 
 that seeks, on the least appearance of any alarm- 
 
60 SELF-IGNOKANCE. 
 
 ing symptom, to know the worst at once. Does 
 the prudent man of business, for instance, light 
 on something strange in his confidential ser- 
 vant's accounts, or are his suspicions awakened 
 as to the state of some debtor's affairs with 
 whom he is deeply involved what, in the great 
 majority of cases, will be his immediate mode 
 of action ? To shut his eyes to the disagreeable 
 information, and, by refraining from all further 
 investigation, purchase present ease at the risk 
 of future ruin ? Not so ; but rather instantly 
 to set about a rigid scrutiny, and not to rest till 
 he has sifted the matter to the bottom, though 
 the unpleasant discovery should be that his 
 servant has embezzled his property, or that his 
 debtor is on the brink of bankruptcy. Or does 
 the anxious and affectionate relative note with 
 alarm the symptoms of dangerous disease in the 
 person of one 'he loves does he see, or per- 
 suade himself he sees, the hectic flush begin- 
 ning to gather on the cheek does he hear, or 
 think he hears, the short sharp cough, that 
 rouses all his fears for the future, and need I 
 ask what, in general, will be the effect of such 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 61 
 
 misgivings ? What parent, husband, friend, at 
 such a time, could consult his own selfish tran- 
 quillity by ignoring the danger, taking no means 
 to discover its extent, and, if possible, to check 
 its progress ? 
 
 But, however rare in the sphere of our 
 worldly interests, this voluntary blindness, this 
 reckless evasion of disagreeable intelligence, is 
 in spiritual things, even among prudent, wise, 
 sagacious men, not the exception but the rule. 
 Inquisitive, restless, easily alarmed in other 
 cases, most men become strangely incurious here. 
 Our fears and suspicions diminish instead of in- 
 creasing, in proportion to the magnitude of the 
 interests involved ; and when it is not our health 
 or wealth, or worldly fortunes, but the character 
 and happiness of the soul for time and eternity 
 that are implicated, the almost universal en- 
 deavor is, not to provide against threatened 
 danger, but to evade or forget the signs of it. 
 Few men, indeed, however thoughtless and in- 
 different to religion, can pass through life with- 
 out occasional misgivings as to their spiritual 
 state. There are times when conscience speaks 
 
62 SELF-IGNORANCE. 
 
 out even to the most careless ear, and passing 
 visitations of anxiety as to the soul and its des- 
 tiny trouble the most callous heart. Amidst the 
 superficial cares and pleasures of a worldly ex- 
 istence a man's deeper nature may slumber ; the 
 surface-ripple of the stream of common life may 
 fill the sense and lull the soul to sleep, but to 
 almost every one there come occasions when the 
 smooth current of the life of sense is interrupted, 
 and his true self is roused to a temporary wake- 
 fulness. In the stillness of ,the lonely sickbed, 
 amidst worldly reverses, in declining health, or 
 under bitter bereavement, when we stand by the 
 bier, or bend over the closing grave of old 
 friends and coevals in such passages of man's 
 history, the soul, eternity, God, become for the 
 moment real things, and the most thoughtless 
 and worldly-minded is forced to pause and think. 
 Or, again, when the sinful man listens to some 
 very earnest exhibition of divine truth, or is 
 brought into contact with one who is living a 
 very holy, pure, unselfish life, a painful impres- 
 sion of his own deficiencies a transient glimpse 
 of a nobler, purer ideal of life, to which his own 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 03 
 
 presents a miserable contrast may visit his 
 mind. But such thoughts are too distressing to 
 be long dwelt upon. Very rarely have men the 
 resolution voluntarily to arrest and detain them 
 before the mind's eye. We do not like to have 
 the easy tranquillity of our life disturbed by 
 spiritual anxieties. We do not care to have our 
 self-complacency hurt by the repulsive spectacle 
 of our proper selves : and, as the fair face on 
 which disease has left its ugly seams, turns with 
 pain from the first sight of the reality which the 
 mirror reveals, so the mind hastens to avert its 
 view from the too faithful reflection of self 
 which an awakened conscience presents. In- 
 stead of seeking true comfort by the steady, 
 however painful, contemplation, and then, through 
 God's grace, by the deliberate, persevering cor- 
 rection of its evil self, the mind too often seeks 
 a speedier, but most unreal satisfaction, by for- 
 getting its convictions, and seeing itself only in 
 the false glass of the world's opinions. Thus, 
 with many, life is but a continuous endeavour 
 to forget and keep out of sight their true selves 
 vain eluding and outstripping of a reality 
 
64 SELF-IGNORANCE. 
 
 which is still ever with them, and to the con- 
 sciousness of which they must one day awake. 
 Often, however, it is an endeavor attended only 
 with partial success. Deep down, in the most 
 worldly and careless mind, there is often a hid- 
 den restlessness, an uneasy disquieting con- 
 sciousness, as of an evil half realised, and which 
 it would fain, but cannot forget. Inadequate to 
 produce any serious reformation, the convictions 
 of conscience yet remain as a latent foreboding 
 a vague sense of a debt undischarged, and still 
 hanging over us a disease uncured and secretly 
 working within us. Refusing to know himself, 
 the man is often far from happy in his forget- 
 fulness. His brightest hours are overshadowed 
 as by the vague sense of a coming danger. 
 There is a feverishness and unreality in all his 
 joys ; and the nearest approach to happiness he 
 attains is but, after all, as the wretched enjoy- 
 ment of the poor spendthrift, who revels on for 
 a little hour in unreal splendor, rather than be 
 at the pains to examine into his embarrassed af- 
 fairs ; or of the hapless wretch in the sinking 
 ship, who drives away by intoxication the sense, 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 65 
 
 but only thereby unfits himself the more to en- 
 counter the reality, of danger. 
 
 III. Again, the self-ignorance of the sinful 
 may be accounted for by the sloiu and gradual 
 way in ivhich, in most cases, sinful habits and dis- 
 positions are acquired. 
 
 Apart from any other consideration, there is 
 something in the mere fact of the gradual and 
 insidious way in which changes of character 
 generally take place, that tends to blind men to 
 their own defects. For every one knows how 
 unconscious we often are of changes that occur 
 by minute and slow degrees. If, for instance, 
 the transitions from one season of the year to 
 another were more sudden and rapid, our atten- 
 tion would be much more forcibly arrested by 
 their occurrence than it now is. But because 
 we are not plunged from midsummer into win- 
 ter because, in the declining year, one day is 
 so like the day that preceded it, the daylight 
 hours contract so insensibly, the chilly feeling 
 infuses itself by such slight increases into the 
 air, the yellow tint creeps so gradually over the 
 foliage because autumn thus frequently softens 
 
66 SELF-IGNORANCE. 
 
 and shades away into winter by gradations so 
 gentle we scarcely perceive while it is going on 
 the change which has passed over the face of 
 nature. So, again, how imperceptibly do life's 
 advancing stages steal upon us ? If we leapt at 
 once from boyhood into manhood, or if we lay 
 down at night with the consciousness of man- 
 hood's bloom and vigor, and waked in the morning 
 to find ourselves gray-haired, worn and withered 
 old men, we could not choose but be arrested by 
 transitions so marked. But now, because to-day 
 you are very much the same man as yesterday 
 because, with the silent growth of the stature, 
 the graver cares, and interests, and responsibili- 
 ties of life so gradually gather around you ; and 
 then, when you reach the turning point and be- 
 gin to descend, because this year the blood cir- 
 culates but a very little less freely, and but a 
 few more and deeper lines are gathering on the 
 face, than in the last ; because old associations 
 are not suddenly broken up, but only unwound 
 thread by thread, and old forms and faces are 
 not swept away all at once by some sudden ca- 
 tastrophe, but only drop out of sight one by 
 
SELF-IGNOKANCE. 67 
 
 one you are not struck, you are not forced to 
 think of life's decline, and almost unawares } r ou 
 may not be far off from its close. 
 
 Now, if we know that changes such as these in 
 the natural world and in our own persons take 
 place imperceptibly, may not this prepare us to 
 admit, that analogous changes, equally unnoted, 
 because equally slow and gradual, may be 
 occurring in our moral character, in the state 
 of our souls before God? And with many I 
 maintain that it is actually so. There is a 
 winter of the soul, a spiritual decrepitude and 
 death, to which many are advancing, at which 
 many have already arrived, yet all unconscious- 
 ly, because by minute and inappreciable grada- 
 tions. For character is a thing of slow forma- 
 tion. Seldom or never does the soul reach its 
 mature and consolidated state by broadly- 
 marked and rapid transitions. The incidents 
 of each passing day help, by minute touches, to 
 mould it. The successive changes of our out- 
 ward life leave each their little deposit behind, 
 though it may be long before the formation be- 
 comes of noticeable dimensions. Every passing 
 
68 SELF-IGNORANCE. 
 
 breath of moral influence shakes and sways the 
 stem of our being, but it may be many a day ere, 
 by the bent acquired in one particular direction, 
 we can mark the prevailing wind. Differing 
 as we all do from each other, perhaps as much 
 in our individual characters as in the form and 
 expression of our outward features, we did not 
 issue, each with his own separate stamp of char- 
 acter full formed, from Nature's mintage ; and 
 in the case of the irreligious and sinful, it has 
 been by the slow and plastic hand of time, that 
 the natural evil of man's being has been 
 moulded into the manifold forms and aspects 
 which their characters now exhibit. A charac- 
 ter of confirmed selfishness, or covetousness, 
 or sensuality, or harshness and irascibility, or 
 hardened worldliness and unspirituality what- 
 ever may be the special type of character in 
 any one here, it never was formed in a day, or 
 by a few strokes upon the raw material of 
 mind. On the contrary, it has been by many a 
 small sin, by innumerable minute tamperings 
 with conscience, by a thousand insignificant 
 sacrifices of principle to passion, of duty to in- 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 69 
 
 clination by multiplicity of little fits of anger 
 and unnoted acts of sensual indulgence it 
 has been, by a long series and succession of 
 such experiences as these, that many a man's 
 moral being has been fashioned into the shape 
 it wears. The change for the worse, though on 
 the whole, and to other observers, very marked, 
 has been from day to day slight and inapprecia- 
 ble ; so that not only the worldly, the careless, 
 the unspiritual, but even the openly wicked and 
 abandoned, have often a comparatively slight 
 and imperfect sense of that evil in them which 
 has grown, and deepened, and darkened, shade 
 by shade. The most hardened and shameless 
 profligate, had he reached his present maturity 
 in sin by a single stride, would probably be as 
 much horrified at the change, as if the merry 
 innocent face and clear bright eye of his child- 
 hood had been transformed, in a single day, 
 into the bloated aspect and suspicious scowl of 
 guilt. But just as men note not the lines of de- 
 formity, settling day by day over the countenance, 
 so neither do they discern the lineaments of moral 
 repulsiveness daily deepening into the soul. 
 
70 SELF-IGNORANCE. 
 
 IY. It tends greatly to increase this insensi- 
 bility to the progress of sin in the soul, that, as 
 character gradually deteriorates, there is a par- 
 allel deterioration of the standard ly which we 
 judge of it. As sin grows, conscience declines 
 in vigor. The power that perceives sin par- 
 takes of the general injury which sin inflicts on 
 the soul. It does not remain stationary while 
 the other elements of our being the desires, 
 affections, moral energies are in downward 
 motion. It does not resemble a spectator stand- 
 ing on the shore, who can discern the slightest 
 motion of the vessel in the stream, but rather to 
 the other powers conscience stands in the rela- 
 tion of a fellow-voyager, who cannot perceive in 
 his companions the motion of which himself par- 
 takes. Or, as in fever arid other diseases that 
 affect the brain, the disease soon unhinges the 
 power by which the patient is made conscious 
 of its ravages ; so sin is a malady which cannot 
 proceed far without injuring the moral conscious- 
 ness by which its presence can be known. Even 
 to the natural conscience, weak and unenlight- 
 ened though it be, sin, in many of its forms, has 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 71 
 
 an ugly look at first, but its repulsiveness rap- 
 idly wears off by familiarity. To the call of 
 duty, the voice of religion, the first announce- 
 ment of the solemn truths of death and judg- 
 ment and retribution, the mind even in its nat- 
 ural and unrenewed state, can never be alto- 
 gether insensible ; but, if unregarded, the im- 
 pression soon fades, and the solemn sounds grow 
 fainter and fainter to the ear. By every act of 
 disobedience to its dictates we sin away some- 
 thing of the sensitiveness of conscience ; and it 
 is quite possible for the process of disobedience 
 to go on until even from the grossest sins all the 
 first recoil of dislike is gone, and to the voice of 
 warning and instruction there rises not the 
 faintest echo of compunction in the soul. Just, 
 as in winter, the cold may become so intense as 
 to freeze the thermometer, and thereby to leave 
 you without the means of marking the subse- 
 quent increases of cold, so there is a point in the 
 lowered temperature of the inward conscious- 
 ness where the growing coldness, hardness, sel- 
 fishness of a man's nature can no longer be 
 noted the mechanism by which moral varia- 
 
72 SELF-IGNORANCE. 
 
 tions are indicated becoming itself insensible and 
 motionless. And then then in an awful sense 
 does his sin become a hidden thing to the sin- 
 ner ; then is attained a dreadful freedom, an 
 ominous emancipation from all restraint. The 
 soul has reached that condition in which it can 
 sin on unchecked, contracting a daily accumulat- 
 ing debt of guilt, yet all unconsciously, inflict- 
 ing deeper and more incurable wounds upon it- 
 self, yet without pain, heaping up without re- 
 monstrance, wrath against the day of wrath. No 
 matter how rapid its fatal descent, no warning 
 voice can retard it now ; no matter how terrible 
 the ruin before it, no prognostic of danger can 
 startle it now. " The light that w r as in it" has 
 become " darkness, and how great is that dark- 
 ness !" 
 
 Such, then, are some of the ways in which 
 sin effects its own concealment. And surely, if 
 it is possible that any one who now hears me is 
 in the condition I have attempted to describe, it 
 will need few words to set before him its guilt 
 and danger; its guilt, for let no man flatter 
 
SELF-IGNO RANGE. 73 
 
 himself that unconsciousness of sin divests any 
 act of its culpability, or even of necessity extenu- 
 ates the fault of the transgressor. Voluntary 
 ignorance, so far from being a palliation, is only 
 an aggravation of the offence. He who willingly 
 extinguishes the light escapes not the conse- 
 quences of the errors to which darkness leads. 
 The drunkard, who prepares for crime by first 
 heating his brain to madness, is not therefore 
 treated as if he were naturally irresponsible. 
 And to have evaded the light of conscience, or 
 persisted in sin till the light of conscience dies 
 out, instead of palliating ulterior acts of guilt, is 
 itself one of the greatest that can be committed. 
 No ! he who never knew and could not know, 
 God's will, may honestly offer the plea of igno- 
 rance ; but the wilful ignorance of hardened in- 
 sensibility is at once .a grievous aggravation of 
 the offence and its most awful punishment. 
 
 And the danger of self-ignorance is not less 
 than its guilt. For of all evils a secret evil is 
 most to be deprecated, of all enemies a con- 
 cealed enemy is the worst. Better the precipice 
 than the pitfall ; better the tortures of curable 
 
 Caird. 
 
74 SELF- IGNORANCE. 
 
 disease than the painlessness of mortification ; 
 and so, whatever your soul's guilt and danger, 
 better to be aware of it. However alarming, 
 however distressing, self-knowledge may be, 
 better that than the tremendous evils of self- 
 ignorance. 
 
 If indeed there were any possibility of your 
 state being beyond hope or help, if your sin were 
 irremediable, and your doom inevitable, then 
 might you be excused for refraining from all 
 inquiry, then might further remonstrance be 
 cruelty, not kindness. The dying man need not 
 be tormented with useless remedies. The doomed 
 felon may be let alone, to pass quietly the in- 
 terval till his execution. But it is not so with 
 you. No man here need, by himself or others, 
 be given up for lost. No living soul is beyond 
 the reach of remedy. You need not shrink from 
 laying bare the sore, however hideous from 
 probing the wound of the soul to the quick, 
 however painful the process, as if it were all in 
 vain. Far less need you "heal your hurt 
 slightly," or seek from false remedies a super- 
 ficial peace, when, for each and all, the sove- 
 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 75 
 
 reign specific, the divine Healer, is at hand. 
 " There is balm in Gilead ; there is a Physician 
 there." No case beyond His intervention; no 
 soul so far gone in sin as to baffle His skill. 
 Open your whole heart to Jesus. Tell Him all 
 your case. Confess at His feet every hidden 
 grief, every secret sorrow, every untold guilty 
 fear. He is ready to hear and help ; He is in- 
 finitely able to save unto the uttermost all that 
 come unto Him. At the last extremity, spir- 
 itual life and death trembling in the balance, 
 call Him in ; lay open your soul to His inspec- 
 tion ; cast yourself in confiding love on His all- 
 sufficient aid, and your recovery is sure. 
 
 But, on the other hand, if indolence or indif- 
 ference prevail, and you refuse to know your 
 danger, and to seek the Saviour's proffered aid, 
 reflect, I beseech you, that a time is approach- 
 ing when self-knowledge shall be no longer a 
 matter of choice. It is possible now to exclude 
 the light; but a light is soon to dawn that, 
 whether we will or no, shall pierce to the hidden 
 depths of every heart, and lay bare the soul at 
 once to the eye of Omniscience and to its own. 
 
76 SELF-IGNOKANCE. 
 
 It is possible now to seek the peace of self-for- 
 getfulness, to refuse to be disturbed, to sink 
 for a little longer into our dream of self-satisfac- 
 tion ; but it is a peace as transient as it is un- 
 real. Soon, at the latest, and all the more ter- 
 rible for the delay, the awakening must come. 
 There are sometimes sad awakenings from sleep 
 in this world. It is very sad to dream by night 
 of vanished joys, to revisit old scenes, and 
 dwell once more among the unforgotten forms of 
 our loved and lost, to see in the dreamland the 
 old familiar look, and hear the well-remembered 
 tones of a voice long hushed and still, and then 
 to wake, with the morning light, to the aching 
 sense of our loneliness again. It were very sad 
 for the poor criminal to wake from sweet dreams 
 of other and happier days days of innocence, 
 and hope, and peace, when kind friends, and a 
 happy home, and an honored or unstained name 
 were his, to wake in his cell, on the morning 
 of his execution, to the horrible recollection that 
 all this is gone for ever, and that to-day he must 
 die a felon's death. But inconceivably more 
 awful than any awakening which earthly day- 
 
SELF-IGNORANCE. 77 
 
 break has ever brought shall be the awakening 
 of the self-deluded soul when it is roused in 
 horror and surprise from the dream of life to 
 meet Almighty God in judgment ! 
 
ritual Influence. 
 
 "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The 
 wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
 thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it 
 goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spirit." 
 
 JOHN, iii. 7, 8. 
 
 TTT n "^ HE cnan g e f which our Lord 
 bMM. 111.] . . 
 
 here speaks is not, as his incredu- 
 
 lous auditor at first supposed, a physical 
 one ; yet is it one which, in some respects, 
 implies a revolution in man's being as great 
 as if the strange fancy of Nicodemus had been 
 literally true. Marvellous though it would 
 be for the old man to become a little child 
 again for one surrounded with the cares and 
 responsibilities of manhood, or sinking into the 
 feebleness of age to feel the shadow on the 
 sundial of life going back, and the light of life's 
 morning once more shining around him ; yet 
 might such a return from the maturity or de- 
 cline to the infancy of man's outward life involve 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 79 
 
 nothing so wonderful as the entering upon a new 
 spiritual history the second birth of the soul. 
 Could we for a moment entertain the supposition 
 that some one here who is now far advanced in 
 life, had this day become conscious, as if by 
 some mysterious spell passing over him, that a 
 new freshness was beginning to be infused into 
 the springs of his physical life, that the form 
 and features on which Time's impress had un- 
 mistakably been set, were being moulded anew 
 into the roundness and softness of childhood, 
 and the worn and withered man was by some 
 strange influence, transformed again into the 
 bright and buoyant creature of days long by- 
 gone, yet even then, I repeat, extravagant and 
 incredible as such a conception seems, we should 
 have before us a transformation not at all so 
 wonderful, so momentous, as that of which the 
 text affirms the possibility. For it speaks, not 
 of the re-construction of the outward form, but 
 of the re-creating of the inward life ; not of a 
 mere external metamorphosis, but of an inner 
 and vital change. And it cannot be doubted 
 that mental and moral changes are far more 
 
80 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 momentous than physical ; that a transformation 
 of soul would revolutionise a man's being far 
 more completely than a mere modification of 
 bodily form and feature. The soul is the true 
 essence of man's nature. The character, spirit, 
 moral temper of the inner being constitutes the 
 man, and everything else is outward and inci- 
 dental. The physical form and life, amidst a 
 thousand changes, may leave the real man un- 
 altered, or as little changed as the inhabitant by 
 the re-construction of the house, or the person 
 by the new making of the vesture that clothes 
 it. Too early experience of life may force the 
 mind into a premature exhaustion, so that be- 
 neath a youthful form there may be the old 
 man's spirit ; and, on the other hand, there are 
 instances in which, by the tempered use of 
 strong vital energies, an old man has preserved 
 to the last a youthful elastic spirit in the worn 
 form of age. But in all cases, what the spirit is, 
 that the man may truly be said to be. To re- 
 gain, therefore, the child's form, would be but a 
 slight transmutation compared with regaining 
 the child-heart* and though the form and aspect 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 81 
 
 of maturity or age remain without the slightest 
 modification, yet if there be the birth of a new 
 spirit-life, the revival of a childlike heart and 
 soul in the hidden depths of man's being, then 
 is the change more marvellous, more momentous, 
 than if the old man could in very deed go back 
 and enter life anew. 
 
 Now, it is this inward change, this recom- 
 mencement of the inner history, which every 
 soul experiences that passes under the plastic 
 touch of the Spirit of God. It is no fanciful 
 notion which the Scripture teaches when it de- 
 clares of believers that, " laying aside all malice, 
 guile, hypocrisies, envies" all the unhallowed 
 and sophisticated tastes and habits of their false 
 manhood " they, as new-born babes, desire the 
 sincere milk of the word, that they may grow 
 thereby ;" or, in other words, that the simple 
 desires and tastes of a little child, in a sense, 
 rise again within their hearts. For in the soul 
 that begins in real earnest to be devoted to God, 
 there will be felt by degrees the awakening of 
 a new and diviner life. A joy more sparkling 
 than the joy of infancy, yet deeper, more en- 
 
 4* 
 
82 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 during far, will steal upon it. There will be a 
 new meaning in life to the quickened vision of 
 the new-born soul. A new and more glorious 
 aspect will gradually dawn upon the world, and 
 outward objects and events will be invested with 
 a novelty and vividness of interest akin to that 
 of the happy time when, to the wondering gaze 
 of childhood, all things were yet fresh and new. 
 Within the heart, too, of the believer, there will 
 rise, by degrees, a calm, unanxious trustfulness, 
 a certain self-forgetfulness and freedom from 
 worldly care, analogous to the unconscious and 
 unquestioning reliance of a little child on the 
 father's ability to provide for its needs. In one 
 word, let the soul be visited by the renewing in- 
 fluence of the Spirit of God, and sooner or later 
 there will be manifest in it the signs of a new 
 and more glorious infancy a reproduction of all 
 the more attractive qualities of childhood, yet 
 purer, nobler far than they, as the life of spirit 
 is more glorious than the life of sense. 
 
 Such, then, is the transformation of man's 
 being, the necessity of which our Lord an- 
 nounced to the wondering Nicodemus in the 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 83 
 
 words, " Ye must be born again." And if the 
 idea of a second birth seemed so strange and 
 wonderful to the man who understood literally 
 our Saviour's language, not less marvellous 
 would it appear to the mind that could attach 
 to the words their true and spiritual import. 
 But you perceive that, in order to obviate the 
 difficulties to which the announcement of this 
 mysterious doctrine had given rise in the mind 
 of his auditor, our Lord proceeds, in the text, to 
 suggest to him what may be called a simple 
 argument from analogy. With infinite conde- 
 scension, the divine Teacher endeavors to re- 
 move the incredulity of the inquirer, by di- 
 recting his mind to certain phenomena in the 
 natural world, equally real, yet equally myste- 
 rious and inexplicable, with the spiritual change 
 of which He had spoken. He bids the startled 
 listener look around him, and see, in the sim- 
 plest and most familiar facts and occurrences in 
 nature, the evidence of powers and processes as 
 inscrutable as are involved in the doctrine of the 
 soul's second birth. " Marvel not that I said 
 unto thee, Ye must be born again," every pass- 
 
84 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 ing breeze contains the intimation of a mystery 
 as great as this, " The wind bloweth where it 
 listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, yet 
 canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it 
 goeth : so is every one that is born of the 
 Spirit." 
 
 The argument of the text, then, is derived 
 from the existence of parallel difficulties in Na- 
 ture and Revelation. Let us endeavor to follow 
 out this argument a little further, with the view 
 of obviating certain objections to the doctrine of 
 Regeneration. The difficulties connected with 
 the regenerating operation of the Spirit of God, 
 to which the illustration of the text may be re- 
 garded as pointing, are these three, its Super- 
 naturalness, its Sovereignty or apparent Arbitrari- 
 ness, and its Secrecy. It is perhaps to the last 
 of these points that the argument, in strict accu- 
 racy, should be confined, but the analogy holds 
 not less obviously in respect to the other two. 
 
 I. In not a few minds there is a certain 
 shrinking from the supernatural, which renders 
 such doctrines as that of the text peculiarly dis- 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 85 
 
 tasteful and difficult of reception. If, for the 
 ignorant and superstitious, the invisible world 
 possess a strange attraction, disposing the mind 
 often to ascribe natural events to supernatural 
 agencies, and to call in, on the most common oc- 
 casions, the interposition of unseen and myste- 
 rious powers, there is an opposite class of minds 
 in which the tendency is equally strong to ex- 
 plain everything by natural causes, and to ex- 
 clude as much as possible the thought of any 
 other than known and familiar agents. 
 
 Ignorance may indeed be the mother of a 
 spurious devotion, but there is a practical scep- 
 ticism more to be deprecated, of which self- 
 sufficient knowledge is often the parent. It 
 may be the tendency of the religion of an un- 
 enlightened age to translate every unexplained 
 fact or phenomenon into the intermediate inter- 
 position of the Deity. The poor savage hears 
 a wrathful voice in every storm, and trembles 
 as at the presence of a retributive power, when 
 the portentous shadow crosses the sun's disc, 
 or the white lightning quivers athwart the 
 heavens. The ignorant mind creates out of its 
 
86 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 own terrors, in dreams, and impressions, and 
 fluctuating moods, direct intimations of the 
 divine presence and will. But as society ad- 
 vances in knowledge, and as many of those 
 events, formerly attributed to supernatural agen- 
 cy, are discovered to be the result of natural 
 causes, it too often happens that, with the su- 
 perstitious recognition, all practical acknowledg- 
 ment of the divine presence and agency is lost. 
 Accustomed to the observation of natural causes 
 at work around them, men cease to think of 
 any other. The tendency becomes habitual to 
 refer everything to the laws of nature, and to 
 imagine that, when we have specified the out- 
 ward and physical causes of any phenomenon, 
 we have completely accounted for it. The 
 voice of God is no longer heard in the thunder 
 when the laws of electricity begin to be known. 
 In the darkened luminary there is no shadow 
 of the Almighty's wing to the observer who 
 can calmly sit down and calculate the period 
 and duration of the solar eclipse. The region 
 of marvels is thus driven further and further 
 back, but the territory lost to Superstition is 
 
SPIRIT UAL INFLUENCE. 87 
 
 seldom won for Religion. The old gods of 
 heathenism have long vanished from the woods 
 and meadows and fountains ; but it is not that 
 the one living and true God, but only gravita- 
 tion, light, heat, magnetism, may be recognised 
 as reigning in their forsaken haunts. And we 
 carry the same tendency into the moral world. 
 The outward agents in moral and spiritual 
 changes are those on which we chiefly dwell. 
 The power of motives, the influence of educa- 
 tion, the natural efficacy of instructions, ap- 
 peals, admonitions, warnings it is to these 
 almost exclusively, and not to any direct opera- 
 tion of the Spirit of God, that we are apt to 
 trace changes of character. We may be ready, 
 indeed, decorously to remark, that no good can 
 be done without the blessing of God, but we 
 seldom realise the true significance of this state- 
 ment. The interposition of a divine agent in 
 every instance of moral improvement may not 
 be denied or controverted, but it is too often 
 practically ignored. A child grows up gentle, 
 amiable, pious; and when we say that he had 
 the benefit of a careful and religious education, 
 
88 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 we seem to ourselves to have given the whole 
 account of the matter. A careless youth devel- 
 ops into a thoughtful and serious manhood, and 
 we remark on the sobering and mellowing effect 
 of years. An irreligious man becomes devout, 
 and the dangerous illness, or the severe domes- 
 tic affliction, or the influence of a Christian 
 friend or minister, has made him, we perhaps 
 observe, a wiser and a better man. Seldom 
 does the mind naturally turn to the thought 
 " the finger of God is here ;" to many it would 
 seem fanatical or irrational thus to speak. The 
 idea of a mysterious Holy Spirit coming down 
 from the heavens, and working in the man's 
 mind, would but too often be regarded, if not 
 avowedly, yet in our secret judgment, as a 
 strange mystical notion peculiar to the domain 
 of theology, but quite apart from our ordinary 
 experience, having nothing in common with the 
 plain realities of e very-day life. 
 
 Now, it is to this habit of mind, this tendency, 
 tacit or avowed, to shrink from the supernatural, 
 that the text suggests a most striking correct- 
 ive. For it brings before us the consideration 
 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 89 
 
 that the supernatural is not confined to religion ; 
 it bids us look abroad upon the common world 
 of sight and sense, and see there, in the most 
 familiar processes and phenomena of nature, the 
 proofs of an immediate divine agency as myste- 
 rious, as inexplicable to man as any to which 
 religion appeals. Not in the dim region of the- 
 ological mysteries alone, but amidst the sights 
 and sounds of every-day life, we move in a 
 world of wonders. Not spiritual things only, 
 but every peeping bud, and every waving leaf, 
 each glancing sunbeam and glistening dewdrop, 
 the passing breeze, the falling shower, the rip- 
 pling stream, imply the presence of a mysteri- 
 ous power and agency ever secretly working 
 around us. There is a sense, in which science, 
 with all its triumphs, returns to the creed of 
 the world's infancy, and is compelled to admit 
 the immediate presence of a supernatural power 
 in the most ordinary movements of nature. 
 For, after all, not the most splendid revelations 
 of science have ever been able to disclose any- 
 thing more than the regular sequences of 
 events, the ways in which the Author of nature 
 
90 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 generally chooses to work, the self-imposed rules 
 of divine agency. 
 
 Gravitation, light, heat, chemical affinity, are 
 only abstractions ; they are nothing in them- 
 selves without a personal will a living agent, 
 whose mode of working they express. Dead 
 matter, however arranged, can never act of it- 
 self. Power, spontaneous activity, can never 
 reside in dead and material things ; it can dwell 
 only in a person, a living, thinking, willing agent. 
 A human mechanist may leave the machine he 
 has constructed to work without his further per- 
 sonal superintendence, because when he leaves 
 it, God's laws take it up, and by their aid the 
 materials by which the machine is made retain 
 their solidity, the steel continues elastic, the va- 
 por keeps its expansive power. But when God 
 has constructed His machine of the universe, 
 He cannot so leave it, or any the minutest part 
 of it, in its immensity and intricacy of move- 
 ment, to itself 5 for, if He retire, there is no 
 second God to take care of this machine. Not 
 from a single atom of matter can He who made 
 it for a moment withdraw His superintendence 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 91 
 
 and support. Each successive moment, all over 
 the world, the act of creation must be repeated. 
 The existence of the world witnesses to a per- 
 petuity of creating influence. Active omni- 
 presence must flood the universe, or its machin- 
 ery stops, and its very existence terminates. 
 The signs of an all-pervading supernatural en- 
 ergy meet us wherever we turn. Every leaf 
 waves in it, every plant in all its organic pro- 
 cesses lives in it ; it rolls round the clouds, else 
 they would not move ; it fires the sunbeam, else 
 it would not shine ; and there is not a wave that 
 restlessly rises and sinks, nor a whisper of the 
 wanton wind that " bloweth where it listeth," 
 but bespeaks the immediate intervention of God. 
 Marvel not, then, when it is said that we must 
 be born of the Spirit. If not the slightest move- 
 ment of matter can take place without the im- 
 mediate agency of God, shall we wonder that 
 His agency is needed in the higher and more 
 subtle processes of mind ? If every echoing 
 wind bespeak a present Deity, shall it seem 
 strange to appeal to His power in the regenera- 
 tion of a soul ? Each time the furrow opens to 
 
92 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 the ploughshare, or the sail of the vessel ex- 
 pands to the breeze, we call in the aid of a mys- 
 terious agency, without which human efforts 
 were vain. Can it be matter of surprise that 
 the same mysterious agency must be invoked in 
 every effort to break up the hardened soil of 
 the human heart, or to communicate to the dull 
 and moveless spirit of man an impulse towards 
 a nobler than earthly destiny ? 
 
 II. The Sovereignty i or apparent Arbitrariness, 
 of the work of the Spirit of God in regenera- 
 tion, is another of those difficulties connected 
 with this doctrine to which the illustration of 
 the text seems to point. It is this to which our 
 Lord seems to refer when he compares the Spir- 
 it's agency to that of the wind which " bloweth 
 where it listeth" that is, with inexplicable uncer- 
 tainty and variableness, or according to laws 
 which are beyond the knowledge and control of 
 man. 
 
 And how very much, to human eye, have the 
 relations of God with man, as a religious being, 
 been characterised by an aspect of strange un- 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 93 
 
 certainty and arbitrariness ! Religion, with its 
 all ennobling influences, has not been communi- 
 cated to man universally or indiscriminately. 
 The spirit of love and life has not breathed over 
 every sin-blighted land ; but while a few fa- 
 vored regions have felt its reviving presence, 
 and have begun to bloom with a moral beauty 
 that is not of this world, others, unvisited by 
 its quickening power, remain from age to age in 
 the condition of moral wastes, barren as the 
 desert, or rife only with weeds and thorns. Nor 
 can human research discover any law by which 
 this inequality is ordered. For the partial dis- 
 tribution of spiritual blessings to the nations we 
 can give no other reason than the inscrutable 
 and irresponsible will of a Benefactor who gives 
 and withholds " wheresoever He listeth." 
 
 And as little in the case of individuals as of 
 nations can we explain on what principle it is 
 that the gracious influences of the Spirit are 
 vouchsafed. In equal possession of the outward 
 means of improvement some are benefited whilst 
 others continue unaffected. The seed of truth 
 springs up into rapid and rich maturity in one 
 
94 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 mind ; in another, on which perhaps it has been 
 more profusely scattered, it remains dormant and 
 unproductive. A word spoken in season, the 
 utterance of a hallowed name, even a mere look 
 of affectionate remonstrance, will fly straight to 
 the core of some human spirit, as if guided by 
 some unerring hand ; whilst, on others, all the 
 strength of reason, all the force of logic, all the 
 power of eloquence, may be spent, only to recoil 
 ineffective as arrows from proof-mail. From the 
 furnace of affliction one heart, on which an ir- 
 resistible solvent has been acting, will come forth 
 softened, subdued, spiritualised ; whilst others, 
 from the superficial tenderness of unblessed sor- 
 row, speedily cool down into a hardness and in- 
 sensibility more hopeless than ever. And if this 
 diversity of results is to be ascribed, not to the 
 variety of outward means, but to the presence 
 or absence of an inward influence which alone 
 can render them effectual, can we tell why that 
 influence, given in one case, should be withheld 
 in any other ? Is the hand of Jehovah ever 
 shortened that it cannot save ? Is the reservoir 
 of grace so scantily supplied that, while some 
 
SPIKITUAL INFLUENCE. 95 
 
 receive the precious dole, others as needy must 
 go unrelieved ? Or can we ascribe to Infinite 
 Love the wayward fitfulness of earthly benefi- 
 cence to Infinite Wisdom the arbitrary and 
 unreasoning favoritism of weak and erring men ? 
 If grace be necessary to conversion ; if without 
 it an angel of heaven might preach with heav- 
 en's eloquence, yet all in vain ; and with it, from 
 the appeals of feeble human lips no careless au- 
 ditor could retire unaffected, why are we not 
 tempted to ask is not the Spirit of God poured 
 forth without measure on every assembly where 
 unconverted souls are to be found ? The at- 
 mosphere of selfishness broods over the soul and 
 stifles all its glorious capacities of excellence. 
 Oh, why is there not an instant response to the 
 call, " Awake, north wind ! and come thou 
 south ! breathe upon this garden, that the spices 
 thereof may flow forth?" The dead in sin 
 the living, lost, never-dying dead bespread the 
 world, a spectacle more awful than in the pro- 
 phet's vision ; and can it be that boundless 
 Mercy surveys it, and yet there is no answer to 
 the prayer, " Come from the four winds, 
 
96 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 breath ! and breathe upon these dead that they 
 may live ?" 
 
 To all such questions the not unnatural ex- 
 pression of the mind's anxiety in contemplating 
 the seeming arbitrariness of the Spirit's work 
 we must again reply in the words of the text 
 " Marvel not that it is said unto you, Ye must 
 be born of the Spirit." Marvel not nor be dis- 
 quieted at your inability to explain the laws that 
 regulate the operations of an infinite Agent ; for 
 in a province much more within the range of hu- 
 man observation there are familiar agents at 
 work, the operations of which are equally in- 
 scrutable, arbitrary, incalculable. Think it not 
 strange that the ways of the Spirit of God are 
 unaccountable to a mind by which even the com- 
 mon phenomena of the wind are irreducible to 
 law. " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
 thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not 
 tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth ; so is 
 every one that is born of the Spirit." 
 
 And the force of this illustration it will need 
 little reflection to perceive. For what so fitful, 
 wayward, incalculable, as the operations of the 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 97 
 
 wind ? Who can for a single hour foresee, or with 
 certainty pronounce, what its course will be? 
 Sometimes breathing in softness, sometimes rush- 
 ing in storm ; now gently fanning the summer 
 fields or wandering with scarcely perceptible 
 movement over the vernal earth ; anon sweeping 
 and raging along with the wild impetuosity of 
 the winter blast ; leaving one spot or one region 
 of the earth parched, cloudless, motionless; for 
 days and weeks stirring not a branch or leaf, as 
 it hangs droopingiy in the dry and moveless air, 
 yet at the same time bringing to other regions 
 the fertilising influences of refreshing gales and 
 showers. And the argument is If even this 
 simple agent so baffle man's highest wisdom to 
 reduce to known laws its seemingly wayward 
 movements, shall it be thought strange that the 
 ways of the unsearchable Spirit of God are gov- 
 erned by no rules which finite minds can dis- 
 cern? If a phenomenon which, how r ever com- 
 plex the principles or intricate the conditions in- 
 volved in it, is still a physical and limited one, 
 present to the acutest minds a problem that is 
 insoluble, what wonder that they should be 
 
 Caird. 5 
 
98 SPIEITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 baffled by the operations of an Agent who is 
 limited by no conditions of time and space, and 
 whose every movement is but a part of the vast 
 and mysterious scheme of the moral government 
 of the universe ? If the fitful breeze that stirs 
 a meadow or ripples a brook be a subject of in- 
 vestigation too extensive and complicated for 
 mortal intellect to grasp, surely there is little 
 marvel that it cannot explain and calculate the 
 movements of that ineffable Power which works 
 on the scale of infinitude. No ! fully to compre- 
 hend the measures of the infinite Spirit, so as to 
 see them freed from every semblance of ob- 
 scurity or arbitrariness, would be an achieve- 
 ment implying a mind infinite as His own ; and 
 surely we may defer that enterprise till finite 
 problems have ceased to baffle us. 
 
 But the illustration in the text may suggest 
 to us this further thought, that the arbitrariness 
 which characterises the Spirit's work is, after all, 
 only apparent, and that, beneath seeming irregu- 
 V larity, there is real and unvarying law. It is so 
 with the material agent, it is so with the spiritual, 
 of which that is the emblem. The capriciousness, 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 99 
 
 fitfulness, lawlessness of the wind's motions is 
 only in appearance. The wind never really does 
 act at random. Its endless inconstancies, its 
 ceaseless and unaccountable changes, are the re- 
 sult of material laws as fixed and stable as that 
 by which the planets revolve, or the sun rises 
 and sets. Science, indeed, with all its modern 
 aids and appliances, has made but slight pro- 
 gress in the attempt to trace out the laws of 
 winds and storms, and perhaps this is a province 
 in which our knowledge must ever be imperfect 
 and vague ; but the vagueness and imperfection 
 is not in nature but in us. It is only because 
 of the limits of our faculties that we cannot ex- 
 plain the reasons of every vagary of the restless 
 wind, every motion of each everchanging cloud 
 that forms, and floats, and dissipates, and forms 
 again in the heavens, as easily as we can tell 
 why a stone falls to the ground. And so too, 
 undoubtedly, it is with that of which the wind 
 is set forth as the type, the agency of the Spirit 
 of God. In His most mysterious dealings with 
 the souls of men, God never acts without a rea- 
 son. Where, to us, there seems inconstancy, to 
 
100 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 Him all is order. What arrogant impiety rejects 
 as harsh and arbitrary, is ? to the Mind that alone 
 can comprehend the universe, luminous with the 
 traces of beneficence and wisdom. And all that 
 to human eye, seems dark, unaccountable, capri- 
 cious, in the economy of grace, is so only, we 
 may be well assured, because our feeble minds 
 are incompetent to grasp the explanation. A 
 time was when the starry firmament presented 
 to the eye of man only the aspect of a maze of 
 luminous points, scattered hap-hazard, or moving 
 at random over the heavens ; but at length the 
 great thought was struck out which evolved from 
 all this seeming confusion the most perfect order 
 and harmony. And so, perhaps a time may 
 come when light shall be thrown on many things 
 that seem mysterious in the arrangements of 
 Providence and in the dispensation of grace, and 
 when the undiscovered spiritual law of gravita- 
 tion shall reduce all seeming arbitrariness to per- 
 fect order and beauty. But meanwhile, in pres- 
 ence of the inscrutable order of God's govern- 
 ment, it is the befitting attitude of a creature so 
 weak and ignorant, even in earthly things, as 
 
S P I 11 1 T U A L INFLUENCE. 101 
 
 man's experience proves him to be, not to criti- 
 cise, to question, to doubt, but to submit and to 
 adore. 
 
 III. The reality of the work of regeneration 
 may be questioned, finally, because of its secret 
 or imperceptible character ; and it is this diffi- 
 culty which the argument of the text seems 
 specially intended to obviate. Momentous 
 though the change be, which, in regeneration, 
 the soul is supposed to undergo, it is one of 
 which we have no direct consciousness no im- 
 mediate evidence. The finger of the mighty 
 Agent is not felt as it works in the secret depths 
 of our being. Nor is there any external sign, 
 any glory resting on the countenance, any 
 hovering flame or rushing wind, to intimate the 
 presence of the heavenly visitant. Unseen lie 
 comes, unseen He departs. We reach and pass 
 the crisis of our spiritual history all unconscious 
 that an event so extraordinary is taking place 
 within the breast. And it is not strange that a 
 transformation, so utterly unevidenced by sense 
 or consciousness, should at first sight be regarded 
 
102 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 as improbable, and that men should sometimes 
 " marvel when it is said unto them, Ye must be 
 born again." We are accustomed to associate 
 great events in man's earthly history with out- 
 ward stir and show, outivard pomp and circum- 
 stance, and we can scarcely divest ourselves of 
 the notion that external significance is insepar- 
 able from real importance. When the heir to 
 earthly wealth or grandeur is born, the earliest 
 cry of the feeble babe is the signal for loud and 
 universal gratulation, and by a thousand obtru- 
 sive indications the tidings of the joyous event 
 are borne far and wide. When a decisive battle 
 terminates some great struggle, in which the 
 nations are interested, the shout of victory has 
 scarce died away on the field till it is caught up 
 and reverberated from land to land, and by every 
 outward sign that can give expression to joyful 
 emotion by banners, flung out on every height, 
 and peals echoing on every breeze do men 
 strive to mark their sense of the magnitude of 
 the occurrence. How strange to be told that an 
 event, infinitely more momentous than these in 
 man's history, has taken place in silence and 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 103 
 
 secrecy that a Child of the living God the 
 heir of an inheritance, before which earthly 
 splendors pale has been horn, and yet the 
 event been unnoticed and unknown ; that a 
 conflict, in which the powers of light and of dark- 
 ness have been engaged, and the results of which 
 time cannot measure, has been, in one auspi- 
 cious hour, decisively terminated, and yet that 
 in profoundest secrecy, without one whisper of 
 triumph to mark it, the victory has been won ! 
 
