RECON 
 
 • 1 nil 
 
 University of California. 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 
 
 ■ Received October, i8g4. 
 ^(Cc.^^n'tis No.S~yC 3JL- CLn^ No.^,:: 
 
-/ 1^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 / 
 
SERMONS 
 
 TREACHED BEFORE 
 
 €\)t 2Hm'ber6iti) of d^vforti 
 
K I \' I N G T O N S 
 
 lionlion Waterloo Place 
 
 ©iforti High Street 
 
 CTambriDgc Trinity Street 
 
SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED BEFORE 
 
 Cfte sanfber^ite of ©jrforti^ 
 
 BY H. P. LIDDON, M.A. 
 
 STUDENT OF CHRIST CHL'RCH, AND CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF SALISBUKY. 
 
 THIRD EDITION, REVISED. 
 
 RIVINGTONS, 
 
 ItonKon, ^forU, aniJ Cainbiitise. 
 
 JAMES PARKER & C^*^» 
 
 1869. 
 

 .^~J0 3 2^ 
 
 Das eigentliche, einzige und tic/stc Thcma der M'elt- und Mcnschcngeschichte, dent alle 
 tibrigen untcrgeordiut stud, bleibt dcr Conflict des Unglaubens und G^ubots.— Goethe. 
 
 Dies vetiit, dies Tiia 
 
 In qu& rejlorent omnia : 
 
 Ltxiemur et nos iti %'iam 
 
 TuAreducti de.rierd.—HvMN smc. X>". 
 
TO 
 
 The Rev. WILLIAM. BRIGHT, M.A. 
 
 SENIOR FELLOW AND TUTOR OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD, 
 
 IN AFFECTIONATE ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 OF THE MANY BLESSINGS 
 
 WHICH ARE INSEPARABLY CONNECTED WITH 
 
 HIS FRIENDSHIP AND EXAMPLE. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 T^HE Sermons contained in this volume have 
 little in common with each other beyond a 
 certain apologetic character, such as is suggested 
 by the title ^. At one time the writer had intended 
 to employ the opportunities afforded to him during 
 the course of the last two years, in an attempt to 
 show that some prominent ideas, which, in their 
 application to secular and material interests, form 
 the strength and staple of the system or com- 
 plexion of thought vaguely described as " Liberal- 
 ism," are originally traceable, directly or indirectly, 
 to a Christian source, and are realized by none 
 so completely as by the faithful children of the 
 Church. This intention is here alluded to, in the 
 hope that some one else may be led to consider 
 the subject, and, if expedient, to discuss it in the 
 University pulpit or elsewhere. The Sermons 
 which stand as second and third in this publica- 
 
 ^ " Some Words for God/' prefixed to the First Edition. 
 
y'm Preface to the First Edition. 
 
 tioii are a partial, but only a partial attempt to 
 follow it out. Tlie plan of attempting any thing- 
 like a course of Sermons was abandoned in de- 
 ference to what seemed to be a higher duty in a 
 Christian Preacher, that, namely, of dealing as 
 well as he can with such misapprehensions re- 
 specting truths of faith or morals as he knows to 
 be actually cm'rent among those whom he has to 
 address. 
 
 The reader will bear m mind that this is a 
 volume of Sermons. It makes no pretension to 
 be a volume of Essays. An Essay belongs to 
 general literature : a Sermon is the language of 
 the Church. A Sermon is confined within narrow 
 limits; and its necessarily rhetorical character 
 renders an economical use of its scanty oppor- 
 tunities impossible. Each Sermon must suggest 
 many topics which it cannot afford to discuss. 
 And so far are any Sermons in this volume from 
 professing to deal exhaustively with the subjects 
 of which they treat, that they are purposely 
 restricted to those particular points which hap- 
 pened at the time of their delivery to excite 
 interest or to cause difficulties among persons 
 witli Avhom XSw Preacher was more or less ac- 
 (piainted. Some great omissions will at once 
 occur to every reader. For instance, the real 
 office and capacity of the Moral Sense — as on the 
 
Preface to the First Edition. ix 
 
 one hand predisposing us to faitli in Our Lord, 
 from its perception of the Beauty of His Charac- 
 ter, and as being, on the other, itself educated 
 and controlled by the truths which He authorita- 
 tively discloses to it — is not entered upon in 
 those Sermons which insist upon the claims of 
 dogmatic truth. Again, the connexion between 
 the Atonement and the Eucharist is not men- 
 tioned in the Sermon for Good Friday : although 
 the text of that Sermon might naturally have 
 suggested it, and so precious a truth was by no 
 means forgotten. 
 
 Among sources to which the writer owes ideas 
 or illustrations, for which his obligations are not 
 already acknowledged, he desires to mention the 
 Bishop of Oxford, two or three volumes of Felix's 
 Conferences^ and Schleiermacher's Fredigten. Of 
 the Sermons themselves two have already ap- 
 peared in a separate form ; and the few alterations 
 which have been made in them before republica- 
 tion are confined to points of taste or expression. 
 One indeed of these was not, strictly speaking, 
 "preached before the University''." Moreover, it 
 repeats, to a certain extent, considerations which 
 are urged more fully in two others. But, as it 
 was addressed to an audience consisting for the 
 most part of University men, it may be allowed to 
 
 ^ Sermon VII. 
 
Preface to the First Edition. 
 
 appear in tliis volume. Of the opportunities for 
 preaching those Sermons which did not fall to the 
 writer's turn as Select Preacher, two are due to 
 the kindness of the present Yice-Chancellor of 
 Oxford, and three to that of the Dean of Christ 
 Church. 
 
 It only remains for the writer to express his 
 fervent hope that by God's grace this volume may 
 be of service to those who have desired its publi- 
 cation, and that, whatever its crudities or minor 
 errors, it may be found to contain nothing incon- 
 sistent with simple submission to the mind of 
 Holy Scripture as set forth in the teaching of the 
 Church. 
 
 Christ CnuRcn, 
 
 Michaelmas, 1865. 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 rriHIS volume was originally published under the title 
 " Some Words for God/^ In the present Edition that 
 title is dropped^ as being open to misconstruction, and in 
 deference to the opinion of critics for whose advice and 
 indulgence the writer has every reason to be grateful. 
 
 Christ Chuech, 
 
 Master, 1866. 
 
PREFACE rO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 rilHH present Edition contains three additional Sermons 
 which have been preached within the last two years, 
 and pubHshed separately. The subjects appear to suggest 
 that one should be inserted as third in the series, and 
 the two others at the end. 
 
 Christ CirimcH, 
 
 Advent, 1868. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 SERMON I. 
 
 GOD AND THE SOUL. 
 
 Psalm Ixiii. i. 
 O God, Thou art my God .... 
 
 ^rcacljrti at St. iHara's on tljc ^fa3rntg=fir3t SunUnn aftfr STrinito, ©ct. 25, 1868. 
 
 SERMON II. 
 
 THE LAW OF PROGRESS. 
 Phil. iii. 13, 14, 
 
 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing 
 I do, forgetting those things which are hehind, and reaching forth 
 unto those things ichich are before, I press toioard the mark for 
 the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus . . .25 
 
 IPrradjcU at St. fHarg's on ©lunciungrsima SunSag, jFcb. 7, 1864. 
 
 SERMON III. 
 
 THE HONOUR OF HUMANITY. 
 
 I St. Peter ii. 1 7. 
 Honour all men 54 
 
 JPrcadjcD at St. fSlavg'g on tlje JFirst SunUau in ILrnt, 1868. 
 
xiv Contents. 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 
 THE FREEDOM OF THE SPIRIT. 
 2 COE. iii. 17. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Ubertif .... 79 
 i.Breaci)cI) at Ssi. ^ar^'g on i£@i)itgun Qag, iiBag 15, 1864. 
 
 SERMON V. 
 
 I M M R T A L I T Y . 
 
 Psalm Ixxiii. 26. 
 
 Ml/ flesh and my heart faileth : hut God is the strength of my heart, 
 and my portionfor ever . . . . . . . .107 
 
 i9rtact)clj at St. ifltarg's on tijc S'tconli Sunfian after (Ppipbans. 3an- '5. j8<^3- 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 
 HUMILITY AND ACTION. 
 
 PitOV. iii. 6. 
 
 In all thy ways acknowledye Him, and He shall direct thy paths . 1J9 
 
 ^rtatJjcIi at St. fflnro's on Ouiuciuaocsima Suutiag, JTrb. :;6, 1863. 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 
 THE CONFLICT OF FAITH AVITH UNDUE EXALTATION • 
 OF INTELLECT. 
 
 2 Cott. X. 5. 
 
 Cdsting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself 
 against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every 
 thought to ilie obedience of Christ 16;; 
 
 }3nach(U at St. fBaro'B (in the ©ifort Ecntnx Sfrirs) on J)tiUai) GrfanunD, 
 iflarcl) 17, 1S65. 
 
Contents. xv 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 
 LESSONS OF THE HOLY MANGER. 
 
 St. Luke ii. 12. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 And this shall he a sign unto you ; Ye shall find the Bahe ivrapped 
 in sivaddling-clothes, and lying in a manger .... 189 
 
 JPtcactrt at ffl:|)riat ffifjutcJ) on Cljtiahnas Sag, 1863. 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 
 THE DIVINE VICTIM. 
 
 Gal. ii. 20. 
 The Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me . . 220 
 
 ^rcact)cl3 at Cfjrtst Cfjurc'j o" <Boaa JriUag, 9pril 22, 1859. 
 
 SERMON X. 
 
 THE RISEN LIFE. 
 
 Col. iii. i. 
 If ye then he risen with Christ, seek those things that are ahove . 250 
 
 ^vcacIjcU at St. JHarg's on tlje Scconts Sun^iag after OFaBtrv, april 30, 1865. 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 
 OUR LORD'S ASCENSION THE CHURCH'S GAIN. 
 
 St. John xvi. 7. 
 II is expedient for you that I go aioay ...... 283 
 
 i3teacl)£l3 at arijviat (Efjurcl) oix ascension Sag, Pag 17, i860. 
 
xvi Contents. 
 
 SERMON XII. 
 
 FAITH IX A HOLY GHOST. 
 Acts xix. i, 2. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Taul having passed through the vpper coasts came to Uphesus : and 
 Jinding certain disciples, he said unto them, Have ye received the 
 Hohj Ghost since ye believed ? And they said unto him, We have 
 not so much as heard ichether there he any Holy Ghost . . 306 
 
 Jj3rcacijrti at St. fflaru's on Klljilsun Dnu, 1867. 
 
 SERMON XIII. 
 
 THE DIVINE INDWELLING A MOTIVE TO HOLINESS. 
 
 I Cor. iii. 16. 
 
 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of 
 God dwelleth in you ....... .329 
 
 IDrrncIj.-l) at St. fflaro's on JEJEijitsun Qao, 1S68. 
 
SERMON I. 
 
 GOD AND THE SOUL. 
 
 Psalm Ixiii. i. 
 O God, Thou art my God. 
 
 IN tliis short sentence we may study a feature of the 
 soul's higher Hfe, common in a measure to all of God's 
 true servants, but distinguishing some of them beyond 
 the rest, and, among these, in particular. King David. 
 Ewald^ indeed, would exclude this Psalm from that 
 small number of sixteen in which his arbitrary criticism 
 still consents to recognize the thought and style of the 
 son of Jesse. But scholars, like Dehtzsch^, deem this 
 estimate nothing short of a literary Vandalism which 
 would sacrifice even the certainties of Biblical science to 
 its own morbid dread of a traditional position. The title, 
 " A Psalm of David when ho was in the wilderness of 
 Judah," is in the strictest harmony with the contents of 
 the Psalm itself. The poet is a king*, and a fugitive : 
 enemies are on his track, and are bent on his destruc- 
 tion'^. He is in "a dry and weary land without water '^," 
 amidst the wild beasts who will, as he predicts, prey 
 
 ^ Dicliter der A. B. ii. 152. 
 
 ^ " Die Ueberschreibuug, so gefasst, liclitet den ganzen Ps., dessen David. 
 Abfassung zu laugnen der uuwissenschaftliebste iiberlieferungsfeindlicbe 
 Vandalismus ist." — Delitzsch, Psalmen, i. 465. 
 
 <^ ver. II. 9. ^ ver. i. 
 
 / , B 
 
1 God and the So2lL [Serm. 
 
 on his conquered foes*^. Ho longs after communion 
 with God in Sion, where in past years he has enjoyed 
 revelations of the Divine Presence *^. All this is suit- 
 able to David's circumstances, immediately after the 
 outbreak of Absalom's rebellion; when the king, in his 
 flight from the capital, "passed over the brook Elidron 
 towards the way of the wilderness"." And it may be 
 added, that no other period, either in David's life, or in 
 any other life, that no other set of general circumstances, 
 recorded in the history of Israel, so fully satisfies all the 
 conditions under which the Psalmist Avritcs. Moreover, the 
 style and turns of the language, and especially the phy- 
 siognomy and order of the thought, seem to connect this 
 Psalm Avith those which are universally ascribed to David. 
 In some expressions, as in that translated, " I will seek 
 Thee," the ideas are remarkably condensed ^ after David's 
 manner. In others, such as "lips of jubilee'," there 
 sparkles a vi%ad beauty which is very characteristic of 
 David. We may observe, too, in this Psalm a connexion 
 of thought rather than a connexion of expression and 
 form. The thoughts succeed each other so rapidly, as 
 almost to produce the effect of a single thought which 
 steadily underlies and interpenetrates the successive 
 variations of language. And the sharp contrast between 
 the last end of the good and of the bad, is here asserted 
 in a tone of intuitive certainty, which seems to rise higher 
 than the faith, strong as it was, of later Psalmists. Here, 
 too, are sentences full of a spiritual light and force which 
 is peculiarly observable in David's Psalms. Mark, as one 
 instance, the extraordinary beauty of the line, "Tliy 
 lovingkindness is better than life '^." 
 
 Considerations, such as these, might help to form a 
 decisive impression in favour of the Davidic origin of 
 e vcr. 10. f vcv. 2. 8 2 Sam. xv. 23. 
 
I] God and the Soid. 3 
 
 this Psalm. Even if such considerations did not carry 
 full conviction_, it would be ob\dously unwarrantable to 
 erect a few Psalms^ which have much in common, into 
 absolute tests of the style and mind of an author who 
 lived many years, and who wrote under very various 
 circumstances. The constant tradition of the Synagogue 
 and of the Church cannot reasonably be overlooked. 
 And those who believe that the writers of Holy Scripture 
 were supernaturally inspired to wi'ite, will be prepared to 
 find in their wi'itings a greater variety and resource of 
 thought and language than would naturally be looked for 
 in a merely human author. Sixteen Psalms can be sup- 
 posed to represent the spiritual legacy which the Church 
 has inherited from David with as much justice as four of 
 his Epistles can be imagined to contain all that is left to 
 us of the thoughts and words of the great Apostle of the 
 Gentiles. 
 
 The text might form a motto for what is termed, in 
 the modern phrase, " personal religion.'^ No religion, of 
 course, can deserve its name, if it be not personal at 
 bottom, if it do not recognize as its basis the case of the 
 personal soul face to face with the personal God. But, 
 even ^vith a view to the perfection of the individual 
 himself, religion may, nay, it must, embrace other interests 
 besides his own. Each time that, in the earliest creed, 
 we formally profess our belief in God, we also profess our 
 belief in the Catholic Church and the Communion of 
 Samts. For a well-balanced Christian mind, there can be 
 as little danger of a strong sense of his personal relation 
 to the Source of all life issviing in a selfish forgetfulness 
 of others, as there can be of his forgetting what is due to 
 the needs and culture of his own soul, while he '^'' walks 
 about Sion, and marks well her bulwarks, and tells the 
 towers thereof ^■'^ A man need not lose sight of his 
 
 ' Ps. cxlvili. 12. 
 B 3 
 
4 God and the Soul. [Serm. 
 
 solitary spiritual boarin<j towards God, because lie is 
 interested in the progress, the organization, the imperial 
 majesty of the Eealm of Christ. It would be as untrue 
 to say that the writer of the " Imitation " was insensible "" 
 to the needs, whether of the Church, or of humanity at 
 large, as to argue that the authors of the " De CiWtate 
 Dei " or the " Ecclesiastical Polity " must have over- 
 looked the sorrows and aspirations of the human soul. 
 This does not preclude the admission that the undue pre- 
 dominance sometimes of public and corporate interests, 
 and sometimes of interests exclusively personal and sub- 
 jective, may create dangers for individuals, or for par- 
 ticular ages or ]5ortions of the Church, against which it is 
 necessary to take precautions. 
 
 But at least in Da\ad we have a notable example of a 
 sensitive, tender, self-analyzing soul, living in sustained 
 communion A\4th God, while yet deeply sensible of the 
 claims of the civil and religious polity of Israel. David's 
 years, it is needless to say, were spent in devotion to a 
 large and exacting round of public duties. And in this 
 Psalm public misfortunes do but force him back upon the 
 central strength of the life of his spirit. For the time his 
 crown, his palace, his honours, the hearts of his people, 
 the love of his child, whom he loved, as we know, with 
 such passing tenderness, all are forfeited. The Psalmist 
 is alone with God. In his hour of desolation, he looks up 
 from the desert to heaven. " God,'' he cries, " Thou 
 art my God." In the original language he does not repeat 
 the word which is translated 'God.' In Elohini^, the 
 true idea of llie root is that of awe, while the adjectival 
 
 >" Dciin MiliTian's well-known estimate of this work almost socms to lose 
 sight of its real object, which is, not to insist upon the whole cycle of 
 Christian duties, but to strenfjtheu ami intensify, in view of our Lord's 
 example, the sense of our individual relationship to the Father of Sj irits. 
 Lat. Christ, vi. ji. 4S4. 
 
 1 C'n:« 
 
I] God and the Soid. 
 
 form implies permanency. In 'Ell ^, tlie second word em- 
 ployed^ the etymological idea is that of mighty strength. 
 We might paraphrase, " Thou Ever-awful One, my 
 Strength, or my Strong-God art Thou.^' But the second 
 word mi, is in itself nothing less than a separate revela- 
 tion of an entire aspect of the Being of God. It is 
 indeed used as a proper and distinct Name of God. The 
 pronominal suffixes for the second and third persons are, 
 as Gesenius has remarked, never once found with this 
 name W ; whereas Wi, the first person, occurs very fre- 
 quently in the Psalter alone. Every one will remember 
 it in the words actually uttered by our Lord upon the 
 cross, and which He took from a Syriacized version of Ps. 
 xxii.P The word unveils a truth unknown beyond the 
 precincts of revelation. It teaches us that the Almighty 
 and Eternal gives Himself in the fulness of His Being to 
 the soul that seeks Him. Heathenism indeed in its 
 cultus of domestic and local deities, of its Penates, of its 
 6eo\ lirLywp'ioi, bore witness by these superstitions to the 
 deep yearning of the human heart for the individualizing 
 love of a higher power. To know the true God was to 
 know that such a craving was satisfied. 
 
 "My God.'^ The word does not represent a human 
 impression, or desire, or conceit, but an aspect, a truth, a 
 necessity of the Divine Nature. Man can indeed give 
 himself by halves ; he can bestow a little of his thought, 
 of his heart, of his endeavour, vipou his brother man. In 
 other words, man can be imperfect in his acts, as he is 
 imperfect and finite in his nature. But when God, the 
 Perfect Being, loves the creature of His Hand, He cannot 
 thus divide His love. He must perforce love with the 
 whole directness, and strength, and intensity of His 
 Being ; for He is God, and therefore incapable of partial 
 and imperfect action. He must give Himself to the 
 
 o '"jN P Ts. xxii. I. 
 
6 God and the Soid. [Seem. 
 
 single soul with as absolute 'a completeness as if there 
 were no other being besides the soul which He loves. 
 And, on his side, man knows that this gift of Himself by 
 God is thus entire ; and in no narrow spirit of ambitious 
 egotism, but as grasping and representing the literal 
 fact, he cries, "My God." Therefore does this single 
 word enter so largely into the composition of Hebrew 
 names. Men loved to dwell upon that wondrous relation 
 of the Creator to their personal life which it so vi\*idly 
 expressed. Tlierefore when God had " so loved the world 
 that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believed in Him should not perish but have everlasting 
 life," Ave find St. Paul writing to the Galatians as if his 
 own soul, in its solitary anguish, had alone been redeemed 
 by the sacrifice of Calvary : " He loved me, and gave 
 Himself for me i." 
 
 But here let us observe that there are two causes within 
 the soul which might indispose us for looking more truly 
 and closely at the truth before us. 
 
 Of these causes, the first is onoral : it is the state of 
 unrepented wilful sin. Tlie gravest mischief of sin does 
 not lie in the outward material act, especially when 
 estimated from a merely legal or social point of view. It 
 consists rather in the introduction of a permanent habit 
 or attitude of the will. Of this attitude each outward act 
 of sin is at once the symptom and the aggravation. The 
 foul eruption is less serious in itself than as evidencing the 
 hold which has been laid upon the moral constitution by 
 the invisible disease. The principle and spirit of rebellion 
 has its seat in the will. Thence it penetrates, as the case 
 may be, either into the sphere of thought, or into that of 
 outward actions. ]5ut whether it be weakened, or warped, 
 or enslaved, the will which is deliberately tolerant of the 
 presence of sin is necessarily hostile to a sincere assertion 
 1 Gal. ii. 20. 
 
I] God and the Soul. 7 
 
 no less of the love tlian of the rights of Grod. It is averse 
 from Him. It has other ends in view which are so many 
 denials of His supreme claims upon created life. It 
 cowers with involuntary dread at the sound of His voice 
 among- the trees of the garden. If the depraved and 
 sinful willj still clinging to its sin^ could conceivably 
 attain to a spiritual embrace of the All-Holy God, so 
 intimate, so endearing as is that of the Psalmist; such 
 nearness would be to it nothing less than repulsive ; it 
 would be scarcely less than an agony. 
 
 The other cause is intellectual. It may, without offence, 
 be described as the subjective spirit, which is so charac- 
 teristic and predominant an influence in the thought of ovir 
 day. In plain English, this spirit is an intellectual selfish- 
 ness, which makes man, and not God, the monarch and 
 centre of the world of thought. Man is again to be, as 
 of old with the Greek Sophist, the measure of all things. 
 God is as but a point on the extreme circumference of His 
 creature's thought. Nay more, in its more developed form, 
 this temper makes God Himself a pure creation of the 
 thought of His creature ; and, by doing so, it at length 
 denies His real existence. But even where it stops very 
 far short of this fatal and culminating wrong, it accustoms 
 men to see in religious truth the colouring or the produc- 
 tions of the human mind so exclusively, as to eat out the 
 very heart of true religious life. For we men can no more 
 worship that which we deem to be a creation of our o-vsti 
 or of another man's mind, than we can knowingly worship 
 the carved and painted workmanship of human hands. If 
 God has spoken to us through human souls and in human 
 language, it is when He has assured us independently, 
 that while the instrument was human, the truth which it 
 conveyed was Divine. But when in Christian doctrine 
 we have learned to see nothing but successive evolutions 
 or incrustations of human thought, and in the Christian 
 
8 God and the Soul. [Sekm. 
 
 Scriptures notliiiif^ but a history which represents man's 
 successive and increasingly successful efforts after know- 
 ledge of and communion with the Infinite and Eternal 
 Being, then we never can once bring ourselves to say of 
 any one truth that comes before us, What does this truth 
 say to me ? We hold no one truth with sufficient tenacity 
 to make a practical application of it to our own case, to do 
 or to suffer something at its bidding. For the truth is to 
 us false, or imperfect, or provisional, as the case may be. 
 Even if we cannot mistrust the clear intuition whereby we 
 apprehend its reality and force, we still stand outside it ; 
 we contemplate it from a distance, we do not close with 
 it ; we do not sui'render ourselves to it ; we do not submit 
 to it. And until this — the viruKor] iriaTedi'; of which St, 
 Paul speaks once and again*" — be the attitude of the soul 
 towards the Word of God, it is strictly impossible that the 
 life of worship and of love in which the soul's true per- 
 fection consists, and in which its highest capacities have 
 their play, can even be said to begin. We cannot worship 
 some hypothesis or some compound of truth and error : 
 so Ave refuse His rights to God, lest perchance we should 
 be giving them to idols. Tlie whole energy of the soul 
 passes off in a prior speculation as to the amount of truth 
 which may possibly be contained in a doctrine assumed to 
 be of human growth. Such a speculation may indeed be 
 justifiable or necessary. Ikit it can of itself do nothing 
 for the heart, the will, the central being, the truest excel- 
 lence of the man who undertakes it. An educated man of 
 the present day who would look God really in the face, 
 has perhaps no greater intellectual difficulty to contend 
 with, than the trammels and false points of view which 
 strictly subjective habits of thought have imposed upon 
 his understanding. While these habits are dominant in a 
 man, God may be a portion, nay the most considerable 
 r Kom. i. 5 ; xvi. 26. Cf. Acts vi. 7. 
 
I] God and the Soul. 9 
 
 portion, of the apparatus and embellisliment of liis 
 thought : but God will not be in any true sense throned 
 in the man's soul as the recognized Author and object of 
 his being ; He will not really be the man's God, before 
 Whose awful Presence he moves with deep reverence 
 within the sanctuary of his secret life, and to the doing of 
 Whose will he consecrates each inner faculty and each 
 outward opportunity at his disposal. 
 
 Among the many truths which the Supreme Being has 
 disclosed to us men about Himself, there are two which, 
 beyond others, are peculiarly calculated to enable u^s to 
 realize our real relation towards Him. The first, the truth 
 that God is our Creator. The second, the truth that He 
 has made us for Himself, and is Himself the end and the 
 explanation of our existence. 
 
 The most simple and obvious truths are, as a rule, the 
 most profound ; and no apology is needed for asking each 
 one of you to reflect steadily on the answer to this ques- 
 tion, Where was I one short century ago ? Most of us 
 indeed, in putting to ourselves such a question, might name 
 a much shorter period. The sun in the heavens, the face 
 of the earth, the general conditions of human life, were 
 then what they are at this hour. The civilized world with 
 its great cities, and its leading ideas, and its general cur- 
 rents of effort and movement, were then what they are 
 now. England was here. Our neighbourhood, our family, 
 it may be our home, were known. These very benches 
 were filled by a generation which observed our Church 
 formalities and used our devotional language. Others, it 
 may be, were then living who bore the very names which 
 distinguish us among men, and whose forms and faces might 
 have almost seemed to antedate our own personal life. 
 But we, each one of us, were as yet nothing. All the 
 thought, and feeling, and passion, and effort which centres 
 at this moment in, and is part of, our separate selves, did not 
 
lo God and the Soul. [Serm. 
 
 tlien exist. The lowest and vilest creatures were more 
 than we ; in that to them a being had been given, while 
 as yet we Avere without one ^ 
 
 But at this moment we arc in possession of that blessed 
 and awful gift which we name ' life/ We find ourselves 
 endowed with an understanding capable of knowledge, and 
 with a heart formed for love. Our nature is active as well 
 as affectionate and intelligent ; it possesses high capacities 
 for service ; it is endued ^vith a power of shaping means 
 to ends, and with an hereditary empire over the beings 
 which live around us. But how comes it that we do thus 
 exist, and under such conditions ? The idea of blind 
 'chance,' we know, is not less proscribed by science than 
 by faith. Our parents were but the channels of vital forces 
 which flowed from a Source beyond them. An intense 
 homage paid to the productive powers of Nature, and 
 issuing in a moral degradation of the idea of worship with- 
 out a parallel in the history of the world, may have been 
 natural to an Oriental imagination, and to the sensual ten- 
 dencies of Phoenician blood *. But we, if we are true to 
 our higher knowledge, cannot thus ascribe personal and 
 self-dependent existence to those uniform modes of work- 
 ing which we observe in the physical universe. If ■sA'ithin 
 the narrow limits of our observation they seem to be in- 
 variable, they witness not to any objective force resident 
 in 'nature,' but merely to that presiding law of order 
 which characterizes the action no less than the Being of 
 the real Agent. Each of us is a separate product of the 
 mystery of creation, ^Vfter the Being of God Himself, 
 creation is perhaps the greatest, as it is in time th(> first of 
 mysteries ; it is, it must be ever, the master-difficulty for 
 « Cf. "Manrfese: Exercises Siiirituels," pp. 21, 22. On my mistake with 
 respect to this and two similar references, see the Theological Sevieiv, Nos. 
 xix. ami xx. I would here express my obligations to a writer iu that Maga- 
 zine, for pointing it out. 
 
 ' Compare Dr. Pusey's Preface to Hosea; Comm. Min. Prophets, pt. i. p. 2. 
 
I] God and the Soul. 1 1 
 
 tlie mind of man. Tliat innovation on what liad already 
 been for an eternity, that new companionship of depen- 
 dent beings thus welcomed, nay summoned, into His Pre- 
 sence by the Solitary, Self-sufl&cing-, Ever-blessed God, is 
 a marvel which may well prepare the soul, even for belief 
 in the Divine Incarnation. Yet if God did not create all 
 that is not Himself, if in the essential simplicity of His 
 Being He is not utterly distinct from His creation, if in 
 creation He was not a free and conscious agent, if He did 
 not at the first give being to that which before was 
 nothing — mark it well, my brethren — He is not a Being 
 Whom you can worship as your God. Belief in creation 
 is an integral part of belief in God : and He Who made 
 the universe made each one of us. " Thine Hands have 
 
 made me and fashioned me Tliine Eyes did see 
 
 my substance, yet being imperfect ; and in Thy book were 
 all my members written, which day by day were fashioned, 
 when as yet there was none of them^." 
 
 But there is a wide interval between admitting the 
 dogma of the creation in the abstract, and realizing 
 sharply and accurately that all and each of the faculties 
 of our own souls and bodies have been created. You 
 may read in the face of many a man whom you meet in 
 the street that he has never faced the truth that he is a 
 created thing, and that One Being exists to Whom he 
 owes literally all that he has and is. The warning of the 
 Psalmist, that it is God Who hath made us and not we 
 ourselves, is not superfluous. For here, as elsewhere in 
 religion, the truant action of the will interferes with the 
 clear and direct intuitions of the intellect : and we un- 
 consciously limit our range of view because we fear the 
 practical consequences of too wide and perfect a vision. 
 We cling io phrases which represent nothing, and to 
 theories which must fade and vanish before one movement 
 
 " Ps. cxix. 73; cxxxix. 16. 
 
1 2 God and the Sotil. [Serm. 
 
 of clear and earnest thoiif^lit ; because tlaese theories and 
 plirases relieve ns for the time being of much that is 
 implied in the direct and overwhelming sense of being 
 simply creatures. We speak, and think, and form judg- 
 ments, as if we were the authors of our own existence ; 
 not as believing ourselves seriously to be so, but simply 
 because we shrink from facing all that is involved in the 
 alternative, namely, that we are jDroducts of the creative 
 love and will of our God. 
 
 Certainly God did not need any one of us : we were not 
 indispensable to His happiness or His glory. He can 
 have foreseen nothing in such as we are which forced 
 Him to create us. "Wliy did He then draw us out of that 
 abyss of nothing ? Why did He give us this existence 
 which He has denied to so many possible beings, able 
 better to herald His glory and to do justice to His 
 love? A\liy did He place us at the summit of the 
 visible creation rather than at its base ? "NVliy did He 
 make us men instead of brutes, or trees, or stones ? Why 
 did He give us a soul, made in His image, and a complex 
 nature which every where bears the lively imprint of His 
 attributes ? The answer is to be found in a revelation 
 which was made, in the early years of his ministry, to the 
 disappointed prophet of the falling kingdom of Judah, 
 and upon which he fell back as the shadows of approaching 
 ruin darkened around him. " I have loved thee," God 
 had said of old to Israel, " with an everlasting love "." 
 And St. Paul teaches that the Father hath chosen us 
 Christians in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the 
 world, that we should be holy and without blame before 
 Him in love >'. It was His infinite love which, when God 
 was self-sufficing and all-blessed in His solitary eternity, 
 poured around Himself the countless forms of created 
 life. And to this self-same love alone we individually 
 » Jer. xxxi. 3. y Epli. i. 4. 
 
I] God and the S021L 1 3 
 
 owe our existence. Wliile as yet we were not, and while 
 on earth men knew as httle of us as we know of those 
 who will take our places in this church a century hence, 
 we each of us had a home and a recognition in the Thought 
 and Heart of God. His purpose to give us life was, like 
 Himself, eternal. And now that we live He preserves 
 our life from moment to moment. He is, as the Psalmist 
 says, the Strong God of each one of us. He sustains our 
 life as a complex whole ; He upholds each one of its 
 constitutive powers and faculties, so truly and so un- 
 ceasingly, that did He for one moment withdi-aw His 
 hand our being must dissolve, and fade away into that 
 nothingness out of which He has taken it. 
 
 This is one of the cardinal truths of that earlier 
 revelation which was committed to the Jewish Church, 
 and it is unnecessary to remind you how profoundly it 
 interpenetrates the whole mind of the Old Testament. 
 Sometimes it is stated directly : more frequently it under- 
 lies the aspirations of psalmists or the warnings of 
 prophets. We may fearlessly say that it was as certainly 
 an integral part of the Psalmist^s thought in the words 
 before us, as it is of ours when, in the General Thanks- 
 giving, we Christians bless God " for our creation, pre- 
 servation, and all the blessings of this life.^'' The text 
 may be fairly paraphrased, " God, the Creator of all 
 things. Thou hast created, Thou preservest me." 
 
 But this involves an admission with the most direct 
 bearing upon life and conduct. As the Creator, God 
 must have rl<jlits over the creature. These rights are 
 more imperious and urgent than those of a sovereign 
 over his subjects, or of a parent over his children, or of 
 an artist over his work. As the Apostle's question 
 reminds the factious teacher at Corinth, we have literally 
 nothing which we have not received ^. We simply 
 '^ I Cor. Iv. 7. 
 
14 God and the Soul. [Seem. 
 
 belong to God. Wc are His property in a more absolute 
 sense than can be implied by any illustration draAvn from 
 human life. We can retire into no deptli or centre of 
 tlioufrlit and beino- where we do not meet Him, or where 
 we can meet Him on equal terms. Such indeed are God's 
 rights over us, that He Himself cannot waive them. He 
 need not have created us, but ha^^ng created us. He 
 must needs claim us as His property. He cannot autho- 
 rize us to live for any but Himself. Nothing can happen 
 to suspend His claim. Men have no claims upon us but 
 those which He has given them. AVe originally belong 
 to God, and all human rights over us must be strictly 
 subordinated to, as flowing from, His ownership and His 
 supremacy. As all that we are comes from Him, so we 
 belong to Him without exception or reserve. The senses 
 of our bodies, the powers of our souls, the successive 
 ages of life, thought, feeling, resolve, all are His. He is 
 the undisputed master of our health, of our fortune, of 
 our very life; and against Him we have neither plea 
 nor remedy. Nay, we are bound, by the terms of our 
 existence, to accept with submission all of His appoint- 
 ments. St. Paul's illustration of the cases of Pharaoh 
 and Esau, as viewed apart from their responsibility, may 
 be applied much more widely ^. " 1^he ]iot cannot say 
 unto him that formed it. Why hast thou made me thus ? " 
 Human rights perish at death. But God's claims, which 
 begin in time, continue^ in eternity : the grave docs not 
 touch them. Escape Him we cannot. We must live 
 under a dispensation of His love or a dispensation of His 
 justice. AVe can noAvhere be independent of Him. We 
 may now and here choose between a free and joyous 
 service, and a punishment Avhich is as certain and as 
 enduring as the being which He has given us. These 
 rights of God over His creatures, thus resistless, thus 
 * Rom. ix. 13 — 21. 
 
I] God and the Soul. 1 5 
 
 absolute, thus supreme, are confessed by the Churcli 
 alike on eartli and in heaven. " come let us worship 
 and fall down, and kneel before the Lord oui' Maker ^.^ 
 ^' Thou art worthy, Lord, to receive glory, and honour, 
 and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy 
 pleasure they are and were created '^.^ 
 
 In the truth that God has created us, we see much of 
 the meaning of the Psalmist^s words. But we see eveu 
 more when we reflect that He has created us for Himself. 
 That which would be selfishness in a creature, is in the 
 great Creator a necessary result of His solitary perfection. 
 " The Lord hath made all things for Himself '*. He could 
 not have done othervvdse : He could not abdicate that 
 place which belongs to Him as God. It is equally true 
 of the highest of the Intelligences of heaven, and of the 
 least and lowest forms of animal, or vegetable, or mineral 
 existence, that they are made for God. The material 
 world, indeed, sets forth His praise by its silent obedience 
 to that law which He has given it. There are heavenly 
 bodies which can complete their orbits only after the 
 lapse of ages, and which then reappear with unfailing 
 precision at the point from which they started, as if to 
 present themselves to Him who sent them on their way. 
 Certainly the laws of the vegetable and animal kingdoms 
 are more complex than those which rule the heavens. 
 But they do not less invariably yield the tribute of an 
 absolute homage to the One End of all created life. Nor 
 was it to have been otherwise vdih man in the design of 
 his Creator. But on the frontier of the moral and human 
 world we encounter a power in free-will, of which nothing 
 but a precarious and feeble shadow can be traced among 
 the lower creatures. God willed to be the object of a 
 
 ^ Ps. xcv. 6. 
 
 c Rev. iv. II. Cf. for the wliolc passage, Manrese, pp. 24, 25. 
 
 ^ Prov. xvi. 4. 
 
1 6 God and the Soul. [Serm. 
 
 conscious and deliberate choice on the part of the gifted 
 creature whom He placed at the summit of the visible 
 creation. Yet man would not have been free to choose 
 his Maker as his end and portion^ unless he had been also 
 free to reject Him, and to fall back on some lower end or 
 ends at variance with the true harmonies and law of his 
 being. We know how God's generous bounty was first 
 abused ; and at this hour we note how the majestic unity 
 of aim and movement, so conspicuous every where in those 
 spheres which yield their object-matter to the physical 
 sciences, ceases on the confines of the region which is the 
 province of morals. 
 
 Yet, though we witness around us the wTCck of serious 
 convictions, and the despair of true and noble hearts, and 
 the triumph of false theories, and the additional difficulties 
 of our daily struggle with unseen foes, and (it may be) 
 with the results of our own past unfaithfulness to light and 
 grace ; we have but to look within ourselves to trace 
 without doubt or misgiving the true law of that life 
 which our God has given us. By gathering up the 
 scattered fragments of the shattered statue, we can 
 recover, if not the perfect w^ork itself, at least the ideal 
 which was before the Eye of the Artist. In this place 
 we are sufficiently familiar with the presumption that 
 there must be a correspondence and proportion between 
 a faculty and its object. Why then does the human 
 intellect crave perpetually for new fields of knowledge ? 
 It was made to apprehend an Infinite Being ; it was made 
 for God. Why does the human heart disclose, when 
 we probe it, such inexhaustible capacities for love, and 
 tenderness, and self-sacrifice ? It was made to correspond 
 to a love that had neither stint nor limit; it was made for 
 God. AVhy docs no employment, no success, no scene or 
 field of thought, no culture of power or faculty, no love of 
 friend or relative, arrest definitely and for all time the 
 
I] God and the Soul. 1 7 
 
 onwardj craving, restless impulse of our inner being ? 
 No other explanation is so simple, as that we were made 
 for the Infinite and Unchangeable God, compared with 
 Whom all else is imperfect, fragile, transient, and un- 
 satisfying. 
 
 This indeed is the true moral of that wonderful book 
 Ecclesiastes, in which a superficial and unspiritual criticism, 
 which can only move compassion when it does not com- 
 mand assent, can see nothing but '' the doubts and con- 
 fessions of a jaded Epicurean ^." All that is not God is 
 vanity, in that it yields no true response to the deep and 
 irrepressible cra\'ings of the soul of man ^ And the truth 
 of which the kingly Preacher gives us the negative side, is 
 exhibited positively by the great St. Augustine, in that work 
 which perhaps more than any other introduces us to the 
 characteristics of his heart and thought. St. Augustine's 
 Confessions combine the closest analysis of motive and 
 experience with the charm of that exquisite unselfishness 
 which the true sight of God alone can give. The leading 
 idea of the Confessions is this ; — that man is made to know, 
 to love, to serve his God; and that until such a true 
 knowledge, and love, and service has been attained as the 
 regulating law of his life, man is condemned to find in 
 the unsatisfied cravings of his soul, no less than in the 
 feebleness and poverty of all that attracts his admiration 
 and pursuit, that which is his education rather than his 
 punishment. Augustine tells us how neither the grati- 
 fication of sensual passion, nor the prospect of influence 
 and social position, nor the intellectual fascinations of a 
 heresy which, like Manichaeism, gave large employment 
 
 ^ Sucli passages as Eccl. ii. 14, vii. 15, viii. 14, ix. r — 3, 6, as well as 
 ii. 16, iii. 19, are an appeal to the surface facts of life as they meet the eye, 
 not a stateiiieut of the writer's creed. 
 
 * Cf. Eccl. i. 2, 3, 8, 14, 18; ii. 2 — 11, 16—19, 2I) 23, 26; iii. 19, 20 j 
 iv. 4, 8, 16; V. 10; vi. 2, II, 12; vii. 6; viii. 10; xi. 8, 10; xii. 8. Com- 
 pare xii. 13, 14. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 God and the Soul. [Serm. 
 
 and impetus to tliono;htj could satisfy a soul, made for 
 Himself by the Great Creator, aud never utterly insensible 
 to the true secret of its destiny. " Fecisti nos ad Te, et 
 inquietum est cor nostrum donee requiescat in Tes," 
 These all-embracing words might well be the motto of 
 the work by which this great Father is most closely 
 linked to the heart of Christendom, while they are only 
 an expansion of the thought of the Psalmist, " God, 
 Thou art my God '\" 
 
 This truth, if it be mastered, will furnish the answer to 
 many questions upon which we waste an unnecessary 
 amount of time and thought. The knowledge, and love, 
 and service of our Maker is not, like the indulgence of a 
 sentiment or a taste, a matter of choice. For every man 
 who looks God and life steadily in the face, it is a stern 
 necessity. We can do without large incomes, and a high 
 social position, and a name among men. Length of days, 
 and health of body, and elasticity of mind are great bless- 
 ings ; yet they may be dispensed with. But once born, 
 we m nst serve God. Not to serve God, is to be in the 
 moral world that which a deformity or monster is in the 
 world of animal existence. It is not only to defy the 
 claims of God. It is to ignore the plain demands of our 
 inner being, to do violence to the highest guidance of our 
 mysterious and complex life. We may fearlessly say that 
 we men are of too high a lineage to give the strength of our 
 thoughts and hearts to any beneath the throne of Him 
 AVIio made us '. No mortal man, no angel, no creature 
 however noble and exalted, may claim in its own name 
 and for itself the homage of a soul which, living once, lives 
 for ever. Our true end in thought, and affection, and 
 
 8 St. Aug. Conf. i. I. 
 
 h St. Augustine's comiilctc teaching on the nature of the Supreme Good 
 is strikingly worked out by Nourrisson, Philosophio dc S. Aug. vol. ii. c. 6. 
 ' Aug. dc Civ. Dei, .\. c. 3. 
 
I] God and the Sotil. 1 9 
 
 effort must be none other than the end for which the best 
 of men^ for which the angel^ for which our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Chinst, for which the Almighty God Him- 
 self, lives^ and thinks, and loves, and works. For whom 
 does God live ? For Himself ; that He may contemplate, 
 and love, and glorify Himself^. And such is the high 
 honour that He has put on us men, that the end of our 
 being is none other than that of His own ; nor can we re- 
 fuse to love and to serve Him without forfeiting our true 
 patent of nobility among the creatures of His Hand. 
 
 And is it not plain that for us Christians the words of 
 the King of Israel have a deeper sense than they could 
 have conveyed to the worshipper within the courts of the 
 temple, who claimed the God of all creation as the Author 
 and the Object of his personal life ? Within the kingdom 
 of the Incarnation the true law of man^s life is no longer 
 an ideal which eludes and disheartens us. It may be 
 realized. That His creatures might no longer shrink from 
 Him in their weakness and pollution ; that He might be 
 their strong God more literally than He could be the 
 strength of David ; that Christians might fold Him to theii' 
 inmost souls with a wondering yet triumphant sense of pos- 
 session, with a trembling yet endearing intimacy of touch, 
 which else had been inconceivable ; the Incomprehensible 
 has submitted to bonds, the Eternal has entered into con- 
 ditions of time, the Most Holy has been a Victim for sin. 
 This is the central, the essential, the imperishable faith of 
 Christendom. It makes God the God of those who cling 
 to Him in self-renouncing confidence, after a manner and 
 measure which they only can know who have the happiness 
 to do so. For such as these the past is pardoned through 
 the Atoning Blood. For such as these the problems of 
 life are few and simple. The sky above their heads may 
 be overclouded by a passing storm, but they carry within 
 k Maurese, p. 28. 
 C 2 
 
20 God and the Soul. [Serji. 
 
 themselves Him the very tokens of "WTiose Presence- are 
 commonly hidden from other men. Through the Spii'it 
 and the Sacraments they lay true hold upon that Perfect 
 IManhood in^\Tiich dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead 
 bodily. Christ in them is the hope of glory ^ ITieir 
 thoughts, their affections, their resolves are gradually in- 
 terpenetrated by the Intellect, and Heart, and Will of the 
 Son of Man ™. They live, yet not they, but Christ liveth 
 in them ". He is at once their philosophy, and their robe 
 of righteousness, and the internal principle of their \^vo- 
 gressive sanctification °. They are made to sit with Him 
 together in heavenly places P; they live beneath His smile ; 
 they partake of His bounty ^. They know that if only 
 they be true to Him, He will not leave them ^ ; and that in 
 the land which lies beyond that horizon of time on which 
 the strained eye of their souls rests with eager hope, they 
 will be His, and He will be theirs, yet more intimately, 
 and indeed for ever ^ 
 
 In this place we rightly count it a point of educational 
 honour to restrain and discourage all that is exaggerated, 
 whether in language or feeling, and to impose a stei*n re- 
 serve upon ourselves rather than risk the approach to it. 
 Nor can we, when seeking, or when proclaiming truth, bo 
 too careful ourselves to aim at being simply and severely 
 true. But pardon me for adding, that language which to 
 faith represents a living and energetic truth must often 
 seem to doubt or to half-belief only the repulsive jargon of 
 an unintelligible rhetoric. In the same way, from a worldly 
 point of view, the conduct of Christ's servants may be 
 deemed an irrational fanaticism, while in reality it pro- 
 ceeds upon the calmest and most unimpassioned survey of 
 facts and their attendant obligations. 
 
 ' Col. i. 27. 1" I Cor. ii. 16. " Gal. ii. 20. ° i Cor. i. .30. 
 
 V Eph. ii. 6. <l Phil. iii. 8, 9. ^ Koin. viii. 38, 39. 
 
 * St. Joliu xii. 26; xiv. 3; I Thess. iv. 17. 
 
I] God and the Soil I. 1 1 
 
 Is God the Author and the End of our existence ? Is 
 it a solemn truth that by the Incarnation and Death of 
 the Everlasting Son we have been redeemed from dis- 
 obedience to the true law of our being, and that we are 
 really free to serve our God? Is this redemption cha- 
 racterized by a prodigality of tenderness which must 
 appeal, if to nothing higher, to our mere natural sense of 
 generosity ? Then we may not sit still, interested indeed 
 but passive, as if these central and soul-stirring truths 
 were addressed merely to our speculative faculties. There 
 is such a thing as giving ourselves to God. It is not a 
 dream of the past, a beautiful but impracticable aspiration 
 for such as we, who are the children of a modern civiliza- 
 tion, and who inherit modes of thought and feeling which 
 our fathers knew not. The changes of the human spirit 
 can no more touch the rights of the unchangeable God 
 than they can affect the real conditions of life and death. 
 Sitting high above the waterflood of human opinion, and 
 remaining a King for ever, our God still whispers to the 
 inmost conscience of the men of our day the mystery and 
 secret of their destiny. He bids you, my brethren, on 
 whom He has shed blessings denied to the vast majority 
 of your countrymen, to use the light and liberty which He 
 has given you by a free consecration of yourselves to His 
 perfect service. 
 
 Do not so misunderstand this as to suppose that you 
 are being urged indiscriminately to take Holy Orders. 
 Certainly the lowest and least of us who have the hap- 
 piness to wear Christ's livery in the priesthood, and to 
 minister to His glory and to the souls of men, if only we 
 be faithful to the spirit of our commission, may claim a 
 higher place than can be given to any who share not the 
 toils and responsibilities of our service. Yet beyond a 
 doubt, of those who will reign with Him for ever in 
 heaven, the vast majority, it may be (as St. Chrysostom 
 
22 God and tJic Soul. [Serm. 
 
 seemed to tliink, by reason of the perils of clerical service) 
 the great relative majority, will be laymen. It is as 
 dangerous to pass the threshold of the sanctuary without 
 a true secret call from Him Who reigns there, as it is to 
 hold back, in obedience to human opinion or to worldly 
 considerations, when He beckons us forward. It is said 
 that the Apostle's description of the members of the 
 Church at Corinth is becoming applicable to those who 
 seek Holy Orders in the Chm-ch of England ; oxj ttoWoc 
 (Tocpol Kara adpKa, ou iroXkol Bvvarol, ov ttoWoI euyevel^ ^ " 
 It is said that intellect, and influence, and station, give 
 less than they gave ten years ago to the one cause which 
 has a first claim upon the thought and heart of a Christian 
 country. If indeed it be so, the loss is not His, AVlio can 
 uphold as at the first He reared His Church by feeble 
 hands, amid the scorn and against the anticipations of the 
 thoughtful and the strong. They really lose who have 
 much to give, and who thoughtlessly or purposely refuse 
 to give it. 
 
 T\\c question of self-consecration to God is prior to any 
 inquiry into the form which He may ultimately bid it 
 assume. It is a question for us ; not as being candidates 
 for Orders, but as being Christians, aye, as being men. 
 Is the God of heaven and earth to be, by virtue of our 
 personal self-surrender to His service, as He is already by 
 the tenour of His creative and redemptive relations, our 
 God? . . . We cannot insure ourselves for the future; 
 we cannot command one movement of the heart or of the 
 will beyond the actual present. . . . Amid these solem- 
 nities there is not matter for many words. The deepest 
 waters glide silently onwards. The soul's truest and 
 most intimate converse with its Maker must command 
 a^rcverential reserve, and cannot without risk of injury bo 
 forced into language. . . . 
 
 ' I Cor. i. 26. 
 
I] God and the Soul. 23 
 
 But, believe it, we can only glorify God by yielding 
 ourselves to Him. No other conduct on our part does 
 justice to His claims. We can only become lioly by 
 giving ourselves up to Him, since nothing less than this 
 master effort can ensure that pliancy of the will which is 
 essential to sanctification. Only thus, can we imitate 
 Jesus Christ, since this absolute surrender of His Man- 
 hood to His Father's glory was the predominating law of 
 His earthly life. Only when we have sincerely given 
 ourselves to the Holy God does the moral teaching of the 
 Gospel justify itself in detail to our inmost conscience, as 
 the serious exhibition of what a creature should be be- 
 neath the eye of His Creator. Only when we have given 
 ourselves to the all-wise God can we, without hesitation 
 or fear, aye, with the utmost intrepidity, engage in 
 inquiries reaching down to the very base of truth ; 
 because then we carry with us into every argument a 
 premise which never lets us for one moment forget our 
 real place and capacities. Only when we have freely 
 given ourselves to the most merciful God do we know 
 what it is indeed to pray, to speak to God with that 
 trustful yet reverent familiarity which becomes children 
 who feel that they have and can have no secrets to hide 
 from their Father in heaven. Only when we have presented 
 ourselves unreservedly to God as a living sacrifice, can we 
 taste the joy of an untroubled conscience, and of a true 
 inward peace of soul, and of a moral assurance of sal- 
 vation, through His most precious death, Who makes our 
 self-oblation an acceptable reality. In short, only when 
 by a real moral act we have restored to God the freedom 
 which He has given us, do we enter even distantly into 
 the full meaning of the Psalmist's words, " God, Thou 
 art my God.'^ 
 
 For it is certain that at the last God gives Himself to 
 us in a measure proportioned to that in which we have 
 
24 God and the SoiU. 
 
 offered ourselves to Him. We niay, iu life^s journey, 
 have met with those, who, in a spirit of boisterous self- 
 will, have made a gi*and tour of the world, and after 
 tasting of all the sensualities and all the scepticisms, after 
 resisting no form of moral or intellectual temptation, and 
 finding satisfaction, as they must find it, nowhere, return 
 while yet they may, in the late evening of their days, to 
 offer to their Maker and Redeemer the scanty relics of a 
 wasted life. Even for such, we know, there is a smile of 
 recognition and a word of mercy. But for those who, 
 with the Psalmist, seeking Him early and diligently, give 
 Him the hopes of their youth and the strength of their 
 manhood ; for those who give intellect when it is now 
 expanding to the full measure of its grasp, and affections 
 when they have as yet lost nothing of their freshness and 
 purity, and will when it has learnt by obedience some- 
 thing of that freedom, and rectitude, and strength of 
 movement in which its perfection consists ; for a Samuel, 
 for a David, for a Saul of Tarsus, for a Timothy, aye, for 
 an Augustine, He prepares, even in this world, a lavish 
 acknowledgment ; He bestows on such as these a fulness of 
 blessing, and joy, and peace, which the eye of nature hath 
 not seen, nor its ear heard, nor the unrenewed heart of 
 man conceived to tell ". 
 
 "Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed 
 Thee. And He said unto them. Verily I say unto you. 
 There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or 
 brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's 
 sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this pre- 
 sent time, and in the world to come life everlasting ''." 
 
 " I Cor. ii. 9. X St. Luke xviii. 28—30. 
 
SERMON 11. 
 
 THE LAW OF PROGRESS. 
 
 Phil. iii. 13, 14. 
 
 Brethren, I count not myself to have ajiprehended : hut this one thing I do, 
 forgetting those things lohich are behind, and reaching forth tcnto those 
 things which are before, I press toivard the mark for the 2^>'>~s of the 
 high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 
 
 IN these fervid words the Apostle is correcting a mis- 
 apprehension which might have been occasioned by his 
 previous language. If we may argue from the absence of 
 censure and the warmth of commendation which distin- 
 guish this Epistle, the Church of Philippi in point of 
 spiritual attainments must have been in the first rank, if 
 not absolutely first, among the Apostolical Churches. 
 Yet even the Philippians needed a passing warning. 
 Active and mischievous teachers were abroad who would 
 fain have placed the Sacrifice of Calvary and the Sacra- 
 ments of the New Covenant on the level of the legal 
 shadows which pointed to them, and who would have 
 imprisoned the Catholic Church within the narrow pre- 
 cincts of their national synagogue. St. Paul appeals 
 to his own case against the Judaizers. He had actually 
 enjoyed those distinctions of race and blood, of exact com- 
 pliance with the prescriptions of the ancient ritual, of high 
 religious standing, of public consideration and personal 
 character which they so earnestly coveted or recommended. 
 