 But again let us turn to the simple argument 
 of the text ; for here we are taught that the 
 association on which all such incredulity is based 
 the association between show and reality, out- 
 ward significance and real importance is an 
 altogether fallacious one. For the proof that 
 visibility and greatness, power and seeming, are 
 far from inseparable, we are pointed to one out 
 of many similar phenomena which daily meet 
 our observation in the material world. In nature 
 it cannot be questioned that more often than 
 otherwise the greatest powers and agencies are 
 invisible. Known to exist by their effects, in 
 themselves and in their mode of operation they 
 
104 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 are imperceptible and unknown ; so that, to be- 
 lieve only where we see, to discredit the exist- 
 ence and agency of all that is incognisable by 
 sense, would be a maxim as fatal to science as 
 to religion. When the magnet draws the iron, 
 when the needle turns to the pole, who sees the 
 strange influence by which the attraction is 
 effected? what eye can discern the infinitely 
 minute threads of influence that draw the one 
 object to the other? Or, when the earth and 
 other planets revolve around the sun, and the 
 moon and other satellites around those, who can 
 perceive any mysterious ether flowing from world 
 to world to convey the impulse that moves them ? 
 What keenest optics can see gravitation ? Mani- 
 fest by the mighty results it achieves, this 
 greatest of material agents is in itself, and in the 
 mode of its operation, unseen. So, too, is it, to 
 name no other instance, with that natural agent 
 to which the text specially refers the impal- 
 pable, viewless, wind. Visible in its manifold 
 influences, it, too, is in its essence and operation 
 imperceptible. As you have surveyed the face 
 of nature in some tranquil season the unbreath- 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 105 
 
 ing summer noon, or the hushed twilight hour 
 every feature of the landscape has seemed suf- 
 fused with calmness, every tree hung its motion- 
 less head, every unrippled brook crept on with 
 almost inaudible murmuring, every plant and 
 flower and leaf seemed as if bathed in repose. 
 But anon you perhaps perceived a change passing 
 over the scene as if at the bidding of some in- 
 visible power ; a rushing sound as of music 
 evoked by invisible fingers from the harp of 
 Nature began to fill your ear; the leaves began 
 to quiver and rustle, the trees to bend and shake, 
 the stream to dash onward with ruffled breast 
 and brawling sound, and from every wood and 
 glade and glen there came forth the intimation, 
 that a new and most potent agent was abroad 
 and working around you. And yet while you 
 marked this change on the face of nature, did 
 you perceive the agent that effected it ? Did 
 the wind of heaven take visible form and appear 
 as a winged messenger of God's will, hurrying 
 hither and thither from object to object ? Do 
 you know, and can you describe, the way in 
 which he worked, how his touch fell upon the 
 
106 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 floweret and bade it wave, or his grasp seized 
 the sturdy oak and strove with it till it quivered 
 and bent ? No, you cannot. You have not 
 penetrated so far into the secrets of nature. 
 You have seen only the effects, but not the 
 agent or the process of his working. You have 
 seen the wind's influences but not itself. But 
 do you therefore marvel, or hesitate to believe 
 that it has been indeed abroad and working over 
 the face of the earth ? or do you ever doubt 
 whether there be any such agent as the wind at 
 all ? No ; you have heard the sound thereof, 
 you have witnessed the stir and commotion of 
 nature that told of its presence, and so you be- 
 lieve in its existence, though you "cannot tell 
 whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth." 
 
 So it is with every one that is born of the 
 Spirit. You cannot see this mysterious agent 
 any more than those natural agents of which I 
 have spoken. But, as in the one case so in the 
 other, though the agent is invisible, the effects 
 of his operation are manifest. You perceive not 
 the passing to and fro of a mysterious attraction 
 between God and the soul of man, but you will 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 107 
 
 not seldom see, as the needle is drawn to the 
 magnet, some sinful soul, hitherto fixed in its 
 worldly and selfish insensibility, as if touched 
 by an invisible power, beginning to bestir itself, 
 shaking off the torpor of worldliness and selfish- 
 ness, and drawn in love and devotion to God 
 and heavenly things. You do not see the gale 
 from heaven the breath of the Spirit wafted 
 over any sinner's soul, but ever and anon, if you 
 watch carefully the moral history of your fellow- 
 men, you may perceive, in the life of one or 
 another hitherto careless man, a change more or 
 less marked, the visible witness of a hidden 
 and invisible work. Sometimes with gentle 
 touch the Spirit comes. When affliction has 
 softened the heart, when solitude or bereave- 
 ment has made the soul susceptible of serious 
 thought, when the character is naturally ami- 
 able, gentle, impressible, when outward circum- 
 stances have been from childhood favorable to 
 piety, the Spirit of God has often but to 
 breathe, as it were, an insensible movement into 
 the moral atmosphere, in order to waft into the 
 heart the seeds of holiness, and cause the fruits 
 
108 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 of holiness to spring forth in the life. But 
 sometimes in far different mood the Spirit comes 
 as if in storm and terror on the wings of the 
 loud and winter wind. When the heart is hard- 
 ened by sin, or rendered stern and cold by long 
 resistance to serious impressions, in these and 
 similar cases the Holy Spirit has often come in 
 influence of terror and alarm, breaking wildly 
 over the trembling soul, and causing it to quake 
 with thoughts of guilt, and death, and judg- 
 ment, and the wrath to come ; and then it has 
 been as if the inner world were shaken to the 
 centre, and in the groans of its anguish or the 
 cries of its penitence now rising into hope, now 
 sinking into despair the soul has given witness 
 how terribly the wind of the Spirit was working 
 within it. But neither in His gentle nor in His 
 rougher visitations is the working of the Mighty 
 Agent ever immediately discernible. Only by 
 its effects, by the fragrance and beauty of a 
 saintly life, its truthfulness, gentleness, humil- 
 ity, self-denial ; or, again, by evil passions root- 
 ed up, inveterate sinful habits bent and broken, 
 obstacles to holiness swept away by the sor- 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 109 
 
 row, the self-abasement, the penitence, the pray- 
 ers of a soul at the footstool of infinite Justice 
 and Mercy, only by these, its outward effects, 
 can the hidden presence and working of the 
 Holy Spirit be recognised. 
 
 It is, then, no marvellous or incredible doc- 
 trine, but one corroborated by the most familiar 
 analogies, that there is a supernatural, sovereign, 
 and secret operation of the Spirit of God on 
 every penitent and believing soul. And this is 
 a doctrine fraught with many obvious practical 
 lessons. For if the agency of the Spirit be, as 
 we have seen, a supernatural agency an agency 
 above ordinary means, and apart from which or- 
 dinary means must prove ineffectual, consider, 
 for one thing, how urgent the necessity for se- 
 curing the Spirit's intervention. What an arrest 
 would be laid upon many of the works of man, 
 if that natural agent, to which we have so often 
 referred as the Spirit's type, were suspended ! 
 If the wind of heaven ceased to blow, conceive 
 how abortive, in many cases, would be all hu- 
 man industry and skill. The wind withdrawn, 
 
110 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 the seas and rivers would become leaden and 
 motionless ; the sail would hang idle on the 
 mast, and every vessel that floats the seas, ar- 
 rested on her progress, would be perpetually be- 
 calmed. The labors of the husbandman, alike 
 with those of the seaman, would be frustrated. 
 No healthful showers wafted to our fields, every 
 blade would wither, each dry and moveless 
 stalk of grain perish in the growing, every green 
 and beautiful thing decay from the earth's face. 
 The very physical powers of man, deprived of 
 healthful stimulus, would become languid, heavy, 
 laborious, and at last incapable of action. And 
 thus in a thousand ways the activity of man 
 would be in vain, and his utmost ingenuity in 
 the selection of means, or perseverance in the 
 employment of them, fail of achieving any use- 
 ful result. 
 
 But equally fatal, in the spiritual world, to 
 the success of all human endeavors, would be 
 the withholding of the supernatural grace of the 
 Spirit of God. In vain as the sowing of seed 
 on dry and barren soil, our reading and teach- 
 ing, our sacraments and solemnities, if the secret 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. Ill 
 
 grace of germination aid not our efforts. In 
 vain as the spreading of sails beneath windless 
 skies every aspiration after holiness, every at- 
 tempt to break away from sin and live for God, 
 if the favoring breath of spiritual influence de- 
 scend not to co-operate with our endeavors. 
 Pray, then, for the Spirit. In all your efforts 
 to be good or to do good, seek this heavenly 
 aid. Despair of success apart from it ; rest not 
 till you have obtained it. The wind comes not 
 at the sailor's or the husbandman's call ; but in 
 this, blessed be God, the earthly type is far 
 transcended by the heavenly reality ; for the 
 believer is possessed of a spell that can summon 
 the gracious aid of the Spirit in every time of 
 need. The man whose voyage is arrested, and 
 to whom delay is ruinous, may long and pray 
 for the springing up of the favoring breeze, and 
 yet days and weeks may pass, and no answer 
 come. The parched earth may crave for mois- 
 ture, and while the fruits of his toils are perish- 
 ing before his eyes, the husbandman may 
 fervently invoke the wind that wafts the show- 
 er-laden cloud to his fields, and yet the heavens 
 
112 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCP:. 
 
 may still be above him as brass. But not in 
 spiritual things is our gracious Benefactor ever 
 thus inexorable. " Your heavenly Father will 
 give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him." 
 Our progress heavenward need never be de- 
 layed, the fruits of holiness need never be 
 blighted for lack of that heavenly influence. 
 Ask then in faith, never doubting. God may 
 not will your earthly prosperity, but your spir- 
 itual welfare is dearer to His heart than to your 
 own, and nothing that contributes to it shall be 
 wanting to the earnest supplicant. In every 
 emergency, in every Christian work and effort, 
 therefore, pray for the abundant grace of the 
 Spirit, without which you can do nothing, with 
 which you can do all things. 
 
 And if the doctrine of the text furnishes us 
 with a motive to prayer, not less suggestive is it 
 of encouragement to effort. For whilst our 
 natural powers soon reach their limit, to the 
 supernatural aid on which we are encouraged to 
 depend there is none. With the power of God 
 to help him, no man need despair of moral re- 
 covery. With the infinite resources of God's 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 113 
 
 grace at our command, no attainment in holiness 
 is beyond our reach. Self-reformation, by the 
 mere strength of human resolution, soon proves 
 a vain attempt; but the effort to repent and 
 turn to God to regain our lost purity and 
 happiness cannot fail, when the very Power 
 that fashioned our mysterious being prompts and 
 aids in the work of restoration. What man 
 made, man may repair ; but the soul is a divine 
 work, a thing too noble and delicate, as well as 
 too deeply disordered by sin, to be remoulded 
 and restored by any finite skill or energy. But 
 not to finite skill or energy is the work of re- 
 storation committed ; and surely we may labor 
 in this work with the most sanguine hope nay, 
 with firm assurance of success, when we know 
 that the very Mind and Hand that devised and 
 framed our spiritual being are working with us 
 for its recovery. " We are laborers together 
 with God : ye are God's husbandry, ye are 
 God's building." Nor, with such inexhaustible 
 and ever-accessible help, need we confine our 
 endeavors merely to the restoration of the soul. 
 There is no limit to our possible progress and ad- 
 
114 SPIEITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 vancement. The richest soil soon reaches its limit 
 of productiveness. The enterprise of him who 
 seeks earthly wealth is restricted by the extent 
 of his capital or credit. But in spiritual things 
 you need set no such bounds to your efforts : 
 the soil from which the fruits of holiness are 
 gathered, is prolific beyond all possibility of ex- 
 haustion; it is God who gives the increase. 
 The treasury from which your capital is drawn 
 is one which can never, by your largest demands 
 for aid, be impoverished. Why, then, should 
 any Christian rest content with past attain- 
 ments ? Every beautiful grace, every noble 
 virtue that has ever adorned the saintliest of 
 mankind, may be yours. Why should any man 
 be satisfied with small and scanty spiritual gains ? 
 In divine things there can be no avarice ; to the 
 most insatiable desire of wealth you may inno- 
 cently give scope. You are not straitened in 
 God, be not straitened in yourselves. 
 
 And again, if the agency of the Spirit is not 
 only supernatural, but also sovereign if in this 
 respect also it can be likened to that material 
 agent which is set forth as its type, the wind 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 115 
 
 that " bloweth where it listeth" surely in this 
 aspect, too, the subject is replete with practical 
 significance. For does not the very uncertainty 
 and seeming fitfulness of nature's influences act 
 as a stimulus to the exertions of man? The 
 fair wind that has long been waited for, and may 
 speedily die away; the spring-tide that comes 
 only at distant intervals, and must be taken at 
 the flood ; the balmy season propitious to the 
 husbandman's toils ; the bright moments favor- 
 able to intellectual exertion, when thought flows 
 quick, and the spirits are high, and winged 
 fancies come in precious visitations on the soul 
 is there not something in the very uncertainty 
 and evanescence of these happy influences and 
 golden opportunities that tends mightily to 
 quicken watchfulness and stimulate effort ? And 
 should it not be so in spiritual things too ? If, 
 explain it as we may, there is any similar vari- 
 ableness in the times and seasons of religious 
 influence, how urgent the motive thus presented 
 to Christian vigilance in waiting for every favor- 
 able opportunity, and to diligence in improving 
 it ! It is not for us, indeed, always to know the 
 
116 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 times and seasons which God hath put in His 
 own power ; but there are, perhaps, none of us 
 who do not know from personal experience that 
 ever and anon there come to the soul times of 
 visitation hours of softened feeling and deep- 
 ened thoughtfulness, when the things of time 
 lose their hold upon us, and the eternal world 
 rolls nearer, with all its grand realities, to the 
 spirit's eye. And are not these the spring tides 
 of the soul, the seasons propitious to the spirit- 
 ual husbandly, every moment of which gathers 
 round it the importance of that eternal harvest 
 to which the rapid hours are bringing us ? Are 
 not these, in one word, the times when the 
 spiritual gales blow freshest and fairest from the 
 heavens, and the soul, instinct with life, feels 
 every expanded energy yielding to the almost 
 sensible impulses of the Spirit of Truth and 
 Love ? How precious such moments ! Who 
 that reflects on their worth would not long and 
 pray and watch for their coming, and, while 
 they continue, strain every energy to catch to 
 the last breath the blessing which they bring ? 
 And, finally, in that other aspect in which we 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 117 
 
 have viewed the Spirit's work as a work se- 
 cret in itself, yet manifest by its effects is 
 there not conveyed to us a lesson of deepest 
 practical interest ? For what inquiry so impor- 
 tant to each of us as this, Can I discern in my 
 character and life the signs of the Spirit's pres- 
 ence the visible proofs of this mighty agent's 
 invisible operation? Unseen He may come; 
 unfelt and imperceptible may be His working, 
 as it blends with the secret springs of thought 
 and feeling within the breast ; but wherever He 
 does work, sooner or later, the result will be 
 manifest and unequivocal. The external change 
 indeed, that indicates His presence may be, to 
 all but the closest inspection, unapparent. For 
 there is a formal and conventional propriety 
 which may spring from many motives short of 
 religious principle from natural amiableness, 
 from the absence of strong temptations, from 
 the influence of circumstances, from regard to 
 the opinions of men; and the transition from 
 that outward morality which is the product of 
 such motives, to that holiness which is the fruit 
 of the Spirit's work, may, in form at least, be 
 
118 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 but slightly observable. But slight or marked 
 to the inspection of others, to the inward con- 
 sciousness of the renewed mind itself the re- 
 sults of the Divine agency will, I repeat, sooner 
 or later be obvious and unmistakable ; for that 
 result will be not formal but real not out- 
 ward reformation merely, but a change of heart 
 not surface goodness, but spirituality of mind 
 and motive flowing out into holiness of life. 
 
 Apply this test, then, to your own conscious- 
 ness, and be satisfied with none less searching. 
 " If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he 
 is none of His." " Except a man be born of 
 the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
 Would you discover whether you "have the 
 Spirit of Christ," whether yours is the destiny 
 of those who have been " born of the Spirit ?" 
 Then let not the question be, "Am I leading 
 such a life as to escape the censure or win the 
 commendation of the world?" for the stream 
 may rise as high as its source, and the world 
 itself may supply you with motive sufficient to 
 reach its own standard of moral elevation. Let 
 it not even suffice to ask, " Am I not now a 
 
 
SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 119 
 
 wiser and better man than I once was ? 
 have I not abandoned many former irregulari- 
 ties of conduct, and ceased to gratify many 
 passions to which in other days I yielded ?" 
 For it needs not the interposition of the Spirit 
 of God to dry up the passions of youth, and 
 extinguish the fires of sensuality within us ; 
 the inevitable influence of years will serve well 
 enough for that ; and the transformation of the 
 heedless, or even vicious youth, into the sober 
 and prudent man, may come as independently 
 of principle, as much irrespectively of a change 
 of heart, as the silvering of the hair or the 
 whitening of the cheek. But the inquiry must 
 be, " Am I leading a holy life from real, heart- 
 felt self-devotion to Christ? Are my inward 
 principles, feelings, motives, such as will ap- 
 prove themselves to the eye of Him who seeth 
 in secret? Do I not only outwardly abstain 
 from what is wrong, but do I hate and shrink 
 from sin in my inmost heart ! pained when I 
 am betrayed into it, glad when I gain the vic- 
 tory over it ? Am I exercising a control, not 
 over my outward conduct merely, but over my 
 
120 SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE. 
 
 thoughts and affections over my secret habits, 
 dispositions, tempers ? Is God so reverenced 
 and loved in the inmost shrine of my being, 
 that I strive to expel thence every evil thought, 
 every vain, impure, selfish feeling, and to keep 
 the temple of a pure heart sacred to Him 
 alone ?" By the response which an honest 
 heart yields to such questions as these may we 
 elicit the true answer to that other and most 
 momentous question which involves and com- 
 prehends them all, " Have I been born of the 
 Spirit of God ?" 
 
Clje fnirisifcl* 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 " No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, 
 which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." 
 
 JOHN, i. 18. 
 
 To see God ! Has any created 
 SERM. IV.] . J . 
 
 mind ever known what is included 
 
 in these simple words ? Has the highest finite 
 intelligence ever fathomed their meaning? Is 
 there any intellect but that of Deity itself 
 which can comprehend the full sweep of their 
 grandeur ? 
 
 To see God to look face to face upon the 
 Supreme every intervening veil of sense with- 
 drawn, to gaze upon that awful Presence, of 
 which all created excellence is but the faint re- 
 flection ! What sights of beauty, and wonder, 
 and awe, on which mortal eye has ever rested 
 what visions of uncreated glory that have ever 
 passed before the imagination of man, can con- 
 
 Calrd. 
 
122 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 vey to the mind a conception of the vision of 
 God? 
 
 To see God ! What is the highest exercise 
 of a believer's faith but to catch some wavering, 
 transient glimpse of Jehovah's glory ? What is 
 the most exquisite happiness of any soul in 
 Christ, but to rise, even for a moment, in thought 
 and aspiration, into the presence of the Infinite 
 Good and Fair ? What constitutes the very bliss 
 of heaven, the joy of pure and glorified spirits 
 before the throne, but to " see the King in His 
 beauty ?" 
 
 Yet it is declared in the text that " no man 
 hath seen God at any time." " Whom no man 
 hath seen, nor can see," writes another apostle. 
 He is designated " The Invisible God," and again, 
 " The King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible." Is it 
 then so ? Must we, indeed, repress every longing 
 of desire, every yearning of devout and loving 
 hearts, after the nearer and brighter light of our 
 Father's countenance? "Oh that I might see 
 Him !" is not this sometimes the thought of 
 the doubting and troubled spirit ? " Oh that it 
 were possible for that Great Being, if indeed He 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 123 
 
 exist, to break through, even for a moment, the 
 secresy and stillness of creation, and, by the 
 visible manifestation of His person, to set my 
 doubts and difficulties for ever at rest." " Oh 
 that I might see Him !" has not this been the 
 involuntary cry of many a desponding heart, 
 when the light of God's love has seemed to be 
 withdrawn, and the darkness of spiritual deser- 
 tion has gathered over the soul ? " Oh that I 
 knew where I might find Him, that I might 
 come even to His seat ! I go forward, but He 
 is not there, backward, but I cannot perceive 
 Him. He hideth Himself that I cannot see Him. 
 Strange that He should be ever near, yet ever 
 distant ; that the Being for whom my heart longs 
 should be always beside me, and yet communi- 
 cation with Him be impossible, that in every 
 movement of nature, in every passing breeze, in 
 every glancing sunbeam nay, in every throb of 
 my pulse, and every thought of my mind there 
 should be the indication of a Father's nearness, 
 whose face I yet can never see !" Or again, 
 when the believer contemplates in thoughtful 
 moments the spectacle of human ungodliness 
 
124 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 when he looks round on a world where but too 
 often God is forgotten. His laws dishonored. His 
 very existence disowned when he watches the 
 slender success which often attends the most 
 earnest efforts for the moral good of mankind 
 how often does the wish rise to his lip, " Oh that 
 men might see Him that it were possible for 
 the heavens above them to dispart, and that 
 Great Being, the silent and awful Witness of sin, 
 to reveal Himself even for a moment to their 
 sight, and to arrest, by the spectacle of the 
 offended majesty of the heavens, the folly and 
 wickedness of man !" But in vain all such long- 
 ings. Neither to convince the doubting, nor to 
 comfort the desponding, nor to rouse the igno- 
 rant and profane, does God break through the 
 awful seclusion of the universe, or withdraw for 
 a moment the veil that hides Him from, human 
 sight. There are insuperable hindrances in this 
 our imperfect state of being to any immediate 
 vision of God. There are reasons which render 
 it impossible, so long at least as we dwell in this 
 region of sense and sin, that, without some ob- 
 scuring medium to dim the full blaze of the Di- 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 125 
 
 vine glory, human eye should be permitted to 
 behold the face of God. We may linger at the 
 foot of the mount, but it is a light inaccessible 
 and full of glory that rests on its summit ; and 
 even the most favored of mortals, in the hour 
 when holy contemplation brings them nearest to 
 the throne, are debarred from all further ap- 
 proach by the stern prohibition, " Thou canst not 
 see my face ; for there shall no man see God, 
 and live." 
 
 Yet whilst the text intimates that " no man 
 hath seen God at any time/' it further teaches 
 us that " the only-begotten Son, who is in the 
 bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him ;" 
 and our Lord is elsewhere described as "the 
 image of the Invisible God ;" and again, as " the 
 brightness of the Father's glory, and the express 
 image of His person." Moreover, Jesus himself, 
 in answer to the inquiry of a disciple, declares, 
 " He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." 
 
 Two truths, then, are obviously brought be- 
 fore us in this passage of Scripture the truth, 
 in the first place, that God, essential or absolute 
 Deity, is to us, in our present state of being, in- 
 
126 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 visible ; and the truth, secondly, that Jesus 
 Christ is the declaration or manifestation of God 
 to men. 
 
 I. God is invisible. We cannot see Him. 
 We are, in this world, debarred from looking 
 upon the face or discerning the immediate pres- 
 ence of Deity. Why is it so ? If it would 
 contribute to the happiness of the saint, or 
 check the sinner in his course of wickedness, to 
 behold God, why does God remain invisible ? 
 
 Now, in reflecting on this question, it will 
 occur to you as one consideration, that it is na- 
 turally impossible for what is spiritual to be per- 
 ceived by sense. There are even material 
 agents in existence around us so subtle as to 
 elude the cognisance of the senses. There are 
 powers in nature whose ever-present influence 
 we perce.ve, yet which themselves are never di- 
 rectly discerned. The varied forms and colors 
 of material objects around us the eye can de- 
 tect, but not the latent electricity that pervades 
 them. The masses and motions of the plane- 
 tary bodies are appreciable by the sight ; but 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 127 
 
 the keenest organs of sense cannot see gravita- 
 tion, cannot detect that mysterious power, as it 
 flies through space, binding orb to orb. And if 
 thus on the confines, so to speak, of the ma- 
 terial and spiritual worlds, there are agents im- 
 palpable to sense, much more, when we pass 
 those limits, do we enter into a region where 
 bodily organs fail us, and a vision and faculty 
 far more divine is needed. Who has seen 
 thought ? What eye has ever rested on that 
 mysterious essence which we designate mind, 
 soul, spirit ? If it be that spiritual intelligences 
 surround us, if millions of spiritual beings walk 
 the earth both when we wake and sleep, yet, as 
 they pass hither and thither on their heavenly 
 ministries, does the faintest sign of the presence 
 of these glorious beings ever flash on the dull 
 sense of man ? Nay, are we not dwellers in a 
 world of embodied spirits, holding continual in- 
 tercourse with them, witnessing constantly the 
 proofs of their existence and the effects of their 
 activity ; yet has one human spirit ever become 
 visible to another ? No ! It is but the forms 
 of spirit that are visible to sense. We see in 
 
128 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 the visible world around us the mere houses of 
 souls. 
 
 In this sense, then, God is now and ever must 
 be invisible. If even a finite spirit cannot be 
 seen by the bodily eye, how much less the In- 
 finite Spirit ? Finite spirits may indeed be in 
 some measure outwardly represented and recog- 
 nised, when localised in bodily forms. Human 
 souls may be identified by the material shapes 
 with which they are clothed. But even in their 
 case there is something nobler in spirit than the 
 fairest form of human beauty or grace or ma- 
 jesty can depict. The robe is often unworthy 
 of the wearer. And how, then, can the Infinite 
 Spirit ever thus be made known? How can He 
 be localised in matter whom the Heaven of 
 heavens cannot contain ? What corporeal or- 
 ganisation can ever adequately represent the 
 Omniscient Mind ? The material universe it- 
 self is but a feeble expression of God's illimi- 
 table greatness. Beyond all created forms of 
 beauty there is ever a " glory that excelleth," 
 which the imagination cannot conceive ; nor does 
 it seem possible for even Omnipotence to fash- 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 129 
 
 ion out of matter an adequate embodiment of 
 itself. Could we entertain for a moment the 
 supposition of God condescending to contrive 
 some resplendent form, some radiant shape of 
 "superhuman majesty and loveliness, by which to 
 convey to man a conception of His spiritual 
 glory, we might conceive the universe to be 
 searched in vain for the materials of such a pro- 
 duction. We might give the rein to fancy, and 
 imagine the sun robbed of its glory and the 
 stars of their splendors, and heaven, earth, sea, 
 skies, all the myriad worlds in space, combining 
 to surrender whatever of beauty or grandeur 
 they contain; still would the result be miserably 
 insufficient to portray the unapproachable glory 
 of the invisible Being of God. " These are but 
 parts of His ways ; how little a portion is heard 
 of Him ! but the thunder of His power who can 
 understand ?" 
 
 But if God cannot be seen by the eye of 
 sense, is an immediate mental vision of God 
 equally inconceivable ? Is there no possibility 
 of a direct and intuitive vision of spiritual ob- 
 jects by the mind, corresponding to that of 
 
130 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 sensible objects by the bodily organ of sight ? 
 Cannot souls see face to face ? And is it 
 simply because the thing is impossible that we 
 are in this world precluded from beholding God ? 
 
 Now to this it must be answered, that so far 
 from being impossible, an immediate mental or 
 spiritual vision of God is both conceivable in 
 thought and expressly revealed in Scripture. 
 It is possible for spiritual beings, if we may so 
 speak, to see into each other ; for we know that 
 He to whom all hearts are open reads our unut- 
 tered thoughts and feelings, and there is noth- 
 ing to hinder Him from bestowing on us an 
 inferior measure of the same mysterious power 
 of soul-vision, so that the soul might be ren- 
 dered capable of seeing into God as God sees 
 into it, of " knowing even as it is known." 
 
 To aid our conceptions of this vision of God, 
 entertain for a moment the supposition that we 
 were endowed with the power of seeing directly 
 into the mind of a fellow-man. The thoughts 
 which delight us when we read them in the 
 works of earthly genius, had a real existence in 
 the mind of the poet or philosopher before they 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 131 
 
 were moulded into words ; and forasmuch as 
 even the noblest language is often but the feeble 
 and inadequate expression of the still more 
 noble thoughts that glow within the breast, our 
 delight, we can conceive, would be much great- 
 er, our privilege much higher, were it possible to 
 dispense with the poor medium of language al- 
 together, to look at once into the soul of the 
 great thinker, and to see his grand conceptions 
 as they burst into being on the surface of the 
 spirit. So, again, the idea of beauty is prior to 
 the external realization of it ; it exists in the 
 mind of the great artist before he labors to. give 
 visible expression to it in color and form ; and it 
 is ever the characteristic of great genius in art 
 that it never satisfies itself, never fully reaches 
 its own ideal, and that the creation of the hand, 
 even when its touch is most delicate, lags far 
 behind the rarer grace and beauty with which 
 the soul is on fire. So that if even the compar- 
 atively faint embodiment of the beautiful in 
 conception affords so much gratification when 
 presented to the eye in the breathing marble or 
 on the glowing canvass, we can perhaps imagine 
 
132 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 what would be the purer and more exquisite de- 
 light of the observer, were he endowed with a 
 faculty of spiritual vision by which he could 
 gaze at once on the inner types of beauty, the 
 fresh, undimmed originals hung up in the soul's 
 picture-gallery, instead of looking only on the 
 tamer copies which the hand produces. 
 
 Now, if we will but rise to a higher region 
 of contemplation, and entertain for a moment the 
 idea of one gifted with this power of soul vision, 
 who should be permitted to see immediately 
 into the mind of God, to gaze directly on the 
 thoughts and conceptions of that Infinite Mind 
 which is the origin of all truth, beauty, goodness, 
 we shall have before us that which the Scrip- 
 tures represent as constituting the chief element 
 of the felicity of saints in heaven, the vision of 
 Deity. The Bible, Providence, the visible crea- 
 tion, are God's thoughts, conveyed to us in 
 outward expression by words, symbols, mate- 
 rial manifestations. But the grand ideas of 
 Scripture existed in the mind of the Infinite 
 Spirit before they found utterance through the 
 imperfect medium of human speech ; and the 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 133 
 
 conception of the universe, with all its beauty, 
 and order, and harmony, was in the mind of the 
 Creator ere it took form in the visible splendors 
 of earth, and sea, and skies. 
 
 Conceive, then, what it would be to rise above 
 and beyond these outward forms and shadows, 
 to look, not on the mere borrowed light of 
 truth, but on that Light Ineffable from whence 
 the noblest earthly inspirations have ever caught 
 their fire, to discern not merely faint reflec- 
 tions and representations of divine love through 
 the dim, cold atmosphere of earthly ordinances, 
 but, heart to heart with God, to dwell where 
 happy souls revel unsated, undazzled, in the 
 Essential Element of Love. Or, when you look 
 on some glorious scene of this world's loveliness, 
 on mountain, lake, and forest breaking into 
 beauty in the morning light, or flooded with the 
 golden noontide, or softened, subdued, half con- 
 cealed, half revealed, beneath the tremulous 
 splendors of the nightly heavens conceive what 
 it would be to look on that Mind, of which even 
 all this earthly glory is but the faint transcript, 
 and to gaze directly and immediately upon the 
 
134 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 types of beauty there. And of this the Bible 
 tells us that the soul of man is incapable. The 
 veil that hides from us the all-glorious Father of 
 spirits shall one day be withdrawn. The spir- 
 itual eye shall be quickened to look into the 
 heart and life of the universe. The intercepting 
 medium of sense shall be swept away, and the 
 soul of the redeemed laid bare to the ineffable 
 brightness and beauty of God streaming full- 
 orbed around it. " Blessed are the pure in 
 heart/' it is written, " for they shall see God." 
 " Beloved, now are we the sons of God ; and it 
 doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we 
 know that when He shall appear, we shall be 
 like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 
 " Now we see through a glass darkly, but then 
 face to face ; now I know in part, but then shall 
 I know even as also I am known." " They shall 
 see His face, and His name shall be on their 
 foreheads. And they need no candle, neither 
 light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth 
 them light." 
 
 The idea, then, of an immediate vision of 
 God, involves no impossibility. Though God 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 135 
 
 cannot be seen by the bodily eye, there is a ca- 
 pacity in the soul which needs only to be devel- 
 oped in order to our attaining an immediate in- 
 tuition of the all-present God. There is nothing 
 incredible, nothing in the nature of things im- 
 possible in the supposition, that at any moment 
 the great Ruler of the Universe might break 
 forth from the awful seclusion of eternity, and 
 by the manifestation of His presence at once 
 consummate the happiness of His people, and 
 arrest the ungodly in the midst of their sins. 
 The question, therefore, recurs, Why is such an 
 interposition withheld ? Why is the immediate 
 sight of God reserved for the future world ? 
 Why is it the irreversible law of the present, 
 that ." no man hath seen God at any time ?" 
 
 Now to this question I answer, that the invis- 
 ibility of God seems to be a necessary condition 
 of the two-fold character of our present state of 
 being, as a state of trial, and as a state of train- 
 ing. 
 
 View the present life, first, in the aspect of a 
 state of trial, and you will see that such an eco- 
 nomy necessitates the invisibility of God. For 
 
136 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 the idea of a state of trial is that of a condition 
 of things in which neither the motives to good 
 nor the motives to evil are of an overwhelming 
 and irresistible character. There can be no 
 trial where there is no possibility of error or 
 failure. If a man's love of truth is to be tested, 
 truth must not blaze before him with self-evi- 
 dent clearness and vividness. Clear enough for 
 the candid and earnest inquirer to find it out, it 
 must at the same time be obscure enough to 
 escape the observation of the careless or preju- 
 diced. If a man's love of goodness is to be 
 tested, the consequences of goodness or wicked- 
 ness must not be rendered so inevitable and in- 
 stantaneous that only madness would hesitate to 
 choose between them ; on the contrary, the 
 trial of moral principle will then be the most 
 searching when holiness partakes the most of 
 the character of a struggle or conflict, and the 
 penalties of sinful pleasure are distant and seem- 
 ingly uncertain. 
 
 Now there can be no question that our con- 
 dition in the present life corresponds, in a great 
 measure, to this conception of a state of trial. 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 137 
 
 For whilst we must exclude from our minds the 
 idea of any such probation as would involve in 
 it a meritorious title to the rewards of the fu- 
 ture life, yet it is plain that we are placed in a 
 condition in which truth and error, good and 
 evil, life and death, are set before us, in which 
 we are left on our own responsibility to choose 
 between these alternatives, and in which the 
 possibility of a wrong choice is not precluded. 
 Divine truth does not pour itself like the light 
 of the sun upon heedless eyes, or force its ap- 
 peals, as by mighty thunderings and voices, 
 upon inattentive ears. Not even the funda- 
 mental truths of religion, such as the Existence 
 and Providence of God, are so obtruded on the 
 attention, or supported by such overwhelming 
 evidence as to constrain the assent of the reluc- 
 tant or careless mind. Notwithstanding all the 
 light of reason and of revelation, these are still 
 but the " open secrets" of the universe, seen 
 only by the watchful eye the " still small 
 voices" from the eternal world, heard only by 
 the willing and attentive ear : it is possible, 
 sad experience proves, amid the din and dis- 
 
138 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 traction of earthly things, to remain blind and 
 deaf to these eternal realities. And as with 
 the truth of God, so is it with the claims of His 
 law. The unholy are not forced into obedience 
 by any overwhelming interposition of the Law- 
 giver. No audible voice from the heavens 
 alarms the sinner in his career of wickedness. 
 No lightning of vengeance shoots athwart his 
 path, nor frown of visible wrath darkens the 
 sky over his head. No portentous form passes 
 before him, to blast him with the sight of the 
 incensed Majesty he scorns. Creation pre- 
 serves an awful stillness, an apparent indiffer- 
 ence, around the transgressor, so that it is 
 possible for men to forget and contemn the 
 Almighty, or to deem Him " altogether such an 
 one as themselves." 
 
 But in order to the maintenance of such an 
 economy, it is plainly necessary that God should 
 remain invisible. If God were seen, refusal to 
 believe would be impossible ; if there were an 
 immediate manifestation of the awful presence 
 of the world's Almighty Ruler, disobedience 
 would be madness, and yet obedience would be 
 
THE INVISIBLE QOD. 139 
 
 no longer the sign of love. Scepticism and 
 faith, impiety and virtue, would alike come to 
 an end. The holiness of the saint would be no 
 longer the triumph of faith over uncertainty; 
 the very energies of wickedness would be par- 
 alysed in the sinner's breast. The great Master 
 of the Household has for a while withdrawn, 
 and left His servants without any visible in- 
 spection, that by their diligence or remissness 
 in His absence their fidelity may be tested. 
 But His reappearance would put an end to the 
 trial ; for the most careless servant, alike with 
 the most dutiful and devoted, bestirs himself 
 when the master's step is heard on the thresh- 
 old, or the watchful eye of a visible authority is 
 fixed upon him. A time, indeed, is coming, 
 when, by such a visible manifestation of His 
 person, the moral Governor of the universe shall 
 put a period to probation, and when the secret 
 Witness shall become the open and Omniscient 
 Judge. Of that time it is written that then 
 " every eye shall see Him, and they also which 
 pierced Him ;" that the faithful shaU " behold 
 His face in righteousness, and be satisfied with 
 
140 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 His likeness," and the unbelieving call on the 
 " rocks and mountains to fall on them, and hide 
 them from the face of Him that sitteth on the 
 throne." But meanwhile, in calm and unbroken 
 stillness, the economy of trial proceeds, and the 
 Almighty Ruler hides His person, and "holds 
 back the face of His throne." 
 
 Equally does the invisibility of God seem to 
 be connected with the aspect of the present life 
 as a state of training or discipline. Our con- 
 dition in this world is that of beings who are 
 undergoing, not merely a process of trial by 
 which their future destiny is to be decided, but 
 also a process of training by which they are to 
 be fitted for it ; and the immediate manifestation 
 of God to the soul is reserved till that process 
 be complete. The faculty by which God is to 
 be discerned is yet, even in the holiest of men, 
 imperfect and undeveloped, and to the imma- 
 ture moral sensibility the full vision of God, if 
 possible at all, would be intolerable as the blaze 
 of the noonday sun to the weak or diseased 
 organ of sight. For it must be considered that, 
 in order to the perception and enjoyment of spir- 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 141 
 
 itual objects, there must be a previous prepara- 
 tion in the soul of the percipient. To know 
 and appreciate Mind its greatness, goodness, 
 beauty there must be a kindred spirit, a type 
 of these same qualities in the soul of the be- 
 holder. The irrational animal recognises his 
 master's person; but that which truly consti- 
 tutes the man the mind, spirit, character is, 
 and ever must be, to the lower nature, invisible. 
 Thought, reason, purity, reverence intellectual 
 and moral qualities, though incessantly displayed 
 before it, are a blank to the mere animal ; and 
 before it can perceive such qualities it must be- 
 come possessed of them ; it must be raised to 
 rationality before it can know and appreciate 
 the rational. So again, a child or a man of 
 grovelling and uncultured mind, though living 
 in immediate contact with one of lofty, thought- 
 ful, refined nature, cannot truly be said to see 
 or know him. Present to each other from day 
 to day, it is yet only a bodily contiguity which 
 obtains between natures so opposite ; there is 
 no spiritual communion or recognition, no vision 
 of soul by soul. Above all, moral natures must 
 
142 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 be like, in order to know each other. To the 
 impure, the sensual, the selfish, the perception 
 of the holy and pure is an impossibility. Amidst 
 worldly and evil natures, holiness isolates the 
 good. Selfishness is a non-conductor of the di- 
 vine. In the closest local proximity to the un- 
 holy a pure and heavenly spirit is removed more 
 widely beyond their range of vision than if 
 oceans rolled between them ; it preserves amidst 
 them a divine incognito. And before the veil 
 can be dropped, and the pure soul reveal its in- 
 ner beauty to the morally defiled, the latter must 
 needs undergo a complete renewal of nature, a 
 transformation and discipline into kindred good- 
 ness. Now, much more, without, holiness, must 
 it be impossible to see God. No external vision 
 or revelation could disclose the Infinitely Holy 
 to natures imperfect and sinful. They might be 
 taken to heaven, and stand beside the everlast- 
 ing throne, yet would the lustrous purity of its 
 great Occupant be all dark and unapparent to 
 them. Divine Being, in its wondrous manifesta- 
 tions, might play around the unrenewed mind, 
 but it would be as a luminous atmosphere bath- 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 143 
 
 ing blind eyes, or sweet music rippling round 
 deaf ears ; the heavenly effluence could not pass 
 inwards, could wake no thrill of appreciation, no 
 sympathetic delight within the soul. There must, 
 in short, be something godlike in us before we 
 can see and know God ; we must be " like Him" 
 before we can " see Him as He is." And into 
 this divine affinity, this penetrative moral in- 
 sight, it is one great end of the Christian's life 
 on earth to train him. By every holy deed, by 
 every spiritual aspiration, by each sacrifice of 
 inclination to duty, of passion to principle, of the 
 wayward human will to God's, the spiritual in- 
 stincts of the believer are becoming more refined, 
 his spiritual perceptions more acute. Not one 
 fervent prayer, not one act of earnest thoughtful 
 intercourse with God in holy ordinances, but is 
 strengthening the wing of aspiration and purify- 
 ing the eye of faith, training the spirit to rise 
 nearer to the region of eternal light and to bear 
 its divine effulgence with more undazzled gaze. 
 The time will come when this process shall be 
 completed when love shall be refined from all 
 admixture of selfishness when purity freed 
 
144 THE INVISIBLE GOD. 
 
 from all disturbing objects, shall quiver true to 
 the centre of right, and the soul to its inmost 
 depths, in heart, breath, and being, assimilated 
 to God, shall be prepared to reflect, without one 
 dimming shadow, the beams of infinite beauty. 
 But meanwhile, and so long as aught of earthly 
 imperfection adheres to it, not only is the soul 
 unprepared for the full enjoyment of God, but 
 it is probable that immediate vision would in- 
 volve emotions too overwhelming for its feeble 
 capacities. As there is a degree of light which, 
 to human eye, is equivalent to darkness; so 
 there are thoughts and conceptions under which 
 man's feeble apprehension sinks, and emotions 
 too big for human heart to hold. Even in our 
 earthly experience there have been occasions in 
 which great and sudden illapses of feeling the 
 joy, for instance, of unexpected meetings with 
 lost or long-absent friends, or the thrilling sense 
 of escape from seemingly inevitable danger or 
 death have proved too much for the heart's 
 capacity of emotion, and the weight of rapture 
 has broken the cup which it filled. Indeed it is 
 just because the greatest minds approach most 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 145 
 
 nearly the limits of human reason, and converse 
 with thoughts which strain by their grandeur 
 the very largest capacity of thinking, that great 
 wit is, proverbially, to madness near allied. But 
 all thoughts, all emotions, possible to man on 
 earth, make but slight demand upon his powers 
 compared with those which, were the barriers 
 thrown down that now shut out God and eter- 
 nity, would come rushing in upon the soul! 
 What mind, what heart, would be able to en- 
 dure such august revelation ? Surely we may 
 well believe that such a vision is only for the 
 soul that has been trained, purified, enlarged by 
 long-continued fellowship with God on earth; 
 that while our spiritual education is yet incom- 
 plete, it is in mercy that the curtain of sense is 
 kept drawn, and that there is compassion to our 
 earthly weakness in the law, apparently so 
 stern, " that no man shall see God at any time." 
 
 Caird. 
 
itetation of ilje |iiimible 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 " No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, 
 which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." 
 
 JOHN, i. 18. 
 
 No immediate knowledge or vision 
 SERM. IV. 1 .. , 
 
 of God, then, is possible in our 
 
 present state of being. But provision has been 
 made for the attainment of a mediate or repre- 
 sentative knowledge of Him. Of the invisible 
 God> Jesus Christ is the image or manifestation; 
 or, as the text expresses it, " The only begotten 
 Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he 
 hath declared Him." 
 
 The obvious import of these words is, not that 
 Jesus Christ has told or taught us verbally who 
 and what God is, but that in His own person 
 and life He is the silent inarticulate manifesta- 
 tion of God to the world. A child may declare 
 or describe to you the appearance and character 
 of his father; a pupil may tell you of his 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 147 
 
 teacher ; an author may give an account of him- 
 self in his book ; but there may be in each of 
 these cases an involuntary and indirect descrip- 
 tion, much more clear and emphatic than the 
 direct one. For in his writings, the author, 
 especially if he be an earnest writer, uncon- 
 sciously portrays himself, so that we may know 
 as much of the heart and soul of a favorite 
 author by familiarity with his books as if we 
 had lived for years in personal intercourse with 
 him. So the pupil has caught the revered 
 master's manner ; or the child bears, not only 
 in his person, but in his temper, habits, senti- 
 ments, prevailing tone of thought and feeling, a 
 strong family-likeness to the parent; and though 
 there may be much in the father which, from 
 inferiority of talents or attainments, the charac- 
 ter of the child may be inadequate to represent, 
 yet, according to his measure, he may convey to 
 us a better idea of what the father is than by 
 any express and formal description of him we 
 could attain. 
 
 Now, so it is in the case before us. The in- 
 finitely wise and holy One by personal inter- 
 
148 
 
 THE MANIFESTATION OF 
 
 course man has never known ; but there is, if 
 we may so speak, a book in which the whole 
 mind and heart of God is written a living 
 epistle or Word of God, which may be read and 
 known of men. The divine Father dwells in in- 
 accessible light ; but from His presence one hath 
 visited our earth, the exact reflection of the 
 Father's being and character, the " brightness of 
 His glory and the express image of His person." 
 Let us contemplate this divine portraiture, this 
 celestial light shining through an earthly me- 
 dium, let us behold "in the face of Jesus Christ 
 the light of the knowledge of the glory of God." 
 
 How does Jesus manifest the Father? He 
 does so, I answer, by His person, by His life 
 and character, and especially by His sufferings 
 and death. 
 
 By the constitution of His person, Jesus is to 
 us a manifestation of God. The incarnation, the 
 mysterious embodiment of the divine in the form 
 of the human, meets a deep necessity of our 
 nature, supplying, as it does, to our feeble ap- 
 prehensions, a visible, palpable object on which 
 they may fix in the effort to think of God, and 
 
THE INVISIBLE'GOD. 149 
 
 to our sympathies and affections in the endeavor 
 to love Him.* For every one must have felt 
 how difficult it is to form any conception of a 
 pure and infinite spirit, on which the mind can 
 rest with satisfaction, how much more difficult 
 so to realise such a being as to cling to him with 
 a simple human love. We need the thought of 
 God to be to us a thought of power and persua- 
 siveness an idea, not after which the mind, 
 even in its loftier and more reflective moods, 
 must strain with conscious effort, but which can 
 be summoned up instantly, at any moment, a 
 spell of potent influence amidst the pressing 
 temptations of the world. But the idea of a 
 pure Spiritual Essence, without form, without 
 passions, without limits, pervading all, compre- 
 hending all, transcending all, is too vague and 
 abstract for common use. It may furnish lofty 
 exercise for philosophic minds, but it eludes the 
 intellectual grasp of those of rougher mould ; it 
 may visit the soul in quiet and meditative hours, 
 but the ethereal vision vanishes when we turn 
 
 * See this subject fully discussed in Archbishop Whatley'a 
 Essays. 
 
150 THE MANIFESTATION OF 
 
 where its presence is most needed, amid the 
 coarser cares and conflicts of our daily life. Be- 
 sides, as I have said, the mere abstract concep- 
 tion of the Spiritual God is not less foreign to 
 our human sympathies and affections than re- 
 mote from our finite apprehensions. The devout 
 heart yearns after a Personal God. It craves 
 for something more than the works of God, how- 
 ever replete with proofs of His power and glory ; 
 it wants to get near Himself. Its instinctive 
 desire is after a Father and a Friend a loving 
 ear into which its sorrows may be poured a 
 loving heart on which its weariness may rest. 
 But Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience, 
 Being without form or place, Existence without 
 beginning or end, Eternal Hest without change 
 or emotion these in their very sublimity con- 
 stitute a notion, which tends to repel rather than 
 to attract, to overwhelm and crush rather than 
 gently to raise and foster our human sympathies 
 and desires. Our mortal feebleness shrinks from 
 it in trembling awe. The heart cannot feed on 
 sublimities. We cannot make a home of this 
 cold magnificence ; we cannot take Immensity 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 151 
 
 by the hand. The soul lost in such contempla- 
 tions, like a trembling child wandering on some 
 mountain solitudes, longs amidst all this vastness 
 and grandeur for the sound of some familiar 
 voice to break the stillness, or the sight of some 
 sheltered spot in which it may nestle with the 
 sense of friendliness and security. 
 
 Now that which is thus the deep-felt want of 
 our natures, is most fully and adequately met 
 in the Person of Jesus Christ. For here is 
 One whom, while we may reverence and adore 
 as God, we can think of as clearly, and love as 
 simply, trustingly, tenderly, as the best known 
 and loved of our earthly friends. Here is a 
 point around which our shadowy conceptions 
 may condense, a focus towards which our aim- 
 less aspirations may tend. Here we have set 
 before us the Boundless limited in form, the 
 Eternal dwelling in time, the Invisible and 
 Spiritual God revealed in that Word of Life 
 which human eyes have seen and human hands 
 have handled. No longer when we read or 
 muse or pray, need our minds be at a loss, our 
 thoughts wander forth through eternity in search 
 
152 THE MANIFESTATION OF 
 
 of a Living God. To Him who lived among us, 
 breathed our common air and spoke our human 
 speech, loved us with a human heart and 
 healed and helped us with human hands to 
 Him, as God, every knee may bow, and every 
 tongue confess. No longer in our hidden joys 
 and griefs, in our gratitude and our contrition, 
 in our love and in our sorrow, when our full 
 hearts long for a heavenly confidant, to whom 
 as to no earthly friend we may lay bare our 
 souls, need we feel as if God were too awful a 
 Being to obtrude upon Him our insignificance, 
 or to offer to Him our tenderness or our 
 tears. " Come unto Me," is the invitation of 
 this Blessed One, so intensely human though so 
 gloriously divine " unto Me," in whose arms 
 little children were embraced, on whose bosom 
 a frail mortal lay ; " unto Me," who hungered, 
 thirsted, fainted, sorrowed, wept, and yet whose 
 love and grief and pains and tears were the 
 expression of emotions felt in the mighty heart 
 of God " Come unto Me, all ye that labor and 
 are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
 Not merely, however, by the constitution of 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 153 
 
 His Person, but also by the moral beauty of His 
 character and life, does Jesus Christ declare or 
 manifest the unseen God. God is mirrored in 
 the moral being of Christ. In that pure and 
 lofty nature there was exhibited an image or 
 likeness of the Holy and Spiritual God, such as 
 the world before had never witnessed. Of all 
 God's works the soul of man is that by which 
 He can best be manifested, by its structure it 
 is the most transparent medium of the Divine. 
 There is, indeed, much in God which humanity, 
 even in its purest and loftiest type, is inade- 
 quate to represent. There is much in a great 
 painting which the engraving taken from it fails 
 to convey to the eye : for, though it may be an 
 accurate representation of the drawing, it tells 
 nothing of the beauty and harmony of color in 
 the original. There is much in the glorious 
 landscape, or the living animated countenance, 
 which the sun-picture, however correct up to its 
 measure, leaves unexpressed : lines, form, con- 
 tour, relative proportions, may be accurately 
 rendered, but the color, the expression, the va- 
 riety, the life, cannot be arrested and repro- 
 
154 THE MANIFESTATION OF 
 
 duced, even by the limner power of light. So 
 there is that in the nature of the Infinite God 
 which no copy graven on a finite soul, however 
 noble no reflection caught and fixed on the 
 page of a human life, however holy and beauti- 
 ful, can in the very nature of things fully ren- 
 der. Yet, though the finite can never be an 
 exhaustive representation of the Infinite, of all 
 finite manifestations of God, a perfect soul, a 
 pure and holy mind, would be the noblest and 
 the best. God can be imaged in a great and 
 holy life, as He cannot be by the grandest ob- 
 jects which the material universe contains. If 
 the soul of a little child were morally stainless, 
 in that feeble tiny thing which a rude breath, it 
 might seem, could crush, there would be a 
 nobler and nearer representative of God, than 
 in all the combined splendors of revolving suns 
 and systems. For of a spirit a spiritual being 
 alone can be the true portraiture. . Matter can 
 be moulded into the likeness of matter, mental 
 and moral glory can be reflected and repre- 
 sented only by a mind. There may be some- 
 thing of God discoverable in " the light of set- 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 155 
 
 ting suns, and the round ocean, and the living 
 air, and the blue sky ;" but a living, thinking, 
 loving soul, has in it that which mute and ma- 
 terial things, however noble, can never possess 
 a direct affinity with His own spiritual nature. 
 Man alone, of all God's works in the universe, 
 is made " in His own image, after His own like- 
 ness ;" and therefore, if God would reveal Him- 
 self to us, the form under which the revelation 
 can best be given is that of a human character 
 and life. 
 
 But in all ordinary specimens of humanity 
 the medium has become sullied, dim, distorted, 
 so that the heavenly light cannot shine through 
 it, or, if at all, only brokenly and fitfully. 
 Only once in its history has the world wit- 
 nessed a perfect human nature, a flawless, 
 stainless, unmarred soul. Only once has hu- 
 manity formed a medium through which, in 
 its unmingled brightness and beauty, the moral 
 glory of God might pour its beams. In the 
 profound yet unconscious wisdom, in the serene 
 purity, in the tenderness, the forbearance, the 
 persevering love, the combined magnanimity and 
 
166 THE MANIFESTATION OF 
 
 lowliness of that faultless life of Jesus, we " be- 
 hold, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord." As 
 we ponder the record of His wondrous history 
 who shrank with the recoil of Infinite Holiness 
 from those unuttered thoughts of evil which 
 only Omniscience could discover, the mind is 
 borne upwards to Him who, while He searches 
 the hearts of the children of men, yet is of 
 purer eyes than to behold iniquity. As we fol- 
 low in His mission of unwearied beneficence, 
 that gentle compassionate being in whom sorrow 
 ever found its best consoler, and penitence its 
 pure, yet pitying friend ; as we note how, where- 
 ever He came, the cry of the wretched awaited 
 Him, wherever He went, the blessings of them 
 that were ready to perish followed His steps ; 
 how the hungry blessed Him for food, the home- 
 less for shelter, the heavy-laden for rest ; how, 
 one touch from His hand and the frozen blood of 
 the leper flowed with the warm pulse of health, 
 one word from His lips, and the eyes of the 
 blind gleamed back their gratitude upon Him ; 
 how, too, far deeper ills than these the pangs 
 of conscious guilt, the woes of the troubled con- 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 157 
 
 science, the incurable wound of remorse, the in- 
 ner maladies that oftenest baffle mortal skill, 
 found ever in Him their most tender yet most 
 potent healer ; and finally, as we observe in the 
 agent of all this wondrous working, a simplicity, 
 a self-forgetfulness, a certain calm unobtrusive- 
 ness, that in His mightiest acts bespeaks no ef- 
 fort and courts no observation or applause ; as 
 we witness all this prodigality of goodness and 
 majestic ease of power, does not the mind in- 
 voluntarily ascend to that Being whose name is 
 Almighty Love, does not the exclamation rise 
 spontaneously to the lip, " Surely God is here ?" 
 
 There is yet one other aspect in which the 
 manifestation of God in Christ Jesus may be 
 contemplated viz. : that which is presented by 
 His sufferings and death. 
 
 To our human conceptions, the noblest ex- 
 pression of love is that in which it assumes the 
 form of suffering or self-sacrifice. Affection for 
 an earthly friend is then most beautiful when 
 it appears in the aspect of self-devotion, of 
 personal cost and endurance voluntarily borne 
 on behalf of its object. Integrity, Piety, Rev- 
 
158 THE MANIFESTATION OF 
 
 erence for truth or goodness, ever call forth our 
 deepest veneration when they are seen with- 
 standing the shock of calamity, unmoved by 
 pain and hardship, and calmly submitting to 
 every conceivable sacrifice rather than that truth 
 should be tampered with or rectitude infringed. 
 In order, therefore, to our connecting with the 
 character of God, this our grandest human ideal 
 of love and holiness, it was necessary that there 
 should be granted to us a manifestation of the 
 Infinite Jehovah, in some such form as that we 
 could conceive of Him as submitting to suffer- 
 ing, subjecting Himself to cost, undergoing sa- 
 crifice for the salvation of souls, and for the 
 preservation inviolate of the honor of truth and 
 righteousness. 
 
 Now, nowhere else than in the sufferings and 
 self-sacrifice of Him who was Deity Incarnate 
 could such a manifestation be afforded ; by no 
 other act of divine beneficence could this expres- 
 sion of love in God be reached. For no mere 
 gift of benignity can be conceived of as impov- 
 erishing a divine giver, or requiring a personal 
 sacrifice on the part of One who has the re- 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 159 
 
 sources of the universe at His disposal. The 
 beauty and bounty which, with so lavish and 
 unwearied munificence, God has for ages been 
 scattering over the face of creation, have not 
 left Him the poorer have not detracted one 
 iota from His boundless wealth. The ceaseless 
 stream of blessing leaves the inexhaustible foun- 
 tain as capable of flowing still. The beams of 
 beneficence poured from the everlasting sun di- 
 minish not its power to shine. The gift of a 
 world were no sacrifice to Him who has but to 
 speak, and worlds of rarer beauty and glory fall 
 from His open hand. In creation and providence, 
 in short, there is never conveyed to the mind 
 any sense of effort any impression of expense 
 or sacrifice on the part of the Infinite Creator. 
 
 But it is different when we turn to the sacri- 
 fice of Christ. Viewed merely as the gift of 
 God to man, in Christ Jesus we behold the In- 
 finite Benefactor surrendering for our sake, from 
 the treasury of His goodness, that of which even 
 He possessed no equivalent, and which by no 
 stretch of Omnipotence could even He replace. 
 God had but one Christ. Of this possession of 
 
160 THE MANIFESTATION OF 
 
 Deity none but itself could be its parallel. The 
 noblest creation of God on earth is a soul, but 
 all other souls are imperfect God had in all the 
 universe but one perfect soul, and that, with all 
 its inestimable wealth of thought and love and 
 purity, He who alone knew its worth yielded up 
 for us. There was but one noble vessel from 
 the potter's hand that ever remained in its pure 
 beauty, grace, and symmetry, unmarred, and 
 that was cast for us to dishonor and ruin. There 
 was but one spotless lamb in the flock, and that 
 the only one, the last, the best, was for us de- 
 voted to destruction. The great Father had but 
 one Son, one gentle, holy, loving-hearted child, 
 and Him for us He surrendered to ruffian and 
 murderous hands. But in Jesus we behold 
 more than a gift of Deity to man, in Him we 
 see Deity giving Itself for man. In the sacri- 
 fice of Christ there is that of which we are per- 
 mitted to conceive as the sacrifice of One who 
 was Himself divine, as the self-devotion of God 
 for the salvation of His creatures. For the ob- 
 literation of a guilty past and the opening up of 
 a glorious future to the world, no meaner price 
 
THE INVISIBLE GOD. 161 
 
 would avail than the sacrifice of Deity Incar- 
 nate, and that price was paid. There was here, 
 as we are permitted to think of this most won- 
 drous event in the history of the universe, the 
 abandoning of power by Omnipotence, the re- 
 nunciation of authority by Him who rules the 
 world, the stooper of the Author and Sustainer 
 of life to weakness, pain, and death. In that 
 eye that for us was tearless with anguish, there 
 was mysterious thought ! the glance of Om- 
 niscience ; in that bosom which heaved with 
 strange emotion, there was a woe that Deity 
 could feel ; the wail of pitiless sorrow that broke 
 from that awful sufferer's lips had in it the ut- 
 terance of the very voice of God. surely, if 
 only by infinite sacrifice can infinite love be ex- 
 pressed, the dying Jesus is to us the sublime 
 manifestation of the invisible God ! 
 
C|e Stolitarhttss <tf Christ's 
 
 " I have trodden the wine-press alone." 
 
 ISAIAH, Ixiii. 3. 
 
 THERE is always a certain degree 
 
 . V. 
 
 of solitude about a great mind. 
 Even a mere human being cannot rise pre- 
 eminently above the level of his fellow-men, 
 without becoming conscious of a certain solitari- 
 ness of spirit gathering round him. The lofti- 
 est intellectual elevation, indeed, is nowise in- 
 consistent with a genial openness and simplicity 
 of nature ; nor is there anything impossible or 
 unexampled in the combination of a grasp of 
 intellect that could cope with the loftiest ab- 
 stractions of philosophy, and a playfulness that 
 could condescend to sport with a child. Yet 
 whilst it is thus true that the possessor of a great 
 mind may be capable of sympathising with, of 
 entering kindly into the views and feelings, the 
 joys and sorrows of inferior minds, it must at 
 the same time be admitted that there is ever a 
 
CHKIST'S SUFFERINGS. 163 
 
 range of thought and feeling into which they 
 cannot enter with him. They may accompany 
 him, so to speak, a certain height up the moun- 
 tain, but there is a point at which their feebler 
 powers become exhausted, and if he ascend be- 
 yond that, his path must be a solitary one. 
 
 What is thus true of all great minds must 
 have been, beyond all others, characteristic of 
 the mind of Him who, with all His real and 
 very humanity, could " think it no robbery to 
 be equal with God." Jesus was indeed a lonely 
 being in the world. With all the exquisite 
 tenderness of his human sympathies, touched 
 with the feeling of our every sinless infirmity, 
 with a heart that could feel for a peasant's 
 sorrow, and an eye that could beam with ten- 
 derness on an infant's face, He was yet one 
 who, wherever He went, and by whomsoever 
 surrounded, was, in the secrecy of His inner 
 being, profoundly alone. You who are parents 
 have, I dare say, often felt struck by the re- 
 flection, what a world of thoughts, and cares, 
 and anxieties are constantly present to your 
 minds, into which your children cannot enter. 
 
164 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 You may be continually amongst them, holding 
 familiar intercourse with them, condescending 
 to all their childish thoughts and feelings, enter- 
 ing into all their childish ways, yet every day 
 there are a thousand things passing through 
 your mind, with respect, for instance, to your 
 business or profession, your schemes and pro- 
 jects, your troubles, fears, hopes, and ambitions 
 in life, your social connections, the incidents 
 and events that are going on in the world 
 around you, there are a thousand reflections 
 and feelings on such matters passing daily 
 through your mind, of which your children 
 know nothing. You never dream of talking to 
 them on such subjects, and they could not un- 
 derstand or sympathise with you, if you did. 
 There is a little world in which the play of their 
 passions is strong and vivid, but beyond that 
 their sympathies entirely fail. And perhaps 
 there is no spectacle so exquisitely touching as 
 that which one sometimes witnesses in a house 
 of mourning the elder members of the family 
 bowed down to the dust by some heavy sorrow, 
 
c HEIST'S SUFFERINGS. 165 
 
 whilst the little children sport around in uncon- 
 scious playfulness. 
 
 The bearing of this illustration is obvious. 
 What children are to the mature-minded man, 
 the rest of mankind were to Jesus. Nay, such 
 an illustration falls far short of conveying to us 
 an adequate representation of the measureless 
 inferiority of all other minds to that mighty, 
 mysterious Spirit that dwelt in the bosom of 
 Jesus. " He was in the world, and the world 
 was made by Him, yet the world knew Him 
 not." " The Light shone in darkness, and the 
 darkness comprehended it not." He was a 
 Being born from a loftier sphere, and living on 
 a grander scale than the other sons of men. 
 He had nothing in common with the spirit of 
 the times in which He lived. His views, prin- 
 ciples, motives, associations, object of life, were 
 not those of His own nation, nor of any land or 
 clime on earth : they were drawn from the in- 
 finite, the eternal. Nothing can be clearer, 
 from the simple narrative of the Gospels, than 
 that to those among whom the earthly life of 
 Jesus was spent, he was an unintelligible being ; 
 
166 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 that they could not comprehend Him, however 
 much they might be constrained to love Him. 
 He moved among a narrow-minded, grovelling, 
 sensual race, breathing a spirit of ineffable pu- 
 rity and holiness. Cast upon an age and among 
 a people intensely selfish, in a state of society 
 where the conflicting passions of hostile classes 
 and races surrounded him with an atmosphere 
 of bigotry and contention, His mind was ever 
 calmly revolving designs of universal benev- 
 olence, of self-sacrificing love to all mankind. 
 And whilst His whole life passed away, whilst 
 every day, and almost every hour of it, was 
 spent in intercourse with those whose minds 
 never travelled beyond the petty circle of their 
 own national prejudices and passions, His inner 
 being was yet ever filled with thoughts that 
 wandered through eternity, that communed with 
 invisible intelligences, that mused upon the af- 
 fairs and destinies of the universe. Oh, what 
 depths were there in that mighty spirit which 
 none around could fathom ! What ineffable 
 joys and mysterious sorrows, unintelligible to 
 the beings with whom He consorted as to the 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 167 
 
 veriest children ! The seclusion of the wilder- 
 ness could not have increased an isolation like 
 His. He was solitary amid crowds. He 
 "trod" the path of life "alone, and of the peo- 
 ple there was none with Him." 
 
 The thought which I have now suggested to 
 your minds, with reference to the entire life and 
 earthly experience of Jesus, I shall take occa- 
 sion from the text to follow out a little further 
 with reference to one particular part of that ex- 
 perience His sorrows. 
 
 The person who utters the words before us is 
 commonly understood to be none other than Mes- 
 siah, of whose return in triumphant mien from 
 the conquest of His enemies the context gives 
 a glowing description. There passes before the 
 eye of the prophet the vision of a glorious being, 
 a solitary warrior, with blood-soiled garments, 
 and the flush of victory on his brow. And in 
 answer to the inquiries of the dazzled and aston- 
 ished spectator, He announces Himself as one 
 who had stood forth in the defence of His people, 
 who alone and single-handed had borne the fear- 
 ful onset of their foes, and whose garments, be- 
 
168 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 sprinkled as from the treading of the wine-press, 
 were dyed with the blood of the slain. Now, 
 without any more minute exposition of the pas- 
 sage, and indeed without vindicating too posi- 
 tively this application of it, I shall take occasion 
 from the words of the text to lead your minds 
 to one, as I think, most instructive and sugges- 
 tive view of the sufferings of our blessed Lord, 
 their solitariness. By this I mean not that they 
 were solitary or peculiar as being, propitiatory 
 sufferings, though in this they were indeed dis- 
 tinguished from the sufferings of all other men. 
 Nor do I mean merely that they were sufferings 
 of extraordinary and unexampled severity, 
 though that also is true. But the point to which 
 I would confine your attention is this, that there 
 were connected with the nature of this mysteri- 
 ous sufferer certain features or conditions which 
 rendered His sorrows such as no other of our 
 race could endure, certain facts which gave to 
 them, as to His whole history, a character of ele- 
 vation and awfulness, beyond the range of mere 
 human experience. So that forasmuch as amid 
 all the sons and daughters of sorrow that crowd 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 169 
 
 the page of human history, Jesus yet stands 
 forth " the Man of Sorrows/' the Solitary Suf- 
 ferer of humanity ; passing through a strife 
 which none but He might encounter, bearing in 
 His lonely spirit the awful pressure of a sorrow 
 which none of mortals save Himself ever bore, 
 He might indeed with emphasis proclaim, " I 
 have trodden the wine-press alone." 
 
 Following out, then, the view which I have 
 now indicated, I shall endeavor to set before you 
 one or two of those circumstances which ren- 
 dered Jesus solitary in His sufferings. 
 
 I. One of the most obvious of these is, that all 
 his sorrowings and sufferings were, long ere their 
 actual occurrence, clearly and fully foreseen. 
 They were anticipated sorrows. Every calamity 
 and affliction that awaited Him was disclosed to 
 Him in all its certainty and severity from the 
 very commencement of His history, and the ter- 
 rible anticipation of approaching evil accom- 
 panied Him through His whole career on earth. 
 This, obviously, is one feature of the mournful 
 history of Jesus in which He stands alone one 
 
 Calrd. 8 
 
170 THE SOLITAEINESS OF 
 
 condition of His earthly experience which must 
 have lent a bitterness to His sorrows from which 
 those of all other mortal sufferers are exempt. 
 For need I remind you, what a great alleviation 
 of the troubles and ills of life it is that, in the 
 great majority of cases, they are unforeseen. In 
 the ordinary arrangements of Providence a veil 
 of obscurity hides from us the threatening as- 
 pect of approaching evil, so that the happiness 
 of the passing hour is not damped, nor the se- 
 verity of present sorrows increased, by the 
 gloomy prospect of the future. Thus even the 
 man on whom life's calamities and afflictions fall 
 the thickest, is permitted to find in the very weak- 
 ness and ignorance of our nature a refuge from 
 its troubles ; for while memory is gradually re- 
 laxing its hold of past evils, hope is left free to 
 people the future with all fancied good. May I 
 not appeal for confirmation of this to your own 
 experience ? There are few or none now hear- 
 ing me who are not, in greater or less degree, 
 acquainted with grief. Whether they came up- 
 on you in the form of personal sickness and pain, 
 or of domestic trials and afflictions, or of sad and 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 171 
 
 bitter bereavements, or of disappointments and 
 reverses of worldly fortune, in whatever shape 
 they came, you have all, I doubt not, had your 
 sorrows and troubles in life, and not one of you 
 but, if you live much longer, will in all proba- 
 bility have many more to encounter yet. But I 
 beseech you to consider how very much it would 
 have added to the severity of any trial through 
 which you have passed, if you could have fully 
 and certainly foreseen it long before it came. Not 
 to speak of the petty vexations and trials that 
 are matters of daily experience, and the antici- 
 pation of which would steal away much of the 
 sunshine of life, think what has been the great- 
 est sorrow of your past existence. Perhaps there 
 are not a few before me who can instantly lay 
 the finger of memory on that spot, so black in 
 the retrospect, where that dire bereavement, or 
 that terrible and crushing blow of misfortune, 
 fell suddenly upon them. Imagine, then, what it 
 would have been to have been able, for long 
 years and months before, to foresee its certain 
 approach. With what heart could you have en- 
 tered into that enterprise, so enthusiastically and 
 
172 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 perseveringly prosecuted, could you have antici- 
 pated the disastrous issue the frustration of 
 your efforts, and disappointment of your fondest 
 hopes ? Or when enjoying sweet intercourse 
 with that much-loved friend, or looking forward 
 brimful of hope, to years of happiness in his 
 society, what a stern interruption of your happi- 
 ness and your visions had it been, if the dark- 
 ness had rolled away from the future of your 
 life, and the hour been revealed close at hand 
 when that loved one would be torn from your 
 side ! And, need I add, to vivify this thought 
 in your minds, that as with the past, so shall it 
 be with the future experience of us all. There 
 are, I doubt not, more than one or two in this 
 assembly, happy, light-hearted, tranquil, it may 
 be, who, if they could but look into the secrets 
 of one little year before them, would find their 
 happiness sadly disturbed. Whom do you love 
 most in this world ? In whose society and in- 
 tercourse are you taking most delight ? Who is 
 that friend, that brother, or sister, or husband, 
 or wife, or child, on whom your hopes and affec- 
 tions are chiefly centred, and from whom you 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 173 
 
 would feel it would be agony to part ? What 
 if the irresistible conviction were forced upon 
 your mind that, ere a few months have come 
 and gone, that friend will be by your side no 
 more, the anguish of separation will be gone 
 through, and you will be left alone ? Or what 
 if I could single out one, or another, or more, 
 among this auditory, and convey to them, by 
 some mysterious yet irresistible means, the in- 
 telligence that on a certain day and month in 
 the coming year they shall be hurried away 
 from life by some painful and humiliating ma- 
 lady ? Alas ! with such a terrible prescience of 
 evil resting on our souls, there would be fewer 
 light hearts and happy homes amongst us to- 
 night. Perhaps, these or similar events may 
 actually be in reserve for some of us ; but " we 
 know not what shall be on the morrow." God 
 has mercifully hid from us the future ; and if 
 such calamities await us, they do not disturb our 
 present tranquillity, for they await us unknown. 
 I have enlarged on this thought at what may 
 appear too great a length, that I might bring out 
 more fully one element of the sufferings of our 
 
174 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 blessed Lord, which is perhaps not so frequently 
 dwelt upon as others. For, let me now ask you 
 to reflect, that that ignorance of futurity which 
 mercifully tempers the severity of all human ills, 
 was an alleviation of sorrow unknown to Jesus. 
 " I could never have gone through it," we often 
 hear men exclaim, who have passed through pro- 
 tracted struggles or hardships " I could never 
 have gone through it, had I known the half of 
 what lay before me." But, whatever were the 
 hardships of His sorrowful life, whatever the 
 mysterious, nameless agonies of His death, this 
 unenviable fore-knowledge of them all belonged 
 to Jesus. Even the smiles of infancy, may we 
 not almost say, were darkened by the anticipated 
 anguish of death, and in the very slumbers of 
 the cradle, He already in fancy hung upon the 
 cross. This, at least, we do with certainty 
 know, that, from the commencement of His 
 public ministry, that hour and power of dark- 
 ness, that cup of mingled woes from which at 
 last it seemed as if His mighty spirit for a 
 moment shrank, was clear and full before His 
 eye. Words ever and anon dropped from His 
 
175 
 
 lips which showed how constantly this dread 
 thought was uppermost in His mind. Long ere 
 it came, for instance, He told His disciples, in 
 words they could but dimly comprehend, " I 
 have a baptism to be baptised with, and how am 
 I straitened till it be accomplished." When on 
 the Mount of Transfiguration He enjoyed a brief 
 respite from His toils, in communion with celes- 
 tial visitants, what was the topic on which He 
 chose to discourse with them ? " They spake," 
 we are told, " of the decease which He was to 
 accomplish at Jerusalem." As the dreaded hour 
 drew nearer, He took His disciples apart on the 
 way to Jerusalem, as if more fully to unburden 
 His oppressed spirit, and said, " Behold we go 
 up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man shall be 
 betrayed unto the chief priests and scribes, and 
 they shall condemn Him to death, and shall de- 
 liver Him to the Gentiles, to mock, and to 
 scourge, and to crucify Him." And at last, when 
 the traitor came to take Him, we are told that 
 "Jesus, knowing all things that were to come 
 upon Him, went forth." Thus, from the very 
 dawn of His earthly ministry, Jesus looked for- 
 
176 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 ward to its dreadful close. Thick-strewn with 
 sorrows as was every step of His onward path, 
 His eye gazed on that which made Him almost 
 unconscious of lesser ills the awful gloom that 
 hung over its termination, ever deepening to the 
 end. And when we think how this projected 
 shadow of coming evil continually brooded over 
 His soul, how by this awful foresight of futurity 
 he was separated off from the common race of 
 men, and how He, so gentle, so tender, so ready 
 to sympathise with others, had thus upon His 
 own soul a weight of woe which none might 
 share, a sorrow which none might soothe, may 
 we not hear, as if an echo of the cry of His 
 agony, those mournful words, " I have trodden 
 the wine-press alone ?" 
 
 II. Another circumstance which distinguishes 
 the sorrows of Jesus from those of all ordinary 
 men, and which gives to this greatest of sufferers 
 an aspect of solitariness in their endurance, is 
 this, that they were the sorrozvs of an infinitely 
 pure and perfect mind. No ordinary human 
 being could ever suffer as Jesus did, for His soul 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 177 
 
 was greater than all other souls ; and the mind 
 that is of largest compass, or that is cast in the 
 finest mould, is ever the most susceptible of 
 suffering. As it is the cup that is deepest that 
 can be filled the fullest as it is the tree that 
 rears its head the highest that feels most the 
 fury of the storm, so it is the soul that is largest 
 and most exalted that is capable of the greatest 
 sorrows. A little, narrow, selfish, uncultured 
 mind, is liable to comparatively few troubles. 
 The range alike of its joys and its sorrows is 
 limited and contracted. It presents but a nar- 
 row target to the arrows of misfortune, and it 
 escapes uninjured, where a broader spirit would 
 be " pierced through with many sorrows." The 
 higher, indeed, any being rises in the scale of 
 existence, the greater becomes the character and 
 range of its pains as well as its pleasures, its 
 susceptibility of suffering as well as of enjoy^ 
 ment. The insect, in the summer breeze, brim- 
 ful of mere animal happiness, is exposed to mere 
 animal privation and pain. Its life is but one 
 long sensation. The little child again has fewer 
 capacities of suffering, fewer cares, and anxie- 
 
 8* 
 
178 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 ties, and troubles, than the mature-minded man, 
 the savage, than the civilised being, the 
 ignorant, unrefined, unreflecting man, than the 
 man of high intellectual and moral culture, of 
 thoughtfulness, and refinement of taste and feel- 
 ing. In short, it is the great law of life that 
 every advancing power, every improvement, 
 physical, intellectual, moral or spiritual, which a 
 man gains, carries with it, as the necessary 
 penalty, an additional liability, a new degree of 
 exposure, to surrounding evils. 
 
 To see this more clearly, conceive a man of 
 cultivated mind, of intellectual tastes and habits 
 of thought, compelled to take up his abode 
 among a household of coarse, frivolous, low- 
 minded- persons forced to spend his days 
 among them, to listen to their empty or degrading 
 talk, and conform to their gross way of life, 
 and would not the very culture and refinement 
 his mind had received, render it more keenly 
 susceptible of the miseries of such a position ; 
 and the purer and more elevated his taste and 
 sympathies, would not existence in such an 
 atmosphere become all the more intolerable ? 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 179 
 
 In the same way, imagine one of genial and 
 affectionate nature, tender-hearted, and alive to 
 the wants and sufferings of others, becoming 
 the spectator of scenes and sufferings of heart- 
 rending distress and wretchedness, or forced to 
 witness the bodily sufferings or mental anguish 
 of those who are very dear to him ; would not 
 the pain experienced from such sights be all the 
 more intense because of the gentleness and be- 
 neficence of the nature of him who beheld 
 them ? Does not the nobleness of the patriot's 
 or the philanthropist's nature assert itself in the 
 very bitterness and oppression of spirit with 
 which he contemplates the wrongs and the 
 wretchedness of his fellows ? Is it not the un- 
 enviable compensation for the curse of. a cold, 
 hard heart, that its possessor can walk unmoved 
 amidst scenes of severest sorrow, or behold 
 with unfeeling composure sufferings at which 
 other hearts are bleeding ? 
 
 Or, once more, turn your thoughts to one who 
 has begun to receive that highest of all culture, 
 whose soul is undergoing that noblest of all de- 
 velopments, the renewing influence of Divine 
 
180 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 grace and is it not so that he too by reason 
 of that spiritualising of his inner being that 
 change which has expanded his intellect, and 
 chastened his affections, and opened up to him 
 a new range of exalted and ineffable enjoyments 
 is it not so that he too becomes susceptible, 
 in such a world as this, of pains and sorrows 
 unfelt before ? The blind know not the pains 
 of sight, nor the deaf of sound, nor the dead 
 and insensible, of living and breathing men. 
 And so the quickening touch of God's Spirit 
 wakes the believer's soul from a state of moral 
 insensibility and death, to one in which the in- 
 ner eye can be pained by deformities, and the 
 ear by discords, and the spiritual nature by 
 sickness and troubles, of which it hitherto had 
 been all unconscious. He knew nothing before, 
 in his unconverted state, of the joy and peace 
 of believing, the deep, tranquil happiness of a 
 soul that is at one with God, and that reposes 
 on the sense of its Maker's love ; but as little 
 did he know of that deeper sorrow that gathers 
 over the believer's soul in times of failing and 
 spiritual desertion, when the light of God's 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 181 
 
 countenance is hid from him, and he sinks 
 under the sense of his heavenly Father's frown. 
 In the days that are past, he was incapable of 
 that new and exquisite relish for all that is 
 true, and pure, and good, for all things that 
 are lovely and lovable, which has risen within 
 his soul ; but this very relish for what is good 
 has brought with it a more sensitive shrinking 
 from sin in every form, has rendered conscience 
 more tender, and the least appearance of evil 
 the cause of deepest and most painful self-con- 
 demnation. What self-loathing and prostration 
 of spirit does one who has advanced far in the 
 divine life experience when betrayed into sins, 
 that to a careless mind would not cost a 
 thought? Finally, there has arisen in the be- 
 liever's mind a new delight in the progress of 
 truth and goodness, a hitherto unexperienced 
 longing for the success of Christ's cause on 
 earth ; but at the same time, and as the coun- 
 terpart of this feeling, he becomes conscious of 
 a degree of pain and sorrow heretofore unknown 
 at the sight of the prevailing ungodliness and 
 wickedness of men. He can sympathise now 
 
182 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 as he could not before in the lamentation, 
 " Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because 
 they keep not thy law." And the more he 
 grows in holiness, in devotion to the will of 
 God, and in appreciation of the importance of 
 eternal things, so much the more will he be 
 grieved and disquieted by the sins of those 
 around him. What anguish does a Christian 
 parent feel at the exhibitions of thoughtlessness 
 and irreligion in the conduct of his children, or 
 a Christian friend when he beholds those who 
 are dear to him living in open neglect of God, 
 and in utter indifference to the grandest inter- 
 ests of life ! And all these, again, we say, are 
 causes of disquietude, of which an unrenewed 
 mind knows nothing. They are sorrows that 
 assert the greatness of the soul that feels them. 
 They are the pangs and stragglings of a nature 
 that is becoming too noble for the world to 
 which it is confined, and which show, in pro- 
 portion to their intensity, the grandeur of the 
 destiny that awaits it. 
 
 But now if all this be so, if the principle I 
 have now endeavored to illustrate, do indeed 
 
CHIIIST'S SUFFERINGS. 183 
 
 hold good, that the nearer a soul approaches to 
 perfection, the more sensitive does it become to 
 the evils, pains, sorrows, sins, that surround it 
 in such a world as this, surely, enough has 
 been said to show how far beyond all human 
 experience, how far even beyond all human com- 
 prehension must have been the sufferings of the 
 soul of Jesus. His was indeed the gentlest, 
 noblest, purest spirit that ever dwelt in human 
 breast ; it had therefore a capability of suffer- 
 ing, a cognizance of surrounding evils, an ex- 
 quisitely-strung susceptibility to sorrow, such as 
 soul of man besides never felt. His soul's de- 
 light was in holiness ; it recoiled with deep and 
 instinctive abhorrence from sin : upon the pure, 
 burnished mirror, so to speak, of that spotless 
 nature, the slightest breath of outward impurity 
 would have gathered dimness. What, then, 
 must it have been for him to live in such a world 
 as this to be exposed for thirty years to the 
 foul atmosphere of its ungodliness and evil ! 
 His soul's delight was in happiness. The most 
 tender-hearted spirit of human philanthropy, the 
 most generous benefactor of his species, never 
 
184 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 felt such a shrinking from the sight of the woes 
 and sufferings of mankind as Jesus did. What, 
 then, must it have been for that gentlest, ten- 
 derest, most loving-hearted Saviour, to walk 
 through such a world of wretchedness as this, 
 to take in with His omniscient, world-wide 
 glance, the tears, and griefs, and pains, and 
 struggles, and sicknesses, and deaths, with which 
 his Father's once happy world was rife, to hear 
 as it were, the great forlorn wail of humanity 
 borne to his ear upon the four winds of heaven ! 
 His soul's delight, once more, was in His 
 Father's love. Never human heart was capable 
 of loving, was large enough to love, with such a 
 love as His. The infant clings not to the moth- 
 er's breast with such confiding joy as His when 
 reposing that mighty spirit upon the bosom of 
 Infinite Love. The radiant earth opens not in 
 beauty and gladness beneath the gleaming sun, 
 as did His rejoicing spirit in the sunshine of Je- 
 hovah's love. That love cheered Him in lan- 
 guor, sustained Him in weariness, soothed Him 
 in sorrow, nerved Him in the thought of pain, 
 and shame, and agony, and death. What, then, 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 185 
 
 must it have been to Jesus to feel, even for a 
 moment, the sense of that love withdrawn to 
 undergo, through human pain and weakness, an 
 impression as if of that countenance darkening 
 over Him, whose light had been the very life of 
 His being from all eternity ! Conceive of the 
 sun struck out of yonder heavens, and the world 
 suddenly overwhelmed with the horror of per- 
 petual darkness and cold. Imagine the sustain- 
 ing providence of God withdrawn from the uni- 
 verse, and everything hurrying to desolation and 
 ruin. But no emblem, no comparison can con- 
 vey to us but the faintest conception of what it 
 was for God's dear Son, as if God-deserted, to die. 
 
 III. But the feelings of Jesus in contempla- 
 ting the sin and wretchedness of humanity, the 
 mournful prevalence of evil in the world, were 
 not those merely of a most holy and tender- 
 hearted human being : let me add as one other 
 consideration tending to show how very peculiar 
 a sorrow was His, how very solitary Jesus must 
 have been in His sorrow, that it was the sor- 
 row of a Creator amid His ruined ivorks. 
 
186 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 The feelings of Jesus, I have said, in behold- 
 ing, and living amidst, the moral ruin and deg- 
 radation of mankind, were not those merely of 
 an exquisitely pure and sensitive human spirit ; 
 they flowed from a far deeper and more awful 
 source. It was not merely the gentle-hearted 
 and pitying Man of Nazareth that trod our fallen 
 world ; it was nothing less than the world's 
 great Creator that, concealed in that humble 
 guise, surveyed and moved for thirty years 
 amidst the ruins of His fairest, noblest work, 
 lying wide-spread around Him ! For, though 
 this, indeed, is a thought into which our imper- 
 fect minds can but faintly and inadequately en- 
 ter, are we not borne out by Scripture authority 
 in the affirmation that grief for the moral ruin 
 of humanity is an emotion to which the Divine 
 mind is not a stranger? You all remember that 
 remarkable passage in the Book of Genesis, in 
 which the mind of God is represented as filled 
 with sorrow and indignation at the sad issue of 
 His great creating work " When God saw that 
 the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, 
 and that the imagination of the thoughts of his 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 187 
 
 heart was only evil continually, it repented God 
 that He had made man upon the earth, and it 
 grieved Him at His heart" And, not to name 
 other passages of a similar import, I would only 
 remind you further of that mysterious grief of 
 Him who was God manifest in the flesh, which 
 at the threshold of His own last sufferings, 
 made Him almost lose sight of their approach- 
 ing anguish in His grief for the moral blindness 
 and hardness of His people. "When Jesus 
 was come near the city," it is written, " He 
 wept over it, saying, Oh that thou hadst known, 
 even thou, in this thy day, the things that be- 
 long to thy peace, but now they are hid from 
 thine eyes !" On the authority of the word of 
 God, then, as well as from the reason of the 
 thing, we hazard the assertion, that one awful 
 ingredient in the sufferings of that mysterious 
 mourner must have been grief for the desolation 
 of His grandest work the anguish of spirit 
 with which for thirty years He beheld every- 
 where confronting Him the proofs that the soul 
 of man was a ruin. 
 