26 The Law of Progress. [Serm. 
 
 At the bidding of Heaven, lie liiul taken the ti'ue measure 
 of these things, and had renounced them. " If any other 
 man thinketli that he hath whereof he might trust in the 
 flesh [i. e. the outward k'gal privileges insisted on by the 
 Judaizers], I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the 
 stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of 
 the Hebrews ; as touching the law, a Pharisee ; concerning 
 zeal, persecuting the Church ; touching the righteousness 
 which is of the law, blameless. But what things Avere 
 gain unto me, those I counted loss for Christ".^' This 
 estimate he proceeds to justify by enumerating some dis- 
 tinctive and counterbalancing privileges and attractions of 
 the Gospel. He first names Christ's gift of a divine 
 righteousness received by the hand of faith''. Then, 
 Christ's Resurrection-power raising man's whole moral 
 nature from the tomb of sin and selfishness. To these, 
 WTiting from his Roman prison, the Apostle adds the 
 mysterious privilege of fellowship wuth Christ's a-^-ful 
 Sufferings, which soothe, sweeten, sanctifv, ennoble 
 human pain, and transform it into a renovating moral 
 force '^. Hereupon, there follows a hope, not very confi- 
 dently phrased ; el irw^ KaravTijcrco. " If by any means I 
 might attain unto the resurrection of the dead'^ ! " 
 
 Did then this one mighty moral act by which St. Paul 
 had passed from nature to grace, from error to truth, from 
 Judaism to the Church, so epitomize and contain in itself 
 his whole spiritual history as to make all further aspira- 
 tions, movements, efforts, superfluous ? Something of 
 this kind has at various times moved the minds of un- 
 spiritual men, who have desired by one great sacrifice to 
 com])oundA\nth Heaven, and so to escape from the respon- 
 sibility, from the wearing and commonplace trials of a 
 daily struggle. Tliey have taken it for granted that the 
 probation of a soul, instead of being continued to the hour 
 
 a riiil. iii. 4 — 7. »> Ibid. 9. <= Ibid. 10. <1 Ibid. 11. 
 
II] The Law of Progress. 27 
 
 of death, is practically limited to one heroic action, to 
 one sharp pang of suffering in mind or body, to one 
 sacrifice cheerfully accepted for the sake of Christ. They 
 have accounted conversion to be not merely a renunciation 
 of the past, but an insurance of the future beyond risk of 
 forfeiture. 
 
 Not thus, however, was it mth the great Apostle. He 
 protests against the thought of " his having already 
 attained, or being already perfect ^.^^ At his conversion, 
 he maintains, Christ had laid hold on him to enable him 
 to attain that for which he was still striving. Atw/cco et 
 KOii KaraXd^w, i(fi o) Kai KaTe\'i'j(f)97]v vtto tov Xptarov^. 
 This first protest is followed up by a second, yet more 
 earnest and emphatic, both in its disavowal of satisfaction 
 with present attainments, and in its energetic description 
 of the onward upward impulse of an Apostle^s life. The 
 language is sensibly coloured by the image of the Greek 
 racer, and we are reminded of the more detailed elabora- 
 tion of the metaphor in the First Epistle to the 
 Corinthians^. The race is undecided: "I count not 
 myself to have apprehended '\" In the eager pressure of 
 the struggle, the racer cannot measure the ground which 
 he has already traversed ; he forgets those things which 
 are behind. He reaches forward to those things that are 
 before ; eireKreLvoiJbevo'i ; '' the bodily attitude exactly pic- 
 turing the mental impulse both in its posture and direc- 
 tion ^^^ He presses forward towards the mark, for the 
 prize with which He Who had called him from heaven vras 
 at length to bless him. The things behind (ra oirlcrco), 
 which he forgets, are not merely the external prerogatives 
 of Judaism. As the metaphor wou^ld itself suggest, they 
 are the earlier struggles, the past experiences, the incom- 
 plete attainments of the Christian. He may by and by, 
 
 e Phil. iii. 12. ^ Ibid. g i Cor. ix. 24—27. 
 
 ^ Phil. iii. i.^. 1 Ellicott in loc. 
 
28 The Law of Progress. [Serm. 
 
 within (as it would seoni) tliree moutlis of liis martp'dom, 
 pause and draw breath, in the moral assurance of A-ictory . " 1 
 have finished my course, I have kept the faith : henceforth 
 there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness J." Be it 
 however remembered that when St. Paul is writing to the 
 Philippians, that entire section of his life which is described 
 in the Acts of the Apostles is already past. What had 
 been at first a more external and human appreciatioii of 
 his Saviour has long yielded to a profoundly spiritual 
 recognition of His glory ; " he knows Christ after the 
 flesh no more^." Already he has wT-itten his greatest 
 Epistles ; he has founded his noblest Churches. Nay 
 more, he has even been caught up into Paradise and 
 heard unspeakable words'. Yet he forgets those things 
 that are behind and reaches forward. For his life is true 
 to the law which is obeyed by the highest as by the lowest 
 of the true servants of Christ; it is a life of progress. 
 
 In the Apostle's words we seem, within the sanctuary, 
 to catch the echo of one of those most familiar and most 
 powerful watchwords which from time to time rally 
 around them the thoughts and determine the activities of 
 the great outside world of men. In each age public 
 human life has its watchwords ; it has its representative 
 language no less than its representative men. These 
 watchwords do, as a matter of fact, shape the thoughts 
 and efforts of multitudes. Even the ])ractical, unspecu- 
 lative spirit of Englishmen does not artbrd a guarantee 
 against their influence. They are proclaimed with an 
 accent of sincerity and conviction by the earnest few. 
 They are echoed, in an indolent, an imitative, or a self- 
 seeking spirit, by the less thoughtful many. Tliey claim 
 notice at the hands of Christians just so far as they may 
 seem to aftect the higher, that is, the moral and eternal 
 interests of man. No watchword can become the rallying- 
 
 j 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8. ■« 2 Cor. v. i6. ' Ibid. xii. 4. 
 
II] The Lata of Progress. 2,9 
 
 cry of large masses of men, who differ in temper, interests, 
 station, and blood, without containing a certain germ of 
 truth, however that truth may be misapplied, overlaid, or 
 even caricatured. To sever the original truth from the 
 later misapplication, to give freedom to the principle 
 which has been maliciously or accidentally imprisoned 
 within the bands and folds of a parasitical error, may be 
 difficult, but is surely just. Such an attempt, however 
 unsuccessful, is at any rate in harmony with the special 
 work of those who, here or elsewhere, speak for Christ to 
 the generations of men. 
 
 In our own days no rallying-cry has gained more pro- 
 minence or exerted more power than the demand for 
 Progress. The most opposite aspirations, aye, the most 
 earnest and determined antagonists, range themselves 
 simultaneously under the banner of Progress. Govern- 
 ment, society, art, science, even religion, are in turn 
 challenged, reviewed, judged in the name of Progress. 
 Here indeed in Oxford, the tradition of a thousand years 
 still overshadows our life with rich and varied memories 
 of the past; and to this day the Church of God wields 
 among us a social and moral empire, and protects, how- 
 ever imperfectly, the souls of men against the licence of 
 intellectual caprice and of animal rebellion. But even 
 here we are no strangers to a language which is echoed 
 by all the tongues of Europe. In order to recommend a 
 measure, a book, an opinion, a man, we too insist on the 
 necessity of Progress. In order to stamp on a party, or a 
 line of thought, or an institution, or a social or literary 
 combination, the brand of modern society, we too, as 
 befits the disciples of Progress, mutter a characteristic 
 anathema; we call it '^^ reaction." 
 
 It has indeed been suggested that Progress is one of 
 those modern ideas which confront the Church of God at 
 this hour, under conditions somewhat similar to those 
 
30 The Law of Progress. [Seem. 
 
 which brought her face to face "u-ith the Xorthern Bar- 
 barians on the Rhine and on the Danube at the break-up 
 of the great Eini)ire of Rome. The savage, we are told, 
 is liostile, but he is also generous; jou may educate his 
 natural nobleness and raise it into chivahy; you have but 
 to exorcise the evil spirit that is in him ; you have but to 
 baptize him, and he will become the founder of a more 
 vigorous and Christian civilization ; he will be the eldest 
 son of the Church. 
 
 But this representation cannot be seriously admitted as 
 true. For between the abstract idea of Progress and 
 the claims of religious truth there is not merely no anta- 
 gonism, there is an intimate and essential harmony. 
 This harmony may be traced no less in the rehgious 
 instincts of the soul than in the historical manifestation 
 of revealed religion. 
 
 The source and motive of Progress is a sense of want, 
 of short-coming. It is the very voice of truth, Avliich 
 confesses imperfections and yearns to rise. This true, 
 this humble sense of actual imperfection is provoked and 
 kept alive by a vision, an ideal of possible perfection, 
 which haunts the secret soul of man, and which is a relic 
 of Eden. Man was created for God ; and the depths of 
 the human soul, even in its ruin, bear witness to the 
 original greatness of human destiny. Tlie unreflecting, 
 unruffled contentment of the creatures around us, con- 
 trasts sharply with the unsatisfied yearnings of man. 
 The placid repose of the brutes is never troubled by any 
 impulse or attraction which leads them to yearn for a 
 state higher or nobler than their present existence. But 
 in man, something, be it a memory or an anticipation, is 
 perpetually protesting against the actual attainments of 
 human life, and stimulating him to seek a more perfect 
 and higher condition. Underlying sin, sense, miscon- 
 ception, weakness, this shadowy perception of an ideal 
 
II] The Lazi) of Progress. 31 
 
 greatness, this craving for a beauty wliicli transcends the 
 realities of experience, is continually upheaving thought 
 and society ; it is pouring itself forth, whether in gradu- 
 ated movements or in volcanic eruptions ; it is allying 
 itself often with all that is true and noble, and not seldom 
 with the destructive energies of pure evil. Even Robes- 
 pierre was sincere in his pursuit of an ideal which his 
 crimes have buried out of sight ; and all the seven deadly 
 sins, one after another, have claimed to be the agents of 
 Progress. But however various and perverted the result, 
 the original impulse is from God. It is the creature, 
 craving — whether in morals, or society, or art, or specu- 
 lation, or whatever department of man's activity — for 
 something beyond its actual attainments. It is the 
 effort to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for the Infinite. 
 Allied to this sense of ideal perfection is the mighty 
 power of hope. Hope nerves man's arm while it gladdens 
 his heart. Hope is the lever which moves human nature. 
 Without ho^DC, man's knowledge may be but the measure 
 of his despair. Doubtless this desire for an unattained 
 perfection, this sanguine reaching after a still distant 
 blessing, may fail, and fail grievously, of securing its true 
 object. It may be seduced by attractive insincerities, 
 and prostituted to odious and irreligious endeavours. 
 Yet its very errors bear witness to its strength, while 
 they may not blind us to the greatness of its origin. 
 
 But is not this same yearning for an unattained per- 
 fection, joined to a hope that such anxiety will not be 
 disappointed, among the dispositions which most readily 
 welcome Revelation to its throne within the soul ? Was 
 not Revelation itself for long ages a perpetual Progress ? 
 Was it not a Progress from Eden to Moriah, a Progress 
 from Moriah to Sinai, a Progress from Sinai to Calvary ? 
 Did not the whole form and spirit of the Patriarchal faith 
 declare plainly that the first fathers of Israel sought a 
 
32 The Law of Progress. [Seem. 
 
 country ? AVas not the Law a servant '" charged with 
 the duty of leading the Jew to the school of Jesus Christ, 
 both by discovering to his conscience its moral needs, and 
 by typically foreshadowing the Atonement, the Spirit, 
 and the Sacraments which would satisfy them ? Were 
 not the Prophets, each and all, ministers of Progress? 
 Their predictive gift pointed towards the future; their 
 moral energies carried men forward, whether from cere- 
 monialism to a truer service, or from scepticism to faith, 
 or from despair to energy, or from sheer ungodliness to 
 the natural virtues, or from the ordinary level of the 
 natural virtues to the height of the heroic and the super- 
 natural. Certainly when He came, to Whom, directly or 
 indirectly, by implication or explicitly, all His prophets 
 pointed. He brought from heaven a Body of Truth, con- 
 taining whatever we now know in respect of questions 
 which must always possess the deepest interest for the 
 human soul. He told us all that is to be apprehended 
 here concerning life and death, and God and eternity. 
 Thus the essential faith of Christendom is fixed. No 
 advance is possible in the way of distilling its spirit from 
 its dogma, with a view to rejecting the dogma while we 
 retain the spirit. The spirit of Christianity is in fact in- 
 separable from the Christian faith. No advance is pos- 
 sible in the way of enlarging the dogmatic area of the 
 Creed by a process of accretive development. For the 
 Revelation made and delivered by our Lord and His 
 
 Apostles was final and sufficient ". But the Faith, itself 
 
 * 
 
 '" nai5a*yai7bs ritxSiv yiyovev fls Xpiffrdp. Gal. iii. 24. 
 
 " St. .Iiulo 3. So IJellaniiiiie, Disp. cle Vcrbo Uei non Scripto, iv. c. 9, 
 Op. vol. i. p. 193 : " Noil iiovis res'elationibus nunc rcgitur Ecclcsia, scd in lis 
 pernianet, quae tradideruut hi qui niinistri lueruut sorniouis, ct propterea 
 dicitur (Ephes. ii.) 'a-dificata snj)L'r fundunicutuni apostolorum et proplie- 
 tarum.'" Kuhn contrasts this with Stauduinnaiur's statement that "der hi. 
 Geist als Princip dcr Wahrhcit nicht nur das von Christus ausgcgangene 
 giittlichc Wort crhalte, sondern audi durch fortgohende Inspiratiouen 
 
II] The Lazj of Progress. 23 
 
 uncliangeable and divine^ has nevertheless become both 
 in the world at large and in separate souls, a principle 
 of Progress. On the one hand, thi'ough the Church it 
 leavens the -svorld so gradually, that only in our own days 
 and with notorious difficulty is it completing its trimnph 
 over the long-tolerated evils of duelling and slavery. 
 On the other, the Apostle in the text is himself a sample 
 of its progressive and elevating power within the pre- 
 cincts of the human soul. That it has enriched and is still 
 enrichino- human thoug-ht, that it has ennobled and is 
 ennobling human character, that it has given an original 
 impulse to entire sciences, and created virtues which were 
 impossible without it, are simple matters of fact. Xo 
 hostnity to Christian doctrine can justify indifference to 
 the truth, that the world owes to Christianity the matured 
 idea of ProgTess, and the one serious attempt to realize it. 
 But at this point it becomes necessary to reply more pre- 
 cisely to the question, what it is that we mean by Progress. 
 
 I. First, then, it "^411 be at once conceded that a true 
 Progress must be the Progress of man. I say, of man 
 himself; as distinct from the organization, appliances, 
 or embelhshments of his life ; as distinct, in short, from 
 any thing which is properly outside him. 
 
 Contrast this obvious and vital truth with one of the 
 most general conceptions of Progress at the present day. 
 What is too often meant by our public winters and public 
 speakers when they periodically celebrate the triumphs or 
 stimulate the energies of Progress ? Surely they mean, 
 first and chiefly, that which ministers comfort, enjoyment, 
 dignity, well-being to man's outward life. To promote or 
 
 Wabrlieiten aufs Xeue immer wieder erzeuge." (Christliclie Dogm. i. s. 19.) 
 Yet Staudeumaier's principle seems necessary to account for the recent 
 growth of the Roman Creed, however much more truly Bellarmine may 
 represent the mind of antiquity, in his adherence to the ' quod semper ' of 
 Yincentius of Lerins. Compare Dr. Mill's remarks ; " Five Sermons on the 
 Xature of Christianitj-," pp. 1 7 — 30. 
 
 D 
 
34 The Laiu of Progress. [Si: km. 
 
 to rivet man's empire over the world of matter^ to organize 
 human life in sucli sort, that you secure to the individual 
 the highest amount of personal enjoyment which is com- 
 patible with the interests of the community at large; — 
 that is Progress. Political reforms, great constructive 
 efforts, rapid locomotion, sanitary improvements, vast 
 accumulations of capital, seconded by vast outlays, inven- 
 tions which economize labour, or Avhich relieve pain; — • 
 these are Progress. Egypt with her colossal public 
 works, Greece with her freedom of personal action, Eome 
 with her imperial organization. Tyre or Corinth with 
 their industrial activities — these, rather than Jerusalem, 
 are the chosen types of Progress. Progress is almost a 
 marketable commodity ; it can be measured, weighed, 
 valued. Mental speculation that does not invent or that 
 cannot be utilized, morals which do not sanction this or 
 that economical theory, or subserve the lower instincts of 
 an Epicureanized society ; — these are the enemies of Pro- 
 gress. We are bidden compare English life of to-day, in 
 its outward aspects, vn\\\ the life of Englishmen in the 
 fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, or with the life of our own 
 gi'andfathers. "We are referred to the growth of the na- 
 tional Constitution, continued through centuries, and still 
 in process of development ; to the marvellous productive- 
 ness of the daily press ; to the foundation of cities and 
 colonies, on the other side of the Atlantic or beyond the 
 Equator, which in a few years have achieved improvements 
 and successes that had cost Europe centuries of labour and 
 suffering. '' See," cry the prophets of material l*rogress, 
 *' how we are gradually completing the conquest of nature 
 and putting all things in subjection under our feet. From 
 city to city, from country to country, from continent to 
 continent, tlie clccti-ic wire flashes forth our thought or 
 our resolution almost with the accuracy and swiftness of a 
 bodily sense or of a mental faculty. Our art is no longer 
 
II] The Lazu of Progress. ^S 
 
 bound down to tlie slow and disappointing travail of tlie 
 brush or of the pencil ; the light of heaven is itself an 
 artist ready to our hand^ and a likeness of faultless accu- 
 racy^ which would have been impossible even after years 
 of labour to the miniature painters of the last generation^ 
 can be ensured by our chemistry with mechanical certainty 
 in the course of a few seconds. Steam power, as if it 
 were a living creature which we had trained and harnessed, 
 has rendered us wellnigh independent of distance and of 
 fatigue ; we do not consult, we all but control the winds 
 and the waves. We descend into the bowels of the earth; 
 we draw forth from its hidden caverns the gas or the pe- 
 troleum ; we reverse the original arrangements of Pro^d- 
 dence, and we turn the night of our great cities into day. 
 But, forgetting those things that are behind, we look for- 
 ward to those things that are before. New discoveries, new 
 inventions, new triumphs await us or our children. There 
 are yet secrets which may be wi'ung from nature ; there are 
 yet playing around us, above us, beneath us, awful and subtle 
 powers or properties which may in time become the slaves 
 of man. We reap to-day only the earlier harvests of the 
 Baconian philosophy ; we are but keeping time with the 
 first footsteps of the mighty march of the modern world. 
 It is true that, as contrasted with our grandfathers, we 
 are great and powerful ; yet for our descendants there is 
 reserved a land of promise, compared with which our 
 modern civilization is but as the desert. Our children 
 will assuredly witness an advance of man's power over the 
 materials around him, which will throw the achievements 
 of the present time utterly into the shade ; the attain- 
 ments of which we are so proud to-day will be deemed by 
 our posterity as little better than the higher efforts of an 
 effete barbarism °." 
 
 o Of this temper the recent work of IM. About, " Le Progres," is a ftxir 
 sample. In his "Le monde, tel qii'il sera" (Paris, 1859), M. Einile Sou- 
 
 D 2 
 
36 The Law of Progress. [Seem. 
 
 To these enthusiasms the Church of God replies iu no 
 narrow or unfriendly spirit, as if she were committed to a 
 ]\Ianicli;van heresy on the subject of matter, and could see 
 in its useful employment and development nothing but a 
 triumph of evil. She has not so forgotten the blessing of 
 Eden, " Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, 
 and subdue it p," as to look with a jaundiced eye on the 
 various and mighty products of the hands and brains of 
 the sous of men. Nay more, we Christians do not grudg- 
 ingly admit, we vehemently assert, on the part of Reli- 
 gion, that material progress does contribute real although 
 indirect service to the higher, that is, to the moral interests 
 of man. And it will be noted with especial thankfulness 
 by those who have at heart something of their Lord's love 
 of the poor and feeble, that the lower you descend in the 
 scale of society, the more distinctly can you estimate the 
 greatness of the debt which the soul of man owes to pro- 
 gressive improvements, whether in the ordering of society 
 itself, or in the utilization of matter. 
 
 But, at the same time, let us never forget it, society may 
 be well organized, while man himself is barbarous and self- 
 ish. And yet more certainly, man's conquests over matter 
 are no adequate measure of the true progress of man. For 
 man, although dwelling in a material form and on the con- 
 fines of a world of matter, is yet in himself an imperishable 
 and spiritual being, linked by his higher nature to an imma- 
 terial world. Man can analyze, mould, and employ matter, 
 precisel}' because he is superior to it. He cannot himself, 
 in his inmost being, be raised by that which is beneath him, 
 and wliich yields to the \agour of his thought and of his 
 hands. Com])i-('hend, my brethren, your matchless dignity 
 
 vcstrc shows liiiiisclf sufficiently alive to its occasioiKil cxagprcration and 
 absurdity. Cf. also Felix, Conf. i. 190, sqq., to whom several of the thoughts 
 in this sermon are due. 
 P Gen. ix. i. 
 
II] The Law of Progress. 21 
 
 in your Creator's world. Each of you ha^i, nay rather 
 eacli of you is, that ^vith which nothing material^ be it 
 force, or magnitude, or law, be it fluid or mineral, be it 
 atom or planet, can rightly challenge comparison. Each 
 of you is, in the depth of his personality, a spiritual sub- 
 stance. This substance is without extent, \\dthout form, 
 without colour, unseen, impalpable. This substance is so 
 subtle, that in its mysterious and inaccessible retreats it 
 can be detected neither by the knife of the anatomist nor 
 by the keen observation of the psychologist. This sub- 
 stance is so living ^and strong, that each member, each 
 nerve of your body, each fold, each tissue of your brain, 
 is at once its instrument, and the proof of its presence, and 
 its empire. The human soul ! who that has pondered, 
 even superficially, over the mysterious depths of life within 
 him — depths of which he knows so little, yet which are 
 so intimately himself — can submit to the falsehood and 
 degradation of the theory which makes man's real pro- 
 gress to consist of a mere succession in the external modi- 
 fications of senseless matter ? 
 
 Let it be thankfully and joyfully granted that as a means 
 to a higher end, material improvement is a healthful con- 
 dition of human life, and a blessing from God. But its ex- 
 aggeration, at the expense of that which it should subserve, 
 is a curse, than which none is more fatal to the progress of 
 man. When the sense of the Unseen and the Eternal and 
 all the finer sjnnpathies have been crushed out by the dead 
 weight or worship of matter, man sinks in the creation of 
 God, even though he should learn to wield more and more 
 power year by year over the dead atoms around him. Mr. 
 Buckle remarkably illustrates one side of this position in 
 that able chapter of his work on Civilization, in which he 
 traces the almost exclusive interest in physical studies, 
 combined with a wide-spread scepticism, which charac- 
 terized the intellectual movement of Franco in the period 
 
38 The Law of Progress. [Seem. 
 
 innuediatcly preceding' the culminatiug atrocities of the 
 great Ixcvolutiou i. A high material civilization does but 
 arm the human brute ■\\nth new instruments of his lust or 
 his ferocity, unless it go hand in hand with a power that 
 can penetrate his heart and mould his will. Corpulence 
 is not the evidence of health ; it is the certain symptom of 
 disease. ^Vhen the ruling tendencies and studies of so- 
 ciety are materialized, the human soul is condemned to an 
 inevitable degradation. There is a subtle law of assimila- 
 tion whereby man, in his deepest life, receives an impress 
 from the object on Avhich his gaze is habitually fixed. 
 Those who gaze heavenward are, as the Apostle tells us, 
 changed by the Image of Perfect Beauty from one to 
 another degree of glory. Those who look downwards and 
 earthwards receive as certainly the stamp and likeness of 
 the things beneath them ; they lose their hold by a pro- 
 gressive declension on all that sublimates and ennobles 
 human life. They sink downward and deeper, till at 
 length they discover in man himself nothing but the 
 anatomy or the chcmistiy of his body. They seek at 
 length, and they find in themselves and in their brother 
 men the mere animal ; they positively can see before them 
 nothing but the animal, gifted doubtless with strange ac- 
 complishments, yet after all, and at bottom, only the self- 
 seeking, brutal, lustful, cruel, perishing animal. They 
 reckon the very idea of a moral and spiritual destiny or 
 
 1 Hist. Civilization, i. pp. 788, sqq. ; especially p. 796: "In France 
 (luring the latter half of the eighteenth century this [one great idea at work] 
 wiis the inferiority of the internal to the external. It was this dangerous 
 but plausible principle which di"cw the attention of men from the Church 
 to the State; which was seen in Helvctius, the most celebrated of 
 the French moralists, and in Condillac, the most celebrated of the French 
 metaphysicians. It was this same principle which, by increasing, if I may 
 sny so, the reputation of Nature, induced the ablest thinkers to devote 
 tliemselves to a study of her laws, and to abandon those other pursuits 
 which had been popular in a preceding age." 
 
II] The Law of Progress. 39 
 
 capacity to be but a mere freak of liuinan conceit^ or a 
 snare of priestly imposition ^ WTien we consider these 
 deptlis of wliat is, alas ! far from being an imaginary de- 
 gradation, we learn to estimate at its true value the doc- 
 trine of a mere material progress. Whatever else may be 
 said of it, it cannot be said to be human ; it cannot be 
 pressed on our sympathies and attention on the ground 
 of being the progress of man as man. 
 
 2. A second canon of Progress is this; it must embrace 
 the whole of human nature. It must not consist in the 
 undue development of a single power or faculty, to the 
 prejudice of other sides or capacities of man's complex 
 being. Let me suggest a single illustration of my mean- 
 ing from our experience and circumstances in this place. 
 We have no violent temptations here to sacrifice higher 
 interests to industrial or material ones. We have, for in- 
 stance, no sympathy with men of whom it has been said, 
 that their names might be found in the Book of Life, if 
 the Book of Life could be supposed to be a ledger. If 
 not by the grace of God and the illumination of His truth, 
 yet at least by the generous impulses of a liberal educa- 
 tion, we desiderate some higher form of progress than 
 that which solely consists in refashioning and utilizing 
 matter. Thus to some among us the progress of man 
 seems to be exactly coextensive with the growth of his 
 mind. '^ Only inform, exercise, strengthen, sharpen, 
 widen, unfold, develope the human intellect, and the 
 human intellect will become the instrument of a true and 
 necessary progress." A doctrine, which, be it what else 
 it may, is at least familiar, and indeed certain, for obvious 
 reasons, to find acceptance and welcome in this home and 
 sanctuary of high education ! 
 
 Nor would I be so altogether misunderstood, that you 
 should construe any words of mine as a caution or protest 
 
 ■■ See, for example, Dr. Biiclmer, Kraft vtikI Stoff, pp. 139, sqq. (Frcuch ed.) 
 
40 The Law of Progress. [Serm. 
 
 against liig-li intellectual culture. It cannot be God's will 
 that His ministers should counsel neglect of that which, 
 after His supernatural grace, is amongst the very noblest 
 •of His gifts to man. Certainly, my younger brethren, 
 your highest work in this place is not the mere accu- 
 mulation of facts ; it is the education of faculties ; it is 
 eminently the discipline and development of intellect. 
 For intellect is not merely the tool Avhich you Avill 
 presently use for the business of life. Intellect is the eye 
 which may be tutored accurately and truly to see truth ; 
 it is the faculty which, quickened by adoring love and 
 sanctified by grace, is for an eternity to have as its object 
 the Eternal and Infinite God. You especially, whose 
 happiness it is to receive joyfully and intelligently the 
 doctrines of the Church, and who propose to devote your- 
 selves to the ser^dco of her altars, — you assuredly have 
 the very highest and strongest motive that men can have 
 for the energetic cultivation of your minds. It is your 
 privilege, your duty — your sacred duty — to cultivate 
 intellect. Aye, cultivate it long and well. Not indeed 
 that it may, in its strength and beauty, be merely the 
 2:)ledge of a selfish temporal advancement, which shall win 
 you a larger income or a higher position than your 
 brethren, to be clutched for a few years at best, and then 
 as a paltry bauble to be buried in your graves. But 
 cultivate intellect rather as an instrument of your religious, 
 your life-absorbing work, Avhich has to be wrought within 
 your own souls no less than without them. Cultivate it 
 as a consecrated weapon entrusted to you by Heaven, 
 that here you may devote your best energies to whetting, 
 polishing, testing, strengthening it, until at the moment 
 of your ordination, in a spirit of disinterested loyalty, 
 you place it absolutely and for ever at the disposal of that 
 Eternal Lord Who gave and AVho deigns to use it. 
 
 Yes, the development, the religious development of 
 
II] The Lazv of Progress. 41 
 
 intellect, is unquestionably a prominent feature of true 
 liuman progress. But it is only a feature, and not tlie 
 whole. Wlien intellectual activity is substituted for 
 moral and spiritual energy; when a man's mind is 
 developed at the expense of his heart and of his will; 
 still more, when he has learnt to estimate his fellow- 
 creatures only by an intellectual standard, he deserves, I 
 will not say active censure, but at any rate a very sincere 
 compassion. There is a well-authenticated tradition of a 
 famous argument between that great scholar and divine 
 Bishop Horsley, and one to whom I may be permitted to 
 .refer with something of the reverent admiration due most 
 assuredly from the members of a great society to a name 
 ■which it must ever cherish with love and honour — Dr. 
 • Cyril Jackson, Dean of Christ Church. They sat, it is 
 said, late into the night, pouring forth thoughts for which 
 men would have given one of them at least scanty credit. 
 They were debating the question whether God could be 
 better reached by His creatures through the exercise of 
 their intellects, or through the exercise of their affections. 
 Unwillingly, but step by step, the Bishop, who advocated 
 the claims of intellect, retreated before the arguments of 
 his friend, till at length, in a spirit which did no less 
 honour to his humility than to his candour, he exclaimed, 
 ^'^Then my whole life has been one great mistake \" 
 .Certainly that conclusion had been already anticipated 
 by St. Paul, as notably in that marvellous Epistle which 
 the Church reads to-day'; and the extreme antagonist 
 theory, whether put forward by primitive Gnostics, or by 
 paradoxical schoolmen, or by the cold sceptics of the last 
 age, has never found an echo in the great heart of the 
 human family. For men perceive that a pure iutel- 
 lectualism is apt to fall short even of the lower measures 
 
 s I am indebted tc Dr. Pusey for this account : lie received it from Bishop 
 Lloyd. ' I Cor. xiii. 
 
42 The Law of Progress. [Seem. 
 
 of duty. Wlieu it is unbalanced by a wai'm heart and a 
 \ngorous will, tlic mere cultivation of mind makes a man 
 alternately selfish and weak. Selfish ; if, for instance, to 
 the prosecution of a private speculation or to the assertion 
 of a private theory, the faith, the moral vigour, the 
 broadest and highest interests of others arc sacrificed or 
 postponed. Weak; when the entire man is cultivated 
 intellect and nothing else, neither love nor resolution; 
 when the clearness of intellectual perception contrasts 
 grimly with the absence of any practical effort; when 
 mental development, instead of being the crowning grace 
 of a noble character, is but as an unseemly and unpro- 
 ductive fungus, that has drained out to no purpose the 
 life and strength of its parent soul. Pardon my too eager 
 freedom, my brethren, if I ask whether any where else so 
 many and such high gifts of natural genius, raised by 
 cultivation to yet greater heights of power and beauty, are 
 so frequently resultless as in this place ? Is intellect any 
 where as in' Oxford so often unfolded in all its strength and 
 subtlety only to reveal its practical incapacities, only to be 
 poured forth on the very soil like water, while the great 
 work of the Church and of the world so urgently needs it ? 
 And if so, why ? Why but for this reason, among others ? 
 Instead of protecting and illustrating that Ti'uth which 
 really nerves the will for action, intellect has too often 
 amused itself hero with pulverizing all fixed convictions. 
 It has persuaded itself that it can dispense with those 
 high motives, without which it is itself too cold and incor- 
 poreal a thing to be of practical ser\'ice in this human 
 world. It has learnt to rejoice in its OAvn selfish if not 
 aimless energy ; but it really has abandoned the highest 
 Avork (if wliicli it was capable; it has left to an uniutel- 
 Icc'IumI ciitliusiasiii, to men of iiiucli love, if of inferior 
 mental cultivation, the task of stinmlating and guiding 
 the true progress of mankind. 
 
II] The Law of Progi'ess. 43 
 
 3. A third rule of Progress, It must embrace, or at 
 least recognize, the attendant facts, the outlying conditions 
 of human life. 
 
 (a.) Thus the fact of the Fall, with its moral and intel- 
 lectual consequences, must be frankly admitted by an 
 adequate doctrine of human improvement. Undoubtedly 
 that fact is energetically denied by several of the schools 
 of modern unbelief. But it is plainly taught, and yet 
 more ■v\'idely implied and presupposed in Holy Scripture ", 
 as it is invariably asserted by the Catholic Church. How 
 rarely do the secular theories of human progress con- 
 descend to recognize this solemn fact, even when they do 
 not in terms reject it. Yet there are witnesses to its 
 truth and cogency beyond the precincts of theology, and 
 in regions of inquiry more welcome to the genius of anti- 
 religious thought. There is the pagan doctrine — so true, 
 yet so unaccounted for by paganism — of the difficulty of 
 virtue ^. There is the very sense of the word virtue itself; 
 it implies force, vigour, something higher than the dead 
 level of man's ordinary life. There is the spontaneous 
 tendency to evil, profoundly imbedded in humankind, 
 and admitted even by unchristian writers, when they are 
 off their guard and not alive to the consequences of the 
 admission. Consider, again, man's undeniable aversion 
 for his brother man when in a state of nature; it is a 
 fierce, truculent passion, unless it be checked or con- 
 trolled by ties of interest, of friendship, or of blood. 
 So that when man's life is organized into human 
 society, and society is furnishing itself with government, 
 it can only secure itself against t}Tanny and corruption 
 
 '^ Jolj xiv. 4. Ps. li. 5. Isa. liii. 6, St. .lohu ii. 24, 25; iii. 3. 5, 6; 
 Eom. iii. 9. 23 j v. 12; vii. 18. Epli. iv. 22, &c. 
 
 ^ Ar. Eth. ii. 3. 10: Trepl oe rh xaAeTt^Tcpoj' aei Koi Tex^'V y'^viTai Kol 
 apeTT]. Cf. Eth. ii. 6. 14; ii. 9. 7 ; iii. I. 9 ; iii. 9. 2 ; iv. i. 9; iv. 3. 16 ; 
 V. I. 18; V. o. 13 — 16, &c. 
 
44 The Law of Progress. [Seem. 
 
 by a mechanical system of cliccks and counter-checks. 
 A\1iy should this be so, but because human natm-c knows 
 itself too well not to provide against its native instincts ? 
 There is indeed the theory of the French philosopher, 
 "Tliat man is born good, but is depraved by society y. 
 But that doctrine is now only referred to as a curiosity. 
 It is interesting as illustrating the intellectual mis- 
 fortunes of men who -y^ash to be true to the facts of human 
 nature, while they refuse to accept the doctrines of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 (/8.) Then, again, look at the wonderful ])henomenon of 
 grace. Grace is not that mere barren, inoperative senti- 
 ment of good-will or favour on the part of the Supreme 
 Being, which a secret anthropomorphism in the Socinian 
 theologians led them to ascribe to Him, mainly because 
 they were familiar with a like shadowy benevolence in 
 themselves. In God, to will is to act, to favour is to 
 bless ; and thus grace is not simply kindly feeling on the 
 part of God, but a positive boon conferred on man. 
 Grace is a real and active force ; it is, as the Apostle says, 
 " the power that worketh in us %" illuminating the intel- 
 lect, warming the heart, strengthening the will of re- 
 deemed humanity. It is the might of the Everlasting 
 Spirit renovating man by uniting him, whether imme- 
 diately or through the Sacraments, to the Sacred Manhood 
 of the Word Incarnate''. Here again is a fact, contro- 
 verted by scepticism, but certain to faith, which can be 
 as little omitted in any comprehensive and adequate 
 doctrine of Progress, as the law of attraction could be 
 
 y Rousseau. Sec his " Emilc." ^- Eph. iii. 20. 
 
 a Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. Ivi. 8 : " That AMiich quickcueth us is the Spirit 
 of the Seeond Achun, and His Flesh that wherewith He quickcneth." 
 Therefore (il)id. V. 1. 2), " we all admire and honour the Holy Saerauients, 
 not respecting so much the service which wo do unto God in receiving them, 
 as the dignity of that Sacred and Secret Gift wliich wc therchy receive 
 from (lod." 
 
II] The Lazu of Progress. 45 
 
 iguored by a physical philosoplier who was explainhig the 
 system and movements of the heavenly bodies. 
 
 (7.) Again^ there is the fact of immortality^ of an 
 eternity beyond the grave^ of an eternal heaven and an 
 eternal hell. Can any theory of hviman progress dare to 
 claim our attention, which, while not venturing to reject 
 these tremendous truths, yet does in practice proceed as 
 if they were uncertain or improbable ? What a poor, 
 what a narrow, what an unworthy conception of man's 
 capacity for progress, is that which sees no horizon 
 beyond the tomb ! In what terms would you yourselves 
 stigmatize a plan of education which should treat a pupil as 
 if he were to be always a child, and as if there were no need 
 for anticipating the powers and the opportunities, or for 
 guarding him against the dangers, of his coming manhood ! 
 Yet surely this error is trivial when com23ared to theirs, 
 whose sense of the mighty future is so feeble or so false, 
 that they would deal with an undpng being as if he were 
 more shortlived than many of the perishing beasts and trees, 
 amid which he prepares himself for his illimitable destiny. 
 
 Only He, dear brethren. Who at the first gifted our 
 race with the instinct of Progress, and AVliose kindly 
 Providence has never left us in our wanderings to the full 
 measure of our degradation and our shame, enables us 
 really to deal with this question. Our Father in Heaven 
 has, by His Blessed Son, made plain to us the true line of 
 human Progress. He teaches us the secret of Progress, 
 whether it be that of society in the aggregate or of the 
 individual man. Jesus speaking to His followers, spake 
 likewise to the nations and to the ages of Christendom, 
 nay, to the whole human family ; " I am the Way, the 
 Truth, and the Life." He is indeed our only path to the 
 Heart and Mind of God; He is Truth which guides, 
 and the vital Energy which strengthens every successful 
 traveller. He, our Lord and Saviour, is the Only Leader, 
 
46 TJie Laiu of Progress. [Seem. 
 
 the Only Law, the Only Impulse along the sacred Avay of 
 real improvement. 
 
 For, mark it well, the highest progress of man is moral. 
 The human soul is too noble and too great a thing to 
 move forward and to expand; except when it moves 
 towards, and is raised by, the Being A\Tio made it. 
 Moral Progress is the real elevation of man, not the 
 culture of matter. jNIoral Progress insures the elevation, 
 the progress of man's whole nature; his intellect opens 
 sympathetically but necessarily in obedience to the needs 
 of his growing conscience and of his stronger will. By a 
 true and effective moral Progress, the kingdom of God is 
 set up within a man, and all other things arc added unto 
 it. How largely the Church, the focus and home of this 
 true Progress, has likewise contributed to those lower 
 interests of human life Avhich would foin monopolize the 
 claim to promote them, has in our day been generously 
 and largely admitted by philosophical historians ^. In 
 moral Progress man's actual history and his real dignity 
 are recognized. For moral Progress must start from a 
 true basis, and therefore it must recognize the fall of 
 man. It must admit the weakness and incapacity of un- 
 assisted nature. Thus it fiills back on the atoning Sacri- 
 fice of Calvary, and on the graces which flow from our 
 ascended Saviour. It must do justice to that sense of 
 immortality which is so inoxtricably bound up with our 
 personal life, and wliicli ])i-(ivc>s so powerful a motive to all 
 moral action that raises and ennobles us. It must, in short, 
 consent to train us for our duties on earth, by undertaking 
 at the outset to train us for heaven. 
 
 Ujiwards and onwards, along the blessed yet thorny 
 
 road Avliich his Lord had shown him to bo the true road 
 
 of Progress, the great Apostle is moving in tlic text. 
 
 " Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended : but 
 
 ^ As by M. Guizot. 
 
II] The Law of Progress. 47 
 
 this one tiling* I do, forgetting those things which are 
 behind^ and reaching forward to those things which are 
 before, I press forward toward the mark of the prize of 
 my high calHng of God in Christ Jesus/' Behind him 
 are the scenes, voices, associations of boyhood ; for he too 
 was once a boy. Behind him are the eager sympathies 
 of his opening intellect, and his early generous affection 
 for the polity and religion of his fathers. Behind him is 
 the moral and mental agony of that wrench, whereby he 
 had torn himself, six and twenty years before, from the 
 fold of the national Judaism, and had passed into the 
 bosom of the Church of God. Behind him now too are 
 the toils, the sufferings, the persecutions, the misunder- 
 standings, the separations, the disappointments, the 
 triumphs, the prodigious victories of that long and 
 chequered time which followed, and which may be said 
 to have closed when he became a prisoner in Rome. 
 Among the things that are behind there is, moreover, 
 a vast inward and spiritual history ; the resistances, the 
 struggles, the failures, the self-masteries whereby, one after 
 another, each faculty and power of that mighty soul 
 was subdued in very deed to the truth which came from 
 Christ. All this and more he heeds not ; they are not 
 blotted out of his thoughts, but they have fallen into the 
 background ; the Ajjostle is pressing onward eagerly ; he 
 must forget the things that are behind. 
 
 The things before; — on these his eye instinctively rests. 
 Possibly he has some dim presentiment of that last brief 
 agony by which, on the Ostian Road six years later, he 
 is predestined to gain his crown. More surely, he is 
 g-azing on the heights yet to be scaled, the enemies yet 
 to be conquered, the graces yet to be won in his secret 
 soul, on the deepening, purifying, strengthening yet more 
 perfectly that personal love for the Lord Who had bought 
 him from bondage and death. That love is in very deed 
 
48 The Law of Progress. [Serm. 
 
 the secret and the principle of his life. lie is pondering 
 how best he may win for and impart to thought, to 
 affection, to resolve, new and ever-widening capacities ; 
 so that, as his life's stream shall ebb and his natural forces 
 shall decay, he may be enriched within and incalculably 
 by a secret strength that will be sent from heaven. 
 
 AVho indeed shall decide what at that moment was the 
 complete grasp and scope of this great Apostle's \asion of 
 the eternal world, upon which he has now long since 
 entered, to gaze in uninterrupted rapture upon the throne 
 and Face of Christ ? Who shall guess how far his 
 illuminated vision embraced the future of that Church 
 for the triumph of which he lived and died ? Who shall 
 say how truly he measured the full impetus and range of 
 those mighty influences which he had, as a chosen vessel, 
 embodied and carried forward, and Avhich, for ourselves, 
 at this day and in this country, are the only solid ground 
 of hope for the true Progress of man ? 
 
 Our lot, brethren, is cast in an age of movement, when 
 the pulse of life beats more quickly than in the days of 
 our fathers. Be it so ; it is the Will of God. Be it so; 
 this restless, tossing, struggling, seething mass of life, 
 whatever be its efi'orts or its direction, does but speak to 
 a spiritual intelligence of tlic deep yearning of the creature 
 for its true end in God. And therefore we Christians 
 have no prejudices against, rather have we every sympathy 
 for, those generous aspirations of our time which are really 
 reconcileable with the Law and with the Truth of Christ. 
 
 Certainly all movement is not necessarily movement in 
 the light direction ; nil tli:it chiims the name of Progress 
 does not therefore necessarily deserve it. Yet in society, 
 in government, in art, in education, in all strictly human 
 fields of thought and speculation, there is undeniably room 
 for Progress; precisely because man is finite and erring, 
 and at no point of his work or of his history may truth- 
 
II] The Laiu of Progress. 4.C) 
 
 fully and wisely presume tliat he lias readied perfection. 
 The living soul is ever growing in the Life of God. Again, 
 the outward action of the Church upon the world, the 
 incidental details as distinct from the divinely-ordered 
 principles of her apostolical organization, the literature 
 through which she impregnates an age or a country with 
 Christian ideas, the methods by which she Christianizes 
 education, the degree in which she commands the homage 
 and the activities of art, the relations which she maintains 
 with the political power, are all subjects in which pro- 
 gressive improvement is possible, and to be desired. For 
 progress in love, joy, longsuffering, for progress in active 
 intercommunion between separated sections of the Church, 
 for progress in the great work of evangelizing the world, 
 there is ample scope. 
 
 And if the essential faith of the Church were, as unbe- 
 lievers assert, only a human speculation, it also would be 
 subject to this law of Progress ; it too might be expected 
 to grow, or even to decompose, with the lapse of ages. 
 But resting, as it rests, on the authority of God, it is 
 exempt from this liability. It is a reflection in human 
 thought of Him " with Whom is no variableness, neither 
 shadow of turning '^." The surface criticism of Scripture 
 may vary from age to age, but the main lines of inter- 
 pretation, like the main verities of the faith, are far less 
 likely to undergo change than is the sun to fail in the 
 heavens, or the everlasting hills to melt. The Gospel as 
 it was'^ taught by the Apostles was a final and perfect 
 revelation. Statements of doctrine may vary in different 
 ages ; new statements may be necessary to meet new 
 modes of thought, or fresh foi'ms of evasion, or virtual 
 denials of the Original Ti'uth. But the number of 
 Christian doctrines cannot really be added to, nor can 
 the area of any one Christian doctrine be in any degree 
 ^ Si^. James i. 17. 
 
50 The Law of Progress. [Serm. 
 
 enlarged. Tlie Atlianasiaii formulge only unfold logically, 
 they do not add to, that which was in the mind of the 
 Apostles of Jesus Christ. In the true creed of His 
 Church, as on His throne in heaven, Jesus Christ is the 
 Same yesterday, to-day, and for ever ^. And how vc- 
 lativch/ slight are the differences which separate the three 
 great branches of the Church from each other, nay, even 
 the Church herself from most of the voluntary and self- 
 organized communities of Christians around her, is well 
 understood by those who have stood on this or that side 
 of the yawning abyss which severs the worshippers of 
 Jesus, truly God no less than truly Man, from those who 
 see in Him merely one, though it be the highest of our 
 human race. 
 
 Some, alas ! there are, who, in tlio name of Progress, 
 would refuse Him that adoration which He has claimed 
 from hlty genei"ations of Christians. They would tell 
 you that He, the Eternal Truth, was in His day the 
 ignorant patron of worthless and even immoral legends. 
 Others, again, there are, who, since they no longer profess 
 to bend the knee before Him, would fain stoop from their 
 assumed superiority of knowledge or culture, to refashion 
 the Sacred Form of Him AVhom we meet and worship in 
 the New Testament. They are eager to disentwino from 
 His bleeding Brow that cro^^^l of thorns whicli is at once 
 the sign of His redemptive love and of His sublime and 
 severe morality. They would fain bring Him forth to the 
 modern multitudes crowned with laurel or cro\^^led with 
 roses j since the Christ of the new theology, like some 
 pagan god, must smile an approval upon the unbeliefs and 
 the immoralities of the actual European world, which the 
 Christ of the Gospel and of the Church has already con- 
 demned. Yet what is this vaunted Progress but the very 
 trinrn|)h of a real reaction? Surely it is reaction against 
 d Heb. xiii. 8. 
 
II] The Law of Progress. 51 
 
 tlie purest Liglit which can hghten the human under- 
 standing", against the kindliest Love that can open and 
 warm the human heart, against the truest Law by sub- 
 mission to which the human will may gain its strength 
 and excellence. Surely it is reaction against the pro- 
 gressive work of Christ our Lord in human society, and in 
 the human soul. A reaction assuredly, which, if it be not 
 checked by the faith and love of Christians who hope to 
 live and to die in the peace of Christ, will carry us back 
 first to the uncertainties and the despair of a paganized 
 philosophy^ and then, in due time, when all that elevates 
 man has been fairly swept away, to the ferocities and lusts 
 of a paganized society. 
 
 And if at times our thoughts wander into these more 
 anxious forebodings, let us be well assured that He Who 
 reigns in heaven is Lord also of the "svills and hearts of 
 men. Let us be certain that the years to come are our 
 own, no less, yea, rather than the years which are gone 
 past ; if we will only trust Him. If the past of England 
 and of Europe is ours, so, if we will, ours shall be also 
 the future of the world. For we Christians are no mere 
 archaeologists ; we are men of hope ; we are men of 
 Progress. 
 
 Let us then endeavour to curb all mere feeling and 
 unproductive demonstration, and sternly resolve to give 
 a practical turn both to our fears and our enthusiasms. 
 Are we endeavouring each to do his best within his own 
 sphere^ however humble and narrow, for that which we 
 know to be the cause of Progress ? Are we striving, 
 with a view to our future work in life, to do with all our 
 hearts our direct and obvious duties in this place ? Ai'e 
 we true in this humble yet mt)st certain sense to the 
 interests of Progress ? Aj-e we longing, struggling, 
 praying to conquer in ourselves all that retards it? Are 
 we waging war upon selfishness, idleness, sensuality, in- 
 
 £ "2, 
 
52 The Law of Progress. [Serm. 
 
 diflference, frivolity^ gambling, effeminacy, unbelief ? Are 
 we making a conscience of the effect of example, 
 of the effect of conversation, of the effect of intercessory 
 prayer ? Are we less satisfied with scant and unworthy 
 thoughts of our Great Creator, such as were almost 
 necessarily our thoughts in boyhood, now at a time when 
 our powers are more fully developed, now while our 
 minds are still widening to embrace new and wider fields 
 of knowledge ? Are Ave substituting for the formalities 
 and the irreverences of our childish devotions, a habit of 
 prayer which, in its keenness and its warmth, shall be less 
 unworthy of Him Wlio deigns to hear it ? Are we dis- 
 covering in His Scriptures and His Sacraments the 
 treasures which have ever been so prized by the greatest 
 of His saints and servants, and which will help us forward 
 towards the mark of our high calling ? Ai-e we sincerely 
 desiring to face and to dwell upon the thought of God, 
 the thought of death, the thought of eternity ? Is a 
 personal love of, a personal devotion to our Lord and 
 Saviour, "NVlio has redeemed us by His atoning death, and 
 Who loves us and blesses us, while Ave pray to Him in 
 heaven, more and more the central principle of our li\-es ? 
 Are we, in short, anxious bcA'ond aught else, to be humbly, 
 earnestly, fervidly, intensely Christian ? 
 
 If indeed it be so, then, by God's mercy, we are on 
 the true line of Progress, and have fallen into the ranks 
 of that mighty movement of redeemed humanity which, 
 as it traverses the ages, follows the uplifted banner of the 
 Cross, and when it would sing its hymn of human Pro- 
 gress, repeats instinctively the creed of the Apostles. 
 The unknoAvn future, the career which awaits the Church, 
 the country, the race of man, depend, in various degrees, 
 on our exertions, but are beyond our ken. These great 
 concerns are hidden with God. We may leave them in 
 His hands AAnth hopeful confidence. But mcauAA^hile be it 
 
IIJ The Law of Progress. k^2> 
 
 ours to " add to our faith, virtue, and to virtue know- 
 ledge ^ /^ to " grow up unto Him in all things which is 
 the Head, even Christ *' ;" to put forth, at His bidding and 
 in the strength of His grace, " first the blade, then the 
 ear, then the full corn in the ear ^ •" to find at the last in 
 the retrospect of a blessed experience that " the path of 
 the just is as a shining light, which shineth more and more 
 unto the perfect day ''/' 
 
 e 2 Pet. i. 5. f Eph. iv. 15. 
 
 g St. Mark iv. 2S. h Prov. iv. 18. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 THE HONOUR OF HUMANITY. 
 
 I Peter ii. 17. 
 Honour all men. 
 
 IT lias been observed that more attention is commonly 
 given to tlio specific than to the general precepts of 
 Holy Scripture. Thus^ in tlie verse from whicli my text 
 is taken, tliere is a particular precept, to " honour the 
 king/^ which has attracted and does attract more notice 
 than the wader principle, — '' Honour all men." The reason 
 is this : The vast field of action which opens before us, 
 when contemplating a general precept, is so fatiguing to 
 the imagination, that we are tempted to give up the task 
 of considering it in something like despair. AYe may have 
 felt a like embarrassment in looking for the first time at 
 great historical paintings, such, for instance, as those of 
 Paolo Veronese; where the mind is distracted between 
 the effort to master the idea of the whole, and the effort 
 to sympathize with the action and figures in detail. Who 
 has not hailed the relief of turning from the vague, un- 
 manageable impression thus gained, struggling to be at 
 once definite and comprehensive, to the sharp and clear 
 idea which is jndded by some single face, or form, or scene ? 
 It is at first sight with morality as with art in this matter. 
 The specific precept presents us A\-ith a single point of 
 
The Honour of Hmnaiiity. ^^ 
 
 dntj, as to wliich tlio particulars of place^ and time, and 
 person are either stated expressly or are easily ascertained ; 
 so that there can be no mistake as to whether we obey or 
 disregard it. The Tvdde inclusive precept unfolds a very 
 panorama of possible obligations, over which the eye 
 wanders languidly in its weary effort to compass at once 
 the full scope of the precept and the particular duties pre- 
 scribed by it. Every body attaches some definite meaning 
 to the precept of honouring the king, when occasion offers. 
 But who shall say, at first sight, what is and what is not 
 meant by so wide an obligation as that of honouring all 
 men? 
 
 Nor is this the only reason for the practical disad- 
 vantages of general, as compared with specific precepts. 
 As morality is too often taught, these general precepts are 
 rested upon considerations too abstract, too remote from 
 the most cogent motives to action, to exert a real influ- 
 ence upon average men. A general precept, like that 
 before us, must be based on an energetic conviction, in 
 order to give it the needful vividness and force. Now 
 the great moral precepts of the Gospel, which are enforced 
 by the Church of Christ, do rest upon such convictions. 
 They do not hang in the air, like the sayings of ancient 
 heathen sages, while men make appropriate remarks on 
 their profundity or their beauty, and drop a conventional 
 sigh over their unattainable range. They grow out of 
 and rest upon fundamental and vital truths of faith, — 
 truths into which, at each challenge to act, they strike 
 their roots, — truths from which, in all genuine Christian 
 souls, they draw day by day, hour by hour, their strength 
 and their vitality. 
 
 Of this the precept before us is an eminent illustration. 
 We only bring it down from the neglected region of 
 moral proprieties, we only begin to understand it, wo 
 only learn its living and working power, and give it a 
 
56 The Honour of Humanity. [Seem. 
 
 clotliing of flesh aud blood, when -sve place it iu tlie liglit 
 of the great Christian doctrines of which it is the practical 
 and animated expression. 
 
 What is honour ? It is, first of all, a sentiment which 
 prompts us to acknowledge, aud to do homage to, some 
 form of truth. Like all other healthy moral movements, 
 it must itself be based on truth ; it must result from con- 
 viction. It must spring from a sense of merit of some 
 kind in the object which provokes it ; and, therefore, it 
 must begin from within. The outward insignia of honour 
 are a cruel mockery of their object when they do not 
 express and illustrate a living feeling that the respect 
 which they represent is due. Honour, then, in the fii'st 
 place, is a genuine movement of the soul ; but, secondly, 
 it is often a substantial expression of that movement iu 
 the outward visible world of sense. Whether it be 
 embodied in a gesture, or in a title, or in a gift of money, 
 it is at bottom an acknowledgment of superior worth, 
 attaching, it may be, to an individual, or to an ofiice, or 
 to an institution. St. Paul tells Timothy that the presby- 
 ters who preside over churches well, especially those who 
 labour in the word and doctrine, are to be counted worthy 
 of double honour"; and there can be little doubt that he 
 really means a double income. This income, as the word 
 implies, is to be paid, not as a commercial equivalent for 
 services rendered, but as an acknowledgment of ministerial 
 worth. It is a practical expression of the sentiment^of 
 honour, quickened into activity by a worthy object. 
 
 AVhen, then, St. Peter says that we are to " honour all 
 men," he means, no doubt, that if opportunity arises we 
 are to give practical expression to the disposition to honour 
 tlu'111. But he means, first of all, that this disposition 
 sliMiild itself exist. And it is here that we reach the 
 point at which the need is felt of bnsing the precept upon 
 
 a I 'iini. V. 1-. 
 