 There is a sort of sentimental melancholy 
 
188 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 which gathers over the mind of one who sur- 
 veys the scene of some great nation's bygone 
 glory, now, it may be, strewn only with wreck 
 of departed greatness. When the traveller vis- 
 its those countries with which from childhood 
 his mind has been accustomed to associate 
 everything that is noble and elevated in human- 
 ity; when he surveys around him the indica- 
 tions of former majesty and power, now long 
 passed away, or inspects those exquisite re- 
 mains on which human genius and art had 
 lavished all their splendor, now rudely marred 
 and defaced and hastening to inevitable decay, 
 there is a certain pensive sadness which not 
 unnaturally passes over the mind, and to which 
 many have given expression. But surely an 
 emotion of a far deeper kind may well be called 
 forth in the thoughtful mind when contempla- 
 ting the mournful moral and spiritual degrada- 
 tion of humanity, as contrasted with the glory 
 of its original structure, and the splendors of 
 that destiny for which it was created ? What 
 are the most exquisite productions of human 
 thought and toil compared with that work on 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 189 
 
 which, even in its ruins, the impress of Omni- 
 potence may be traced ? What is the destruc- 
 tion of the noblest fabrics reared by human 
 hand, in comparison with the dishonor and des- 
 ecration of the temple of the Holy Ghost? 
 What are the overshadowing of all earthly 
 greatness, and the extinction of all material 
 glory, in contrast with the spiritual and eternal 
 ruin of the soul of man ? Even the body, the 
 mere tabernacle in which the soul resides even 
 the human body, that fabric so curiously and 
 wonderfully wrought by the hand of God, so 
 marred and dishonored by the effects of sin - 
 even that, a work which only Deity could 
 create, is a work over whose ruin even Deity 
 might mourn. Yet every sickbed by which 
 Jesus stood, and every sufferer's cry He heard, 
 and every bier and grave to which His steps 
 were led, were to His eye the ruthless destruc- 
 tion of another and another glorious work of 
 God the proofs of the triumph of the destroyer 
 over the results of infinite wisdom and skill. 
 
 But the destruction of the body is insignifi- 
 cant in comparison with the ruin of the soul. 
 
190 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 The former is but the dissolution of a thing of 
 material elements, the latter is the deforming 
 and corrupting of a thing made in the image of 
 God, partaker of a divine nature, and destined 
 for His service and glory for ever. The former 
 is but the breaking up of insensate matter, the 
 latter is the. reducing to impurity and wretched- 
 ness of a thing that shall survive in the con- 
 sciousness of its misery when the material uni- 
 verse shall have passed away. 
 
 Shall we wonder, then, that the Creator of 
 such a work as this so noble, so deathless, so 
 divine, should have experienced bitter grief for 
 its ruin ? When Jesus walked our world, His 
 eye, we may well believe, was not arrested by 
 the bustle and importance of its outward scenes 
 and interests. From all mere external things 
 His observation was ever diverted to what from 
 all other eyes was hidden, the awful mystery 
 and moral deformity of the secret world of souls. 
 Could a human being for a single week be in- 
 vested with a mysterious power of seeing into 
 the hearts of those around him, and detecting 
 all the feelings and motives that are working be- 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 191 
 
 neath the breasts of his fellow-men, doubtless, 
 even to man's imperfect moral sensibility, the 
 disclosures thus made would be too horrible for 
 endurance, and the fatal power of inspection 
 would be gladly resigned. But that which 
 would be intolerable even to a fallen and imper- 
 fect being, was a spectacle from which the eye 
 of the pure and holy Jesus could never for a 
 moment escape. All hearts were unveiled to 
 Him. He surveyed not merely the forms and 
 countenances of human beings : a thousand in- 
 dications tell us that He "knew what was in 
 man," that He read their souls. And every- 
 where as He looked He saw that soul that had 
 sprung a pure, holy, happy thing from His 
 hands, now filled with selfishness and pride and 
 envy and impurity and all ungodliness ; that 
 soul that had been destined for the companion- 
 ship of God and angels, now ripening for the black- 
 ness of darkness for ever ! And can we doubt 
 that His was an anguish at the sight into which 
 no finite mind can enter ? He could feel for ex- 
 ternal sufferings. He looked up to heaven and 
 sighed for the deaf. He wept, and groaned in 
 
192 THE SOLITAEINESS OF 
 
 spirit for the dead. But what were external suf- 
 fering and death to this ? To Him the world was 
 strewn with a more awful than material desola- 
 tion with the wreck of spiritual grandeur, the 
 memorials of lost and ruined souls. " my 
 Father," we almost hear Him exclaim, " is this 
 the world over which the morning stars sang 
 together, and all the sons of God shouted for 
 
 joy!" 
 
 Many reflections of a practical kind might be 
 suggested from the train of thought in which we 
 have now been engaged. All such views of the 
 sufferings of Jesus are, for instance, most ob- 
 viously suggestive of gratitude for His marvel- 
 lous self-devotion on our behalf. For the views 
 that have been presented to us of the myste- 
 rious foresight and of the ineffable dignity, be- 
 neficence, and holiness of this greatest of suffer- 
 ers ought surely to convey to our minds a 
 most vivid impression of the intensity of that 
 love He bore for us. * The grandeur of the 
 sufferer enhances the value of the sufferings. 
 The height from which Jesus stooped, the moral 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 193 
 
 glory of His nature, the exquisite purity and 
 serenity of that atmosphere in which He had 
 been accustomed to breathe, render it all the 
 more astonishing that He should submit to de- 
 scend so low, and so long for our sakes to dwell 
 in the foul region of this world's ungodliness 
 and evil. The most delicate and sensitive be- 
 ing, trained from infancy in a home of purity 
 and love, sheltered from the very breath of 
 pollution, and then forced to live in some haunt 
 of iniquity, and among the shameless and aban- 
 doned victims of profligacy, would not undergo 
 the transition with such shrinking abhorrence as 
 did Jesus that transition which He voluntarily 
 underwent for us. An angel from the throne 
 of God submitting to dwell amid the blasphe- 
 mies and wailings of hell would not exhibit a 
 spectacle of voluntary humiliation such as His, 
 who stooped from infinitude to such a world as 
 this. 0, believer, what a love was that which 
 braved and endured such humiliation; which 
 bore thy Saviour onwards through such degra- 
 dation for thee ! 
 
 And let it vivify this feeling of gratitude still 
 
 Calrd. 
 
194 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 more to reflect on the view that has been before 
 us of the anticipdtive character of all His suffer- 
 ings. The love of Jesus for His people was no 
 transient feeling. The sufferings and sacrifices 
 He endured were not the effect of some passing 
 impulse of affection. They were not the actions 
 of one who has committed himself to an under- 
 taking without well weighing or knowing the 
 consequences, and who cannot afterwards draw 
 back. He knew before all that His love for 
 you was to cost Him. In His coolest, calmest 
 moments, if we may so speak, His view of all 
 the horrors of the future were as clear as when 
 on the very point of encountering them; and 
 His resolution was as firm and deliberate as His 
 knowledge was complete. Human heroism has 
 performed deeds of daring valor in the heat and 
 high excitement of the conflict, from which, had 
 they been foreseen in calmer hours, it would 
 have shrunk dismayed. The voyager will 
 tempt the sea when its waves are calm and its 
 aspect smiling : could he anticipate the terrors 
 of the storm and the shipwreck, nothing would 
 induce him to embark. But the Lord Jesus, 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 195 
 
 the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 world, had before His prescient gaze, amidst 
 the heights of glory, all the darkness of that 
 sea of sorrows through which He must pass, as 
 clearly as when the waters went over his soul : 
 yet was " His love stronger than death many 
 waters could not quench it." The Lord Jesus 
 foresaw the fearfulness of that last conflict as 
 fully when in His Father's presence He said, 
 " Here am I send me ;" " Lo, I come to do 
 Thy will, God ;" as when, in the very article 
 of His agony, confronting the banded powers of 
 earth and hell, "He trode the wine-press alone." 
 " Who shall separate us" from such a love as 
 this? 
 
 Again, is not this subject/?w^/^ with a most 
 solemn warning to all who are living in careless- 
 ness or indifference to the spiritual interests of 
 themselves and others ? What more awful inti- 
 mation could be conveyed to us of the evil of 
 sin, and of the infatuation of those who are in- 
 different to its fatal consequences, than in the 
 grief and sorrow of Jesus? If you are con- 
 scious of little or no anxiety about the soul 
 
196 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 and its eternal* interests, consider that you are 
 unconcerned about that which filled the om- 
 niscient Saviour with dismay and darkness of 
 spirit. When the veteran in war grows pale at 
 the sight of approaching danger, the inexpe- 
 rienced soldier may well tremble. When the 
 skilful physician looks alarmed at the aspect of 
 the disease, it would ill become the sick man to 
 treat the symptoms with contempt. And when 
 even an omniscient being is overwhelmed with 
 sadness at the contemplation of sin. shall those 
 on whom its fatal consequences must fall remain 
 calm and unaffected? Constantly surrounded 
 by the atmosphere of moral evil, we cannot 
 form a right estimate of its pollution : but 
 Jesus came amongst us from the free, bright air 
 of heaven from a region, and with a soul 
 habituated to breathe in an element of salubrity 
 and purity. And shall it not convey to us a 
 vivid impression of the foulness of our spiritual 
 state, when we behold Him shrinking with pain 
 and abhorrence from its contact? We cannot 
 see, or estimate adequately, the future results 
 of sin ; but this was One who could lift the veil 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 197 
 
 and gaze upon the mysterious secresies of eter- 
 nity. We cannot follow' the departing sinner 
 in the hour of death, or form the faintest esti- 
 mate of the consequences of that awful transi- 
 tion; but here was a Being who could look 
 beyond the brink of life, who could not only 
 see, in all its inherent repulsiveness the guilt 
 of the sinner in this world, but who, with that 
 eye before which even " hell is naked, and de- 
 struction hath no covering," could gaze upon the 
 tremendous realities that await the sinner in the 
 world to come. And when we conceive Him 
 surveying on the one hand the multitudes of 
 giddy, thoughtless, infatuated beings around 
 Him, engrossed with the affairs of the passing 
 hour, trifling with the grandest concerns in the 
 universe : gay, sportive, careless, hurrying on 
 to the verge of life; and then, on the other 
 hand, turning to behold the dread futurity, the 
 awful gulf of ruin flaming forth the hot wrath 
 of the Almighty God against the impenitent 
 is there not in this an explanation that may well 
 appal the sinner, of the compassion, the grief, 
 the yearning expostulations of Jesus ? It was 
 
198 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 an awful testimony to the grandeur of the event 
 that was taking place when, at the death of 
 Jesus, the sun in heaven was darkened, and 
 the solid earth beneath was rent ; but surely it 
 testifies to a still more terrible catastrophe, 
 when the face, not of the sun, but the sun's 
 Creator, is overshadowed when, not the mate- 
 rial earth is moved, but the spirit of Him who 
 made it is rent with anguish. Oh, believe me, 
 it is impossible for imagination to conceive a 
 more awful measure of the guilt and danger 
 of sin than the grief of Jesus. 
 
 But I would suggest, as a final reflection, that 
 such views of the sufferings of Jesus afford to 
 every penitent soul the strongest encouragement to 
 rely on the Saviour s love. For, to name but one 
 of several ways in which this inference presents 
 itself, have we not seen that all the sufferings of 
 Jesus were anticipated sufferings, and that He 
 contemplated from the very beginning all the 
 tremendous hardships of the enterprise in which 
 He was to engage. Your salvation, then, was 
 an object which even at such a fearful cost He 
 was willing to seek ; and think you He is less 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 199 
 
 willing to seek it now now when all hardships 
 and sorrows are over, and the price of your re- 
 demption has been fully paid ? Undeterred by 
 anticipated sorrows, undismayed by evils from 
 which every other being in the universe would 
 have shrunk, He gave Himself to win the prize 
 of life eternal for you, will He, think you, 
 withhold, or be reluctant to bestow that prize 
 upon you now that His pains and toils are 
 ended, now that He has only to speak the word, 
 and it is yours ? The salvation of your soul was 
 an end so glorious, that he was willing to reach 
 it though the way to it led through blood, and 
 darkness, and death, can you entertain any 
 doubt that He is willing to secure it now, when 
 nothing intervenes, when every difficulty has 
 been overcome, when He has but to stretch out 
 the hand of mercy, and the consummation of all 
 His sufferings is attained ? 
 
 Is there any anxious soul now present, bowed 
 down, it may be, under the sense of its own 
 guilt and hardness and insensibility, so as to be 
 unable to take comfort from the message of 
 mercy ? Behold in this your strong consolation ! 
 
200 THE SOLITARINESS OF 
 
 Whatever you are, however deplorable your 
 past guilt, your present coldness and hardness 
 of heart, these did not deter Christ from under- 
 taking all His anticipated sufferings for you, 
 why should they deter Him from saving you, 
 now that His sufferings are ended for ever ? 
 Guilty, impenitent, ungodly though you are, to 
 save you, and such as you, He was willing to 
 endure the awful hiding of His Father's face, 
 shall He be thought less willing to save you 
 now, when, for every redeemed soul, He antici- 
 pates that face irradiated with the smile of in- 
 finite and divine complacency ? He sought your 
 salvation, when to gain it He needed to be im- 
 poverished " to be made poor that you might 
 be rich," can He be reluctant to secure it now, 
 when every soul that is saved is another jewel 
 added to his mediatorial crown, another trophy 
 of His glorious victory, a new " portion of the 
 spoil divided" to Him, an accession, if that were 
 possible, to the very wealth of heaven ? 
 
 Away, then, with all such dishonoring doubts 
 and difficulties ! Shall the husbandman, for the 
 sake of |he harvest, waste his strength, and bear 
 
CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS. 201 
 
 the burden and heat of the day, and then, when 
 the ripe corn tempts the sickle, in very wanton- 
 ness refuse to reap, and let it be destroyed ? 
 Shall the Lord Jesus undertake to suffer for us, 
 shall He actually toil, and groan, and grieve, 
 and die for us, and then let the fruit of all His 
 sufferings be lost, and leave us to perish in our 
 sins ? No, it cannot be. It is impossible to 
 exaggerate the certainty and freeness of that 
 salvation that is in Christ for all who will but 
 lay hold of it. It is impossible that anything in 
 the universe can lie between you and eternal 
 life, if you but accept it as " the gift of God 
 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
 9* 
 
f artidptioit in tfje jSnffmngs of Cljrist 
 
 " Rejoice inasmucli as ye are partakers of the sufferings 
 of Christ." 1 PETER, iv. 13. 
 
 IT is strange what a power there 
 is in suffering to unite in deepest 
 intimacy those who have nobly borne it together. 
 No bond of union so close as the bond of com- 
 mon sorrows ; no brotherhood so deep and true 
 as the brotherhood of calamity and misfortune. 
 It would seem as if the affections could never 
 be welded so firmly as when they have been 
 exposed to the fiery solvent of adversity. Per- 
 haps it is that we never so truly understand 
 each other as when great and common trials 
 sound the depths of our nature, and show to 
 each what is in a brother's heart. Or it may be 
 that love is strengthened most of all by the trials 
 and hardships endured for the sake of its object. 
 But whatever be the explanation, there is, we 
 know, a subtle influence in pain and sorrow to 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 203 
 
 knit fellow-sufferers heart to heart and soul to 
 soul, as no participation in joy and pleasure can 
 ever unite them. The survivors of the wreck 
 who can recall the days and hours of danger and 
 exposure, of alternating hope and despair which 
 they bore together ; the remnant of the forlorn 
 hope, who have stood side by side while shot 
 and shell were raining death around them ; or 
 the few brave and true hearts who together have 
 struggled through the protracted and terrible 
 siege, and whose friendship is cemented by a 
 thousand associations of sympathy and endur- 
 ance, cannot choose but feel in each other a 
 deeper than common interest. Or if we seek 
 an illustration from the quieter scenes of life, it 
 is probable that the domestic affections never 
 grow so deep and firm as when the inmates of a 
 home have struggled on together through years 
 of poverty and hardship, and can recall, perhaps, 
 in more prosperous days, a long eventful history 
 of common toils and sorrows. 
 
 Now, some such thought as this may have 
 been present to the apostle's mind when he con- 
 gratulated his suffering fellow-Christians on the 
 
204 PARTICIPATION IN THE 
 
 fact that they were partakers of the sufferings 
 of Christ. Fierce as was " the fiery trial which 
 tried them/' it had this blessed consolation, that 
 it brought the sufferers closer to the heart, into 
 more perfect sympathy with the spirit of a suffer- 
 ing Lord. The secret depths of that sorrowing 
 heart they could better understand in virtue of 
 the approximation to His grief which their own 
 hearts had felt, and a fuller appreciation of His 
 ineffable love could be theirs, when by experi- 
 ence they had learnt something of that penalty 
 of suffering and sacrifice which for them He so 
 willingly had paid. Kindred by the holy tie of 
 sorrow, they became thus, as it were, more 
 nearly related to " the man of sorrows, and ac- 
 quainted with grief." Instead, therefore, of re- 
 garding it as a "strange thing" that theirs 
 should be a lot of suffering and trial, it would 
 rather have seemed unnatural had it been other- 
 wise. Strange it would have been had the ser- 
 vants' cup been all sweetness, when the Master's 
 was one of unmingled bitterness had they 
 moved over a soft and easy path, while He toiled 
 along a road every step of which was agony. 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 205 
 
 Nay, rather, drinking the same cup, would they 
 mingle their tears with His ; and over that path, 
 hard and rugged and thorny though it was, 
 would they wish to tread, where the print of 
 ffis bleeding feet could be discerned before 
 them. And therefore, in one word, did they, 
 because of the deeper sympathy, the more inti- 
 mate nearness to Jesus which sorrow bestows, 
 rejoice in their participation of His sufferings. 
 
 But it is not all kinds of suffering in which 
 we have community with Jesus. There are sor- 
 rows, obviously, of which the infinitely pure and 
 holy Saviour could have no experience, and in 
 the endurance of which no man can appropriate 
 the consolation of fellowship with Christ. It 
 might seem, indeed, at first sight, as if all sor- 
 row endured by imperfect and guilty beings lay 
 beyond the cognisance and sympathy of Jesus ; 
 for into the bitterness of such sorrow sin enters, 
 more or less, as an ingredient. Yet in the chap- 
 ter preceding that from which the text is taken, 
 the apostle speaks of Christ as " suffering for 
 sin," and comforts the persecuted and sorrowing 
 Christians by the thought that to this very suf- 
 
206 PARTICIPATION IN THE 
 
 fering of Christ their sufferings were in some 
 sort analogous. "It is better," he writes, "that 
 ye suffer in well-doing than in evil-doing; for 
 Christ also hath once suffered for sins." It is 
 not, of course, to be understood that Christians 
 can, in the full sense of the words, " suffer for 
 sin" as Jesus did. Nevertheless, there is that 
 in all noble and Christian suffering which assimi- 
 lates the believer to his suffering Lord, and 
 qualifies him to " enter into the fellowship" of 
 Christ's suffering for sin. Let us endeavor, 
 therefore, to find out what sort of suffering for 
 sin is possible to a pure and holy nature. How 
 far may suffering for sin be really noble and 
 worthy? What elements must we eliminate 
 from suffering caused by sin in forming our ideal 
 of suffering purity ? It is this question to which, 
 with special reference to the sufferings of Christ, 
 I shall now direct your thoughts ; and I shall 
 do so by considering first, negatively, what 
 Christ could not, and then positively, what He 
 must, as a perfectly pure and holy Being, have 
 " suffered for sins." 
 
 1. One element of suffering for sin, and that 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 207 
 
 a most bitter one, of which Christ could have 
 no direct experience, is conscious guilt. Wide 
 as the range of its sympathies with the sinful, 
 there is a line beyond which a nature which is 
 itself sinless can never pass. Large-hearted, 
 genial, all-embracing in its charities, the pure 
 spirit of Jesus could yet never go with fallen 
 humanity in its sorrows one step beyond that 
 limit where loathing of sin passes into remorse. 
 Into that dismal region, overshadowed by the 
 gloom of guilt, and where rage the furies of an 
 avenging conscience, He who was " in all points 
 tempted like as we are, yet without sin," could 
 never follow us. With whatever intuitive cer- 
 tainty He read the secrets of human hearts, with 
 whatever yearning compassionateness He blend- 
 ed His soul with their sorrows, there were 
 depths of guilty woe which that noble innocence 
 could never sound. Self-loathing, the loss of 
 self-respect, the sense of personal demerit, the 
 self-disgust of satiated passion, the miserable 
 weariness of a heart in which the capacity but 
 not the desire of impure delight has burned out 
 these are the feelings that constitute the most 
 
 
208 PAKTieiPATION IN THE 
 
 terrible ingredient of the sinner's agony, the 
 most intolerable woes which human heart can 
 feel; and yet these, it is obvious, could never 
 cast their faintest shadow on the heart of the 
 Sinless One. As there is a guilty rapture, so 
 there is a guilty dismay, from all personal ex- 
 perience of which He is, of necessity, excluded. 
 As it were blasphemy to ascribe to Him the 
 joys of gratified ambition, the dark delights of 
 satiated vengeance, or glutted avarice, or envy 
 glorying in a rival's, or hatred in a foe's discom- 
 fiture, so equally impious were it to attribute 
 to Jesus the sorrows of wounded pride, or dis- 
 appointed lust or ambition, the rankling wounds 
 of envy or jealousy, or the unavailing agonies 
 of despair. Whosoever of mortals is in pain, or 
 loneliness, or bereavement, or grief, on the great 
 Consoler he can lean with entirest confidence of 
 sympathy ; but whosoever, yielding up his soul 
 to sin, is visited by sin's bitter fruit of guilty sor- 
 row, excludes himself from holy sympathy, 
 averts from him the tenderest, noblest of mortal 
 hearts, casts off the supporting arm of Jesus, and 
 must suffer alone. With all godly sorrow Jesus 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 209 
 
 sympathises, but He knows nothing, and never 
 can, " of the sorrow of the world that worketh 
 death." 
 
 2. Another element in suffering for sin, of 
 which a perfectly holy nature could have no 
 experience, is a personal sense of divine wrath. 
 Conscious guilt, indeed, is but the inward re- 
 flection of divine wrath, the shadow of the dark- 
 ened brow of God cast upon the spirit of man, 
 and the soul that is incapable of the former must 
 be equally exempted from the experience of the 
 latter. Even in this world, dim as are our per- 
 ceptions of spiritual realities, the latent thought 
 of God's anger of a personal Majesty of the 
 heavens whom he has incensed, an infinitely 
 Just and Holy One, whose dread indignation he 
 has incurred is one terrible ingredient in a 
 wicked man's wretchedness. And how much 
 more terrible this element of suffering in that 
 world where spiritual things are seen and felt in 
 their real magnitude. Before even a fellow- 
 man's indignation the guilty spirit sometimes 
 cowers in terror. It is dreadful for detected 
 impurity to meet the eye of a revered parent or 
 
210 PARTICIPATION IN THE 
 
 friend, with all the shame of discovered sin 
 fresh upon it. The craven heart of sin shrinks 
 from the presence of even earthly goodness, and 
 will sometimes seek the suicide's refuge rather 
 than encounter man's contempt and indignation. 
 But man's anger, the indignation against sin of 
 earthly goodness, is but the imperfect reflection 
 of God's. Who can tell what it is to go forth 
 into a drear eternity, to meet the awful front of 
 incensed Justice to stand a guilty thing sur- 
 prised, in shivering nakedness and shame, be- 
 fore the flashing eye of God ! But this ob- 
 viously is a sorrow altogether alien to Christ's 
 experience, a woe which God's dear Son could 
 never feel. God could never dislike or be dis- 
 pleased with Christ, nor was it possible for that 
 Divine Innocence to experience for a moment 
 the terrible feeling of guilt cowering beneath 
 God's anger. There is a sense, doubtless, in 
 which it may be averred of Christ, that for His 
 redeemed, and by mysterious implication of His 
 being with theirs, he bore God's wrath ; yet 
 must we ever exclude from our minds any no- 
 tion implying that Christ could think of God as 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 211 
 
 indignant at Him. There was no wrath going 
 forth against Him in those dreadful scenes 
 amidst which a world's iniquities were pressing 
 most heavily upon Him, nay, rather, it was 
 then, in the very midst of His agony for sin, 
 that God approved of Him the most. Behind 
 the gloom of the cross the radiant smile of divine 
 complacency was beaming brightest. And Je- 
 sus knew and felt that it was. He passed to 
 His suiferings with expressions of tenderest re- 
 liance, of yearning confidence in the Father's 
 love ; in the very article of His agony he felt 
 and said that he was doing that which was the 
 Father's will ; and on the cross, though human 
 pain and weakness seem for a moment to have 
 beclouded His spirit with a sense of forsakenness, 
 yet even then His words breathed unwavering 
 confidence in God's love and favor the yearn- 
 ing, clinging, confiding tenderness of a heart 
 that knows itself to be loved, and incapable of 
 being deserted. " My God ! My God !" was 
 still His cry ; and His passing spirit He breath- 
 ed away into the Father's arms, with indestruc- 
 tible consciousness of a divine love and care em- 
 
212 PARTICIPATION IN THE 
 
 bracing Him " Father, into Thy hands I 
 commend my spirit !" No ! beneath all the 
 outer perturbation of His history there was a 
 deep abiding peace the peace of innocence, the 
 imperturbable quiet, of conscious purity resting 
 in the everlasting arms. Betwixt the experi- 
 ence of a guilty soul writhing under the frown 
 of God, and His, even in His darkest hour of 
 sorrow, there is an impassable gulf. 
 
 3. Nor, finally, though Christ "tasted of death 
 for every man," could He ever experience per- 
 sonally that which constitutes to the sinner the 
 very bitterness of death the fear of what comes 
 after death. If death were a mere sleep, a sink- 
 ing into unconsciousness, its aspect to the guilty 
 would be deprived of half its terror. The mere 
 pain of dying is often far less than the pain of 
 living. But it is because sin projects the shadow 
 of its own fear into the future, because guilty 
 deeds have sent on witnesses to wait him be- 
 yond the grave, that the wicked man dreads to 
 die. Take away all fear of what comes after 
 death, and most men would meet it calmly; 
 but it is the thought that they go, they know 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 213 
 
 not whither, into a world all strange, portentous, 
 unknown ; it is the mystery, the gloom, the un- 
 certainty, the dim and dismal prevision of evil, 
 all the more alarming that it is indistinct- it is 
 this that makes death terrible. But into the dy- 
 ing sorrow of the sinner's Substitute this element 
 of suffering could not enter. The dying hour of 
 Jesus was disturbed by no fear of what awaited 
 him beyond the grave. There was to Him no 
 brooding doubt, no uncertainty, no alarm hanging 
 over the unseen world. He was not torn by the 
 relentless hand from a world to which he clung, 
 to one from which His trembling soul turned 
 away driven, struggling, shuddering, reluctant, 
 over the brink of life into darkness and despair. 
 On the contrary, death to Jesus was an escape 
 from protracted banishment to endless and unut- 
 terable union with His Father. It was the pass- 
 ing from a world in which all had been to Him 
 toil and weariness and woe, to one on which the 
 sweet memories of an eternity of joy were rest- 
 ing. Death to Jesus, in one word, was but a 
 going home. " If ye loved Me," were His part- 
 ing words, " ye would rejoice because I go to 
 
214 PAETICIPATION IN THE 
 
 my Father." " I go to my Father and your 
 Father, to my God and your God." " To-day," 
 was His promise to the companion of His agony, 
 while a dawning heaven was breaking on His 
 death-dinmed eye " To-day shalt thou be with 
 Me in Paradise." Therefore, again, we conclude 
 that of this element of suffering for sin Jesus 
 could never have any personal experience. 
 
 II. I now go on to inquire what kind of suf- 
 fering for sin may be conceived of as noble and 
 worthy, and so not impossible to a pure and 
 holy nature. Sin, though alien from the expe- 
 rience of a Being such as Christ, may yet be to 
 Him the occasion or the cause of bitter pain and 
 sorrow. There are indeed pangs of inward an- 
 guish on account of sin, which, in all their in- 
 tensity, only such a Being can know. And it is 
 only in proportion as your inner nature is refined 
 into an approximate purity to Christ's that we 
 can with reference to these become " partakers 
 of Christ's sufferings." 
 
 Amongst these kinds of suffering, I notice, 
 first, that which a pure and holy nature must feel 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 215 
 
 from the mere contiguity of evil. In the accom- 
 plishment of His mission, it was necessary that 
 He, the all-holy One, hating sin with an inten- 
 sity of abhorrence of which our imperfect minds 
 can form no adequate estimate, should become 
 an inmate of our world, and dwell for many 
 years in contact with its moral deformity and 
 pollution. And this in itself the mere specta- 
 cle of sin, the life-long contact of the sinless 
 with the vile implied on His part bitter suf- 
 fering. To this element of Christ's sufferings I 
 have adverted in a preceding discourse, as con- 
 tributing to that loneliness of spirit which ever 
 marked His earthly history. But, considered 
 from another point of view, it is this very recoil 
 of His pure heart from surrounding moral evil, 
 this anguish of His soul in the inevitable con- 
 tact with sin, which opens up to every Christian 
 mind a medium of profoundest sympathy with 
 the mind of Jesus. For more and more, as we 
 grow like to Jesus, will our perception of the 
 loathsomeness of evil be quickened, more and 
 more will we shrink with sympathetic sensitive- 
 ness from the foul contiguity of sin, and so, in 
 
216 PARTICIPATION IN THE 
 
 our painful oppression amidst the fetid moral at- 
 mosphere of the world, will we become, in an 
 ever-increasing measure, participants in the suf- 
 ferings of our Lord. 
 
 To man or woman of pure mind and tender 
 conscience it would be intolerable to be forced 
 to read through an obscene book ; what agony 
 of mind then what pain and distress of spirit 
 more unendurable than sharpest bodily tortures 
 would be involved in a similar life-long contact 
 with sin, not recorded merely, but hideously 
 displayed in act ! But such an imaginable case 
 as this can only partially help us to conceive of 
 the condition of Jesus in a sin-polluted world. 
 For not only was His purity infinitely more sen- 
 sitive and abhorrent of evil than that of the 
 purest of common men, but His cognisance of the 
 world's evil was far more keen and comprehen- 
 sive. His very presence roused the spirit of sin 
 that pervaded the world, into more violent and 
 frightful manifestation. In hatred of Him, the 
 foulest passions in man's breast displayed all 
 their hatefulness. The hell of malice and re- 
 venge that is in the fallen spirit of man showed 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 217 
 
 itself openly and horribly before Him. In that 
 most terrible crime in history of which He was 
 at once the witness and the victim, sin reached 
 its climax. Moreover, as was formerly said, He 
 had a mind large enough to take in at one view 
 the whole combined wickedness of humanity, 
 and He saw sin not only in outward act, but in 
 the hidden source of evil, the heart of man. No 
 soft veil of conventionality disguised sin from 
 His penetrating eye. No illusion of words and 
 forms and professions subdued, before the glance 
 of Incarnate Truth, the unsightliness of hypoc- 
 risy and vice. Wherever and in whatsoever 
 guise sin was, He saw it. It was to Him as if 
 the mask were torn off, and a skeleton face re- 
 vealed in all its hideousness as if a flower- 
 strewn bank was laid open, and a nest of ser- 
 pents disclosed beneath. With a nature formed 
 and habituated to breathe the air of heaven's 
 eternal purity, He dwelt amidst the charnel- 
 house loathsomeness and corruption of evil. And 
 for this very reason, that He was Himself with- 
 out the faintest personal implication in sin, He 
 
 Caird. 
 
 1ft 
 
218 PAETICIPATION IN THE 
 
 suffered from contact with it an agony all the 
 more acute. 
 
 2. Another element of Christ's suffering for 
 sin, in which, as we grow in kindred purity of 
 nature, we shall learn to participate, is The re- 
 flected or borrowed shame and pain which noble 
 natures feel for the sins of those with whom they 
 are closely connected. Christ was not a mere 
 spectator of the world's sin, He was deeply im- 
 plicated in the fortunes of the guilty, related to 
 them by the closest ties of kindred and affec- 
 tion. And it is easy to see that this fact intro- 
 duces a new element into our conception of His 
 sufferings. For though deeds of sin and shame 
 be always revolting to a pure-minded man, the 
 spectacle becomes immeasurably more distress- 
 ing when it is the sin and shame of one who is 
 related to him by the ties of blood or friendship. 
 There is a borrowed humiliation which we feel 
 from the sins of those who are dear to us ; 
 there is a keen and cruel pain which pierces a 
 good and generous heart in the contemplation of 
 a brother's wickedness, and which is second only, 
 and in some respects not second, to the agony 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 219 
 
 of personal guilt. It is strange what subtle 
 bonds may blend our being with the being of an- 
 other, by what mysterious chords soul may be 
 knit to soul, till not only one heart may vibrate 
 spontaneously to another's joy or sorrow, but 
 may feel an almost personal moral sensitiveness 
 in another's righteousness or guilt. Reflect, for 
 instance, on the distress and shame which a hus- 
 band may feel for a wife's, a wife for a husband's 
 dishonor. Or consider how close to conscious 
 guilt is the agony of a good and holy father for 
 the detected infamy of a child. There is a sort of 
 organic unity in a family, so that no member of it 
 can rise or fall, be honored or disgraced, without 
 implicating the rest. Bearing a deep attach- 
 ment to the erring one, bound to him by the 
 closest ties of blood and kindred, and by the 
 deeper, more mysterious affinities that connect 
 spirit with spirit, and propagate character to 
 character, the natural relationship, moreover, 
 confirmed by a thousand tendrils of memory, a 
 thousand hallowed associations clasping soul to 
 soul till affinity has become almost identity of 
 being, think what that father's feeling would 
 
220 PARTICIPATION IN THE 
 
 be if his child should go wrong if, after all his 
 anxious care and watchful discipline, that child, 
 perhaps his hope, his pride, his darling, should 
 sink into impurity, and bring dishonor on a stain- 
 less name. The father, though himself innocent, 
 though not really guilty of the child's sin, would 
 become relatively partaker of it ; he would have 
 an impression as if the ignominy and shame were 
 overflowing on himself; nay, he would be stung 
 by an anguish in some respects more poignant 
 than if the sin had been his own. The very fact 
 that the child was capable of the guilty deed 
 implies a weaker sense of its heinousness ; and, 
 on the other hand, the very fact that the parent 
 is one who himself shrinks with loathing from 
 foul and dishonorable actions, is the indication 
 in him of a sensitiveness of conscience which 
 must render his perception of the sin all the 
 more distressing. 
 
 The bearing of these principles on the case 
 before us is obvious. Christ is our friend. He 
 took upon Him our very nature. We -are bone 
 of His bone and flesh of His flesh nay, if we 
 may so speak, more than that, spirit of His 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 221 
 
 spirit, heart of His heart. " Forasmuch as the 
 children are partakers of flesh and blood. He 
 likewise took part of the same." " In all things 
 it behooved Him to be made like unto His breth- 
 ren." No earthly relationship so close, so deep, 
 so real ; no human affection so tender, so ardent, 
 as that of Christ to His own. The most intimate 
 of mortal unions is but the type and symbol of 
 the union of Jesus and His redeemed. He 
 blends and interfuses His pure Spirit with the 
 common spirit of the race which He came to 
 save, in such communion of feeling that there is 
 but a step betwixt it and identity of being. 
 Nothing that happens to us is indifferent to Him. 
 Our minutest pain or grief thrills up to His 
 mighty heart, our sins oppress His spirit with 
 an almost personal weight of woe. " He Him- 
 self takes our infirmities, and bears our sick- 
 nesses ;" and in this, as in other senses, " our 
 iniquities are laid upon Him." More deeply and 
 painfully than ever husband for a wife's dishonor, 
 or parent for the ruin of a beloved child, He feels 
 grieved, humiliated, overwhelmed as with con- 
 scious infamy and guilt, by our sins. And the 
 
222 PARTICIPATION IN THE 
 
 ineffable purity and holiness of His own nature, 
 the intense acuteness of his moral perceptions, 
 render it a more terrible thing to Him to be 
 bound so intimately to the guilty and polluted. 
 It is a connection with infamy from which He 
 cannot free Himself, and yet which to that noble 
 heart of purity is all but unendurable. It is In- 
 nocence wedded to Vice, Purity tied to Pollu- 
 tion, a living man bound inseparably to a loath- 
 some corpse. We see, therefore, in this impli- 
 cation of His being with the being of the guilty, 
 another way in which Christ suffered for sin. 
 
 3. Once more, Christ suffered for sin, not 
 only as bearing relatively its guilt, but also as 
 its victim. In the persons of those He loved, 
 sin transmitted to Him a borrowed humiliation ; 
 but it hurt Him more deeply than thus, for it 
 rose up against Him, to hate, and assail and 
 destroy Him. And this to such a nature as 
 His was the saddest thing of all. It was not 
 the pain and contumely, the loneliness, deser- 
 tion, hostility, the manifold injuries and wrongs 
 He endured on earth, that most keenly hurt 
 Him, but it was the fact that these injuries 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 223 
 
 were inflicted by the hands of those whom He 
 loved so dearly. The wound itself was sharp, 
 but there was a poison of ingratitude on the 
 weapon that made it harder far to bear. Even 
 to our feebler affections there is no pain that 
 can compare with the pain of rejected love, or 
 of injury and insult endured at the hands of 
 those to whom our hearts cling. The unkind- 
 ness of a friend or brother, the unfaithfulness 
 or harshness of a husband or wife, to whom we 
 still turn with yearning fondness such offences, 
 humiliating to a good and gentle spirit even 
 when it is only the witness, become tenfold 
 more distressing when it is itself the injured 
 object of them. You remember with what in- 
 imitable pathos the great dramatist depicts the 
 character and history of a generous kind-hearted 
 old man suffering cruel wrong and ingratitude 
 at the hands of his daughters. With what in- 
 finite truth and tenderness is the progress of 
 feeling delineated in the injured man's breast ! 
 At first the old man is represented as struck 
 with astonishment, and as all but incredulous 
 of the possibility of unkindness at the hands 
 
224 PARTICIPATION IN THE 
 
 of those whom he loved so tenderly, and to 
 whom he had surrendered his earthly all. Then 
 as the proofs of ingratitude multiply, and can 
 no longer be misconstrued, we see him, stung 
 with the terrible wrong, bursting forth for a 
 while into uncontrollable fits of indignation, fly- 
 ing forth to brave the wild war of the elements, 
 unconscious of their fury, or finding in it a 
 strange consolation for the wilder tumult of 
 sorrow and anger within his breast. Then, 
 as that phase of feeling passes off, as passion 
 spends itself, and he is left free to brood over 
 his wrongs, the mind begins to totter under the 
 weight of woe that burdens it; then misery 
 and despair issue in madness, and then a 
 broken heart and then the grave. 
 
 But neither in the realms of fiction or of fact 
 can we find any parallel to that saddest, stran- 
 gest story of ingratitude, in which it is told how 
 Incarnate Love was rejected at the hands of 
 men. " He came to His own, and His own re- 
 ceived Him not." They whom He came to 
 save " hid, as it were, their faces from Him ; 
 He was despised, and they esteemed Him not." 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHEIST. 225 
 
 Had He come with anger on His countenance, 
 and weapons of vengeance in his hands, His re- 
 ception could not have been worse. But He 
 came " not to condemn the world, but that the 
 world through Him might be saved." He 
 came, love on His lip, and gifts of benignity in 
 His hands. He went forth amongst men to 
 heal and comfort and bless. Wherever He 
 went, beneficence streamed out from Him on 
 every side. No toil, or hardship, or weariness, 
 or want, could damp His ardor, or interrupt His 
 ministry of love the self-forgetting, self-devot- 
 ed, universal Benefactor. And for all this the 
 only return He asked was love. For food, 
 healing, life for pardon, purity, peace for 
 countless earthly blessings, and for a blessing 
 transcending them far as heaven transcends 
 earth eternal mercy laid at every guilty, dy- 
 ing sinner's feet for all this, all He wanted, or 
 asked, or cared for, was only that men would 
 love Him, open their hearts, yield up their af- 
 fections to Him, their divines t friend. But all 
 in vain ! With but slight exceptions, all He 
 got was coldness, hard-heartedness, disdain. 
 10* 
 
226 PARTICIPATION IN THE 
 
 Stern looks, unkind acts, met Him wherever 
 He went. He looked for some to pity Him, 
 but He found none. His very kindred turned 
 against Him. A few poor men, touched by His 
 heavenly words, drew towards Him for a little ; 
 but as the toils of the hunters gathered closer 
 round this pure and gentle One, even they for- 
 sook Him and fled left Him to face His pur- 
 suers, to suffer, and to die, alone. What wonder 
 if, with that heart of His yearning for sympa- 
 thy, incapable of life without love, craving for 
 affection with a longing which earthly heart has 
 never known condescending to the lowliest, 
 not rejecting the most worthless, nay, welcom- 
 ing the penitent tenderness of foulest sinners 
 having no happiness but in the recovered love 
 of human souls to God in Him what wonder 
 if at last His mortal strength gave way, and 
 not by bodily wounds alone, not by the scourg- 
 ing, the nails, the spear, but by the most piteous 
 death that mortals know by a broken heart, 
 He died ! Surely He who thus died, beyond 
 all men, suffered for sins. 
 
 Such, then, are some of those kinds of suffer- 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 227 
 
 ing on account of sin which are the signs of a 
 true nobleness of nature, and in which it is not 
 the shame but the glory of a man to participate. 
 In the expiatory sufferings of Christ for sin it 
 may be impossible for any follower of His to 
 share, though even with regard to these there is 
 a sense in which the sorrows of Christians are 
 but a perpetuation of the great sacrifice ; for in 
 every act of self-denial for the world's good, they 
 are " filling up that which is behind of the suf- 
 ferings of Christ." But whatever isolation may 
 characterise our Lord's suffering for sin, con- 
 templated in this aspect, there are other views 
 of it in which the disciple may be regarded as 
 entering into fullest communion with the Master. 
 Believing in Him who is the only propitiation for 
 the sins of the world, you are not only delivered 
 from guilt, but brought into such sympathy with 
 the heart of the Great Sufferer, that you regard 
 sin with feelings that are the reflection of His 
 own. You " know Him and the fellowship of 
 His sufferings, being made conformable unto His 
 death." " Rejoice," then, if thus " ye are par- 
 takers of the sufferings of Christ." " Rejoice" 
 
228 PARTICIPATION IN THE 
 
 in the simple fact that you suffer with Jesus ; 
 for to be near Him in suffering is a nobler 
 privilege than to be with other men in joy. 
 Even earthly affection has taught us how pos- 
 sible it is for a loving heart to prefer poverty 
 and hardship with some, to all the softness and 
 splendor of life with others ; and how there may 
 be a deeper, richer joy in sharing the sternness 
 and ruggedness of the lot of one whom we de- 
 votedly love and honor, than in all the super- 
 ficial delights of a selfish and sensual existence. 
 And if that sentiment of mingled love and rev- 
 erence and adoration, the profoundest of which 
 the heart of man is capable if devotion to 
 Jesus possess your secret soul, then will you 
 experience something of that strange sweet joy 
 in sorrow, that bliss of woe with which martyr 
 spirits have often welcomed the cross. For ex- 
 aggerated though sometimes it may have been, 
 it was often no unnatural and unreal feeling 
 which throbbed of old in the hearts, and fired 
 with a strange exultation the eyes of dying men, 
 and which drew from dying lips the cry, "Wel- 
 come pain ! welcome the cross ! welcome dark 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 229 
 
 death ! for it is my glory to bear them, my 
 Saviour, with thee !" 
 
 "Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of 
 Christ's sufferings," for such suffering for sin as 
 that of which we have spoken is the badge of a 
 Christ-like nature, the proof of a spirit akin to 
 His. Gladness is not the truest sign of a noble 
 nature in such a world as this. There is a sad- 
 ness that rises from a deeper source in man's na- 
 ture than the light sparkle of superficial joy. 
 There is a profound melancholy more enviable 
 than rapturous delight. There are tears that 
 sometimes spring " from the depths of a divine 
 despair." In the contemplation of evil, the 
 sight of the suffering and strife and wretched- 
 ness and wrong, which oppressed the Saviour's 
 soul, what but a superficial nature can be self- 
 ishly joyous ? There is enough of sorrow and 
 sin, surely, still left in the world to make a 
 thoughtful mind no stranger to that grief which 
 hung like a perpetual shadow over the spirit of 
 Jesus. Beholding the desolation and ruin of 
 souls, what man who loves his brother can re- 
 main unvisited by that agony of love and pity 
 
230 PARTICIPATION IN THE 
 
 which broke the heart of Christ ? A child will 
 sport with thoughtless levity over graves, where 
 man's deeper nature will stand in reverent awe 
 and contemplation; but it is better to be sad 
 with the wise man than merry with the child. 
 There are men so vain and superficial, or so 
 hard and selfish, that, leave them but their ani- 
 mal enjoyment, let them alone in their epicurean 
 sloth and selfishness, and the moral ruin of a 
 world would fail to move them ; but who would 
 not rather weep with Jesus than be dry-eyed 
 with these ? 
 
 " Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of the 
 sufferings of Christ," for if yours be His sorrows, 
 yours also shall be His joys. "When His glory 
 shall be revealed, ye shall be glad also with ex- 
 ceeding joy." " If we suffer, we shall also reign 
 with Him." " If so be that we suffer with Him, 
 we shall also be glorified together." Your capa- 
 city of holy suffering is the proof and the meas- 
 ure of a capacity of holy joy. The ear that is 
 most pained by discordance, knows best the 
 pleasure of sweet sounds. The heart which en- 
 mity or estrangement wounds the deepest, has 
 
SUFFEKINGS OF CHIIIST. 231 
 
 ever the most exquisite susceptibility to love ; 
 and the oppression and sadness of the spirit 
 amidst a world of imperfection and evil, is the 
 silent prophecy and the sure criterion of that 
 joy unutterable which awaits it in a world where 
 the triumph of truth and goodness shall be com- 
 plete. If inevitable contiguity with sin distress 
 you, estimate by your present pain the blessed- 
 ness of that glorious future when you shall 
 breathe the atmosphere of unmingled love and 
 purity, when sin shall be a thing forgotten, or 
 remembered only to enhance the deep joy of 
 eternal good. If here, with the world's best 
 Benefactor, your heart bleeds with an almost 
 personal sense of injury for the souls in which 
 sin is working bitter wrong, anticipate the exul- 
 tation of that coming era when you shall com- 
 pany with none but the good, when spirits re- 
 deemed from sin, bright with ineffable purity, 
 shall be your perpetual associates ; and when 
 you and they light in every mind, love in every 
 heart shall wander side by side with Jesus 
 amid the sun-bright expanses of eternity. If 
 here, oppressed with "the bondage of corrup- 
 
SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 232 
 
 tion," you sigh with the indignant impatience of 
 the captive for the emancipation of the world 
 from evil, conceive the rapture of that hour 
 which the rapid years are hastening on, when 
 the captivity of sin shall cease for ever, and you 
 shall leap forth to liberty ! 
 
iritual JUst. 
 
 " Return unto thy rest, my soul !" 
 
 PSALM cxvi. 7. 
 
 THE blessings of religion are often 
 SEKM. VII. . . 
 
 represented in Scripture as compre- 
 hended under the idea of " Rest," and the rise 
 of the religious consciousness, the stirrings of 
 spiritual anxiety and aspiration, as the instinc- 
 tive yearning of the soul after its true rest in 
 God. Moreover, we are taught to conceive of 
 this rest, not as a new and arbitrary gift to man, 
 but as that which is, in some respects, the soul's 
 ancient and original heritage. Religion is to 
 be regarded, not as an acquisition, but as a res- 
 toration not as the gaining of a new friend or 
 home, but as the recovery of a lost Father the 
 going back to a former home hallowed by an- 
 cient memories, and reviving in the heart a 
 thousand dormant associations. " I will arise 
 and go unto my Father." " Return unto the 
 
234 SPIRITUAL BEST. 
 
 Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine in- 
 iquity." " Return unto thy rest, my soul !' 
 Now, it is this thought which furnishes the 
 true explanation at once of the soul's misery 
 and restlessness in sin, and of that repose and 
 peace which it finds in reconciliation to God. 
 For the deepest unrest is ever that of things or 
 beings in an unnatural or distorted condition 
 the unrest of aberration from a proper place or 
 course, and so, of interrupted harmony and 
 equipoise. The restless streams and brooks 
 fret their mountain channels till they reach 
 their proper depths in river or sea; and the 
 waves of the sea itself, disturbed by the storm, 
 heave and sway themselves to rest in their nat- 
 ural and common level again. The thunder- 
 storm is but the voice of nature's unrest, when 
 the balance and equipoise of her elements are 
 disturbed, and she seeks to regain the wonted 
 repose of harmony and law. And so, in the 
 moral world, the disquietude, dissatisfaction, 
 restlessness of the ungodly, finds its interpreta- 
 tion in nothing so much as this, that in sin the 
 soul is in an unnatural state. For although to 
 
SPIRITUAL REST. 235 
 
 fallen man sin has become a second nature, it is 
 never to be forgotten that the make and struc- 
 ture of his being is not for sin, but for holiness. 
 The original type of humanity is to be found in 
 God. The normal condition of the spirit of man 
 is one of holy union and communion with De- 
 ity. And in the feverish desires, the fretting 
 cares and toils and hopes and anxieties of life, 
 we may hear the unconscious murmurings of a 
 nature that has lost its true level, and is seek- 
 ing it in vain ; or in the wilder storms of human 
 passion that sometimes burst forth, the intima- 
 tion that in disunion from God the elements of 
 our being are in fearful disharmony among 
 themselves. Had man been born only for the 
 things of time and sense, he had been content 
 and happy amidst them. The crawling worm 
 is haunted by no reminiscence of the skies, nor 
 is the born-beggar's heart embittered by the 
 recollection of better days. But to man, ill at 
 ease and consciously degraded in sin, the es- 
 sence of his misery is the latent conviction that 
 he has fallen beneath himself. It is possible, 
 indeed, for the sinful soul to reach a false and 
 
236 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 spurious rest, to sink into the unreal tranquillity 
 of hardened impenitence, in which evil becomes 
 its good. But so long as the soul has not sunk 
 thus low, so long as it cannot be quite at peace 
 in sin, its very restlessness and misery are at 
 once the tradition of a nobler and happier past, 
 and the prophecy of a possible future nobler 
 and happier still. 
 
 In this thought, moreover, we have the secret, 
 not only of the soul's unrest in sin, but also of 
 that true rest in God of which the text speaks ; 
 for it is the rest of a being who has found again 
 his proper and congenial sphere. Restored to 
 God, man's nature is restored to harmony with 
 itself, regains a condition in which all its facul- 
 ties find full scope and fitting object, and each 
 in perfect unison with the rest. Its noblest 
 powers of thought, its deep and insatiable affec- 
 tions, its boundless moral energies, its cravings 
 for a higher truth, aspirations after a purer good, 
 and visions of a beauty fairer than earthly and 
 finite things disclose all find their one grand, 
 all-absorbing, all-harmonising object in Him who 
 is the alone Infinitely True and Holy and Fair. 
 
SPIKITUAL REST. 237 
 
 In reconciliation to God through Christ Jesus 
 the soul regains its lost equilibrium, finds again 
 the centre of repose for which it had been sigh- 
 ing in vain. What sensual pleasure, wealth, 
 ease, honor, power, the applause of men what 
 even intellectual pursuits, and the domestic and 
 social charities of life, fail to bestow, or bestow 
 for the moment only to stimulate the thirst 
 they seem to quench, in the ineffable sense of 
 union with God the soul finds at last rest, sat- 
 isfaction, perfect peace. " Come unto Me, all 
 ye that labor and are heavy laden," is the invi- 
 tation of Incarnate Love, " and I will give you 
 rest." And in the soul that yields to this invi- 
 tation there rises the response of its deepest 
 nature, the instinctive throb of a new yet natu- 
 ral affection, the calm sense of existence fulfilled, 
 and unexplained hope and desire solved in fru- 
 ition the witness in its own inmost conscious- 
 ness that its true rest is found at last. " Return 
 unto thy rest, my soul !" 
 
 Such, then, is the " rest" which true religion 
 bestows. Let us meditate for a little on some 
 of the qualities or characteristics of this rest, 
 
238 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 which lend to it a peculiar value and blessed- 
 ness. 
 
 1. The " rest/' then, of which the text speaks, 
 is, for one thing, not lodily or physical, but men- 
 tal or spiritual rest. Physical repose, indeed, is 
 one of the great and ever-recurring necessities 
 of our nature, and it is strange to reflect how 
 very much of the outward happiness of life is to 
 be traced to it. When the physical energies 
 have been tasked to the utmost, there is, as we 
 know, a strange pleasure attached to the mere 
 cessation of toil. How sweet and soothing the 
 sensation of rest that steals over the bodily 
 frame when the strained muscle is relaxed, and 
 the nerves are unstrung, and the will flings 
 loose the reins of control over the active powers, 
 and every limb and joint and fibre are bathed in 
 repose ! Who has not often felt the luxury of 
 listlessness, the pleasing pain of languor, in the 
 quiet evening hours that succeed to a day of 
 hard, fatiguing work, when the very order of 
 nature her fading light, and gathering stillness, 
 and tranquil solemnity of aspect seem to min- 
 ister to the instinct of repose which all living 
 
SPIRITUAL REST. 239 
 
 creatures feel ? And then how manifold the 
 benefits conferred on man by God's gift of sleep ! 
 How strangely potent the cordial which it pours 
 into the exhausted frame, and from which the 
 worn powers daily drink in new strength and 
 elasticity ! What a boon to many the mere 
 bliss of unconsciousness, the periodic escape 
 from self, the flight from toil and care and weari- 
 ness, when we cross the bridge that separates 
 the wakeful working world from the shadowy 
 world of dreams ! Surely not unworthy of in- 
 finite beneficence is that gift of which it is writ- 
 ten, "He giveth His beloved sleep." And so 
 again, not unnatural, however mistaken, is that 
 half-sentimental dream of heaven, in which 
 hearts, wearied with the conflicts and confusions 
 of the world, have sometimes unconsciously re- 
 flected their own wistful yearnings after deliv- 
 erance and rest the vision of some land of 
 serene and sheltered stillness, of unbroken and 
 imperturbable calm, where the echo of the world's 
 strife shall fall no more upon the ear, and happy 
 spirits, emancipated from care and toil, steep- 
 ed in everlasting oblivion of pain and sorrow, 
 
240 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 shall summer high in bliss upon the hills of 
 God. 
 
 But there is a nobler rest than this. Physical 
 repose, however sweet, however salutary, is but 
 the feeble type of that truer rest to which the 
 text refers a rest sweeter than sleep, deeper 
 than death, and more pure in its unselfish calm- 
 ness than the heaven which sentiment or poetry 
 has pictured. When doubt and disbelief are 
 gone, when the object of life is found in Christ, 
 when God becomes the sure portion and sweet- 
 est joy of the heart, and the spirit within us, 
 hitherto, it may be, groping bewildered amidst 
 earthly hopes and pleasures, like one in the dark 
 for the friendly hand, feels itself at last em- 
 braced in the sure grasp of strong and change- 
 less love then is the true rest of man, the still- 
 ness of the weary spirit in the everlasting arms. 
 And by how much this is the nobler kind of 
 rest you will not fail to perceive, if you reflect 
 that, appertaining to the higher and nobler part 
 of man's being, it is the only repose which is 
 independent of outward circumstances. Bodily 
 repose reaches not to the true centre of man's 
 
SPIRITUAL REST. 241 
 
 peace. It is a blessing, whose domain is but a 
 limited one, and continually exposed to inva- 
 sion. But mental repose intrenches itself in 
 the deepest region of man's nature, and renders 
 him impregnable to outward assault. Stretch 
 the body in luxurious ease, free it from pain 
 and toil, smooth away every crease from the 
 couch of its composure, yet, if the heart within 
 be weary and anxious, the conscience disturbed, 
 or the imagination unsettled, it is a very truism 
 to say that in such a case there is no real rest. 
 Bodily tranquillity becomes unfelt and unen- 
 joyed in the deeper trouble that shakes the 
 spirit. But, on the other hand, over bodily dis- 
 tractions a mind that is deeply tranquil asserts 
 its superiority. Calm and steady burns the 
 guarded light of holy peace, even amid the 
 gusts and storms of outward fortune. To many 
 a troubled couch the Spirit of God has come in 
 visitations of unearthly peace. On the cheek 
 wasted by disease, or on the pale and pain- 
 contracted brow, has not seldom been witnessed 
 the calmness of a heavenly rest ; and from lips 
 quivering with anguish have fallen words of 
 
 Caird. 
 
242 SPIRITUAL BEST. 
 
 meek resignation, and even joyful hope, that 
 told how the peace of the spirit can triumph 
 over outward pain. Nor only is this the most 
 independent, it is also the most constant and 
 enduring rest. Physical repose can only be 
 periodic. The enjoyment of bodily rest must 
 be purchased by ever-recurring intervals of ex- 
 ertion. Continuous inaction becomes more un- 
 endurable than labor; the pain of effort and 
 toil less irksome than the pain of unvaried and 
 inglorious ease. Moreover, were it possible to 
 prolong the sweets of physical repose through a 
 lifetime, it is a repose which soon, at the latest, 
 must be rudely broken. Could a man shut out 
 all causes of mental disquietude, and pass life in 
 one continuous dream of selfish ease, the hour is 
 coming in which he can sleep no more. Death 
 is no dreamless slumber; to the self-indulgent 
 and the sensual it is rather the waking up of 
 the soul to the awful burden of neglected re- 
 sponsibilities. The rest of the soul, on the con- 
 trary, is essentially continuous. It needs no 
 intervals of unrest to sweeten its enjoyment. 
 It never ceases, and never satiates. It is not 
 
SPIRITUAL BEST. 243 
 
 the occasional refreshment, but the ever-flowing 
 current of the inner life : " Thy peace shall be 
 as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves 
 of the sea." Even amidst the outer toil and 
 distraction of the world, it is " the peace of God 
 which keepeth the heart and mind." Nor does 
 death, which disunites and disturbs all else, for 
 a moment interrupt its continuity : for the rest 
 of the soul in Christ is identical with the rest of 
 heaven " the rest which remaineth for the 
 people of God." Or if that differ from this, it 
 is only in degree, not in kind ; and the repose 
 of the glorified succeeds to the peace of the 
 faithful on earth, just as the rest of a child 
 borne in loving arms on a journey, becomes only 
 a little deeper and less disturbed when it sleeps 
 on in the same arms at home. 
 
 2. The "Rest" of which the psalmist speaks 
 may be described, again, as the Rest, not of Im- 
 mobility, but of Equipoise. 
 
 There is in nature a kind of rest which is to 
 be ascribed to the mere absence of force the 
 rest of immobility or inertia. There is another 
 kind of rest which is the result of the highest 
 
244 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 exercise of force the rest of balance, equi- 
 poise, of action and reaction. So in the soul 
 there is a rest of torpor, when the inert intel- 
 lect rusts, the unexercised affections stiffen into 
 selfishness, and the will, long unused to effort, 
 becomes enervated. And, on the other hand, 
 there is another and nobler kind of mental and 
 spiritual rest which is not the negation of effort, 
 but the seemingly negative result of the highest 
 positive exercise of inward power. It may, in- 
 deed, consist with the intensest outward activ- 
 ity ; but even where there is no apparent activ- 
 ity, the very stillness, calmness, repose of the 
 spirit, may be the result of the inward action of 
 powers working in fullest energy, yet with a 
 mutual balance of harmony so perfect as to 
 seem to the superficial observer identical with 
 absolute immobility. It is but a vulgar error 
 to measure force, physical or mental, only by 
 motion, stir, outward activity. As much or 
 greater power may be at work to produce still- 
 ness, as is manifested by the most violent out- 
 ward commotion. Repose, as the commonest 
 examples prove, may be the high and difficult 
 
SPIRITUAL REST. 245 
 
 result of manifold powers in constant operation, 
 combining, modifying, blending, balancing each 
 other's effects. When two equal and opposite 
 forces, to take the simplest case, strain at a bar 
 of iron, the combined force employed may be 
 enough to hurl a heavy missile with an arrow's 
 speed ; yet the result is stillness, rest. The 
 pressure of the atmosphere on our bodily frames 
 is, we know, sufficient in itself to tear us limb 
 from limb ; yet, because of the counterbalancing 
 force that meets it, we move and act uncon- 
 scious of its existence. In the air we breathe, 
 in the water of the stillest lake or sea, there is 
 no stillness of mere inertia, but beneath the 
 outer semblance of repose there is the activity 
 of attractive and repellent forces ever with 
 well-matched power striving against, but gain- 
 ing no advantage over each other. And all 
 around us, in the natural world, mighty agen- 
 cies are at work, which, if any one or more of 
 them were left to act unresisted, or if the bal- 
 ance that subsists between them were ever so 
 slightly disturbed, might break forth in the 
 most terrible conflict of nature's elements ; yet 
 
246 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 are these agencies, in their infinitely diversified 
 character and endless complexity of operations, 
 combined in such exquisite proportions, adjusted 
 in such perfect equilibrium, that the result is the 
 order, harmony, repose of nature the grand rest 
 of the material universe. 
 
 Now, analogous to this is that " rest" of the 
 soul on which we are now reflecting. For in 
 the repose of a saintly spirit there is latent 
 power. The calmness, the peace, the holy 
 tranquillity that sometimes breathes over a ma- 
 tured Christian's mind, has in it nothing in com- 
 mon with mere listless inaction ; it is rather the 
 last result and highest expression of mighty and 
 heavenly energies at work within the breast. 
 In the inner world, not less than in the outer, 
 there are counteracting or conflicting elements 
 that require, for the preservation of order and 
 harmony, the maintenance of the most perfect 
 balance amongst them ; and it is to the disturb- 
 ance of this balance to the restlessness of an 
 ill-regulated, or the wilder disorder of an ungov- 
 erned spirit, that the misery of man is greatly 
 to be traced. Even in this world, kept in check 
 
SPIRITUAL REST, 247 
 
 though the lawless and discordant elements of 
 our nature may be by a thousand incidental 
 causes, there is yet enough in the experience of 
 every sinful heart to prove that, estranged from 
 Cod, the ruling and harmonising principle of 
 our inner being is lost. How little of unity or 
 consistency is there in the lives of most men ! 
 How very many are the mere creatures of im- 
 pulse of fitful inclinations and unrestrained 
 desires chasing each other over the restless 
 surface of the spirit ! What account, again, 
 can we give of the fretful wayward tempers 
 perpetually disturbing the inward composure of 
 some, or of the wilder excesses of passion that 
 desolate for ever the peace of others ? Or how, 
 in fine, explain the constant strife that is going 
 on, with more or less vehemence, in most minds 
 between reason and inclination, conscience 
 and passion, the higher and nobler law of our 
 being, and the law in the members that warreth 
 against the law in the mind ? How, but that 
 the controlling power that alone can give order, 
 equipoise, unity, to the % inner world, has become 
 paralysed or enfeebled. And if it be so even 
 
248 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 with all the adventitious restraints of the pres- 
 ent life, who can tell what fearful manifestations 
 of the evil that is in the heart of man may 
 await the godless soul in that world where all 
 restraint is gone? There are latent, destruc- 
 tive energies, possibilities of wrong and wretch- 
 edness, in every sinful breast, which here only 
 rarely display themselves, and at which we can 
 but dimly guess. 
 
 Now the rest of the believer is the return of 
 the soul to harmony with itself. The inward 
 repose which, sooner or later, true religion 
 brings, is result of the final conquest and subju- 
 gation of man's lower nature. It indicates the 
 presence of a new principle of order, the intro- 
 duction of a new element of harmony and cohe- 
 rence among the wayward powers of the soul. 
 The peace of the holy mind is the peace, not of 
 stagnation, but of self-conquest. Its intensity, 
 therefore, the amount of moral force that is in 
 it, is to be measured, not by what it displays, 
 but by what it implies by the strength of 
 those evil passions which have been subdued, 
 by the impetuosity of those appetites which 
 
SPIKITUAL REST. 249 
 
 have been mastered, by the repellent energy of 
 those powers of man's nature which have been 
 reconciled. The calm and resistless power of 
 Law can be gauged only by the chaos of seem- 
 ingly conflicting elements out of which it educes 
 harmony and peace. So, how much moral 
 power does that calmness and quietude of a 
 saintly spirit often bespeak. Under the tran- 
 quil simplicity of a meek and humble mind, 
 what unrelaxing self-restraint, what restless 
 vigilance, what stern repression of vain thoughts, 
 ambitious longings, selfish or envious, or unami- 
 able feelings what mightier than earthly power 
 and energy may be present, though hid from 
 outward observation. Estimate actions not by 
 their overt results merely, but by the real 
 though latent power that is implied in them, 
 and the most brilliant deeds of outward heroism 
 will sometimes fall far short of those quiet vic- 
 tories over self, to which the Omniscient eye 
 alone is witness. 
 
 This process of self-subjugation, it is true, may 
 be by no means an instantaneous or rapid one. 
 The first and immediate effect of the soul's re- 
 11* 
 
250 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 turn to God is often very different from that re- 
 pose and calmness of which we have spoken. 
 For just as returning bodily health may first be 
 indicated by the racking pains of convalescence 
 in the sick man's frame, or as the fearful strife 
 and carnage of revolution may be the earliest 
 intimation of a reviving spirit of social freedom, 
 so He whose kingdom is righteousness and peace 
 may usher in its advent by " sending not peace, 
 but a sword." The rise of religion in the heart 
 may be indicated by the bitter pangs of an awak- 
 ened conscience, and by the painful struggle of 
 spirit with sense, of the reviving element of 
 moral freedom with the old and inveterate 
 tyranny of sin in the soul. And it may only be 
 by a long-protracted process of holy discipline 
 by many a weary hour of inward conflict, faint- 
 ing, striving, falling, reviving, yet ever, on the 
 whole, growing in conformity to the will of God 
 that the soul attains at last to the complete 
 mastery over self, the perfect inward harmony 
 of a spirit in which every thought and feeling 
 and desire are " brought into captivity to the 
 obedience of Christ." But when that glorious 
 
SPIRITUAL REST. 251 
 
 end is gained, when self is quelled, and duty 
 reigns supreme within the breast, when " the 
 immortal soul becomes consistent in self-rule" 
 then the "weary strife of frail hunianity" is at 
 an end, and a repose oh, how deep, how tran- 
 quil, how sublime ! diffuses itself throughout the 
 spirit a repose in which there is at once calm- 
 ness and power, the sweet serenity of an infant's 
 slumbers, yet the strength of an angel of God. 
 
 3. It is but a further development of the same 
 thought to say, once more, that the true " Rest" 
 of the soul is that, not of Inactivity r , but of Con- 
 genial Exertion. 
 
 Labor is rest to the active and energetic spirit. 
 To not a few minds, congenial activity, eager, ab- 
 sorbing, all but incessant, is the element in which 
 they find repose. And the ardent and enthusi- 
 astic soul, conscious of power, and delighting 
 in work that calls it forth, will sometimes seem 
 to enjoy perfect serenity only in the whirl of 
 occupation, as the bird on the wing, in the flow 
 of joyous strength, while it cleaves the air at 
 fullest speed, yet seems as if at rest, poised on 
 its outspread pinions. 
 
252 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 For it is to be remembered that the toil that is 
 unfelt is no toil; and the exercise of the mind's 
 faculties on congenial objects, is not only unac- 
 companied by any irksome sense of toil, but is 
 attended, and probably, were it not for the ne- 
 cessity of using gross material organs, would 
 ever continue to be attended, with positive de- 
 light. Fatigue, waste, exhaustion, belong only 
 to matter and material organization. The mind 
 itself does not waste or grow weary, and but for 
 the weight of the weapons wherewith it works, 
 it might think, and imagine, and love on for ever. 
 Even with all its present drawbacks, a spirit of 
 great power and energy, so far from resting, 
 frets and feels ill at ease in inactivity. To it in- 
 action is unrest and torture no work so hard as 
 doing nothing. Only in the putting forth of its 
 energies, in the evolution of its inward power, 
 in the devotion of thought and feeling to con- 
 genial pursuits, does it find itself tranquil, un- 
 burdened, at rest. That congenial activity is 
 not work but rest, a thousand familiar examples 
 prove. Relaxation or amusement, to take an 
 obvious one, is often, considered in the mere 
 
SPIRITUAL REST. 253 
 
 form of it, very hard work. Yet it is no work. 
 So long as the bodily faculties bear the strain, 
 what might otherwise be the most exhausting 
 toil, becomes, by reason of the stimulus of in- 
 ward delight, recreation, refreshment, rest to the 
 spirit. So again, the mental activity of the 
 student, whether in apprehending or excogitating 
 thought, is not felt to be labor, if it be spent on 
 a subject in which the mind is intensely inter- 
 ested. There is no work that has so little of 
 the sense of work in it, as successful thought on 
 a congenial theme. Let but the supply of ner- 
 vous excitement continue unexhausted, and on 
 the free-flowing stream of thought the mind 
 might float on for ever in uninterrupted activity, 
 yet in perfect repose. Once more, the work of 
 the painter or the musician enthusiastically de- 
 voted to his art, is work from which the sense 
 of effort is gone. Not to work while the mind 
 and heart are full to suffer the glowing con- 
 ception to pass away unexpressed, to repress the 
 tide of song welling up to the lip this would be 
 the true toil and unrest to these. In this case, 
 too, the spirit rests in working. 
 
254 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 Now it is in its application to the noblest of 
 all work that this principle receives the highest 
 illustration. The service of God, beyond all 
 other kinds of labor, may become the most per- 
 fect rest to the soul. For it is when employed 
 in this work that the soul is in its most con- 
 genial sphere of activity. The soul, by its orig- 
 inal structure, was designed and adapted for this 
 as its special work ; and it is yet possible for it, 
 as redeemed and restored in Christ Jesus, to 
 reach that glorious state of moral elevation in 
 which goodness becomes spontaneous, duty de- 
 light, the service of God perfect freedom. More- 
 over, there is no art that is capable of calling forth 
 in the human spirit a more impassioned devotion 
 than the art of being and of doing good. It 
 may be from a lofty impulse and with a glowing 
 spirit that the hand of genius shapes the marble, 
 or vivifies the canvass into the outward form of 
 human beauty or majesty. But there is a work 
 nobler far, and capable of kindling and concen- 
 trating in a holy ardor every energy of man's 
 nature the work of moulding the imperishable 
 spirit within us into the likeness of the Infinitely 
 
SPIRITUAL REST. 255 
 
 Good and Fair. Wherever, therefore, this work 
 becomes, as in every earnest mind it must 
 sooner or later become, the grand and absorbing 
 pursuit, difficulties will vanish, and the sense of 
 effort be unfelt in the intensity of inward feel- 
 ing. A divine ideal has dawned upon the spirit, 
 and it is all on fire to realise that ideal in itself 
 and other souls. Whatever obstacles impede its 
 endeavors, give way before the force of strong 
 desire ; and tke difficulties of the Christian life 
 become at last as the mechanical difficulties of a 
 familiar art that have long ceased to be noted. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that this blessed facility of 
 goodness comes not at the first to any, and may 
 to many be, even to the close of their earthly 
 history, all but unknown. Even sincere Chris- 
 tians may oftentimes feel in duty more of the 
 friction of self-denial than the free motion of 
 delight. The yoke of Christ may need long to 
 be worn before it ceases to gall the wearer, and 
 becomes " a yoke which is easy and a burden 
 which is light." Even earthly and secular arts 
 are never easy at the first. No genius can ren- 
 der its possessor all at once and without practice 
 
256 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 superior to mechanical difficulties. And for the 
 acquisition of the spiritual art, the art of pleas- 
 ing God, there is a peculiar intractableness and 
 indocility in the mind of man. Nay, for those 
 arts there is not seldom found in^ individual 
 minds a strong inherent aptitude ; but for this 
 not only is there in no case in fallen man a 
 natural predilection, but there is ever a natural 
 aversion and obstinacy to be combated. But as 
 in those so in this, facility comes with use. The 
 hand that at first, with labored effort, feebly 
 and disjointedly struck out the simplest air of 
 music, learns by-and-by, with almost instinctive 
 rapidity and lightness of touch, to sweep the 
 notes, unconscious of all but the delight of har- 
 mony. And so, rising from earthly to heavenly 
 things, is there not a diviner art in which holy 
 hearts, by God's grace, may learn, with purer, 
 deeper delight, to discourse a nobler melody ? 
 As love to Christ deepens in the soul that is 
 truly given to Him, the work which it prompts 
 us to do for Him loses the feeling of effort, and 
 passes into pleasure. Less and less of set puiv 
 pose do we need to constrain the mind to think 
 
SPIRITUAL REST. 257 
 
 of Him, or to approach Him in the formal atti- 
 tude of devotion. The idea of Christ in the holy 
 mind becomes gradually blended with all the 
 actions of its daily life ; thought goes out to 
 Him as by a divine instinct ; an ever-acting at- 
 traction draws the heart upwards to its great 
 and first object, and life becomes an unconscious 
 yet continuous prayer. The transition . from 
 motive to act, from holy intention and design to 
 holy doing, becomes less and less marked, until 
 at last the will acquires an almost mechanical 
 certainty, an almost unconscious smoothness and 
 rapidity of action. And so, with the unfettered 
 ease of one " who playeth well upon an instru- 
 ment," from the many-stringed harp of life the 
 soul renders up to God the sweet melody of 
 holy deeds. Then indeed has it " returned into 
 its rest." Then indeed has it attained to that 
 blessed state, in which its only repose is in good- 
 ness, in which goodness becomes to it a very 
 necessity, in which holy thoughts and works are 
 to the soul as devoid of effort as song to a bird 
 or incense to flowers the state of those re- 
 deemed and glorified ones, of whom it can be 
 
258 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 said at once that " they have entered into rest/' 
 and that " they rest not day nor night/' but 
 " are before the throne of God, and serve Him 
 day and night in His temple." 
 
 4. There is yet one other aspect in which the 
 soul's " rest" in God may be contemplated, viz. 
 as a rest that is not absolute, but relative. 
 
 As in the outward, so in the inward and spir- 
 itual world, there may be progress without 
 effort, rapid advancement that is consistent with 
 perfect repose. When the wearied child is 
 taken up into the parent's arms, though there 
 relatively at rest, it may yet be moving more 
 rapidly and steadily homewards than its own 
 tottering feet could bear it. Relatively to the 
 carriage or vessel that conveys him, the travel- 
 ler may be in perfect stillness, whilst absolutely 
 in swift progress to his destination. Or again, 
 whilst the aspect of stillest repose sits on the 
 face of the visible creation, with what inconceiv- 
 able velocity is this globe on which we dwell 
 whirled onwards in its orbit. The most stable 
 and moveless objects the rooted oak that iden- 
 tifies the spot where it grows for centuries ; the 
 
SPIRITUAL REST. 259 
 
 everlasting hills, that in their changeless still- 
 ness rebuke the restless mutability of man are 
 every moment hurried on through space with a 
 speed wherewith thought cannot cope. In like 
 manner there is in the moral world an order 
 which embraces alike our activity and our still- 
 ness, in virtue of which our swiftest onward pro- 
 gress may consist with our deepest apparent 
 rest. The range of human activity, even in the 
 highest and holiest sphere of labor, is but a 
 limited one, and the point is soon reached where 
 our human insufficiency is taken up into the 
 all-sufficiency of God. As the realm of our 
 knowledge is infinitely exceeded by that of our 
 ignorance, so is the contracted sphere of our ac- 
 tivity by that boundless region in which all 
 human activity is vain. In the moral, as in the 
 material world, we are ever " encompassed by 
 eternal laws," which are the complement of our 
 feeble agency, and which do infinitely more for 
 us than we can do for ourselves. Whilst, there- 
 fore, it is a great thing to be an earnest worker 
 in Christ's service, yet the Christian life is not 
 mainly a life of action, but of trust, not of inde- 
 
260 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 pendent exertion, but of self-abandonment to the 
 working of a mightier agency than ours. Even 
 at its outset it is not work, but faith. The be- 
 ginning of true religion is not the setting out on 
 a new course in the proud consciousness of un- 
 exhausted strength and resolution, but rather 
 the casting of the spirit worn, with the burden, 
 soiled with the dust of life's friendless journey, 
 on One who has offered, and is infinitely able, 
 to sustain it. And so in its subsequent pro- 
 gress, whilst there is an aspect in which re- 
 ligion may be contemplated as a life of stren- 
 uous work, there is another and higher in which 
 it must be viewed as a life of resignation and of 
 rest. Calmly as the midnight voyager sleeps, 
 whilst under watchful guidance the vessel bears 
 him onwards, so calmly, with such trustful hu- 
 mility, does the believer commit himself and his 
 fates for time and eternity to the unslumbering 
 providence of God. Staying his hand, indeed, 
 from no duty, withholding from no work of 
 self-improvement or of beneficent activity, yield- 
 ing never to that spurious humility which is but 
 the disguise of indolent fatalism, he yet ever 
 
SPIRITUAL REST. 261 
 
 retains in his spirit the unanxious quietness of 
 one who knows that results are not in his hand, 
 but God's. It is little, at best, that he can do 
 to help on the world's progress, or his own ; but 
 whether he work, or forbear from working, he 
 knows that " the Father worketh hitherto, and 
 will work." In the strife with sin, in the con- 
 templation of moral evil withstanding God's 
 work in the world, there may be much to dis- 
 courage an earnest mind ; but ever when doubts 
 harass, or abortive efforts distress the spirit, 
 and the sense of our human weakness becomes 
 most oppressive, what relief to pass out of self 
 into God, and to stay our feebleness on the 
 everlasting arm ! In the quiet confidence of 
 faith, in the assurance that, independently of 
 man's petty activities, the mighty revolutions 
 of the moral world are ceaselessly moving on, 
 and that all things are working together for 
 good to them that love God, there is rest for the 
 believing soul. " My puny efforts," is his 
 thought, " are not necessary to God. < He can 
 work with them or without them. Though I 
 and hundreds of such weak workers fail, He 
 
262 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 fails never.' There is a blessed consummation 
 to which, though the motion be imperceptible to 
 us, all things are tending. I work to hasten it 
 if I may, and if I may not, yet not less will I 
 believe that God's great day is coming. I will 
 stay my soul on God. I will ' rest in the Lord, 
 and wait patiently for him/ 6 Return unto thy 
 rest, my soul !' " 
 
 Such, then is that rest which is the blessed 
 heritage of the soul in God. Let me conclude 
 these reflections by reminding you that it is a 
 rest which is attainable through Christ alone. 
 " No man cornetli unto the Father but by Him." 
 The way, else untrodden and impassable, be- 
 tween earth and heaven, between the region of 
 selfishness and sin and the pure region of eter- 
 nal calm and rest, Jesus hath consecrated by 
 the shedding of His precious blood, so that all 
 who will may have boldness to enter in. It is 
 no mere local distance, no outward or material 
 obstacle, that separates the sinful soul from its 
 true home and rest in God. If it were, if the 
 "rest that remaineth for the people of God" 
 
SPIRITUAL REST. 263 
 
 were only some far-off scene of outward bliss 
 and beauty, Jesus would not be the Saviour we 
 need. A mere mechanical exercise of power, a 
 mere material omnipotence, might translate us 
 from life's toil and sorrow to such a rest. But 
 not such is the transition we need. No local 
 change could bring us nearer to Him in whom 
 every spirit lives and moves and has its being. 
 The heaven which God's presence brings is al- 
 ready in local contiguity to saint and sinner 
 alike. What keeps the sinner out of it is not 
 material but moral barriers : break down these, 
 and heaven's sweet rest would stream into the 
 spirit. Guilt and sin separate the soul from God 
 as the widest wastes of un travelled space could 
 never separate. Remove these, and the dis- 
 tance is at once annihilated. A purified soul flies 
 instantly, as by an inevitable and resistless affi- 
 nity, to its rest in the bosom of God. And guilt 
 and sin Jesus alone can remove. From that 
 sense of demerit, that painful consciousness of 
 evil, which makes it terrible for a human soul to 
 face the Infinite Purity, there is no escape but 
 in Him whose blood cleanses from all sin. From 
 
264 SPIRITUAL REST. 
 
 that dread selfishness that kills in man's heart all 
 nobler, diviner affections and aspirations, and 
 makes the sinful soul shrink from God as the 
 diseased eye from light, there is no deliver- 
 ance but in that mighty restorer, Himself incar- 
 nate love, who revives within the heart its lost 
 susceptibilities of goodness. Clothing it with 
 an innocence that is but the reflection of His 
 own, kindling in it a love that is pure as the 
 heaven from whence its fire is caught, Jesus 
 brings the finite soul again into holiest, sweetest 
 union with the Infinite, opens to it heaven's 
 door, and bids it go in and find in God its true 
 joy and rest. Who would not yield the soul 
 into this divine Saviour's hands ? Who would 
 not listen and respond to the invitation, while 
 still, as of old infinite pathos in His pleading 
 voice He offers pardon to the guilty, purity to 
 the defiled, peace, joy, hope, heaven, to the 
 wretched, or that which includes them all that 
 strange unearthly blessing rest to the weary 
 and heavy-laden soul ! 
 
" Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and 
 be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." 3 JOHN, 2. 
 
 THERE are two worlds in which 
 SLUM. VIII. J 
 
 every . man lives, two distinct yet 
 
 equally real scenes of existence in which we 
 spend the days and hours of life. To the out- 
 ward world, with its material objects and inter- 
 ests, its scenes of beauty or deformity ; its busy 
 throngs of men and women; its houses, cities, 
 fields ; its cares and toils and pleasures, to 
 this external sphere of existence no man alto- 
 gether or exclusively belongs. You have but to 
 close the eye or abstract the thoughts from outer 
 things, and instantly you pass into another 
 region : you become, as it were, the dweller in 
 an inner world, that strange mysterious region 
 of thoughts and feeling and desires, of memory 
 and conscience and will that microcosm, that 
 little but most real world within every human 
 
 Caird. 12 
 
266 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 breast. To the majority of men, indeed, the 
 latter is but a comparatively untrodden region, 
 a country with whose wondrous aspects they are 
 little familiar, to whose inhabitants they are all 
 but strangers, whose hidden depths they have 
 seldom attempted to explore. Yet, known or 
 unknown, frequented or unexplored, not less real 
 are the scenes, not less marvelous the phe- 
 nomena, not less stirring and complicated the 
 events and interests of the secret world which 
 the eye of consciousness surveys, than are those 
 of the world we behold with the eye of sense. 
 
 Corresponding to these two worlds, the ex- 
 ternal and the internal, Jhere are two lives we all 
 may be said to lead, the outer life of sense, 
 the inner hidden life and history of the soul. 
 In no case do physical condition and circum- 
 stances constitute the whole life of a man. 
 Every soul, too, has a history. Beneath the 
 vicissitudes and fluctuations of the former a 
 deeper current ever runs. There is in every 
 individual case a secret machinery at work be- 
 neath the surface, of which the movements 
 above it are but the partial and uncertain indica- 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 267 
 
 tions. The visible material life is but the scaf- 
 folding under which the unseen and eternal life 
 is rearing. The world, that notes the outward 
 events and incidents of your life, discerns, after 
 all, but a part, and that the most insignificant 
 part, of the history of your being. And were 
 each individual in this assembly to narrate to us 
 the story of his past life, to describe to us with 
 all minuteness in what spot he was born, in what 
 places and houses he has dwelt, what positions 
 in society he has occupied, what profession or 
 trade he has followed, what money he has gained 
 or lost, through what external changes of health 
 and sickness, wealth and indigence, prosperity 
 and adversity, he has passed ; however interest- 
 ing it might be to contemplate the strangely di- 
 versified fortunes of so many human beings, yet 
 after all, in narrating them, they would have left 
 still untouched the half, and by far the more im- 
 portant half, of their real life. For, whether 
 you have been accustomed to think of the fact 
 or no, in the case of each individual who hears 
 me there has been, amidst all these multifarious 
 outward events and interests, another and more 
 
268 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 momentous history going on all the while. With 
 respect to each of us, there has been from the 
 dawn of our existence, a mental as well as a ma- 
 terial history a life of the soul, a course of in- 
 ward progress or retrogression, a series of 
 changes for good or evil in the character of that 
 mysterious dweller beneath every breast, more 
 worthy to be chronicled, fraught, would we but 
 believe it, with interest deeper, more momentous 
 far, than the fortunes and vicissitudes of our out- 
 ward career. We spend our years, it is written, 
 as a tale that is told ; but there is, may we not 
 say, an under-plot in the story of every human 
 life ; and however stirring be the narrative of 
 our outward experience, there is ever a deeper 
 pathos, a more awful and absorbing interest, 
 gathered around the history of the soul. 
 
 In the passage before us, the apostle, as you 
 will perceive at a glance, makes reference to the 
 two courses of human experience of which we 
 have just spoken the outward and the inward. 
 The text is simply an expression of affectionate 
 desire for the welfare of one who seems to have 
 been very dear to the writer. It is the friendly 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 269 
 
 greeting of a believer to a brother in Christ. 
 And you perceive that the particular form it 
 takes is, not that merely of a simple wish for 
 the friend's happiness, but of a wish more speci- 
 fically for his happiness, his prosperity, at once 
 in the inward and the outward life : in other 
 words, for both his temporal and spiritual pros- 
 perity. Moreover, you will observe that the 
 apostle makes the latter the measure or standard 
 according to which he desires that his friend's 
 outward or temporal prosperity should be regu- 
 lated. " May you, my friend," is his sentiment, 
 " may you be as prosperous outwardly as you 
 are inwardly ; may the current of your outward 
 life flow on as happily as flows the course of 
 your spiritual being, may you be happy as you 
 are holy !" The idea thus enunciated may sug- 
 gest to us a not unprofitable train of meditation, 
 if we follow it out a little further, considering, 
 first, what is to be understood by prosperity of 
 soul; and then, why this prosperity of soul 
 should be made the measure of outward pros- 
 perity, or, in other words, why a believer should 
 desire for his friend just so much temporal pros- 
 
270 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 perity as he already possesses of inward and 
 spiritual. 
 
 I. Of what in the language of the world is 
 commonly designated prosperity, perhaps the 
 two main elements are Wealth and Power. The 
 individual who is growing richer or rising in 
 station, the community or nation whose internal 
 resources are increasing, whose influence and 
 importance are extending, is universally held to 
 be in a prosperous condition. It will not be 
 difficult to see that there are in the spiritual 
 condition of man elements analogous to these, of 
 which his inward prosperity may be said to con- 
 sist. There is a wealth, there is a power, of the 
 soul. 
 