Ill] The Honour of Hii^nanity. 57 
 
 a conviction. Why should we thus be disposed to 
 " honour all men " ? That question must be answered^ if 
 at all satisfactorily^ by the doctrines of the Church of 
 Christ. For it is obvious, my brethren^ that this disposi- 
 tion to yield honour to the whole company of our fellow- 
 creatures, is not natural to man, being such as he is. Our 
 first instinct is not to honour, but to depreciate our 
 brother-men. This tendency is part of that self-assertion 
 which, in sinners, is a leading- result of the fall, and which 
 is impatient of rivalry, even where there is no reason to 
 fear opposition. The gentle depreciation of others is a 
 more welcome form of self-assertion to a refined society 
 than is the boisterous and coarse glorification of self. 
 And, therefore, as this age depreciates the last, and this 
 country foreign countries, and this University other 
 Universities, and this or that college other colleges; so 
 this individual — you or I, left to our natural instincts 
 — depreciates other men j not men indiscriminately, but 
 those particular classes of men who come naturally into 
 some sort of competition with ourselves. Even in quar- 
 ters where what we term advanced Liberal opinions are 
 professed on social, pohtical, educational, and theological 
 questions, it is sometimes possible to discover the least 
 generous and most depreciatory judgments of the worth 
 and motives of others. And what is yet more humbling 
 is that, where the law of Christ is acknowledged as a bind- 
 ing and imperial power, the old instinct continually re- 
 asserts itself, and Christians refuse to men in general, 
 nay, to their brethren in Christ, that tribute of honour 
 which is due in some sense to every human being*. 
 
 It is clear that if man is left to himself, he is by no 
 means disposed to " honour all men." Why is he bound 
 to make head against this natural inclination ? 
 
 Is it in deference to a sense of self-interest ? to a belief 
 that courtesy is a cheap thing*, which if it does not make 
 
58 The Hono7ir of Humanity. [Seem. 
 
 friends, yet keeps clear of making enemies ? No ! For 
 this superficial courtesy is not honour. As it is thrown 
 down upon the great counter of human life and inter- 
 course, its hollow ring betrays its worthlessness, and men 
 only do not take umbrage at such coin being tendered 
 because it forms so large a proportion of the social 
 currency that it cannot be dispensed with. The honour 
 which the Apostle prescribes is not an insincere con- 
 ventionalism, but a true expression of inward respect. 
 
 Arc we then to honour all men in deference to the mere 
 instinct of race ? This is the answer which a great many 
 men would give to the question before us, as a matter of 
 course. And, perhaps, if man is but a superior kind of 
 animal, it is the only answer that can be given. If the 
 difference between man and the lower creatures consists 
 only in this ; — that in the course of a vast series of ages, 
 those instincts and capacities which we see in their ger- 
 minal forms distributed among the brutes around as, have 
 been developed and trained by man into the intellectual 
 and moral powers by which he noAV rules the earth ; — if 
 in short, there bo no radical difference between the highest 
 brute and the lowest man, it is hard to see why we should 
 "honour all men." Let it be granted that the animal 
 processes whereby man is lirought into the world, and the 
 chemical processes whereby his body dissolves at death, 
 are in no way different from those observable in the case 
 of the loAver creatures. But if it sliould therefore be 
 argued or implied that this world, this existence of birth, 
 and flesh and blood, and decay and death, be man's all ; 
 then I fail altogether to see any substantial reason for 
 honouring all men. You say that, at least, in this case 
 man should honour his brother man as a reproduction of 
 himself. Does then one brute, nay, the most intelligent 
 of the brutes, honour other brutes ? Does it ajipear that 
 there is any instinct among the lower creatures — as 
 
Ill] The Honour of Hzmtanity. ^^ 
 
 distinct from tlie instinct of association for the purposes 
 of reproduction and mutual protection — wliich. leads eacli 
 member of a species to hold the rest of its kind in any- 
 special respect ? And if man be but a cultured brute, 
 whose old ferocities and innate sensualism are only draped 
 by the usages and civilization of ages, it will be hard to 
 persuade him that he ought to honour other creatures of 
 his kind. They stand in his way; they obstruct the 
 enjoyment of his desires ; they attract the attention which 
 he covets; they herd with the other human animals 
 whom he admires; they eat the food which he wants. 
 Why should he honour them ? They are only rival 
 animals, whose tastes and instincts are, in truth, just as 
 degraded as his own. 
 
 This is the common-sense view of the invitation to 
 " honour all men," when it is based simply upon the in- 
 stinct of race. There is nothing in a second animal, who 
 is a mere reproduction of my animal self, which properly 
 commands this tribute of honour ; while there is much in 
 him which might incline me to refuse it. But here comes 
 a teacher who repeats the injunction under a new formula. 
 When I name the Positivist Philosophy, I name a system 
 of thought more really antagonistic to Christian truth 
 than any other in the modern world. Yet the Positivist 
 Philosophy is honourably distinguished in two respects 
 from some less pronounced forms of anti-Christian specu- 
 lation. It is, in its own way, constructive ; and it has 
 endeavoured to elaborate and to practise a high ideal of 
 one section of moral duty. Though it has made a clean 
 sweep of the supernatural and, in all real senses, of the 
 spiritual world, yet, at least, it does not mock the deepest 
 needs of man by the cynical refusal to admit any cer- 
 tainties whatever. If it has discarded the certainties of 
 faith, yet, at least, it makes much of what it calls the 
 certainties of experience. If it has dethroned God, and 
 
6o The Honour of Humanity. [Seem. 
 
 denied tlie immortality of tlie soul, yet, at least, it lias 
 felt the need of filling the void, so far as it could, with the 
 phantoms which it has summoned from the realms of sense. 
 
 The Positive Philosophy, then, paraphrases the Chris- 
 tian precept " honour all men •" by the formula " Worship 
 Humanity." There is no God in the sense of Christen- 
 dom : the God of Christendom belongs only to the 
 theological or infantine period of human thought. 
 Humanity is the god of Positivist thinkers ; man is the 
 highest being whom the consistent philosophy of ex- 
 perience can consent to recognize. Humanity is to be 
 worshipped with the ardour of inward devotion, and, if it 
 may be, with the appropriate splendour of a visible 
 ritual. Man himself is the rightful, the adequate object 
 of his love, of his aspirations, of his hopes, of his en- 
 thusiasms. Man in his collective capacity, the organism 
 " humanity," is to be worshipped by each individual man. 
 And from this new cultus, we are told, there is to flow 
 forth a morality, which, in its spirit and its objects, shall 
 be enthusiastically human ; against which, as we are fur- 
 ther assured, the inferior ethics of Christendom, weighted 
 with the dogmatic teaching of the creeds, will struggle 
 in vain for supremacy in the Europe of the future. 
 
 But what is the real meaning of this cultus of humanity ? 
 Is humanity an abstraction, or is it the sum total of all 
 human beings who have lived and are living on this earth? 
 If the former, experience is not in favour of the per- 
 manence of any enthusiasm which can be excited for a 
 moment by an abstract unsubstantial idea. If the latter, 
 we have at once to encounter a wholesale sacrifice of the 
 moral sense. For to worship actual humanity is to wor- 
 ship, not merely love and courage, and truthfulness and 
 purity, and disinterestedness; but hatred and cowardice, 
 and falsehood, and grossness and selfishness. Taking 
 humanity as an actual whole, it is to worship that, in 
 
Ill] The Mojtotir of Himianity . 6 1 
 
 wliicli the immoral decidedly preponderates over the 
 moral, the false over the true, the bad over the good. 
 
 This doctrine is, in point of fact, only a philosophical 
 consecration of the undiscriminating animal instinct of 
 race; and yet it is an effort in the direction of truth, 
 which Christianity has at once proclaimed and satisfied. 
 For the Christian law " Honour all men " is based neither 
 upon the instinct of selfishness nor on the instinct of 
 race. If we consider its real motives, we shall be able to 
 determine its spirit and its range, 
 
 I. What, then, are the motives which should lead a 
 Christian to honour all men ? 
 
 I. The first is, that all men are made in the image of 
 God. " GrOD created man in His Own Image, after His 
 likeness^." This image and likeness consist in the 
 fact that, first of all, man is an intelligent being", con- 
 scious of, and able steadily to reflect upon, his own 
 existence; and, next, that his will is free. In each of 
 these respects he is unlike any one of the lower creatures ; 
 in each he is like God. The lower creatures have a 
 measure of intelligence ; but they cannot make themselves 
 the object of such intelligence as they possess. They 
 take their existence for granted ; they cannot turn their 
 thought back upon itself ; they cannot reflect ; their 
 thought is ever directed upon objects without them. 
 Much more are they incapable of arriving at any thing like 
 a theory of their own existence. And their Avills, if the 
 term may be used, drift before instinct and circumstance 
 so entirely, as to be incapable of real moral choice. God, 
 on the other hand, is the One Being* Who ever con- 
 templates Himself, and sustains the contemplation; Who 
 ever acts, in conformity of course with the eternal laws of 
 His own Being, yet thus with an unfettered freedom. 
 Man^s true position is that of a reflection among the 
 ^ Gen. i. 27; v. i. 
 
62 The Honour of Humanity. [Seem. 
 
 creatures of the self-contemplating and self-determining 
 life of God. Wliile by his lower nature man is linked 
 to the animals around him, his higher nature associates 
 him A\dth all the orders of the immaterial beings above 
 him, and it constitutes his likeness to God by its double 
 endowment of intellio-ence and freedom. 
 
 Man as man is intelligent and free. He is not merely 
 an animal organism endowed with life; he is a spirit 
 capable of comprehending the significance of its own 
 existence, capable of knowing the Author of its being, 
 capable of freely deciding to obey or to defy Him. 
 
 This is the first great reason for honouring all men. All 
 men are endued with an immortal, conscious, self-deter- 
 mining principle of life. Or rather that principle is each 
 man^s true self, around which all else that belongs to him 
 is clustered, and to which it stands in the relation of a 
 property, or it may be of an accident. 
 
 What need is there to say, brethren, that to the mass of 
 men, this elementary truth is practically unknown ? They 
 know much of society around them, much of its rules and 
 laws and tendencies, much, it may bo, of the outward 
 universe, much of the various subjects which concern and 
 diversify man's material well-being on the surfiice of this 
 planet. But they carry within themselves that which is 
 more wonderful than any thing which meets their eye; and 
 of it they know nothing. They think indeed and resolve; 
 but it is, as if they were imitating the lower creatures, 
 without reflection, and in the way of instinct and routine; 
 they do not consider what is really involved in these vast 
 powers of thought and resolution. That the inward lifb 
 from which their whole mental and moral action proceeds 
 is made in God's image, and is destined as such to a 
 futurity beyond the grave, is a truth which, generally and 
 practically, is shrouded from them by mists of intellectual 
 blindness and moral weakness. And what they do not 
 
Ill] The Hoiiotw of Humanity. G-t, 
 
 see in themselves, they do not see in others. Other men are, 
 in their eyes, not immortal spirits, moving round them, 
 robed in a drapery of flesh and blood ; but mere forces or 
 counters with which they have to deal, and of which they 
 think habitually only so far as such forces may bear on 
 their own daily life of thought and feeling and purpose. 
 
 Now it was one great object and result of the ministry 
 of our Lord, that it revealed to man his true dignity. 
 Jesus Christ always dealt with men as being what they 
 are. He did not fix His eye upon dress, or income, or 
 position, or bodily mien and form ; His glance pierced 
 straight through to the personality, the character, the 
 spirit within. To Him, Pilate, Herod, Nicodemus, the 
 rich young man, the woman of Samaria, the Magdalen, 
 were not merely high office, royalty, learning, wealth, 
 degradation, social disfranchisement. They were these in 
 the eyes of common men, but before Jesus Christ they 
 were each and all immortal spirits, in varying states of 
 spiritual life or disease ; and the outward distinctions, 
 which made them what they were in the social world of 
 Palestine, were before Him as if they did not exist, 
 except so far as such distinctions might enhance or 
 detract from personal responsibility. 
 
 This is the meaning of our Lord's constant violation of 
 worldly standards of social propriety ; He sacrifices them 
 to the higher demands of man's real dignity. He attends 
 the feast given by the converted publican to his friends 
 and acquaintances ; He permits the woman that is a sin- 
 ner to wash His feet ; He lingers in conversation with 
 her of Samaria, whose career of vice was so well known 
 to Him; He will not tarry to see His Mother and His 
 brethren, since He finds near relatives in all that do the 
 will of God ; He calls Herod a fox ; He weeps over Jeru- 
 salem. Pharisees condemn Him in language of grave 
 surprise ; disciples are baffled and cannot understand Him. 
 
64 The Honour of Humanity. [Serh. 
 
 But He goes on His way, revealing man^s true self to 
 man; proclaiming that it matters little if the whole world 
 be gained and the true life be lost; proclaiming that if 
 the inwardly-apprehended kingdom of Eighteousncss be 
 really sought, all the outward accidents of man's passing 
 existence will, in the highest sense, be added to it. And 
 therefore it is that, since the days of Jesus Christ, 
 Christians, so far as they have been Christians indeed, 
 have honoured in all men, that possession of the image of 
 God which is man's real inalienable self. For Christ had 
 taught them its significance and beauty by His precepts ; 
 and yet He had done more than this; He had taught 
 them its inestimable worth by His bitter death. 
 
 2. Our Lord's Death upon the Cross is a second reason 
 for honouring all men. His death was indeed a true 
 sacrifice offered to the Justice and Majesty of God : but it 
 was also an act of homage and honour to the worth of the 
 human spirit. Certainly, in order to understand this, 
 we must believe in very truth that He who suffered on 
 Calvary is truly God. If He were a mere man, then so 
 far Avould His death be from haviug any atoning virtue, 
 that it may be fairly questioned, nay, it has been ques- 
 tioned, whether such a death was not morally indefensible, 
 as being in fact an act of vohinlary self-destruction; since 
 He might have avoided the encounter with Jewish opinion 
 which more immediately precipitated the action of the 
 Sanlicdiini. ]?ut being, as He is. Very and Eternal (jOD, 
 He imparted to His passive as to His active obedience a 
 priceless value; and He wrought out, in intention, the 
 salvation of the whole race of men, when He hung dying 
 upon the Tree of Shame. He did not die only for the 
 elect; He died for all. And yet His world-embracing 
 intention neither put force upon the wills of men, nor was 
 independent of their willingness to be saved by Him. 
 *'He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth 
 
Ill] The Honozir of Htunanity. 6^ 
 
 live unto themselves '^." " There is one Mediator between 
 God and Man, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself 
 a ransom for all*^/^ "If any man sin, we have an advocate 
 with the Father, Jesus Christ the Eighteous, and He is the 
 Propitiation for our sins ^." 
 
 And therefore it is that at the foot of the Cross we 
 learn the honour which is due to all men. It was to en- 
 lighten the conscience of man, it was to purify man's soul 
 from the stains, and to free it from the burden of sin, it 
 was to restore man to his true and native dignity among the 
 first-born of Creation, that our Saviour died. His anguish 
 of spirit. His night of insults and of shame, His weary 
 bearing of the instrument of His death, the spitting, the 
 buffeting, the Crown of Thorns, the wounds, the words, 
 each and all, which He uttered upon the Cross, are one 
 long testimony to the truth enforced by His Apostle; — that 
 man, under all circumstances, man in his utmost degrada- 
 tion, man as man, is to be honoured among Christians by 
 a homage which will even express itself in the sacrifice of 
 the holiest of lives. 
 
 3. From these two motives a Christian will gather a 
 third, which must lead him to honour all men, both in 
 feeling and in act. I refer to the capacity of every man, 
 be he who or what he may, while in this world, for im- 
 provement, for goodness. This generous faith in humanity 
 is a creation of the Gospel. It is not that the Gospel con- 
 descends to flatter man ; it alone, among all religions, dares 
 to tell him the full truth about himself and his destiny. 
 It tells him that he has fallen ; and, at first sight, this 
 announcement might seem fatal to the encouragement of 
 such hopes as I am describing. But the Fall of Man con- 
 sists rather in the privation of God's supernatural grace 
 than in a positive corruption of all his faculties, such as 
 has been imagined by some modern divines ; and as the 
 c 2 Cor. V. 15. d I Tim, ii. 5. e i St. Joliu ii. i, 2. 
 
66 The Ho7iour of H^imanity. [Serm. 
 
 doctrine was iiuderstood Ly the Ancient Churcli, the Fall 
 left human nature dismantled indeed^ but something less 
 than a shapeless ruin. Adam could not transmit the grace 
 which he had forfeited and which the Second Adam could 
 alone restore; but in each of Adam^s children the Divine 
 image was still traceable, in its twofold features of intelli- 
 gence and freedom, although the one was darkened and 
 the other impaired. 
 
 And now, that which brightens the hereditary and the 
 actual condition of mankind in the eyes of a Christian is 
 the gift of His grace by the ascended Christ. Socinianism 
 has contrived to empty the idea of grace of its whole value, 
 by representing it as a mere inoperative ' favour ^ towards 
 His creatures on the part of the Supreme Being ; whereas, 
 in reality, it is in the spiritual world as real an agent as is 
 electricity, for example, in the world of matter. Grace is 
 the actual communication of Christ's quickening IManhood 
 — the recreative principle of the New Covenant — by the 
 agency of the Spirit, chiefly through the medium of the 
 Sacraments, to the souls and bodies of His members. It 
 is this stupendous gift which at once discovers and stimu- 
 lates man's capacity for an existence, in which humanity 
 will be really what, apart from Christ, it is only in idea. 
 
 The glory, the sinlessness, the ineffable Majesty of the 
 Ascended Christ is therefore the measure of the hopes of 
 man. Throned above the highest intelligences of heaven, 
 adored by all that is purest, and strongest, and wisest, in 
 the Universe of God, the Sacred Manhood of the Lord 
 Jesus gives a point to our enthusiasm on behalf of our 
 race. We Christians accept the taunt of an ancient heresy; 
 we are dvOpcoTroXuTpai,. We can worship Humanity with- 
 out violating our moral sense, without feeling that we are 
 wronging God, or worshipping a dead abstraction ; wo 
 adore man's nature in Jesus, the Holy, Harmless, Undefiled 
 One, who is Most High in the glory of God the Father. 
 
Ill] The Honour of Htimanity. 67 
 
 And from tliat tlirone of His in the highest heavens there 
 descends upon the race which He has ennobled^ and which 
 He yearns to glorify and to save, an interest, a radiance in 
 Christian eyes, an inheritance of a title to honour, which 
 has made the precept of the Apostle one of the main factors 
 of the moral life of Christendom. 
 
 II. But is the precept to be understood literally ? 
 Does " all men " mean all members, all classes of the 
 human family ? 
 
 Let me ask, in return. Why not ? Let us look at some 
 of the barriers which have been raised against man^s 
 universal right to honour by the prejudices of man. 
 
 I. There is, fii'st of all, and, morally speaking, lowest 
 of all, the barrier of wealth. Wealth honours wealth ; 
 income pays respect to income ; but it is wont to cherish, 
 in its secret heart, an unmeasured contempt for poverty. 
 This barrier is apt to be raised to a great height by 
 the successful classes in a commercial country; till at 
 last wealth comes to be almost identified with virtue, 
 and poverty with vice. If it were only meant that labour 
 which produces wealth is virtue, and that idleness which 
 creates poverty is vice, there would be no ground for dis- 
 sent. But the feeling of a plutocracy is something very 
 different from this ; it is the possession of wealth and of the 
 social power which is conferred by wealth, which consti- 
 tutes, according to this standard, the title to honour. To 
 believe that a man with L60 a year is just as much deserv- 
 ing of respect as a man with £6000, you must be seriously 
 a Christian. A philosophical estimate of men and things 
 is not really proof against the inroads of the sentiment 
 which makes the possession of mere income the standard 
 of honour. We have only to recall the feelings with which 
 bible clerks and servitors have been heretofore reofarded 
 in Oxford; we have only to reflect upon the scope and 
 spirit of arguments which are constantly put forward even 
 
 r 2 
 
68 The Honour of Htima7iity. [Serm. 
 
 now^ against recognizing " poverty-qualifications '^ for 
 educational privileges — as if likeness to our Lord's out- 
 ward condition in this world was to count for a disgrace 
 among His followers — in order to be satisfied tliat tlie 
 honour of income, as distinct from and opposed to the 
 honour of man, is still a real antagonist, which disputes 
 the ground, inch by inch, with the ethics of the Gospel. 
 Do not misunderstand me. Wealth has its necessary pri- 
 vileges, as, much more, it has its responsibilities. But to 
 refuse honour to an immortal spirit, because hero in its 
 state of probation, it is not encrusted wdth material wealth, 
 implies a fiiilure to apprehend the true dignity of life so 
 prodigious, that I must not attempt to characterize it. 
 Rather let me ask you to consider what was meant by our 
 Lord's words of counsel to the rich young man. 
 
 2. A second barrier is the spirit of station or of class, 
 founded whether upon success in life, or upon the cir- 
 cumstances of birth. That an aristocracy has, in God's 
 providential government of society, distinct and great 
 functions to perform, is a position which is not for one 
 moment to be denied; since the experience of history 
 seems to show that society creates a higher class by a 
 natural process, and we in England know how largely 
 such a class may, if it will, serve its country. But when 
 it devclopes an exclusive spirit, which divides humanity 
 into two sections, those within and those without the 
 imaginary barrier, it conies into collision with the teaching 
 of the Gospel. Certainly this spirit is frequently found 
 in its greatest intensity, not so much among those who 
 succeed to high station by the inheritance of birth, as 
 among those who have secured it, whether by unforeseen 
 circumstances, or by secret infiuence, or by personal 
 exertion, and who too often have seemed to view in- 
 dulgence in self-assertion as the real charm of their new 
 position. But in any case such a spirit is a repudiation 
 
Ill] The Honour of H^Lvianity. 69 
 
 of man^s true title to honour. The Di\dne Image, ex- 
 pressed in man's intelligence and freedom; the Atoning 
 Blood, giving the measure of man's preciousness in the 
 eyes of God ; the glorified Manhood of Jesus, revealing to 
 man his capacity for glory ; — these are the privileges of no 
 class or station; they are the right and the possession of 
 humanity. 
 
 3. A third barrier is that of race or country. Patriot- 
 ism, no doubt, has its providential purpose; and the 
 instinct of race is but an expansion of the instinct of the 
 family. Both are based upon a natural foundation and 
 have a Divine sanction; but in theu* exaggeration both 
 may foster sentiments which are crimes against humanity. 
 Prom our insular position, we English have in past years 
 been disposed to intensify the healthy sentiment of 
 patriotism into a vulgar prejudice against all foreigners as 
 such. It was the bitter sneer of Voltaire that the 
 English thought that GoD had become incarnate for the 
 Anglo-Saxon race. And if this exclusiveness is giving 
 way beneath the influences of culture and travel, it is no 
 credit to our Christianity that it has not done so before. 
 
 But those who have ceased to think that honour should 
 be refused to Frenchmen or to Germans, still erect, at a 
 further distance from home, barriers which exclude even 
 large majorities of the human family from the tribute of 
 honoiu'. Sometimes it is European civilization; some- 
 times, as with Positivism, it is a fraction of that civilization 
 arbitrarily denominated "the West;" sometimes it is 
 "Europe, and America, and the Colonies" which are to 
 bound our respectful sympathies. And physiology and 
 philology are implored to bring their reluctant succour to 
 the instinct of exclusion, by pronouncing that this or that 
 race of men is a race of essentially distinct animals, with 
 whom it is impossible to deal as being seriously members 
 of the human family. It is only one step further to deny 
 
7© The Honour of Humanity. [Serm. 
 
 to such races all human rights, to handle them as property 
 that may he bought and sold, to treat them as we treat 
 the animals around us, to bid them consider it their 
 noblest privilege to be hewers of wood and drawers of 
 water to our higher necessities. 
 
 Against this inhuman, this accursed spirit, the Church 
 of Jesus must ever utter her emphatic protest ; she must 
 ever brave the cynicism and contempt of those who would 
 honour not man, but mere material civilization and 
 organized society and pride of race; she must ever 
 range herself side by side with the lowest t}^es, so 
 to term them, of the human family; and in her Master's 
 name, bid the races who are what they are, only in con- 
 sequence of the training which she has lavished on them 
 for centuries, to learn the full meaning of the Creation 
 and of the Cross, and to '^honour all men." 
 
 ^Vhen we hear of the African savage who a few months 
 since floated his canoe in a lake of human blood, that he 
 might fitly observe his father's obsequies, we may for a 
 moment look hard at the precept to honour all men. Yet, 
 all crime being, in the eyes of Absolute Justice, strictly 
 relative to opportunities, it may well be that this Pagan 
 prince stands higher before heaven than do you or I, 
 when we lose our tempers in conversation, or say our 
 prayers without thinking of the solemn work in which we 
 are engaged. 
 
 4. The absence of intelligence is often held to con- 
 stitute a fourth barrier against this honour of man as 
 man. Many who are indifferent to wealth and station 
 cannot bring themselves to respect the unintellectual. 
 They will not honour any thing human that docs not take 
 its place at the marriage-feast of intellect. Dulness is the 
 one heresy whicli merits excommunication : brilliancy, 
 even the most superficial, is like the charity of the New 
 Testament; it avails to cover a multitude of sins. 
 
Ill] The Honour of Hinnanity. 71 
 
 If, indeed, by the lionour of iutelligence be meant tlie 
 honour paid to cultivation of the mental faculties, such 
 honour is in the highest sense legitimate, since it is really 
 paid to those moral qualities which are inseparable from 
 work. Only it ought also in consistency to be paid to the 
 peasant who cannot read, and who day by day earns an 
 honest livelihood by the sweat of his brow. If by intelli- 
 gence be meant the original gift of God's image in reason, 
 talent, or genius, which has been developed in this case 
 by opportunities, while in that case it has lain unavoidably 
 dormant, the honour paid to it is really paid to the oppor- 
 tunities, not to the endowment itself. The lowest savages 
 possess in an undeveloped form the powers which charm 
 the most cultivated minds in Europe ; and if the original 
 endowment be the object of honour, it should be honoured, 
 whether it be developed or not. To make intelligence, in 
 the sense of cultivated intellect, the real test of a claim to 
 honour, would secure such honour to Voltaire, and (may 
 we not add ?) to Satan, while denying it to the Apostles 
 of Christ. To make intelligence, in the sense of the 
 common faculty which is capable of reflecting on self and 
 of knowing God, the ground of that claim, is to own that 
 a debt of honour is due to the whole human family. 
 
 The precept before us, however, is not adverse to our 
 recognizing the specific titles to honour which individuals ' 
 or classes may possess. It only insists upon a broader 
 basis of such right to honour than that which any of 
 these titles suggest. It is entirely in harmony with the 
 honourable recognition of moral worth, because moral 
 worth enriches and intensifies what is best in humanity, 
 namely, the freedom and powder of man's will. It does 
 not force us to condone either the wilful propagation of 
 error or the guilt of crime. It does not imply indifference 
 to the interests either of truth or virtue. Suppose that 
 we take St. Paul's advice, and ^"^ reject a man that is an 
 
ni The Honour of Htimanity. [Seem. 
 
 heretic after the first and second admonition *"/' do we 
 therefore neglect St. Peter's injunction to honour all 
 men ? Surely not. What is it that we reject ? The 
 error surely^ not the man. We may even honour the 
 man while rejecting the error; we may honour him in 
 spite of the error ; we may think the best of him wc can, 
 and yet feel it a duty to truth to dissociate ourselves from 
 him. Suppose, again, that society, acting on a Divnine 
 sanction and in self-defence, takes the life of a murderer. 
 Here, at any rate you say, in this death of ignominy and 
 pain, there is a limit to the honour of humanity. The 
 criminal, you urge, has forfeited human rights, and 
 society cannot di'aw fine distinctions between the re- 
 pression of crime and the punishment of the offender. 
 But the Church waits at the foot of the scaffold, that she 
 may honour in its last agony the freedom and the intel- 
 ligence of a human soul. It may be necessary that the 
 culprit should forfeit his hfe : but it may also be true that 
 the real guilt is, in the eyes of a higher Equity, shared 
 between the criminal and society at large. Society, by 
 its prevaihng tone of lax morahty, and by its unchristian 
 neglect of responsibilities towards the ignorant and the 
 poor, has helped to produce the crime, though its instinct 
 of self-protection forces it to smite the hand that actually 
 did the deed. The Church represents, in some sort, the 
 Eternal Justice, and persists in honouring where society 
 has condemned. Even in the extreme case of madness, 
 when all that marks the moral and mental life of the soul 
 has been darkened or paralyzed. Christians have felt that 
 even a special honour is due to the sad wreck of humanity. 
 Christian charity has been prodigal of a peculiar and 
 tender respect for an affliction, which, if it involves a 
 lifelong dislocation of faculties, does not of itself im])]y the 
 final ruin of a sjjiritual being. 
 
 * Tit. iii. 10. 
 
Ill] The Hono2ir of Humanity. 73 
 
 It is not a little remarkable, that this very Epistle, which 
 bids us " honour all men/^ is one of the five Apostolic 
 Epistles containing directions to slaves respecting their 
 duties to their masters. At first sight, there seems an 
 intrinsic incompatibility between the precept, and such 
 an indu'ect sanction of an institution which was its 
 standing violation. But this incompatibility is rather 
 apparent than real. If the Apostles did not provoke the 
 horrors of a social revolution by at once proscribing 
 slavery ; if they left it to die, — a lingering death, it is true, 
 — at the hands of the generations to come, penetrated 
 by a sense of its violation of the law of Christ, and of the 
 rights of man ; — this was because they felt themselves in 
 possession of a principle so strong, that it would purge 
 slavery of its worst evils, before destroying it. That prin- 
 ciple was the dignity of man, created in God's image, and 
 redeemed by Christ. Conscious of this dignity, the slave 
 could rejoice to copy the humiliations of the Divine 
 Master Who had really ennobled him. Conscious of this 
 dignity, the master could not but respect his slave, as a 
 brother in Christ, side by side with whom he too was 
 himself waiting for judgment. In the presence of these 
 sublime realities, the outward inequalities of life fade 
 away from the soul's sight : the eye is fixed only upon 
 that which does not change. A few years of service or of 
 command are equally unimportant to a being who has 
 Eternity cleai'ly before him, and who measures human 
 greatness by the standards which it supplies. 
 
 III. The practical bearings of this suggestive precept 
 are so numerous that it will be necessary to confine our- 
 selves to the following, by way of conclusion. 
 
 I. " Honour all men " is a fitting motto for the spirit 
 of much of our study in this place. Whatever may have 
 been of late years, whatever may be in years to come, the 
 modifications introduced into our educational course, it 
 
74 The Ho7io7ir of Htmiaiiity. J^Seem. 
 
 cannot be doubted that to the school oi Litaxe Humaniores 
 there must always be assigned a place of special im- 
 portance. How full of meaning is the title of that school ! 
 It carries us back to the close of the Middle Ages. It 
 expresses the rising reaction against that scholastic 
 method which had penetrated into and stiffened all de- 
 partments of human thought. It represents a craving 
 for, or a new admiration of_, a literature, more human in 
 its interests than were the dialectics, in which the sub- 
 stance of thought and feeling had seemed to evaporate 
 in the culture of intellectual form. It embodies the con- 
 viction that in the works of the historians, the orators, 
 and the poets of antiquity, the minds and hearts of men 
 were laid bare with a breadth and fulness which must 
 ever make them worthy objects of the closest human 
 study. If there is much in these waiters ^^^th which no 
 Christian can sympathize, much which degrades and 
 brutalizes human nature; yet St. Basil had pointed out 
 that they afforded that special preparation for the study 
 of the fjiith which is needed by those who would effectively 
 show how it meets the sympathies and wants of man. If, 
 from the thirteenth century onwards, in consequence of 
 an educational movement of like nature to that which took 
 place in Imperial Rome during the second centmy, the 
 "humanities'^ had fallen into discredit; yet in earlier 
 ages, throughout those great schools of the Benedictine 
 Order with which are associated the names of St. Boniface, 
 and Alcuin, and Rhabanus Maurus, and Venerable Bede, 
 they had been cultivated with the utmost enthusiasm. It 
 may be a natural wish in those who are looking forward to 
 serving God in Holy Orders to desire to abandon the study 
 of Pagan writers, and to live in an intellectual atmosphere, 
 fed by the words of Holy Scripture, and by the great 
 Teachers of the Ancient Chm-ch. But, in truth, like the 
 Jewish law, the Greek and Latin classics are a pedagogue 
 
Ill] The Honour of Humanity. 75 
 
 whose especial duty it is to lead us down to the school 
 of Christ. They show us the human soul in the freshness 
 and beauty and strength of nature^ yet also in the 
 weakness and degradation which must mark the absence 
 of grace. If there is much in them to regret, there is 
 much more to admire; if none of them, not even the purest 
 of the Stoic moralists, can approve himself absolutely to 
 a Christian judgment, yet they all, in different degi'ees, 
 are marked by that beauty and meaning which belong to 
 every thing truly human, and which we honour" in our 
 tribute of honour to man. 
 
 2. "^ Honour all men." Here is the Christian rule for 
 social intercourse. Honour high station ; honour autho- 
 rity ; honour genius ; honour com'age ; honour even suc- 
 cess, if you will ; but do not limit your honour to these 
 things. If you honour the representative men of hu- 
 manity, those who embody and intensify its great quali- 
 ties or interests, do not forget that that which you honour 
 in them is shared in a measure by all. 
 
 If, indeed, our intercourse with each other were con- 
 stantly penetrated by the recollection of what we really 
 are and of the respect which is due to the sanctities of the 
 soul's life, how different would it be ! Not necessarily 
 less bright and genial; but certainly more earnest, more 
 thorough, more full of meaning. As it is, we too often 
 retain the forms of Christian courtesy, while we have lost 
 the sense of their power. How altered, too, would be our 
 bearing towards servants and social inferiors, who in fact 
 superadd, in addition to other titles to honour, that of 
 correspondence, in the circumstances of their outward life, 
 to the condition of Our Lord Himself. If only we could 
 see in all with whom we deal, beings who, like ourselves, 
 are for a brief while on their trial, and who share with us 
 the awfulness and the blessedness of existence ; how vivid 
 and keen, how tender withal, how full of attention and 
 
76 The Honour of Htimanity. [Serm. 
 
 respect would be not merely our outward mauner, Init our 
 inmost feelings towards tliem ! 
 
 Nor can I refrain from sajring that^ in tlie days which 
 are opening upon us in England, we shall find this social 
 spirit, eminently Christian and ever obligatory as it is, 
 nothing less than a political necessity. If in the new 
 distribution of power among our countrymen in years to 
 come, we are to escape from collisions of class with class, 
 leading on, it may be, even to revolutionary violence, it 
 must be, under God, by an earnest effort on the part of 
 those who represent the higher orders of society to culti- 
 vate and to practise a deeper, more earnest respect for 
 human beings as such. It is upon your determination in 
 this matter, my brethren, more than upon that of the re- 
 presentatives of any other class in this country, that our 
 future depends. In the absence of this spirit, an old 
 society like that of England, based on feudal and Tudor 
 traditions, must obviously have very much to fear ; with 
 its increase, we have assuredly every thing to hope. 
 
 3. Lastly, in this precept we may discover the true 
 spirit of Christian works of mercy. All the plans wliicli 
 Christian charity really dc\nses and sets on foot are based 
 on the priuci])lo of respect for man. Christian charity 
 refuses to (k'iil with human beings like counters and in 
 masses ; she leaves it to other agencies to sweep the 
 refuse poverty of society into its workhouses, and its re- 
 fuse labour into the hold of an emigrant ship ; while note 
 is taken of each unit only so far as is needful in order to 
 secure the accuracy of the official return, and to supply his 
 data to the statistician. Christian charity relieves poverty, 
 not as conferring a favour, but as satisf}nng what is in 
 some sense a right; — the right of humanity to live, and to 
 ask in God's name at the hands of property the means of 
 livelihood. Christian charity refuses to acquiesce in the 
 inhuman dogma that men or races are incurably bad or ^ 
 
Ill] The Honour of Humanity. 77 
 
 degraded; slie treats the lowest as still bearing* within, 
 the stamp of the Divine Likeness, as still capable, through 
 supernatural grace, of the highest elevation s. She bends 
 respectfully to tend the foulest wounds ; she kneels upon 
 the pavement side by side with the Eternal Christ, that 
 she may wash the feet which have been soiled in tra- 
 versing the wastes of time ; she bows herself to the very 
 earth that she may " take the sinner out of the dust, and 
 lift the beggar from the dunghill " and then " set . him 
 with the princes, even with the princes of the people '^^' of 
 Christ. Especially, in the little ones who fill her schools 
 she respects and tends the image of God, and that sprink- 
 ling of the Holy Blood, which has not yet been forfeited. 
 But whether she instructs the young, or feeds the hungry, 
 or clothes the naked, or provides labour for the unem- 
 ployed, or offers shelter to the homeless, or an asylum to 
 the deranged, or a refuge where the fallen may find aids 
 to rise, or a bed where the sick may die in peace, tended 
 by the hand of love, — every where she stands before 
 humanity, not as a patroness, but as might a loving and 
 faithful servant, who is too loyal, too enamoured of her 
 master's name and birthright, to be other than affection- 
 ate and respectful in the hour of his poverty and his 
 shame. 
 
 Associate yourselves then, dear brethren, with this sub- 
 lime charity of the Church. Endeavour during this season 
 of discipline and repentance to give a practical turn to the 
 honour which you owe to all men. Honour, indeed, those 
 for whom you can do nothing in the way of outward 
 service ; honour your betters in Church and State, your 
 superiors in acq\iirements or in station ; but honour also 
 the poor, the fallen, the sick, the ignorant. Honom* these, 
 if not in person, at least by proxy. There are peniten- 
 tiaries, hospitals, schools around, where an unmercenary 
 g Gal. iii. 27, 28. ^ Ps. cxiii. 7, 8. 
 
The Honour of Humanity. 
 
 love, which money can neither create nor buy, reheves 
 human wants, bodily and spiritual, in the name of Christ, 
 and therefore with the tenderness of respect. Assist 
 some one of these works of mercy, by denying yourselves 
 something that you -wall really miss ; so that when Easter 
 comes you may have part in that joy whose sweetness is 
 proportioned to the Sacrifice that precedes it — a Sacrifice 
 offered to God, in the interests and for the honour of 
 man. 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 THE FREEDOM OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 2 CoE. ill. 17. 
 Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is lihertif. 
 
 IN tlie confessedly difficult passage which precedes tliese 
 words, the Apostle is contrasting the ministry of the 
 Law with that of the Gospel. The glory of the legal 
 ministry had shone forth in rays of light, visible to the 
 eye of sense, from the countenance of the great Lawgiver, 
 as he descended from the Mountain of Revelation. " The 
 children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of 
 Moses for the glory of his countenance^." But the 
 glory thus symbolized was of an altogether inferior order 
 to that of the New Covenant. As a rule of life, without 
 the Atoning Blood to pardon sin and without the grace of 
 the Spirit to make obedience possible, the Law had been 
 but a ministration of condemnation. As a typical system, 
 it had been destined to pass away on the appearance of 
 the Antitype which fulfilled it. In either respect it con- 
 trasted disadvantageously with the Gospel, which was at 
 once endowed with perpetuity and a ministration of spiri- 
 tual righteousness. Hence there was an important differ- 
 ence between the mental and spiritual perceptions of the 
 Jew and those of the Christian. Moses had veiled his 
 
 ^ 2 Cor. iii. 7. 
 
8o The Freedom of the Spirit. [Serm. 
 
 face, it was true; because 'Svhen Aaron and all the chil- 
 dren of Israel saw that the skin of his face shone, they 
 were afraid to come nigh him^." But, according to the 
 Apostle, the immediate motive of this act did not exhaust 
 its far-reaching significance. The veil did not merely 
 shroud the "glory" of the law from the eyes of the 
 terrified Israelites. It also protected the early dispensa- 
 tion from a too penetrating scrutiny, which might have 
 revealed in the very history of its introduction a Higher 
 Object beyond itself. " Moses put a vail over his face, 
 that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look 
 to the end of that which is abolished*^." More than 
 fifteen centuries had passed since the revelation of Sinai, 
 but in the days of St. Paul the face of Moses was still 
 shrouded from the eyes of Israel. The Tallith, used 
 during prayer and the reading of the Law, perpetuated 
 the s^Tnbol in every sjmagogue. And that which met 
 the eye too truly pictured the spiritual fact which the eye 
 could not reach. " Even unto this day when Moses is 
 read the vail is upon their hearts''." The darkness, how- 
 ever, was not to last. " AAHien it [the heart of the people] 
 shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." 
 This was the promise. It is explained by the assertion 
 that " where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty *." 
 For the Spirit of the Lord dwells with all who are really 
 converted to Christ, since " the Lord is That Spirit." In 
 other words, to possess the Lord Jesus Christ is to possess 
 the Holy Ghost, "Who is the Minister and Guardian of 
 Christ's Presence in the soul. The immediate and prac- 
 tical conclusion is, that those who are converted to Jesus 
 Christ, have escaped from the veil which darkened the 
 spiritual intelligence of Israel. The converting Spirit is 
 the source of positive' illiiiniiialion; but before He enlight- 
 
 b Exod. xxxiv. 30. '^ 2 Cor. iii. 13. 
 
 ^ 2 Cor. iii. 15. •= Ibid. iii. 16, 17. 
 
IV] The Freedom of the Spirit. 8 1 
 
 ens tlius. He must give freedom from tlie veil of prejudice 
 wliicli denies to Jewish tliouglit the exercise of any real 
 insight into the deeper sense of Scripture. That sense is 
 seized by the Christian student of the ancient Law, because 
 in the Church of Jesus Christ he possesses the Spirit; and 
 "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
 
 In this interpretation of the passage some hesitation 
 may be felt as to the construction of the words, " The 
 Lord is that Spirit." According to St. Chrysostom, the 
 three Greek fathers who follow him, om^ own Bishop 
 Pearson^, and others, " the Spirit" is here the subject, and 
 " the Lord " the predicate of the proposition ; which thus 
 becomes an assertion of the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. 
 But this construction would seem to detach the words too 
 violently from their preceding context, to which they 
 plainly stand in the relation of an explanation. On the 
 other hand, "the Spirit" {to Trvev/jia), explained as it is 
 by the following to Trvevfia Kvpiov, cannot mean merely 
 the sense, mind, drift of the Law, or of the Gospel, or 
 any thing else or less than the personal Holy Ghost Him- 
 self. And the preceding verse is decisive in obliging us 
 to understand by " the Lord," Jesus Christ our Saviour^. 
 " The Lord Jesus Christ is that Spirit." But the Catholic 
 Creeds, not to mention other passages of Holy Scripture 
 itself, forbid us to recognize here any assertion of absolute 
 personal identity. Moreover, the law of the copula does 
 not compel us to adopt a construction which would imply 
 such an assertion. The point of view of the whole pas- 
 sage is so plain as to have made a more accurate expres- 
 
 f Pearson on the Creed, i. 374. The Socinian theologians against whom 
 Pearson wrote were right in referring 6 Kvpws to our Lord Jesus Christ, but 
 wrong in the inference which they based on it. Their interpretation of rb 
 ■jTi/fvfjLa was as uncritical as it was rationalistic. Cf. Meyer in loc. 
 
 s Verse 16, " When it [the heart of the people] shall turn to the Lord," 
 i. e. to the Lord Jesus Christ, by conversion to His Gospel. 
 
 G 
 
82 The Freedom of the Sphdt. [Serm. 
 
 sion uuueccssary'\ To liave communiou -svith Christ is to 
 have communiou with the Holy Spirit, and communion 
 with the Holy Spirit is freedom. The Holy Spirit is the 
 Spirit of Christ, the living principle of His indwelling 
 and of His action, both in the soul and in the Church. 
 He is called the Spirit of Christ, because He is sent by 
 Christ, and for the purpose of endowing us with Christ's 
 Nature and Mind, and of knitting us into the unity of His 
 sacred Body, as in other ways, so pre-eminently through 
 the Sacraments. His presence docs not supersede the 
 Presence of Christ : He co-operates in, He does not work 
 apart from, the mediatorial work of Christ. To regard 
 the workings of the Holy Ghost as altogether separate 
 from the mediatorial actions of the Redeemer, would be 
 " to suppose that there is some other name than that of 
 Christ given under Heaven, whereby we might be saved'." 
 If Christ is the Head of the Holy Body, the Eternal Spirit 
 is that living Soul by which the members of the Body are 
 bound together"^. To possess the Holy Spirit is to possess 
 Christ ; to have lost the Holy Spirit is to have lost Christ. 
 Accordingly our Lord speaks of the Gift of Pentecost as 
 if It were His own second coining : " I Avill not leave you 
 comfortless ; I will come to you'." And after telling the 
 
 ^ Cf. Meyer iu loc. : " Der llerr. . . .zu weklicm sicli das Ilcrz bekelirfc 
 (beaelitc den Artikel) ist uicht verscliieden vom heiligen Geist, welcher 
 iiamlich in der ]k'kehrung cmpfungen wird. Dass diess iiicht von absoluter, 
 personliehcr Identitiit, soudern uach dem Gesichtspunkte genieint sei, dass 
 die Gemeinschaft Christi, in welcbe man durcb die Bekebrung tritt, die 
 Genieinschaft des llciligcu Gcistes ist, vcrstand sicb dem Glaubensbcwusst- 
 sein der Leser von selbst, und wird aneli durch das folgendo rb xj/eC/ua 
 Yivpiov ausser Zweifel gesctzt. Christus ist aber in so fern dor Geist, als 
 Er bei der Bekebrung und sonst im Geiste sich niittbeilt, und der beiligc 
 Geist Sein Geist, das lebeudige Princip der Wirksamkeit und Einwobuung 
 Cbristi ist." 
 
 " Wilberforcc on tbc Incarnation, 3rd cd., 8vo, p. 287. 
 
 ^ I Cor. xii. 12, 13. 27. Ei)b. i. 22, 23 ; v. 23. 
 
 1 yt. John xiv. 18. 
 
IV] The Freedom of the SpiiHt. 83 
 
 Romans that " if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he 
 is none of His/' St. Paul adds_, " Now if Christ be in you, 
 the body is dead because of sin ™." Here Christ's " being 
 in" the Christian, and the Christian's "having the Spirit 
 of Christ," are equivalent terms. In like manner, as our 
 Lord had taught the Jews, " If the Son shall make you 
 free, ye shall be free indeed";" so here His Apostle says 
 of the Spirit Who administers His kingdom and perpetuates 
 His Presence, ""\Yhere the Sjjirit of the Lord is, there is 
 liberty." 
 
 The specific liberty which is here more particularly in 
 question, consisted in the "taking away of the vail," 
 which had hidden from the Jew the deeper, that is the 
 Christian, sense of the Old Testament. It is not merely 
 liberty from the yoke of the law. It is liberty from the 
 tyi^anny of obstacles which cloud the spiritual sight of 
 truth. It is liberty from spiritual rather than intellectual 
 dulness ; it is liberty from a state of soul which cannot 
 apprehend truth. The Eternal Spirit still gives this 
 liberty. He gave it, in the first age of the Gospel, to 
 those Jews whom, like St. Paul himself. He led to the 
 knowledge and love of Jesus Christ. 
 
 But the text covers a much larger area than is required 
 for the particular conclusion to which it is a premise. It 
 is the enunciation of a master-feature of the Gospel. It 
 proclaims a great first principle which towers high above 
 the argument, into which it is introduced for the purpose 
 of proving a single point". " "Where the Spirit of the Lord 
 is, there is liberty." Freedom is not an occasional largess 
 of the Di\ane Spirit ; it is not merely a reward for high 
 
 ™ Rom. viii. 9, lo. " St. John viii. 36. 
 
 o So Meyer insists that the Ap. is speaking of " geistige Freiheit iiber- 
 haupt, ohne specielle Beschrankung" (in loc). He certainly means some- 
 thing more than " deliverance from the bondage of the Mosaic law." — 
 I^ssai/s on a Liberal Education, p. 343. 
 
 G a 
 
84 TJie Freedom of the Spirit. [Seem, 
 
 services or conspicuous devotion. It is the invariable ac- 
 companiment of the Spirit's true action. Or rather^ it is 
 the very atmosphere of His Presence. Wherever He 
 really is^ there is also freedom. He docs not merely strike 
 off the fetters of some narrow national prejudice, or of some 
 antiquated ceremonialism. He does not descend from 
 Heaven to subvert an earthly despotism. He comes not 
 that He may provide for " the freedom of man^s outward 
 individual action, consistently with the safety of human 
 society." His mission is not to bestow an external, poli- 
 tical, social freedom. For no political or social emancipa- 
 tion can give real liberty to an enslaved soul. And no 
 tyranny of the state or of society can enslave a soul that 
 has been really freed?. Nor is the freedom which He 
 sheds abroad in Christendom a poor reproduction of the 
 restless, volatile, self-asserting, sceptical temper of Pagan 
 Greek life, adapted to the forms and thoughts of modern 
 civilization, and awkwardly expressing itself in Christian 
 phraseology. If He gives liberty, it is in the broad, deep 
 sense of that word. At His bidding, the inmost soul of 
 man has free play ; it moves hither and thither ; it rises 
 heavenward, like the lark, as if with a buoyant sense of 
 unfettered life and power. This liberty comes with the 
 gift of truth''; it comes along with that gift, of which in 
 its fulness the Eternal Spirit is the only Giver '^. He gives 
 freedom from error for the reason ; freedom from constraint 
 for the affections ; freedom for the will t'ldin the tjTanny 
 of sinful and human wills. Often has human nature ima- 
 gined for itself such a freedom as this ; it has sketched 
 the outlines more or less accurately ; it has sighed in vain 
 for the reality. Such freedom is, in fact, a creation of 
 grace : the sons of God alone enjoy it. " Where the 
 Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
 
 On this day '' the Holy Church throughout the world 
 r I Cor. vii. 22. 1 St. John viii. 32. "^ Ibid. xiv. 26. 
 
IV] The Freedom of the Spirit. 8 5 
 
 dotli " specially " acknowledge ^' and adore " the Holy- 
 Ghost the Comforter/^ as the Peer and Equal, in His 
 Divine Personality, of the Only-Begotten Son, and of the 
 Everlasting Father. To-day especially we remember how 
 in His condescension He became a gift to man, in order 
 that through His blessed Presence we might be free. May 
 He deign to enable us to dwell reverently and truthfully 
 on that freedom which Ho bestows, as an essential feature 
 of our Pentecostal heritage ! May we learn to prize 
 highly or earnestly to long after this great gift, which it 
 is still and for ever His office and His good pleasure to 
 shed abroad in all its reality and beauty upon the great 
 family of His regenerate children ! 
 
 The natural images which are used in Holy Scripture 
 to set forth the presence and working of the Holy Spirit 
 are, in different ways, suggestive of the freedom which 
 He bestows upon the soul. The Dove% which pictures His 
 gentle movement on the soul and in the Church, suggests 
 also the power of rising at will above the dead level of 
 the soil into a higher region where it is at rest '. The 
 " cloven tongue like as of fire' '^ is at once light and heat ; 
 and light and heat imply ideas of the most unrestricted 
 freedom. What freer than the light, of which the many- 
 coloured rays, with their unequal undulations, dart through 
 space with the same astonishing velocity ? What more 
 calculated to exhibit a natural picture of the penetrating 
 action of Spirit in our active life, than the singular trans- 
 formations whereby, through well-known experiments, heat 
 is first resolved into mechanical force, and then mechanical 
 force or motion are again rendered back into equivalent 
 heat ? " The wind" blowing "where it listeth, while thou 
 hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it 
 Cometh or whither it goeth^;" the well of water in the 
 
 s St. Matt. iii. i6. ' Ps. Iv. 6. 
 
 " Acts ii. 3. '^ St. John iii. 8. 
 
86 The Freedo7Jt of the Spirit. [Seem. 
 
 soul, springing up, like a perpetual fountain, unto everlast- 
 ing lit'e-^'; such are our Lord's OAvn chosen symbols of tlie 
 Pentecostal Gift. Do not tliese figures speak, in a lan- 
 guage intelligible to all^ not merely of a mysterious endow- 
 ment, but also of a buoyant self-ex]oanding life ; of that 
 range of thought, and joy of hearty and impulse and 
 strength of ^vill, which is the positive side of the gift of 
 freedom ? The lightj the heat, the wind, the stream of 
 water, are images not merely of the Divine force which 
 acts upon the soul, but of the movement of the soul 
 itself, as spiritualized and transformed by the Heavenly 
 Visitant. 
 
 And these figures prepare us for the language of the 
 Apostles when they are tracing the results of the great 
 Pentecostal gift in the Christian soul, or in the Christian 
 Church. With St. James, the Christian no less than the 
 Jew has to obey a law, but the Christian law is '^ a law of 
 liberty ^." The will of the Christian, regenerate and free, 
 rejoices to obey it. With St. Paul, the Church of Christ, 
 the true mother of 'mankind, is the Jerusalem which is 
 ^^free^;" she is contrasted with the bondwoman, whose 
 children Christians are not'' ; the Christian is to stand fast 
 in a liberty with which Christ has freed him'^ : he is free 
 from the "yoke of bondage^' which was imposed by the 
 Synagogue. He is, if indeed he is alive unto God, free 
 from a yet heavier yoke ; he is " made free from sin, and 
 become the servant of righteousness ^.'' St. Paul com- 
 pares this freedom, " the glorious liberty of the children 
 of God,'' with the ^' bondage of corruption® ;" he contrasts 
 the " law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus," which gives 
 us Christians our freedom, with the enslaving " law of sin 
 and death^." According to St. Paul, the Christian slave 
 
 y Ibul. iv. 14. 
 
 ''■ St. James ii. 
 
 I 2 : cf. i 
 
 i. 25. 
 
 » Gal. iv. 26. 
 
 i> Ibid. 31. 
 
 
 ^ Gal. V. I. 
 
 ^ Koni. vi. 18. 
 
 c Ibid. viii. 21. 
 
 
 f Koin. viii. 2, 
 
IV] The Freedom of the Spirit. 87 
 
 is essentially free^ even wliile lie still wears liis chain s. 
 The NeAv Testament every where represents the gift of free- 
 dom as of the essence of the Gospel. Freedom of thought^ 
 which voluntarily submits to absolute truth ; freedom of 
 affection^ which hastens to embrace the Eternal Beauty ; 
 freedom of will, which yet moves harmoniously with and 
 in submission to the Will of Him "Whose service is 
 perfect freedom." For "where the Spirit of the Lord 
 is, there is liberty." 
 
 I. The kingdom of the Spirit, then, is the home of 
 mental liberty. From the first God has consecrated 
 liberty of thought, by withdrawing thought from the 
 control of society. Society protects our persons and 
 goods, and passes judgment upon our words and actions. 
 But it cannot force the sanctuary of our thought. That 
 mysterious world which lies open to God and to conscience 
 can only be revealed to our fellow-men by our own 
 voluntary act. And He Who came from heaven to-day 
 that He might enrich the human soul by His Blessed 
 Presence, raising it to new and supernatural capacities, 
 came not to suspend, but to recognize, to carry forward, 
 to expand, and to fertilize almost indefinitely the thought 
 of man. He has vindicated for human thought the 
 liberty of its expression agaiust imperial tyi'anny, and 
 official superstition. The blood of those saints and 
 martp's of the first three centuries, whose names live for 
 ever in the heart of the grateful Church, witnessed to the 
 truth, that, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is, not 
 merely moral, but mental liberty. For when the illumi- 
 nation of the Perfect T-uth had been shed by the gift of 
 Pentecost upon human thought, Christians became con- 
 scious of a new power, almost of the presence of a new 
 sense, in their perception of the supernatural. The 
 thought which God had thus admitted to share after a 
 g I Cor. vii. 22. 
 
8 8 The Freedom of the Spirit. [Seem. 
 
 measure His counsels and His Mind could not but be 
 free. 
 