 To take the first of these, there is, it will need 
 very little reflection to perceive, a wealth which 
 may be predicated of the inward as well as of 
 the outward life. There is, in no exclusively 
 metaphorical sense, a riches of the soul, the inner 
 spiritual part of a man, as well as of the out- 
 ward and physical. Money, property, worldly 
 goods, are not more real possessions than 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 271 
 
 thought, knowledge, wisdom. Nor are the out- 
 ward comforts and luxuries, the gratifications of 
 sense and appetite that may be procured by the 
 former, more literally a man's own, what belongs 
 to him, what makes him richer, than are warm 
 affections, a fertile imagination, a memory stored 
 with information, and, above all, a heart full of 
 God's grace. The common phraseology of life 
 recognises this fact, when we speak, for instance, 
 of " a richly-furnished mind," a mind " rich in 
 intellectual resources," " a rich vein of thought," 
 " an ample fund of information," and the like. 
 And the word of God adopts the same idea with 
 reference to divine things, when it applies to the 
 spiritual condition of the believer such language 
 as the following, " Hath not God chosen the 
 poor of this world rich in faith ?" " Let the 
 word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wis- 
 dom ;" " Poor, yet making many rich ; having 
 nothing, yet possessing all . things ;" " There is 
 that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing ; 
 there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath 
 great riches." 
 
 Nor let it be said that this is merely the Ian- 
 
272 SP IE IT UAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 guage of metaphor. It is the language of meta- 
 phor, but of more than metaphor, and a mo- 
 ment's thought will convince you that it is. 
 For, to think only of mere intellectual acquire- 
 ments, take two men, one in comparatively 
 straitened circumstances, yet possessed of great 
 mental abilities and attainments the other, 
 overflowing with money, yet narrow-souled and 
 ignorant ; you would not hesitate to say which 
 is really the richer of the two. The wealth of 
 the one may be invisible and impalpable com- 
 pared with the other's. The soul and its treas- 
 ures are alike unseen; and in the outward 
 aspect of the body there may be little to distin- 
 guish the one from the other. But yet, beneath 
 that bosom, in the one case, there dwells a soul 
 in whose invisible repositories are laid up stores 
 of intellectual riches, whilst emptiness and bar- 
 renness are the only characteristics of the other. 
 And if this be true of mere intellect, if even 
 secular knowledge constitute a wealth more val- 
 uable than any outward possession, surely not 
 less true must the same thought be when ap- 
 plied to that wisdom which maketh wise unto 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 273 
 
 salvation. I do not know who in this assembly 
 is the man most largely endowed with this 
 world's wealth ; but surely that man amongst 
 us is indeed the richest, who bears within his 
 bosom the treasure of a soul at peace with God, 
 and safe for all eternity ! There may be in this 
 house not a few who, during the year that is 
 past/* have added to their worldly gains ; but if 
 there be one amongst us in whose soul the grace 
 of God's Holy Spirit has found a resting-place, 
 on whose mind there has dawned at last the 
 knowledge of God as a reconciled Father in 
 Jesus Christ, and whose erewhile joyless spirit 
 is now lighted up with the calm deep joy and 
 peace of a believer oh, surely such a man, be- 
 yond all others, may be congratulated as one to 
 whom the past has been a year of "prosperity !" 
 Or if there be those of our number whose in- 
 ward experience, during the months that have 
 fled, has been one of growing faith, and purity, 
 and love of faith that rests upon Jesus with a 
 more and more childlike trust, of a purity to 
 which sin in every form becomes more abhorrent, 
 
 * Preached on the last day of the year 1848. 
 12* 
 
274 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 of a love which every day's successive inter- 
 course with its heavenly object has rendered 
 more intense ; then, indeed, to such we may 
 say, Yours has been an accession of wealth, for 
 which any conceivable increase of worldly for- 
 tune were but a poor equivalent. Nay, yours is 
 the only real wealth. For money, property, 
 every worldly possession, is out of the man, 
 It does not come into the soul. It can be sep- 
 arated from him. It is but an accident, not an 
 essential property of his being. But knowledge, 
 faith, spiritual-mindedness, love to Christ, these 
 are a sort of wealth that go into and become 
 transfused through the very essence of the man. 
 They are locked up in no outward repository. 
 Their possessor cannot leave them behind him 
 with an uneasy mind, to the care of others, or 
 sleep with a feeling of insecurity for his treas- 
 ures. They are laid up in the inmost recesses 
 of his soul they are part and parcel of the 
 man himself. His very identity must be des- 
 troyed before they can be reft from him. Yours, 
 too, is the only unvarying wealth. The money 
 or property of your prosperous neighbor is by 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 275 
 
 its very nature fluctuating in value. Rich to- 
 day, by some of the perpetually occurring vicis- 
 situdes of life, his securest investment may 
 to-morrow become worthless. But the wealth 
 of the soul is standard wealth ; it has the stamp 
 of Heaven's mintage upon it, and is always the 
 same. A soul, on which the image of Christ is 
 impressed, is a thing precious in the eye of Him 
 who judge th by the rule of infinite rectitude. 
 It is precious everywhere and for ever ; it has 
 not, like man's wealth, a different value in dif- 
 ferent countries and at different times ; it will 
 pass current everywhere it is free of the uni- 
 verse. Yours, finally, is the only lasting wealth. 
 The time will come when the richest in this 
 house to-day must abandon his wealth for ever. 
 Whatever you have of this sort, though you 
 should carry it safe up to the grave's brink, there 
 you must leave it. You have but alone a life- 
 interest of it. Death will rob you of every- 
 thing, to the very garment that covers your 
 body, yea, of that body itself.. The only thing 
 you shall be able to keep, is that which you 
 have stored up in the soul itself. That alone 
 
276 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 will go out with the soul into eternity. " Be- 
 loved, I wish above all things" that thus your 
 souls may prosper. 
 
 The other element we have mentioned, as 
 commonly included in the idea of " prosperity," 
 is power. He is universally esteemed a prosper- 
 ous man in his outward circumstances, who is 
 advancing or has risen from comparative lowli- 
 ness and obscurity to a position of eminence 
 and influence in society. He, on the contrary, 
 is deemed unfortunate, who has been reduced 
 from a former station of rank and power to one 
 of indigence and meanness. The servant who 
 has become the master, the subject who has 
 gained the sovereign's place, is regarded as emi- 
 nently prosperous. The dethroned monarch, 
 the great man degraded to a position of servi- 
 tude, is looked upon as everything the reverse. 
 
 Now, to this element of prosperity also there 
 is a parallel in the inward life. We may be in- 
 wardly as well as outwardly powerful. In the 
 little world within the breast there are stations 
 of rank, dominion, authority, to which we may 
 aspire, or from which we may fall. There is an 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 277 
 
 inward slavery, baser than any bodily servitude ; 
 there is an inward rule and governance of a 
 man's spirit, an object of loftier ambition far than 
 the possession of any earthly crown or sceptre. 
 For self-government is indeed the noblest rule 
 on earth. The highest sovereignty is that of 
 the man who can say, " He hath made us kings 
 unto God." The truest conquest is where the 
 soul is " bringing every thought into captivity 
 to the obedience of Christ." The monarch of his 
 own mind is the only real potentate. 
 
 And that this is not, any more than in the 
 former case, a purely figurative use of words, 
 a moment's thought will convince you. There 
 is a real subjection, degradation, slavery of 
 spirit, to which we may be reduced ; there is a 
 real power, freedom, emancipation, to which we 
 may attain. It is not a mere metaphor, for in- 
 stance, when, in common language, we say that 
 the profligate man is "the slave of his appetites ;" 
 or when the word of God employs the same 
 style of description in such expressions as these : 
 " Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of 
 sin ;" The truth shall make you free ;" " Sin 
 
278 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 shall not have dominion over you ;" " Delivered 
 from the bondage of corruption into the glorious 
 liberty of the sons of God ;" " God hath given 
 to us the spirit of power and of a sound mind." 
 For is there not a real bondage, to take the 
 most palpable example, in the case of the sen- 
 sualist, the intemperate man, the impure or pas- 
 sionate man ? If there be any one here of this 
 character, how true, how sad, how debasing his 
 inward bondage ! Tyranny is always obnoxious 
 to its victim. But you would feel it to be the 
 worst of all tyranny, to be all but intolerable, 
 if your tyrant resided constantly in your own 
 family circle, obtruding his hateful surveillance, 
 his despotic interference, into your most secret 
 hours of retirement. But here, surely, there is 
 a worse tyranny still ; when the tyrant follows 
 you, not merely to your home, to the domestic 
 circle, to the closet, but penetrates your own 
 breast, and resides perpetually within your own 
 bosom. And yet how certain is it that a pam- 
 pered appetite, an ungovernable passion, does 
 wield such a tyrannous sway over the soul ! Is 
 it not the case may we not say to such an 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 279 
 
 one ? that Conscience, Duty, Sense of Right, 
 that in you which ought to rule your being, has 
 been enervated and enfeebled, and bereft of all 
 power 'to govern your conduct? Have not a 
 fierce democracy of lusts and passions driven 
 conscience from its throne within your breast ? 
 Do you not feel that they, and not you, are the 
 masters ? that when temptation comes in its 
 strength, though you see what is right, you can- 
 not do it though you see what is wrong, you 
 cannot resist it ? Over your own thoughts and 
 desires, your own will and working, is it not so 
 that often you have no more command than the 
 sea over its waters, or forest trees over their 
 motions as they bend to the blast ? Place the 
 strong temptation before you, and in the hour 
 of base and craving opportunity you know that 
 you will not, cannot, choose but yield up your 
 soul to .their command. Conscience may se- 
 cretly warn you that it is ruin to yield, that 
 you are offending the great God by yielding, 
 that every time you yield you are inflicting a 
 deep wound on your peace ; yet how often do 
 you feel that you have introduced into your 
 
280 SPIEITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 bosom a master mightier than conscience still ! 
 In moments of remorse your feeble will may 
 rise up and irresolutely strive to regain its au- 
 thority ; but it is speedily overborne again, and 
 under the resistless lash of appetite you are 
 driven on, and on, in sin. 
 
 But there is another and more common state 
 of mind, which may not less truly be described 
 as a slavery an abandonment of self-rule in 
 the soul. There are few, it may be, amongst 
 us to whom the former description is appropri- 
 ate ; but there are multitudes, the most cursory 
 observation shows, who have abandoned the 
 rule of their souls, if not to open profligacy, to 
 a not less despotic principle of worldliness and 
 spiritual indifference. Are there not many now 
 hearing me, who feel that their case is not 
 that they do not know that their present course 
 of life is wrong but that they have no power 
 of resolution to break off from it, and begin in 
 good earnest the work of religion ? It is not 
 that they are not aware of their danger, but 
 that there is a dread paralysis upon their moral 
 powers, a nightmare incapacity of resolute ac- 
 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 281 
 
 tion, that will not let them flee. I am per- 
 suaded that I speak to the experience of not a 
 few now present when I say to them. You can- 
 not resist the conviction that all is not right 
 with your soul. You do not dare to assert 
 that you are quite prepared for eternity that 
 you would not wish to be a different sort of 
 person when death comes to you. You have 
 occasionally been conscious of the feeling that 
 you ought to bestir yourself, and think more than 
 you do about religion. You have felt thus, for 
 instance, when an intimate friend died at your 
 own period of life ; or when you were seriously 
 ill yourself; or when some very earnest expos- 
 tulation was addressed to you about your soul's 
 state. The thought did force itself on your 
 mind that you ought to be more serious, to re- 
 pent, to break off from your careless ways, to 
 set earnestly about the inquiry how your soul 
 is to be saved. But still you do not repent ; 
 you are not to-day a whit more serious than 
 before. You have never, after all, taken any 
 resolute step in the matter. You have let year 
 after year slip by, and you are found still the 
 
282 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 same easy, worldly, careless man as ever. The 
 world is too strong for you ; you fear perhaps 
 its ridicule; you love its contented selfish- 
 ness ; you are its slave. And oh, what a mis- 
 erable bondage is this ! What a tremendous 
 arrest upon your powers ! what a mighty ty- 
 ranny over your soul must that be, which, amid 
 the awful mystery of a life like ours coming 
 from eternity, hastening to eternity again can 
 quell and stifle the great motives of religion ! 
 Sad, sad indeed, may be the openly abandoned 
 profligate's condition; but is it extravagant to 
 say that there is more hope of him than of such 
 dead, numb, torpid worldliness as this ? It is 
 sad to look on the havoc and destruction of 
 some fair region where the hurricane has been 
 raging ; but is there not something more sad, 
 more appalling far, in the still, stern barrenness 
 of the desert, where perpetual silence and un- 
 broken desolation reign ? 
 
 Is there, then, amongst us, any one who has 
 escaped from such bondage as this? he as- 
 suredly is prospering in spirit. Quickened by 
 the secret energy of God's Spirit, has your will 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 283 
 
 risen up, revolted from this ruinous thraldom, 
 and in the strength of a mightier than human 
 power, cast it off for ever ? Then, indeed, with 
 you would we rejoice this day, and be exceed- 
 ing glad. If the truth have made you free, 
 you are free indeed. In the arms of Jesus you 
 are safe for ever. No language, no emblems, 
 can be found to convey any adequate idea of 
 the blessedness of such a deliverance. Not the 
 poor timid struggling bird springs forth from 
 the snare with a note of more thrilling joyful- 
 ness not the despairing, heart-sick captive 
 casts the first look of freedom on the bright 
 heaven, or treads with bounding step the green- 
 sward of home with a more exultant throb of 
 happiness, than this day may be yours. And 
 never was that ancient song of deliverance sung 
 with a deeper meaning than your lips may 
 lend to it, " Our soul is escaped as a bird out 
 of the snare of the fowler ; the snare is broken, 
 and we are escaped." 
 
 II. Such, then, are some of the elements of 
 that inward or spiritual prosperity to which the 
 
284 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 apostle refers in the words, " even as thy soul 
 prospereth." I would now point out briefly the 
 reasons for which this soul-prosperity should be 
 regarded in our desires as the standard or mea- 
 sure of outward prosperity. 
 
 Why did the apostle wish for his friend why 
 should we in like manner wish for our friends, 
 outward, temporal prosperity, only in the mea- 
 sure in which they already possess inward, 
 spiritual prosperity ? Is it a sentiment founded 
 in reason " I wish above all things that thou 
 mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy 
 soul prospereth ? " 
 
 That it is so will be apparent if you reflect on 
 the one hand, that, destitute of inward grace, it 
 is neither for a mans own good, nor for that of 
 his fellow-men, that he should be possessed of 
 outward wealth or power ; and on the other 
 hand, that if a man's soul be right with God, the 
 possession of these outward advantages is both 
 safe for himself and profitable for others. 
 
 To look for a moment to the former view of 
 the matter, can it be doubtful to any one, that 
 wealth, power, prosperity, are no blessings where 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 285 
 
 God's grace has not come before them ? that it 
 is not good to be happy, if, first, we are not 
 holy ? Imagine nay, you need not imagine it 
 life teems with examples of men and women, 
 surrounded with all its ease and comfort and out- 
 ward happiness it may be its gaiety and splen- 
 dor, who are yet obviously and notoriously 
 strangers to goodness and to grace. And do 
 you need to ask why such a state of matters, far 
 from being desirable, is to be deprecated and de- 
 plored ? 
 
 Is it fanciful to say, for one thing, that to a 
 serious mind there is something singularly sad 
 and affecting in the very contrast which such a 
 spectacle presents ? The rich, gay, happy, out- 
 ward life, and the dark moral antithesis within ! 
 It is good to be gay, where the gaiety is real. 
 But it is not good, it is not seemly, it is, sooth 
 to say, the sorrowfullest thing under heaven, to 
 be gay where there is every reason to be sad. 
 Who loves not to listen to the merry ringing 
 laugh of childhood, for it is the utterance of a 
 heart that is yet a stranger to care ? But have 
 you not felt that there is something awful in the 
 
286 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 maniac's mirth something that grates upon the 
 mind's sense of reality, in the hollow merriment 
 
 " Of moody madness laughing wild, 
 Amid severest woe ?" 
 
 Right pleasant, too, it is to behold the ruddy 
 hue on the cheek, and the bright sparkle in the 
 eye of health. But have you never felt that no 
 sight is so truly melancholy as the unnatural 
 brightness in the eye, or the glow that often 
 gathers on consumption's cheek, the more 
 beautiful as the end draweth near ? And yet, 
 sad though these contrasts are, there is some- 
 thing more truly pitiful, there is a more awful, 
 because a moral sadness, in the sight which the 
 minions of outward prosperity, of worldly com- 
 fort and happiness, not seldom present to a 
 thoughtful observer's eye. Surveying the spec- 
 tacle of the world-throng around us thought- 
 less, busy, careless, godless men and women, 
 happy amid the empty din and joy of life, and 
 yet remembering what is beneath all this, and 
 whither, unless religion be one great lie, all this 
 is tending, have you never felt, in moments of 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 287 
 
 seriousness, an impression as if of something 
 awful in this happiness of man ? Looking on 
 an irreligious man's life, mindful how rapidly 
 the stream of time is bearing him onward to the 
 unseen, does there not force itself on the mind 
 a sense of something horribly incongruous in all 
 this gaiety, as were the mirth of men in a sink- 
 ing ship, or wild shouts of laughter from some 
 crew hurrying onward to the torrent's brink ! 
 
 " Whom call we gay ? That honor has been long 
 The boast of mere pretenders to the name, 
 The innocent are gay." 
 
 But oh, if God be true, if Christ be true, if 
 heaven and hell be true, save us from the gaiety 
 of such as these ! 
 
 Again, as a second consideration, I need 
 scarcely do more than simply express the 
 thought, that outward prosperity is not desirable 
 for a man's own sake, if unaccompanied by in- 
 ward, because of the bad moral influence which 
 it has on his own character. Outward pros- 
 perity, unattended by inward, is not only an in- 
 congruous, but also a positively injurious thing. 
 
288 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 For an irreligious man, nothing is more to be 
 deprecated than an uninterrupted flow of worldly 
 good. It may look like the mere commonplace 
 language of the pulpit, yet universal experience 
 proves it to be the language of truth, to say that 
 it is not good for any man, even the holiest and 
 best of us, to be quite happy here, as to out- 
 ward things. But where there is little or no 
 strength of religious principle in the soul, an un- 
 broken continuance of worldly happiness will 
 almost infallibly exert a deteriorating influence 
 on the character. Only in proportion as the 
 dew of God's hidden grace is descending on the 
 heart, can it be safe for a man to be exposed to 
 the hot sun of worldly prosperity ; and if that 
 secret element of strength and fertility be not 
 continually supplied, the scorching heat must 
 speedily wither up, in the spiritual soil, every 
 green and beautiful thing. 
 
 May I not appeal, on this point, to the experi- 
 ence of the people of God, of those who have 
 ever attempted in good earnest to lead a holy 
 life? Have you not felt may I not say to 
 many such ? how incessant is the tendency of 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 289 
 
 even the innocent pleasures and possessions of 
 life to draw off your heart from God and from 
 divine things ? Ease, comfort, social intercourse, 
 the luxuries and enjoyments of a prosperous con- 
 dition, have you not felt that these have a fatal, 
 because a most stealthy and insidious power to 
 hurt the soul ? If you have been or are now sur- 
 rounded by these things, nay, if even a share 
 of worldly comfort by no means extraordinary 
 has fallen to your lot, is it not so that only by 
 the most unremitting watchfulness and prayer 
 and secret self-discipline, can you be protected 
 from their seductive influences ? And as often 
 as you have allowed yourself to intermit these 
 secret exercises, has not your experience ever 
 been, that gradually and imperceptibly con- 
 science is deprived of its sensitiveness, love to 
 God and to Christ Jesus droops and languishes, 
 and the strength of your renewed will, your 
 powers of self-denial and of Christian activity, 
 become enfeebled. Encompassed on all sides 
 by the world's obtrusive, importunate pursuits 
 and pleasures, only abandon yourself to them, 
 only let them for ever so brief a period engross 
 
 13 
 
 Caird. 
 
290 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 an undue share of your thoughts, and the inevi- 
 table consequence will be that prayer, self-exam- 
 ination, meditation on divine things, become 
 irksome and distasteful, that the mind's jealousy 
 of doubtful pleasures and equivocal acts of con- 
 formity to the world is relaxed, and that the 
 whole tone of your spiritual life is lowered. 
 There is, indeed, a mighty oblivion-power in the 
 things of time and sense. Insignificant in them- 
 selves, their comparative nearness makes them 
 seem great ; so that unless the far-seeing eye of 
 faith be kept continually bright and clear, they 
 speedily eclipse in our sight the things un- 
 seen and eternal, just as the light of the sun, 
 though of greatly inferior intensity, hides from 
 our view by day the distant brightness of the 
 stars. 
 
 And if thus worldly prosperity, without a 
 corresponding increase of spiritual strength, be 
 dangerous even to the people of God, how much 
 more so to others ! What must it be to be ex- 
 posed to its baneful influences, with no strength 
 of inward principle, no sustaining power of di- 
 vine grace to counteract and resist them ? What, 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 291 
 
 I ask, to bring it to the test of experience, is 
 the effect upon any worldly man's mind, now 
 present, of his increasing business, and growing 
 wealth and influence and importance among his 
 fellow-men ; what is the obvious result of all the 
 stir and bustle of worldly things around him, 
 but to keep up the dream of folly and indiffer- 
 ence in this life, and to confirm him in his in- 
 sane heedlessness of what is beyond it ! How 
 intensely selfish and worldly does such a man's 
 heart become when there has been little for a 
 long while to mar or interrupt his outward com- 
 fort and happiness ! His whole soul becomes of 
 the earth, earthy. You cannot cross the thres- 
 hold of his home without feeling how low and 
 unspiritual is the atmosphere in which he 
 breathes, how in the world and its good things 
 his whole delight is placed. And every year, 
 if you watch the process, you will perceive how 
 the softness of a prosperous life is imbedding 
 him more firmly in his selfish worldliness, like 
 moss gathering round a motionless stone. Would 
 one who really desired this man's welfare wish 
 for him a continuance or increase of worldly 
 
292 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 good ? Would not his truest friend rather long 
 and pray that his fatal tranquillity might be in- 
 terrupted that, if need be, poverty, sickness, 
 bereavement itself might invade his home any- 
 thing, any affliction, however sharp and sudden, 
 by which this hollow peace, this ruinous security, 
 might be broken up ? 
 
 But I have said that it is not only for a man's 
 own good, but also for the good of others, that he 
 should prosper outwardly only in the measure in 
 which his soul prospereth. " Beloved, I wish that 
 thou wouldst prosper even as thy soul pros- 
 pereth," is the apostle's wish ; and to this we 
 would add this other comment, " for if thy soul 
 prospereth, if thy heart be right with God, then 
 the world will get the good of whatever outward 
 prosperity, whatever wealth or power or influ- 
 ence, God is pleased to send thee." For, ob- 
 viously, wealth, power, influence, all outward 
 advantages, are just so many means of doing 
 good or evil put into a man's hands ; and whether 
 such advantages shall be for the benefit or in- 
 jury of mankind, depends on the inward charac- 
 ter of him to whom they are intrusted. Man- 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 293 
 
 kind are losers when a selfish man prospers ; 
 they are gainers by the prosperity of the gener- 
 ous and liberal-minded. The latter receive the 
 blessing of God's providence as the sun receives 
 light, to brighten and gladden the world, or as 
 the healthy plant the influences of nature, to 
 scatter them abroad in fertility and fragrance 
 again. The former, on the contrary, like an ex- 
 crescence on the fruit-tree absorbing the mois- 
 ture that might have gone to produce leaves and 
 fruit, receive any blessing at God's hand only to 
 retain or abuse it : or, like a rank weed, draw in 
 the genial influences of the soil and atmosphere 
 of life only to poison all the air around them. 
 But if this be so, well may we desire, for the 
 world's sake, that those may prosper and be in 
 health, whose souls are prospering. For this is 
 indeed but another form of expressing the wish, 
 that they who have the desire and inclination to 
 do good may also have the power. Are there 
 those among us who have learned the secret of 
 unselfish love, where alone it is to be truly 
 learned, at the Cross of Jesus ? Beholding the 
 glory of Him whose very name is Love in the 
 
294 SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 face of Him whose whole life was but one living 
 and breathing utterance of love, and whose death 
 was the triumph of pure, unmingled, self-devoted 
 love, are they becoming more and more con- 
 formed in spirit to the object of their adoration? 
 In one word, believers as they profess to be in 
 Him who pleased not Himself, are there those 
 now hearing me who are longing and aspiring 
 daily after a more gentle, holy, compassionate, 
 Christ-like spirit ? then, indeed, on their behalf 
 may all men unite in uttering the aspiration of 
 the text. They " seek not their own." They 
 " look not on their own things, but on the things 
 of others." They are ever ready to " bear the 
 burdens" of others that they may "fulfil the law 
 of Christ." They are God's agents in scattering 
 His bounty over the world. They consecrate 
 their wealth, power, influence to God's glory 
 and the world's good. Prosperity descends upon 
 them like rain upon a river, that they may dif- 
 fuse its blessings wherever they go. Who then 
 will refuse on behalf of such to echo the prayer, 
 " We wish above all things that ye would prosper 
 and be in health, even as your souls prosper ?" 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 295 
 
 And now, my friends, let me only ask in con- 
 clusion, can we utter such a wish as that of the 
 text on your behalf? Can we desire for all, for 
 many now present, that they may prosper out- 
 wardly as their souls are prospering ? Alas ! in 
 the case of how many must it be confessed that 
 such a wish would be an imprecation instead of 
 a prayer, a covert invocation, not of blessings 
 but of curses on their heads. For only think 
 what would be the effect, if to each one in this 
 assembly it should indeed be granted to prosper 
 just as his soul is prospering to be in body 
 and in outward condition, in health, wealth, for- 
 tunes, just as he is inwardly in the sight of God. 
 How few would be outwardly bettered on how 
 many would the outward change be sad and 
 shocking to behold ! Let the body be as the 
 soul is, and how many, who are now seen in 
 youth and health and comeliness of aspect, 
 would instantly assume the withered and wast- 
 ed look of age and disease ! how many would 
 become forms and shapes from which the eye 
 with instinctive disgust would turn away ! Or 
 let it be granted that every one in this house 
 
296 SPIKITUAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 shall become in wealth and worldly condition 
 just what he is in soul ; and alas ! are there not 
 more than one or two, comfortable, easy, luxuri- 
 ous in outward circumstances now, whom such 
 a law would render bankrupt in body as they 
 already are in soul, who would leave this house 
 poorer than the poorest wretch that shrinks to- 
 night into poverty's squalidest den ? Ask your- 
 self, each one who now hears me, " Am I such 
 as this ? If my body were made like my soul, 
 would I become diseased and impoverished, if 
 now rich or strong, or if poor or feeble, more 
 wasted and poverty-struck still?" In plain 
 terms, let me ask, Have you any ground to 
 think that your soul is prospering ? Have you 
 any evidence that it has ever even begun to be 
 well with your soul ? Can you honestly say 
 that you have any love to Christ in your heart? 
 Are you making any real effort to drive sin out 
 of your soul ? Is your daily life governed by 
 inclination or by duty by the desire to please 
 God, or by the reckless determination, at all 
 hazards, to please self ? You know what it is 
 to be made happy by outward prosperity, or 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 297 
 
 sorry by outward adversity to be grieved or 
 gladdened by worldly gain or loss : Have you 
 any such definite consciousness of joy or sorrow 
 about your soul's progress or declension ? You 
 have felt real pain many a time, for instance, for 
 the loss of money, or of some place or project 
 on which you had set your heart : Have you 
 ever felt any such undeniable pain for sin ? Do 
 you remember any time in your past life when sin 
 cost you real trouble and sorrow of heart, when 
 you were distressed to have been betrayed into 
 it yourself, or grieved to behold it in others ? 
 As a man is eager to retrieve his loss when he 
 discovers himself to have fallen behind in his 
 worldly circumstances, .are you conscious of 
 having ever made any real, resolute effort, of 
 having been at pains to set your soul right with 
 God, to get the better of worldly or unholy de- 
 sires and habits in your inward character ? As 
 you would rejoice at success in the one case, so 
 if you have really succeeded in the other, if 
 your soul has been reconciled to the Father of 
 spirits, if you discern in it the marks of a pro- 
 gressive meetness for heaven, you cannot fail to 
 
 13* 
 
298 S P 1 11 I T U A L P 11 S P E 11 I T Y . 
 
 have experienced some delight at the discovery. 
 Are you conscious of this? Or if you have 
 been conscious of no spiritual progress, of no 
 advancement in holiness to give you this joy in 
 time past, would it rejoice you to get it now ? 
 If you had your choice to-day of poverty with 
 Christ, or riches and all worldly comfort and 
 happiness without Him, which would you 
 choose ? What you most value yourself, you 
 will most desire for your children, or your 
 friends. Ask your heart, and let it honestly 
 reply, whether it would give you more pleasure 
 to see your family and friends get on well in 
 the world, get good places, grow rich and hon- 
 ored of men, or to see them grow up good, holy, 
 pious-minded men and women ? It grieves us, 
 my dear friends, to think what kind of answer 
 many, many must make, if they speak sincerely, 
 to such inquiries as these. And if it be with 
 you, as we fear it is, surely never could a Chris- 
 tian friend address you in the language of the 
 text, Godless, Cluistless, utterly unhappy in 
 spirit, your worst enemy could not utter a more 
 malignant wish than that you should prosper 
 
SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY. 299 
 
 and be in health just as your soul is prospering. 
 And destitute as you are of true love to Christ, 
 and to your fellow-men, to wish you outward 
 prosperity, despite of your soul's state, would 
 be a wish even more inconsistent still with your 
 best welfare and theirs. You have never shown 
 any disposition to serve God, or promote your 
 brother's good with the means you possess ; and 
 to wish you more wealth or influence, would 
 only be to desire for you increase of responsi- 
 bility and increase of guilt. You, whom God 
 has already blessed with health, or wealth, or 
 influence, which you have consumed on self, or 
 spent on sin, could the best friend you have on 
 earth wish you more of these ? As soon wish 
 that fuel may be added to the raging fire, or 
 fresh lading to the sinking ship ; as soon wish 
 that treasures of gold may be cast into the sea, 
 as into the cold, thankless, all-engulfing selfish- 
 ness of the spirit within you ! 
 
Christian's 
 
 " All things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or 
 the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to 
 come ; all are yours ; and ye are Christ's ; and Christ is 
 God's." 1 COR. iii. 21, 22, 23. 
 
 THE unloveliness of envy, jeal- 
 &EKM. IX. . . 
 
 ousy, pride, and the kindred vices, 
 
 which spring from the common root of selfish- 
 ness, is never so apparent as when these vices 
 manifest themselves amongst those who bear the 
 Christian name. Yet the history of the Church 
 but too often exhibits the strange anomaly of a 
 religion of love producing the keenest haters, 
 and a gospel of peace engendering strifes and 
 animosities more bitter than the disputes and 
 rivalries of the profane. It is a very early man- 
 ifestation of this unhallowed spirit on which St. 
 Paul animadverts in the passage before us. The 
 Christians at Corinth had quarrelled with each 
 other on the merits of their respective teachers 
 each party boasting of the pre-eminent wis- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 301 
 
 dom or eloquence of its own head, and con- 
 temning the gifts of his supposed rivals. The 
 apostle rebukes this unholy strife, characteris- 
 ing it as not only unlovely, but, among Chris- 
 tians singularly foolish and irrational. And the 
 thought by which he enforces this representa- 
 tion is a very striking one. Religious rivalries 
 and competitions involve, he alleges, not only a 
 sin, but an absurdity, inasmuch as it is the pe- 
 culiar property of that which is the object of 
 contention, that it is not lost to any one man 
 by another's gain. Each man's share of the 
 divine treasure is not diminished, but rather 
 increased, by reason of the multitude of par- 
 ticipants. The prize gained by one earnest 
 runner in the Christian race is not therefore 
 lost, but rather rendered doubly secure and 
 precious to the other competitors. In the pur- 
 suit of wealth it may be natural, however culpa- 
 ble, to begrudge another his gains, or to be 
 elated at our own ; for wealth is a limited good. 
 Your money cannot be yours and mine at the 
 same time ; what you gain I may lose ; it is pos- 
 sible for you to be enriched at my expense. 
 
302 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 
 
 Neither, again, is it irrational, though it may be 
 sinful, to contend with others for power, rank, 
 social greatness ; for the very ideas of power, 
 rank, greatness, imply their opposites subjec- 
 tion, lowliness, inferiority. That one man at- 
 tains to place or power, implies that others miss 
 or lose it ; the successful man rises, not seldom, 
 on the ruin of his rivals. But with respect to 
 spiritual good the gains and advantages of re- 
 ligion it is altogether different. These belong 
 to that class of blessings which possess the 
 qualities of universality and inexhaustibleness. 
 The light of the sun is not the less bright to 
 me that it beams at the same moment on mil- 
 lions of my fellow-men. The beauty which I 
 behold in earth and sea and skies is not dimin- 
 ished to me because of the multitude of specta- 
 tors who may share in my delight. A thing of 
 beauty is not only a "joy forever," but a uni- 
 versal joy. Of a thousand men who may behold 
 the same landscape, each may be said to possess 
 all its beauty. In like manner those blessings 
 which constitute the Christian's portion Truth, 
 Love, Beauty, Goodness may become the com- 
 
THE C II li I S T I A N ' S HERITAGE. 303 
 
 mon possession of myriads, each one of whom 
 may yet be said to possess the whole. The 
 same truths which fill my mind may become the 
 spiritual nutriment of all my fellow-believers, un- 
 diminished to me though other minds apprehend 
 them. The love to Christ which burns in one 
 Christian's breast, does not become enfeebled if 
 other hearts catch the flame from his, but rather 
 by contact of congenial elements, glows in each 
 separate heart with a fervor all the more intense. 
 The peace of God may be diffused through the 
 spirits of a multitude which no man can number, 
 and yet each redeemed soul may say of it, " It 
 is all my own" nay, better than if all or ex- 
 clusively his own ; for it is a peace, a joy, a 
 happiness, which, by the electric flash of sym- 
 pathy passing from heart to heart, becomes, by 
 reason of the multitudes who share it, redoubled, 
 multiplied, boundlessly increased to each. Let 
 no man, therefore, in spiritual things, glory in 
 his own or envy another's good ; for to every 
 individual member of Christ's church it may be 
 said, " Whatever others have obtained, still the 
 whole, the illimitable all of Truth and Love and 
 
304 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 
 
 Joy, is left for you." " All things are yours ; 
 whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the 
 world, or life, or death, or things present, or 
 things to come ; all are yours." 
 
 I shall endeavor to illustrate this statement 
 of the apostle, " All things are yours," first, by 
 a general argument, and then by passing in re- 
 view one or two of those special blessings which 
 are enumerated in this catalogue of the Chris- 
 tian's possessions. 
 
 I. It may help to explain the universal pro- 
 prietorship here ascribed to Christians, if you 
 consider that the believer may be said to possess 
 all things in God. 
 
 The mind of a great author is more precious 
 than his books, the genius of a great artist than 
 the most exquisite productions of his hand ; and 
 if it were at our option to possess all the works 
 of the greatest mind, or to be ourselves endowed 
 with a portion of that intellectual power from 
 which they emanated, who would hesitate in his 
 choice ? To have the mind is better than to 
 have merely the products of that mind. Give 
 
THE CHEISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 305 
 
 the fountain, and you virtually have the streams 
 the creative origin, and you possess that 
 which is better than any special manifestation 
 of its power. But no earthly or finite mind can 
 transfer its gifts to another ; the superior nature 
 can never make over a share of its inner intel- 
 lectual or moral power as a dowry to the in- 
 ferior. Yet this transfusion of minds, inconceiv- 
 able between finite and created beings, is not 
 inconceivable between the created mind and 
 God. There is a sense in which we may be- 
 come sharers of that Mind from which all that is 
 true and good and fair in the universe proceeds. 
 It is given to us not only to see, admire, and 
 share in the works of the Great Author of all, 
 but to become endowed with the very mind, im- 
 bued in our inmost being, with the very Spirit 
 and Being of God. It is a thought which lies 
 at the foundation of all true religion, that God 
 Himself is the supreme Good, the true and real 
 portion of the soul. As there is an affinity be- 
 tween the Intellect and Truth, between the 
 Imagination and Beauty, between the Con- 
 science and Goodness, so there is a deep and in- 
 
306 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 
 
 enable harmony between the whole spiritual 
 nature of man and that Infinite Being in whom 
 is all Truth, all Goodness, all Beauty. So that 
 as really as true, or noble, or holy thoughts pass 
 into and become a portion of the mind which 
 apprehends them, does God communicate Him- 
 self, diffuse His own divine Spirit through the 
 spirit of the believer. More intimately than 
 light becomes the possession of the eye on which 
 it streams, or air of the organs of breathing that 
 inhale it, or the food we eat, assimilated and dif- 
 fused through the physical system, incorporates 
 itself with the nature of him who partakes of it, 
 does He, that Infinite One, the Light of all our 
 seeing, the Bread of Life, the nutriment of our 
 highest being, become the deep inward portion 
 of each soul that loves Him. The happiness of 
 this mysterious nature of ours, is never to be 
 found merely in the possession of God's gifts, 
 the works of His hand, or the bounties of His 
 providence. The soul can find its true satisfac- 
 tion only in rising beyond the gifts, and claim- 
 ing the Giver as its own. When you covet the 
 friendship or love of a fellow-man, it does not 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 307 
 
 satisfy you that he bestows upon you only out- 
 ward gifts his money, his property, his books 
 what cares a loving, longing heart for these ? 
 Unless the man give you something more than 
 these, give you himself, and become yours by the 
 bond of deepest sympathy and affection, the rest 
 are but worthless boons. So is it in the soul's 
 relations with God. That after which, as by a 
 mysterious and inborn affinity, every devout 
 spirit yearns, is not God's gifts and bounties, but 
 Himself. The wealth of worlds would be, to the 
 heart longing after Deity, a miserable substitute 
 for one look of love from the Great Father's eye. 
 " My soul thirsteth for God," is the language in 
 which Scripture gives expression to this deep 
 want of our nature, and points to the ineffable 
 satisfaction provided for it, " My soul thirsteth 
 for God, for the living God." " As the hart 
 panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my 
 soul after Thee, God ! " " If any man love 
 Me, My Father will love him, and We will 
 come unto him, and take up Our abode with 
 him." " I in them, and thou in me, that they 
 may be made perfect in one." 
 
308 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 
 
 Now, admitting the truth of this thought, that 
 in some way, however mysterious or incapable 
 of being fully expressed in words, God is Him- 
 self the immediate possession or portion of the 
 soul, then the argument of the text becomes an 
 obvious and conclusive one. As the scattered 
 rays of light are all included in the focus, 
 as the fountain contains the streams, as the 
 object reflected is prior to and nobler than the 
 different reflections of it so all finite and 
 created good is contained in Him who is the 
 Supreme Good ; all earthly excellence is but the 
 partial emanation, the more or less bright reflec- 
 tion of the Great Original. To have a portion, 
 therefore, in God, is to possess that which in- 
 cludes in itself all created good. The man who 
 is in possession of some great masterpiece in 
 painting or sculpture, need not envy others who 
 have only casts or copies of it. The original 
 plate or stereotype is more valuable than any 
 impressions or engravings thrown off from it; 
 and he who owns the former, owns that which 
 includes, is capable of producing, all the latter. 
 So, if it be given to any human spirit to know 
 
THE CUHISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 309 
 
 and enjoy God, to be admitted to the fellowship, 
 and have a portion in the very being of the In- 
 finite, then is that spirit possessor of that 
 whereof " Paul, Apollos, Cephas," " the World" 
 all material, and all mental excellence, is but 
 the faint copy, the weak and blurred transcript. 
 Surveying the wonders of creation, or even with 
 the Word of inspiration in his hand, the Chris- 
 tian can say, " Glorious though these things be, 
 to me belongs that which is more glorious far. 
 The streams are precious, but I have the Foun- 
 tain ; the vesture is beautiful, but the Wearer is 
 mine ; the portrait in its every lineament is 
 lovely, but the Great Original whose beauty it 
 but feebly depicts, is my own. ' God is my 
 portion, the Lord is mine inheritance/ To me 
 belongs all actual and all possible good, all 
 created and uncreated beauty, all that eye hath 
 seen or imagination conceived; and more than 
 that, for ' eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor 
 hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive 
 what God hath prepared for them that love 
 Him,' all things and beings, all that life reveals 
 or death conceals, everything within the bound- 
 
310 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 
 
 less possibilities of creating wisdom and power, 
 is mine ; for God, the Creator and Fountain of 
 all, is mine." 
 
 II. Passing from this general view of the 
 subject, I shall now endeavor to illustrate the 
 assertion, " all things are yours," by adverting 
 to one or two of the special blessings here enu- 
 merated, as constituting parts of the Christian's 
 universal inheritance. I shall take, as specimens, 
 these three," The World," " Life," " Death." 
 
 I. In what sense, then, to take the first of 
 these, may the Christian understand the an- 
 nouncement " The World is yours ?" Not, 
 obviously, in the literal sense of the words. 
 This earth is not the exclusive property of the 
 good. Christians are not, of necessity, lords of 
 its soil or possessors of its wealth. It was not 
 their Master, but another who, displaying " all 
 the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of 
 them," said, " All these will I give thee, if thou 
 wilt fall down and worship me." As often as 
 otherwise the rich in faith are poor in this 
 world's possessions. Many a one, "of whom 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 311 
 
 the world was not worthy," never owned a 
 hand's-breadth of its soil, till he possessed that 
 which to the veriest wretch is not denied a 
 grave. Of the purest, noblest, best of the sons 
 of men, it is written, that often " He had not 
 where to lay His head ;" and even that last 
 resting-place to which his marred and bleeding 
 form was borne, the hand of charity bestowed. 
 No ! not literally can it be said to Christ's fol- 
 lowers on earth, " The world is yours." 
 
 But if not literally, yet in this sense may the 
 world be said to belong to the Christian, that 
 he only has a legitimate title to the benefits and 
 blessings he enjoys in it. This earth was not 
 meant to be the home of evil. The make and 
 structure of the world is for good. Nothing in 
 it, save by abuse, has any affinity with sin. 
 Its foundations were not laid of old by Omnipo- 
 tence, nor its wondrous laws contrived and or- 
 dered by Infinite Wisdom, nor its garniture of 
 beauty spread over it by the loving hand of 
 God, only that a luxurious home might be pro- 
 vided for selfishness and impurity. God's sun 
 was not created to shine, nor His rain to fall, 
 
312 THE CHKISTIAN'S HEKITAGE. 
 
 nor His seasons made in orderly course to re- 
 turn, and all the processes contrived by which 
 Nature yielded up her annual abundance, only 
 that it might be poured into the lap of folly, 
 and prolong the existence of ingratitude and 
 vice. Even mute and material things, the laws 
 and agencies of nature, have in them something 
 that asserts their divine origin, and proclaims 
 that wrong is done to them that they are in 
 an unnatural and distorted condition when 
 forced into the service of sin. How exquisite, 
 for instance, is that mechanism which we are 
 at this moment employing, by which thought 
 embodied in articulate sounds goes forth upon 
 the viewless air, and by its invisible agency 
 is conveyed from the preacher's lip to the ears, 
 and so to the minds of his auditory ! What 
 mechanism contrived by human art can compare 
 with God's mechanism of speech and sound ? 
 And when this wondrous engine is compelled to 
 carry hither and thither words of selfishness, 
 and malice, and unkindness when it is laden 
 with the swearer's oath or the slanderer's lie 
 when it is forced to hurry on, burdened with 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 313 
 
 impurities and blasphemies is it employed for 
 its destined end, is it rightfully used, or not 
 rather fearfully perverted and abused? Or, 
 again, that agency of light, the mode of whose 
 operation is still, with all its unvarying beauty 
 and simplicity, an unsolved problem to human 
 science is it employed legitimately, and in ac- 
 cordance with the ends for which it was con- 
 trived, when on its tremulous ether, or its lumi- 
 nous waves, it is constrained to carry to and fro 
 angry looks, lascivious glances, reflected sights 
 and scenes of impurity and evil ? It were 
 blasphemy to suppose that the Almighty should 
 send down angels to convey hither and thither 
 messages of impurity, or to lend their potent 
 aid to deeds of crime ; yet are not " the winds 
 God's messengers the flaming fire his minis- 
 ters," as truly as " the angels that do His com- 
 mandments, hearkening to the voice of His 
 word ?" And as with these, so with all the 
 other powers and agents which constitute the 
 material system around us ; are they not all ob- 
 viously designed to harmonise with, and sub- 
 serve, the higher moral order of God's world ? 
 
 Calrd. 
 
314: THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 
 
 If, therefore, you are living a godless and sinful 
 life, you are out of harmony with the world in 
 which you live. You exist in it by sufferance, 
 not by right an intruder on its soil, a misap- 
 propriator of its benefits, a usurper and per- 
 verter of its laws. Nature and her laws and 
 agencies do not serve you willingly, but as the 
 captive servants of a gracious master, compelled 
 to do the bidding of his enemy, only because 
 "for a season" they have been "subjected to 
 the bondage of corruption." And so long as 
 you continue in estrangement from God, it is as 
 if His sun were unwilling to shine upon you, 
 and His air to inspire you, and the fruits of His 
 earth to nourish you, and that earth itself to 
 hold you, and as if " the whole creation," weary 
 of a bondage so degrading, were, according to 
 the magnificent conception of the apostle, 
 " groaning and travailing in pain." 
 
 On the other hand, return to God, let your 
 soul be brought back into living union with the 
 Father of spirits through His dear Son, and 
 thenceforward the world will become yours, be- 
 cause you are God's. In harmony with the 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 315 
 
 Great Centre, you will be in harmony with all 
 things in His universe. Nature will serve him 
 who serves her God ; and all her varied powers 
 and agencies will rejoice to obey the behests 
 and minister to the welfare of one who is the 
 loved and loving child of their great Master and 
 Lord. The earth will be fulfilling its proper 
 function in yielding you bread, and the heavens 
 in shedding their sweet influences on your path. 
 For you the morning will dawn and the evening 
 descend. For you " the winds will blow, earth 
 rest, heavens move, and fountains flow." You 
 will be able to claim a peculiar property in the 
 works of your Father's hand, and the bounties 
 of your Father's providence. You will have 
 served yourself heir to Him who is the Univer- 
 sal Proprietor, and become " heir of God, and 
 joint heir with Christ." And so " the world" 
 and the fulness thereof will become "yours," 
 because "ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." 
 
 2. Another of the blessings comprehended in 
 this roll of the Christian's possessions is " Life." 
 What, then, let us ask, is the import of the de- 
 claration, " Life is yours ?" It is obvious that 
 
316 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 
 
 in the simplest view of it, considered as mere 
 existence or duration of being, "life" cannot, 
 any more than the former blessing, be regarded 
 as the peculiar property of the Christian. For 
 though it is true that religion, by reason of the 
 moral habits which it inculcates, is really con- 
 ducive to health and longevity, and that, in ab- 
 sence of its restraints, vicious excess often im- 
 pairs the health and shortens life, yet this is by 
 no means so uniformly its result as to warrant, 
 in the literal import of the words, the assertion 
 of the text. It is not always the holiest men 
 who live the longest. Oftentimes "the good 
 die first, whilst they whose hearts are dry as 
 summer's dust burn to the socket." There is 
 something more than mere sentimentality in the 
 saying not seldom heard from sorrowing lips 
 concerning the dead, that they were " too good 
 for this world" -" they grew so holy, so gentle, 
 so good," is the thought implied "they breath- 
 ed so much of the spirit of heaven upon earth, 
 that, long ere to human eye their course was 
 run, the Father called them home." And per- 
 haps there are few of us who, as life wears on, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 317 
 
 do not learn to cherish among our deepest and 
 most sacred recollections the memory of some 
 loved and sainted one, some child, or brother, or 
 sister departed, whose fair young face shines 
 out to us, in thoughtful moments, from amidst 
 the dim and vanished years, as that of one 
 whom God hath early taken. No ! we repeat, 
 not literally can they who are Christ's under- 
 stand the promise, " Life is yours." 
 
 But there is a sense most real and true in 
 which they may apprehend it. For if the good 
 do not live longer, they live more in the same 
 space of time than other men. Life is to be 
 reckoned not only extensively, but also inten- 
 sively ; not merely by the number of its days, 
 but also by the amount of thought and energy 
 which we infuse into them. Existence is not to 
 be measured by mere duration. An oak lives 
 for centuries ; generation after generation of 
 mortals the meanwhile passing away ; but who 
 would exchange for the life of a plant, though 
 protracted for ages, a single day of the existence 
 of a living, conscious, thinking man ? The brief- 
 est life of rationality, again, is worth more, has 
 
HERITAGE. 
 
 more of real life in it, than the longest of a mere 
 animal. And, amongst rational beings, that life 
 is longest, whether brief or protracted its out- 
 ward term, into which the largest amount of 
 mind, of mental and moral activity, is condensed. 
 It is possible for the longest life to be really 
 briefer than the shortest, and the child or youth 
 may die older, with more of life crowded into his 
 brief existence, than he whose dull and stagnant 
 being drags on to an inglorious old age. 
 
 " We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
 We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
 Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." 
 
 But if it be so, surely, estimating life by this 
 principle, it is only the Christian, the man who 
 lives to God, who can really be said to live at 
 all. For in him alone the whole man lives 
 in him alone all the energies of man's being, 
 physical, intellectual, moral, are called into full- 
 est, noblest activity. In sleep we possess mere 
 existence as truly as in waking, but in so far as 
 our nobler conscious being is concerned, sleep 
 steals away a great part of our earthly life ; and 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 319 
 
 if, instead of a part, a man were compelled to 
 spend the whole of life in sleep, then as a con- 
 scious, reflective, active being, life would be 
 utterly lost to him. But there are men not a 
 few in whose busy outward life, though the 
 .ntellect may wake, the spirit slumbers, and 
 who, amidst all the surface vivacity of a world- 
 ly and selfish existence, know as little of truest, 
 noblest life, as if their years were spent in tor- 
 pid unconsciousness. The man who merely vege- 
 tates through existence, who rises day by day 
 only to eat and drink and pursue the same unre- 
 flective round of business and pleasure, without 
 one lofty thought or pure spiritual emotion, 
 never for one moment lifting his soul to com- 
 mune with God, and the vast world of invisible 
 realities around him, surely, to such an one, 
 life, in its real essence, its true significance, is 
 lost. And comparing such a life with that of 
 the man in whom the pulse of being beats quick 
 the reflective, earnest, high-souled man, alive 
 to the noblest end of existence, governed by 
 high principles and holy motives, crowding his 
 days with deeds, and leaving scarce one hour of 
 
320 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 
 
 waking existence that is not instinct with en- 
 ergy, throbbing with the life's-blood of the spirit 
 comparing the former sort of life with this, 
 can we hesitate to pronounce that that is a mere 
 blank, a life that is no life, a death in life, whilst 
 this alone deserves the name ? The man of pro- 
 perty, who has an undiscovered gold mine on 
 his estate, is no richer for his latent wealth, and 
 cannot be said really to possess it. And so, 
 whatever other men contrive to extract out of 
 life as comfort, ease, honor, knowledge, power 
 they are, after all, possessors only of its sur- 
 face wealth ; the Christian alone, the man who 
 has discovered and appropriated its hidden trea- 
 sure of holy thought, feeling, energy, who has 
 pierced down through life's common strata, and 
 reached the divine element in it he alone can 
 be said to be its true possessor. Confine a bird 
 for life to a cage, and could it be said to be in 
 reality possessor of the unexercised, unenjoyed 
 power to soar and sweep the heavens ? But 
 within every human breast there are capabilities 
 of heaven, folded wings of thought, aspiration, 
 energy, which need only the liberating touch of 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 321 
 
 the Spirit of God to call forth their hidden 
 power, and bear the soul upward to the true re- 
 gion of its life. The true ideal of man's life 
 is that of a heavenly life, a " life hid with Christ 
 in God," the life of one whose " conversation 
 is in heaven," who. is " risen with Christ, and 
 made to dwell with Him in heavenly places," 
 and who, even amidst the common duties of the 
 world, derives his motives and principles from 
 a nobler sphere of being. But the multitudes 
 who never, in thought, desire, affection, emerge 
 beyond the region of earthly things such men 
 know not what life is, have never discovered 
 what, in its high and glorious reality, a human 
 existence may become. To that man only who 
 can say with the apostle, " To me to live is 
 Christ," can we make answer in the full signifi- 
 cance of the words, Then " life is yours." 
 
 3. And if so, then finally may we add with 
 the inspired writer in the text r " Death," too, 
 " is yours." Outwardly, indeed, death bears the 
 same aspect to all. He comes in no gentler 
 form, with no more obsequious mien, to those 
 who are Christ's, than to those who are none of 
 
 14* 
 
322 THE C H K I S T I A N ' S II E K I T A G E . 
 
 His. But yet, whilst of all other men it may 
 be said that they are death's, of the believer 
 alone can it be averred that death is his. Sin, 
 unrepented and unforgiven, renders a man, in a 
 sense, the rightful property of death, so that 
 when the hour of dissolution arrives, it is but 
 the lawful proprietor coming to claim his own. 
 In human society, a man forfeits by the commis- 
 sion of a crime his right to liberty. His per- 
 son, by right, if not in fact, is the property of 
 the law ; and wherever he can be found, the 
 emissary of justice may lay hold of the offender, 
 and claim him as his own. The crime may be 
 concealed, or the criminal may elude for a while 
 the hands of justice ; but, go where he may, he 
 has no right to liberty or life he is at the mercy 
 of the offended law, wherever he can be de- 
 tected. And when at last, it may be, in some 
 unwary moment, and after long-continued im- 
 punity has lulled him into forgetfulness of the 
 past, he feels a stern .hand laid upon his shoul- 
 der, and the terrible words, " You are my pris- 
 oner," fall upon his ear what sense of weak- 
 ness and helplessness sinks heavily on his 
 
THE OHBISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 323 
 
 spirit ! llis guilty freedom is at an end. His 
 game is up. A mighty power of human law and 
 social order environs him. Resistance he knows 
 to be unavailing ; and though shrinking in dis- 
 may from the fate that awaits him, go he must 
 with the officer of justice to meet it. 
 
 Now, similar to this is the condition of the 
 irreligious and impenitent man in relation to that 
 law which he has dishonored, and that dread 
 penalty which he has incurred. Unrepented sin 
 is Death's pledge. However long Death may 
 delay, he will come soon at the latest to put 
 in force the right he has established over the 
 person of the sinner, and to claim him as his 
 own. Every day that dawns, every passing 
 hour, every throb of the pulse is bringing him 
 nearer. Every sickness, every sorrow, every 
 sign of nature's decay, each secret pang of con- 
 science, or momentary foreboding, that visits the 
 sinner's soul, is as the shadow of the emissary 
 of heaven's justice falling athwart his victim's 
 onward path. And then, when at last he comes, 
 often most silently and suddenly, cold, stern, 
 rigid, inexorable, God's awful messenger, there 
 
is that within the guilty breast which at once 
 recognises his identity, and makes the man feel 
 that resistance or escape is impossible. Then 
 indeed is the hour and power of death, then the 
 season of his long-delayed triumph, and of the 
 appropriation of his rightful property. A power, 
 mightier than the combined force of human law 
 and social order and public opinion, lays hold of 
 the guilty soul, prevents its escape, hurries it 
 resistlessly away to the bar of its Judge. Oh, 
 who can tell what dreary sense of weakness 
 visits the heart in that awful moment what 
 mysterious consciousness of being borne help- 
 lessly onward from the old, friendly, familiar 
 world, into the strange portentous dark of Eter- 
 nity ! Who can enter into the feeling of amazed, 
 awestruck impotence and abandonment with 
 which the soul realises the thought : " This is 
 death at last, and ah me, I am his !" 
 
 On the other hand, if you are Christ's, then 
 death is yours. His power over you is gone. 
 He has no right to detain you in his posses- 
 sion. In his hands you shall no more be the 
 weak, but the strong ; for your condition will be 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 325 
 
 analogous to that, not of the criminal, but of the 
 innocent, unjustly apprehended man, in the hands 
 of the law. Over the innocent man the law has 
 no power. All its authority, its sanctions, its 
 penalties, are on his side. Its retributive inflic- 
 tions cannot touch him ; they may not injure one 
 hair of his head. He is no longer theirs, but 
 they are his. If wrongfully accused and im- 
 prisoned, he can demand as a right all the aids 
 and appliances of justice to free his character 
 from stain and his person from unrighteous re- 
 straint. Or if he himself be incapacitated from 
 action, his friends, if they can establish his in- 
 nocence, may demand his person at the hands of 
 the law may insist on his instant liberation. 
 And so, if " ye are Christ's," if reconciled to 
 God through His dear Son, the stain of guilt no 
 longer rests upon you ; then has death no 
 longer any claim to your person, any right to 
 retain you in his hold. It may be still your 
 mysterious fate to submit for a little while to 
 the universal penalty, to pass into the prison- 
 house of the destroyer ; but He to whom, body 
 and soul, you truly belong, will soon claim you 
 
326 THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 
 
 as one who, like Himself, cannot be " holden of 
 death/' and who must, at His summons, be set 
 free. Not one soul dear to Christ will He per- 
 mit to remain as death's prisoner, or to receive 
 any injury at death's hands. Nay, the very 
 dust of Christ's saints is dear to Him. He guards 
 their very graves with a deeper and. tenderer 
 care than that wherewith earthly affection 
 watches over the spot where a loved one rests. 
 And as the slightest memorial of one who has 
 been taken from us is often prized and kept with 
 fondest interest, so even the frail vesture with 
 which the soul of one of Christ's redeemed was 
 once clothed, is precious to His heart, and He 
 will rescue it at last from the dust where it lies 
 soiled and dishonored. " Neither death nor life, 
 nor principalities nor powers, nor things present 
 nor things to come" no created power, no lapse 
 of time, no material change or revolution can 
 remove you from the sight, or separate you from 
 the omnipotent love of Jesus. At His omnific 
 word, death and the grave shall one day yield 
 up their unlawful captives ; and then, when, the 
 grave has heard the voice of the Son of God, 
 
THE C II It I S T I A N ' S HERITAGE. 327 
 
 and death, His servant and yours, has delivered 
 up, unscathed, unharmed yea, more glorious 
 and beautiful than when they fell for a while 
 into his charge, the bodies of Christ's redeemed, 
 when " this corruptible shall put on incorruption, 
 and this mortal shall put on immortality," then 
 shall the believer discover the full and blessed 
 import of the words, " Death is yours." 
 
 Be this, then, let me say in conclusion, your 
 comfort and strength amidst the passing hours 
 of life, and when anticipating its inevitable close. 
 If ye are Christ's in earnest heartfelt self-devo- 
 tion, in the entire surrender of yourselves to 
 Him who hath redeemed you by His precious 
 blood, then indeed " death is yours." It may 
 not be that, when he draws near to you, Death 
 shall be welcomed with rapture, or even re- 
 garded without shrinking and dread. At the 
 best, his is never a sweet face, nor is it a sound 
 to which mortal ear can listen calmly when his 
 step is heard on the threshold, or his knock 
 strikes the door. But if you are Christ's, there 
 is that in your condition which may well miti- 
 gate the fear, as it will ultimately triumph over 
 
328 THE CHEISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 
 
 the power of death. Death comes at Christ's 
 command to call the believer to Himself; and 
 grim and ghastly though be the look of the mes- 
 senger, surely that may well be forgotten in the 
 sweetness of the message he brings. Death comes 
 to set the spirit free ; and rude though be the 
 hand that knocks off the fetters, and painful 
 though be the process of liberation, what need 
 the prisoner care for that, when it is to freedom, 
 life, home, he is about to be emancipated ? Death 
 strikes the hour of the soul's everlasting espou- 
 sals, and though the sound may be a harsh one, 
 what matters that ? To common ear it may seem 
 a death-knell, to the ear of faith it is a bridal 
 peal. "Now," may the fainting passing soul re- 
 flect, "now my Lord is coming, I go to meet 
 Him to be with Jesus to dwell with Him in 
 everlasting light and love to be severed from 
 Him no more for ever : Death, lead thou me 
 on !" Or, if frail nature should faint and fail in 
 that awful hour, surely this may be its strong 
 consolation, the thought that even in the article 
 of dissolution, He to whom the soul belongs is 
 near and close beside it, to sustain the fortitude 
 
THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE. 329 
 
 of His servant, and shield him in the last alarms. 
 " The night falls dark upon my spirit; I tremble 
 to go forth into that awful mystery and gloom : 
 help, Lord, for my spirit faileth," is this the 
 cry of its passing anguish ? " Fear not" will be 
 the sweet response that falls upon the inner ear 
 " Fear not, I am with thee ; the night is far 
 spent, the day is at hand ; a little moment, and 
 the shadows shall flee away for ever!" "0 
 Death !" may not then the dying saint, rising in- 
 to the magnanimity of his glorious faith, ex- 
 claim " Death, I fear thee not : I am not 
 thine, but thou art mine ! Thanks be to God 
 that giveth me the victory through Jesus Christ 
 my Lord !" 
 
Clje ^im^licttji of Christian: Ritual. 
 
 " Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine 
 service." HEB. ix. 1. 
 
 v n THE lan g ua e of si g n or symbol 
 
 . A.J . , 
 
 enters very largely into all the 
 affairs of life. It is not by articulate speech 
 alone that the inner experiences of the mind are 
 expressed or communicated to others ; it is not 
 in words only that we garner up for our own or 
 other's use the fleeting phenomena of thought 
 and feeling ; there is a silent language of look 
 and tone and gesture, which, as it is the earliest, 
 is also the most vivid and impressive, medium 
 of mind. The human spirit craves and finds 
 embodiment for its impalpable, evanescent ideas 
 and emotions, not merely in sounds that die 
 away upon the ear, but in acts and observances 
 that arrest the eye, and stamp themselves upon 
 the memory, or in shapes and forms and sym- 
 bols that possess a material and palpable con- 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 331 
 
 tinuity. Nor, with all the advantages which, 
 by reason of its greater compass and flexibility, 
 spoken language possesses as an instrument for 
 the communication of thought, can it be ques- 
 tioned that in some respects it is inferior in force 
 and intelligibleness to the unuttered language of 
 symbol or sign. 
 
 The superiority of sign or symbol as a vehicle 
 of thought is in some sort implied in the very 
 fact that it is the language of nature, the first 
 which man learns, or rather which, with instinc- 
 tive and universal intelligence, he employs. 
 Long ere the infant can make use of conven- 
 tional speech, it receives and reciprocates intelli- 
 gence. It discerns the intimations of thought 
 and feeling in the mother's face; and by the 
 responsive smile or tear by the bright or be- 
 clouded face by the clinging embrace or the 
 cry of alarm by the restless, ever-varying play 
 of expression, motion, gesticulation it indicates 
 the possession of a most copious, though in- 
 artificial exponent of mind. Betwixt the sign 
 and the thing signified there is, in this case, a 
 mysterious connection, deeply wrought into the 
 
332 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 very elements of our being, so that nowhere can 
 the man be found to whom the gleaming coun- 
 tenance is not significant of joy and the trem- 
 bling lip and tearful eye of grief, or to whom the 
 manifold and subtle varieties of expression that 
 flit over the human countenance and form are 
 devoid of meaning. On the other hand, with 
 but rare exceptions, the connection between 
 words and the objects they represent is purely 
 arbitrary, insomuch that it is only by conven- 
 tional usage and artificial education that the in- 
 struction conveyed by words becomes intelligible 
 to the auditor. 
 
 There is something, again, in a visible and 
 tangible sign, or in a significant or symbolic act, 
 which, by its very nature, appeals more impres- 
 sively to the mind than mere vocables that 
 vibrate for a moment on the organ of hearing 
 and then pass away. Embody thought in a 
 material representation or memorial, and it stands 
 before you with a distinct and palpable con- 
 tinuity ; it can become the object of prolonged 
 contemplation ; it is permanently embalmed to 
 the senses. Hence, when any feeling or senti- 
 
CHRISTIAN KIT UAL. 
 
 inent such, for instance, as that of regret or 
 veneration for the dead takes strong hold of 
 the mind, there is a disinclination to rest satis- 
 fied with a mere verbal expression, or even 
 written record, of the greatness we honor a 
 tendency to project and stereotype the inward 
 feeling in some visible and enduring material 
 form to set up some palpable outward memorial 
 in which thought and affection may see them- 
 selves reflected. Hence, too, the innumerable 
 cases in which we seek, by forms and observ- 
 ances, to give external ratification and signifi- 
 cance to the events and transactions of life. 
 The coronation of the monarch, and the cere- 
 monials generally attendant on investure in office 
 or dignity, the forms and solemnities that ac- 
 company the passing of laws, the administration 
 of justice, the sale and acquisition of lands, the 
 badges of knighthood and other social honors, 
 the rites and festivities of marriage, the gloomy 
 attire and solemn pomp of the burial of the dead 
 these are some of the many instances in which 
 actions and events are deemed incomplete till 
 the mind has satisfied its craving to externalise 
 
334 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 its thoughts and feelings in some palpable mate- 
 rial type or symbol. 
 
 Moreover, it deserves to be considered that 
 the language of symbol lies nearer to thought 
 than that of verbal expression. Words are in 
 great part but the representatives of symbols. 
 It is only by signs and analogies drawn from 
 the material world that the invisible experiences 
 of our minds can be communicated to others. 
 As no man can look into another's mind and 
 have direct cognisance of another's thoughts, we 
 can only convey to others what is passing in 
 our own minds, by selecting and pointing out 
 some object or phenomenon of the outward 
 world that bears an analogy to the thought or 
 feeling within our breasts. An arbitrary sound 
 or word or name could never convey to another 
 the thought or conception, the feeling or fancy, 
 of which I am conscious. But God has con- 
 structed this wondrous material world of beauty 
 and order in which we dwell, replete with re- 
 semblances, analogies, types of the inner world 
 of thought. And so, in the effort to make 
 others comprehend our mental experiences, we 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 335 
 
 have only to turn at any moment to nature in 
 order to find in some one of her many aspects, 
 processes, movements, the desired type or rep- 
 resentation of our inner mental state. All na- 
 ture is to the soul a vocabulary of symbols, a 
 ready-prepared repository of signs by which it 
 may tell forth its inward consciousness to 
 others. And so all language descriptive of 
 mental states and experiences is universally ac- 
 knowledged to be, in its origin, metaphorical, 
 and to derive its force and expressiveness from 
 the fact that it summons up to the mind the 
 phenomena of the visible world as symbols of 
 thought. And if further proof of the utility 
 and importance of symbol were wanting, it 
 might be found in the fact that all Nature is 
 but one grand symbol by which God shadows 
 forth His own invisible Being and character, 
 and that the chief glory of Nature lies not in 
 her vastness or her order in the beauty and 
 grandeur of her forms, or the exquisite harmony 
 of her adaptations but in this, that rock and 
 stream and star and sea, the gleam of her sun- 
 shine and the gloom and mystery of her night, 
 
THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 the voice of her waters and the silent majesty 
 of her hills all her mute and material and all 
 her animate creatures alike, are but types and 
 symbols of the invisible and eternal glory of 
 Him concerning whom " day unto day uttereth 
 speech, and night unto night teacheth knowl- 
 edge." 
 
 The principle on which symbolic language 
 depends being thus deeply seated in man's 
 nature, it might be anticipated that its influence 
 would be apparent in that religion which is so 
 marvellously adapted to his sympathies and 
 wants. Entering deeply into nature and life, 
 associated with our tenderest and holiest earthly 
 relationships, the vehicle of our noblest senti- 
 ments of human affection, gratitude, veneration, 
 it is natural to conclude that the voiceless lan- 
 guage of sign and symbol will play no unimpor- 
 tant part in our religious life. But when, with 
 these views, we turn to that religious economy 
 under which we live, by nothing are we so 
 much struck as by the simplicity of its external 
 worship the scantiness, unobtrusiveness, and 
 seeming poverty of its ritual observances. And 
 
CHRISTIAN KITUAL. 337 
 
 this absence of symbol in the Christian worship 
 becomes all the more singular when contrasted 
 with the sensuous beauty and splendor of the 
 heathen religions amidst which Christianity was 
 developed, and with the imposing ceremonial, 
 the elaborate symbolism, of that earlier dispen- 
 sation from which it took its rise. Not unnat- 
 ural would it have been for a heathen or a Jew- 
 ish mind to be repelled by the apparent baldness 
 and tanieness of the Christian ritual ; not 
 strange, if, seated at the communion table 
 where a few Christian friends had met with the 
 quiet informality of a common meal to partake 
 of the elements of that simplest of festivals, the 
 mind of the primitive convert had sometimes 
 recurred with a feeling of wistfulness to the 
 days when, in temples vast and spacious, and 
 resplendent with the rarest efforts of the paint- 
 er's and sculptor's art, he had mingled with the 
 throng of awestruck worshippers, gazed upon 
 the gorgeous procession of white-robed priests 
 or virgins, or felt his soul thrilled with emotion 
 when, amidst lamps and incense and garlands 
 and music, the bleeding victim yielded up its 
 
 Caird. 
 
338 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 life upon the altar. A religion without priest, 
 without altar, without temple whose places of 
 assembly were the rude upper-chamber, the 
 mountain-side, or the sea-shore whose most 
 sacred mysteries involved no act more imposing 
 than the breaking of bread or the washing of 
 the person with water must have appeared 
 poor and unimposing to many a superficial ob- 
 server who could recall the outward magnifi- 
 cence, the splendid vestments, the golden lamps, 
 the ever-burning altar, the pealing multitudinous 
 music, the awestruck prostrations, the mysteri- 
 ous shrine the whole sumptuous symbolism of 
 that ritual which had passed away. But in all 
 such regrets the observer w^ould have erred. 
 The outward impressiveness and material splen- 
 dor of the ancient religion, " the ordinances of 
 divine service and worldly sanctuary" of the 
 "first covenant," were in reality but indi- 
 cations of imperfection and weakness. The 
 ceremonial plainness, the literal, unsymbolic 
 character of the new economy, is the exponent 
 of its true dignity and glory. And just as we 
 know that the student of history in our own 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 339 
 
 day would greatly err, who, captivated by the 
 barbaric splendor of feudal times by the show 
 and spectacle, the jousts and tournaments and 
 warlike pageants by the gallantry and gaiety 
 and glitter of an age long past, should fail to 
 perceive that all these were but the signs of an 
 imperfect and undeveloped civilisation so would 
 it be in the case before us. As the prosaic 
 simplicity and unimposing quietness of our 
 modern life is an indication of social progress 
 and not of retrogression, so the comparative 
 tameness and unimpressiveness of the Christian 
 ritual is only a proof that the period of religious 
 immaturity, the spiritual age of chivalry, so to 
 speak, has passed away, and that we have 
 reached a higher and more developed epoch of 
 man's spiritual history. Accordingly, it is this 
 thought which I shall now endeavor a little more 
 fully to illustrate suggesting to you various 
 considerations in support of the doctrine that 
 the simplicity of the Christian ritual is the ex- 
 ponent of an advanced, and not of a retrograde, 
 condition of the Church. 
 
340 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 I. The simplicity of worship in the Christian 
 Church is a sign of spiritual advancement, inas- 
 much as it arises, in some measure, from the 
 fact, that the gospel rites are commemorative, 
 ivhilst those of the former dispensation ivere anti- 
 cipative. 
 
 To depict the unknown, a much more elabo- 
 rate representation is needed than merely to re- 
 call the known. To reproduce in the mind the 
 idea of a former friend, or to revive the thought 
 of an event with which we are conversant, is 
 obviously a simpler and easier process than to 
 portray the aspect and character of a stranger, 
 or to convey to us an adequate conception of 
 scenes and incidents with which we are alto- 
 gether unacquainted. If I wish to give you a 
 correct notion of the person and manner of one 
 whom you have never seen, I must submit to 
 you, not a mere outline, or hint, or imperfect 
 sketch, but a carefully-drawn portrait, or a full, 
 minute, detailed account of him. But if I only 
 desire to revive in your imagination the idea of 
 some old and once familiar friend, no such ela- 
 borate process is needed : all that is required is 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 341 
 
 merely hints for thought, incentives to the 
 mind's own power of reminiscence. The rudest 
 outline nay, a name, a word, some trifling ob- 
 ject associated with him, is in this case enough ; 
 the mind itself does all the rest. And the eye 
 no sooner rests upon the suggestive memorial 
 the locket, the book, the slight article of attire 
 than instantly there rises up before you the old 
 familiar form, the look, the smile, the gait, the 
 tones of the voice, the thousand treasured de- 
 tails that constitute our conception of the man. 
 Now, analogous to this is the distinction be- 
 tween the ritual of Judaism and that of Chris- 
 tianity. The former partakes in some measure 
 of the character of an elaborate portrait or de- 
 lineation intended for strangers, the latter of 
 mere hints and suggestions for friends. To the 
 Hebrew in ancient times Christ was a Being of 
 whose person and character and work he had 
 but the most vague and undefined conceptions ; 
 to the Christian worshipper He is no shadowy 
 dream of the future, no vague and visionary per- 
 sonage of a distant age, but the dearest, most 
 intimate, best beloved of friends, whose beauti- 
 
342 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 ful life stands forth before the mind with all the 
 distinctness of history whose glorious person 
 and mission is the treasured and familiar con- 
 templation of his secret thoughts. The former, 
 accordingly, needed all the elaborate formality 
 of type and ceremony, of temple and altar and 
 sacrifice of symbolic persons and objects and 
 actions, to help out his idea of the Messiah and 
 of His mighty mission. But to enable the lat- 
 ter to recall his Lord, no more is required than 
 a few drops of water, a bit of broken bread, or a 
 cup of wine. Around these simplest outward 
 memorials, a host of thoughts, reflections, re- 
 membrances, are ready to gather. Deity Incar- 
 nate, Infinite Self-sacrifice, Reconciliation with 
 God, Pardon, Purity, Peace, Eternal Life 
 through the blood of Jesus, union with Christ, 
 and in Him with all good and holy beings, 
 these are some of the great Christian ideas al- 
 ready lodged in each devout worshipper's mind, 
 and which awake at the suggestive touch of the 
 sacramental symbols to invest them with a value 
 altogether incommensurate with their outward 
 worth. The very simplicity of these material 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 343 
 
 symbols implies that the senses have less and 
 the mind far more to do in^the process of spirit- 
 ual conception than in a system of more impos- 
 ing and obtrusive materialism. In the latter 
 case the mind, relying on the aid of forms and 
 facts, could scarce proceed a step without them ; 
 in the former, facts but touch the spring, give 
 the impulse to thought, and the full mind in- 
 stantly loses hold of them, and passes on into 
 the realm of spiritual reflection, independent of 
 their aid. It is here in some respects as in the 
 study of nature by the scientific observer. The 
 mind that is already informed by the knowledge 
 of great principles and laws, needs no grand and 
 imposing phenomena, no illustration on a large 
 scale, to suggest to it their presence and opera- 
 tion. The fall of a stone is as significant of gra- 
 vitation as the revolution of a planet ; the print 
 of a foot deciphered on a rock is enough to re- 
 vive to the imagination an ancient and extinct 
 world ; and the form and structure of a wayside 
 weed, or the colors that glisten in the dewdrop 
 that trembles on its leaf, are replete with indi- 
 cations of grand laws of color and symmetry 
 
344 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 that pervade the universe. In like manner, it 
 is the very glory of the Christian economy that 
 its symbolic forms are so slight and inelaborate ; 
 for this very fact indicates that they are pre- 
 pared for minds to which their use lies only in 
 their suggestiveness minds already imbued 
 with spiritual principles and laws, of which 
 the simplest outer forms serve as illustrations 
 and remembrancers equally with the most im- 
 posing. 
 
 II. The simple and unimposing character of 
 the Christian ritual is an indication of spiritual 
 advancement again, inasmuch as it arises from 
 the fact, that whilst the rights of Judaism were 
 mainly disciplinary, those of Christianity are spon- 
 taneous and expressive. In the old dispensation, 
 ritual observances constituted an elaborate mech- 
 anism for the awakening of religious thought 
 and feeling ; in the new economy, they are the 
 actual and voluntary manifestation of religious 
 thought and feeling already existing. They 
 were mere machinery in the former case ; in the 
 latter they are instinct with spirit and life : and 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 345 
 
 therefore the very elaborateness of the ancient 
 ritual is the exponent of its inferiority ; the un- 
 obtrusive simplicity of the modern, the sign of 
 its true glory. 
 
 For it is obvious that the most elaborate 
 achievements of art ever fall short in value and 
 dignity of the simplest manifestations of life. It 
 is possible, indeed, for artificial training in its ap- 
 parent results greatly to surpass natural gifts. 
 Acquired accomplishments may sometimes seem 
 to a superficial eye to excel original powers the 
 performances of a mere educational drill or dis- 
 cipline in their imposing exactness and elabor- 
 ateness to be superior to the free and simple 
 efforts of genius. By pouring glass into a mould, 
 you may produce forms far more exact and sym- 
 metrical in appearance than that of the living 
 crystal, which, from the nucleus within, works 
 out its rough and careless natural beauty. By 
 the pruning-knife and rigid training you may 
 force the trees of a plantation into shapes and 
 proportions far more exact, orderly, obedient to 
 definite laws of form, than nature ever spon- 
 taneously manifests. But in either case, who 
 
 15* 
 
346 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 would hesitate to pronounce the inexact and 
 seemingly rude results of life working from 
 within to be infinitely more noble than the most 
 elegant and methodical effects .of art imposed 
 from without. So, again, by dint of constant 
 training a person of but slight natural taste for 
 music may acquire a certain superficial facility 
 in musical performances a mechanical ease, 
 rapidity, and exactness far surpassing that of 
 uninstructed natural genius; but the slightest 
 air sung with native taste and feeling nay, the 
 irregular, wild, instinctive melody that wakes the 
 woodland echoes, is, in its untaught simplicity, 
 essentially superior to all the achievements of a 
 mere artificial discipline. 
 
 Now, these analogies may elucidate, in some 
 measure, the comparative worth of the Jewish 
 and Christian ritual; for the former partakes 
 very much of the character of an artificial dis- 
 cipline, the latter of a life projecting itself spon- 
 taneously in outward forms. 
 
 In the infancy of nations, as of individuals, 
 the imagination is ever more active than the in- 
 tellect, and the impressions conveyed through 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 347 
 
 'the senses deeper and more abiding than those 
 which can be produced by any direct appeal to 
 the understanding. The immature mind thinks 
 in images. Abstract truth has no hold upon it. 
 Illustrations are more intelligible than arguments. 
 To a race such as that for which the institutions 
 of the Ceremonial Law were prepared, a religion 
 of thought a spiritual system in which intel- 
 lectual teaching and mental exercise held a 
 prominent place would have been utterly inap- 
 propriate. It would have been as much lost up- 
 on them as would be the literature and laws of 
 England, if attempted to be introduced whole- 
 sale .amongst savages. Accordingly, a religious 
 economy was devised, in which truth was elabo- 
 rately presented in a concrete form, and spiritual 
 lessons were lodged in material objects and ac- 
 tions. The ritual of Judaism was not the spon- 
 taneous creation of the religious thought and 
 feeling of the worshippers. Altogether above 
 their inventive powers, it was contrived and ob- 
 truded upon them in all its completeness from 
 without, a ready-made system of religious syn> 
 bols and exercises, to bring down truth to babes. 
 
348 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 The idea of God was embodied to the senses in 
 a visible temple of His holiness in an awful 
 shrine or sanctuary, fenced off from curious gaze 
 and unhallowed step. The notion of a Divine 
 Order pervading human life was lodged in regu- 
 lations for food and dress, distinctions between 
 things clean and unclean, minute prescriptions 
 and rules for all the varied relations and exi- 
 gencies of social existence. The conceptions of 
 sin, guilt, penitence, prayer, of atonement, par- 
 don, purity, self-devotion, were forced on the 
 senses, and drilled into minds otherwise incapa- 
 ble of rising to them, by laws of ceremonial ex- 
 clusion, priests, costly sacrifices, sprinklings, lus- 
 trations by the life's blood of victims dyeing 
 the altar, or borne by priestly hands into the 
 awful presence of the Deity by the mysterious 
 flight of the sin-burdened scapegoat into a region 
 of darkness and forgetfulness, from whence it 
 could return no more. Without these and other 
 manifold aids to thought, spiritual ideas, to such 
 a race, would have been unattainable. But by 
 such material devices, all life became, as it were, 
 saturated with religious suggestions. The Jew 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 349 
 
 could not eat or drink, or dress, or sow, or reap, 
 or buy, or sell, arrange his household, hold inter- 
 course with neighbor or friend, perform any one 
 function of individual or social life, without be- 
 ing met by restrictions, forms, observances, 
 which forced religious impression upon him, and, 
 in combination with the more solemn ceremonial 
 of the temple, left a constant deposit of spiritual 
 thought upon the mind, and drilled the wor- 
 shipper into religious habits. The entire ritual 
 of Judaism was, therefore, essentially artificial. 
 
 In a more spiritual and reflective age, on the 
 other hand, in which the spiritual perceptions 
 have become developed, and the mind has be- 
 come receptive of direct religious instruction, 
 such sensible helps to the formation of thought 
 are no longer necessary. The mind in which 
 truth has become an intuition needs no longer 
 to spell out its convictions by the aid of a pic- 
 ture-book. The avenue of spirit thrown open 
 to the worshipper, he no more requires to climb 
 slowly up to the presence-chamber of the king 
 by the circuitous route of sense. But if ritual 
 may in such an age be dispensed with in great 
 
350 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 measure as a means of instruction, it still per- 
 forms an important function as a means of ex- 
 pression. No longer necessary as a mould for 
 the shaping of thought, it has still its use as a 
 form in which religious thought and feeling may 
 find vent. If the necessity for a visible temple 
 and sanctuary to symbolise God's residence with 
 man has ceased, now that He who is "the 
 brightness of the Father's glory and the express 
 image of his person," the perfect symbol of the 
 Divine has dwelt among us, if to prompt our 
 minds in conceiving of sin and sacrifice, no 
 scenic show of victims slain and life's blood 
 drenching earthly altars be needed, now that 
 the stainless, sinless, all-holy One hath once for 
 all offered up the sacrifice of a perfect life to 
 God still there is in the Christian heart the 
 demand for outward forms and rites to embody 
 the reverence, the gratitude, the devotion, the 
 love of which it is inwardly conscious. The 
 soul, in its relation to an unseen Father, still 
 craves for some outer medium of expression that 
 shall give form to feeling that shall tell forth 
 its devotion to the heavenly Friend as the smile, 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 351 
 
 the look, the grasp of the hand, the meeting at 
 the festive board, the gifts and tokens of affec- 
 tion, externalise and express our sentiments to- 
 wards those we love on earth. 
 
 But in this case it is obvious that no elaborate 
 system of prescribed rites and symbols is possi- 
 ble. The Very nobleness of the use to which 
 ritual is devoted in the new economy, precludes 
 all but the most general authoritative regula- 
 tions. In Judaism it was necessary that all 
 should be prescribed ; in Christianity, almost 
 everything must be left to the discretion of the 
 Church. There the lawgiver must do every- 
 thing ; here he can do little or nothing. For 
 when symbols are meant to teach, it were as ab- 
 surd to leave anything to be determined by the 
 worshipper as to permit a child to direct his own 
 education. But you cannot so regulate the way 
 in which a man shall express his sentiments and 
 feelings. Nature and character are spontaneous; 
 they will not take any form, utter themselves 
 through any exact and inflexible mode of ex- 
 pression which may be furnished them from 
 without. Who can love by rule, manifest sor- 
 
352 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 row by stereotyped gestures, indicate gratitude 
 or admiration by adopting looks and postures 
 authoritatively prescribed ? Try to make a man 
 do so, and instead of helping, you will cramp 
 and vitiate his feelings, and by the effort to 
 force consciousness into one special mould or 
 shape, kill the life you mean to cultivate. In 
 attempting to work up feeling into another's 
 forms, a man would end by ceasing to feel, or 
 by becoming a hypocrite and formalist. The 
 reality of life is manifested by nothing so much 
 as by the endless variety of its outward devel- 
 opments. Every herb of the field has its own 
 individuality of form ; every acorn enfolds a dif- 
 ferent oak. Attempting to construct some out- 
 ward framework of uniformity for nature, and 
 the latitudinarian oaks and elms, the informal 
 lilies of the field and fowls of the air, will 
 breathe forth their protest in beauty, and sound 
 it out in song. And how shall the nobler life 
 of the soul be constrained into uniformity? How 
 shall human spirits, each endowed with a sepa- 
 rate will and an individual character, adopt one 
 measured routine of expression, without crush- 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 353 
 
 ing that very nature whose life is freedom ? 
 The general principles of religion, the essential 
 elements of Christian life, are indeed the same 
 in all men ; and so, in outline, it is possible to 
 anticipate and regulate the forms in which the 
 common life of the Church shall find expression. 
 But all such regulations, it is evident, must be 
 of the most simple and general character not 
 descending to the minutiae which the individual 
 genius of nations and communities may effect, 
 but keeping to the broad platform of the com- 
 mon uses and needs of humanity. And the 
 conclusion to which, from this argument, we 
 are led is obviously this, that the glory of our 
 Christian ritual lies in its very simplicity. For 
 the manifestation of our common life in God, and 
 of our common faith in Christ, the mind craves 
 some outward badge or symbol ; and so, in gra- 
 cious condescension to our needs, our Lord has 
 instituted the two sacramental rites ; but even 
 these He has prescribed but in outline, leaving 
 nil accessories to be filled in, as the varied needs 
 of his people, in different times and places and 
 circumstances, should dictate. The common 
 
354 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 heart of the Church, in all lands and ages, shall 
 ever crave a medium of intercourse with its 
 Lord, and so the ordinance of common prayer 
 has been instituted ; the universal and spon- 
 taneous voice of the soul's gratitude and adora- 
 tion and love as universal as the emotions 
 themselves is song ; and so, for the outflow of 
 its devotions, the channel of common praise has 
 been provided. But forasmuch as not more 
 various are the languages and idioms of the 
 nations and races into which the human family 
 is divided, than the modes of utterance through 
 which the spirit of humanity in different regions 
 and ages spontaneously expresses itself foras- 
 much as the tones of the human voice are not 
 more endlessly diversified than are inflexions of 
 the mind and heart, in giving vent to the same 
 thoughts and sentiments so our gracious Lord, 
 in His loving wisdom, hath prescribed no one 
 form of speech or song, no one inflexible lan- 
 guage of worship, for His church on earth. And 
 in this lies the very grandeur of its worship, 
 that in the " chartered freedom" of our Christian 
 ritual, each nation and community, each sepa- 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 355 
 
 rate society and church and individual, lifting up 
 its own note of adoration, all are found to blend 
 in the one accordant anthem, the one manifold 
 yet harmonious tribute of the Universal Church's 
 praise. 
 
 I conclude this discourse by the remark, that 
 the simplicity of the Christian rites serves as a 
 safeguard against those obvious dangers which 
 are incident to all ritual worship. 
 