 In other days, other features of tlie Churcli's system, 
 the severe morality of the Gospel, the organic structure of 
 the hierarchy, the unalterable principles or the consecrated 
 traditions of the life and worship of the Churches children, 
 have been separately arraigned as the foes of liberty. 
 The main currents of human interest have for the most 
 part swept past the bed of these now wellnigh antiquated 
 controversies ; and as the objections and replies, so 
 familiar to theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centui'ies, die away upon our ears in the distance of history, 
 we find that we have been carried onwards to a point at 
 which the whole colour of controversy has suddenly 
 altered, and the issues have become vastly more mo- 
 mentous. For now a central, inalienable feature of Chris- 
 tianity, which has been always accepted alike by Rome 
 and Lambeth, and by Lambeth and Geneva, as a common 
 premise, as an axiomatic principle, is called in question. 
 A principle which was equally admitted by Bellarmine 
 and by Calvin, however they may have differed as to the 
 range of its application, has come to be regarded by one 
 considerable section of the thought of our day as the dis- 
 tinctive enemy at least of intellectual freedom. So that 
 while I am insisting upon liberty as a Pentecostal blessing, 
 mcthinks I hear the inunnurs of an unexpressed objection 
 rising around me, which it is not difficult to shape into 
 words. ' Others,^ the objection might seem to say, — 
 * others may speak of liberty, but not you. Others, who 
 ' are committed to nothing, and who have professed 
 ' nothing ; they who inquire, who think, who doubt, who 
 ^ deny, may rightly speak of freedom. They indeed may 
 'bo supposed really to enjoy it. Ikit to wear the livery 
 ' of a Church, to accept the championship of a Creed, and 
 ' to rejoice in your portion, — these conditions are incom- 
 
IV] The Freedom of the Spirit. 89 
 
 ' patible with liberty. Tliey imply adhesion to that which 
 ' in the world of thought is its energetic antagonist ; 
 ^ they commit you to the principle of dogma/ 
 
 Undoubtedly, in the judgment of an influential school 
 of recent growth, dogma is the real enemy of religious 
 freedom. This idea, indeed, bids fair to exert no little 
 influence in our day and generation. It does not merely 
 find expression in books which deal exclusively with 
 theological questions. You may trace it in the literature 
 of science, in the manifestos of politicians, in the many 
 works of fiction which are designed to interest the people. 
 Sometimes this idea seems to be asserted with all the 
 vehemence of an over-mastering passion. Sometimes, 
 too, it enlists in its service the resources of a style of well- 
 nigh unrivalled clearness and beauty. We are told that 
 dogma is " slavish " and " arrogant ;" that it is " barren " 
 and "irrational;" that "it overlays the truths of Chris- 
 tianity ;" that it is a " hard integument " in which the 
 Churches are " cased." To value dogma is invidiovisly 
 contrasted with setting a value on Christian character and 
 Christian life ; as though, in virtue of some necessary 
 law, the man who caxes for the one must perforce neglect 
 the other. Dogma, it would seem, belongs to the Church 
 of the past; the Church of the future will practically 
 dispense with it. The Creeds, those monuments of its 
 ancient sway, may still be retained, upon archeeological 
 principles, or as a point of ecclesiastical honour. But in 
 the real life and heart of the Church, dogma will be by 
 degrees " thrown into the background, and may in the 
 end pass practically out of view ^'." 
 
 Such is frequently in our day the language of really 
 generous spirits, whom it would be unjust to charge with 
 any conscious intention of assailing a fundamental prin- 
 ciple of revealed religion. The idea which is latent in 
 h Prof. G. Smith on the Abolition of Tests, pp. 24, 43, 75, 76, 83. 
 
90 The Freedom of the spirit. [Siiu^r. 
 
 tliis objection to dogma is, that it must, from the nature 
 of the case, be uutrue. Truth cannot be " arrogant ;" it 
 cannot "overlay" truth; it cannot be contrasted with 
 morality, as if morality were its antagonist; it is not 
 likely to pass away, since we know that " it endurcth 
 from generation to generation'." Dogma is assumed, 
 rather than stated in terms, to be untrue. This as- 
 sumption is partly traceable to a weakened belief in the 
 reality of an objective revelation committed to the Church 
 of Christ. Those who believe such a revelation to have 
 been given, believe that its substance can be stated in 
 language, and welcome the statement when made by com- 
 petent authority. 
 
 But there are other causes at work among us which 
 help to account for this hostility to dogma. Tlic hands 
 that direct the onslaught are the hands of Esau : but the 
 voice gives utterance to no native type of English thought ; 
 it is the voice of the philosophy of Hegel. Certainly the 
 main laws, the most cherished features of the system of 
 that thinker, are rarely presented to, and would not 
 readily be accepted by, English intellect. We English 
 do not readily enter into the statement that the real and 
 the rational are identical, so that the development of the 
 Idea regulates the development of Being ; we do not 
 understand the asserted necessity which imposes upon 
 nature and history "the geometrical movement of the Idea 
 scientifically determined;" we fail to see that logic and 
 ontology may be reduced to a single science ; we are not 
 often invited to consider the threefold rhythm of the 
 development of pure Being, that is, of nonentity. But 
 we do encounter, we may even have accepted habits of 
 thought, principles of criticism, with no obvious internal 
 connexion between each other, yet distilled, so to speak, 
 from the complete system of the philosopher, and generally 
 
 ' Ts. c. 5. 
 
lY] The Freedom of the Spirit. 91 
 
 hostile to the dogmatic side of Christianity. We need 
 not travel far to listen to some contemptuous rejection of 
 the very idea of personality. We are scarcely less than 
 familiar with the paradox that contradictories may be 
 identical. We are more or less acquainted with a 
 criticism of which the central feature is the conception 
 of an indeterminate Beings who under the double form 
 of nature and history^ and through a succession of 
 phenomena,, becomes determinate. We witness around 
 us^ again and again, the entire surrender of all sense 
 whatever of a fixed truth; the diseased mind^s eye can 
 see at length nothing but the shadowy, fugitive forms of 
 universal change. There is no recognized rule for reason; 
 in human opinion all is true and yet nothing is true. All 
 truth is partial and Hmited; all statements of truth are 
 true and false at once. Contradiction is essential to real 
 knowledge; you only complete an assertion when you 
 have stated its contradictory. Truth does not admit 
 of simple positive statement; "its real utterances must 
 perforce flow in a ceaseless rhythm of antitheses .^^ Name 
 this temper of mind as you will ; it is in truth the genuine 
 spirit of Hegel. And such a form of intellectual activity 
 is necessarily hostile to the Christian principle of dogma. 
 
 This hostility moreover is reinforced from a very op- 
 posite quarter. The prevalence of experimental methods 
 of inquiry leads many minds among- us tacitly to assume 
 that nothing is real, the truth of which cannot be 
 established and tested by observation. Never before in 
 the history of the world were the lower districts of 
 human knowledge so wonderfully enlarged, as has been 
 the case in our own day, through the astonishing triumphs 
 of the natural sciences. Never before in the history of 
 Christendom has it seemed as if those higher summits of 
 thought, which can only be reached by faith, were shut 
 out from the view of so many noble souls by a cloud of 
 
92 The Freedoin of the spirit. [Serm. 
 
 almost Pagan darkness. And avIiou in the imperishable 
 creeds of Christendom, essential dogmatic truth, like the 
 lightning flash plapng around the mountain-peak, 
 discovers for a moment to some enthusiastic experi- 
 mentalist the existence of a higher world than that in 
 which he so meritoriously pursues his observations, he 
 is sometimes rather irritated than delighted and cheered 
 by the discovery. Because dogmatic Christianity is a 
 positive protest against the theory which sees no value 
 in any save experimental methods of inquiry, the ex- 
 perimentalist will not unfrequently join with the Hegelian 
 in denouncing dogma as the enemy of liberty ^. 
 
 Tims it is almost within our own day, that in obedience 
 to these and kindred impulses, a dexterous and active 
 rhetoric has associated this honoured word with the idea 
 of necessary assumption and falsehood. It has contrived 
 to invest a simple name with the power of a hostile and 
 popular argument. Yet after all, brethren, what is 
 dogma ? Certainly St. Paul ^ in two cases uses the word 
 more or less disparagingly of those Mosaic ordinances 
 which were falsely insisted on by the Judaizers. And 
 theological definitions, such as was that of the Im- 
 maculate Conception, might remind us that we too must 
 still use the word occasionally in an unfavourable sense. 
 But any such use of the word ought to be exceptional"'; 
 since of itself it suggests nothing untrustworthy or 
 discreditable. Thus the term belongs to the language 
 of civilians; it is applied to the imperial edicts in the 
 
 ^ Cf. Caro, Idee do Dieu, pp. 28, sqq. 
 
 * Epli. ii. 15. Col. ii. 14: conip. v. 20. 
 
 '" Dofrnia is used of heretical tenets in a bad sense, but with ijualifjing 
 words which fix this sense. Thus, ttjj oire/Seios SJyyuoTo, St. Chrys. t. viii. 
 Semi. V. St. Augustine speaks of heretical dogmas as "pcstifera et niorti- 
 fera." (De Civ. Dei, xviii. 1; i .) The seventh decree of the third (Ecumenical 
 Council describes the " dogmas" of Nestorius as TriKpa Kal Siecrrpa^^eVa. 
 (Kouth, Opusc. vol. ii. p. 9.) 
 
IV] The Freedom of the Spirit. 93 
 
 New Testament ^, as elsewliere. It also finds a liome in 
 the language of pliilosopliy. It is the counterpart of the 
 avTo<i e^a of her great names. And when Cicero^ in 
 reviewing the intellectual movement of centuries, ex- 
 claims that " philosophy should now have confidence in 
 herself and in her dogmas ° ;" we may reflect that his 
 advice is not even in our own day entirely disregarded, 
 since many philosophers who denounce the dogmatic state- 
 ments of the Gospel can hardly be described as un- 
 dogmatic, when they are elaborating their own social, or 
 political, or cosmical theories. 
 
 But it is, as applied to the decrees of the Apostolic 
 Council of Jerusalem p, that the word emerges almost into 
 its full ecclesiastical sense. That which seemed good 
 (eSo^e) to the Holy Ghost and to Apostolical authority 
 becomes a dogma. Certainly the contents of those 
 earliest Apostolical decrees are practical directions, and 
 not definitions of doctrine ; although they all illustrate a 
 great doctrinal principle. However, in St. Ignatius '', 
 in St. Justin Martyr, in St. Clement, in Origen, in the 
 Apostolical Constitutions, the word dogma is used of the 
 teaching of Christ and His Apostles, and of essential 
 Christian truth ^. And in Socrates the historian, in St. 
 Gregory Nyssen, in St, Cyi'il of Jerusalem, dogmatic truth 
 is carefully distinguished from the rjdiKov ^iepo<i, or province 
 of morals ^. 
 
 " St. Luke ii. i. Acts xvii. 7. 
 
 ° Cicero, Quffist. Acad. Prior, ii. 9 : " Sapientia .... neque dc se ipsa 
 ■dubitare debet, neque de suis decretis, qua) pliilosophi vocant Z6yjxaTa." 
 
 P Acts xvi. 4 : cf. xv. 20. 28. 
 
 ^ St. Ign. ad Magnes. c. xiii. : o-TrouSacraTe P^fiaiooOi^uai if to7s 56yfxacn 
 Tov Kvpiov Koi riev airocFTSKoiv. 
 
 r Orig. Cont. Cels. iii. 39. Eus. H. E. vii. 30. Compare tbe other 
 quotations in Kubn, Eiuleitung, p. 191, note i. See also Suicer, Thesaurus, 
 sub voce; Baur. Dogmengeschichte, i. p. 10. 
 
 s Socr. H. E. ii. 44, p. 132, ed. Oxf. The teaching of Meletius on 
 arriving at Antioch is thus described : 6 5e -KpuTov fx\v nepl Soyixaros 
 
94 The Freedo7n of the Spirit. [Seem. 
 
 Dogma, then, is essential Christian truth tln-o^vn by 
 authority into a form which admits of its permanently 
 passing into the understanding and being treasured by 
 the heart of the people *. " The greatest of acquirements/' 
 says St. Cyi'il of Jerusalem, "is the science of dogmas"." 
 For dogma is an active protest against those sentimental 
 theories which empty revelation of all positive value. 
 Dogma proclaims that Revelation does mean something, 
 and what^'. Accordingly dogma is to be found no less 
 truly in the volume of the New Testament than in 
 Fathers and Councils. It is specially embodied in our 
 
 Aeyeorfiat vwepeTldero, fxivriv Se T7J«' 7]Qikiiv Si5a(TKa\iau to7s d/cpoara?s ■Kpoff- 
 "flKeiv. In St. Basil, rh rys QeoXoyias Soy/aa is the doctrine of our Lord's 
 divinity; Orat. iv. in Hexaem. In De Sp. Sanet. c. 27, St. Basil uses "dogma" 
 in the narrower sense of secret traditional and mystical Church usage, and 
 lie contrasts it with K-fipvyfia, the substance of the Church's public teaching. 
 St. Chrysostom has ra rrjs e/cKATjcrias SSyju-ara in the sense of the doctrine of 
 the Church. S. Greg. Xyss. Ep. vi. says of our Lord, that diaipu'v els Svo 
 ri]v roiv XpicTTiavuv iroAtTeiav, eh re rh r]6iKhv fiepos, Kal ttju tCiv SoyfidTQiu 
 aKpi0eiav, rh yuer (Toorripiov SSyixa iv rrj ^airriirixaros TrapaSdaei KaT7}(r<pa\i- 
 caro, rhv 5e filov i^fxwv 5ia rris rripTjaeajs roiv ivroXwv aurov Karopdnvcrdai 
 Kf\ivet. In Gallundi I5ibl. Patr. vi. p. 631. Cf. quotations by Suiccr, 
 
 8. V. 
 
 ' " De toutes ces verites revulees, on n'appelle dogmes, dans le sens 
 rigoureux du mot, que cellos.. .. qui se rapportent Jl Tesscnce meme de la 
 religion chretienne, rcuferment la doctrine ayant pour objct Dieu et Son 
 rapport avec Ic nionde ct avec I'honinic, et dctcrmiucnt i\ quoi et comment 
 le Chretien doit croire pour meriter son saint. Connne verites do la foi, 
 elles se distinguent de toutes Ics verites (on r^gles ou principcs) d'action ; et 
 commc principcs de la foi qui sauve, elles se distinguent de toutes cellos des 
 verites de la foi qui sont sans rapport direct avec I'ossence de la religion 
 chretienne, et le salut do I'liommo." — T/icoIojie Dogm. Ortli.'par Macaire, 
 torn. i. p. 7, Paris, Chorlmlioz. 
 
 " yieyiarov roivvp KT7)jxa. tcrri rh rwv Soyfj.d.rci)v fiaQrifia. In describing a 
 pious life, he observes that iK 5uo rovruv awtarriKe, Soy/ndroii' evirefiuv 
 Kal ■n-pd^fwi' aydOwv. — S. C^rill. llieros. Cat. Led. iv. 2. cd. Koischl. j). 90. 
 St. Chrysostom says that Christianity combines ^€to rrjs rtiiv Soy/xdruv 
 6p66Triros Kal iroXiniav vyiaivovaav. (Iloin. 27. in Jolian. 3.) 
 
 ■" " Es liogt in S6y/j.a dor Bogrltl' des Wesentlichon uud Xothwendigon, des 
 Fundamentalcn und Principicllen, das als solches schlechthin anzuerkonneu 
 ist und absolute Geltung hat." — Baur. Dogmciigesch. i. p. 9. 
 
IV] The Freedom of the Spirit. 95 
 
 Lord's later discourses, in the recorded sermons of His 
 Apostles, in the Ej^istles of St. Paul. The genuineness of 
 the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corin- 
 thians is not disputed by the destructive school of 
 Tubingen. Yet this chapter is in its form and substance 
 quite as dogmatic as are the articles on the Resurrection in 
 the Summa of Aquinas, or in Pearson on the Creed. To 
 grant the existence of false dogma is not to deny the 
 existence of true dogma. And the question whether true 
 dogma exists at all is distinct from the question of its 
 ext_^nt. Enough, that He Who came to guide Christ's 
 people into all truth, '' to teach them all things ^," and to 
 '''bring all things to their remembrance whatsoever" 
 Chi'ist " had said unto them," gives us in such dogmatic 
 formularies as the Creeds the very mind of Christ. The 
 Divine Spirit, speaking through the clear utterances of 
 Scripture, and the illuminated and consenting thought of 
 Christendom, is the real author of essential dogma; and 
 we know that '''where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is 
 liberty y." 
 
 But you ask. Is not dogma, as a matter of fact, a 
 
 X St. John xiv. 26. 
 
 y Hegel implies that the historical treatment of dogmas is fatal to belief 
 in them. " Das grosste Zeichen aber, class die Wichtigkeit dieser Dogmeu 
 gesunkcn ist, giebt sich nns darin i.yx erkennen, dass sie vornehmlicb his- 
 torisch behandelt mid in das Verhaltniss gestellt werden, dass es die Ueber- 
 zeugungen seyen, die Anderen angehoren, dass es Geschichten siud, die 
 nieht in imserm Geiste selbst vorgehen, nicht das Bediirfniss unsers Geistes 
 in Anspruch nehmen. Was das Interesse ist, ist diess, wie es sich bei 
 Anderen verhalt, bei Anderen gemacht hat,— diese zufiillige Entstehung und 
 Ersclicinung ; iiber die Frage, was man selbst fiir eine Ueberzeugung babe, 
 wundert man sich." — Vorlesungen iiber die Fhil. der Meligion, Erster 
 Theil, p. 41. Doubtless the habit of looking at doctrinal truth /row without 
 must issue in infidelity, unless we bear in mind Whose Truth it is which 
 Ave are considering, and our consequent duties towards it. But of itself 
 the historical study of doctrine need not make us unbelievers. Compare 
 Dr. Dolliuger's Vergar.genhcit und Gegeuwart der Katb. Tbeologie, p. 34 
 sqq. 
 
96 The Freedom of the spirit. [Serm. 
 
 restraint upon tliouglit ? Unquestionably. But your 
 question implies a notion of liberty whicLi is impossible. 
 Surely a being is free when he moves without difficulty in 
 the sphere which is assigned to him by his natural con- 
 stitution. If he can only travel beyond his sphere with 
 the certainty of destroying himself, it is not an unrea- 
 sonable tax upon his liberty, whereby he is confined within 
 the barrier that secures his safety. Now truth is ori- 
 ginally the native clement of human thought; and 
 Christian dogma prescribes the direction and Hmits of 
 truth, concerning God and His relations to man. Of 
 course I am not supposing that you dispute the truths 
 which are stated in the Creed ; I assume you to have your 
 eye upon that group of converging lines of evidence, 
 which, although separately unequal to prove the truth of 
 Christianity, are collectively so irresistible, that, like the 
 rays of a burning-glass, they light up in the pure soul 
 which seizes their true focus the flame of a life-long con- 
 viction. You admit then that revealed truths are true, 
 but you dislike their being stated dogmatically ? Wliy ? 
 If they arc true, why not state them dogmatically ? You 
 reply that in this form they check the independence 
 of thought. Certainly, in a sense, it is true that they do 
 check it. In other words, while you deliberately admit 
 the truth of a position, you are not at liberty to deny it. 
 You cannot wish to do so. You cannot be loyal to known 
 truth, and at the same time ignore or defy her. When 
 you have discovered a fact of experience, you are not at 
 liberty to deny that fact; and you so far forfeit your 
 intellectual independence by your discovery. The dream 
 of an independence of thought, which owes allegiance to 
 no fixed truth of any kind, is at issue, not merely with 
 religion, but with nature herself. An entirely inde- 
 pendent force, whether mental or material, a force con- 
 trolled by no restraints and obeying no laws, exists 
 
IV] The Freedom of the Spirit. 97 
 
 nowhere beneath God's throne. Certainly the physical 
 world does not teach us that obedience to law is fatal to 
 freedom. The plants and animals around us are subject 
 to stern and unchanging laws ; yet their obedience to 
 these laws is compatible with the utmost variety of 
 growth^ form, colour_, individuality^ habit. The heavens 
 would cease to '^ declare the glory of God/' if the astro- 
 nomers were to destroy those invariable forces which 
 confine the movement of the swiftest stars to their fixed 
 orbits ^. And when man himself proceeds to claim that 
 empire which God has given him over the world of nature, 
 he finds his energies bounded and controlled by law, in 
 every direction. We men can indeed transport ourselves, 
 to and fro only on the surface of this earth. Here we 
 live and move freely in an atmosphere, the elements of 
 which are so combined as to preserve our life. But if in 
 an attempt to reach the skies we should succeed in 
 mounting to a region, removed only by an interval of 
 some few miles from the soil on which we tread, and 
 where animal life is impossible, we know that death 
 Avould be the result of our success. Meanwhile our 
 aeronauts, and even our Alpine climbers, consent to stop 
 short of the impracticable ; they do not " complain of the 
 tp-anny of the air ^." Moreover, when w' e move within the 
 limits which God has assigned to us, the swiftness of our 
 movement is proportioned to our obedience to law. If, 
 for example, we will content ourselves with the modes of 
 travelling known to our forefathers, we may undoubtedly, 
 as we journey hence to the metropolis, diverge from the 
 high road or from the rude pathway without danger, if 
 not exactly without delay or inconvenience. But perhaps 
 we sometimes represent to ourselves the astonishment of 
 Oxford men of the last or of previous centuries, if they 
 could have been told that it would one day be possible to 
 z Bj). Wllberforce. a F^lix. 
 
 H 
 
98 The Freedom of the Spirit. [Seem. 
 
 reach London from Oxford in little more than an hour. Yet 
 after all, this truly wonderful result has been purchased 
 by what our predecessors might deem a sacrifice of liberty. 
 The engine that carries us forward cannot leave the iron 
 tramway which determines while it facilitates our course, 
 without plunging us, at the very least, into an agony of 
 helpless terror. So it is in the world of thought. Look 
 at those axioms which form the basis of the freest and 
 most exact science known to the human mind. We 
 cannot demonstrate them ; we cannot reject them ; but 
 the submissive glance by which reason accepts them is no 
 unworthy figure of the action of faith. Faith also submits, 
 it is true ; but her submission to dogma is the guarantee 
 at once of her rightful freedom and of her enduring 
 power. 
 
 No, brethren, a literally complete independence is 
 denied even to man^s thought, since thought too, in its 
 beautiful freedom, is a creature of God. To own alle- 
 giance to none is a prerogative of Deity. We cannot 
 conceive God as dispensing with the dependence of any 
 form of created life upon Himself, the Source of Life; 
 since this were to violate the primal law of His Being. 
 And in that highest of all subjects, God's revelation of 
 Himself to created intelligence, the presumptuous self- 
 assertion of the individual thinker, in dealing with His 
 message, can only be deemed a dream of folly. The 
 positive revelations of Scripture and the doctrines of the 
 Church's primitive Creed claim to be God's truth; they 
 are this, or they are falsehoods. That they arc what they 
 claim to be is a matter of detailed proof; but I am now 
 contending against the method of discrediting them 
 beforehand by denouncing their dogmatic form. Surely 
 we inflict upon ourselves no grave dishonour by bending 
 before the Thought of God ; surely we move with suf- 
 ficient freedom, if in our freedom we move along the 
 
IV] The Freedom of the Spirit. 99 
 
 line of ortliodox}". It is the line wliich tlie Eternal 
 Reason lias constructed to span the chasms and to pierce 
 the obstructions of thought. It is the line from which 
 we cannot deviate, if we advance at all, without courting- 
 that ruin of all convictions which is the penalty of a too 
 presumptuous hardihood. 
 
 Certainly, submission to revealed truth does involve a 
 certain Hmitation of intellectual licence. To believe the 
 dogma that God exists is inconsistent with a liberty to 
 deny His existence. But such liberty is, in the judgment 
 of faith, parallel to that of denying the existence of the 
 sun or of the atmosphere. To complain of the Creed as 
 an interference \n\h- liberty, is to imitate the savage who 
 had to walk across London at night, and who remarked 
 that the lamp -posts were an obstruction to traffic. 
 Speaking of the liberty of the press, in his work on 
 American Democracy, De Tocqueville expresses his longing 
 for an intermediate jDosition between an entire absence of 
 restraint and an absolute control of the organs of opinion, 
 as that which would be best fitted to the real interests of 
 the people. We Englishmen, almost alone among the 
 nations of the earth, have the happiness to realize in our 
 political life the aspiration of the historian. We under- 
 stand the doctrine of the supremacy of the law, and we 
 enjoy the fullest personal freedom. In the Church of 
 Christ there is a similar alliance between freedom and 
 authority. This alliance may be disturbed by sections of 
 Christendom or by single theologians, who endeavour to 
 enforce an intellectual absolutism in matters which are 
 fairly matters of opinion. Or it may be destroyed by a 
 Rationalism which creates spiritual anarchy, only to lay 
 the foundations of a dogmatism differing from that of the 
 Church in its entire lack of any respectable authority. 
 But "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
 The voice of the Spirit in the soul corresponds to the 
 
 H a 
 
loo The Freedom of the Spirit. [Serm. 
 
 voice of the Spirit iu Scripture and iu the Universal 
 Church ; |_and obedience is felt to be sjTionymous with 
 freedom. A free people gladly pays obedience to those 
 laws which its conscience has recognized as the best 
 expression of social and political justice. The free intelli- 
 gence of the Church bows before the language of the Creeds, 
 because that language accurately guards a Ti'uth which 
 the faith of the Church recognizes as of heavenly origin. 
 
 Tliey only can suppose that Christian dogma is the 
 antagonist of intellectual freedom, whose misery it is to 
 disbelieve. For dogma stimulates thought, provokes 
 thought, sustains thought at an elevation which, A^'ithout 
 it, is impossible. It is a scaffolding by which we climb 
 into a higher atmosphere : we must perforce think after 
 some fashion of the Infinite Being, and it teaches us how 
 to think with steadiness and certainty. It leaves us free 
 to hold converse with God, to learn to know Him, though 
 not as yet to see Him as He is. We can speak of Him, 
 aye, and speak to Him, freely and affectionately, within 
 the ample limits of a dogmatic definition. Besides this, 
 dogma sheds, from its home iu the heart of revelation, an 
 interest on all surrounding branches of knowledge. God 
 is every where ; and to have a fixed belief in Him, is to 
 have a perpetual interest in all that reflects Him. So 
 that religious dogma is the great intellectual stimulant 
 which really urges the friends, and even the foes of that 
 truth which it enshrines, along the various paths of know- 
 ledge. Do you whisper that dogma stimulates in its 
 earlier, but petrifies into uselessness in its later, stage of 
 existence? Look, then, at that glorious monument of 
 dogma, at that renowned Confession of Faith, which 
 passes among us, unhistorically no doubt, under the 
 name of the great Athanasius ''. Hooker*^ warned the 
 
 •> Cf. Waterliind's Works, vol. iii. pp. 198-220. 
 
 c Ecclcs. Pol., 15k. V. xlii. 13 : " Which 1111115 tlicj- very well know, aucl 
 
lY] The Freedom of the Spirit. i o i 
 
 English Cliurcli that the Athanasian Creed had still a 
 work to do, in ages far removed from the Ainan epoch ; 
 and certainly this Creed has been a standing offence to lati- 
 tudinarianism from the days of Tillotson to our own. Yet so 
 unprejudiced a witness as the present Bishop of Calcutta ^ 
 has just told us that there are forms of Indian thought 
 which no other instrument so adequately confronts. This 
 very Creed enables him most authoritatively and effect- 
 ively to advance the missionary work of his Master. 
 Again, what composition can in reality be more dogmatic 
 than the Te Deum ? It brings before the soul the truths 
 of the Blessed Ti'inity and of the Incarnation, with close 
 theological precision. Yet as wo use it, it stimulates 
 unbounded spiritual movement. The soul ranges over 
 earth and heaven, plunges into the depths of its own 
 deepest consciousness, mounts to the very Heart of God. 
 The soul moves so freely, because it moves between fixed 
 certainties. It finds that the sublime truths which it 
 adores do not for one moment fetter the freedom of 
 its movement. No Christian who seriously believes the 
 doctrines that Jesus is God, that the Death of Jesus is a 
 world-redeeming Sacrifice, that the Eternal Spirit sancti- 
 fies the redeemed, that Scripture is the inspired word of 
 God, that the Sacraments are appointed channels whereby 
 we partake of the Life of Jesus, can say that in himself 
 these truths have petrified, or arrested, or stifled thought. 
 Rather do they open out the widest views of the Divine 
 character, and of the destinies of man, and of the vast 
 
 I doubt not will easily confess, wlio live to their great both toil and grief, 
 where the blasphemies of Arians, Samosatenians, Tritheites, Eutychiaus, 
 and Macedonians are renewed ; renewed by them who, to hatch their heresy, 
 have chosen those churches as fittest nests where Athanasius' Creed is not 
 heard." 
 
 d The Most Rev. Dr. Cotton, late Metropolitan of India. See his Charge, 
 i86.^, pp. 38, 39. 
 
I02 The FreedoDi of the Spirit. [Serm. 
 
 functions and pi'ofound interest of the natural world; so 
 that at Icngtli the s^v^ftcst thought finds its utmost range 
 exceeded^ and pauses to cry out -vWth the Apostle, " O 
 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge 
 of God ! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His 
 ways past finding out^!" or with the Psalmist, "Lord, 
 what is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? or the sou of 
 man, that Thou visitcst him '' ? " 
 
 II. And if the kingdom of the Spirit be in truth thus 
 friendly to mental freedom, much more is it the home and 
 refuge of moral liberty. In it, and in it alone, the will is 
 free. Faith in the invisible Christ, in the objective cer- 
 tainties of Scripture and the Creed, are the instruments 
 which the Spirit uses in the work of our moral eman- 
 cipation. Over the years of past life, during which 
 heaven has been closed to thought, because thought 
 has been unenlightened by faith, we can only sigh with 
 Augustine, " Suspirabam ligatus non ferro alieno, sed 
 mca ferrea voluntate s." Perhaps it is so still with some 
 of us. We are bound with the bands of habit, of passion, 
 of prejudice. We hug our chains. Perhaps, like the 
 earliest Gnostics, we even dare to promise other men 
 liberty, while knowing ourselves to be really slaves ; while 
 feeling, in the misery of our secret souls, that we are our- 
 selves " the servants of corruption •^.^ 
 
 There is no such thing, believe it, as a resurrection from 
 moral slavery, except for the soul which has laid hold on a 
 fixed objective truth'. If, as M. Renan says, God be 
 merely " the category of the ideal," a " resume of the 
 supra-sensuous needs of man," then He is man^s creature 
 
 ^ Rom. xi. 33. f Ps. viii. 4. 
 
 8 St. Aug. Conf. lib. viii. c. 5. h 2 St. Peter ii. 19. 
 
 ' "The salt of Cliristianity" (says Mr. Mori vale) "has been Dogmatic 
 Belief in the Incarnation." Conv. of Itoman Empire, p. i.^C). Compare a 
 striking passage iu Mozley's Bauiptou Lectures, p. 171. 
 
IV] The Freedom of the Spi7'it. 1 03 
 
 instead of being man's Creator'^. The idealized god of 
 tlie school of Hegel is even less able to raise the prostrate 
 will of the creature^ the product of whose thought he is, 
 than is a brute animal, or a sculptured idol, since these 
 at least have the merit of an existence indej^endent of the 
 mind of the worshipper. But when, at the breath of the 
 Divine Spirit upon the soul, heaven is opened to the eye 
 of faith, and man looks up from his misery and his weak- 
 ness to the Everlasting Christ upon His throne; when 
 that glorious series of truths, which begins with the Incar- 
 nation, and which ends with the perpetual Intercession 
 and the Sacraments, is really grasped by the soul as cer- 
 tain; then assuredly freedom is possible. It is possible; 
 for the Son has taken flesh, and died, and risen again, and 
 
 ■^ The passage to which I refer closes an article on Feucrbach and the new 
 Hegelian school. It deserves to be I'cproduccd entire : — 
 
 " A ceux qui, se pla^ant au point de vue de la substance, me demanderont : 
 Ce Dieu est-il ou n'est-il pas? — Oh ! Dieu! repondrai-je, c'est lui qui est, et 
 tout le reste qui parait etre. Suppose meme cpie, pour nous philosophes, 
 un autre mot fut preferable, outre que les mots abstraits n'expriment pas 
 asscz clairement la reelle existence, il y aurait un immense inconvenient a, 
 nous couper ainsi toutes les sources poetiqnes du passe, et a nous separer par 
 notre langage des simples qui adorent si hien a leur maniei-e. Le mot Dieu 
 etant en possession des res-pects de Vhumanite, ce mot ayant pour lui une 
 longue prescription et ayant ete employe dans les belles poesies, ce serait 
 renverser toutes les habitudes du langage que de I'abandouner. Dites aux 
 simples de vivre d'aspiration a la verite, a la beaute, a la bonte morale, ces 
 mots n'auront pour eux aucun sens. Dites-leur d'aimer Dieu, de ne pas 
 oftenser Dieu, ils vous comprendrout a merveille. Dieu, Providence, im- 
 mortalite, autant de botis vieux mots, un pen lour ds pent -etre, que la pJiilo- 
 Sophie interpretera dans des sens de plus en plus raffines, mais qu'elle ne 
 remplacera jamais avec avantage. Sous une forme ou sous une autre, Dieu 
 sera toujours le resume de nos hesoins supra-sensibles, la categoric de 
 I'ideal (c'est-a-dire la foinne sous laquelle nous concevons I'ideal), comme 
 I'cspace et le temps sent les categories des corps (c'est-a-dire les formes sous 
 lesquelles nous concevons les coi"ps). En d'autres termes, I'liomme, place 
 devant les choses belles, bonnes ou vraies, sort de lui-meme, et suspendu 
 par un charme celeste, aneautit sa chetive personnalite, s'exalte, s'absorbe. 
 Qu'est-ce que cela, si ce n'est a.dovev'^"— Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse, 
 pp. 418-19. 
 
I04 The Freedom of the Spirit. [Seem. 
 
 interceded \r\\\\ tlie Father, and given us His Spirit and 
 His Sacraments, expressly that we might enjoy it. " If 
 the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed'. It 
 is more than possible ; it is easy. " The Blood of Jesus 
 Christ cleanseth from all sin"\" "Whosoever bclievcth 
 in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life "." 
 
 But then, we are to be enfranchised, on the condition 
 of submission. Submission ! you say, is not this slavery ? 
 No, believe it, obedience is the school of freedom ; in 
 obeying God, you escape all the tyrannies which would 
 fain rob you of your liberty. In obepng God, you are 
 emancipated from the cruel yet petty despotisms which 
 enslave, sooner or later, all rebel wills. In obeying God, 
 you attain not merely freedom, but moral royalty; for if 
 man is royal when he commands nature, and yet more 
 royal when he commands his fellow-men, his highest exer- 
 cise of empire is over himself, and he best learns to wield 
 it by voluntary submission. He bends in very deed the 
 knee to Christ. He prostrates himself before the mysteries 
 of Bethlehem and Calvary. He listens to the new com- 
 mandment as to the charter and secret of his freedom; 
 and he rises a king and priest to God and the Father ; he 
 has free access to the courts of heaven ; he serves One 
 Whose service alone is perfect freedom ; nay, " Cui servire 
 regnare est." He reigns over himself; and the play of 
 thought, and feeling, and the movement of passion, and 
 the infinite variety of his activities, do but subserve the 
 invariable unity, the majestic force of his will. As in the 
 material world all expansion is proportioned to the com- 
 pression which precedes it ; so in the moral world, due 
 allowance being made for human self-determination, the 
 formula still holds good, and the wdll acts with a force 
 wliicli is measured by its power of self-control. Those 
 who imagine manliness to consist in the repudiation of all 
 
 J St. John viii. .36. m i St. Jolm i. 7. " St. John iii. 16. 
 
IV] The Freedom of the spirit. 105 
 
 authority, do not succeed in making tliemselves or others 
 really men. They help to justify the sarcasm, that our 
 generation produces old children and boyish men ; that it 
 makes us men at sixteen and childi-en at forty. They do 
 more ; they undermine the source of moral and spiritual 
 greatness/ by sapping its very fundamental law. They 
 create a type of character, inventive it may be, and fasti- 
 dious in debate, but consistently weak in action. They 
 are really responsible for that lack of individual originality 
 and force, which the author of the Essay on Liberty tells 
 us is characteristic of our time, and which he, not less 
 than wi'iters who believe with all their hearts the Creed 
 of the Church of God, regards as a matter of serious 
 anxiety in the immediate future". Above all, they teach 
 a doctrine which is inconsistent with the first condition of 
 the highest liberty that is enjoyed either in earth or 
 heaven ; since in effect they proscribe the duty, the privi- 
 lege, of a free submission to Truth. 
 
 As loyal citizens of that kingdom of the Spirit which is 
 also the kingdom of the Incarnation, you may be really 
 free. " If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free 
 indeed.''^ Political liberty is a blessing ; liberty of thought 
 is a blessing. But the greatest blessing is liberty of the 
 conscience and the \\all. It is freedom from a sense of 
 sin, when all is known to have been pardoned through the 
 atoning Blood; freedom from a slavish fear of our Father 
 in Heaven, when conscience is ofiered to His unerring 
 Eye morning and evening by that penitent love which 
 fixes its eye upon the Crucified; freedom from current 
 prejudice and false human opinion, when the soul gazes 
 by intuitive faith upon the actual truth ; freedom from the 
 depressing yoke of weak health or narrow circumstances, 
 since the soul cannot be crushed which rests consciously 
 upon the Everlasting Arms ; freedom from that haunting 
 o Mill, Essay on Liberty, pp. 126-133. 
 
1 06 The Freedofii of the Spii'it. 
 
 fear of death, wbicli holds those who thiuk really upon 
 death at all " all their lifetime subject to bondage/' unless 
 they are His true friends and clients ^\nio by the sharp- 
 ness of His own Death has led the way and " opened the 
 kingdom of heaven to all believers." It is freedom in 
 time, but also, and beyond, freedom in eternity. In that 
 blessed world, in the unclouded Presence of the Emanci- 
 pator, the brand of slavery is inconceivable. In that 
 world there is indeed a perpetual service ; yet, since it is 
 the service of love made perfect, it is only and by neces- 
 sity the service of the free. For " where the Spirit of the 
 Lord is, there is liberty.'^ 
 
SERMON y. 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Psalm Ixxiii. 26, 
 
 Ml/ flesh and my heart failefh : hut God is the strengtli of my heart, and 
 my portion for ever. 
 
 THIS is one of many passages in tlie Psalter -wMcli show 
 how truly it was the life of eternity^ which animated 
 the hopes^ and sustained the courage of true servants of 
 God in ancient Israel. If the religious aspirations of the 
 Psalter had been really bounded by the horizon of time, it 
 would have been difficult to understand that instinct of 
 the Church of Jesus Christ, which has guided her from 
 the &st ages to place these inspired poems in the hands 
 of her children. Here is a vast world-wide society, con- 
 stituted on the supposition of its possessing a revelation 
 of an endless life beyond the grave. Instinctively, 
 and in the fii-st age of its existence, this society selects a 
 book which shall be daily upon the lips, and, if it may be, 
 in the hearts, of its members, as the choicest expression 
 of their highest thoughts and strongest hopes. Now this 
 selection of the Psalter, as the devotional manual of 
 the whole Catholic Church, is not to be accounted for by 
 saying, that the Psalter is pre-eminently a prophetical 
 work, in which Christ our Lord is every where to be dis- 
 covered by the faith of Christians. For, in the case of 
 those Psalms which are not certainly Messianic prophecies. 
 
io8 Immortality. [Seem. 
 
 the reference to our Lord is indirect, or at any rate it is 
 not immediately ob\nous. However certain of such refer- 
 ence we may be, it does not lie upon the surface of the 
 Psalm. It does not force itself upon the ordinary Christian 
 reader. It cannot be put forward as a thing which 
 will be invariably recognized. We might then expect 
 that in the literal sense of the Psalter, as expressing the 
 aspirations and struggles of the Christian no less than of 
 the Jew, the Church would find the justification of her prac- 
 tice. Especially might we expect that the true dignity and 
 the tremendous destiny of the human soul would be suffi- 
 ciently recognized in these valued pages to satisfy men 
 who had been illuminated by the revelation of Pentecost. 
 
 Such a presumption is warranted by the results of inquiry . 
 Thus in the Psalm before us, Asaph is embarrassed by the 
 difficulties which the prosperity of the ungodly presents 
 at first sight to every earnest student of the laws of 
 the Divine government of the world. The spectacle had 
 almost driven him into scepticism : " My feet had almost 
 swerved," he says, " my treadings had well-nigh slipped." 
 
 " I was envious at the foolish : 
 I beheld the prosperity of the ungodly. 
 For there are no pangs in their death. 
 And their strength is firm. 
 They are not in trouble, as frail men, 
 Neither are they plagued as human kind. 
 Therefore pride is on them as a necklace ; 
 Vi(jk'nce clothes them as a garment. 
 Their eyes stand out with fatness, 
 They swell over in thoughts of the heart : 
 They scolf and speak oppression wickedly ; 
 Loftily do they speak. 
 
 They have [as if God] set their mouth in heaven ; 
 And their tongue travels through the earth a. 
 « # * * 
 
 They say. How doth God know ? 
 a vers. 3-9. 
 
V] hnniortality. 109 
 
 And is there knowledge in the Most High ? 
 
 Lo ! such are the ungodly ; 
 
 In eternal security they pile ujj wealth t"." 
 
 Thus for a moment it seemed to the Psalmist, who had 
 been " punished " through the long day of life and chas- 
 tened morning by morning, that "" he had cleansed his 
 heart in vain, and washed his hands in innocency*^." 
 Yet to speak thus, he felt, was to offend against the 
 generation of God^s children. It was to abandon their 
 cause to the despair of unbelief. This conviction held 
 him in suspense, until he " went into the sanctuaries of 
 God, and thought on the latter end of the ungodly ^.^' In 
 the privacy of sacred retreat from the world, where his 
 soul was face to face with and in communion with God, 
 Asaph turned his feeble querulousness into prayer. As a 
 consequence, his spiritual sight was purged of the film, 
 with which a sensitiveness that at bottom was selfish and 
 sinful had overlaid it. Asaph did not go into the sanc- 
 tuary, with a view to discovering new facts of experience, 
 that might counterbalance or set aside his previous ob- 
 servations concerning God^s providential rule. But he did 
 seek and win a more trustful, more resigned temper, and 
 a more commanding, more religious point of view from 
 which to study his difficulties ; while, on the other hand, 
 those very difficulties themselves helped to fortify his faith 
 in an eternal world. For as he learned to believe in a 
 future state with a direct relation to this present life, his 
 doubts respecting God^s Providential Rule would be cor- 
 respondingly lessened. And it could not but be perfectly 
 clear to him that God^s government of the world is just, 
 when his faith had once gained sight of the endless life 
 beyond the grave. In the sanctuary, then, Asaph admits 
 
 ^ vers. II, 12. Cf. Dr. Kay's recent translation of the Psalter; from 
 which, however, there are some variations. 
 
 ^ ver. 13. d vcr. 17. 
 
no Imviortality. [SEEii. 
 
 tlie moral evil within himself which had enhanced his 
 intellectual distress : — 
 
 " Truly my heart had embittered itself, 
 I luul pierced myself to my reins. 
 Yea, I was foolish and ignorant. 
 Even as it were a beast before Thee^." 
 
 And simultaneously with this self-humiliation came the 
 return of light. Asaph, indeed, owns that he had neg- 
 lected observable facts w^hich ought to have reduced his 
 difficulty to smaller dimensions*^. " The ungodly are set 
 in slippery places/^ only to be cast down and destroyed ; 
 their very prosperity is the instrument of their punish- 
 ment ; men may be momentarily dazzled by the shortlived 
 pageant of their vain frail life; but — 
 
 " Like as a dream, when one awaketh. 
 So, Lord, when Thou arisest 
 Shalt Thou scorn Their shadowy image S." 
 
 Yet it is the future only that can give him complete re- 
 lief from the perplexities of the present ; he escapes from 
 time into the thought of eternity. God had thus " laid 
 hold on his right hand;" God had saved him from the 
 abyss of doubt ; God would still guide His servant with 
 His counsel, and after that receive him to glory'*. 
 ""Whom," he cries, 
 
 " have I in heaven but Thee ? 
 And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. 
 My flesh and my heart faileth ; 
 But God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever'." 
 
 Now the especial point of these last words, and their 
 bearing on the whole argument of the Psalm, lies in the 
 contrast which they present between the present and the 
 
 8 vers. 21, 22. 
 
 ^ Observe the force of ry« in ver. i8, " Surely, after all, I was in error; for 
 in slippery places Thou settest them," kc. 
 
 B ver. 20. h vers. 23, 24. > vers. 25, 26. 
 
y] Immo7'tality. 1 1 1 
 
 future, between the transitory and the eternal. His 
 bodily frame, or ''flesh/ the Psalmist feels, is breaking 
 up. For the moment it might seem that his ^ heart ^ was 
 partaking in the depressing, sickening sense of coming 
 dissolution. The ^ heart' with the Hebrews means, 
 speaking generally, the centre or inner seat of life, 
 whether physical or spiritual. It is indeed used in one 
 well-known passage of the Psalter in the physical sense 
 of animal life-power which is quickened by food and made 
 glad by wine ^. More commonly it is the centre from 
 which the life-stream of thought and feeling pours 
 through the soul. Thus the ' heart ' is said to ' speak,' 
 to ' think,' to ' conceive within self,' to '■ meditate,' to 
 ' desire,' to ' cry out in song and jubilee V to be heated 
 with intense thought *", to be grieved ", to be desolate ", 
 to be smitten and mthered like grass p, to be wounded i, 
 to be broken ^ Especially is the heart the seat of the 
 moral life, of its movement and repose, of its conquests 
 and failures, of its final victory or death. Thus the heart 
 is said to be ' ready,' or ^ clean,' or ' fixed,' or ^ whole ' 
 and ' perfect,' or ' converted,' or ' hardened,' as the case 
 may be. As the seat of the moral life the heart is 
 described as ' deep ^' God knows its mysterious secrets *. 
 Thus, then, in the passage before us, ^ the flesh ' is in 
 contrast to the ' heart,' as the animal frame of man might 
 be contrasted with the life of consciousness, feeling, and 
 moral effort. The former is yielding to the slow, certain 
 action of time, and has already upon it the presentiment 
 of death. The latter seems for one instant to lose the 
 sense of its real indestructibility in its profound sympathy 
 with the weakly body which yet encases it. But the 
 
 ^ Ps. civ. 15. 1 Ps. Ixxxiv. 2. i;n;. mPs. xxxix. 3. 
 
 n Ps. Ixxiii. 21. o Ps. cxliii. 4. p Ps. cii. 4. 
 
 1 Ps.. cix. 22. r Ps. cxlvii. 3. s pg. ixiv. 6. 
 
 ' Ps. xliv. 21. 
 
112 Immoi^tality. [Seem. 
 
 darkness lasts for a moment onl}-. " My flesh and my 
 heart failoth : but God is the strength [or rock] of my 
 heart, and my portion for ever." The contrast is too 
 perfect to be evaded. On one side is the perishing body 
 that will presently bo laid in the grave ; on the other, the 
 undying soul, triumphantly realizing its full sense of 
 immortality, as it clings in love and thankfulness to the 
 Unchangeable God. To be thus one with the Eternal 
 Being was already to have a certain pledge of endless 
 life. And it is the vision of this endless future — " my 
 portion for ever" — thus presented to the eye of the 
 Psalmist in his retreat within the sanctuary, that com- 
 pletes the removal of his original difficulty with respect 
 to the ways of God. Had this world been all, that dif- 
 ficulty must have proved insuperable. It melts away 
 altogether beneath the rays of light which stream from one 
 cardinal truth ; it is solved by the doctrine of the immor- 
 tality of the soul of man. 
 
 I. Life and immortality, we are told, were brought to 
 light by the Gospel. TTie Gospel has opened " a new and 
 living way" to heaven. It has converted the better 
 guesses and speculations of philosophy into certainties. 
 It has made the Creed of pious Jewish believers as to 
 the world beyond the grave the religion of civilization. 
 But the immortality of the soul was not first taught and 
 believed when our Lord confuted Sadduccan unbelief, 
 or when He consoled His faint-hearted disciples on the 
 eve of His Passion. Even remote consequences of the 
 doctrine were perceived long before St. Paul enforced 
 the reality of the Resurrection upon the Church of 
 Corinth, or heaven and hell were opened to St. John in 
 the retreat of Patmos. For Daniel had taught in the 
 plainest language the truth of a general resurrection to 
 endless life or to endless shame ". The services for All 
 
 " Dan. xii. 2. Cf. Dr. Pusey's Daniel tlic Prophet, p. 492, S(](i., for a 
 
V] Iinmoi'tality. 1 1 3 
 
 Saints' Day will remiud us liow the Alexandrian author 
 of the Book of Wisdom had described "the souls of 
 the righteous '' as being " in the Hands of God, where no 
 torment could touch them/' while the wicked with bitter 
 remorse confess the vanity and misery of their past lives ^. 
 The Maccabean brothers died for the older revelation, 
 with a confession of faith upon their lips which might well 
 have been used by Christian martyrs receiving their sen- 
 tence at the tribunal of a Roman proconsul y. Nor was the 
 idea of immortality only developed in the later history of 
 Israel; although, just as men give thought to religious 
 subjects when they fall into weak health, it is possible 
 that the political misfortunes of the later ages of Jewish 
 history led the national mind to dwell more seriously upon 
 the deeper truths contained in the Mosaic prophetical 
 revelations. Certain it is that even in Ecclesiastes — 
 passages of which have been appealed to even in the 
 interests of materialism — we find an explicit statement of 
 the truth of the soul's individuality, and of rewards and 
 punishments after death ^ ; and the book of Job, what- 
 ever date be assigned to it, and whether its contents be 
 regarded as history or parable, is throughout a very hymn 
 of immortality. If this world were all, all was lost for 
 Job ; God was a terrible enigma ; chance was God ; 
 Providence was but a name. But Job, in the depth of 
 his anguish, " knoics that his Redeemer liveth, and that 
 from his flesh he shall behold God ^." It seems that in 
 
 refutation of the rationalistic theory, that this belief came from the Zoro- 
 astrians. 
 
 X Wisd. iii. i-io; v. 1-13. 
 
 y 2 Mace. vii. 9, 14, 23. In the words of the youngest of these martyr- 
 brothers, they died "under God's covenant of everlasting life." (ver. 36.) 
 Compare the remarks of Tacitus respecting the later popular Jewish belief 
 as understood by intelligent Pagans : " animas prailio aut suppliciis peremp- 
 torum seternas putant." (Hist. v. 5.) 
 
 2 Ecclesiastes xii. 7-14. Cf. Hengstenberg, in loc. 
 
 ^ Job xix. 25, 26. " Xo doubtful meaning of any [single] words," says 
 
 I 
 
114 hmiiortality. [Seem. 
 
 Job, as in the Psalter and Isaiah, the doctrine of immor- 
 tality is in close connexion with that of Sheol — " the 
 house of assembly of all li^^ng*'." So rooted, from a 
 distant antiquity, in the mind of Israel is the belief in 
 Sheol as the home of the departed, that, as a doctrine 
 which had long been popularized, it sometimes furnishes 
 to the Psalmists the imagery Avhich describes national and 
 political dangers. And if Isaiah pictures to his countrymen 
 the meeting between the soul of the king of Babylon and 
 the astonished spirits of the ancient dead *^; he is not, like 
 Milton, mingling wild imaginings with serious truth ; still 
 less is he, like poets nearer our own day, decking up a 
 creed which he regards as extinct with the embellishments 
 of poetry. He is speaking, as of an actual fact, to the living 
 faith of Israel. For the theology of Isaiah and of the 
 Psalter (no less than their language) presupposes, and can 
 only be explained by, that of the Pentateuch. At the pre- 
 sent day, for various and some opposite reasons, the well- 
 known paradox of Bishop AVarburton, would find but few 
 apologists. The doctrine of Immortality runs through the 
 Bible. It underlies the history of the creation and of 
 the fall of man. It is involved in the statement that man 
 was created originally in the image of God ^. The penalty 
 which was the consequence of the Fall — " Thou shalt 
 surely die" — implies that the being to whom it was 
 addressed had been before, in body as well as in soul, 
 immortal. Adam^s body was not originally formed to be 
 
 Dr. Pusey, " can cfl'ace from this passage the doctrine of the resurrection of 
 the flesh." For a proof of this statement, see his notes, Daniel the Prophet, 
 p. 504. 
 
 ^ 'n-bsb "lyiQ ri'5 Job xxx. 23. Cf. 1 Sam. xxviii. 15; Ps. Lxxxix. 48. 
 Tliat Slieol does not simply mean the grave has been shown by Odder, (Vet. 
 Test. Sententia de rebus post mortem futuris, p. 26, scjq.,) quoted by Koiiig, 
 Theol. der Psalmen, p. 330. Compare the passages quoted iu an article ou 
 " Hades" in Ilcrzog's Keul-Encyclopadie. 
 
 c Isa. xiv, 9, sq(i. «1 Cf. Dr. Pusey, Dauiel, p. 492. 
 
Y] hnmortality. 115 
 
 dissolved ; and tlie promise, tliat tlie Seed of tlie woman 
 should bruise the Serpent's head, would have had no 
 meaning for Adam, unless his soul was to live on in an 
 unseen world, and was thus at length to share in that 
 promised victory. And as the blood of righteous Abel 
 was poured forth upon the soil, it did not merely cry to 
 God for vengeance upon his murderer, it created at once 
 and irresistibly in the conscience even of fallen man, the 
 moral argument for an immortality beyond the tomb. 
 When it is said of Enoch that " God took him," this 
 cannot mean that Enoch ceased to exist, any more than 
 the same expression can have any such force when it is 
 afterwards used with reference to Elijah ^. The desire for 
 nothing less than a heavenly country is the true keynote 
 to the lives of the patriarchs. Immortality is the charm 
 of the first great promise to Abraham^; immortality is 
 the idea which underlies Jacob's description of this life as 
 a pilgrimage s. The patriarchs speak and act as men who 
 sit loosely to all that makes their earthly existence dear ; 
 and as each in his turn is gathered to his people ^, it 
 might well seem that their faith in immortality is traced 
 upon their rock-hewn sepulchres. The fervent aspu^ation 
 of Balaam for a death like that of the righteous is but a 
 pointless phrase, if Balaam or Moses believed death to be 
 extinction ' ; and the severe laws which were promulgated 
 by the Hebrew legislator against " charmers, consulters 
 with familiar spirits J," and those who, as the witch of 
 
 ^ Gen. V, 24: cf. 2 Kings ii. 3, 5. ^ Gen. xv. i. S Ibid, xlvii. 9. 
 
 h Gen. XXV. 8, 17; xxxv. 29; xlix. 2iZ- Dr. Pusey observes tbat "this 
 expression does not intend a reunion of bodies in a common burying-place. 
 Abraham was not buried with his fathers, nor was Ishmael. Jacob speaks 
 of being gathered to his people as something distinct from being buried with 
 his fathers. Gen. xlix. 29." — On Daniel the Prophet, p. 496. 
 
 i Num. xxiii. 10. 
 
 J Deut. xviii. 10, 11. i Sam. xxviii. 3, 8, 11, 15. Exod. xxii. 18. 
 Lev. xix. 31 ; and xx. 27. 
 
 I 3 
 
1 1 6 Immortality. [Serm. 
 
 Endor, professed to call up the dead by incantations, 
 show how profoundly a belief in the soul's immortality 
 had in the early Sinaitic age sunk into the heart of the 
 people, although this belief was blended \a\h an odious 
 superstition. Can we wonder that not merely moral per- 
 plexities, but worship, fear, confidence in God, penitence 
 for past sin, the sense of the emptiness of this world, the 
 desire to possess God, draw forth from the IjtIc soul of 
 the Psalmists, who represent and address the faith of the 
 people, the clear, sweet, exultant note, in which again and 
 again they sing of immortality ? 
 
 II. ITie authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, Divine and 
 Infallible, is the true and sufficient basis of this doctrine 
 in the Chi-istian soul. He sanctions the anticipatory 
 statements of the Old Testament, and the dogmatic 
 enunciations of the Apostles whom He sent. His own 
 utterances cover the whole area of what is revealed upon 
 the subject. He thus relieves His servants of responsi- 
 bility in teaching a doctrine, against which in its fulness 
 the unbelief and the passions of man would often have 
 especial and fierce prepossessions. 
 
 The arguments for the soul's immortality are very 
 various in their degrees of abstruseness or popularity. 
 Thus our immortality has been deduced by some thinkers, 
 as by Leibnitz, from an analysis of the nature of the 
 soul ''. By others it has been argued that the mere idea 
 of an Infinite God and of an endless life implies that the 
 
 k " Onr soul is a substance : now no substance can entirely perish except 
 by a miracle of annihilation. And as the soul has no parts, it is not possible 
 that it should be dissolved into several separate substances; therefore the soul 
 is naturally immortal."— <S[y.*<e?» of Theology, ed. Russell, p. 159. In the 
 same way, Leibnitz argues that " the I, or principle of unity, is a thing 
 which cannot perish either in us or in brutes. For to perish always implies 
 dissolution : now the principle of unity, being without composition, is 
 incapable of dissolution." — Letter to 31. de Boinelurg. Comiiare Butler, 
 Anal. c. i. p. 18. 
 
y] Immortality. 117 
 
 thinking" being* who has conceived it must be immortal '. 
 The universal desire for a deeper and more lasting happi- 
 ness than can be found on earth has always appeared to 
 Christian philosophers, eminently to the great Augustine, 
 to point to that futiu^e of which the Psalmist sings, 
 " When I wake up after Thy Likeness, I shall be satisfied 
 w^th it "\" But the consideration by which the truth 
 before us is most frequently fortified, expanded, propa- 
 gated in the heart and mind of the people, is that of the 
 Psalm before us. A^Tiat are the precise natui'al facts of 
 human life, which first cause the Psalmist such keen dis- 
 tress, and then serve to reinvigorate his faith and hope ? 
 The answer is, that man suffers, and is also a moral agent, 
 and that between his moral action and his suffering there 
 is no regular correspondence, nay, rather, there is a per- 
 petual jar and disproportion. From age to age a Tiberius 
 wears the purple, while the pride and flower of human 
 virtue is being crucified between two thieves. In en- 
 deavouring" to counterbalance the force of this perpetual 
 and universal fact, the formulas of an abstract logic are 
 powerless; and the secret thoughts, and the accustomed 
 sajangs, and the irrepressible emotions of men, mount 
 with the strong certainty of a moral intuition towards an 
 eternal world. Scepticism, indeed, points to the sufferings 
 of the lower creatures ; and Bishop Butler would seem to 
 concede the probability of their possessing some modified 
 form of being hereafter, correspondent to their imperfect 
 morality °. But be this as it may, what an altogether dis- 
 tinct thing is human suffering from any form of mere 
 animal agony. How intense it is, how enduring, how 
 full of consciousness ! Like the flash of lightning" which 
 
 1 "Je ne con9ois pas qu'une ame, que Dieu a voulu remplir de I'idee 
 de Son Etre Infini, et des ses verites eternelles, puisse etre aneantie." — La 
 Bruyere, c. i6, qu. by Nicliolas, fitudes, i. 85, ed. Brussels. 
 
 ™ Ps. xvii. 14, 15. ° Analogy, c. i. p. 17. 
 
1 1 8 Inniiortality. [Serm. 
 
 reveals to tlie shipwrecked seaman the watery grave which 
 yawus to receive him, reason illuminates the horrors of 
 human pain. Reason forecasts pain, not by a vague and 
 precarious instinct, but on the strength of an infollible 
 induction. Reason perpetuates pain by committing it to 
 the care of memory. To suffer with reflection upon the 
 fact of suSei*ing, is to suSer each moment with accu- 
 mulating sharpness of agony. To suffer as men suffer, is 
 to suffer, not as a mere disordered animal organism, but 
 with the moral intensity of a submissive or reluctant will. 
 What is such pain, when unmerited, but the very pledge 
 of an immortality which shall redress its unequal dis- 
 tribution ? Many a human life carries along with it, con- 
 tains within itself, the speaking revelation of an Eternal 
 Future. Search, if you will, among the classes who 
 people history; and you shall find even at the summits of 
 society how '^ the just man perisheth and no man layeth 
 it to heart,^^ how friends are betrayed, and hearts are 
 broken, and virtue is condemned to the monotony of an 
 apparent failure. But look also more immediately around 
 you ; visit those cemeteries of human pain, where it is 
 buried out of our sight; visit our workhouses, our 
 factories, nay, I will add, our prisons. ]\Iark that young 
 girl who is supporting a large family by toiling late and 
 early in a close room, and whose countenance even now 
 betrays the hectic flush of incipient consumption. Visit 
 that dying pauper, who has worked hard and struggled 
 honestly against weak health, and for masters who have 
 treated him much as they have treated the cattle around 
 him. Enter the cell of that prisoner (and such there have 
 been) who is the elect victim of a social panic, and who is 
 sentenced to die for a crime of which he knows himself to 
 be innocent. Explain to these, the suffering classes, that 
 you have disposed of immortality on the authority of this 
 anatomist, or of that metaphysician ; and you ^^^ll encounter 
 
Y] Immortality. 119 
 
 a conviction, of wliich you suspect neitlier the strength, 
 nor the majesty. That mass of unintelKgible suffering 
 will look around it at the many who " come into no 
 misfortune like other folk, neither are plagued like other 
 men "," yet without doing or being any thing that could 
 merit exemption ; it will look up to that Heaven in which 
 God reigns, hidden indeed by the clouds of His im- 
 penetrable Providence, but in Himself, eternally and 
 unchangeably Just; and finally, after a moment of ter- 
 rible suspense, it "will look you in the face to tell you that 
 your disbelief in immortality is inhuman ; it will tell you 
 that there must be an eternity, even though it should be 
 too honest and too humble at once to add, with the 
 Psalmist, " My flesh and my heart faileth : but Grod is the 
 strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." 
 
 III. It is characteristic of a large section of contempo- 
 rary thought, more or less unfriendly to revealed religion, 
 that it is at once scrupulously conservative and fiercely 
 radical. Radical, in that its more logical and representa- 
 tive developments destroy nothing less than the very 
 foundations of religious truth and life. Conservative, in 
 that it often clings with tenacious and unaffected earnest- 
 ness to the consecrated language of the faith. The 
 unbelief of the last century attacked with iconoclastic zeal 
 the terms which enshrined such truth as it rejected, no less 
 than the truth itself. The motto of religious destroyers 
 has generally been, "Destroy the nests, or the birds 
 naay return. Leave not the feudal castle standing, or it 
 may again be tenanted by its natural occupants.'''' Our 
 own age is too archaeological, too refined, perhaps too 
 self-confident, to act on such a maxim. Catholic cathe- 
 drals are decorated, as in Scotland and Switzerland, with 
 painted glass by their Presbyterian tenants ; and some 
 very advanced disciples of unbelieving teachers enthusi- 
 
 o Ps. Ixiii. 5. 
 
120 Imnwrtality. [Seem. 
 
 astically retain the formal language of theology, since, in 
 theii" hands, we are told, it has become the expression of 
 a hierher truth than could attach to it when it was used 
 by the old theologians. Accordingly we hear of grace, 
 together with elaborate arguments against the reality of 
 Divine influences ; of prayer, while the possibility of any 
 real action upon the Will of God is formally denied : of 
 the Incarnation, when nothing is less intended than the 
 glorious truth that the Infinite and Everlasting Holy One 
 took our flesh in the womb of Mary ; of God, when God 
 has been pronounced to be identical with nature, and 
 when nothing more personal and living is meant than " an 
 abstract order of things, for which it is hard to select any 
 other equally satisfactory designation." Thus the old 
 language is dismantled; it is emptied of its meaning and 
 its life : it is kept up like a venerable ruin, to enshi-ine a 
 sentiment, but not to give shape and impulse to a living 
 conviction. AV^e are inclined for a moment to resent the 
 semblance of a cruel equivocation. We say that wc would 
 rather have to deal with a foe whose hostility to our creed 
 was not masked beneath an appearance of formally con- 
 fessing it. But this judgment must speedily give way to 
 another more intrinsically accurate, and more welcome to 
 Christian charity and to Christian compassion. Remark, 
 brethren, how in their use of the ancient terminology of 
 the Church, men of decaying fiiith, or even men whose 
 faith has perished outright, yet pay the tribute of an in- 
 voluntary homage to the beauty and majesty of her Creed, 
 while in the very act of renouncing its authority. It is a 
 sad satisfaction to them to repeat the language, although 
 they have lost the belief of their forefathers. Conscious 
 of the aching void within them, they cling desperately, 
 imploringly, to words which have been for ages, which ai'e- 
 still to millions, which once perchance have been to them- 
 selves, the sjTnbols of a living certainty, the framework of 
 
V] Immortality. \i\ 
 
 a heavenly trutli, tliat brightens^ warms^ elevates the 
 soul which really embraces it. Such men are in the 
 position of the shipwrecked seaman^ who is battling with 
 the waves^ and clinging in his strong agony to a timber of 
 what was once his home, while moment by moment he is 
 really drifting upon the surf or the rocks which will 
 presently mark his grave. Surely we do not tell him, as, 
 powerless to help him, we watch him from the cliffs, that 
 he ought to have kept off a dangerous coast, and that his 
 last hope is a mockery. Rather do we fall on our knees 
 and pray the good God in heaven to defeat our sad antici- 
 pations, and to bring help in a case where vain is the help 
 of man. But at least, in the interest of humanity, we 
 describe his misfortune ; we investigate, as far as we may, 
 its exact causes ; and if need be, we erect a lighthouse, 
 which shall help to save others from his fate. Those who 
 from old affection misuse the language of the faith, may 
 well have claims on our compassion and sympathy ; but an 
 explanation is none the less necessary, if we are to claim 
 for Truth her ancient rights, and for human speech its 
 ancient meaning. 
 
 Certainly, in contemporary literature the word Immor- 
 tality is clung to with a desperate tenacity which proves 
 how, in spite of their theories, men shrink from resigning 
 themselves to the naked idea of absolute annihilation. 
 
 Here, for instance, is a materialist of the most advanced 
 school, who is nevertheless an ardent believer in immor- 
 tality. " I believe,^' says he, " in immortality — the 
 immortality of matter. Matter is really immortal, inde- 
 structible. Not any the smallest atom of the sum total 
 of existing matter can ever disappear from existence. 
 Modern chemistry teaches me that the birth and dissolu- 
 tion of the organic and inorganic forms around me do but 
 shift the combinations of matter, while they can neither 
 add to nor lessen the original mass. Matter is thus the 
 
122 Immortality. [Seem. 
 
 scene of perpetual, uninterrupted change; but its mass 
 and its quality are alike invariable. My body then, 
 altliougli not immortal in its existing form, is immortal in 
 its constitutive elements. My body will turn to dust, 
 and my soul, whicli is only ' an effect of several molecules 
 endowed with force,^ will naturally cease with the cessa- 
 tion of its cause. But the dust itself is immortal, im- 
 perishable : it will enter into new combinations ; it will 
 subserve to all eternity new forms of life." 
 
 Nay, more, he will add, " I believe in a second immor- 
 tality, the immortality of force. Just as matter in the 
 judgment of my science can neither be created nor annihi- 
 lated, but only transformed ; so it is -unth force. Force 
 is sclf-cxistent, eternal, yet capable of infinite transmuta- 
 tion. Not any the least conceivable quantity of existing 
 force can cease to exist. Weight, mechanical force, heat, 
 light, electricity, magnetism, cohesion, affinity, these 
 forces are inherent in, and inseparable from, matter. 
 They constitute the world ; they are, with few exceptions, 
 capable of reciprocal transformations. There ' is a circular 
 movement in .force, the correlative to a similar movement 
 in matter.' Thus, therefore, the forces which combine 
 a certain quantity of matter into that actual form which is 
 myself, must, I know, in llic course of time enter upon 
 new functions and relations which will involve my previous 
 dissolution. But my consolation lies herein; — that these 
 forces themselves are immortal and indestructible; and 
 that, although my personal life is but a fugitive shadow 
 upon the surface of existence, the forces which have 
 resulted in ))i"()ducing it can never die''." 
 
 " We believe," others urge, " in immortality ; and in a 
 
 higher immortality than that of the elements of our 
 
 animal life. We In-licve in the immortality of man, of the 
 
 human race. ^Vv cannot doubt that our species will be 
 
 1' So, for cxiiinple, IKiclmer, Kraft unci Stofl', ch. 2 and 3. 
 
Y] Inimortality. 1 23 
 
 perpetuated for ever, Wliat if individuals die every wliere 
 around us ? wliat althougli we see not merely tlie old and 
 weak dropping like ripe fruity almost liourly, into their 
 graves, but strong, liale men cut off by disease or by 
 violence in tlie prime of life ? Does not life, nevertheless, 
 encroach perpetually upon the frontiers of death ? Is not 
 the great treasure of human existence ever being handed 
 on from sire to son ? Surely the individual may die, but 
 humanity survives; and as the generations which have 
 passed away yet live in the veins and muscles of us their 
 children, so we in turn are assured of a corresponding life, 
 after death, in the generations which will take our place 
 and name." 
 
 Say others, " We believe in immortality — the immor- 
 tality of thought. We grant that little real consolation 
 is to be derived from that power of perpetuating our race 
 and kind which we share with the whole animal and vege- 
 table world. But surely thought, the product of our 
 human reason, is at once proper to man and properly im- 
 mortal. Our bodies may decay, but our souls will exist 
 in the ideas which they have originated or transmitted. 
 Here is the incentive to generous effort ; here is the true, 
 the highest distinction. We will contribute something to 
 the stock of human thought ; we will live for ever in the 
 thinking life of humanity. For, literature too has its 
 heaven ; and while there are inferior rewards, meted out, 
 in a graduated scale of merit, to lesser celebrities, we may 
 dwell in the rapture of literary aspiration upon the trans- 
 cendant glories reserved for a Homer, a Plato, a Shake- 
 speare, a Goethe." 
 
 " We believe," cries another band of believers, " in im- 
 mortality ; but our ^ immortality ' must be truly human. 
 It must be moral. The immortals of thought will always 
 be a select aristocracy ; whereas we desire an immor- 
 tality that may be the heritage of the people, — not that 
 
1 24 Immortality, [Serm. 
 
 mere immortality of fame which was the ideal of Paganism. 
 Surely conspicuous moral effort^ surely an example of 
 courage, of disinteresteduess, of toil under discourage- 
 ments and in the face of difficulties, is a thing which lives. 
 We may ourselves succumb to the law of annihilation; 
 but let us at least enrich the race with a legacy of moral 
 force, or of moral beauty. Let us, whether in the palace 
 or the cottage, whether at the forge or in the library, cul- 
 tivate moral truth for its own sake, and be sure that no 
 moral truth ever really dies." 
 
 '' We believe," exclaim some leading representatives of 
 the Pantheistic school, " in immortality ; and our immor- 
 tality, be it observed, is real. We believe tliat the sub- 
 stance of the soul is immortal. We believe in something 
 higher than dead matter and dead force. A mere pro- 
 longation of the species, an immortality of thought or of 
 example, does not content us ; because man himself is not 
 the species, nor yet the thought, nor yet the example, 
 and it is an imperfect satisfaction to him that these 
 survive if ho himself is annihilated. We do not merely 
 maintain that the soul lives for ever ; we assert that 
 it cannot die. Nothing that exists can cease to be ; 
 since the idea of nothing involves a philosophical contra- 
 diction. There may be a transformation of the soul, but 
 it cannot be literally destroyed. The conditions of its 
 existence may vary, its substance must perforce endure. 
 That which makes up its ephemeral personality may give 
 way to other modes of being, but its actual self can never 
 perish, for the simple reason that it already exists." 
 
 Observe, brethren, that this, the Pantheistic represen- 
 tation, has from whatever causes, a peculiar and fatal fas- 
 cination for a large class of minds in our own day. It 
 escapes the repulsive and inhuman avowals of materialism ; 
 the creed of a Lucretius could never be largely popularized. 
 It keeps clear of such unsubstantial "immortalities" as 
 
Y] Immortality. 125 
 
 those of race, or tliouglit, or fame. It might even seem for 
 a moment to be ahnost radiant with Christian hope. And 
 as it bids vis fear not to meet our last hour, in the philo- 
 sophical con\4ction that no spiritual essence which already 
 exists can really forfeit existence, we almost hear the great 
 Apostle chanting his hymn of the Resurrection, '^ death, 
 where is thy sting? grave, where is thy victory 1 ?" 
 But this illusion dissolves on our perceiving that Pan- 
 theism, in obedience to its leading principles, while ad- 
 mitting the substance of the soul to be indestructible, yet 
 denies the immortality of the jyersonal soul. Let us sup- 
 pose that the metaphysical base, that the pure substance 
 of the soul could be thus detached, even in speculation, 
 from the conditions of its personal life. Let us imagine 
 that this living, but impersonal substance, this vague idea 
 of a common fund of being, were abstractedly possible. 
 Still, I would ask, is this immortality of Pantheism an im- 
 mortality, I will not say, in the ecclesiastical and biblical, 
 but in the human sense of the term ? Surely this imper- 
 sonal immortahty is only another term for annihilation. 
 Just as God^s existence is ^practically denied by the denial 
 of His Personality, so the immortality of the soul is denied 
 by the philosophy which strips from it all that gives unity, 
 identity, consciousness to our existence, and which asserts, 
 certainly the continuity of something, of some substance 
 or being, vague and indeterminate, of something which 
 may hereafter be pointed to as having been once myself, 
 but which I can as little hope ever to recognize for such 
 as any thing else in nature. At least, it is impossible to 
 feel any practical interest in a destiny so purely meta- 
 physical and abstract. The immortality of the personal 
 soul, with its own history of thought, love, action, 
 struggles, sufferings, with its own enduring consciousness, 
 with its peculiar physiognomy, original and acquired, re- 
 q I Cor. XV. s;. 
 
126 Immoi'tality. [Seem. 
 
 cognized by others without, recognized by itself as before 
 God within, is denied by Pantheism. And when this is 
 generally understood, a few phrases do not check the 
 advance of the common sense of mankind, and we proclaim 
 here a virtual denial of the immortality of the soul. 
 
 This, indeed, is practically conceded by a large body of 
 language in this class of writers themselves ; since they 
 lay but slight emphasis upon an immortality so devoid of 
 practical interest as that just noted, and address themselves 
 to the culture of a kind of subjective immortality which 
 leaves the question of the future altogether out of sight. 
 The true eternal life, we are told, is not to be looked for 
 beyond the tomb ^. Immortality is not a form of future 
 existence ; it is strictly proper to our present life. If we 
 associate ourselves in thought with the Absolute, with the 
 Divine, we are thereby immortal. Our thought escapes 
 from the sphere of the contingent, and mounts to the 
 Eternal Substance which upholds and sustains it. While 
 thus upheld and sustained, it enjoys a sense of participa- 
 tion in the eternity of the Eternal Being. This sense of 
 participation is not merely a pledge of immortality; it is 
 immortality. In this present life we enjoy immortality ; 
 its scene is our thinking and feeling soul. It were childish 
 to seek another immortality elsewhere, and hereafter. 
 " Religious immortality," cries even Schleiermacher, " is 
 to feel, even in this finite world, that we are one with the 
 Infinite and Eternal Being. The man who understands 
 that ho is more than his mere self, knows that he loses but 
 little, when he himself ceases to exist. Only ho who is 
 conscious of a holier and grander ambition than that of 
 living on as an individual, has a right to immortality. He 
 alone comprehends that illimitable existence, to which we 
 ought without fail to raise ourselves by death ^" 
 
 >■ So Ilordor. 
 
 8 Sccoud Disc, on Religion, quoted by Caro, Idee de Dicu (Doctrines 
 Recentes), p. 365. Schleierniiiclier is apparently paraphrasing Spinoza. 
 
Y] Immortality. 1 27 
 
 The question is^ whether, if we do not live on as indi- 
 viduals, %ve can properly be said to live on at all. It is 
 doubtless difficult to reconcile the real permanency of 
 individual existence, with any current doctrine of the 
 identity of the finite and the Infinite. But to distinguish 
 the real soul, as the principle of bodily life, and as destined 
 to perish with the body, from ideal soul, freed from the 
 actual soul by death, and then returning to God, to subsist 
 in Him under the form of thought, is an expedient which 
 does not reassure us^ Will then this thought, eternal 
 but impersonal, be my real self ? In this theory of an 
 impersonal future existence, there is an inevitable tendency 
 to fall back upon the present sense of immortality, as if it 
 were equivalent to the fact. The question really is this. 
 Is immortality a real thing, independent of our thought 
 about it, or do we in sober earnest create the fact of im- 
 mortality by realizing the idea ? Certainly the growth of 
 the sense of our immortal destiny is an essential feature 
 of the life of God in the soul. This is a truth which no 
 Christian would deny. But no Christian would admit 
 that the independent fact of our immortal existence de- 
 pends upon our grasping or ignoring the idea of it. We 
 can no more make immortality by thinking about it, than 
 we can create God by thinking of Him. The sense of im- 
 mortality is one thing; the fact another. Fichte some- 
 where speaks of his "realizing the life to come in the 
 present life, because he lives conformably to moral order." 
 If this means that a good man has in his conscience a 
 sweet and certain foretaste of heaven upon earth, every 
 Christian will agree with him. If we are informed that it 
 means, " that the thought of eternity is essentially immor- 
 tality," we cannot but become aware that in point of fact 
 the future world is not really believed in at all. There is 
 nothing really to be looked for beyond this world of sense 
 and time, with the ^ idea ^ of eternity, such as it is, in re- 
 t So Schellincr. 
 
128 Immortality. [Serm. 
 
 serve, as something' to fall back upon, if we like to do so. 
 The ' idea ' may still yield us an intellectual pastime ; it 
 can hardly be cherished as a serious consolation. It is one 
 thing to believe in immortality; it is another to assert 
 that man '^possesses the power of conceiving the Eter- 
 nal/^ 
 
 IV, The only immortality which can aspire permanently 
 to interest and influence mankind must assert that the life 
 of the soul in perpetuity is an objective fact, altogether in- 
 dependent of our mental conceptions, nay even of our 
 moral activities. And the Gospel does not say to us, 
 " Create an immortality for yourselves by ' living con- 
 formably to moral order,' or by ' thinking on the Eternal 
 and the Absolute.''' It says rather, "You are already, 
 whether you know it or not, whether you will it or not, 
 immortal beings. You cannot now be other than im- 
 mortal, for the simple reason that God has gifted you 
 with an indestructible principle of life. Strip, then, from 
 the eye of your spirits that earthly film which hides from 
 you the real dignity, the mysterious awfulness, the vast 
 capacities of this gift of life. Look to it, that the eternity 
 which is inevitably before you be an eternity, not of the 
 woe which you may merit, but of the bliss which has 
 been won for you by the Sanctity and Sufferings of your 
 Lord." 
 
 A real immortality is an objective fact : it is also the 
 immortality of a pcrHoncd life. The ancient Pantheists 
 delighted in the illustration of the drop of life which re- 
 turns at death to its parent ocean, and which is undistin- 
 guishal)ly blended with the boundless expanse, the un- 
 fathomed depths of Universal Being. But, suppose it 
 possible to say that an existence is really continued, from 
 which all that constitutes individuality has been withdrawn. 
 Suppose it possible to hold to and to rejoice in this pre- 
 sumed identity of the mere substance of being with what 
 
.V] ImmoiHality. 12,9 
 
 once liad been a living individual man. Still tlie question 
 must arise^ How can you hope to trace it ? Wliy insist 
 upon this identity, if it is too vague or too subtle a thing 
 to be verified ? Consider. How shall we recognize our- 
 selves hereafter? How shall we know that we have 
 existed previously on the earth ? How shall we, each one 
 of us, perceive and be assured of the intellectual and 
 moral continuity of our lives ? How shall we be convinced 
 that our place in another sphere is in any sense a result of 
 a previous existence ? 
 
 (a.) It is obvious here to refer to Bishop Butler's Dis- 
 sertation on Personal Identity. Such personal identity 
 will have to be tested first of all by the action of memory. 
 The doctrine of metempsychosis, which seeks a relief from 
 the moral perplexities of life in a new sphere of probation 
 for the sinful soul after death, forfeits this test of per- 
 sonality when it makes the disembodied spirit drink of 
 the waters of forgetfulness. Memory may be suspended 
 in sleep and distorted in idiots, but destroy it utterly and 
 you destroy all power of appreciating personality. Even 
 in this world memory recalls circumstances, friends, states 
 of mind, forms of thought, so difi'erent from those of 
 which we have present experience, as to belong ap- 
 parently to a difi'erent life from our own. Yet memory 
 bridges over the chasm between the jjresent and the 
 past; and we realize our living personality as we trace 
 the oneness of our personal history. In Butler's words, 
 " By refiecting upon that which is myself now, and that 
 which was myself twenty years ago, I discern that they 
 are not two, but one and the same self." Of course this 
 consciousness " ascertains," it " does not constitute per- 
 sonal identity"." But life, which else were a series of 
 disconnected fragments, is thus exhibited to us by 
 memory as an organic whole : and as we plunge into 
 
 " Bishop Butler, Dissert, on Pcrsoual Identity. Works, vol. i. p. 308. 
 
 K 
 
ijo Immortality. [Seem. 
 
 tte past, and reconstruct the picture of our acts and 
 sufferings in bygone years, we gain a clear, sharp insight 
 into the fact of our personality, which has created that 
 history from which we are now so far removed. So, 
 only in an infinitely greater degree, will it be hereafter. 
 Memory, which is often thrown into the background of 
 the inner life by the more active importunity of reason, 
 imagination, and will, reserves herself for those crises 
 when a great fear or a great sorrow bids thought, and 
 action, and even fimcy be still, that the past may return 
 like a flood upon that soul which has lived for years only 
 in the present. Memory waits awhile to flash forth at 
 the appointed hour her ever -latent revelations, often, as 
 experience shows us, in the immediate anticipation of 
 death, certainly, as the Faith assures us, at the judgment- 
 seat of Christ. Surely she will not then review the past 
 once for all, that she may dismiss it for ever ; she will 
 live to be the everlasting heart-ache of the lost, the 
 everlasting joy of the redeemed. To believe in the im- 
 mortality of the soul is to believe, I do not say in the 
 continuous activity, but in the continuous (although some- 
 times dormant) power of memory. Do you ask whether 
 amid the sublimities of the future world it wall be possible 
 that we should dwell on the commonplace, insignificant 
 life of this ? Ask yourselves in turn, whether any human 
 life, which has before it, and must issue in, an eternity, be 
 really insignificant and commonplace ? Has real greatness 
 any thing whatever to do with outward circumstances ? 
 Will not the poorest cottage, the humblest, most mono- 
 tonous drudgery of occupation, be everlastingly bright in 
 a saintly memory, if that cottage have been the scene, 
 that occupation the discipline, amid which a predestined 
 soul has been training for the life of heaven ^ ? 
 
 ^ Wlio does not feel this, in reading that beautiful contribution to 
 Christian literature — the Journal of Eugenie dc Guerin ? Some of 
 
y] Immo7dality . 131 
 
 (/9.) Memory surely will recall ourselves to ourselves 
 for ever. But iu doing- so^ it will recall others. Dives 
 must remember not merely liis " good things/^ but " bis 
 five brethren/' Others have acted upon us^ and we upon 
 them; and this reciprocated influence enters most in- 
 timately and every where into that history of life which 
 reveals its personality to the soul. We cannot but re- 
 member them : but — shall we merely remember them ? 
 Will our view of that past, so profoundly interesting to 
 ourselves, be a dry, passionless register of our relations to 
 those whom we knew on earth ? Impossible. The dead 
 whom we have loved on earth live at this hour, not merely 
 in our memories, but in our hearts. We do not merely 
 remember that we once loved them ; we love them now. 
 It is not memory which keeps love alive. Love it is 
 rather, which cannot die, and which involves the per- 
 sistent life of memory. Vfe should not know ourselves, 
 our earthly life would be to us strange and unintelligible, 
 if we could remember without emotion those whom we 
 have once really loved. And therefore we should only 
 retain a mutilated soul ; our soul would have forfeited its 
 identity, if it could have stripped itself of affection in the 
 act of dying, while it retained the cold, clear consciousness 
 of objects which had once reigned in the heart. Doubtless 
 this brings us face to face with an anxious question, which 
 has often been asked, about the continuance of such 
 earthly attachments, as will be seen hereafter to be in- 
 compatible with a perfect vision of the Sanctity of God. 
 And it must be admitted, that all who have been loved 
 on earth cannot be everlastingly loved in heaven. But, 
 even in this life, the heart makes its necessary sacrifices to 
 the just demands of faith or of reason. Nor does this 
 admission really impair the substantial fact of the eternity 
 
 the thoughts iu this Sermon — I caunot say -.vhich — arc, I doubt not, 
 hers. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 luwiortality. [Seem. 
 
 of legitimato affection as an integral feature of the soul's 
 personal immortality. 
 
 (7.) Besides memory and affection_, that wliicli we term 
 character is a test of personality. As no two faces, so 
 no two souls, are absolutely alike. The Creator exhibits 
 His inexhaustible resources in moulding an unnumbered 
 series of individuals after a general t}^e, without making 
 any one of them the exact counterpart of another. The 
 differences between soul and soul are greater than any 
 bodily differences of feature and stature. They are, it 
 may be added, independent of the vital and trenchant 
 distinctions which sever souls in a state of grace and 
 reconciliation with God from the sinful, and the unrecon- 
 ciled. Differences in the souFs physiognomy, differences 
 original and profound, sever race from race, sex from sex, 
 this individual from that. Here reason predominates, 
 feeling tliere; here action, there passion; in this quarter is 
 decision, in that tenderness ; on this side a daring impetu- 
 osity, on that a cautious or timid reserve. We find in 
 others the complement of what is lacking, or the cor- 
 rective of what is excessive in ourselves. But meanwhile 
 these peculiar capacities, dispositions, shades of feeling, 
 turns of thought, which have no moral colouring, are, in 
 their combination, part of our individual inheritance of 
 the gift of life, and enter prolonndly into our personality. 
 Can wo surrender them altogether, and be still ourselves ? 
 AVill there be nothing to distinguish St. John from 
 jSt. Peter in heaven ? Certainly " in Christ Jesus there is 
 neither male nor female y," in that each sex is equally an 
 object of His Divine Redemption; and those who live 
 wth Him in His eternal Kingdom, will, as we know, be 
 conformed to the Image of the Son of God. But will 
 there be no line of demarcation hereafter between things 
 so unlike on earth as the devotion of a saintly man and 
 y Gal. ii. 28. 
 
Y] Iniijwrtality. ijj 
 
 tlie devotion of a saintly woman ? Ai'e we to suppose 
 that original differences of spiritual structure^ so intrin- 
 sicallj interesting^ so illustrative of tlie Divine Infinitude, 
 so essential to the maintenance of our perfect individuality, 
 will be annihilated in that world of beauty and glory, will 
 be sunk in the sameness of an absolute monotony, before 
 the very throne of the Great Creator ? 
 
 (S.) A spiritualist thinker who rejected revelation, yet 
 who believed seriously in the immortality of the soul, 
 must hold such immortality to be personal, and must^ 
 upon analysis, admit the persistence of memory, affection, 
 and character, as tests of continued personal life. But he 
 would part company with the Church of Christ when she 
 professes her belief, not merely in the life everlasting, but 
 in the resurrection of the body. Yet may it not be true 
 that our Christian belief in the resurrection of the body is 
 but the logical consequence, the last and highest ex- 
 pression of the Christian\s intense belief in, and reverence 
 for, the indestructible personality of man ? Would that 
 personality be entirely unmutilated, if at death the body 
 were to perish outright ^ ? Has not the body been for 
 
 z Compare the language of Soutli's Sermon ou the General Resurrection 
 (vol i. p. 360, ed. Bohn, 1855) = "And therefore the opinion of the Socinians, 
 namely, that the soul, at the resurrection, shall he clothed with another and 
 quite diflerent hody, from what it had in this life (whether of ether or some 
 such like sublimated matter), moved thereto by the foremeutioned objections, 
 and the like, ought not to be admitted : it being contrary to reason and all 
 sound philosophy, that the soul successively united to two entirely distinct 
 bodies, should make but one and the same numerical person: since, though 
 the soul be indeed the prime and chief principle of the individuation of the 
 person, yet it is not the sole and adequate principle thereof; but the soul, 
 joined with the body, makes the adequate individuating principle of the 
 person. Nor will any true philosophy allow, that the body was ever 
 intended for the mere garment of the soul, but for an essential, constituent 
 part of the man, as really as the soul itself: and the difference of an essential 
 half in any composition will be sure to make an essential dift'erence in the 
 whole compound. Xor is this Socinian assertion more contrary to the 
 principles of philosophy than to the express words of Scripture, which are 
 
134 Immoj'tality. [Seem. 
 
 years the companion, tlie liome, the organ, the expression 
 of the soul Avithiu ? And does this companionship point to 
 nothing but a higher freedom and perfection for the soul, 
 when soul and body shall have been parted by death? 
 Even the theory of a metempsychosis restores a body to 
 each disembodied spirit, but then it is a body altogether 
 different from that to which the soul was previously 
 united. The Christian faith bids us look forward to a 
 resurrection of that very body which has been throughout 
 our earthly life the instrument, the dwelling-house, per- 
 chance the faithful transcript of the personal soul within 
 it. And the risen body, transfigured, translucent with 
 spiritual glory, will still assert in the courts of heaven the 
 deathless endurance of our personality in its unimpaired 
 completeness ^. 
 
 Certainly the doctrine of an impersonal immortality 
 receives no support from the moral argument which 
 appeals to the unequal, unintelligible distribution of 
 human suffering. Let us suppose that death destroys 
 personality. It destroys in us, then, that which thinks 
 and wills, which knows that it thinks and wills, which 
 consciously apprehends actual existence, and which links 
 that existence by mriiKHy to a long and intricate past, 
 during which it is eciually conscious of its own unimpaired 
 identity, liut if personality be thus destroyed by death, 
 what remains in ns wliic]i can be compensated, punished, 
 or rewarded ? 'llie agent or the sufferer has been merged 
 
 not more positive in affirming a resurrection than in declaring a resurrection 
 of the same numerical person. And whereas they say, that they grant that 
 the same numerical person shall rise again, though not the same hody, (the 
 soul, as they contend, still individuating any body which it shall be clothed 
 with), we have already shown, on the contrary, that the person cannot be 
 numerically the same, when the body is not so tooj since the soul is not the 
 sole principle of personal individuation, though the chief." 
 
 a Cf. Caro, Idee de Dieu (Doctrines llecentes), p. 440. I have largely 
 fallowed this writer in parts of the preceding analysis. 
 
V] Immortality. 135 
 
 by tlie liypotliesis in an ocean of universal life; and, con- 
 sequently, it fares as well witli the ungodly, " wliose eyes 
 swell with fatness, and who do even what they lust/' as 
 with the Psalmist, " punished all the long day of life, and 
 chastened every morning '°r If we are to adopt these 
 formulas of Alexandrian or Indian speculation which have 
 in the present century met with so marked a welcome in 
 the heart of what was Christian Europe ; then there is 
 certainly no after-woe for Dives ; no rest in Abraham's 
 bosom for Lazarus ; no real, tangible paradise for the 
 penitent who dies with his eye upon the Crucified; no 
 '^ going to his own place " for Judas ; no crown of 
 righteousness, except in his own bright imagination, for 
 the aged Apostle. The threatenings of Revelation mean 
 nothing worse than its promises ; its promises point to 
 nothing better than its threats. All who live are assured 
 equally of an eternal life, which practically will be to all 
 an equal and utter annihilation. 
 
 V. " My flesh and my heart faileth : but God is the 
 strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." This in 
 all ages is the exulting voice of the conviction, of the 
 instinct, of the sense of immortality, in the servants of 
 God. He upholds them in being, and His eternity is to 
 be the measure of their own endless life. Yet they do not 
 lose themselves in Him. Ho upholds theii' distinct per- 
 sonality ; ^' God is the strength of m')j heart :" He so folds 
 them to His Bosom, that thovj possess Hhn ; " God is tn\\ 
 portion for ever." Already, in a measure, heaven is 
 within them, by anticipation. Yet their sense of an un- 
 dying existence does not create, still less is it a substitute 
 for, the reality. 
 
 The sense of immortality may be lost ; the fact, whether 
 for weal or woe, remains. Tlie sense of immortality may 
 be gradually or violently killed out of the soul, by the errors 
 ^ Ps. L\iii. 7, 14. 
 
136 Ivwiortality. [Seem. 
 
 of depraved intellect ; or it may be buried alive, beneath 
 tlie filth of animal indulgence. That soul must have parted 
 company with its God which is indeed altogether enslaved 
 to matter. It is the willing accomplice of a body whose 
 degradations sap the springs even of physical life. It 
 hastily shuts its eyes with sensitive apprehension against 
 the unwelcome shadow, against the dreaded presentiment, 
 of an actual immortality. Truly such a soul is in love 
 with death. It is sinking lower and lower, deeper and 
 deeper, into the moral and intellectual abyss. And as it 
 sinks it forfeits, without a pang, the perception of its own 
 powers, of its own reality, of the unity, and simplicity, and 
 immateriality of its essence, of its past spiritual freedom 
 from matter, of its possessing, of its being an indestruc- 
 tible principle of life. It welcomes any philosophy which 
 will engage to overcloud the Face of the Sun of Right- 
 eousness, or which will assist it to bury itself decently in 
 the folds of sense, and to forget its true home and destiny 
 while it feeds upon the husks that the swine did 
 eat. 
 
 Can such a soul return ? can it rise ? Undoubtcdl}^ 
 On this side of the grave there are no limits to the power of 
 the grace of God. And as the soul rises, it recovers its hold 
 upon those glorioiTS truths which it lost in its descent. 
 Together with the sight of God, the sight of the true self 
 returns. The sense of immortality is deepened by all that 
 brings the personal soul, conscidush', face to foce with 
 the personal God Who made it. The sense of immortality 
 is deepened by penitence; I'or ]u'iiiti'iice is the sincere 
 exercise of memory upon our ])ast existence, under the 
 guidance of the love of God. Jt is (lee})ened by prayer ; for 
 prayer is the voice of the inmost being consciously speak- 
 ing to its Maker. It is reinforced by such channels of the 
 Divine Power as are the sacraments : the earliest Fathers 
 spoke of the Eucharist, in allusion to the words of our Divine 
 
Y] ImmoT-tality. 137 
 
 Lord^ as " the salve of immortality'^." It is stimulated by 
 acts of self-sacrifice, which kindle into intense conscious- 
 ness the immortal germ of life; though they may for 
 awhile depress, at the bidding of eternal principles, its 
 earthly tenement. It prompts, and is strengthened by, 
 a genuine love of man as man. Doing justice to the 
 greatness of human destiny, it has no heart to dwell upon 
 the accidents of birth, or station, or income, or accom- 
 plishments which overlie the mighty reality, upon which 
 alone its gaze is persistently fixed. But it attains its 
 greatest strength, it prepares for its loftiest triumphs, at 
 the foot of the Cross of Jesus ; since the Agony of the 
 Divine Victim reveals the price and yields the measure of 
 the life of the human soul. 
 
 Thus they who, like David, have gazed on the dying 
 Redeemer by the light of prophecy, or who, like St. Paul, 
 in the full sunshine of the Gospel, have determined " to 
 know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified V^ — 
 have enjoyed in the highest degree the sense of immortality. 
 What the representatives of an advanced civilization are 
 among a herd of savages, such are the saints of God 
 when we compare them with ordinary men. They have 
 higher aims, larger horizons, more commanding points of 
 view, a loftier, nay a totally distinct conception of life and 
 destiny. It is said that the Roman conquerors of the 
 
 <= " The true understanding of this fruition and union which is betwixt 
 tlie Body and the Head, betwixt the true l)elievers and Christ, the ancient 
 Catholic Fathers both perceiving themselves, and commending to their 
 people, were not afraid to call this Supper, some of them, 'the salve of 
 immortality and sovereign preservative against death ;' other, ' a deifical 
 communion;' other, 'the sweet dainties of our Saviour,' 'the pledge of 
 eternal health, the defence of faith, the hope of the Resurrection ;' other, 
 ' the food of immortality,' ' the healthful grace,' and ' the conservatory to 
 everlasting life.'" — First part of the Sermon concerning the Sacrament, 
 Homilies, p. 398, ed. Oxf. 1844. ^^- <po-pi'-0'Kov aQavaalas, avrlSoTos tov /xr; 
 airodaveTv, S. Ign. ad. Ephes. c. 20. 
 
 d I Cor. ii. 2. 
 
138 Immorta lity. 
 
 world carried in their faces the secret of the triumphs of 
 an imperial people. Much more do sincere Christians walk 
 the earth ^vith the mien and bearing of a race of immortals ; 
 although the rays of spiritual majesty w^hich stream forth 
 from the burning spirit within them, often do but illumine 
 the weakness of the body which yet encases it. Of such 
 it is literally true, that " whether they live they live unto 
 the Lord, or w^hether they die they die unto the Lord^." 
 They know that the few years of time are but a halt at the 
 gate of Eternity ; and that true -udsdom consists in prac- 
 tically understanding the ineffaceable distinction, which 
 parts that which perishes before our very eyes from that 
 which must last for ever, 
 
 e Horn. xiv. 8. 
 
SERMON YI. 
 
 HUMILITY AND ACTION. 
 
 Peoy. iii. 6. 
 In all till) xvaijs acTcnoivIedge Him, and He shall direct thi/ patJts. 
 
 A CHARACTERISTIC of the Old Testament Scrip- 
 -^^ tures^ whicli results from tlie genius of the Hebrew 
 language^ is specially observable in the Book of Proverbs. 
 Instead of the copious_, versatile, precise^ and in so many- 
 respects unrivalled instrument which the Greek wields 
 when expressing his thought, the Hebrew writer has at 
 command a language possessing by comparison only a 
 few and simple words. But, among these, many are 
 words of the widest range and applicability. They are 
 words containing depth below depth of meaning. They 
 are words which include and anticipate aU that a more 
 elaborate language attempts by such resources as com- 
 position. Such words only escape from being vague and 
 indefinite, because they are, and were felt by those who 
 used them to be, the expression of thought which is as 
 earnestly positive as it is plainly comprehensive. Of 
 these pregnant words, the immediate context is generally 
 the sufficient interpreter. It often summons forth, from 
 among the treasm-es of thought which underlie the word, 
 that one variety or shade of meaning which is thus shown 
 to be most prominent in the inspired writer's mind. But 
 
I40 Htimility and Action. [Seem. 
 
 it also not unfrequently leaves us embarrassed by tlie 
 abundance of meanings whicli suggest tliemselves, and 
 wbich are doubtless intended to teach us tbe depth and 
 many-sidedness of the sacred language through which we 
 attain so large an insight into the AVill of God. Hence 
 it results that the Old Testament Revelation, particularly 
 in matters of morals, covers much more nearly the same 
 area as the New, than we may have been in the habit of 
 supposing. The precepts of the New Testament are often 
 in point of fact specific applications of some more general 
 precepts which are found in the ancient Scriptures. These 
 applications w^ere always and literally latent in the thought 
 of the Old Testament writer ; but they are only brought 
 out into distinct relief and detail by the language of some 
 Apostle or Evangelist. 
 
 Now the text furnishes us with a sample of this almost 
 untranslateable pregnancy and power of Hebrew speech. 
 The English word ^ acknowledge ^ represents only one of 
 the many meanings which are to be found in the original 
 word Vy. This word, originally identical with elhelv and 
 videre, came to signify that which results from sight, 
 unless the sense be imperfect or the understanding im- 
 paired, namely, knowledge. It exhibits knowledge at 
 all its stages of growth. It stands for a knowledge of 
 isolated facts, and for a knowledge of fiicts in their 
 largest combinations. It describes a mere act of percep- 
 tion, an unsuspected discovery, a stern experience in- 
 flicted upon the dull understanding ; it pictures casual 
 acquaintance and the closest possible intimacy ; it is used of 
 knowledge by name and of knowledge face to face. It is 
 used of the moral sense recognizing moral good or moral 
 evil ; and of the affections gaining knowledge of their 
 object through being exercised on it. It depicts the 
 movements, not merely of the heart and intellect, but 
 also of the will, it thus represents sometimes the watch- 
 
VI] Humility and Action. 141 
 
 ful^ active care of God's lo\ang Providence, sometimes tlie 
 prostrate adoration of a soul, in which knowledge of its 
 Divine Object has passed into the highest stage, and is 
 practically inseparable from worship ^. As used in the 
 passage before us, it describes nothing less comprehensive 
 than the whole action of man^s spiritual being when face 
 to face with the Eternal God. To " know " God in truth, 
 is " to believe in Him, to fear Him, and to love Him, with 
 all the heart, with all the mind, with all the soul, and with 
 all the strength ; to worship Him, to give Him thanks, 
 to put our whole trust in Him, to call upon Him, to 
 honour His holy Name and His Word, and to serve Him 
 truly ''." When, then, we endeavour to extract from this 
 broad idea of " knowledge " some one practical and 
 specific application, our minds first of all wander over 
 that vast field of moral and mental action which is pos- 
 sible to a created spirit, consciously and religiously moving 
 in the presence of its Creator. 
 
 Now in the first division of the Book of Proverbs, 
 which embraces the first nine chapters, there is a marked 
 sequence and continuity in the thought of the sacred 
 writer. And this coherence of the subject-matter notably 
 contrasts with the loosely connected or totally discon- 
 nected maxims of later portions of the Book. We are 
 
 ^ In justification of these statements, of. Gesenius, Thesaurus, s. v. j-t for 
 examples. It need scarcely' be added that in the case of words wliicli, like 
 the present, express movements of the spiritual life of the soul, neither the 
 grouping of meanings nor the translations of passages which are frequently 
 suggested by that accomplished scholar would always appear satisfactory to 
 a believing Christian. The highest philological attainments sometimes fivil 
 to discover the intimate sense of Scripture, which nevertheless is at once 
 obvious to a spiritual instinct. The Christian finds the living interpretation 
 of Scripture language in his own experience. And the consenting and 
 illuminated thought of Christendom, as represented in the language of the 
 early Church, is the safeguard against any presumptuous over-reliance on 
 private experiences. 
 
 ^ Church Catechism. 
 
142 Humility and Action. [Seem. 
 
 therefore justified by the general character of that portion 
 of the Book, to which our text belongs, in seeking for a 
 limitation of the idea of "knowledge'^ in the verses 
 which immediately precede and follow it. 
 
 " Trust in the Lord with all thine heart ; 
 And lean not unto thine own understanding. 
 In all thy ways 'acknowledge' Him, 
 And He shall direct thy paths. 
 Be not wise in thine own eyes : 
 Fear the Lord, and depart from evil." 
 
 Here plainly a contrast is suggested between a man's 
 " leaning to his own understanding '' and " being wise iu 
 his own eyes ^' on the one hand, and a specific form or 
 result of real " knowledge " of God on the other. It is 
 irresistibly implied, that to know God truly, to have a 
 full sight of God before the soul, is something more than 
 mere head-knowledge, that it is knowledge in act. It is, 
 in short, to be out of heart with self, to distrust self, to 
 abase and crush and forget self; we are sensible of the Pre- 
 sence of a Being Who discovers to self its insignificance, or 
 its pollution. Tlic text thus includes, besides much else, 
 such specific exhortations as that of St. Peter % '^Bo 
 clothed with humility." It may therefore serve to guide 
 our thoughts on an occasion when, as you are aware, the 
 preacher is bound by the custom of the University'^ to 
 invite his hearers to cultivate the eminent and charac- 
 teristically Christian grace — thus explicity prescribed by 
 the great Apostle, thus implicitly but really suggested by 
 the royal Hebrew moralist. 
 
 I. Not long since the question was discussed, whether 
 
 c I St. Peter v. 5, 6. It is plain from the context that huuiillty hero 
 means (i) specifically, suhmission to God's providential appointments in the 
 hierarchical distinction of ministers in the Church ; (2) more generally, 
 ahsolutc submission to God, as being the creature's duty towards his Creator. 
 Cf. especially ver. 6. 
 
 •J Preached on the morning of Quinquagcsima Sunday. 
 
VI] Humility and Action. 143 
 
 a virtue can ever die. A brilliant but paradoxical wi-iter 
 decided^ " not only that virtues may die^ but tliat tlie 
 death of some virtues and the birth of others are among 
 the most startling and instructive conclusions to which 
 the philosophy of history leads us." He observes, by way 
 of illustration, that the virtues peculiar to a Roman pro- 
 vincial governor present a picture to which mediseval 
 Europe can offer no parallel; and again, that such 
 mediseval virtues as poverty, chastity, and obedience 
 " have ceased to be the ty]3ical virtues of modern life," 
 Without inquiring how far these mediasval virtues were 
 based on direct precepts or counsels in the New Testa- 
 ment, or again how far the mediaeval form which such 
 virtues may have temporarily assumed is to be distin- 
 guished from their essential and imperishable spirit ; the 
 wi'iter pronounces them all to be dying or dead. With 
 respect to the last of the catalogue, ^ obedience,^ he 
 fervently exclaims : ^^ Submitting intellect to authority 
 seems to us merely childish : it is no longer intellect if it 
 does not work its own way. If ever a virtue was dead, 
 this of obeying intellectually is past and buried ^." 
 
 Looking to the writer's general position, we must dis- 
 tinguish between historical fact and moral obligation. 
 Certainly particular relative excellences do characterize 
 particular races, epochs, stages of social progress. They 
 appear ; they shine forth ; they cast lustre on an age or a 
 generation ; they wane and fall back into obscurity ; they 
 vanish outright. Moreover, the outward mien and dress, 
 the living aspect, the practical applications even of im- 
 perishable virtues, may and-do vary with the varying con- 
 ditions and phases of human society. These are simple 
 facts which lie upon the surface of the history of human- 
 kind ; but the historical fact may not for one moment be 
 confused with the moral judgment which a Christian 
 e Saturday Review, Nov. 14, 1863. 
 
144 H^unility a7id Action. [Serm. 
 
 must pass on it. Doubtless tliore are forms of virtuous 
 action suited to liuman life at one stage of its development 
 whicli do not fully express or answer to its wants and 
 aspirations at another. But tlie question does not concern 
 tlie mere modification of tlie outward expression of a 
 virtue ; we are discussing tlie actual disappearance of tlie 
 virtue itself from the life of a generation. When such 
 disappearance takes place^ are we to condemn the genera- 
 tion or to condemn the virtue ? Was the virtue an excel- 
 lence^ or was it a superstition ? Is the generation which 
 has lost it really to be congratulated on having achieved 
 a step towards moral freedom ; or is it to be mourned over 
 as being the victim of a moral misery ? On this issue a 
 well-informed Christian and the writer before us would 
 take opposite sides. The writer contends that, " if we 
 act in a particular way, we ought not to be willing to 
 admit that we are wrong ;" meaning apparently that when 
 modern society has discarded a virtue, it is justified in 
 assuming itself to possess a kind of practical infallibility, 
 which condemns the virtue and justifies itself. But a 
 Christian has before him a higher and more reliable 
 standard of goodness than is supplied by the accidental 
 and shifting opinion of contemporary society. He has in 
 his hands a revelation of moral truth, correspondent 
 indeed to the purest intuitions of his moral sense, but 
 itself infallible. He knows that every true virtue is based 
 on truth; and that a truth of morals, when ])ursucd by 
 analysis to its abstract form, is just as indestructible a 
 thing as a truth of mathematics. Once a virtue, always a, 
 virtue : that which is absolutely right now was always 
 right, whether it was recognized for such or not : that 
 which was ever really right is right at this hour ; what- 
 ever may be the transient attitude of our opinion or our 
 practice towards it. If practical applications may vary, 
 imperishable principles must live. Purity, justice, the 
 
YI] Httmility and Action. 145 
 
 love of God, tlie love of humankind, unselfislmess ; — these, 
 and such as these, live for ever. The Roman provincial 
 governor may have attained to a type of natural excellence, 
 the precise physiognomy of which was determined by the 
 exceptional and stimulating circumstances of his position. 
 But whatever was good or true in Pagan ethics lives on in 
 the Divine morality of the Church, and is incorporated 
 with the foundations of a moral code which unassisted 
 nature can no more realize in practice, than she could, 
 even in the best days of the later Stoicism, have even 
 sketched in theory. 
 
 Be well assured, brethren, that a virtue cannot really 
 die. It may indeed be neglected, foi'gotten, depreciated, 
 denounced ; but it cannot be absolutely extinguished by 
 the verdict whether of a school of thought, or of a country, 
 or of an age, or of an entire civilization. If indeed it be 
 a virtue at all ; if it ever deserved the name ; if it was 
 ever more than a strictly relative form of excellence ; then 
 assuredly it is an imperishable force. The pledges of its 
 immortality are to be found on earth and in heaven ; as 
 high as the Eternal Mind of God, as deep as the inraost 
 conscience of regenerate humanity. Society may deter- 
 mine that the hour of that virtue is come ; society may 
 believe it to be, may speak of it as being, dead and buried. 
 Literature may make its sepulchre sure, " sealing the 
 stone and setting a watch." But no true virtue was ever 
 buffeted, condemned, crucified by the injustice of opinion, 
 without the certainty of a coming resurrection. No such 
 tragedy as the social extinction of a virtue was ever perpe- 
 trated by an infatuated people, without an accompanying 
 Divine assurance, granted to loyal and faithful hearts, that 
 the conscience of man should one day gaze in self-accusing 
 love and adoration on that very form of moral beauty 
 which man's malice or his ignorance had dared to pierce. 
 
 The opinion w^hich views intellectual submission as a 
 
 L 
 
146 Htimility and Action. [Seem. 
 
 dead virtue;, could hardly ascribe any strong \4tality to the 
 grace of humilit}' ; since submission of the intellect under 
 justifiable circumstances^, such as the presence of an ade- 
 quate authority^ is related to the generic virtue humility, 
 as one of its specific varieties, or as the necessary result 
 of its controlling principle. Still there is an interval 
 between the denial of a specific form of a virtue and a re- 
 pudiation of the virtue itself; and, to do justice to our 
 age, Tvo have not yet reached a point at which humility is 
 described in terms as an old-world and effete virtue. 
 Indeed, our age lays particular stress upon modesty, which 
 may be described as the social aspect of humility detached 
 from its internal principle ; and which is related in point 
 of value to the original virtue for which it is often sub- 
 stituted, much as a plaster-imitation of an antique statue 
 is to the statue itself. 
 
 Yet there are tendencies abroad which seem to be 
 converging towards the proscription of humihty by 
 modern opinion. Our conquests in the world of matter 
 and in the world of thought arc held to justify an attitude 
 of mind widely different from that of the generations who 
 have passed away. It was theirs, we think, to cultivate 
 virtues which might beseem the babyhood of civilization ; 
 it is ours to practise the modes of thinking and act- 
 ing which are natural to its manhood. If they in their 
 ignorance did well to be self-distrustful, we in our know- 
 ledge and our power do better to be self-reliant and 
 self-asserting. This is the thought and tendency rather 
 than as yet the avowed language of a school which is 
 exercising a very powerful influence in the formation of 
 character and opinion. It is often said that Oxford men 
 of the present day are more self-reliant than their pre- 
 decessors of fifteen or twenty years ago ; and, if this be 
 so, it only amounts to saying that you, my younger 
 brethren, have suffered from the action of intellectual 
 
YI] HiLmility and Action. 147 
 
 causes wliicli doubtless are at work in all classes of 
 Englisli society. You may meet with those who will 
 congratulate you on the fact, if unhappily it be a fact; 
 but no man could do so who was speaking to you from 
 this pulpit in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. You 
 will pardon, nay you will welcome, a frankness which is 
 not so much the right as the necessity of a sincere 
 ministry of the Truth, and which is due not less to 
 yourselves than to Him Wliom here we represent; but 
 it is possible that some of you may be disposed to ask 
 why it should be implied that humility is a vii'tue thus 
 absolute and indispensable. I must answer by asking 
 you to reflect on the only possible condition of its ceasing 
 to be so. If God could be pronounced non-existent or 
 dead ; if Positivism or Pantheism were new revelations, 
 at whose bidding that Living Being Whom we Christians 
 worship should vanish as if He were but the Great Pan 
 of an expiring heathendom ; if there were no governing 
 Providence on earth, no Throne raised high above all 
 other thrones in heaven ; then there would be no room, 
 no justification for humility. Man, however he might 
 have come into existence, might then seriously suppose 
 himself to represent the highest existing life; and the 
 man who possessed a keener intellect or a stronger arm 
 than his fellow-men might naturally demean himself as if 
 he were God. 
 
 Certainly, in the absence of belief in the living God, 
 there would be no occasion for the culture of humility. 
 But, whatever other questions are being agitated around 
 us, at least we are not yet inquiring whether God exists 
 or not. Nay, our Christian lips still profess to ascribe 
 "' Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy 
 Ghost ; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
 be, world without end." We have not yet ignored the 
 First and Highest of all facts. We still confess the 
 
148 Humility and Action. [Seem. 
 
 existence of One Being, ^VTio is utterly and awfully 
 unlike all others. We arc '^ sure that the Lord He is 
 God •" that " it is He that hath made us and not we 
 ourselves ;" that '' we are His people and the sheep of 
 His pastured" We, the work of His Hands, live 
 consciously beneath the Eye of our Creator. He alone 
 is Almighty, alone Eternal, alone and literally Incom- 
 prehensible. Creation as it lies, in all its marvellous 
 beauty spread out before Him, A^-ith its countless worlds, 
 its innumerable orders and forms of life, its vast, 
 unimagined, unexplored materials, and forces, and laws, 
 is to Him as a toy, which in the fulness of His Almighty 
 freedom He fashioned but yesterday. It exists, as it was 
 framed, simply by His Will. He alone is Self-dependent; 
 He alone needs nothing from other beings ; He is the 
 One Being AVhom nothing can impoverish, AVliom nothing 
 can enrich. Whose greatness and blessedness are altogether 
 beyond the reach whether of loss or increase ^. He, our 
 God, and He alone, is essentially holy. In the highest 
 and most saintly of His creatures He beholds the taint 
 of moral imperfection, of '^ folly /^ and they, in turn, offer 
 Him the tribute of a perpetual adoration which proclaims 
 that He is altogether, in His essence, beyond and unlike 
 themselves ''. 
 
 Depend upon it, l)rothren, the knowledge which a 
 Christian inherits in the Church of such a* Fact as God 
 cannot be only head-knowledge. It tells at once, for 
 for good or for evil, on the moral nature. It provokes 
 rebellion, when it does not suggest reverence, awe, love, 
 humility. For simple, trutliful, earnest men, to see God 
 
 ' Ps. c. 2. e Dr. Pusey. 
 
 ^ Exotl. xxlv. 17. Dcut. iv. 24; ix, 3. Heb. xii. 29. Rev. v. 8; viii. 3, 4. 
 St. James V. 15. Burning' incense is the symbol of the siu-coverin<T; power 
 of prayer — like the cloud that tilled the temple. Keil on i Kings viii, 
 
 JO, II. 
 
VI] Hiunility and Action. 149 
 
 truly with tlie soul's eye is to lie in the very dust before 
 Hira. So it was with holy Job; so it was with the 
 entranced prophet Isaiah ; so it was with St. Peter and 
 St. John "when they beheld the glory of the Only 
 Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth '." " I 
 have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now 
 mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and 
 repent in dust and ashes ''." " Woe is me, for I am a 
 man of unclean lips, .... and mine eyes have seen the 
 King, the Lord of Hosts ^.'' '^Depart from me, for I 
 am a sinful man, Lord""." "When I saw Him I fell 
 at His feet as dead "." Such in all ages is the language 
 of the saints; the language of those to whom God is 
 not a phrase or an hypothesis, but a Living Fact, in 
 the light of Which man learns to recognize his real 
 self. 
 
 If, then, humility is dying out, this is because the idea 
 of God has been impoverished or impaired in the thought 
 of our day. If we do see Him as He has revealed Him- 
 self, we must surely bend in unrestrained prostration be- 
 fore Him. To see God is not barely to gaze at Him. It 
 is to yield Him that absolute submission which is due from 
 a creature who owes every thing to Him, and whose life is 
 moment by moment in His Hand. It is to pay a relative 
 submission, whether of thought, or feeling, or will, or out- 
 ward action, to all on earth on which He has set the stamp 
 of His moral greatness, or to which He has delegated 
 aught of His truth or of His authority. Humility is but 
 the sincere acknowledgment in thought, in language, in 
 
 i St. Jolin i. 14. k Joi, xlii. 5, 6. 
 
 1 Isa. vi. 5. Compare even the language of Gideon (Judg. vi. 22), and of 
 Munoali (Judg. xiii. 22), after seeing what was probably only a created 
 angel, who reflected the Divine glory. See Dr. Mill's note on the ' Captain 
 of the Lord's Host,' Chr. Adv. Publication for 1841, pp. 92, sqq. (Mythical- 
 Interpretation, edited by Webb, p. 354). 
 
 m St. Luke V. 8. n Rev. i. 1 7. 
 
150 Hrtmility and Action. [Seem. 
 
 action, of the First and most commanding of all facts : it 
 is the sincere acknowledgment of God. And as long as 
 the Gospel-revelation unveils God in His awfulness and in 
 His beauty to the soul of man, so long Jesus Christ will 
 be followed to Heaven by generations of the humble. 
 
 II. All this, my brethren, you will admit : no one who 
 sincerely believes in God. can well do otherwise. Yet, it 
 may be, in the background of your thought there lurks 
 an unconfessed suspicion which impairs the heartiness of 
 your admission. Theoretically speaking, humility must 
 of com'se be right. But look, you would say, to its prac- 
 tical effect. Does it not interfere more or less with activity 
 and success in life ? Is it not secretly hostile to the claims 
 and efforts of vigorous and cultivated intellect ? Can we 
 be sure that to " acknowledge " God in the sense which 
 has been pointed out, does really lead to a " direction " 
 in " the paths of life," that will be compatible with our 
 social usefulness and our mental improvement ? 
 
 Of these questions, it must be granted, that the first 
 has often been answered in a manner which would increase 
 your apprehensions; and the Gospel, the only religion 
 which has ever popularized humility, has been specially 
 reproached with a tendency to withdraw its votaries from 
 the interests and duties which belong to us as members of 
 civil society. Self-distrust, self-abasement, the devotion 
 of time and thought to a solitary, unseen labour within 
 the precincts of the soul, tlie yearning, the struggle for 
 inward peace, the calm delight of sustained communion 
 with God, issuing always and only in a deeper self-pros- 
 tration before Him ; — all this is represented as a selfish 
 and enervating substitute for the struggles, the duties, the 
 burdens, the anxieties, the aspirations of public and poli- 
 tical life. ' Wliat is Christian humility after all,' it has 
 been said, ' but an attempt to make sloth, and cowardice, 
 and pusillanimity look respectable ? If humility be not a 
 
yi] Humility and Action. . 151 
 
 vice or a weakness draped in tlie garb of a virtue^ what is 
 it, after all, but a vii'tue so merely personal, so anti-social, 
 as to be scarcely distinguisliable from a vice ? ' 
 
 It was probably in part due to some such, prejudice or sus- 
 picion which floated along the current Pagan opinion in his 
 day, that even Tacitus, with his earnest hatred of tp-anny, 
 and his sympathy for oppressed innocence, has not one 
 word of protest against the opjDressions and cruelties which 
 were inflicted on the Church by the earlier C^sars. And in 
 the eighth book of Origen's great work against Celsus, it 
 may be gathered, as well from the attack of that Platonic 
 rather than Epicurean ° thinker, as from the counter-state- 
 ments of Origen, that Christianity was then regarded by 
 Roman society as unpatriotic, because it was not an active 
 political influence at the service of the State. Origen partly 
 admits the justice of the imputation when he observes 
 that Christians could not then take part in many public 
 ofl&ces, without sanctioning by some phrase or ceremonial 
 the popular Paganism which coloured so pervadingly the 
 public as well as the private life of ancient Rome p. But 
 he argues that the Church rendered the highest services 
 to the Empire by her educational and moral activity ; and 
 he shows how her own hierarchical institutions fostered, 
 in the interest of a nobler cause, those very qualities 
 which are developed by political lifei, Tertullian indeed, 
 apparently having an eye to the progress of the Church in 
 
 o Origen calls liim an Epicurean. But see Bishop Cotton's art. ' Celsus' 
 in Smith's Diet. Ant. 
 
 P The Senate always met in a temple, or some other sacred edifice. " The 
 innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven with 
 every circumstance of public and private life." — Note m Gibbon, vol. ii. 
 p. 48, ed. Bohn. 
 
 q Origen, Cont. Cels. viii. 73, 74, 75. Dean Milman, when describing the 
 agitations which preceded the elevation of Damasus to the Roman Chair, 
 speaks of the " Roman populace" as " quickened by a new principle of 
 freedom" after its long subjection to the despotism of the Empire. Lat. 
 Christ, i. p. 67. 
 
152 Humility and Action. [Serm. 
 
 Western Africa, takes bolder ground in a well-known 
 passage of his Apology. " We Christians/' he exclaims, 
 ''are but of yesterday, and yet we are every where among 
 you ; in your cities, your islands, your castles, your town- 
 ships, your committees, in your very camps ; we are found 
 in all di\nsions and classes of the population, in the palace, 
 in the senate, in the forum : we leave you to yourselves 
 only in your temples'"." And it would appear from the 
 first book of Saint Augustine's work on the City of God, 
 that when Rome was sacked by the hordes of Alaric, the 
 misfortune was traced by the Pagan society of the time to 
 a neglect of the worship of the gods, rather than to any 
 anti-political feature in the Christian character. But the 
 eighteenth century witnessed a reassertion of the objec- 
 tion which is answered in the Apologists of the second 
 and third. An entire school of infidel writers set them- 
 selves to contrast Christianity disparagingly with the 
 ancient Paganism. The political inferiority of Christian 
 civilization, the political incapacity of a ti'ue Christian, is 
 a sort of indirect moral which Gibbon suggests perpetually 
 in his celebrated work^; while in Voltaire's "Essay on the 
 Manners of Nations," this judgment is developed, and 
 defended witli more warmth and distinctness. Unhappily, 
 it would not be accurate to add, that the language of these 
 celebrated sceptics has never found an echo in our own 
 day. 
 
 Now, of all the features of the Christian character, 
 humility has very mainly to bear the brunt of this attack. 
 Yet it seems that, however unintentionally, the true idea 
 of humility is lost sight of by those who would thus 
 represent it as hostile to the claims of civil and public 
 interests. For after all, what is humility? Humility is 
 not a iiiKpo^vyia. On the contrary, the true Christian is 
 
 ■■ Apol. 3;. Couij). c. 42. 
 
 ' C'f. especially Decline ami Fall, 15, § 4, s. fiu. 
 
YI] Hinnility and Action. 153 
 
 tlie genuine ^e'ya\6-^v)(0'^ ; lie is pre-eminently tlie man 
 of large soul and noble instincts. Humility is not a want 
 of enterprise^, a subtle resource of idleness. The man in 
 tlie parable witli one talent was not a humble man : the 
 Apostle was humble, who yet cried, "I laboured more 
 abundantly than they all ; yet not I, but the grace of God 
 which was with me '." Humility is not a lack of 
 courage; it is not the poverty of spirit which shrinks 
 from encounter. It is not an abandonment of inalienable 
 responsibilities : to God alone we must make account for 
 what we believe and do. Still less is it a false, artificial 
 posture of the soul, a kind of dramatic attitude; or, as 
 men have imagined, an ecclesiastical grimace, the putting 
 on language, and looks, and a demeanour that might 
 belong to something which is not really felt. Beyond 
 every thing else, humility is the victory of truth in the 
 soul and character; it is truth, daring, determining to 
 recognize the insignificance and pollution of a man's real 
 self beneatji the purity and majesty of God. But, being 
 such as this, humility is not an isolated excellence; it 
 does not jostle against or undermine other forms of 
 goodness, which equally with itself are integral portions 
 of moral perfection. It is part of a great moral whole. 
 Instead of proscribing, it promotes the growth of virtues, 
 unlike, yet not unfriendly to itself. A humble man, for 
 example, may well have a burning zeal for the welfare of 
 his fellow-man, or an uncompromising hatred of moral 
 evil, or the courage which is strong to work, to struggle, 
 or to suffer. It is very certain, that the force which is 
 apparently forfeited by the destruction of self-reliance in 
 the character, is more than recovered when the soul rests 
 in perfect trustfulness on the Strong Ai'm of God. 
 Moses, who is described as " very meek ^," and who 
 shrank back in e\'idcnt agony from that leadership of 
 
 ' I Cor. XV. 10. " Numb. xii. 3. 
 
1 54 Humility and Action. . [Sebm. 
 
 Israel to which he was called by Providence, yet sternly 
 vindicated his mission against the rebellious Korah ^, as 
 he had previously inflicted a sharp vengeance upon the 
 idolaters whom he found worshipping the calf on his 
 descent from Sinai y. St. Ambrose did all that in him lay 
 to decline the perilous dignity of the see of Milan, which 
 was forced on him by the suffrages of a whole clergy and 
 people; — then as now, for tender consciences, the lining 
 of the mitre was but the crown of thorns. But Avhen, at 
 the gate of the Portian Basilica in Milan, Thcodosius 
 dared to ask for the communion of the Church, while his 
 hands were yet red with the slaughter of Thessalonica ; 
 this humblest of Bishops know what was due to that God 
 of peace and justice Whom he represented, and the 
 master of the Roman world stood rebuked before the 
 lowly servant of Jesus Christ^. Humility, so far from 
 destroying moral force, protects and strengthens it : it 
 sternly represses the petty vanities thi'ough which the 
 strength of the soul evaporates and is lost ; it keeps even 
 a St. John the Baptist "in the deserts till the day of his 
 showing unto Israel ;" and then, when the hour is come, 
 it opens upon the world the force of a soul which is 
 strong precisely because it has been humble. It is then 
 inaccurate to say that the Gospel, which undoubtedly 
 discourages selfish ambition and petty vanity, is therefore 
 chargeable wnth the moral fault of unfitting men for the 
 public duties of life, or for the service of their country. 
 
 X Numb. xvi. 28-30. y Exoil. xxxii. 25-28. 
 
 * For a vivid account of the scene and of tlie circumstances which led to 
 it, see Mr. Bright's " History of the Clmrch from the Edict of Milan," 
 p. 206. Even the scornful Gibbon admits that " posterity has applauded 
 the virtuous firmness of the archbishop; and that the example of Thcodosius 
 (in submitting) may prove the beneficial infiiieuce of those principles which 
 could force a monarch, exalted above the a])j)rehension of human punishment, 
 to respect the laws and ministers of an invisible Judge." — Decline and Fall, 
 vol. iii. p. 256, ed. Bohu. 
 
yi] Humility and Action. 155 
 
 Nor here in Oxford is it necessary to name the honoured 
 name of one — a statesman and philanthropist of the last 
 generation — at whose bidding England made a vast 
 material sacrifice that she might be rid of the curse of 
 slavery^ and who notoriously carried into all the public 
 and private relations of life, the sincerity, the charity, 
 above all, the humility of a true Christian. And in our 
 own day there are living evidences of the truth that the 
 service of Christ by true and noble souls is no bar to the 
 service of the State. We need not look beyond our own 
 University in order to be assm-ed, that the most compre- 
 hensive schemes for the moral and material welfare of the 
 people, and for the inauguration or the development of a 
 great poKcy, may go hand in hand with the culture of a 
 sensitive conscience, and with the filial yet free submis- 
 sion of a lofty intellect to the dogmatic teaching of the 
 Church. 
 
 ' But surely,' you urge, ' humility is the enemy of intel- 
 lectual enterprise. Humility may very well become the 
 indifi'erence which has no heart for inquiry, or the con- 
 scious weakness which shrinks from attempting it. But 
 if intellect is to win its way, it must trust itself; it may 
 acquiesce in the speculations of others, but at least it must 
 bend before no master; it must hold itself, as did the 
 Sophist, to be the measure of all things; its ambition, 
 like that of the Epicurean poet, must be 
 
 " munita tencre, 
 
 Edita docti'iua sapieutum, templa sorena, 
 Despicere uude queas alios passimquo videre 
 Errarc, atque viam palantes qua;rere vitas ^." 
 
 Not otherwise can our civilization pursue its opening 
 career of victory; since the '^^ humility" which was a 
 temper well suited to the ages of ignorance is a drawback 
 and a curse iu a day like our own, when man need only 
 ^ Lucret. ii. 8-11. 
 
156 Htimility and Action. [Serm. 
 
 trust himself to be speedily master of the world and of his 
 destiny/ 
 
 No, brethren — "in all thy ways/' in the sphere of 
 intellect no less than in that of public active life, acknow- 
 ledge God, and be humble. Such humility as we learn 
 upon our knees is the best foundation of all solid 
 knowledge. The acknowledgment of God, — the Highest 
 Truth, the First of facts, — ^leads us to love and to seek 
 fact and truth every where, and to reap the intellectual 
 reward of doing so. Who is the really good scholar but 
 the man who, when young, has been thoroughly grounded 
 in his grammar? Those years of drudgery, those years 
 of careful humble acknowledgment of philological facts, 
 end in the creation of an instinct, almost of a new sense 
 of scholarship, — an instinct so fine, so true, that it can 
 afford to dispense with grammar and dictionary. But 
 the triumph is precisely proportioned to the degree of 
 humility which has submitted itself implicitly to the dis- 
 cipline of facts ; and there is no short road to such high 
 and rare accomplishment. ^Tiat was the method of the 
 Baconian philosophy but a moral as well as an intellectual 
 triumph when for the wide assumptions which had kept 
 physical science for centuries in its cradle, it humbly sub- 
 stituted the basis of individual and specific experience? 
 The late Mr. Buckle imintentionally eulogizes physical 
 inquirers in England, wlieu he complains that they spend 
 their energies in an unceasing i-duikI of observation and 
 experiment ^, and that tliey do not allow sufficient play 
 to the imagination in the construction of hypothesis. 
 Certainly, if physical science, especially when dealing 
 with those delicate and interesting problems which lie on 
 the frontier that separates her own emjoire from tlie pecu- 
 liar territory of Divine revelation, should be tempted to 
 become unhappily imaginative, and should commit her- 
 
 ^ Hist, of Civilization, vol. ii. p. 502 sqcj. 
 
yi] Hiunility and Action. 157 
 
 self to a series of imposing hypotheses^ ornamented with 
 rather than sustained by incidental facts ; it would be, 
 speaking intellectually as well as religiously, a sad day 
 for the future of England. A well-ascertained fact must, 
 indeed, command the reverence of every man who wor- 
 ships the God of truth : he may be unable to harmonize 
 it with other facts ; but he does not therefore endeavour 
 to explain it away, as though it did him a wi"ong and 
 he bore a grudge against it. A Christian of course has 
 knowledge of another order of facts, distinct from and 
 beyond those which he can see, and feel, and smell; 
 but he does not sacrifice facts of sensible experience to 
 facts of revelation, any more than he sacrifices facts of 
 revelation to facts of experience. And when it seems to 
 him that there is a contradiction between the two, he 
 waits patiently; conscious as he is that he is himself 
 below truth and not above it, and that he is in no posi- 
 tion to conclude that the seeming contradiction is cer- 
 tainly real. But to reverence the majesty of fact, is one 
 thing; to render to mere tentative and ambitious hypo- 
 thesis that honour w^hich is due only to fact, is quite 
 another. Theology can but welcome the facts of Science : 
 she may reasonably be jealous of the occasional encroach- 
 ments of scientific h}q3othesis. And by this jealousy she 
 does good service to the real interests of science itself; 
 since the temper which indulges in the luxury of frequent 
 and prematm-e hjqDothesis, is the very opposite of that 
 industrious, because humble, perseverance which per- 
 petually enriches science with a larger and larger com- 
 mand of fact. 
 
 Humility, then, is the ally of intellect instead of its 
 enemy, because humility is both a moral instinct which 
 seeks truth, and a moral instrument for reaching truth. 
 Humility leads us to base our knowledge on truth; it 
 also leads us truthfully to recognize the real measure 
 
158 Humility and Action. [Serm. 
 
 of our capacity. ^VTiy lias Aristotle, with liis com- 
 paratively materialistic mind, been on the whole so 
 much higher an authority in the schools of Christendom 
 than the more spiritual Plato ? Because Aristotle more 
 humbly and truthfully confines himself to the discussion 
 of questions which can really be discussed without the 
 aid of a supernatural revelation. "Why is the intellectual 
 progress of Christian countries so superior to that of any 
 known Pagan civilization ? Because the Incarnate Christ 
 has popularized_, even to a certain degree among those 
 who reject Him, a virtue which is essential to the 
 highest intellectual development. "Why did such 
 princes of intellect as Pascal and Leibnitz bend in 
 such true faith and worship before the Feet of the 
 Crucified ? Because that very virtue which had taught 
 them to base their knowledge on truth, had also taught 
 them the limits of created intellect, and had pointed to 
 a sphere in which the highest reason employs its ener- 
 gies in bringing every thought to the obedience of 
 Christ. Submission of the intellect is only folly if God 
 has never spoken, and if on the highest subjects that can 
 interest mankind, we possess nothing more trustworthy 
 than a human speculation. But those who teach that 
 intellect should never yield submission, do not, at least 
 uniformly, profess to reject the flict of a Revelation. This 
 is not the occasion for insisting on the evidence which 
 proves that such a fict exists. I am merely observing 
 that no evidence, however strong, would suffice to re- 
 commend religion where it is discredited beforehand by 
 a theory which proscribed the truthful instinct of hu- 
 mility. Gibbon speaks "= of the "incurable suspicion" 
 
 <= Sec Gibbon's account of the Catholic confessors of Tipasa, in Africa, who 
 continued to speak after their tongues had been cut out by tlie Arian Count 
 Hunneric. Gibbon enhirgcs, witli evident enjoyment, on the completeness, 
 as he himself considers it, of the contemporary testimony, both Christian and 
 
VI] Humility and Action. 159 
 
 whicli protects tlie mind of "an infidel" against undis- 
 puted but unwelcome facts; but this suspicion can 
 
 Pagan, to this miracle. ..." This miracle," he says, " is attested by Victor, 
 an African bishop, who published a history of the persecution within two 
 years after the event. ' If any one,' says Victor, ' should doubt of the truth, 
 let him repair to Constantinople, and listen to the clear and perfect language 
 of Restitutus, the subdeacon, one of those glorious sufferers, who is now 
 lodged in the palace of the Emperor Zeno, and is respected by the devout 
 Empress.' At Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, learned, and 
 unexceptional witness, withoiit interest and without passion. ^neas of 
 Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has accurately described his own observations 
 on these African sufferers. ' I saw them myself : I heard them speak : 
 I diligently inquired by what means such an articulate voice could l)e formed 
 without any organ of speech : I used my eyes to examine the report of my 
 ears : I opened their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been com- 
 pletely torn away by the roots ; an operation which the physicians generally 
 suppose to be mortal.' The testimony of iEneas of Gaza might be confirmed 
 by the superfluous evidence of the Emperor Justinian, in a perpetual edict ; 
 of Count Marcellinus, in his Chronicle of the times; and of Pope Gregory 
 the First, who had resided at Constantinople as the minister of the Roman 
 pontiff". They all lived within the compass of a century; and they all 
 ajjpeal to their personal knowledge or the public notoriety for the truth of a 
 miracle which was repeated iu several instances, displayed on the greatest 
 theatre of the world, and submitted during a series of years to the calm 
 examination of the senses." Gibbon then proceeds : " This supernatural 
 gift of the African confessors, who spoke without tongues, will command the 
 assent of those, and of those only, who already believe that their language 
 was pure and orthodox. But tlie stuhhorn mind of an infidel is guarded btj 
 secret incurable suspicion." — Decline and Fall, vol. iv. c. 37, pp. 148-9. 
 ed. Bohn. 
 
 In the Lancet of January 27, 1866, Professor Syme, of Edinburgh, relates 
 how, " twelve months ago the tongue of a patient had been completely 
 removed by excision. On the loth of September, 1865," continues Prof. 
 Syme, " the patient unexpectedly made his appearance, and seeing that I 
 did not recognize him, he announced his name in a loud clear voice. My 
 surprise was not lessened on learning that while travelling iu the Highlands, 
 he had dined at tahles-d'hote, and had entered into conversation, without 
 betraying the deficiency under which he laboured ... I requested a num- 
 ber of my medical friends to join me in examining the state of matters. 
 Professor Goodsir, Mr. Nasmyth, and Mr. Annandale having satisfied them- 
 selves that no vestige of the tongue remained, various observations were 
 made with regard to articulation, and other functions of the absent organ. 
 ... .In ordinary speech his words are wonderfully clear and distinct, and 
 
i6o Htunility and Action. [Seem. 
 
 hardly aid tlie infidel's real intellectual growth. And it 
 is no paradox to say that a believing Christian, recog- 
 nizing the facts -which invite or compel belief in Reve- 
 lation, so far from forfeiting mental strength by doing 
 so, is intellectually stronger than a sceptic, who determines 
 to ignore their reality or at least their significance. The 
 Christian's humility is in reality the cause of his mental 
 energy. 
 
 III. But, beyond controversy, humility is indispensable 
 to the true life of the soul. There are graces which may 
 be given or withheld ; there arc experiences, assurances, 
 raptures, ecstasies. These are the accomplishments, 
 rather than the needs of the Christian. But no man ever 
 went to heaven without learning humility on this side of 
 the grave. 
 
 " Except ye be converted, and become as little children, 
 ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven'^." 
 Without humility, that is, without the victory of truth in 
 the conscience, no soul ever really turned to God. It is as 
 
 he can sing without any difficulty. ... It has been long known that large 
 portions of the tongue may be removed without destroying or materially 
 impairing the power of articulation, but I am not aware of any case on 
 record in which it has remained so perfect after complete removal of the 
 organ." The eminent physician to whom I am indebted for the above 
 reference, adds that many such cases are on record, with some of which 
 Gibbon might have been expected to have made himself acquainted. The 
 case of Margaret Cutting, for example, is fully detailed iu the Philosophical 
 Transactions for 1742 and 1747. The ancient physicians "do not appear 
 to have been aware of the fact that a person may speak after his tongue 
 has been cut out;" and it is therefore not surprising that the case of 
 the African Confessors was regarded by autiijuity as certainly miraculous. 
 Whether that particular case was or was not miraculous may indeed still be 
 doubtful ; but, however it be explained, there can be now no doubt about 
 the fact itself. And sui)posing the fact to admit of a natural explanation, 
 Gibbon's way of regarding it is not a less pertinent illustration of my 
 argument. On that supposition, the " infidel's secret incurable suspicion" 
 " guards" him, not against a conclusion of faith, but against a fact certain 
 to physical science, 
 d St. Matt, xviii. 3. 
 
yi] Humility and Action. i6i 
 
 hard for us no"w-a-days, as for the barbarians on the Ehine 
 of old, to learn, at the bidding of our Heavenly Lord, " to 
 reverence what we have burned, and to burn what we 
 have adored." AMien, then, God by His grace converts 
 a soul. He reveals Himself to it sufficiently to make it 
 humble. Without humility, a contrite heart, and a pre- 
 vailing prayer for pardon, are impossible. Without 
 humility, though we be scarlet with sin, we only " go 
 about to estabHsh our own righteousness, not submitting 
 ourselves to the righteousness of God®." We try to 
 forget our real selves, by dwelling on the good but mis- 
 taken opinion which others may have formed of us. All 
 is hollow beneath the surface of the character, but we hug 
 the delusion that all is sound. We shrink from that sight 
 of God, and of ourselves, from that simple acknowledg- 
 ment of fact, which, when we face it, must leave us in our 
 shame, trembling indeed before the Infinite Purity, yet 
 not without a hope and a remedy at the bar of Infinite 
 Mercy. It is only when the' proud heart is broken, that a 
 man casts himself at the Feet of our Crucified Saviom-, to 
 pray that the Atoning Stream of Blood may wash out 
 his deep stains of guilt, and give him peace in giving 
 him pardon. 
 
 Without humility, religious progress is impossible. 
 Pride is the destruction of the principle of progress ; it 
 whispers to us continually that we are already all that 
 could be desired; or it points oui' attention to high 
 positions and ambitious efibrts, beyond the scope of other 
 men. Now the true growth of the soul is not to be 
 measured by our attempting many or extraordinary 
 duties, but by oui* power of doing simple duties well ; and 
 humility, when it reigns in the soul, carries this principle 
 into practice. It bids us Avho work with our brains in 
 
 e Eoui. X. 3. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Humility and Action. [Serm. 
 
 tliis place, to hallow our work, especially whatever may 
 be to us hard or distaseful work, by doing it as a mat- 
 ter of principle. It reproves us when we are neglecting 
 our plain duty, the plain duty of reading for our 
 degree, on grounds such as that of our being anxious 
 to begin without further delay to read for Holy Orders. 
 It guides our religious thoughts to a deeper mastery of 
 the Central Truths of Faith rather than to the study of 
 those intricate problems which lie on the outskirts of 
 theology. It counsels us, when on our knees, to use 
 simple prayers. We do well to retain the very prayers 
 which we used as children, however we may add to them • 
 and to throw our whole soul into each separate clause and 
 word. It enriches common acts of neighbourly and 
 social kindness with that intensity of moral effort, which 
 is due to every act, the deepest moving power of which 
 is the Love of God. 
 
 Once more, without humility no soul that has turned to 
 God, and is learning to serve Him, is for a moment safe. 
 The whole life of the living soul is the work of Divine 
 grace ; and while pride claims merit for self, and therefore 
 goes before a fall, humility confesses day by day, " By the 
 grace of God I am what I am." The higher you climb 
 the mountain-side, the more fatal must be your fall, if you 
 do fall. If you would look over the giddy preciince 
 without risk, you must first stoop to lay firm hold on the 
 rock of humility. Brethren, it is not imagination, it is 
 not rhetoric, it is a teri-iblc fact, — again and again in- 
 flicted upon our understanding b}' the actual experience of 
 life, — that there are no depths of moral degradation to which 
 a man may not sink, who neglects this, the most neces- 
 sary, if not the chief, of virtues. The mark of the beast 
 is traced in every generation on the features of Babylon 
 the proud. For humility is tlie condition and guarantee 
 of grace; and, as St. Augustine says, there is no reason. 
 
yi] Hiimility a7id Action. 163 
 
 apart from the grace of God, wliy tlie highest saint should 
 not be the worst of criminals. 
 
 When we honestly consider the conditions of this life, 
 so feeble, so frail, so short ; when we feel the pressure of 
 that sense of sin, which, like pain in the body, is the proof 
 and safeguard of surviving or reviving life in the soul ; it 
 might seem easy to be always and perfectly humble. But 
 he who knows his own heart, knows that as pride was the 
 first sin which sullied the moral world, so it is commonly 
 the last which is violently expelled from the soul of a 
 regenerate Christian. There are virtues of the natural 
 order, such as justice, temperance, courage, prudence, 
 which we may be led to cultivate by simply ascertaining 
 what is socially or materially best for ourselves. It was 
 indeed thus that these virtues were cultivated of old by 
 our Pagan forefathers. But if we would be really humble, 
 we must be students in the School and worshipjjers in the 
 Church of Jesus Christ ; since humility is a grace which, 
 in its higher forms. He Alone creates in the human soul. 
 Here then may be our most appropriate work for the 
 coming season of Lent. He Who is very God of very 
 God, " took upon Him our flesh, and suffered death upon 
 the Cross," — for other reasons, indeed, but also, — "that 
 all mankind should follow the example of His great 
 humility ^" He bids us come and learn of Him, since He 
 is meek and lowly of heart. The Human Nature which 
 He wears in Heaven at this very hour, throned as He is 
 at the right hand of the Everlasting Father, is of Itself a 
 pledge to faith, that the grace of humility never can die. 
 The Gospels, wherein it is told us how He once " emptied 
 Himself^" of His glory, have an inexhaustible power, a 
 bloom and freshness that defies criticism and decay. The 
 Sacraments which He left on earth to be the organs and 
 channels of His quickening Manhood, are still as they 
 
 f Coll. for S. next before Easter. % Phil. ii. 7. louTbi' eKevuae. 
 
 M 2, 
 
1 64 Humility and Action. 
 
 have ever been since He lived and died in Palestine, 
 channels of spiritual force and life. We may, indeed, be 
 humble, if we will. And Jesus, 'Who speaks to us in His 
 Word, and Who strengthens and refreshes us at His 
 Altars, assures us, that if we will indeed acknowledge 
 Him as our Master and our Saviour, He will direct our 
 paths through the struggles of active life, or through the 
 wearinesses and triumphs of solitary study, up to that 
 gate of Heaven where He waits to welcome us. But the 
 only passport that can warrant the boldness of faith, when, 
 in the supremo moment of her "s-ictory and her bliss, 
 she will claim an entrance through His prevailing merits, 
 will be none other than this grace of a sincere humility. 
 
SERMON YIL 
 
 THE CONFLICT OF FAITH WITH UNDUE 
 EXALTATION OF INTELLECT. 
 
 2 Cor. X. 5. 
 
 Casting clown imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself 
 against the Tcnomledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought 
 to the obedience of Christ. 
 
 HERE is au Apostle of tlie Lord Jesus wlio uses tlie 
 language of a soldier. He is planning a campaign ; 
 nay^ rather lie is making war : lie glows with the fire of a 
 genuine military enthusiasm. The original Greek which 
 he uses has in it a vigour and point which is lost, to a 
 great extent, in our English translation. The writer 
 might almost be a Roman general, charged to sustain the 
 honour of the Empire in a revolted province or beyond a 
 remote frontier, and bent upon illustrating the haughty 
 maxim which defined the duty of an imperial people, — 
 
 " To spare the vanquished, but to crush the proud." 
 
 Indeed, it has been urged that the recent history of Cilicia 
 itself may have well suggested this language to St. Paul. 
 The Apostle's native country had been the scene of some 
 very fierce struggles in the wars against Mithridates and 
 the pirates ; and we are told that the latter war was only 
 ended, not sixty years before the Apostle's birth, by the 
 reduction of one hundred and twenty strongholds and 
 
1 66 The Conflict of Faith [Seem. 
 
 the capture of more than ten tliousand prisoners *. The 
 dismantled ruins may have easily and naturally impressed 
 the boyish imagination of Saul of Tarsus with a vivid 
 sense of the destructive energy of the military power of 
 Rome; but the Apostle of the nations only remembers 
 these earlier impressions to give them a spiritual applica- 
 tion. ITie weapons of his warfare are not carnal; the 
 standard under which he fights is a more sacred sign than 
 that of the Caesar ; the operations which he projects are 
 to be carried out in a territory more difficult of conquest 
 than any which kept the conquerors of the world at bay. 
 He is invading the region of human thought ; and as he 
 fights for God, he is sternly resolved upon conquest, lie 
 sees rising before him the lofty fortresses of hostile 
 errors ; they must be reduced and razed ^. Every moun- 
 tain fastness "^ to which the enemy of Light and Love can 
 retreat must bo scaled and destroyed ; and all the thought 
 of the human soul ^ which is hostile to the authority of 
 the Divine truth, must be "led away as a prisoner of 
 war^" into the camp of Chi'ist. Truly a vast and un- 
 accountable ambition ; a dream — if it were not, as it was, 
 a necessity; a tyranny — if any thing less vigorous and 
 trenchant had been consistent with the claims of the 
 Truth of God, or equal to the needs of the soul of 
 man. 
 
 The particular opposition to the work of Christ which 
 the Apostle encountered at Corinth was indeed less intel- 
 lectual in its form than the Galatian Judaism, or than the 
 theosophic angcl-Avorship which was popular at Colosse, 
 or than the more sharply-defined heresies of a later time 
 
 ^ Stanley in loc, who quotes Appian, Bell. Mitli., 2.^4 — 238. 
 '' KadaipovvTfs, tlio military term for reducing a fortress. Sec Wetsteia 
 in loc; Klsncr, Obs. ji. 152, quoted by Meyer. 
 
 c v\puixa is :ip])arently the Hebrew rra3. Stanley in loe. 
 
 '^ iruv vdrjfxa, Cf. Meyer in loc. '-' alxfJ-a\aiTl^oyrfi. 
 
VII] with undtie Exaltation of Intellect. 167 
 
 whicli, as we know from the Pastoral Epistles, threatened 
 or infected the Churches of Ephesus and Crete. St. Paul's 
 Corinthian opponents resisted, depreciated, disowned, 
 beyond every thing* else, the Apostle's o'^ai personal 
 authority. This, however, was the natural course of 
 things at a time when single Apostles well-nigh imper- 
 sonated the whole doctrinal action of the Church; and 
 feeling this, St. Paul speaks not as one who was re- 
 asserting a personal claim of any sort, but merely and 
 strictly as a soldier, as an organ, I might say, as a func- 
 tion, of the truth. The Truth had an indefeasible right 
 to reign in the intellect of man. The Apostle asserts 
 that right, when he speaks of bringing the whole intelli- 
 gence of man into the obedience of Christ. Now, as 
 then, Christ's Church is militant here on earth, not less 
 in the sphere of thought than in the sphere of outward 
 and visible action; and St. Paul's burning words rise 
 above the temporary circumstances which called them 
 forth, and furnish a motto and an encouragement to us 
 who, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, fight in the 
 ranks of the same army and against the same kind of foes 
 as he did. 
 
 Eemark, first of all, that it is " the undue exaltation of" 
 intellect, vsdth which the Church of Christ is in energetic 
 and perpetual conflict. With intellect itself, with really 
 moral and reasonable intellect, with the thought of man 
 recognizing at once its power and its weakness, its vast 
 range and its necessary limits, religion has, can have, no 
 quarrel. It were a libel on the All-wise Creator to 
 suppose that between intellect and spirit, between 
 thought and faith, there could be any original relations 
 other than those of perfect harmony. Paradise could 
 have been the scene of no such unseemly conflict as that 
 which we are considering; and here, as elsewhere in 
 human natm-e, we are met with unmistakable traces of 
 
1 68 The Conflict of Faith [Serm. 
 
 the fall of our first parent. A range of g-i-anite mountains, 
 which towers proudly above the alluvial soil of a neigh- 
 bouring plain and above the softer rocks at its immediate 
 base, speaks to the geologist of a subterranean fire that at 
 some remote epoch had thus upheaved the primal crust of 
 the earth with convulsive violence. And the arrogant 
 pretensions of human thought in the children of Adam 
 speak no less truly of an ancient convulsion which has 
 marred the harmony of the faculties of the soul, and has 
 forced the mind of fallen man into an attitude which 
 instinctively disputes the claims of revelation. But that 
 attitude is no part of the Creator's handiwork ; it is due 
 to the creature's own abuse of the perfect freedom of his 
 will. For originally intellect is the ally and discoverer of 
 truth; it finds its highest employment as the instrument 
 of reli(ituus truth; and Jesus Christ, A\^io restores the 
 harmony of our nature, speaks, through His Church, "a 
 wisdom," or philosophy, "among them that arc perfect '';" 
 a wisdom of which illuminated intellect is the student 
 and guardian, and which amply recognizes the high and 
 abundant honour which the Creator has put upon His 
 creature's thought. 
 
 But the Fall did not merely dcjirive human reason of 
 the light of grace; it so disturbed the original structure 
 of our nature as to make reason generally the slave of 
 desire instead of its master. And therefore the intellect 
 which exalts itself against revelation is often in reality 
 not free intellect, but intellect working at the secret 
 bidding of an irritated passion. Not that intellect is 
 itself usually conscious that it is thus acting under 
 orders. The passions, like some women, know how to 
 disguise, and even how to recommend, their despotism by 
 the graceful movements and gentle courtesies of a well- 
 simulatcil (il)c(Hcncc. Or at best, intellect is but half 
 
 ' I Cor. ii. 6. 
 
VII] zvith 7mdiie Exaltation of Intellect. 169 
 
 conscious that it is not free ; and therefore it asserts its 
 freedom with that exaggerated vehemence which persons 
 who feel their place in society to be a little doubtful are 
 apt to employ when putting forward their social claims. 
 Certainly intellect never vaunts its freedom with such 
 nervous eagerness as when it is in conflict with the Reve- 
 lation of God. For instance^ we do not say to ourselves, 
 again and again, that we are the champions of free thought, 
 if we are engaged in the study of pure mathematics. 
 Mathematics do not touch our moral nature ; we suspect 
 nothing; we solve an equation as dispassionately as if 
 we were ourselves pure reason, and nothing else ; beings 
 without passion, without conscience, without will, without 
 a moral history. But revelation, by its every doctrine and 
 every precept, at once challenges the activity of will and 
 conscience ; and the passions are like those watchdogs who 
 rouse the sleeping tenants of remote country-houses at 
 the approach of a stranger; the passions sound an alarm 
 within the soul at the first signs of the coming of the 
 Son of Man. Thus natural intellect meets the heavenly 
 Visitant, sometimes with a movement of sudden sharp 
 irritation, sometimes with a stern but unaVowed resolu- 
 tion to resist Him, generally without frankness and real 
 freedom of welcome. Natural intellect when brought face 
 to face with Jesus Christ, behaves at best like a person 
 who feels it necessary to be upon his guard, and to main- 
 tain an attitude of secret if not of defiant suspicion. 
 
 Look around you, brethren, and take note of the varieties 
 of intellect which enter in various ways into this conflict 
 with religion. There is, first of all, mercenary intellect. 
 This intellect writes or talks at the rate of so much per 
 annum, and on a given understanding. '^You take so 
 much, and you write up that minister ; you advocate that 
 line of policy ; you denounce this institution ; you attack 
 that theory; you blacken that public man." — "Done." 
 
lyo The Conflict of Faith [Serm. 
 
 Necessity, it may be said, knows no law ; and there is an 
 unexprcssibly sad proverb about poverty, to the effect 
 that it cannot afford to have a conscience. We need not 
 care to examine that saying too narrowly. Some of us 
 perhaps have kno■s^^l cases, in which really noble souls 
 have bent to a degradation from which they shrank in 
 secret agony; and from which, long since, they would 
 have torn themselves away, if the comfort and even the 
 life of others, near and dear to them, had not been 
 dependent on their sad, unworthy toil. Gladly indeed 
 would I here be silent. But sometimes this hired in- 
 tellect, in bondage to. sharp necessity or to the mere 
 spirit of gain, passionately asserts its monopoly of free- 
 dom. It even tells us, the ministers of Christ, who have 
 freely entered His service, and who rejoice in what it calls 
 our fetters, that we are not free. We ought not to be 
 surprised, upon understanding the situation in which such 
 intellect is really placed ; but we may be permitted to 
 protest. Certainly we may admit that, under the circum- 
 stances, conflict with religion is sufficiently natural. If it 
 were nothing besides, it is at least an expedient for 
 asserting the appearance of freedom, at little cost, and 
 "with considerable dramatic effect. 
 
 Again, Iddk at self-advertising intellect. Here is a 
 vain man, who has certain powers of thought and ex- 
 pression. This intellect is bent on achieving a reputa- 
 tion, no matter how. It will write something startling, 
 or, as it would say, original. It will deny all that has 
 been affirmed, and depreciate all that has been held in 
 reverence. When it asserts that this or that Book of the 
 Divine Scripture is but a collection of foolish legends, it 
 will take a certain pleasure in thinking of all the varied 
 perplexity, and vexation, and distress, and bustle, and 
 deliberations which will be caused among the religions ])er- 
 sons who may chance to meet with its irritating produc- 
 
VII] zvith undtie Exaltation of Intellect. 171 
 
 tion. Probably it tas no wish, to inflict unnecessary pain. 
 But its object is notoriety; and notoriety is only witliin 
 its reacli under these conditions. 
 
 Again, there is sensualized intellect; intellect under 
 the guidance and command of animal passion. This is 
 no fancy species. It Avould not be difficult to point to 
 whole literatures, characterized by the greatest fertility of 
 thought, by ample power and beauty of language, whose 
 entire drift and purpose is to rouse in the imagination 
 and veins of man those fiery passions which are his worst 
 enemy. 
 
 Again, there is the self-reliant or cynical intellect, too 
 independent to be mercenary, too proud to be vain, too 
 self-respecting" to be the slave of sense. Yet it is just as 
 little free as is the most mercenary, or vain, or sensualized 
 thought; since in truth it is the slave of a subline 
 egotism. But its enslavement is well disguised; and 
 its cold, clear, incisive energy passes among men for 
 the very bloom and majesty of perfect intellectual free- 
 dom. 
 
 We need not examine other varieties. Nor may we 
 forget that here and there, among the earnest opponents of 
 the Gospel, souls are to be found which glow with a pure 
 and devoted love of truth. These are souls, whom adverse 
 circumstances have for awhile bewildered and misled. 
 Their true home is in the camp of Christ. They have not 
 yet found the road to Damascus ; but we may safely leave 
 them to the love and pr.ovidence of the Good God. But 
 with or without them, it is plain that we are in presence 
 of a body of active thought, not the less vigorous because 
 it works for hire, or for vainglory, or for sensual delight, 
 or for some refined or magnificent ambition ; not the less 
 vigorous because it is a slave ; but which, as being enslaved 
 to powers who are instinctively opposed to the Gospel, is 
 certain to find itself, sooner or later, in conflict with the 
 
172 The Conflict of Faith [Serm. 
 
 living, working power of that Gospel among the niiuds 
 and hearts of men. 
 
 It is noteworthy, and indeed it is implied in tlie lan- 
 guage of the Apostle, that intellectual opposition to 
 Revelation, except on great occasions, and under the 
 leadership of distinguished captains, does not usually seek 
 us Christians in the open field. I do not, indeed, forget 
 Celsus, or Porphyry, or Voltaire, or Strauss. But look at 
 scepticism in the second generation, or as we meet it in 
 everyday life. Its customary instinct is to take refuge on 
 some natural heights, or behind some artificial earthworks. 
 In plain terms, it screens its advance under the cover of 
 some disputed principle, or of some unproved assumption. 
 To " cast down these imaginations " may be less exciting 
 than the whirl and tumult of a general intellectual engage- 
 ment. But it is the everyday and practical aspect of the 
 conflict which we are considering. And if with limited 
 time, and in so vast a field, it is here necessary to resign 
 one-half, or more than one-half, of the outline before us ; 
 let us proceed briefly to notice one or two of the most con- 
 spicuous among many false principles and assumjDtions 
 which now oppose the work of Jesus Christ our Lord in 
 the souls of men. Much will be thereby lost to the sub- 
 ject in the completeness of speculative treatment. More, 
 it may be, will be Avon ; if any Christian Avho listens, is 
 better enabled to understand and to take his part in the 
 unceasing and mighty struggle, between human error on 
 the one side, and the Truth Avhich came from heaven 
 eighteen centuries ago, on the other. 
 
 (a.) Now a primary characteristic of sceptical intellect 
 is its unwillingness to make room for faith, by acknoAV- 
 ledging the existence of a true province and sphere of 
 Revelation. Such intellect assumes itself to command the 
 whole field of truth. It grudges the admission, that there 
 may exist a higher world, beyond its ken, and over Avhicb 
 
YII] with tmdiie Exaltation of Intellect. 173 
 
 it has no real range of vision. Above tlie sphere of mere 
 sense^ there is the province of natural reason. That is 
 granted. But it is tacitly assumed that there is no higher 
 sphere accessible to man. Men do not object to saying 
 with the Apostle, that the Christian is a threefold being, 
 composed of body, soul, and spirit ^. Yet it is held that 
 spirit, our highest and most ennobling characteristic, has 
 no object-matter beyond that which can be ministered to 
 it by the natural intelligence of the soul. The reason is 
 because natural intellect feels itself humiliated, if it be 
 supposed to be debarred from the sight of any spiritual 
 fact. And since not more than a few facts of a strictly 
 spiritual character are dimly discerned even by the highest 
 natural intelligences, men deem it essential to the sup- 
 posed dignity of their reason to deny the existence of an 
 order of things which unilluminated reason does not 
 see. 
 
 Among students of the natural world, we find no such 
 unworthy sensitiveness respecting the power and range 
 of the bodily organ of sight. Look towards the heavens, 
 and ask the astronomer whether beyond the stars and 
 suns that re\^eal themselves to his telescopes, there are 
 stars and suns which even his most powerful instruments 
 cannot as yet enable him to detect. He will tell you that 
 by calculations based upon his observations he can deter- 
 mine the existence and movements of such purely invisible 
 bodies with the unerring certainty of mathematical reason. 
 Ask him once more whether there are yet other bodies in 
 the infihitude of space, too remote to be apprehended with 
 exactness and in detail, even by the most penetrating of his 
 formula;. He will reply, not merely that the existence of 
 such bodies is possible, but that the analogies of his 
 science lead him to regard it as nothing less than certain. 
 Ask, on the other hand, the entomologist, whose micro- 
 g I Tliess. V. 23. 
 
174 The Conflict of Faith [Seem. 
 
 scope has discovered to liim the strange forms which 
 people each drop of water, or each fraction of a cubic inch 
 of atmosphere, whether he has yet reached the last term, 
 the most minute embodiment of the principle of life. He 
 will hesitate to assume that he has yet done more than 
 ascertain the existence of an order of creatures who may 
 be as very monsters in the eyes of an in\'isible population 
 of beings around and beyond them. It is no discredit to 
 the organs of sense, that even when they are thus stimu- 
 lated and strengthened by a scientific apparatus, they fail 
 us, at a point where we cannot but feel, that beyond their 
 reach there lies a world which a higher power than sense 
 must discover, and which we explore as best we may under 
 the guidance of inference. Nor should reason be jealous, 
 if, in encountering the weightiest problems that sui-round 
 our earthly human existence, she herself cannot always 
 satisfy us. She may not complain, if as we ascend the 
 mountain of thought, she reaches a region at which she 
 must leave us in sheer bewilderment to the perilous 
 guidance of imagination ; unless indeed _she is content to 
 entrust us to the well-attested authority, to the practised 
 eye, and to the sure guardianship of Divane faith. 
 
 Reason, indeed, can do nnich, even beyond the province 
 in which she confessedly reigns. She can prove to man 
 that he possesses an immaterial soul ; that his will is 
 really free ; that deep in his secret heart there is the 
 mysterious but indelible law which distinguishes right 
 from wrong. Reason, as she studies human society, can 
 give shape to those principles of justice and order, which 
 are essential to its stabilit3^ She can even attain to a 
 certain shadowy knowledge of the First Cause of all. 
 She can demonstrate His existence by two or three lines 
 of argument. She can infer that He is One, that He is a 
 personal Being, that He is infinite in His perfections, and 
 unfettered in His action and His "w^ll, and that His 
 
VII] zuith nnduc Exaltation of Intellect. 175 
 
 creatures are under the strongest possible obligations to 
 seek and obey Him. Certainly^ reason is peculiarly 
 liappy^ if witliout, at least,, tlie indirect guidance of a 
 supernatural Eevelation slie can reach as far as this ; and 
 she knows well that each step of her advance is certain to 
 be disputed. But she can penetrate no further. Her 
 highest conquests do but suggest problems which she 
 cannot solve; they only afford glimpses of a world on 
 which she may not j^i'esume to enter. She has at best 
 discovered enough to make life a dreary mystery, and the 
 prospect of death a frightful nightmare. What knows 
 she of the inner life of God, as He has opened it to the 
 f^iith of Christians in the august doctrine of the most 
 Holy Ti'inity ? What can she tell us concerning the real 
 nature and effects of sin, concerning* the law of its action, 
 or the law of its removal ? What can she determine on 
 the all-important and pressing question, whether any and 
 what communion is possible between the human soul and 
 God ? What, in other words, has she at command that can 
 meet the needs of the soul of man, as they are met by the 
 Christian doctrines of the atoning Death and mediatorial 
 work of Jesus Christ, of the work of the Holy Spirit, the 
 power of penitence, the power of prayer, the power of the 
 Sacraments ? Certainly she has her o'v\ai sphere and 
 province. We may not ignore it. We may not depre- 
 ciate it, in the supposed interests of faith; as if faith could 
 only reign when reason was insulted. But reason must 
 accept her providential place. She must make room for 
 faith. She must act as faith's handmaid, not as faith's 
 substitute ; or her pride will surely prepare for her a 
 terrible chastisement. There is no saying how low an 
 intelligence may fall, which, persevering in its deter- 
 mination to rise no higher than the range of its natural 
 powers, voluntarily condemns itself to tenant its own 
 dark prison-housCj and sinks deeper and deeper into the 
 
176 The Conflict of Faith [Serm. 
 
 abysSj as it madly flics from tlio true knowledge and love 
 of the Infinite God. 
 
 (yS.) But when the possibility, the need, and even — to 
 take a long stride — the fact, of a supernatural revelation 
 has been admitted, the rebellious intellect of man renews 
 the conflict at a point beyond. " At least," it is urged, 
 a stipulation must be made, as to the contents of reve- 
 lation. Revelation must not include mysteries. Whatever 
 may be revealed, it shall not elude our full mental grasp. 
 We must assume ourselves to possess a verifying faculty 
 which shall eliminate from revelation all that wears the 
 air of mystery; since mystery is inconsistent with that 
 intellectual dignity which becomes us men, even when we 
 are listening to the Most High God.''' 
 
 It would be natural to insist, with Bishop Butler, on 
 the unreasonableness of determining beforehand, what a 
 revelation from God ought or ought not to contain ; since 
 we men are in no position to speculate Avith any success 
 or safety upon such a subject '\ But let me ask a simple 
 question. What do we mean by mystery ? We have, 
 it may be, invested the word with some damaging sense 
 that does not in reality belong to it. Mj^story, it may 
 be imagined, is but another name for a confused state- 
 ment, (»r lor a contradiction, or for an impossibility, or 
 for a ]mrcly unintelligible process, or for something 
 which is believed on no sufficient grounds whatever, 
 
 h Analogy, ii. 3, p. 1 73. " My design at present is to observe in general, 
 with respect to this whole way of arguing, that ujjon supposition of a reve- 
 lation, it is highly credible beforehand, we should be incompetent judges of 
 it to a great degree : and that it would contain many tilings appearing to 
 us liable to great objections ; in case we judge of it otherwise than by the 
 analogy of nature. And therefore, though objections against the evidence 
 of Christianity are most seriously to be considered; yet objections against 
 Christianity itself are, in a great measure, frivolous ; almost all objections 
 against it, except those which are alleged against the particular proofs of its 
 coming from God." 
 
YII] with nndtie Exaltation of Intellect. 177 
 
 or for a reverie of the heated religious imagination. No, 
 believe it, a mystery is none of these things. A mystery 
 is a truth, but a hidden truth ^ It may be, as the Scrip- 
 tural use of the word often implies, a truth which was 
 hidden in past times but is manifested now. It may be, 
 as the ordinary modern use of the term would suggest, a 
 truth hidden, in whatever degree, whether from the eye of 
 sense, or from the direct glance of natural reason. We see 
 some truths directly, just as in the open air we gaze with 
 our bodily eye upon the sun shining in the heavens. We 
 
 i Theodoret "adapts" the classical sense of the word to the Kew Testa- 
 ment idea : juvcrrripiov Keyerai rh /xr] iract SrjAovfj.ei'ot', aWa fjiovots to7s 
 <pi\ois 6appovfj.ivov. (In cap. xv. Ep. i. ad Corinth.) The word is used in 
 the New Testament : (i) Of a profound sense which does not lie upon the 
 surfoce of language. Rev. xvii. 5 ; i Cor. xiv. 2. (2) Of the internal 
 character and laws of a system, whether Divine (St. Matt. xiii. 11, St. Mark 
 iv. II, St. Luke viii. 10) or diabolical (2 Thess. ii. 7). (3) Of the hidden 
 meaning of a symbolical representation, Eev. i. 20 ; xvii. 7. (4) Of Divine 
 counsels, hidden for ages in the Mind of God and at length disclosed, such 
 as the design of making one family out of the inhabitants of earth and 
 heaven, Eph. i. 9, and that of bringing the Gentiles to share along with the 
 Jews the blessings of the Gospel, Eph. iii. 3, 9. (5) Of Eevealed Truth as 
 containing depths which are with difficulty expressed in language, Eph. vi. 
 19; so that, after all, much remains mysterious, i Cor. ii. 7. (6) Of some 
 profound doctrines in particular, which stretch away into the region of the 
 Incomprehensible, such as the Incarnation, i Tim. iii. 9 ; the change which 
 will pass instantaneously upon the bodies of the living at our Lord's Second 
 Coming, i Cor. xv. 51 ; the mystical union between Christ and His Church, 
 as signified by marriage, Eph. v. 32. (7) Of the deposit of Doctrine and 
 Sacraments committed to the stewardship of the clergy, i Cor. iv. i. For 
 instances of the application of the word to the Sacraments, particularly to 
 the Eucharist, by the Fathers of the Church, see Suicer, Thes. s. v. Com- 
 pare the Language of our Communion Service : " Consider the dignity of 
 that Holy Mystery" — " He hath instituted and ordained Holy Mysteries" 
 — " Thou dost vouchsafe to feed us who have duly received these Holy 
 Mysteries with the spiritual food of the Most Precious Body and Blood of 
 Thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ." It is observable that in each of these 
 thi'ce passages the compilers of our Liturgy are using their own language, 
 unless (which is very doubtful) in the last passage cited, they are borrowing 
 from an Eastern source ; certainly they are not translating from the Sarum 
 Missal in any one of the three. 
 
 N 
 
lyS The Conflict of Faith [Serm, 
 
 know other truths indirectly, just as -we know that the sun. 
 is shining, from observing the rayof sunlight which streams 
 in at the window of the room in which we are sitting. 
 Now a mystery is a truth of the latter kind. It is appre- 
 hended as true, it is not comprehended. It does not lie ou 
 the surface of things. It cannot be seen in itself. It can 
 only be known from the evidence or sjTnptoms of its 
 presence. Yet the evidence, whatever it be, proves to us 
 that the truth is there ; and the truth is not the less a 
 truth because it is itself shrouded from our dii-ect gaze. 
 
 Thus St, Paul speaks of the mystery of the Incarnation, 
 and of the mystery of the calling of the Gentiles, when 
 alluding to the fact that these divine purposes were hidden 
 for ages in the mind of God, and at length revealed. And 
 he describes marriage as a great mystery, meaning that 
 it embodies a secret correspondence to the union between 
 our Lord and His Church, which is not immediately sug- 
 gested by the ordinance itself. And the clergy are "stew- 
 ards of the mysteries of God," that is to say, specially of 
 the Sacraments, each of which is ^' an outward and visible 
 sign of an inward and spiritual grace;" although the 
 presence of the inward grace is inferred, not necessarily 
 from experience, but always from our Saviour's promise. 
 In short the Christian religion surrounds us with 
 mysteries, that is to say, with truths, the real presence 
 of which is obvious to us, but the internal nature and 
 complete range of which we cannot comprehend. 
 
 But it is at least equally clear that the wonderful world 
 in which we men pass this stage of our existence, whether 
 the higher world of faith be open to our gaze or not, is 
 a very temple of many and august mysteries ^. You will 
 
 ^ Cf. Bp. Butler, Analogy, p. 191 : "Little, surely, need be said to prove 
 that this [the Christian] system, or scheme of things, is but imperfectly 
 comprehended by us. The Scripture expressly asserts it to be so. And 
 indeed one cannot read a passage relating to this^rea^ mystery of godliness, 
 
yil] with tcndue Exaltation of Intellect. 179 
 
 walk, perhaps, to-morrow afternoon into the country; 
 and here or there the swelhng buds, or the first fresh 
 green of the opening leaf, will remind you that already 
 Spring is about to re-enact before your eyes the beautiful 
 spectacle of her yearly triumph. Every where around 
 you are evidences of the existence and movement of a 
 mysterious power which you can neither see, nor touch, 
 nor define, nor measure, nor understand. This power 
 lives speechless, noiseless, unseen, yet energetic, in every 
 bough above your head, in every blade of grass beneath 
 your feet. It bursts forth from the grain into the shoot, 
 from the branch into the bud ; it bursts into leaf, and 
 flower, and fruit. It creates bark, and fibre; it creates 
 height, and bulk ; it yields grace of form and lustre of 
 colour. It is incessant in its labour ; it is prodigal of its 
 beauty ; it is uniformly generous and bountiful in its gifts 
 to man. Yet, in itself, what is it ? You give it a name ; 
 you call it vegetation. And perhaps you are a botanist ; 
 you trace out and you register the variety of its effects, 
 and the signs of its movement. But after all you have 
 only labelled it. Although it is so common, it is not in 
 reality familiar to you. Although you have watched it 
 unthinkingly from your childhood upwards, and perhaps 
 see in it nothing remarkable now, you may well pause in 
 wonder and awe before it, for of a truth it is a mystery. 
 What is it in itself,— this power which is so certainly 
 around you, yet which so perfectly escapes you when you 
 attempt to detect or to detain it in your grasp ? What is 
 it, this pervading force, this life-principle, this incompre- 
 hensible yet most certainly present fact, but an assertion 
 
 but what immediiitcly runs up into something which shows us our ignorance 
 in it; as every thing in nature shows us our ignorance in tlie constitution 
 of nature. And whoever will seriously consider that part of the Christian 
 scheme which is revealed in Scripture, will find so much more unrevcaled as 
 will convince him that, to all the purposes of judging and objecting, we 
 Ivuow as little of it as of the constitution of nature." 
 
i8o The Conflict of Faith [Seem. 
 
 of the principle of inystcry which robes the soil of God's 
 earth with life and beauty^ that every where it may cheer 
 the faith and rebuke the pride of man ? Yes, when next 
 you behold the green field or the green tree, be sure that 
 you are in the presence of a very sacrament of nature ; 
 your eye rests upon the outward and visible sign of an 
 inward and wholly invisible force '. 
 
 Or look at those other forces Avith which you seem to 
 be so much at home, and which you term attraction and 
 gra^ntation ™. What do you really know about them ? 
 
 ' In hi.s clmptcr on ' Christianity a scheme imperfectly comprehended ' 
 (Anal. ii. 4), Butler cites "the change of seasons, the ripening of the fruits 
 of the earth, the very history of a flower " as analogies in nature to " the 
 long series of intricate means" whereby God was pleased to work out the 
 recovery and salvation of the world. " It is certain there is somewhat in 
 this matter quite beyond our comprehension ; but the mystery is as great in 
 nature as in Christianity, p. 196. It is not more astonishing that the world 
 was not redeemed by a flash of Divine Light than that a plant does not 
 grow up in a second. We know as little really about one as the other. 
 
 TO Cf. Bp. Berkeley's Minute Philosopher, cd. 1732, vol. ii. Dialogue 7, 
 pp. 145-8. " Eupli. Let us examine what idea we can frame of force 
 abstracted from bodj', motion, and outward sensible eS'ects. For myself, 
 I do not find that I have or can have any such idea. Ale. Surely every one 
 knows what is meant by force. JLuph. And yet I question whether every 
 one can form a distinct idea of force. Let me intreat you, Alciphron, be not 
 amused by terms, lay aside the word force, and exclude every other thing 
 from your thoughts, and then see what precise idea you have of force. 
 Ale. Force is that in bodies which produceth motion and other sensible 
 (.'fleets. Euph. It is, then, something distinct from those eflects. Ale. It 
 is. Eupli. Be pleased now to exclude tlie consideration of its subject and 
 eflects, and contemplate force in itself in its own precise idea. Ale. I pro- 
 fess I find it no such easy matter. Euph. Take your own advice, and shut 
 your eyes to assist your meditation. Upon this Alciphron having closed his 
 eyes, and mused a few minutes, declared he could make nothing of it. And 
 that, replied Euphanor, which it seems neither you nor I can frame an idea 
 of, by your own remark of men's minds and faculties being made much 
 alike, we may sujipose others have no more an idea of than we. Ale. We 
 may. Euph. But, notwithstanding all this, it is certain there arc many 
 sjK'culatiims, reasonings, and disputes, refined snbtilties and nice distinctions 
 about this same force. And to explain its nature, and distinguish the several 
 notions or kinds of it, the tcriw'i r/rav ill/, reae/ion, tv's iiiei'licP, r/.y insita, vis 
 
VII] with undtie Exaltation of Intellect. 
 
 i«i 
 
 You name tliem : perhaps you can repeat a matliematical 
 expression wliicli measures tlieir action. But after all 
 you have only named and described an effect ; you have 
 not accounted for, you have not penetrated into, you have 
 not unveiled its cause. Why, I ask, in the nature of 
 things, should such laws reign around us ? They do reign, 
 •but why? what is the power which determines gravi- 
 tation ? where does it reside ? how is it to be seized, 
 apprehended, touched, examined ? There it is : but there, 
 inaccessible to your keenest study, it remains veiled and 
 buried. You would gladly capture and subdue and 
 understand it ; but, as it is, you are forced to confess 
 the presence of something which you cannot even ap- 
 proach. 
 
 And you yom'selves, — fearfully and wonderfully made 
 as you are, — what are you but living embodiments, alike 
 in your lower and your higher natures, and in the law of 
 their vmion, of this all-pervading principle of mystery ? 
 The life -power w^hich feels and moves in your bodies 
 successfully eludes the knife of the anatomist, as he lays 
 bare each nerve and each muscle that contributes to the 
 perfection of feeling and movement. Yet how much 
 more utterly mysterious is your human nature when you 
 
 impressa, vis niortua, vis viva, impetus, momentum, soUcitatio, conatus,^\\i\. 
 divers others suclilike expressions liave been used by learned men ; and no 
 small controversies have arisen about the notions or definitions of these 
 terms. It has puzzled men to know whether force is spiritual or corporeal, 
 whether it remains after action, how it is transferred from one body to 
 another. Strange paradoxes have been framed about its nature, properties, 
 and proportions : for instance, that contrary forces may at once subsist in 
 the same quiescent body : that the force of percussion in a small particle is 
 infinite : for which and other curiosities of the same sort, you may consult 
 Jiorellus de vi percussionis, the Lezioni Academiche of ToriceUi, the Exer- 
 citaiioiis of Ifennanus, and other writers. . . . Upon the whole, therefore, 
 may we not pronounce, that excluding body, time, space, motion, and all its 
 sensible measures and effects, we shall find it as difficult to form an idea of 
 force as of grace ? Ale. I do not know what to think of it." 
 
1 82 The Conflict of Faith [Seem. 
 
 examine its liiglicr aspects ; "wlien you analyze miiul, and 
 personality, and that marvellous mystery of lang'uage, 
 wherein thought takes nothing less than a physical 
 form, and passes by means of a sensible vehicle from 
 one immaterial spirit to another ! Truly if it were possible 
 to linger here, it would be hard to terminate the catalogue 
 of mysteries ; so extraordinary, so familiar, so near to us 
 always and every where, yet always and every whei-e so 
 above our comprehension. But I forbear. 
 
 My brethren, you will pardon me if I say that to object 
 to mystery as a feature of a Di\dne Revelation is at least 
 irrational. Surely, as we mount in the scale of being, 
 we must expect an increase both in the number and 
 magnitude of these hidden truths. And, when we reach 
 His throne Who is the Summit and Source of all ; we 
 can hardly suppose, that, because He has deigned to lay 
 bare to us some of the secrets of His Nature and some 
 of the laws of His action upon our life, this His revelation 
 will differ from the natural world which reflects Him, 
 in that it -will altogether discard the presence of myster}'. 
 Yet when it is no longer a secret objection against the 
 doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity, or of the Incarnation, 
 or of original sin, or of the Satisfaction which Jesus 
 offered on the Cross, or of the efiicacy of the Sacra- 
 ments, that these doctrines in various ways embody, as 
 they do, the principle of mystery ; the soul has in very 
 deed succeeded in casting down an ' imagination,^ an 
 entrenched fortress with formidable powers of resistance, 
 which too often " exalts itself against the knowledge of 
 God ;" and it is, so far, in a fair way to " bring its " whole 
 " thought into the obedience of Christ.'" 
 
 (7.) But there is a third line of resistance upon which 
 the wayward reason of man falls back in its opposition to 
 revealed truth. It grants that a revelation has been given. 
 It allows that portions at least of the revealed truth are 
 
VII] zuith tmdice Exaltation of Intellect. 183 
 
 mysteries; that they are in themselves mysteries, although 
 their existence is revealed. ' But at least/ it exclaims, 
 ' revelation shall not be dogmatic. If she is still to meet 
 with public acceptance, Christianity must abandon the 
 pretension to offer a fixed, sharply-defined body of truth 
 to the acceptance or rejection of the soul of man.' Let 
 the religion of Jesus only come to the men of our time 
 as a finished poem ; and they will read, they will learn, 
 they will love it. They will not inquire too accurately 
 whether it be literally true. Nor will it put such force 
 upon their thought and will as to make any violent or 
 serious change in the natural current of their life. They 
 will indeed be much as they would have been without it. 
 And yet, it will exercise a kindly, gentle sway over thought 
 and society. It will breathe upon human character a soft, 
 yet elevating influence. And if it exacts little intellectual 
 homage, and exerts no tangible moral force, it will at 
 least have the merit of provoking no keen resistance. 
 Such, we are told, must be the religion of our day. In- 
 tellect has condemned the principle of religious dogma ; 
 and religion is accordingly bidden to accommodate herself 
 to the changed circumstances and imperious necessities of 
 the time. 
 
 On close inspection it will probably be found that the 
 dislike of clear doctrinal statements is only a disguised 
 form of opposition to the truth which those statements 
 embody. If, for instance, a man believes in the existence 
 of one Supreme Being, he has no objection to saying ex- 
 plicitly that there is One God. It does not occm* to him, 
 that in making that statement he is guilty of an intel- 
 lectual narrowness, or of a want of perfect good taste. Nor, 
 supposing him to be a serious theist, does he hold it neces- 
 sary presently to balance the profession of belief in Grodby 
 some other statement which shall reduce his assertion to 
 the level of an uncertainty. Yet to say that there is One 
 
184 The Conflict of Faith [Seem. 
 
 God is to make an essentially dogmatic statement. Every 
 man who makes tliat statement intelligently, knows that 
 it has a tremendous bearing on the belief of millions, alas ! 
 of the human race at this very moment. Yet the man 
 makes the statement for the simple reason that he has no 
 doubt of the truth which it embodies. If, then, he pre- 
 sently hesitates to say that Jesus Christ is truly God as 
 well as truly Man, or that the Death of Jesus on the cross 
 was a Propitiatory Offering for human sin ; this, we must 
 suppose, is because he does not believe the truths which 
 are thus stated in human language. If he urges that a 
 dogmatic statement is more or less unsatisfactory in that, 
 owing to the imperfection of human speech, it leaves un- 
 answered, or rather it suggests, many concomitant ques- 
 tions ; it may be rejoined that this is no less true when 
 you assert the Unity of God, than when you assert the 
 Godhead or the satisfaction of Jesus Christ. If he dis- 
 likes dogma because, forsooth, dogma is the " stagnation,^' 
 or the " imprisonment," or the " paralysis " of thought ; 
 the substance of his objection may be unnoticed for the 
 moment, while we observe that it applies to his statement 
 that there is One God, just as much as to any other pro- 
 position in the Nicene or Athanasian Creeds. "When he 
 confesses that there is One God, lie voluntarily renounces 
 the right and the wish to entertain the idea of two gods 
 or of many gods. And when we Christians profess our 
 belief in the Atoning A'irtue of our Saviour's Death, or in 
 the mighty regenerating jiower of His baptism, Ave re- 
 nounce with all our hearts the desire to suppose that the 
 Death of Jesus was a mere martjrrdom, or that baptism is 
 a graceful, but, speaking spiritually, a useless piece of 
 ceremonial. In either case, faith tiiids in the dogmatic 
 statement its support. In either case, unbelief can see in 
 the statement which it disbelieves nothing but a fetter or 
 a prison wall. Faith discerns in dogma the regulation of 
 
yil] zvith undue Exaltation of Intellect. 185 
 
 its tlioiightj not its stoppage, not its imprisonment, not its 
 petrification ; just as the mathematician finds in the axioms 
 which are the base of his science, the fixed principles 
 which guide his onwardprogress,not the tyrannical obstacle 
 which enthralls and checks him. And unbelief decries 
 dogma, not because dogma is really an impediment to 
 faith, but because it is faith\s true and trusty friend. The 
 real crime of dogma is, that it treats as settled and certain 
 that which unbelief would fain regard as doubtful or false. 
 If you believe a thing to be true, you have no objection to 
 saying so. And when Christianity is warned not to be 
 dogmatic, it is irresistibly implied, that however beautiful 
 she may be, she must not assume her creed to be abso- 
 lutely true. 
 
 Here is the third "high thing which exalts itself 
 against the knowledge of God" in this our day and 
 country, namely, the dislike of fixed doctrinal state- 
 m.ents. No one will deny that false dogmas have been, 
 and are being proposed to the faith of this or that 
 body of Christians. All will admit that even true 
 dogmas may be upheld by incompetent authority. But 
 these are questions of detail ; and the point before us is a 
 broad question of principle. If with the Apostle wo 
 believe in the everlasting Gospel, we rejoice with him to 
 proclaim its truth. Nay more, when he exclaims, 
 *^ Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other 
 Gospel unto you than that which we have preached 
 unto you, let him be accursed"/^ we answer tenderly, 
 seriously, firmly, "Amen.''' 
 
 You are repelled, it would seem, by this last, this 
 crowning exigency of Divine truth. Yet your prejudice 
 against dogma is the last stronghold of the enemy ; it is a 
 position from which he must be dislodged at any cost, or 
 all previous victories may soon be forfeited. Surely it is 
 
 n Gal. i. 8. 
 
1 86 The Conflict of Faith [Serm. 
 
 of little avail to graut that a Revelation lias been given, 
 and even that this heavenly gift is replete with mystery, 
 if no one revealed truth may be stated in terms as abso- 
 lutely certain ; if the range, the powers, the effects of no 
 one mystery may be presented to the vision of the believ- 
 ing soul. If religion is to be a practical thing, it must 
 depend, not upon beautiful thoughts, but upon clearly-de- 
 fined certainties. Its truths must come to us in a form 
 which enables us to carry them -uath us, and to bring them 
 to bear upon our motives in the hour of temptation, ^^^len 
 tempted we need something solid to fall back upon ; not a 
 picture, not a mist, not a view, not an hypothesis, but a 
 fact. For eighteen centuries, Christianity has responded 
 in various ways to this supreme necessity of the soul of 
 man. And we may be sure that if she had done other- 
 wise, she would long ago have ceased to command interest 
 at the hands of those who seek in religion, not an amuse- 
 ment for the passing hour, but a kind friend, with a firm 
 hand, who will guide them through the changes and 
 chances of this mortal life to the gate of that other world 
 which we must all, in whatever guise, reach at last. 
 
 You may naturally ask, my brethren, what place in a 
 Lenten course of sermons there can reasonably be found 
 for considerations so abstract, so apparently removed 
 from the immediate and pressing wants of the penitent 
 and struggling soul, as have been some of the foregoing. 
 
 It is enough to reply by pointing to the actual circum- 
 stances of our o^^ai day, and especially in this place. 
 Penitence presupposes at least a certain measure of faith. 
 And faith is proscribed by that undue exaltation of intel- 
 lect which leaves no room for it, and which denounces the 
 principles of mystery and dogma. Before a man can 
 kneel with a broken and contrite heart Ijencath the Cross 
 of the Redeemer of the world, these high tilings which 
 exalt themselves against the knowledge of God must be 
 
yil] with midiLc Exaltation of Intellect. 187 
 
 levelled^ and liis tlionglit must be brought into tlie 
 obedience of Cbrist. The great conflict wMcli rages 
 between tlie pride of natural intellect and the claims of 
 faith, is fought out on no remote or imaginary battle- 
 field. Every thoughtful mind, in this our distracted and 
 anxious day, is the scene upon which these hostile princi- 
 ples engage in fierce and deadly combat. And upon the 
 issue of that combat to many a man who hears me, may 
 depend nothing less momentous than the salvation of his 
 soul, and his place in eternity. There are men who are 
 shielded from coarse forms of outward temptation, and 
 whose passions have never risen up with impetuous fierce- 
 ness to break the resolution or to mar the purity of their 
 spiritual life. Happy, indeed, are such privileged souls. 
 Yet it may be that their probation still turns upon the 
 question, whether or no they will make a sincere act of 
 intellectual submission to the Eeason, the Love of their 
 God. Assuredly the loftiest created intellect may submit 
 to that Reason "wnthout degradation; assuredly the most 
 blameless soul will need in its day of trial, at the bar of 
 Infinite Purity, the tenderness of that pardoning Love. 
 A time must quickly come when the struggle which yet 
 waxes fierce will have ceased for ever; when the hopes, 
 and watchwords, and theories, and enterprises which 
 dazzle the eye, as it gazes on the busy tangled scene, 
 will have passed with the generation which has projected 
 them into the silence of eternity. " And the loftiness of 
 man shall be bowed down : and the haughtiness of men 
 shall be made low : and the Lord alone shall be exalted in 
 that day °." Beyond the weakness and agony of the last 
 sickness, beyond the darkness and corruption of the 
 grave, there rises the vision of a Throne of Judgment and 
 of an everlasting world. Tliink of it well, brethren, and 
 take your parts. Believe it, there is a submission of 
 o Isa. ii. I ;. 
 
The Conflict of Faith, etc. 
 
 tliouf^lit Avhich is not slavery; and tliere is a haughty 
 meutal iudopendence which, alas ! knows itself to be any 
 thing but true freedom. They do not really suffer defeat 
 who make their submission to God : they who, while 
 opposing Him, seem to conquer, can win but a perilous 
 and shortlived victory. On this side is Paul, first a perse- 
 cutor, then an Apostle; and Justin, once a philosopher, 
 then an Apologist and Martyr; and Augustine, who out 
 of a sensualized heretic and free-thinker, is raised by 
 Divine grace to be a Saint and Doctor of the universal 
 Church. On that side is Julian, Emperor and Apostate, 
 with endowments of character and gifts of intellect so 
 calculated to win our highest interest and admiration; 
 yet ending a reign in which rare accomplishments, and 
 consummate address, and vast political power had been 
 vainly employed against the Gospel, with the despairing 
 confession, " Thou hast conquered, Gahlasan p." 
 
 In this short life we see only a small portion of the full 
 results of thought and action. But another w^orld already 
 casts its shadow across our path; and we often anticipate 
 the endless future with a keen presentiment which is not 
 less than tragical. Assuredly intellect has its rights, its 
 privileges, its duties, its triumphs. But faith has likewise 
 her own province and her unshared capacities ; and while 
 all around her is change and uncertainty, she gazes un- 
 falteringly upon the Unseen and the Eternal. She knows 
 that for the Object on which her eye is fixed, all e]si>, if 
 need be, may well be sacrificed, since all else will one day 
 joass away. She knows that " God hath so loved the 
 world that He gave His Only-begotten Son, that whoso- 
 ever believeth on Hina should not perish, but have 
 everlasting life ''." 
 
 P Theod. iii. 2;. 1 St. John iii. 16. 
 
SERMON YIII. 
 
 LESSOXS OF THE HOLY MANGER. 
 
 St. Luke ii. 12. 
 
 And this shall he a sign tinto you; Te shall find the Bale 'ir7'a2}j>ed in 
 sivaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. 
 
 THUS does tlie Angel end liis message^ wlien an- 
 nouncing our Saviour's Birtli to tlie slieplierds of 
 BetMeliem. Here and to-day it miglit be deemed un- 
 necessary to observe that tlie apparition and language of 
 tbe Angelj as well as the persons and conduct of tlie 
 slieplierds^ are matters of historical and literal fact. 
 Stilly it is not uninstructive to observe liow earnestly the 
 unbelief of men lias striven to escape from this con- 
 clusion. The earlier Eationalists maintained that the 
 Evangelist was describing only an ordinary occurrence, 
 which had been invested with supernatural interest and 
 meaning by the ignorance and the superstition of a devout 
 peasantry. According to one wi-iter of the Naturalistic 
 school, the Angel was a messenger from Bethlehem, who 
 carried a light which caught the eye of the shepherds ; 
 and the chanting of the heavenly host was only the 
 merry song of a party of friends who accompanied the 
 messenger^. According to Paulus, the Blessed Virgin 
 
 a Eck. Versuch iiber die "Wundergef5clncliten des X.T., quoted by Strauss, 
 Leb. Jcsu, Erst. Th. c. 4. § t,^. 
 
1 90 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Sekm. 
 
 had. been staying witli a herdsman, and had conminni- 
 cated to the members of his family her expectations of 
 giving birth to the Messiah, For persons Hving in or 
 near the city of David this communication would have 
 possessed very deep interest. It happened that one 
 night, whilst engaged in watching their flocks, they 
 observed a luminous appearance in the atmosphere. 
 They natui'ally interpreted this phenomenon to mean 
 that the stranger who was lodged in their foddering- 
 stall was delivered of the Messiah; and to their over- 
 excited minds the movement of the meteoric light 
 appeared to represent a choir of angels singing hymns 
 of praise. On returning home they found their anticipa- 
 tions confirmed by the event; and what had been in 
 reality a conjectural explanation of the natural object 
 which had met their eye, was now believed to have 
 been a heavenly message which had been actually 
 delivered to them by heavenly messengers ''. 
 
 Strauss himself exposes the weak points of this last 
 representation with characteristic acuteness. It rests, 
 he observes, on an assumption which contradicts the 
 express statement of St. Luke. It assumes that the 
 shepherds were previously acquainted with Mary's ex- 
 pectation of giving birth to a Messiah. But St. Luke 
 does not any where describe the manger as belonging to 
 the shepherds. He does not imply any the slightest 
 communication between the shepherds and the Holy 
 Family, previous to our Sa\aour's Birth. After giving 
 the narrative of the Nativity, he goes on to speak of the 
 shepherds, as of a new and distinct subject, wholly discon- 
 nected with the manger. "There were in the same country 
 shepherds'^." The holy reserve of the Blessed Virgin, 
 whicli 1(h1 her to conceal her expectations even from her be- 
 
 '• Piiulus, Ex. Handb. § 180, quoted by Strauss, ubi supra. 
 '^ St. Luke ii. 8 : Troi/ueVes, uot 01 iroiuiffs. 
 
VIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 191 
 
 trotlied husband, would surely have led her to be equally- 
 silent on the subject when in the presence of these 
 peasants, even if she really had conversed with them 
 at all, in the way presumed by the imagination of Paulus. 
 But, moreover, St. Luke states that the shepherds first 
 learnt the birth of a Saviour from the Angel who 
 appeared to them. They might test the truth of the 
 Angel's message by visiting Bethlehem, where he had 
 told them that they would find the Babe lying in the 
 manger. K the shepherds had previously heard from 
 St. Mary that she was to be the Mother of the Messiah, 
 they would have seen a confirmation of her statement 
 in the (so termed) meteoric appearance : whereas, on the 
 contrary, according to St. Luke, they were to find in the 
 Holy Babe a proof of the truth that the apparition 
 itself and the accompanying message had not been an 
 illusion. 
 
 In this way the naturalistic attempt to ex|3lain the 
 Gospel account of the appearance to the shepherds at 
 Bethlehem has failed. Such attempts must invariably 
 lead to the discredit of the narrative which they are put 
 forward to justify. That narrative teems with miracle, 
 and to deny the miraculous facts which it records is 
 eff'ectually to discredit it. Moreover, as Strauss else- 
 where observes of the naturalistic method of Paulus, it is 
 driven to substitute miraculous coincidences for Divine 
 miracles'^. Strauss indeed himself sees in this evangelical 
 history not a narrative of what actually took place, but a 
 mythus which represents the after-thought of Christen- 
 dom. To construe the history literally would, according 
 
 ^ L. J. vol. i. p. 142. "So liat Paulus liier nur ein gottliches Wunder in 
 ein Wunder des Zufalls umgewandelt. Ob aber gesagt wird ; bei Gott isfc 
 kein Diug unmoglicli; oder: dcm Zufall ist keiii Diug umnoglich, ist beides 
 gleich preciir uud unwisseuscliaftlich." Quoted by Mill, Chr. Advoc. 1841, 
 p. 5 (Myth. Int. ed.^Webb, p. 93). 
 
192 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Serm. 
 
 to Strauss, be impossible; since sucb construction in- 
 volves a necessary admission of the real existence and 
 ministry of the holy angels. When, however, it is 
 asserted that angels are not mentioned in any Jewish 
 writings before the Maccabean period, and that the names 
 and order of the heavenly hierarchy were imported into 
 Jewish thought from Babylon; it may suffice to reply 
 that in no other assertions has the advanced Rationalism 
 shown itself more recklessly insensible to facts than in 
 this ^. The real objection lies not merely against angels, 
 but against the whole principle of the supernatural. No 
 evidence of particular facts can make head against the 
 force of an invincible prejudice which has already con- 
 demned them. But while Strauss's real objection is thus 
 fundamental and antecedent to all considerations of detail, 
 he argues against this particular angelic apparition on the 
 ground of its uselessness. Was it designed to inform the 
 nation at large of the birth of a Messiah ? But it was 
 still unheard of in Jerusalem, when Jerusalem was visited 
 by the Wise Men. Was its aim limited to an immediate 
 effect upon the minds of the shepherds ? But of that 
 effect no traces are preserved in the evangelical narrative. 
 Was it intended simply to set forth the glory of Messias ? 
 But Strauss presumes to think that such an object would 
 be unworthy of Almighty God. These arguments may 
 safely be left to themselves. But the question may be 
 asked seriously why such an ap]-)arition, if it took place at 
 all, was never subsequently appealed to by our Lord in 
 proof of His Messiahship ? Why did He not refer to a 
 testimony in His favour so entirely above suspicion, so 
 independent, as it might have seemed, of Himself and of 
 His Family, so likely to have become a public and popular 
 tradition respecting Him ? 
 
 Now it is admitted that the Greek of St. Luke proves 
 c Cf. Dr. Puscy's Dauiol the I'l-oiiliut, y\u 513 sqq., especially pp. 540-546. 
 
YIII] Lessons of tJie Holy Manger. 1 93 
 
 that he believed himself to be writing history, and it is 
 strange that this '^'^ highly educated'^ Evangelist should 
 have failed to perceive the asserted inconsistency be- 
 tween his earlier and his later narrative, if any such in- 
 consistency existed. But, in truth, while his critics spin 
 their fine-drawn theories, St. Luke writes with (and he 
 assumes his readers to possess) a knowledge of human 
 nature. The Evangelist had lived among men who had 
 witnessed greater wonders than the vision of Bethlehem. 
 Those wonders, although wrought before their eyes, had 
 had no sort of effect in forcing them to believe in the 
 mission of the Worker. Was it likely that the pre- 
 judice which could ignore or discredit a present miracle, 
 would believe, upon the testimony of a company of 
 shepherds, a past supernatural occurrence pointing to the 
 same unwelcome conclusions ? Was it to be expected 
 that our Lord, Whose appeal to prophecy in support of 
 His claims was rejected ^ath contempt, would appeal 
 to the witness of these simple peasants, when their story, 
 like the evidence of the man born blind *', would only and 
 certainly be accepted as an illustration of their own 
 religious ignorance ? There were very sufiicient rea- 
 sons, we know, for treasuring such a narrative in the 
 Holy Family. She who kept all the sayings which had 
 reference to her Divine Son, and pondered them in her 
 hearts, would assuredly have so treasured it. But it is 
 abundantly clear why no such history would have been 
 appealed to by our Lord in the course of His public mi- 
 nistry. The accounts we possess of the prevaiHng temper 
 of the Jewish mind during that period show how little 
 such an appeal would have answered its pm-pose. 
 
 In itself the mythical theory of Strauss presents 
 greater difiiculties than the naturahsm of Paulus. It 
 
 f St. John ix. 34. g St. Luke ii. 19. 
 
 O 
 
1 94 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Seem. 
 
 is indeed sufficiently difficult to suppose tliat St. Luke 
 is merely describing a beautiful impression, which, by 
 a singular although, as Ave are told, natural coincidence, 
 was present at one moment to the minds of a whole 
 company of shepherds, without being occasioned by any 
 corresponding sight that met their eyes, or by any 
 sound that fell upon their ears. But it is still more 
 difficult to account for the insertion, by a serious writer, 
 of a large block of purely legendary matter in a most 
 precious record, the general character of which is 
 admitted to be historical. And this difficulty is further 
 increased when it is remembered that the presumed 
 insertion must have taken place, if at all, in an age 
 far removed from those primitive times when the ima- 
 gination of a heathen people might be expected spon- 
 taneously to produce mythical narratives, and moreover, 
 beneath the eyes of critics, generally keen, always 
 hostile, but at the time of this insertion, as it would 
 appear, unaccountably supine and uninterested. 
 
 (a.) By simple attention to the terms of the Scripture 
 narrative, we may understand the true purpose of the 
 appearance to the shepherds at Bethlehem. It was 
 indeed designed to announce the Birth of the expected 
 Christ. But it was also intended to moderate, or rather 
 to correct, those false expectations concerning Him which 
 were rife in the Jewish opinion of the time. That 
 opinion would have been shared in their measure by 
 the shepherds not less than by other classes of the peo- 
 ple. In an Asiatic society a shepherd would have 
 occupied a different position from any which European 
 standards would suggest; and in the Jewish theocracy 
 this mode of life had been in more than one instance 
 signally honoured. It was when " Moses kept the flock 
 of Jethro his father-in-law," that the angel of the Lord 
 appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst 
 
VIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 195 
 
 of a biisli^. And in an after age the Lord "chose David 
 His servant; and took him away from the sheepfolds. 
 As ho was following* the ewes great with young ones He 
 took him, that he might feed Jacob His people and 
 Israel His inheritance'." Amos of Tekoah was un- 
 trained in any of the prophetical schools; he was a 
 shepherd and a dresser of sycamore trees when he was 
 called by God's Holy Spirit to prophecy ''. To a religious 
 Israelite, then, it would have seemed that the shepherds 
 were the natural recipients of an explanatory vision. 
 And like the disciples of a later day, the shepherds 
 would have looked for a powerful and conquering Prince. 
 They expected a national deliverer ; they looked for the 
 inmate of a palace, for the heir of a throne. The first 
 words of the Angel, so markedly alluding to the well- 
 known prophecy of Micah ', might have encouraged such 
 an expectation : " Behold, I bring you tidings of great 
 joy, which shall be to all the people; for unto you is 
 born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, the Lord's 
 Christ"^." But there was another side of the pro- 
 phecies concerning Messiah, which had been generally 
 forgotten amid the political wrongs and popular im- 
 pulses of a conquered race. It was easy to dwell on the 
 picture presented by the second or the seventy-second 
 Psalm; it was not easy to understand the meaning of 
 the twenty-second. Yet it was undeniable that the 
 picture of a Sufferer in the one Psalm was as truly a part 
 of the Messianic predictions as the pictures of a Prince 
 conquering His foes and administering a world-wide 
 empire in the others. Daniel's description of the Son 
 of Man, brought in glory to the Ancient of Days ", would 
 have been to the people at large more welcome than 
 
 h Exodus ill. I, 2. i Ps. Ixxviii. 71, 72. 
 
 k Amos i. I ; vii. 14, 15. ^ Micah v. 2. 
 
 m St. Luke ii. 10, 11. '^ Dau. vii. 13. 
 
 2 
 
1 96 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Serm. 
 
 Isaiah's language about One Who "had a AHsage more 
 marred than any man, and a Form more than the sons 
 of men "." And therefore the first announcement of the 
 Angel was followed by words which, if they did not 
 convey a passing shade of disappointment, at least must 
 have been words for which those Avho heard them can 
 hardly have been prepared. " This shall bo a sign unto 
 you; Ye shall find a Babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes 
 and lying in a manger." There is no trace of any shock 
 to the faith of the shepherds ; although the lowly manger 
 where the cattle were fed would not have been the ideal 
 throne on which the imagination of these countrymen 
 would have expected to find the Prince of Israel. It 
 is possible that in that humbled Eoyalty they may have 
 seen into the deeper sense of prophecy. Already they 
 may have discerned a presentiment of the coming Suffer- 
 ing, Humiliation, Sacrifice. The " sign" was at any rate 
 a practical direction, which admitted of being verified. 
 The heavenly choir, after singing a hymn of triumph 
 around that favoured seraph who. was privileged to 
 announce his Master's Birth as Man to the men of 
 Fiethlehem, melted from their gaze, while vanishing, as 
 it seemed, into the remote heights of heaven. And 
 forthwith '^ the shepherds said one to another, Let us 
 now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing that is 
 come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. 
 And they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, 
 and the Babe lying in the manger •'." 
 
 (/S.) In sharp contrast with the penury and lowliness of 
 the scene which met the eyes of the shepherds, in what 
 Justin Martyr, writing about the middle of the second 
 century, calls "a certain cave very close to the village 1'* 
 
 Isa. li!. 14. p St. Luke ii. 15, 16. 
 
 1 St. Justin. ;\Iart., Dial, cum Tiypli. c. 78. Wlica our Lord was l,oru 
 
YIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 1 97 
 
 of BetHehem^ was tlie liv'ing faith of the people touching 
 the Person and dignity of the coming Messiah. For us 
 Christians_, the whole of the Old Testament is, in different 
 degrees and senses, Christian ground. We see Christ 
 every where in Scripture, as we see God every where in 
 Nature. We therefore experience a certain difficulty in 
 seizing with perfect accuracy that line of demarcation 
 between Messianic and non-Messianic predictions which 
 was recognized by the Jewish interpreters. There is no 
 necessity for dwelling here on the promised seed of the 
 Woman, on the promises of the patriarchal period, or on 
 those great classical places in the prophets which Jews 
 and Christians alike refer to the King Messiah. But we 
 observe in the pages of such a wi'iter as Schottgen, that 
 the doctrine of a coming Messiah was in itself among the 
 Jews a very highly elaborated doctrine. Prominent 
 among the various beliefs that were combined in it was 
 the belief that He would be superhuman. When, indeed. 
 He is called the King, Shiloh, the Shepherd, the Light, 
 the Redeemer, the Angel of the Covenant, the Angel of 
 the Face of God, the Angel of God, Michael, the Servant, 
 we detect varying anticipations of His ministerial or 
 redemptive work. Again, names such as David, the Son 
 of David, the Son of Man, the Shoot, the Man of little 
 countenance or stature, point clearly to His real 
 Humanity. But such titles as the First One, the Son of 
 God, the Schekinah, Jehovah, the Holy and Blessed God, 
 the Word of Jehovah, must be explained by reference to 
 His Divinity "■. The Messianic doctrine, in its popular, as 
 distinct fi'om its Scriptural form, had taken full shape 
 before the Christian era. It had undergone modifications, 
 suggested by the disasters of the Jewish people; but its 
 
 (Justin says), St. Joseph, unable to find a lodging in Bethlehem, eV (TTirjAaia) 
 Tivl ffvueyyvs ttjs K(ifxr]s KareXvcTf. See Ellicott, Hist. Lect. p. 62. 
 1" Schuttgeu, Hor. Heb. vol. ii. de Messia, lib. i. c. i. pp. 4-17. 
 
198 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Serm. 
 
 main features were intact. It was not confined to the 
 llabbinical scliools ; it roused and was moulded by 
 popular enthusiasm; tlie people, even more than their 
 teachers, had debased it in the later age of their annals 
 by a political and earthly colouring. The Gospel history 
 alone shows that, at the period of the Incarnation, this 
 doctrine was a matter of general interest and discussion. 
 The shepherds would doubtless have expressed their 
 belief in it less accurately than the doctors of the law. 
 But deep in the heart of the people, and strong enough 
 to maintain itself against adverse appearances, was this 
 expectation of a great Deliverer. He may have been 
 chiefly looked for as a Redeemer from political bondage ; 
 but His Spiritual claims and, above and undcT-neath all. 
 His Divinity were only lost sight of, they were not alto- 
 gether forgotten, under the pressure of national mis- 
 fortunes. "A Saviour which is Christ the Lord," the 
 received reading of the AngePs Avords, is not then really 
 larger in its theological implication than the critically 
 questionable substitute " the Lord's Christ ^" The shep- 
 herds knelt before the Child of Mary ; for like us Chris- 
 tians, they might have seen in Him One A^^lose " Name 
 is called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the 
 Everlasting Father," no less than One in A^Tiom human 
 tenderness and Divine foresight combine as in " the 
 Prince of Peace *." 
 
 And if on any day in the year, it is on Christmas Day 
 that the Church of Christ owes to our Lord and Saviour 
 an especial acknowledgment of His DiAnnity. At Easter, 
 He is shown to be the Son of God with power ; His God- 
 head flashes through the radiance of His glorified Man- 
 hood. On the Ascension festival, He returns to His 
 heavenly throne as the King of Glory. Even on Good 
 Friday, while it is His Godhead that imparts its infinite 
 
 * Tisch. 1ms b Xpia-rhs Kvptos. ' Isaiah ix. 6. | 
 
VIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 199 
 
 value to His Sacrifice, tlie moral heroism of the Great 
 Sufferer is felt to illumine the darkness and to transfigure 
 the shame and degradation of the Cross. It clothes His 
 Death with the spoils and emblems of victory. But 
 within the precincts of the manger at Bethlehem, the 
 weakness, the dependence of infancy is relieved by no 
 recorded miraculous distinctions. Nor, unless faith be 
 at hand to remind us Who the Child of Mary really is, 
 are we conscious of the inefli'able moral beauty of this 
 profound self-abasement of the Infinite and Eternal 
 Being. Therefore never is it more necessary than to- 
 day that the truth of our Saviour's Godhead should be 
 clearly present to faith. It has been remarked, that no 
 creature when young is so abject in its dependent help- 
 lessness as man. But our Lord accepts the feebleness, 
 the defencelessness, the peculiar and relatively unmatched 
 humiliation of human infancy. The first Adam, His 
 creature and His prototype, had issued from the Hand of 
 God with fully developed powers of mind and body. But 
 Jesus, when coming " to take our nature upon Him, and 
 as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin"," will not 
 shroud His earliest human life from the race which it 
 ennobles. He will not retire behind a veil of silence, still 
 less behind a veil of legend. St. Mark, and even St. John, 
 shall not alone be His biographers : He will proclaim His 
 infant weakness to all the ages of the Chm-ch from the 
 pages of St. Matthew and St. Luke. The shepherds are 
 but the pioneers of the sixty generations of Christendom ; 
 and with them, year by year, the Church gazes into the 
 depths of the Incarnation, at the manger-bed of her 
 Infant-Lord. With them she adores His glory, as she 
 listens to the angels who herald His Nativity ; with them 
 she marvels at His self-humiliation, as she visits in spirit 
 and in truth the stable of Bethlehem. 
 
 " Collect for Christmas Day. 
 
200 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Seum. 
 
 There are tliose who, not comprehending the moral 
 greatness of such humiliation, have Abashed it had been 
 otherwise. Docetism is nearly as old as Christianity. 
 And the cry of Marcion, " Aufer a nobis pannos et dm'a 
 prassepia," was but an anticipation of feelings which have 
 led some modern writers to attempt the erasure of the 
 story of the Infancy from the pages of the Gospel. For 
 such men, the swaddling-clothes and the manger of Beth- 
 lehem are too energetic an illustration in history of the 
 statement of St. Paul, that " Christ Jesus emptied Him- 
 self" of His glory". Yet if it is easy to wrong God by 
 denying His greatness, it is easier to wrong Him by deny- 
 ing His condescensions. When once the Incarnation is 
 believed at all seriously, its successive degrees of humilia- 
 tion become relatively insignificant. And when, as at the 
 manger of Bethlehem, the mind can discover nothing of 
 tlie greatness, nothing but the weakness of human life, 
 the countervailing reality of our Saviour's Godhead should 
 be most thankfully and clearly confessed. 
 
 My brethren, Jesus Christ is God. His Divinity is not 
 any acquired decoration of His Human Soul in His 
 maturer years. It is not merely the highest degree of 
 creaturely likeness to the Universal Father. It is not the 
 reward and fruit of a tender and delicate spiritual con- 
 science. It is not the faultless and royal lustre of a soul 
 perpetually communing with God. Our Lord's Divinity 
 is not the mere crown and beauty of His Manhood; it is 
 not the moral beauty or power that went forth from Him, 
 when as Man He had in His sublime perfection reached 
 what other men account the superhuman. Still less is it 
 either the reflected admiration of a loving and grateful 
 disciple, or the idealizing effort of an infant Church, warm 
 in its reverential love, and too intent on worship to be 
 capable of reserve or of criticism. It is not a inetaplior, 
 
 X Phil. ii. 7- 
 
VIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 201 
 
 it is a fact. The Godliead of Jesus is the great and solemn 
 fact which makes the record of the Life of Jesus in the 
 Gospel unlike any other record in the world. This fact it 
 is which underlies and illuminates the Gospel history 
 throughout. It is as true that Jesus Christ is God, when 
 He lies in the manger at Bethlehem, as when the Resur- 
 rection and the Ascension have witnessed to His indestruc- 
 tible Life, and He reigns at the Eight Hand of Power. 
 His own references to His pre-existence are as really 
 proofs of His Divinity as are His more explicit declara- 
 tions of this truth ; since, (as was again and again shown 
 by the great Father who, under God, carried the Church 
 through her struggle with Arianism,) if you admit Christ's 
 existence before His Incarnation, you must perforce 
 accept the doctrine of His Consubstantial Oneness with 
 the Father, or you must fall back upon a theory which is 
 really polytheistic — the theory of a superior and of an 
 inferior deity^. 
 
 How carefully does the Church remind us in the Epistle 
 and Gospel of to-day of the true dignity of our Blessed 
 Saviour. As children, we may probably have wondered 
 why it is that on Christmas Day the story of the Birth of 
 Christ is banished to a lesson^. Indeed, it is remarkable 
 that the Gospel and Epistle, one of which, on all the other 
 high festivals of the Church, seems to make especial pro- 
 vision for the young and for the poor by narrating the 
 event of the day, are on this most popular and, if the 
 phrase be allowable, most homely of festivals, difl&cult and 
 elaborate statements of abstract doctrine. It might be 
 thought that such arrangements proved little, or were 
 matters of chance. But this opinion could only satisfy 
 
 y e. g. Cf. S. Athan. Ep. de Synod. Arim. et Seleuc. c. 3, § 24, where he 
 is pressing this argument on the Semi-Arians. So Orat. contr. Arian. ii. c. 25, 
 § 10. 
 
 z Second Lesson for Morning Service. St. Luke, cliap. ii. to verse 15. 
 
202 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Serm. 
 
 those, who have given scant attention to the connexion 
 between early liturgical traditions and the belief and love 
 of Primitive Christendom. It might be urged that in the 
 pre-Reformation service for Christmas Day there were two 
 other sets of Epistles and Gospels, in which the usual law 
 of selection is complied with. But this would be no 
 apology for the actual provisions of our Reformed Lituigy. 
 Nor would it account for the feet that at the great mid- 
 day service of the feast, our present Epistle and Gospel 
 have been used for at least fourteen centuries. Can we 
 fail to recognize the real principle of the selection ? Is it 
 not an earthly copy of that heavenly economy, whereby 
 at each of the great humiliations of the Son of Man there 
 was a vision of angels, sent, as if to redress the over- 
 weighted balance, and to offer to Jesus, before the eyes of 
 His creatures, some sort of reparation ? To-day our dull 
 spirits Diigld see nothing beyond or beneath the swaddling- 
 clothes. We mujld fail to detect those rays of shrouded 
 glory which lighten the gloom and gild the sombre 
 poverty of the manger at Bethlehem. Therefore the 
 Church warns us from the Ejoistle to the Hebrews that 
 we are in the presence of the Brightness of the Father's 
 Glory and of the Express Image of His Being ^. She pro- 
 claims that He is higher than the highest intelligences of 
 heaven by virtue of His regal offices and majesty, and yet 
 more by His oneness in Divine Nature Avith the Source 
 and Fountain of Godhead**. She bids us observe with St. 
 John, that it is the Eternal Word or Reason of the 
 rather*^. Whose existence was a happy guess of Platonism, 
 a tradition of Rabbinism, a truth of the Old Testament, now 
 fully revealed as the Father's Peer and Equal in Eternity, 
 in Creation, in Providence, Who is made flesh and dwells 
 
 * Ilfl). i. 3. For this earlier meaning' of inriaraffis, cf. MUl, Nature of 
 Cliristianity, \^. 1 1 1; ]5p. Forbes, Nieeuc Creed, ]). 137. 
 I' lleb. i. 4 14. c St. John i. 1, 2. 
 
VIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 2,03 
 
 among us"^. Faith may now beliold His glory^ and man 
 may become the child of God"^. On this day, when His 
 Human Nature moves our human sympathy, I had almost 
 dared to say our human compassion ; we may not, we dare 
 not forget, nay, we are constrained, we rejoice to acknow- 
 ledge the Godhead of our Incarnate Saviour. For us 
 Christians this confession of the Deity of Jesus is no lifeless 
 formula or dead dogma. It is not an unwelcome admission, 
 grudgingly yielded by us in obedience to the pressure of 
 orthodox formularies, or to the sterner necessities of honest 
 criticism. It is a living', an intense conviction, resting at 
 once upon authority and upon conscience. It is a con- 
 viction to part with which is to part with all that can 
 really brighten the dark prison-house of the human spirit, 
 since to deny the Godhead of Jesus, is to forfeit the 
 essence of Christianity. Surely on this day the whole 
 voice of Christendom makes one confession j the whole 
 heart of the Church warms with the glow of one glorious 
 truth. In the humblest village churches, and in the 
 noblest cathedrals of Europe, the Christian world bends 
 with the shepherds before the Babe in the manger, and 
 rises to complete its Gloria in ExceJsis. " Thou only art 
 holy ; Thou only ai't the Lord ; Thou only, Christ, with 
 the Holy Ghost, art Most High in the glory of God the 
 Father ! " 
 
 II. "And this shall be a sign unto you.^' 'WTiile 
 kneeling to-day before the cradle of Christianity, we may 
 observe something of the predestined form both of 
 Christian doctrine and Christian life. In the bud we 
 trace the probable shape and colour of the coming floAver. 
 When standing at the source of a river we can determine 
 at least the general direction of its course. In the Sacred 
 Infancy, too, we may discern, without risk of indulgence 
 in over-fanciful analogies, a typical portraiture of the 
 
 d St. .It 111) i. 14. e Ibid. 12-14. 
 
204 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Sekm. 
 
 Christian Creed, and a precious lesson for good Christian 
 living. To the theologian and to the practical Chi'istian, 
 the sign of the manger and of the swaddling-clothes is 
 at least as full of meaning now as it was of old to the 
 shepherds of Bethlehem. 
 
 (a.) Look, then, at the Creed of the Church. Look at 
 the historical form which the religion of our Saviour has 
 from the first taken in the thought of man. 
 
 It has two sides, two aspects. It is one thing to sight, 
 and another faith. To sight, it is wrapped in swaddling- 
 clothes and laid in a manger. To faith, it is revealed from 
 heaven as being supernatural and Divine. What is the 
 Bible ? To sight, it is " a book that may be read like 
 any other book ;" it is a vast, a beautiful, but a human 
 literature ; it is human in its sympathy, human also in its 
 imperfections. To faith, it is throughout inspired and 
 unerring; it is the very Voice of God speaking in hiiman 
 language to His listening children. What is the Church ? 
 To sight, a human polity; perhaps a mere creature or 
 function of the State ; a department of the Civil Ser\4ce ; 
 a "theological fiction" which is upheld by the law. 
 Sometimes the Church is described as being after all only 
 a voluntary association ; sometimes she passes for scarcely 
 more than a literary club, designed to comprehend the 
 wildest varieties of divergent speculation ; sometimes men 
 notice her as an antique product of highly organized 
 opinion, that may be expected in time to pass away. But 
 to faith, the Church is a Divine society, with a Divine 
 organization ; she is " the pillar and ground of Ti'uth^ ;" she 
 is " the Body of Christ S;" she is the " fulness of Him that 
 filleth all in all'>." Wliat is the Crucifixion ? To sight, 
 it is a harrowing tragedy; it is the death of the most 
 innocent of sufferers. It is at best a moral triumph, 
 Avhoro it is seen to be something higher than a spectacle 
 
 ^ I Tim. iii. 15. g Col. i. 24. i Cor. vi. 15. ^ Ephcs. i. 23. 
 
VIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 205 
 
 of mere bodily agony. To faitli, it is tlie pouriug- forth 
 of the Atoning- Blood before the Face of Heaven ; it is the 
 Oblation of a world-redeeming Sacrifice to the Eternal 
 Father by His sinless Son. What are the Sacraments ? 
 To sights here a di-op of water, there a little bread and 
 wine, — the honour paid to a holy memory, — an instructive 
 sjTiibol, — a touch of poetry. To faith, the sacramental 
 signs are the instruments of a heavenly Gift, or the veils 
 which but thinly shroud a heavenly and an awfal Presence. 
 To faith, the Sacraments are the revealed points of contact 
 between the quickening Manhood of the Saviour and the 
 race which He came to renew and to save. This contrast 
 runs throughout revealed religion. Sight can see only the 
 word, the symbol, the form, the material institution, the 
 official representative of a human system. Faith detects, 
 remembers, dwells on the spiritual effect, the thing really 
 signified, the supernatural force, the heaven-sent authority. 
 Sight lives in presence of the manger and of the swaddling- 
 clothes; so does faith. But faith recalls, nay, she never 
 forgets, she has always in her eye, the appearance of 
 the Angels to the shepherds on the hills of Beth- 
 lehem. 
 
 Let us observe here how completely Christianity ac- 
 cepts, embodies, insists upon, postulates the principle of 
 mystery. It is difficult indeed to understand how any 
 real Revelation of God, as distinct from a mere human 
 speculation about Him, could avoid doing so. But it is 
 notoriously a common ground of objection to religion, that 
 it " thrusts" mysteries on our acceptance. Yet do we 
 avoid mystery so entirely in the realm of nature ? Is there 
 nothing in the natui'al world which recalls the scene in the 
 manger at Bethlehem, as that scene is illumined by the 
 doctrine of our Saviour^s Godhead ? "What is mystery but 
 a truth lurking behind some other truth which sug'gests 
 yet shrouds it ? What do we know of the law of con- 
 
•2o6 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Seem. 
 
 nexion between our bodies and our souls ? That sucli a 
 connexion exists, wo are perfectly assured. But wliat are 
 its conditions ? AVTiy does the nerve or tlie limb in- 
 stinctively and uniformly express the will of the imma- 
 terial spirit which rules it ? Again, what do we know of 
 the analogous connexion between thought and language ? 
 Why should language have the prestige and power of 
 convepng thought? A\Tiat is the necessary connexion 
 between variations in sounds produced in the atmosphere, 
 and variations in thought, of which those varpng sounds 
 are nevertheless the perfectly representative expression ? 
 Does it not strike us as extraordinary that immaterial 
 thought should thus perpetually pass by such a medium 
 of conveyance from one human spirit to another ? No ; 
 we are so familiar with the mystery, that we simply do not 
 reflect on it. We do not observe, as we might observe, in 
 the connexion between soul and body, or between thought 
 and language, how God, present in nature, is ever educating 
 His children to recognize His closer presence in the King- 
 dom of Grace. Man has lived so long in the temple of 
 nature, he is so at home with its forms and colours, that 
 he forgets its sacramental, its mysterious character. His 
 science is provoked into activity by the dread solemnities, 
 by the unfathomed mysteries around him. Yet the 
 deeper he penetrates the more certainly is he encountered 
 by solemnity and mystery; only as he advances, they 
 meet him on a frontier more and more remote from his 
 point of starting. He seems to be continually encroaching 
 upon the province of mystery ; and yet at each step mys- 
 tery stands before him to dispute or to solemnize his 
 progress; his most adventurous science is always 
 pausing before the swaddling-clothes of a higher truth 
 beyond her. 
 
 Even thus it is in Divine Revelation. God's "way is 
 in the sea, and His paths in the great waters, and His 
 
YIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 207 
 
 footsteps are not known '." All that is mysterious is not 
 true ; but the Highest Truth, the Ti-uth of God's Being 
 and Action revealed to the finite thought of man, is 
 necessarily mysterious. It comes to us as we can bear it, 
 shrouded beneath symbols and encased in formula?. 
 These are the swaddling-clothes of the Everlasting, If the 
 inventor or the reformer of a religion should seek to win 
 our sympathies by rashly oSering to dispense with mys- 
 tery, we might perhaps have reason to admire the hardi- 
 hood or the ingenuity of his enterprise. But if we could 
 in any degree trust the common sense of mankind, we 
 should be sure that a religion of this description could not 
 pretend to a heavenly origin. Its god would be nothing 
 more than an intellectual image, forged and shaped in the 
 workshop of a human brain. We might admire a work of 
 art; we certainly should not suspect the presence of 
 Deity. The true, living. Incomprehensible Creator is 
 necessarily mysterioiTS, even amid His largest and most 
 condescending Eevelations ; and the created mind to 
 which He discovers Himself knows full well, that this very 
 note of mystery marks the mighty interval which separates 
 His Infinity from its own finite self. 
 
 Remark also, as you kneel in the manger of Bethlehem, 
 the unrivalled capacity of the Gospel for addressing itself 
 alike to educated intellect and to the poor. The Gospel is 
 at once a religion and a theology. One side of it is familiar, 
 easy of comprehension to all, popular, concrete. But it 
 has another side, in which it appears as a system of abstract 
 truth, diSicult of mastery even to practised and sanctified 
 intellect. Here it has relations neither few nor unim- 
 portant with history, with language, with the physical 
 sciences, with psychology, with metaphysics. It is itself 
 the scientia sdentiarum,, the queen of sciences, the meeting- 
 point of all the ways of thought, the ultimate arbiter of the 
 
 i Ps. Ixxvii. 19. 
 
2o8 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Serm. 
 
 many questions Avliich move the mind of man. Thus it is 
 digested into treatises; it creates entire literatures; it 
 affords play and occupation for the most keen and earnest 
 thinkers ; it is nothing less than a vast intellectual power. 
 Reason, imagination, the sense of truth and the sense of 
 beauty, are all entertained by it. So urgent are its claims, 
 so commanding is its attitude, that to regard it with 
 neutral feelings is impossible. And when in other fields 
 of knowledge investigations are being pursued with what 
 might at fir^t sight seem to be dispassionate impartiality, 
 the investigator in reality keeps his eye steadily fixed upon 
 the Christian theology ; he measures the real value of his 
 inquiries by their hostile or friendly bearing upon those 
 formal assertions of doctrine for which the Church is re- 
 sponsible. Thus theology is a focus of intellectual activity : 
 it is ever being attacked ; it is ever enveloped in an atmo- 
 sphere of conflict ; it is continually adapting its termino- 
 logy and its literature to the successive phases of human 
 thought ; it is always and jealously guarding the integrity 
 of that Divine deposit which was committed to the 
 Apostles ^. Looked at on this side, it presents itself as 
 the most comprehensive, as the absolute philosophy^, 
 which is designed to invite the interest and allegiance of 
 the highest ami most honest thought among the sons of 
 men. 
 
 But the Gospel has another aspect. It is not merely 
 proclaimed by the higher intelligences ; it is wrapped in 
 swaddling-clothes, and laid in a manger. The Gospel is 
 something more than a philosophy ; it is a religion. It is 
 the religion of mankind; it is the religion of the unedu- 
 cated and of the poor. To the poor it was especially 
 preached by our Lord'", and He drew attention to the fact 
 as being one of significant value. The common people 
 
 k I Tim. vl. 20. Tit. i. 9. ' i Cor. ii. 6. 
 
 "I St.-Matlhcw xi. 5. 
 
VIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 209 
 
 heard him gladly ". His Apostles were uneducated men. 
 His friends and worshippers were to be found in the 
 Suburra long before they made their way into the senate, 
 or into the palace of the Ceesars. And the people, the 
 toiling and suffering people, the men who live by the 
 sweat of their brow and by the rough labour of their 
 hands, the people do in truth and reality find the Christ 
 of Bethlehem in the Christ of Christian doctrine. The 
 Gospel comes home to them; it comes home to their 
 hearts and thoughts. It is presented to them wi-apped in 
 swaddling-clothes ; it makes its appeal to their daily wants 
 and to their deepest sympathies. It speaks in plain words 
 of the sense of sin, of the atoning Blood, of the power of 
 the Blessed Spirit, of the power of the Sacraments. It 
 speaks of the presence, of the providence, of the love of 
 Jesus. It brightens the present evil world, which presses 
 sorely upon their spirits and their strength, by pointing to 
 a world beyond the tomb, where the fondest imaginings 
 of happiness are more than realized, and where the most 
 cruel wi'ongs and woes are amply and for ever redressed. 
 The Gospel is eminently the property of the people. In 
 its popular exhibition it is dogmatic, without scientific 
 accm-acy ; it is simple, without devising treason against 
 the principle of dogma. It is wi-apped in the swaddling- 
 clothes of broken language ; it is visibly expressed before 
 the face of heaven through the medium of a worship and a 
 ritual, which to the unreflecting might seem childish or 
 unnecessary. It may perchance be held guilty of many 
 offences against the laws of " good taste." Yet He, our 
 Lord, is there, in the Divine simplicity of His wonderful 
 Revelation. The same adorable Saviour is there in His 
 manger ; the Infinite Truth is lodging Himself, amid this 
 easy language and these simple instructive forms, in the 
 heart and intellect of the people. Often, too. He finds 
 n St. Mark xii. 37. 
 
 P 
 
2IO Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Serm. 
 
 among the people a home and a welcome, when He is re- 
 fused one by the fastidiousness, or by the false philosopliy, 
 or by the pretentious self-assertion of the higher classes. 
 He is " laid in the manger because there is no room for 
 Him in the inn "/' Thus, as in the days of Tertullian, the 
 simple children of the Church can solve the questions 
 which confound the philosophers. This is not because 
 poverty generally implies ignorance, while ignorance is 
 docile and asks no questions. Nor is it because the 
 Church has no message for educated intellect. The 
 Church ere now has spoken to an Origcn, to an Augustine, 
 to an Aquinas, to a Hooker, to a Pascal, to a Butler, to a 
 Newton. These great masters of human thought bend, 
 like the multitudes around them, before the uplifted Cross. 
 Certainly all religions that can be popularized are not 
 therefore true. But no religion can pretend to be the 
 religion of humanity, and yet be incapable of being so 
 stated and exhibited, as to be understood by, and made 
 welcome to the thought of the people. The Gospel is 
 indeed the possession of no race, of no class. It is not a 
 mere philosophy, which you cannot translate into the 
 idiom of the many. Still less is it a popular legend, which 
 will not bear the light of scientific analysis. It is the 
 Voice of the Great Father of the human family, speaking 
 to the whole company of His children. It comes to all, 
 so that none should shrink from it ; it is designed to 
 unite all in a common faith and a common adoration. 
 But it comes with provisions for the needs of the many, 
 as well as for the needs of the few. It is concrete and 
 external, no less than spiritual and abstract. The Truth 
 wliich comes from Heaven is wrapped in swaddling- 
 clothes, and laid in a manger ; and to thoughtful minds its 
 seeming humiliation is the very sign of its Divinity. 
 
 o St. Luke li. 7. 
 
yill] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 211 
 
 (/3.) We pass to consider the moral import of the 
 manger-bed of the Infant Jesus. 
 
 By the allusions at the beginning of the second and 
 third chapters of his Gospel, St. Luke, alone among the 
 Evangelists, connects our thoughts of the Birth of the 
 Redeemer with the contemporary history of the Roman 
 world. The names of Augustus and Tiberius Ceesar 
 almost jar upon the ear, while the soul is lingering around 
 the precincts of the Holy Home at Bethlehem. And yet 
 the moral contrast which those names suggest is healthful 
 and bracing. It brings before us with singular clearness 
 the moral revolution which was to follow upon the In- 
 carnation. It brings before us the great World-empire 
 at the height of its fortunes, yet sensible of a profound 
 want, and secretly apprehensive of an approaching change. 
 Could Rome, we ask, the mistress of the nations, yet lack 
 any thing in that her age of glory ? What was needed 
 that she should complete her triumph, or enhance her self- 
 content ? Not wealth : her coffers had been enriched with 
 the spoils of a conquered world. Not literature : many of 
 those great writers whom we study as models of taste and 
 method were yet living or scarcely in their graves. Not 
 art : she had become through her victories the central 
 museum of a vast empire and of realms beyond it. Her 
 streets and her palaces were beautified by the accumulated 
 products of their skill. Not large outlays of capital on 
 public works. Our own great advance in material civiliza- 
 tion has only taught us to look with increased respect upon 
 the aqueducts, the roads, the triumphal arches, the palaces, 
 the vast and varied constructive efforts, which, even in 
 their ruins, at this very hour, remind civilized Europe of 
 the genius and energy of the Roman. Nor did Rome need 
 new and wiser legislation. Already that vast system of 
 law was taking shape, the later codifications of which are 
 still preserved to us, and are admiringly quoted by our 
 
 p 2 
 
212 Lesso7is of the Holy Manger. [Seem. 
 
 modern jurists as a spk-iulid inoiinmcnt of administrative 
 genius. Nor did the people live uncared-for by those 
 who possessed wealth and power. jModern life presents 
 no parallel to those costly but cruel and wasteful enter- 
 tainments which for a day enabled the population of a 
 vast metropolis to share the riches, while they flattered 
 the ambition, of their rulers p. The Rome of the early 
 Caesars, the Rome of the age of the Incarnation, the 
 Rome which ruled and Avhich represented the fairest 
 portion of the inhabited world, gave numerous signs of 
 mental and material progress. She was wealth3^ She 
 was refined. She was the home of the fine arts, the home 
 of literature, the mart of commerce. She was the minister 
 and mistress of luxury and of enjo}'Tnent. She was the 
 seat of empire. But she craved for a something which 
 as yet she possessed not. She had lost public liberty, 
 because she had parted with private virtue. Roman 
 society was in reality a living commentary upon the words 
 of St. John, "All that is in the world, the lust of the 
 flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not 
 of the Father 1. 
 
 The principle known in treatises of formal theology 
 as " concupiscence," and to popular language as active 
 selfishness, was every where dominant. It was embodied 
 in the whole social and political fabric of the Empire : 
 it was thus the real prostitute of the Apocalj^tic 
 vision ■■; — she who made the nations drunk with her 
 deadly draught. It was displayed in its triple form of 
 unrestricted sensuality, unchecked covetousness, and un- 
 bounded self-assertion. As sensuality, it was preying 
 upon the strength and manhood of the people. As covet- 
 ousness, it was drying \\\i the wealth of provinces and the 
 
 P Sec tlie vivid ami witluil painful description of Dollingcr, Hcid. und 
 Jud. viii. 2, 5. 
 
 q I St. John ii. 16. "■ Eev. xvii. 2, 5, 15; xviii. 3, 7. 
 
VIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 213 
 
 sources of enterprise. As pride, it was every wliere in 
 active conflict with personal and social liberty. But 
 tliese effects, outward and political, were harmless com- 
 pared with the degradation inflicted by unchecked self- 
 worship upon the human soul within. ^Vhen man is his 
 own centre, his own ideal, his own end, his own God ; when 
 the indulgence of passion, and the acquisition of income, 
 and general self-assertion are leading and uncontrolled 
 principles of action ; the human character sinks to a point 
 of degradation which language can shadow out, but which 
 it cannot describe. The Roman Christians must have 
 recognized the society around them, the men and women 
 with whom they had daily dealings as fellow-citizens, in 
 the dark and terrible touches of that first chapter ^ of the 
 Epistle addressed to themselves by the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles. But St. PauFs indictment against the pagan 
 life and manners is supported, nay, it is outdone, by the 
 testimony of observant pagans like Juvenal, who laugh 
 bitterly at the moral ruin of the time, but who know not 
 the secret nor the cure of the disease. If that disease 
 could have been cured by a natural morality, higher in 
 some respects than man had ever known before, it might 
 have been cured by the later Stoicism, expounded by 
 writers like Seneca and Epictetus, and illustrated in 
 practice by a rare example of philosophical integrity on 
 the throne of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. But the Stoic 
 philosophy was selfish at bottom, and unequal to dealing 
 w4th the whole area of human nature '. It was, as far as 
 it went, a beautiful theory. But its designers never 
 supposed that it could be put into practice, except by a 
 few educated persons under very favourable circumstances. 
 It had as little effect upon the masses of mankind, as 
 have the midnight speculations of an astronomer who is 
 pacing the roof of his observatory upon the thought and 
 s Rom. i. 28-31. Cf. DoUinger, Heid. unci Jud. ix. ii. 2. t Felix. 
 
214 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Seem. 
 
 habits of the slcepino; cottag'crs around him. The workl- 
 wide principle of spiritual death needed to be expelled by 
 a stronger and not less universal principle. It demanded 
 a regenerating- force, resting not on theory but on fact, a 
 principle human in its form and action^ but Divine in its 
 strength and origin ". 
 
 Such a principle wo find in the Babe wrapped in 
 swaddling-clothes and lying in the manger of Bethlehem. 
 Tliis was indeed the X0709 efjLcpvToq, the Divine Word, 
 engrafted on human nature, and able to save the souls of 
 men ^. Tlie Incarnation was the source of a moral revolu- 
 tion. It was the uplifting of the standard of moral 
 reform. By saving man, it was destined to save human 
 society. The Incarnation confronted sensuality by endur- 
 ance and mortification. It confronted covetousness by 
 putting honour upon poverty. It taught men that a 
 man^s highest life consisteth not in the abundance of the 
 things that he possesseth. But its great lesson was a 
 lesson of humility. In the humiliation of the Highest the 
 nations read the truth which the Incarnate Lord taught 
 in words : — " Except ye bo converted, and become as 
 little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven y." 
 
 Do we sometimes languidly wish that we could attain 
 to more strength of Christian faith, and to more growth 
 in the Christian life ? May it not be, brethren, that we 
 need to learn more fully the great lesson of Christmas 
 Day ? This shall bo a sign unto us : we shall find the 
 Divine Babe, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and lying in 
 a manger. Perhaps we dwell with complacency on our 
 real or presumed good qualities, on our gifts of natui*e, 
 even on our gifts of grace. Perhaps we talk easily and 
 naturally of ourselves, of that which reflects credit on us, 
 
 " DolHnrrer, Ile'ul. nnd Jud. viii. i. i. * St. James i. 21. 
 
 y St. Matthew xviii. 3. 
 
VIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 215 
 
 of that which leads others to think or to talk of us. We 
 contrast ourselves with others. We contrast our pre- 
 sumed virtues or talents with their presumed incapacities 
 or faults. We find ourselves making a scientific study of 
 the shortcomings of other persons. We are secretly 
 pained when they are praised. We delicately suggest 
 something which detracts from their credit. We have 
 always a defence at hand when we are ourselves found 
 fault with : it is a point of honour with us to hold our 
 own^ and to refuse to admit that we are in the wrong. 
 We assume an air of quiet superiority in conversation ; we 
 cultivate a judicious and elegant contempt for the opinions 
 of the great bulk of mankind. Vf e are quite sure that we 
 see much farther and enjoy a much wider intellectual 
 horizon than is possible for others. We think much of 
 what is public and striking; we are fascinated by great 
 nameS;, great employments^ great promotions, great suc- 
 cesses, great alliances. It does not even occur to us that 
 mere human greatness is for a Christian a thing to fear, 
 or a thing to pity. We are despondent at the failure of 
 our plans or our efforts ; as though we had a divine right 
 to succeed, and were wronged by Providence when 
 baulked of success. We are angry at finding that we are 
 thought meanly of, and we endeavour to force ourselves 
 to form an equally low estimate of those who, as we hear, 
 criticize us unfavourably. We do our works to be seen 
 of men, or at least so as not to escape being seen of them. 
 We prefer extraordinary tasks to common-place and 
 every-day duties. We have no taste for a life of secret 
 prayer and unpublished benevolence. We shrink from 
 labour which no eye but the Eye of God surveys. Our 
 good taste probably leads us to avoid gross acts of self- 
 assertion or vanity. Or rather our selfish instinct assures 
 us that self-assertion carried beyond a certain point is 
 apt, in a fastidious society, to defeat itself, and to provoke 
 
21 6 Lessons of the Holy Manger. [Serm. 
 
 unpleasant reprisals. And yet is it not only too possible 
 to displa}^ before men that species of mechanical modesty 
 which is the poorest counterfeit of real humilityj while yet 
 in our inner souls we breathe an atmosphere which is in 
 its principle the very spirit of the fallen archangel ? 
 
 And if this, or something like this, be the case with us, 
 how little do we as yet know of the moral import of the 
 Incarnation ! How little are we apprised of the truth, 
 that God has poured the condemnation and the contempt 
 of Heaven upon all forms of creaturely self-assertion, by 
 lowering Himself in the freedom of His omnipotence to 
 the level of a creature's life ! 
 
 Be well assured that for us men humility is the law of 
 progress, because it is the admission of truth. It is no 
 fictitious posture or state of mind; it is the seeing our- 
 selves as we are. We only desire improvement when we 
 dare to confess our imperfection; and the All-perfect has 
 deigned to teach us the lesson. Even the life of Jesus 
 begins A\nth the manger. "Magnus esse vis, a minimo 
 incipe '." Begin with confession. Confess error, confess 
 ignorance, confess sin. You wish to learn a language. 
 Acknowledge to yourself the extent of your ignorance of 
 its grammar. You desire to attain proficiency in an art. 
 Crush that rising ambition to produce striking effects 
 with ease and rapidity, and see what you know of the 
 laws of beauty. You aspire to reform society. Study 
 society on a small scale, in one of the units which 
 compose it. Begin, for instance, by reforming yourself. 
 You fancy that you have peculiar aptitudes for govern- 
 ment and command. Look at the theory of government 
 from below, and measure your power of rule by your 
 power of obedience. You would fain save your soul. 
 Nay, you would be a saint. Well. It is a blessed 
 
 ' St. Aug. Serm. Ixix. 2 (vfil. v.). Compare "Ad ningiia nos tciuUmust 
 parva capiamus, et uiagiii eriinus." lb. Serm. cxvii. 17. 
 
yill] Lessons of the Holy Manger. ii'] 
 
 ambition. But humility is tlie couditiou of improvement. 
 You must begin by confessing- yourself to be a sinner. 
 
 It is here indeed, in the spiritual sphere, that the 
 lesson of Christmas Day receives its widest and highest 
 application. What is most necessary to faith, but a 
 confession of the limits and of the weakness of human 
 intellect? What is most necessary to sanctification 
 through the means of grace, but an honest admission 
 of the worthlessness and poverty of the efforts of un- 
 assisted nature ? What is most necessary to acceptance 
 with a holy God, but an abandonment of the plea of self- 
 righteousness and the submission of self to the Redemp- 
 tive Eighteousness of Christ ? What is needed for the 
 heartfelt reception of Truth which comes to us in humble 
 language and in familiar institutions, but the great lesson 
 which He teaches on Christmas Day, Who is Himself the 
 Author and the Substance of that truth — the lesson of 
 humility ? 
 
 III. Christmas, if not the first, is, in England at least, 
 the most welcome festival of the Church. We English 
 are a domestic people. And Christmas sheds the blessing 
 of the Son of the Highest on every household in the land. 
 It strengthens those family ties, which at once protect 
 individual purity, and are the sinews of a Christian civili- 
 zation. Every believing mother knows the blessing of 
 that awful Child-bearing ^ which the Apostle proclaims as 
 the salvation of womankind. Even a mother^s love for her 
 child, — of all natural human affections the purest and the 
 most unselfish, — is ennobled by the love of Mary. And 
 every well-instructed Christian child feels an interest in 
 and a fellowship with the Childhood of Jesus. The weak- 
 ness and dependence of life's earliest years are dignified 
 
 a I Tim. ii. 15 : ^ccBriffeTai 5e Sta. t^s nKuoyovlas. Cf. Hammond in loc. 
 Compare especially Bishop Ellicott's exhaustive note, " Pastoral Epistles," 
 in loc. 
 
21 8 Lessons of the Holy Matiger. [Serm. 
 
 by the story of Betlileliem. From tliat manger where 
 adoring love tends the weakness of Omnipotence, there 
 streams a ray of sunlight which in the depths of our 
 Northern winter warms, and lightens, and cheers every 
 family that names the Name of Christ. Christmas is one 
 of those few festivals on which those who are severed 
 from the Church share something — we may trust much — 
 of her joy. It is a day on which even the unthinking, 
 and the indifferent, and the prayerless feel an unwonted 
 glow, they know not whence or why, which steals over 
 their being vAih the power and mysteriousness of a 
 higher world. To-day there is union between Truth 
 and Mercy ^ as they meet in our Incarnate Lord. To- 
 day there is union between the purest of earthly affections 
 and the highest sympathies of the inhabitants of heaven. 
 To-day a common chord is touched, here by the family 
 greeting, ihere by the songs around the TTirone. Those 
 who are separated by differences of race, by differences 
 of class, by differences of political opinion ; those who are 
 ranged as foes in deadly strife on this side or on that, in 
 the fevered agony of a dismembered republic •=; those 
 who stand on opposite sides of a chasm which forbids, 
 alas ! the visible intercommunion Avith each other of the 
 severed branches of the Church of Jesus Christ, — meet 
 to-day around His manger, to receive His message of 
 peace among men, and to rise above earthly troubles and 
 earthly separations, while engaged in a common effort of 
 praise and adoration. Even those to whom the Christ of 
 Christendom is but a dim tradition of the past, vanishing, 
 as it would seem, before the material progress of the 
 present, to-day feel something in common Avith Christians, 
 who indeed know and love the Lord That bought them. 
 
 ^ Ps. Ixxxv. lO. 
 
 •^ This sermon was prcaclicd during the earlier period of the civil war in 
 the United States of America. 
 
VIII] Lessons of the Holy Manger. 2,19 
 
 For coming to us in this intimate union with our 
 common humanity ; coming to us with this direct re- 
 cognition of our home affections ; coming to us in a 
 doctrinal tradition of eighteen centuries which has lost 
 nothing of its strength^ nothing of its intense and most 
 practical significance; coming to us in the pages of 
 His Evangelists and in the realities of His Sacraments ; 
 coming to us in the marvellousness of His love and in 
 the depths of His humiliations ; wi^apped as He is in His 
 swaddling-clothes and laid in His manger, Jesus Christ 
 takes us all captive, at least for the moment, by the 
 beauty, the poetry, the largeness of His generosity, 
 if not by the sense of our o^oni utter need of Him 
 and of the mighty strength of His salvation. May He 
 of His mercy raise our earthly cheerfulness into heavenly 
 joy, and deepen the welcome rest from daily toil on 
 this day of feasting into the abiding peace which passeth 
 all human understanding ! May we see more and more 
 of His living Majesty beneath the words and the forms 
 which shroud Him while they speak of Him ! At His 
 manger may we learn the blessed temper which makes 
 faith, repentance, perseverance, easy, and to which are 
 promised the crcwns of glory worn by the blessed around 
 His throne ! 
 
SERMON IX. 
 
 THE DIVINE VICTIM. 
 
 Gal. ii. 20. 
 The Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me. 
 
 T\OES the solemn remonstrance, which the Apostle of 
 the Gentiles has just described himself as having 
 addressed to St. Peter at Antioch, continue; while the 
 discussion is thrown into a more argumentative and 
 impersonal form, down to the end of this remarkable 
 chapter ? Or does the narrative portion of the Epistle 
 to the Galatians end with the upbraiding question, 
 "Why compellest thou the Gentiles to Judaize''?" Is 
 St. Paul in the text still remonstrating with St. Peter? 
 Is he justifying his remonstrance by an explanation 
 which was only needed by and addressed to the Galatian 
 Churches ? Or must the point be left undecided, on the 
 ground that here as elsewhere the Apostle is careful only 
 for truth, and regardless of method and form in stating 
 it? Does the historical statement before us melt away 
 into the doctrinal argument which follows it by a trans- 
 ition, so gradual, so well-nigh imperceptible, that we 
 cannot say to which of the two the text most properly 
 belongs ? 
 
 These are questions of serious interest to the student 
 a Gill. ii. 14. 
 
The Divine Victim. ii\ 
 
 of this portion of the Sacred Writings. Yet they may- 
 be fitly set aside on so solemn an occasion as the present. 
 However we may answer them^ they do not affect the 
 general import of the words^ to which our thoughts this 
 morning will be more especially directed. And mere 
 gratuitous criticism is out of place during these solemn 
 hours, when the Church is kneeling beneath the Cross to 
 honour the Dying Agony of the Redeemer of the world. 
 
 It is sufficiently plain that the great Apostle will not 
 consent to fall back upon a dispensation which had indeed 
 of old come from heaven ; but which, like a star that had 
 paled before the rising sun, had already been set aside 
 upon the promulgation of the Gospel. The Jewish law 
 itself convinced St. Paul of its intrinsic insufficiency to 
 meet the needs of the human soul ^. Although " a Jew 
 by nature and not a sinner of the Gentiles," St. Paul 
 looked only to be justified by the faith of Christ, and not 
 by the works of the law ^. To suppose that the whole 
 Jewish law was of literal, eternal, universal obligation, 
 was in effect to make the Divine Master Himself, Who 
 had died to free mankind from its bondage and from the 
 guilt of transgressing it, a very '^'^ minister of sin"*." If 
 the Judaizing Galatians were right, the Crucifixion had 
 been needless as a fount of strength and pardon ; and the 
 legal ordinances were not less effective as channels of 
 grace than were the Sacraments of the Gospel. If the 
 Judaizers wei-e right, the Apostle had only to confess 
 that his Christian energy had been the measure of his 
 mistake, and, like a blundering workman, to build again 
 the things which he had destroyed ^. If righteousness 
 indeed came by the law, then Christ had died in vain ^. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the Apostle might trust his own 
 spiritual life and experience, the case was far otherwise. 
 
 I' Gal. ii. 19. '^ Ibid. 15, 16. ^ Ibid. 17. 
 
 e Ibid. 18. f Ibid. 21. 
 
Ill The Divine Victim. [Serm. 
 
 St. Paul's whole soul was sustained, quickened, em- 
 powered, supernaturalized, by that mighty Event wherein 
 the law received its explanation as a t}^ical system, and 
 whereby its ceremonial prescriptions had lost their force. 
 The Son of God had died upon the Cross for the sins 
 of every separate child of Adam. This was that blessed 
 grace of God, of which the Apostle was so profoundly 
 sensible, and which he would not knowingly frustrate ^. 
 "I am crucified," he cries, '^with Christ, nevertheless 
 I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life 
 which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of 
 the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself 
 for me.'' 
 
 " The Son of God, "WTio loved me, and gave Himself for 
 me." What Person, what act is present to the mind of 
 the Apostle when he thus expresses himself? what idea 
 do his words convey to his Galatian readers ? 
 
 I. First of all, remark that the Apostle, even when 
 speaking of "the Son of God," has his eye upon One 
 Who is not other than truly and literally Human. Nor 
 would St. Paul's readers have failed in this to follow him. 
 The disposition to explain away the reality of om' 
 Saviour's Manhood belongs to the later Apostolical 
 age. It had not arisen when St. Paul wrote this Epistle. 
 Docetism had no affinities with the Judaizing tendencies 
 which were corrupting the Galatian Churches. On the 
 contrary, the Judaizers tended to become Humanitarian 
 and Ebionitic'^ Their high estimate of the legal ordi- 
 nances depreciated the finished work of Jesus Christ, 
 niicir depreciation of the redemptive work of Christ 
 involved as a theological consequence the further ten- 
 dency to depreciate His Divine Person. And it has been 
 
 B Gal. ii. 21. 
 
 •> Compare Newman's "Arians of the Fourth Century," eh. i. sect. i. 
 
 pp. 21, 22. 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. i^2t 
 
 suggested', that the heretical line, of thought of which 
 Ai'ianism was subsequently the most considerable, if not 
 the culminating expression, is only traced back to its 
 original source, when we detect it as a principle more 
 or less vigorous, albeit latent and unrecognized, in the 
 Judaizing doctrines which confronted St. Paul among his 
 Galatian converts. 
 
 This side of the truth then — our Lord's real Humanity 
 — the Galatians would have apprehended without diffi- 
 culty. Certainly the reality of our Lord's Manhood is 
 most prominently asserted in the later Epistles, whether 
 as the ground of His Priesthood, as in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, or, more generally, as the instrument of His 
 Mediatorial Work, as in that to Timothy, or as essential 
 to the reality of the Incarnation, as in St. John's First 
 Epistle. " Because the children were partakers of flesh 
 and blood, He likemse Himself took part in the same '^." 
 " In the days of His Flesh He offered strong crying and 
 tears to heaven ^" " He was touched with the feeling of 
 oru' infirmities, and in all points tempted like as we 
 are™." "The One Mediator between God and man" 
 is " the Man Christ Jesus "." " The spirit of Antichrist" 
 it is which " denies that Jesus Christ is come in the 
 flesh"." 
 
 Jesus, then, is a self-sacrificing, suflTering Member of 
 our common race ? He does not belong simply and 
 altogether to another world, so that we men feel that we 
 have little or no j^art in Him. He has human Blood 
 in His Ye ins. He has, let us reverently remember it, 
 a human Countenance. He has taken upon Him not 
 merely a human Body, but a human Soul. His Soul is 
 human in Its endowments of reason, memory, aff"ection, 
 
 i Newman's "Arians," pp. 25, 26. *^ Heb. ii. 14. 
 
 1 Heb. V. 7. "1 Heb. iv. 15. 
 
 Ji I Tim. ii. 5. ° i St. Jolm iv. 3. 
 
224 The Divine Victim. [Seem. 
 
 imagination, will. He has pre-eminently and manifestly 
 human sjrmpatliics. He is born indeed supernatural ly 
 of a Virgin Mother, He is her only Son p. He is 
 brought up (with what surpassing care and tenderness 
 who shall say ?) in a home where poverty had but refined 
 the finest movements of human affection. And besides 
 His Blessed Mother, He has other relatives. There are 
 His honoured foster-father, and His mother's sisters, and 
 His cousins. There is, moreover, the little company 
 of friends whom He chooses from among other men, and 
 presses most closely to His human Heart. AVTien, then. 
 He hangs upon His Cross in the anguish and in the 
 shame of death, we are not contemplating the strictly 
 unintelligible woe of a Being '\^^o belongs only to a 
 distant world. He appeals directly and powerfully to 
 the fellow-feeling of our common nature. He appeals 
 to its tenderness, to its experimental knowledge of suf- 
 fering, to its purest, to its most unselfish compassion. 
 He is not (at least, historically speaking), as art has 
 sometimes represented Him, a solitary Form, alone 
 visible in the encompassing darkness, hanging in awful 
 desolation between earth and heaven. Thus lon(4y 
 indeed in His death-agony He may well appear to 
 the soul which gazes on Him, as its One Hope and 
 Kefuge ; and which, gazing on Him, would fain forget 
 all beside. But in the pages of the Gospel it is 
 otherwise. In the Gospel narrative the race to which 
 He belongs, and for which Ho is dying, crowds around 
 Him ; and His Ear and His Eye arc filled in death with 
 sickening evidences of the fickleness, and the unthank- 
 
 P Cf. " Pearson on the Creed," i. 21 1. " Ucing at once tlie niotlier of the 
 Son of flod and yet a virgin, slie continued for ever in tlie same virginity, 
 aceording to the tradition of the Fathers and the constant doctrine of the 
 Churcli." Compare Dr. Mill, Chr. Adv. Publication for 184.^, p. 310, sqq. 
 (Myth. Int., ed. Webb, p. 265. sqq.); "Jackson on the Creed," xii. p. 97. 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. ^ic^ 
 
 fulness, and tlie scorn, and tlio hate of His fellow-men. 
 Close beneath His Cross there is a friend who repre- 
 sents His human friendships ; since he has enjoyed more 
 intimately than any other the unspeakable privilege 
 of His companionship. And one besides is at hand, 
 to whom His Agony is a sorrow, such as we may not 
 fathom. His Mother is there. She has struggled 
 through the crowd of His enemies, that she may meet 
 His dying gaze and hear His last cry. But in her a-vvful, 
 soul-absorbing grief, beneath the Cross of her Son, Mary 
 witnesses to His true Manhood. Her maternal woe 
 attests her Son's real share in our common nature ; and 
 those who have watched the last struggles of a friend 
 or of a relative, more precious and loved than any else 
 on earth, can understand how sublimely human was 
 that last recognition, that tender commendation on 
 Mount Calvary— " Behold thy son!" "Behold thy 
 mother i!'' 
 
 Wherever human feeling is yet fresh and keen, wherever 
 it has not been blunted or brutalized ; the death of a fel- 
 low-man raises in ns men a profound and painful fellow- 
 feeling. But if the life which is yielded be yielded neither 
 in early youth nor in advanced years ; if already each 
 natural power has been perfectly developed, and as yet 
 time has left upon the victim no trace of an incipient 
 decay ; our sympathies with him are strangely intensified. 
 It is truer perhaps to say that they acquire nothing less 
 than a new character. For to represent the most finished 
 and highest capacities of our common race is in some sense 
 to impersonate it. The man who sacrifices the strongest, 
 noblest life of which humanity is capable, must die, as it 
 seems to us, with ten'ible eff'ort. He must struggle in 
 death against the highest energies of life. A child has 
 hardly yet learnt to live. An old man may feel that his 
 q St. John xix. 26, 27. 
 
226 The Divine Victim. [Seem. 
 
 time for dying Las fairly come ; and tliat^ like ripe fruit 
 wliicli is ready to foil, lie may almost rejoice to be laid in his 
 gi'ave by the baud of violence, since its stroke is wellnigh 
 in harmony ^\nth the course of nature. But oiir Holy 
 Lord suffered, in the prime of manhood, at the age of 
 thirty-three. He offered the " Body which was prepared'," 
 just when that Body had completely developed Its highest 
 energies, perfections, beauties. Scripture nowhere hints 
 that His vital powers had been ever impaired or weakened 
 by disease : so that when He died upon the Cross, the 
 keenest, strongest life of which human nature is capable 
 was wrung out of Him by a protracted torture. 
 
 Let us however steadily contemplate a Sufferer Who is 
 innocent of all crime, innocent not merely in act but in 
 motive. Let Him be " holy, harmless, undefiled, separate 
 from sinners %" in His outward conversation, and j'ct more 
 in the inmost sanctuary of His Soul and Conscience. Let 
 Him have challenged His enemies to " convince Him of 
 sin*," in the confidence that their suspicious jealousy could 
 not sully His spotless innocence. Then His death pro- 
 vokes in us a still deeper sentiment. We do not now 
 sympathize as human beings, only with the physical suffer- 
 ings of a fellow-man. We do not even endeavour to enter 
 chiefly into His mental anguish. The appeal of such a death- 
 scene is pre-eminently moral. It sensibly rebukes us. 
 We feel the feebleness, the cowardice, the aimlessness of 
 our own daily life in such a Presence, For a moment per- 
 haps the tragedy provokes our indignation against the in- 
 justice which enacts it; but it certainly and permanently 
 commands the tribute of our reverence and of our love. 
 Those who have seen on Calvary, as Ave must fear, little else, 
 have seen thus much in the Death of Jesus Christ : for them 
 it is the closing scene of a moral victory. They dwell with 
 chastened enthusiasm u])(»ii " that ]ierfect harmony of 
 >■ Heb. x. 5. ' Hob. vii. 26. * St. John viii. 46. 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 227 
 
 nature, tliat absolute sclf-renunciatiou, that pure love, tliat 
 entire resignation, continued through life, and ending in 
 death," as " facts independent of their feelings "." Thej 
 rest with grateful hearts on this spectacle of spiritual 
 grandeur. And, indeed, for most men to have reached 
 middle life is to have waded through years of greater or 
 less unfaithfulness to the law and light of God. Accord- 
 ingly, in ordinary cases, our sympathy with the suffering 
 of grown-up persons is diminished by our conviction, 
 whether consciously avowed to ourselves or not, that such 
 suffering has been deserved. Thus the instinct of pity 
 within us is held in check by the sense of justice ; and we 
 realize an extreme form of this result, in hearing of a 
 public execution, when there has been no doubt whatever 
 of the guilt of the condemned criminal. But how could 
 we endure the narrative, still more the spectacle of pro- 
 longed insult and torture inflicted upon a saintly and 
 revered friend, or, as in the recent Indian mutiny, upon 
 young children, or even upon a dumb, helpless, harmless 
 animal ? Yet His very executioners rendered homage to 
 the stainless holiness of our Crucified Lord. And when 
 prophecy speaks of His being brought as a lamb to the 
 slaughter^, and when He is described as the Holy GhilA^ 
 Jesus, Scripture appears to evoke and to cherish within us 
 this species of intense, tender, bewildered sympathy, as 
 proper to the contemplation of the Suffering Death of our 
 Most Holy Saviour. 
 
 But let us suppose further that the suffering be volun- 
 tary, that it be accepted for the good of a friend, of a 
 cause, of a country, when it might be declined in strict 
 
 ^ Professor Jowett, Epistles of St. Paul, ii. p. 481. 
 
 X Isa. liii. 7. Acts viii. 32. 
 
 y Acts iv. 27, 30. Even if Trais alliulcs chiefly to the Servant of Jehovah 
 in Isaiah liii. 11, it may he also designed to suggest the fact that favourite 
 slaves were frequently hoys. 
 
 Q 3 
 
228 The Divine Victim. [Serm. 
 
 reason and justice. 'I'licn the sympatlietic reverence with 
 which we regard it is heightened by the homage Avhich wo 
 pay to its disinterestedness^ to its generosity, to its direct 
 claims npon ourselves. And when suffering is undergone 
 for the sake and in the sacred name of Truth, whether the 
 Highest Truth or the lowest, whether moral or speculative, 
 whether natural or revealed; the human heart, sometimes 
 even in its deepest corruptiou, hursts forth into a very 
 ecstasy of wondering and thankful love. Socrates, we 
 know, has still his meed of this enduring homage ; even 
 though when dying he could prescribe the sacrifice of a 
 cock to /Esculapius^. And the name and memory, nay, 
 the very tomb of the Christian martyr has commanded 
 for ages a tribute of sincere reverence. Tliis debt of reve- 
 rence Christendom really pays to the sufferings and blood, 
 whereby Europe was won to Christianity. For it is felt 
 that every man w^ho witnesses to truth by d^-ing for it, 
 gives himself, in a certain true sense, for the human race. 
 He proclaims the value and nobleness of our moral life, 
 and the relative cheapness of our animal existence. He 
 enlarges the horizon of our moral prospect. He enriches 
 our wills with a new and powerful motive. He endows us 
 with the force of his own example. He teaches us the 
 great lesson iliat no ival good, political, social, or moral, 
 was ever achieved except at the cost of sacrifice. He 
 asserts the transcendent preciousness of that which is 
 man's best conquest or his best inheritance ; he preaches 
 in act and deed the preciousness of truth. And our human 
 Lord claimed for Himself a chief share in the sentiment 
 with which mankind salutes the Martp*, when standing 
 before His judges He exclaimed, "To this end was I born, 
 and for this cause came I into the world, that I should 
 bear witness unto the Truth"." 
 
 Thus it was that He gave Himself, His true. His rcpre- 
 ^ Plat. Phrcdo, p. 1 18 a, cli. 66. a St. John xviii. 37. 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 229 
 
 sentative Human Life, the very prime and strength of 
 His manhood, His undefiled Body and His stainless Soul, 
 to death. He was free. He might have declined to 
 make the sacrifice. " No man," He said, " taketh My 
 life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself ^" But He 
 gave all that man holds dear. He surrendered His home. 
 His friends. His fair name among men, His credit with 
 and sway over the multitude. He gave the energies, the 
 powers, the organs and members of His Body, the 
 faculties and endowments of His Human Soul, without 
 reserve or stint. He embraced His destined Agony with 
 deliberation, nay with fervour. He laid Himself out for 
 acute mental suffering, and for prolonged bodily torture. 
 He hastened through the brief years of His Ministry with 
 His gaze keenly, constantly fixed on that which awaited 
 Him. He hastened onwards to Gethsemane and to 
 Calvary. In each of the Gospels the condensed narra- 
 tive expands, as we approach the Passion, into a fulness 
 of detail and statement, in order that we men may study 
 the generosity, the greatness, the completeness of this 
 Gift of gifts. The Prime and Flower of humankind. He 
 gave Himself as a witness to the high capacities of our 
 nature, and to the pre-eminent sacredness of truth. We 
 are men; and we may say, each of us^ in this human 
 sense, with the Apostle, " He loved me, and gave Himself 
 for me." 
 
 II. Such is the Passion, if the Sufferer be supposed to 
 be only human. Such indeed is its aspect, if, knowing 
 Him to be more than Man, we fix the soul's eye for 
 the moment only upon His holy Humanity. But the 
 Apostle's general language throughout this passage be- 
 comes unintelligible if we suppose Jesus Christ to be 
 only Man. And when St. Paul speaks of ihe 8on of God, 
 (whatever may have been urged by Socinian expositors 
 
 b St. John X. 18. 
 
230 The Divine Victim. [Serm. 
 
 to tlie contrary'^,) he opens upon the sonl a new 
 and altogether distinct aspect of the Event of this day. 
 
 •= Tlie admissions coiitainod in the following passage are remarkable. 
 The theory that the earliest Jewish Christians first learnt to estimate aright 
 the dignity of onr Lord's Person from reflecting on Ilis work, is, of course, 
 an error : — 
 
 " Plus la eonnnunaute se pcnetrait do la grandeur de rauvre de la re- 
 demption, et jilus ello comprenait que le Messie ne devait pas seulement 
 paraitre dans I'avenir pour clorrc I'histoire du monde, niais qu'il etait deja 
 venu I'asseoir sur une nouvelle base, en regenerant riuimanite, plus aussi sa 
 personne lui apparaissait grande et snhlime. Elle finit par so eonvaincre que 
 les ancienncs revelations ne lui donnaient pas la mesure de la nouvelle, que le 
 Seigneur et chef do I'Eglise n'etait pas simplemcnt le successeur des pro- 
 phetes, que le nom de Flls de Dien ltd appartenaii daiis v.n autre sens qu'si 
 ceux qui I'avaient porte precedemnient. Pour constater ec progr^s par 
 des citations, nous n'avons pas besoin d'intervertir I'ordre adojjte dans cet 
 ouvrage et d'en appelcr aux apotres dont les ecrits ont plus particulierement 
 servi de base a la theologie ecclesiastique, Paul, Jean et I'auteur de I'epitre 
 aux Hebreux. Jjcur enseignenient sera I'objet d'une etude speciale dans les 
 livres suivants. Nous ferons observer seulement que les ecrits de I'aid, qui 
 remontent, pour ainsi dire, jusqu'au berceau de I'figlise, ne contiennent 
 attcune trace que leur doctrine eliristologiqtie, si differente de celle de 
 Vebionitisme vulgaire, ait parti (ire une innovation, ou ait dome lien a des 
 contestations quelconqi(es, a I'rpoque ou ils ftirent publii's." — Seuss, Theol. 
 Chrel. i. pp. 459, 460. 
 
 The author then condenses into a striking ]iaragraph the evidence which 
 the Apocalyse of St. John (he calls it "livre foncierement judeo-chretien") 
 yields to the fact that our Lord's Deity was taught in all its fulness in those 
 portions of the Apostolic Church where, according to some recent theories, 
 Ebionitic influences might have been expected to be felt: — 
 
 "On doit reconnaitre sans hesiter (pic Christ, dans I'Apocalypse est eleve 
 an niveau de Dieu. II est nonnne le premier et le dernier, le commencement 
 et la fin, et ccs memcs formules sont employees a designer I'Ktre supreme. 
 Si la theologie est arrivJc, par I'analyse speculative, a reconnaitre, dans 
 I'essence de Dieu, sept attributs ou perfections, il est dit expresscmcnt que 
 ces nienies attributs aj)partiennent aussi a Christ. Lui seul pent nonnner 
 Dieu son pcre, qui, dans ce livre, n'est jamais appelc notre pcre, cc qui 
 prouve a la fois la distance qui le scpare de nous et son aftinite avec le Pcre. 
 11 porte ini nom nouvcau, qui sera tcrit aussi sur le front des fidcles, mais cc 
 nom, c'est en nieme temps celui du Pcre, le nom de Jc]iovah,.nom niys- 
 terieux anjourd'hui, mais que cjux (jni doivcnt le ])orter apprendront a 
 prononccr de celui qui en pofscde le secret. Enfm, il est appcle la Parole de 
 Dieu; il est done cetto hypostasc primitive, Verbe, Esprit ou Sagesse, qui 
 commc le recouuaissait deja la philosophic auterieure, avait ut^ creee avant 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 231 
 
 '^ The Son of God^ A^Tio loYcd mej and gave Himself for 
 
 Not to linger over tlie Scripture language, which 
 speaks of the Blood of God as the purchase-price of His 
 Church ^, and of the Crucifixion of the Lord of Glory by 
 His creatures % let us carry our thoughts to the doctrine 
 of our Lord\s Person with which St. John prefaces his 
 Gospel, or to the first chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews. The Son of God, Who is described in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews as being sent "in these last 
 days •"," is in St. John the Divine Word or uttered 
 Reason, Who was "in the beginning with God,^' and 
 Who "was God*^." In these two names, the Son and 
 the Word, we may study in its completeness the glory 
 which our Divine Saviour " had with ^^ the Father " before 
 the world was ^" As the Son, He is personally distinct 
 from the Everlasting Father. As the Word or Reason of 
 God, He is the Father's Equal, the Sharer of His inmost 
 counsels, the Partaker of His Substance and of His 
 Intellectual Life. If He had been revealed only as the 
 Son, the unbalanced phrase might have tempted us to 
 Arianism. If only as the Word, we might have been 
 attracted by the plausible heresy of Sabellius. In their 
 combination, the two words teach and guard the Catholic 
 doctrine, that the Eternal Son is of One Substance with, 
 yet personally distinct from, the Eternal Father. When, 
 then we say of Jesus Christ, " He gave Himself for me," 
 we are not speaking of a chvinized man, whose moral 
 
 le moudc, afiu qu'elle appclat a sou tour ce dernier a I'existence et Tornat de 
 tous les tresors de sa perfection. C'est ce qui est exprime en tovites Icttres 
 par la phrase qui nomme Christ le commencement de la creation de Dieu." — 
 Ihid. pp. 461, 462. Compare Pressense, " Jesus Christ," p. 242, 
 
 ^ Acts XX. 28. See Dr. Wordsworth's valuable note in loc. Scrivener, 
 "Introduction to Criticism of the New Testament," p. 445, pronounces for 
 the reading ©eoC. 
 
 e I Cor. ii. 8. f Heh. i. 2. g St. John i. i. "^ Ibid. xvii. 5. 
 
232 The Divine Victim. [Seem. 
 
 stature seeniccl to his contemporaries to reacli from earth to 
 Heaven. Xor are Ave fjice to face with a Being, created in 
 ages long prior to the creation of the worlds, whose myste- 
 rious origin is hidden deep in the depths of God's eternity, 
 yet of AV'lioiii we may say without inaccuracy, that "there 
 was a time when He was not/' For this our Saviour, Who 
 was judged and crucified as on this day, is " the Son AVhich 
 is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the 
 Father, Very and Eternal God '/' He is " the Only-begot- 
 ten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, 
 God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God^" 
 His oneness with the Father, of Whom He was begotten 
 before all worlds, is imaged by the connexion of the ray of 
 light with its parent sun, from which, to the eye of sense, it 
 seems to stream down to earth in unbroken continuity — 
 airav'yaa^a t?}? h6^ri<i. And just as the impression of a seal 
 is co-extensive with, yet distinct from, the seal which pro- 
 duces it, so is the Son at once equal with, yet hj^ostatically 
 distinct from, the Person of the Everlasting Father, AVhose 
 Image and Impress He is — ■)(^apaKT'>ip tt}? vTroa-rdaeco^iK 
 
 It is observable how both Scripture and the Catholic 
 Creeds first state the truth of Christ's Divine and Eternal 
 Person, and then pass on to say how He suffered and died. 
 The Godhead indeed could not sufier. But God could 
 take . a nature which is capable of suffering. And we 
 know that He has condescended to do so. But Scrip- 
 ture and the Creeds do not pause to limit or explain the 
 sense in which the Eternal and Almighty Son of God 
 
 ' Art. II. ^ Niccne Creed. 
 
 ' Heb. i. 3. So St. Greg. Nyssen., Coiiim. in loc. : T(j; /xiv airavyaffnain 
 TO (Tvix(pviS ivSfiKi'viJ.fvos' Tw 5e x°P'"'''''iP' '''^ IffOffTo.ffioi', ot)T( -yap avrr/s 
 TTphs Triv airavyd^ovffav (pvaiv iirLvoilral tj fitffov of/re ris rod xapaKTripos 
 iXaTTucTis Ttpui Ti]v vir' ai/rov xop"''''"'7P'C"^*''^'' vTf&ffTaffiv. aWa Kal 6 rijv 
 a.TTavyd(ov(Tav (pvaii^ voriffav, Kui to anavyaafia ravrris TravToiy KaT(v6ricTe. 
 Koi "rh /xeyedos tt/j inro(TTd(T(ws tV ro? \a0d;f, tw iirtpaivofxfVM xopofTf/p' 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 233 
 
 became obedient to deatb. Still less do tbo Creeds 
 insert a new subject ™ : as tbougb He Who was Very God 
 was other than He "Who was crucified. St. John describes 
 the great Subject of his Gospel in its opening chapter. 
 He is the Word, Who is with God, and Who is God ". 
 He is the Author of creation", the source of Life and 
 Light P. St. John then traces His manifestation in the 
 flesh through its successive stages, His miracles, His 
 disputes with the Jews, His journeyings to Jerusalem. 
 When at the end of his Gospel, in the eighteenth and 
 nineteenth chapters, St. John describes Christ's humi- 
 liations, and Sufferings, and Death, he is speaking of the 
 Self-same Person Whom he had already described at first 
 as the Everlasting Reason or Word of the Supreme God. 
 In the same way the Creed asserts that "Very God of 
 Very God, for ns men and for our salvation . . . was 
 made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius 
 Pilate 1." And St. Paul tells the Philippians, how Christ 
 Jesus, being in the form of God, did not deem His 
 equality "\%'ith God a prize to be jealously retained or 
 insisted on"', but emptied Himself^ of His glory, by 
 taking" upon Him the form of a slave, by being- made in 
 the likeness of men. And further, how, after being found 
 in fashion as a man. He humbled Himself by becoming 
 obedient even to death ; but that death — the Cross *. We 
 follow the descent from the Throne of Glory to the human 
 life, and from the hviman life to the exceptional pain and 
 ignominy of the Cross. But the Person is throughout 
 the Same. Thus Scripture and the Creeds lead us to 
 view the Atonement in the light of the Incarnation, 
 
 in This was pressed by St. Cyril and the Alexandrian Synod upon the 
 attention of the unhappy Ncstorius. Cf. llouth, Scrip. Eccles. Opusc., vol. ii. 
 
 PP- 37> 38- 
 
 " St. Jolmi. 1. " Ibid. 3. P Ibid. 4. Q Niccne Creed. 
 
 "■ O^x o.pTrayiJ.hv i)yT]aaro rh iivai Icra @€(S. 
 
 s 'EauTuy iicivuai. ^ Phil. ii. 6-8. 
 
234 The Divine Victim. [Seem. 
 
 rather than to vahic the Incarnation only or chiefly as a 
 basis and justification of those effects wliich are attributed 
 to the Atonement. If it might be said without irreve- 
 rence^ the Catholic doctrine thus teaches us to approach 
 the Cross from above more naturally than from below. 
 We look at the Crucifixion in the light of the dignity of 
 our Saviour's Person, without thinking exclusively of the 
 needs of our sinful souls. Some of the earlier Socinians 
 would seem to illustrate this position, however uncon- 
 sciously. Their errors on the subject of our Lord's Death 
 arc a direct consequence of their Humanitarianism. They 
 do not, generally speaking-, concern themselves to engage 
 in distinct speculations as to any presumed incompatibility 
 between the revealed results of the great Sacrifice and the 
 eternal Love or Justice of God. 
 
 If, prior to information on the subject, we were to be 
 told that such a being as our Incarnate Lord was to teach 
 and act on the scene of human life; we should anticipate 
 works of marvel and mystery, and words of unearthly 
 wisdom and of infallible truth. But if we were to be told 
 that He was to die, we should be unable to form any 
 specific conjecture as to the possible or probable results of 
 His death. When dealing with a problem so mysterious, 
 so altogether transcending the range of our limited capa- 
 cities, the human mind can only wait for Divine dis- 
 closures ". It cannot venture to forecast them. It may 
 indeed reverently and reasonably surmise that in carrying 
 the Human Nature which He has assumed forward to 
 death, the Eternal Being will have other and higher pur- 
 poses in view than would be possible to the noblest and 
 saintliest of His creatures. Certainly, when the Incar- 
 nation is a matter of settled and serious belief, the mind 
 does utterly recoil from iiiid reject any positive assertion 
 
 " Cf. Nt'wniaii's Parochial Sfinnoiis, vi. 6. " Tho Incarnate Son a Suflercr 
 and Sacrifice," especially jjp. 77, 78. 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 235 
 
 that the Passion of the Son of God involved nothing 
 beyond an exhibition of the highest attainments of 
 creatnrely morality. If God had revealed nothing*^ it 
 might well have been urged that human reason could 
 determine nothing as to the effects of the Passion. But 
 if human thought could determine nothing positively on 
 such a subject^ it is equally incapacitated^ in reason and 
 soberness, for deciding negatively that this or that 
 revealed consequence of the Passion is to be rejected as 
 inconsistent with some private human theory of the attri- 
 butes of God. Those who deny the Incarnation naturally 
 do not admit that Jesus Christ offered on the Cross ^^ a 
 full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satis- 
 faction for the sins of the whole world ^." But any 
 thoughtful man who seriously and intelligently believes 
 that God was really manifest in the Flesh, would at least 
 have great difficulty in believing that the Incarnate Victim 
 could die, yet with 'no results distinct in kind from those 
 which follow upon the death of His own missionaries and 
 martjrrs. Christians who adore the self-humiliation of 
 Infinite Charity in the manger-cradle at Bethlehem, will 
 almost expect some new insights into the Mind and pur- 
 poses of the Supreme Being on Mount Calvary. Nor is a 
 revealed truth which distances or defeats the precarious 
 anticipations of created reason, on