 The chief of these is the tendency in the un~ 
 spiritual mind to stop short at the symbol in 
 other words, to transfer to the visible sign feel- 
 ings appropriate only to the things signified, or 
 to rest content with the performance of outward 
 ceremonial acts, apart from the exercise of those 
 devout feelings which lend to such acts any real 
 value. Even in our common experience there 
 is a strong propensity in the mind to invest 
 significant objects and acts with the feelings due 
 only to the realities, material or spiritual, which 
 they represent. Our associations cling to the 
 visible symbol of what is desirable or good, till 
 it becomes in itself more precious to us than that 
 
356 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 which at first gave it all its value. To take the 
 most flagrant instance we know that money 
 has no value, except as the conventional repre- 
 sentative of things which gratify our natural 
 desires. But money, desired and loved at first 
 for the sake of other things, intercepts by de- 
 grees the attachment of which it has been the 
 medium, and becomes an ultimate object of de- 
 sire and love in itself. The passion of avarice, 
 however demonstrably irrational, is one against 
 which reason is impotent. By the slow deposit 
 of pleasurable associations on a false basis, it 
 consolidates into a principle of action so potent 
 that the enjoyments of life are one by one sacri- 
 ficed for that which is but their worthless repre- 
 sentative. If you could dispense, in whole or 
 in part, with the symbol, the passion that is 
 based upon it would be no longer possible. If 
 society could conduct its commerce without the 
 intervention of arbitrary signs of value, no room 
 would be left for the foolish substitution which 
 the vice of avarice implies. Realities alone would 
 be regarded as important; fictitious symbols 
 would cease to have any place in our regard. 
 
CHRISTIAN KITUAL. 357 
 
 Now this tendency of the mind operates still 
 more fatally in our spiritual experience. The 
 signs of spiritual realities are even more apt 
 than those of temporal to arrest and absorb the 
 sentiments due to the things signified. A re- 
 ligion in which ritual holds a prominent place is 
 notoriously liable to degenerate into formalism. 
 The feelings of awe and reverence for unseen 
 and spiritual objects, coming often at the sug- 
 gestive call of the sacred symbol, gradually 
 transfer themselves to that with which they 
 have been associated. The invisible good is 
 less and less remembered. To the religious 
 miser the mere showy counters become gradu- 
 ally all in all, and he learns to content himself 
 with the ring and glitter of the worthless sign, 
 to the utter abnegation of the blessings for which 
 it stands. And this propensity acts with greater 
 force in religion, from the fact that the things 
 represented or symbolised are not, as in our 
 secular experience, in themselves palpable and 
 agreeable. The pleasures which money repre- 
 sents are mainly pleasures cognisable by the 
 senses, and for which we have strong natural 
 
358 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 desires. The objects represented by religious 
 signs, on the other hand, are invisible, immate- 
 rial, requiring an effort of mind to summon them 
 up an effort which it is the less disposed to 
 make that they are also objects which, to the 
 defective nature of man, are not naturally and 
 inherently attractive. If, therefore, the in- 
 clination of the mind to drop the reality and 
 cling to the representative be strong in any 
 case, it must be especially potent here. It 
 is easy to employ the sacramental sign of 
 purity ; it is far from easy to bring the mind 
 and heart into contact with the hallowing in- 
 fluences which it represents. It costs no effort 
 to receive the emblems of a dying Saviour; 
 to multitudes it is an irksome task to raise the 
 thoughts and affections into communion with 
 an unseen Lord. To bend the knee with ex- 
 ternal decorum, or to send forth from the lip 
 mechanical sounds and intonations, is an act 
 which calls for scarcely any mental exertion ; 
 but it demands the strenuous upgathering of all 
 our inward energies in order to pray with the 
 spirit, or to offer up the true inner melody of 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 359 
 
 adoring gratitude and love to God. The worldly 
 and uninspiritual mind is ready to avail itself of 
 any excuse for evading the task of spiritual 
 worship, and an excuse is too readily accessible 
 in the decorous observance of its external forms. 
 The tendency of multitudes even in the case of 
 the simplest ritual, 'and much more where ritual 
 is obtrusive and elaborate, is to make the visi- 
 bilities of worship the whole of it. The little 
 measure of devotion they possess is expended 
 on the mere machinery through which devotion 
 acts. The spirit's wing, too feeble to bear it up 
 to the empyrean heights of holy faith and love, 
 flutters in the mere atmosphere of form. Con- 
 science, ill at ease without some semblance of 
 religion, is cheaply pacified by a respectful at- 
 tention to its material accompaniments ; and 
 the more numerous and elaborate such accom- 
 paniments, the more satisfactory the bribe. The 
 true way to avoid this error is, obviously, to re- 
 move as much as possible its cause. Let there 
 be no arbitrary and needless intervention be- 
 tween the soul of the worshipper and the Divine 
 object of its homage. Let the eye of faith gaze 
 
360 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 on the Invisible through the simplest and purest 
 medium. Deprive it of all excuse to trifle cu- 
 riously with the telescope, instead of using it 
 in order to see. And forasmuch as, to earth- 
 ly worship, formal aids are indispensable, let 
 it ever be remembered that that form is the 
 best which least diverts attention to itself, and 
 best helps the soul to hold fellowship with 
 God. 
 
 Moreover, the danger thus incident to an 
 elaborate ceremonial, of substituting ritual for 
 religion, is increased by the too common ten- 
 dency to mistake aesthetic emotion for religious 
 feeling. It is quite possible, apart from a relig- 
 ion of conscience and spiritual conviction, to get 
 up a sensuous mimicry of pious emotion. As 
 the outer form of a book, its showy binding or 
 fair type, may be admired by many who have 
 neither intelligence nor taste to appreciate its 
 contents ; or, as the fair and noble features and 
 graceful form of man or woman may be beheld 
 with delight by not a few, who are incapable of 
 honoring the still nobler beauty of the mind 
 within so there is that in the mere dress and 
 
CHRISTIAN KIT UAL. 361 
 
 drapery of religion, the arbitrary form and acci- 
 dents of spirituality, which may elicit deep 
 emotion from many a mind that has never felt 
 one throb of true religious feeling of reverence 
 or love for the inner spirit and essence of relig- 
 ion itself. Awe, reverence, rapt contemplation, 
 the kindling of heart and swelling of soul, 
 which the grand objects of faith are adapted to 
 excite, may, in a man of sensitive mind or deli- 
 cate organisation, find a close imitation in the 
 feelings called forth by a tasteful and splendid 
 ceremonial. Beauty, it is true, is not hostile to 
 goodness ; on the contrary, the Beautiful and 
 the Good, ever closely akin, blend ultimately in 
 the one glorious unity of the Divine nature. 
 The highest perception and keenest relish for 
 the Beautiful, therefore, is that which is possible 
 only to the pure and holy mind. Yet there is 
 a lower sensibility to Beauty which is attainable 
 apart from the moral condition of the heart, and 
 which is often felt most keenly by the most un- 
 spiritual and irreligious of men. A refined 
 bodily organisation, a susceptible nervous sys- 
 tem, a strongly emotional temperament, es- 
 
 Calrd. 16 
 
362 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 pecially if these be combined with a mind of 
 some measure of intellectual culture, will render 
 a man extremely sensitive to the beauty of the 
 outer accompaniments of religious worship. The 
 faculties which qualify their possessor for the 
 pleasures of taste which enable him to take 
 delight in art or nature, in poetry or painting or 
 music, in scenic effects or dramatic exhibitions 
 are identical with those which an elaborate 
 and poetic ritual calls into play. And there is, 
 therefore, a semi-sensuous delight in religious 
 worship imposingly conducted, which may be 
 felt by the least conscientious even more than 
 by the sincerely devout. The soul that is de- 
 void of true reverence towards God may be rapt 
 into a spurious elation, while in rich and solemn 
 tones the loud-voiced organ peals forth His 
 praise. The heart that never felt one throb of 
 love to Christ may thrill with an ecstasy of 
 sentimental tenderness, while soft voices, now 
 blending, now dividing, in combined or respon- 
 sive strains, celebrate the glories of redeeming 
 love. And not seldom the most sensual and 
 profligate of men have owned to that strange, 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 363 
 
 undefined, yet delicious feeling of awe and ele- 
 vation that steals over the spirit in some fair 
 adorned temple on which all the resources of art 
 have been lavished where soft light floods the 
 air, and mystic shadows play over pillar and 
 arch and vaulted roof, and the hushed and sol- 
 emn stillness is broken only by the voice of 
 prayer or praise. Christian thought and feeling 
 may indeed appropriate to its own high uses 
 these outer things. All that is noble in taste and 
 beautiful in art it may lay hold of, and, by the 
 inner transforming power of devotion, ennoble and 
 spiritualise. Nay, Religion, in one sense, asserts 
 its right to all that is beautiful and noble and 
 lovely on earth, and by its regal touch confers on 
 earthly things a heavenly dignity. There are 
 ways in which all the treasures of genius, all 
 the creations of poetry, all the resources of art, 
 may be made tributary to the cause of Christ. 
 Still it should never be forgotten that, if largely 
 introduced into the act of religious worship, the 
 refinements of art may become to multitudes, 
 not the means, but the end. Instead of walking 
 by the light you kindle, many, gazing on the 
 
364 THE SIMPLICITY OF 
 
 beauty of the lamp, will stumble in the Chris- 
 tian path. For one that can take hold of the 
 angel's hand, there are multitudes who will con- 
 tent themselves with gazing artistically on the 
 splendor of his vesture. It is easy to admire 
 the sheen of the sapphire throne, while we leave 
 its glorious Occupant unreverenced and unrecog- 
 nised. Banish from the service of God all 
 coarseness and rudeness all that would dis- 
 tract by offending the taste of the worshipper, 
 just as much as all that would disturb by sub- 
 jecting him to bodily discomfort, and you leave 
 the spirit free for its own pure and glorious ex- 
 ercise. But too studiously adorn the sanctuary 
 and its services ; obtrude an artificial beauty on 
 the eye and sense of the worshipper, and you 
 will surely lead to formalism and self-deception. 
 The meretricious attraction of form may bring 
 numbers, but it will not add true strength to 
 the Church. The artistic splendor of ritual 
 may kindle many hearts with emotion, but it 
 will be with unhallowed fire. Better that the 
 world should stay away than join Christ's 
 ranks on false pretences ; better that the hearts 
 
CHRISTIAN RITUAL. 365 
 
 of men should remain utterly cold, than that, 
 warmed by spurious feeling, they should deem 
 themselves inspired by a pure and holy 
 flame. 
 
Comjraratibe Influence of Character 
 Doctrine 
 
 " Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine ; continue in 
 them : fpr, in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and 
 them that hear thee." 1 TIMOTHY, iv. 16. 
 
 IN counselling his friend and fol- 
 lower as to the best method of do- 
 ing good in the sphere of duty allotted to him, 
 the apostle seems here to lay the chief stress, 
 not on doctrine or teaching, but on life or con- 
 duct. " Take heed," is his admonition, not first 
 to what you teach, and then to what you are; 
 not primarily to your verbal instructions, and 
 then to the spirit of your own character and 
 life, but first "to thyself" and then "to the 
 doctrine." And the principle thus enunciated 
 is, it will be easy to see, by no means exclu- 
 sively applicable to ministers, or public teachers 
 and office-bearers in the church. It is, on the 
 contrary, a principle fraught with instruction to 
 all, of whatever standing, whose duty it may be 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 367 
 
 to teach, or admonish, or administer moral and 
 religious guidance to others to every parent, 
 every Sunday-school teacher, nay, to every 
 Christian man who wishes to do good by speak- 
 ing a word of serious import to a brother. For 
 it is nothing less than the broad principle that, 
 in order to do good, the first and great effort 
 must be to be good, that extent and accuracy 
 of religious knowledge, however important, are 
 secondary, as a means of influence, to the moral 
 discipline and culture of our own heart and life. 
 In order to persuade others of the truth as it is* 
 in Jesus, the primary qualification, we are here 
 taught, is to have our own souls thoroughly im- 
 bued with its power. 
 
 In asserting, however, the necessity of per- 
 sonal goodness in the religious instructor, it is 
 not maintained that an irreligious man is ab- 
 solutely disqualified for speaking God's truth, 
 or even for so speaking it as to do some good 
 to others. Both reason and experience are 
 against the notion that it needs great personal 
 piety to be an accurate expositor of the theory 
 of divine truth, or that none but men of very 
 
368 COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 holy lives can be profound theologians, or 
 able preachers. To be versant in a science 
 does not of necessity imply that we must 
 be skilled in the correlative art. Theory and 
 practice, science and art, the knowledge of 
 principles, and the power to apply them, are 
 attainments which depend on totally different 
 faculties, and which may be, and in actual 
 experience very commonly are, dissociated from 
 each other. The able or eloquent writer on the 
 principles of government would not always make 
 the best practical statesman, or the acute ex- 
 pounder of theories in political economy the most 
 sagacious financier. It is possible to know scien- 
 tifically the principles of music without being 
 able to sing a note, to discuss and enforce the 
 principles of grammar and rhetoric, and yet be a 
 feeble speaker or inelegant writer. And the 
 same remark is borne out in the sphere of man's 
 spiritual life. The facts and data being given, a 
 man may play with the terms of theology as 
 with the terms of algebra. There is nothing to 
 hinder a clever reasoner, if he apply his mind to 
 the subject, from working out a doctrine as he 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 369 
 
 would work out a syllogism, from putting a point 
 in theology as happily as a point in philosophy 
 or law, or from throwing the lights of fancy, 
 illustration, eloquence, around any of the high 
 themes of religion as vividly as the clever special 
 pleader around the most secular argument or 
 appeal. The experience of mankind in all ages 
 has shown how possible it is for a man to draw 
 fine fancy-pictures of the beauty of virtue 
 amidst a life that is sadly unfamiliar with her 
 presence, to utter pathetic harangues on charity 
 with a heart of utter selfishness, and to declaim 
 on purity and self-denial, whilst living in sloth 
 and luxurious self-indulgence. The truth of God 
 may thus be studied as a mere intellectual exer- 
 cise, and preached as a feat of rhetorical address, 
 whilst yet the premises of the preacher's high 
 argument are utterly foreign to his own godless 
 experience. Like a sick physician, the preacher 
 may prescribe, perhaps successfully, to others for 
 the disease of which himself is dying. Like the 
 " sounding brass or tinkling cymbal," he may 
 give forth inspiring and animating strains to stir 
 16* 
 
370 COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 the hearts of men, of which himself is but the 
 unconscious medium. 
 
 But whilst it is not denied that sound religious 
 instruction may emanate from a teacher of little 
 personal piety that true and holy words may 
 be spoken by lips untrue and profane, we fall 
 back with not less confidence on the assertion, 
 that an experimental acquaintance with divine 
 truth deep religious earnestness, is the first 
 and grand qualification in the teacher, incom- 
 parably the most powerful means of usefulness, 
 and the surest pledge of success. Truth is in- 
 deed in itself a mighty instrument, whatsoever 
 hand may wield it ; but though its edge may be 
 as keen and its temper as fine in the most un- 
 hallowed as in the holiest hands, in the former 
 it must often prove a weapon unwieldy and in- 
 effective as the warrior's sword in the weakling's 
 grasp. Conveyed as correctly by human lips as 
 by the pages of a book, truth spoken is yet for 
 its influence by no means as independent of the 
 moral make and structure of the living teacher, 
 as truth written of the fabric of the printed page. 
 To be duly effective, truth must not merely fall 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 371 
 
 from the lip, but breathe forth from the life ; it 
 must come, not like incense from the censor that 
 only holds it, but like fragrance, from a flower, 
 exhaling from a nature suffused with it through- 
 out. The doctrines and principles you teach, 
 in order to manifest their inherent efficacy, must 
 be known and reproduced, not in mere logical 
 order and system, like dried specimens of plants 
 in a naturalist's collection, but with the fresh 
 waving fragrance of the living plant or flower 
 pervaded by the vital sap, unfolding to the sun- 
 beams, and fanned by the breezes of heaven. In 
 one word and this is the principle which I wish 
 now to illustrate the first qualification of the 
 religious instructor is, not knowledge, but piety. 
 As a means of moral and religious influence, life 
 should precede doctrine, character be regarded 
 as of even greater importance than verbal teach- 
 ing ; we should have respect to the sequence of 
 the apostle's counsels in the text, " Take heed 
 unto thyself and unto the doctrine." I will ad- 
 duce in the sequel one or two considerations in 
 support of this principle. 
 
372 COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 I. That life is in some respects of prior im- 
 portance to doctrine may be perceived by re- 
 flecting, that life tends very greatly to modify a 
 mans oivn vieivs of doctrine ; in other words, 
 that personal character tinges a man's percep- 
 tions of truth. It is a well-known law of our 
 mental experience that the condition and char- 
 acter of the observing mind greatly modify the 
 knowledge which it receives from outward ob- 
 jects. Whether it be things material or moral, 
 objects of sense or objects of thought, in most 
 cases we perceive according as we are. The same 
 objects may be externally present to a hundred 
 spectators, and yet be practically different to 
 each of them. In surveying the outward world, 
 for instance, we " half create and half perceive ;" 
 and in order to the correctness and completeness 
 of our perception of its varied phenomena, it is 
 necessary, not merely that they be externally 
 presented to us, but that we should " take heed 
 to ourselves," that our powers of perception be 
 in unimpaired, healthy, vigorous action. Every 
 one knows, for example, that the varied colors 
 wherewith the face of the visible earth seems to 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 373 
 
 be clothed, exist not literally in the objects 
 themselves, but owe their splendor to the eye 
 that surveys them. It is only the unknown or 
 occult causes of color that exist in nature ; color 
 itself is in the organism and mind of the observer; 
 and through physical disease or organic defect 
 our perceptions of color may be marred or de- 
 stroyed. The jaundiced eye blanches nature. 
 The peculiar phenomena of color-blindness shows 
 that to many an eye the garniture of beauty which 
 bespreads the green earth is lost ; and without 
 any change on the face of nature, you have only 
 to suppose, in any case, the organ of vision to 
 undergo some strange affection, and instantly 
 the whole aspect of the visible world would be 
 changed ; the splendor would vanish from the 
 grass and the glory from the flower, the purple 
 from the mountain and the azure from the cloud, 
 and all nature present to the spectator but one 
 sombre and unvaried expanse of black or grey. 
 Or if we pass from the mere organism through 
 which man's spirit converses with the outward 
 world to that spirit itself, still more obvious il- 
 lustration have we of the principle before us. 
 
374: COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 It is the state of the inner eye, the condition of 
 that spirit within us which looks out on nature 
 through the loopholes of sense, that makes the 
 world's aspect to be to us what it is. It is the 
 same world which is beheld by the man of deep 
 thoughtfulness and sensibility, and by the dull 
 observer in whom the sense of beauty has never 
 been evoked, and yet how different that world 
 to each ! The former, gifted with a spirit in 
 profound sympathy with nature, and disciplined 
 into exquisite sensibility to her loveliness, dis- 
 cerns and responds to her hidden meaning ; sees 
 behind the outer forms of meadow, wood, and 
 mountain, a presence to which his own spirit 
 thrills, and catches, with instinctive intelligence, 
 as the child the smile or frown on the mother's 
 face, the import of each expression on her ever- 
 varying countenance ; whilst the latter, blind to 
 every " remoter charm or interest unborrowed 
 from the eye," beholds in the same scenes nothing 
 more than a particular disposition of earth and 
 wood and water, which calls forth scarcely any 
 emotion in his mind. And though there may be 
 much of this deeper insight into nature which 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 375 
 
 is to be ascribed to an original and instinctive 
 sensibility, yet it is only by long and careful 
 training, by profound study and self-discipline, 
 that this poetic instinct is developed and ma- 
 tured. It is only, in other words, by " taking 
 heed to himself," that the observer can attain to 
 the true knowledge of nature, and the deepest 
 appreciation of her beauty. 
 
 Now the same law obtains in that higher 
 province to which the text relates. As our per- 
 ceptions of beauty, so our perceptions of moral 
 and spiritual truth are modified by the inner 
 spirit and character of the percipient. Self con- 
 ditions doctrine. A man's own moral state is 
 very much the measure of his moral convictions. 
 The highest spiritual truths lie beyond the range 
 of a soul that is not in harmony with them, and 
 the glimmerings of truth which a defective na- 
 ture gains, take their complexion from its moral 
 tone and spirit. As the loveliest scene on which 
 the eye of man can rest, contains no revelation 
 of beauty to the insensitive and unreflecting ob- 
 server, so the Bible is no revelation of truth to 
 the unspiritual mind. The glorious discoveries 
 
376 COMPAEATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 of divine things on the page of inspiration are 
 lost to the soul in which the moral sense, the 
 vision and faculty divine, is dull or dormant. 
 God is but a name to the mind in which no di- 
 vine instinct, no godly sympathies and aspira- 
 tions, have begun to stir. There can be no true 
 faith in the Incarnation, however logically accu- 
 rate your notions of the person of Christ, until 
 by the intuition of a holy and heavenly heart, 
 you feel Him to be divine. The sacrifice of the 
 Cross, with all the love and tenderness and self- 
 abnegation, the sorrow and anguish, yet joy 
 deeper still than sorrow, that breathes around it, 
 is no mere barren fact or intellectual dogma, of 
 which historic proof or logical demonstration 
 can convince us. For the true apprehension of 
 this there is an essential inaptitude in the sel- 
 fish and unloving spirit; it can be discerned 
 only by the soul in which, however faintly, yet 
 in reality, the pure, loving, self-devoted spirit of 
 Jesus has begun to dwell. 
 
 Moreover, in farther illustration of the thought 
 that self modifies doctrine, consider how notori- 
 ously our opinion in secular matters are affected 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 377 
 
 by our prejudices and passions. Who of us, 
 where personal interest is at stake, can trust 
 with unerring certainty to the conclusions of 
 his own judgment ? Experience proves that 
 agreeable falsehoods are at least as likely to 
 be believed as disagreeable truths. The wish 
 is often father to the thought ; and where any- 
 thing is to be gained or lost by our opinions, 
 the winning side has almost invariably the ma- 
 jority of adherents. With unconscious partial- 
 ity, the attention is withdrawn from the objec- 
 tions, and fixed with all its power of application 
 on the arguments in favor of the foregone 
 conclusion : or, on the other hand, in the con- 
 templation of some obnoxious truth, the focus 
 of observation is instinctively shifted ; proofs 
 are underrated or ignored, whilst every grain 
 of counter-evidence is magnified into impor- 
 tance ; and with such unconscious, yet most 
 damaging defectiveness in the mechanism of 
 judgment, the desired, however erroneous, re- 
 sult is easily arrived at. How generally, 
 again, does party-spirit, education, early or 
 hereditary associations, bias the beliefs of men ! 
 
378 COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 Assail some old and time-hallowed notion, some 
 revered fiction, which has struck deep its roots 
 into the soil of the uncultivated mind, and 
 around which a thousand early and tender asso- 
 ciations have gathered, and your most formid- 
 able arguments will fail to shake it. Endeavor 
 to introduce new opinions, uncongenial to educa- 
 tional or class convictions, and often all the force 
 of truth will in vain be exerted to obtain for 
 them a place in the rugged and reluctant mind. 
 Thus even on the lower ground of secular truth 
 it needs, in the formation of opinion, the rarest 
 candor and self-watchfulness to conduct the pro- 
 cess aright. But this discipline is still more in- 
 dispensable to the religious inquirer. For there 
 are no interests so tremendous as those which 
 are involved in our religious beliefs. In no 
 other province of inquiry are deeper passions 
 stirred, or prejudices, associations, habits, more 
 numerous and inveterate, called into play. The 
 very fundamental and primary truths of religion, 
 the Being of God, the Existence of a Moral 
 Order and a righteous Retribution, the doctrines 
 of Sin, Pardon, Salvation. all involve in their 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 379 
 
 reception or rejection results bearing with over- 
 whelming influence on the present and future 
 interests of the inquirer, all rouse into intense 
 activity hopes, fears, appetites, desires, wishes, 
 anxieties, which it is almost impossible in our 
 investigations to set aside, in order that judg- 
 ment may have scope for calm and undisturbed 
 action. How urgent, then, the necessity for 
 jealous candor and self-control in the study of 
 divine truth. As the observer of the pheno- 
 mena of the material heavens takes pains to per- 
 fect the instrument with which he works, aware 
 that the slightest flaw in the speculum may 
 vitiate his observations ; so ought the contem- 
 plator of that nobler orbed world of truth take 
 heed that the disc of the inner mechanism of 
 conscience be polished from all distorting preju- 
 dice or soil of selfish passion. As the chemist 
 seeks to render his balances exquisitely sensi- 
 tive, and carefully eliminates from his results 
 all variations of temperature or other disturbing 
 elements ; so should the student of divine things 
 strive by God's grace to attain the acuteness and 
 delicacy of a judgment freed from all deflecting 
 
380 COMPAKATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 influences, and poised with an exquisite nicety 
 of discrimination on which not the slightest grain 
 of truth is lost. He should cultivate, in one 
 word, by the discipline of a holy life, a truer 
 than philosophic calmess and candor the calm- 
 ness of a spirit that dwells in habitual com- 
 munion with God, the candor of a mind that has 
 nothing to lose, and every thing to gain, by 
 truth. 
 
 II. In further illustration of the principle that 
 Life or Character comes, in order of importance, 
 before " Doctrine," it is to be considered that 
 Life or Character affects not only a man's own 
 views of truth, but also his power of expressing 
 or communicating truth to others. For if, from 
 any cause, the organ of spiritual perception be 
 impaired or undeveloped in a man's mind, of 
 course he can communicate to others no clearer 
 views than he himself has received. The stream 
 can rise no higher than its source. The medium 
 lends its own defects to the light which passes 
 through it. Transmitted through you, truth will 
 reach other minds in the same scanty measure 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 381 
 
 in which it has entered your own ; it will be- 
 come, in the process of transmission, colored, 
 dimmed, distorted by the defectiveness of the 
 intervening nature. 
 
 It is true, indeed, as has been already said, 
 that we may teach truth mechanically and by 
 hearsay. It is possible for a man to talk above 
 himself, and to convey to others correct formulas 
 of truths that are foreign to his own experience. 
 However weak, faulty, untruthful, in his own 
 character, there is nothing to hinder a man from 
 talking as wise and good as a book. If a 
 worldly-minded parent can read, as easily may 
 he speak, sage and solemn lessons to his chil- 
 dren. An undevout preacher may have no dif- 
 ficulty in getting up the stereotyped phraseology 
 of a religious sect or school, and pouring it forth 
 as glibly as if it were the natural outflow of his 
 own convictions and feelings. Nay, in so far as 
 the mere intellectual and rhetorical part of the 
 process is concerned, it is possible that the un- 
 spiritual man may preach or teach better than 
 the more devout. For the intellectual vigor 
 which, irrespective of personal character, would 
 
382 COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 make a man an able reasoner or talker on poli- 
 tics, or science, or philosophy, does not desert 
 him when he turns to theology. To compare 
 and generalise facts, to evolve principles and 
 laws, to follow out a chain of logical deduction, 
 to trace out the connection and sequence of 
 ideas, and lucidly to express or eloquently to 
 enforce the results of thought, are operations 
 for which there is at least equal scope in things 
 spiritual as in things secular, and the talent for 
 which, therefore, may be as strikingly manifested 
 by the worst as by the best and holiest of 
 mankind. 
 
 But however this may be, there is that in a 
 defective or sinful life which will vitiate the 
 ablest and most eloquent teaching. For besides 
 the consideration that men will be little dis- 
 posed to listen to arguments which have not 
 been cogent enough to reform and regulate the 
 life of him who employs them, it must be re- 
 membered that the teaching which has not its 
 root in personal experience, will lack a certain 
 undefinable yet most potent element, which 
 lends to words their true effectiveness. To 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 383 
 
 exert real power over men's minds and hearts, 
 what you speak must be not only true, but true 
 to you. For the conveyance of thought and 
 feeling from mind to mind is not a process 
 which depends on mere verbal accuracy. Lan- 
 guage is not the only medium through which 
 moral convictions and impressions are trans- 
 mitted from speaker to hearer. There is an- 
 other and more subtle mode of communication, a 
 mysterious moral contagion, by means of which, 
 irrespective of the mere intellectual apparatus 
 employed, the instructor's beliefs and emotions 
 are passed over into the minds of his auditory. 
 Strong conviction has a force of persuasion irre- 
 spective of the mere oral instrument by which 
 it works. Through the rudest forms of speech 
 originality and earnestness make themselves 
 felt, and a sentence of simple earnest talk will 
 sometimes thrill the heart which the most re- 
 fined and labored rhetoric would leave un- 
 touched. But in order to the evolving of this 
 element in the process of instruction, obviously 
 the teacher's own religious nature must be pen- 
 etrated and quickened by the truth he utters. 
 
384 COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 The magnetic force must saturate his own spirit 
 ere it flow out to others in contact with him. 
 No stereotyped orthodoxy, no simulated fervors, 
 however close and clever the imitation, will 
 achieve the magic effects of reality. The 
 preacher may reproduce verbatim the language 
 of the wise and good, copy to the letter the 
 phraseology in which religious thought and feel- 
 ing have been often couched, but so long as 
 they are but the echo of other men's experience, 
 and not the expression of his own, the pro- 
 foundest truths will fall ineffectively from his 
 lips. There will be an unnaturalness and un- 
 reality in the very tone and manner in which he 
 utters them. The words that once, spoken by 
 true and living men, had life and power in 
 them, spoken by him will be spiritless, lifeless, 
 vapid. The rod is not in the magician's hand, 
 and it will not conjure. In other great arts, 
 there is, we know, a strange power which genius 
 and originality confer on their possessor, and 
 which no mere intellectual discipline can com- 
 municate. The poet is born, not made ; and by 
 no literary culture, however elaborate, can the 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 385 
 
 man of mere cleverness, closely as he may echo 
 the poet's style and manner, gain that nameless 
 power to move and thrill and captivate the 
 hearts of men that secret charm of thoughts 
 that breathe, and words that burn, which we 
 recognise in him on whom the true poetic spirit 
 rests. So in that far higher region of thought 
 and feeling with which the preacher of divine 
 truth is conversant, there is a power of reality, 
 an influence over men's minds and hearts, pos- 
 sessed by the man on whom a nobler and loftier 
 than the inspiration of genius rests, and whose 
 own soul is in daily communion with the heav- 
 ens, which no mere intellectual discipline can 
 emulate. Bring your own spirit to the fount 
 of inspiration, live in habitual communion with 
 the infinite Truth and Life, and the words you 
 speak to men, whether rude or refined, will pos- 
 sess a charm, a force, a power to touch their 
 hearts and mould their secret souls, which no 
 words of eloquent conventionality can ever at- 
 tain. There will be an intuitive recognition of 
 the divine fire which has touched your lips. 
 Other teachers may be more able, learned, ac- 
 
386 COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 complished. In apter words, and with more of 
 the logician's or the orator's art, may they dis- 
 course of things divine ; but to them there will 
 be something lacking still. The shape and 
 semblance and color of truth they may display, 
 but it will be as a waxen imitation of the lilies 
 of the field ; the divine aroma will not be there. 
 The movement and play of vital thought and 
 feeling they may contrive to simulate, but it 
 will be but a mimicry after all the galvanising 
 of dead thought, not the free and spontaneous 
 power and grace of living truth. 
 
 III. The only other consideration I shall ad- 
 duce in support of the principle involved in the 
 text is that Life or Character has in many re- 
 spects an influence which direct Teaching or Doc- 
 trine cannot exert. 
 
 Actions, in many ways, teach better than 
 words, and even the most persuasive oral in- 
 struction is greatly vivified when supplemented 
 by the silent teaching of the life. 
 
 Consider, for one thing, that actions are more 
 intelligible than words. All verbal teaching par- 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 387 
 
 takes more or less of the necessary vagueness of 
 language, and its intelligibility is dependent, in 
 a great measure, on the degree of intellectual 
 culture and ability in the mind of the hearer. 
 Ideas, reflections, deductions, distinctions, when 
 presented in words, are liable to misapprehen- 
 sion ; their power is often modified or lost by 
 the obscurity of the medium through which they 
 are conveyed, and the impression produced by 
 them is apt very speedily to vanish from the 
 mind. Many minds are inaccessible to any for- 
 mal teaching that is not of the most elementary 
 character ; and there are comparatively few to 
 whom an illustration is not more intelligible than 
 an argument. 
 
 But whatever the difficulty of understanding 
 words, deeds are almost always intelligible. Let 
 a man not merely speak but act the truth ; let him 
 reveal his soul in the inarticulate speech of an 
 earnest, pure, and truthful life, and this will be a 
 language which the profound est must admire, 
 while the simplest can appreciate. The most 
 elaborate discourse on sanctification will prove 
 tame and ineffective in comparison with the 
 
388 COMPAEATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 eloquence of a humble, holy walk with God. 
 In the spectacle of a penitent soul pouring 
 forth the broken utterance of its contrition at 
 the Saviour's feet, there is a nobler sermon on 
 repentance than eloquent lips ever spoke. 
 Instruct your children in the knowledge of 
 God's great love and mercy, but let them see 
 that love, cheering, animating, hallowing your 
 daily life ; describe to them the divinity and 
 glory of the Saviour's person and work, but let 
 them note how daily you think of Him, hear 
 with what profoundest reverence you name His 
 name, see how the sense of a divine presence 
 sheds a reflected moral beauty around your 
 own and this will be a living and breathing 
 theology to them, without which formal teach- 
 ing will avail but little. Sermons and speeches 
 too, may weary ; they may be listened to with 
 irksomeness, and remembered with effort : but 
 living speech never tires ; it makes no formal 
 demand on the attention, it goes forth in feel- 
 ings and emanations that win their way insen- 
 sibly into the secret depths of the soul. The 
 medium of verbal instruction, moreover, is con- 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 389 
 
 ventional, and it can be understood only where 
 one special form of speech is vernacular, but the 
 language of action and life is instinctive and 
 universal. The living epistle needs no transla- 
 tion to be understood in every country and 
 clime; a noble act of heroism or self-sacrifice 
 speaks to the common heart of humanity; a 
 humble, gentle, holy, Christlike life preaches 
 to the common ear all the world over. There 
 is no speech nor language in which this voice is 
 not heard, and its words go forth to the world's 
 end. 
 
 Consider, again, that the language of the life 
 is more convincing than the language of the lip. 
 It is not ideal or theoretical, it is real and prac- 
 tical ; and whilst theories and doctrines may be 
 disputed, and only involve the learner in inex- 
 tricable confusion, a single unmistakable fact, if 
 you can appeal to it, cuts the knot, and sets dis- 
 cussion at rest. There is, for instance, a secret 
 feeling amongst many who listen to an earnest 
 and high-toned style of instruction, that much 
 of what they hear, however fine and elevated, 
 and proper to be spoken in the pulpit, is far too 
 
390 COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 seraphic to be reduced to practice amidst the 
 plain and prosaic business of life. Exhortations 
 to communion with God, to spirituality, heavenly- 
 mindedness, superiority to the world, its vanities 
 and temptations how often, for any practical 
 purpose, do these fall powerless on men's ears. 
 To a plain man of the world, steeped in its vul- 
 gar cares, struggling with its gross and familiar 
 difficulties and trials, the delineations of the 
 pulpit seem not seldom as if they belonged to a 
 region of pietistic romance, a sort of spiritual 
 dream-land, in which ministers and writers 
 little acquainted with the world permit their 
 pious imagination to revel. The theory is a 
 fine one, they admit, but constituted as poor 
 human nature is, there is this inseparable objec- 
 tion to it, that it will not ivorJc. 
 
 But in this, as in many other cases, experi- 
 ment will be the test of truth. Men may dis- 
 pute your theory of agriculture, and explanation 
 or discussion might only serve to confirm them 
 in their error; but show then}, rugged though 
 be the soil and ungenial the climate, your fair 
 and abundant crops, and objection is silenced. 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 391 
 
 Your system of education may be controverted 
 or contemned as impracticable, but point to the 
 undeniable results of your system in the intelli- 
 gence, worth, high principle of those who, year 
 after year, issue from your schools, and this ar- 
 gument will be unanswerable. The invaluable 
 scientific discovery or project may be met by a 
 thousand objections when first announced, but 
 when it has bridged the ocean, or spread its 
 network of intercommunication over the land, 
 the most sceptical are forced to own their error. 
 So, in the case before us, the ideal of the Chris- 
 tian life, with all its moral elevation and superi- 
 ority, to common motives and principles, may 
 seem to many at best but a beautiful and pious 
 fancy, too delicate and fine-spun for the rough 
 uses of life ; but apply to it the test of experi- 
 ment reduce the ideal to the actual show in 
 positive experience that it is possible to bring 
 the loftiest spiritual motives into contact with 
 the lowliest duties, and your conception of a 
 religious life will be proved beyond dispute. 
 Let not worldly selfishness take refuge in scep- 
 ticism as to the possibility of a life sq pure, sp 
 
392 COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 high-toned, so self-denied. Show that such a 
 life is not only desirable but practicable not 
 merely that it ought to be, but that it can be. 
 Live down doubt. Let men feel, as they be- 
 hold your earnest, sincere, unselfish life, that 
 God, and truth, and duty, and Christ, and im- 
 mortality, are not the mere themes of a preach- 
 er's discourse, the topics of a Sunday meditation, 
 but the real and practical principles and mo- 
 tives of man's working life. So doing you will 
 silence the gainsayer, and the spurious sagacity 
 of the worldly-minded will be completely at fault. 
 Consider, finally, that the teaching of the life 
 is available in many cases in which the teaching of 
 the lip cannot, or ought not, to be attempted. 
 There are many conceivable circumstances in 
 which a man is disqualified from doing good to 
 others by direct instruction or advice. Many, 
 for instance, are incapable of expressing their 
 sentiments clearly and forcibly in words, or are 
 unwilling to peril questions so momentous as 
 those of religion on their own feeble advocacy. 
 Many, again, are unable to overcome a certain 
 instinctive reserve on religious topics, a painful 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 893 
 
 shrinking from the introduction in their inter- 
 course with others of matters so awful and 
 sacred ; and though this is a disposition which 
 may easily be indulged till it has become a false 
 delicacy, a reprehensible remissness or selfish 
 timidity, yet it cannot be denied that it is often 
 the deepest natures that are the calmest and 
 quietest, and the profoundest emotions of the 
 heart that shrink most from outward expression. 
 It is true that " out of the fulness of the heart 
 the mouth speaketh ;" but it is not less true 
 that there are sometimes things we love and 
 reverence so much that we cannot bear to speak 
 of them. And even where no such disqualifica- 
 tions exist on the side of the instructor, there 
 may be that in the temper of the objects of his 
 religious zeal, which would be repelled rather 
 than benefited by formal admonition, or that in 
 their position relatively to him which would 
 render the attitude of the instructor or adviser 
 presumptuous and unbecoming. There are few 
 who can take in good part ghostly counsel or 
 personal reproof. The utterer of unwelcome 
 truth is not always discriminated from the slan- 
 
394 COMPAEATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 derer who delights in it. The bearer of bad 
 news becomes associated in our dislike with the 
 message he brings ; and our pride is wounded 
 all the more by his strictures if the position of 
 the censor lends no authority to his counsels, or 
 positively detracts from their force. 
 
 But in all cases in which formal instruction or 
 advice is precluded, how invaluable that other 
 mode of access to the minds of men on which we 
 are now insisting the silent, unobtrusive, inof- 
 fensive, yet most potent and persuasive teaching 
 of the life. The counsel you may not speak you 
 may yet embody in action. To the faults and 
 sins you cannot notice in words, you may hold 
 up the mirror of a life bright with purity and 
 goodness and grace. The mind which no force 
 of rebuke could drive from sin, may yet be in- 
 sensibly drawn from it by the attractive power 
 of holiness ever acting in its presence. So that 
 " they who obey not the word, may without 
 the word be won by your chaste conversation 
 coupled with fear/' 
 
 Is it, for instance, gross and degrading vice 
 which it pains you to witness in another's life ? 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 395 
 
 Then evade not, through false delicacy, the duty 
 of firm and earnest remonstrance. But if re- 
 monstrance be impossible, there is another and 
 often more potent mode of expostulation ; for 
 there are times when the very look of purity is 
 the keenest of all reproofs. Even from the ma- 
 jestic serenity of material nature there are mo- 
 ments when the perturbed and polluted spirit 
 will avert its troubled glance ; and the bright, 
 happy innocent countenance of a little child, or 
 its air of reverential awe and simplicity as it 
 falters out its evening prayer at a mother's knee, 
 has conveyed to the guilty heart a more over- 
 whelming rebuke than human tongue could utter. 
 Or is it wayward harshness or sullenness of 
 temper that is the prominent defect in one who 
 is dear to you ? Who knows not that words 
 of reproof, however gently administered, would 
 often but add fuel to the fire of such a spirit ? 
 But there is another and more excellent way of 
 admonition, which will seldom, if ever, fail. Re- 
 buke by love, remonstrate by gentleness, preach 
 self-restraint by living it. Exhibit the soften- 
 ing power of Christ's grace not by talking about 
 
396 COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF 
 
 it, but by acting in habitual subjection to it ; by 
 your sweet, gentle, Christ-like temper and bear- 
 ing, by your return of kindness for harshness, by 
 your calm forbearance and unruffled serenity 
 amidst sore provocations and wrongs : and often- 
 times you will find that the spirit whose false 
 pride direct remonstrance would only serve to 
 rouse, will own unconsciously the all-subduing 
 power of love. 
 
 Or is it not so much special faults and sins, 
 as a general indifference to religion, which it 
 grieves you to witness in the character and con- 
 duct of a friend ? Then, in this case too, if rea- 
 soning or remonstrance be possible, let not the 
 painfulness of the task tempt you to cowardly 
 silence. A brother's life is at stake, a brother's 
 step is trembling on the awful brink, and will 
 you not, for his truer good, brave his transient 
 displeasure ? There are times when tenderness 
 is more cruel than harshness reserve more 
 criminal than savage barbarity ; and surely of 
 all such occasions this is the one on which most 
 of all a true friend should feel himself impelled 
 to throw false shame aside, and manfully to speak 
 
CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 397 
 
 out. But here, too, where words may not be 
 spoken, or if spoken, would be uttered in vain, 
 another resource is open to you : preach by the 
 life. Let your daily life be an unuttered yet 
 perpetual pleading with man for God. Let men 
 feel, in contact with you, the grandeur of that 
 religion to whose claims they will not listen, and 
 the glory of .that Saviour whose name you may 
 not name. Let the sacredness of God's slighted 
 law be proclaimed by your uniform sacrifice of 
 inclination to duty, by your repression of every 
 unkind word, your scorn of every undue or base 
 advantage, your stern and uncompromising re- 
 sistance to the temptations of appetite and sense. 
 Preach the preciousness of time by your hus- 
 banding of its rapid hours, and your crowding 
 of its days with duties. Though Eternity with 
 its fast-approaching realities be a forbidden topic 
 to the ear, constrain the unwilling mind to think 
 of it by the spectacle of a life ordered with per- 
 petual reference to hopes and destinies beyond 
 the grave. Though no warning against an un- 
 spiritual, no exhortation to a holy life, might be 
 tolerated, let your own pure, earnest, unworldly 
 
398 CHARACTER AND DOCTRINE. 
 
 character and bearing be to the careless soul a 
 perpetual atmosphere of spirituality haunting 
 and hovering round it. And, be assured, the 
 moral influence of such a life cannot be lost. 
 Like the seed which the wind wafts into hidden 
 glades and forest depths, where no sower's hand 
 could reach to scatter it, the subtle germ of 
 Christ's truth will be borne on the secret atmos- 
 phere of a holy life, into hearts which no 
 preacher's voice could penetrate. Where the 
 tongue of men and of angels would fail, there is 
 an eloquence in living goodness which will often 
 prove persuasive. For it is an inoffensive, un- 
 pretending, unobtrusive eloquence ; it is the 
 eloquence of the soft sunshine when it expands 
 the close-shut leaves and blossoms a rude hand 
 would but tear and crush them. ; it is the elo- 
 quence of the summer heat when it basks upon 
 the thick-ribbed ice blows would but break it ; 
 but beneath that softest, gentlest, yet most po- 
 tent influence, the hard impenetrable masses 
 rnelt away. 
 
 THE END. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Due two weeks after date. 
 
 30m-7,'12 
 

 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY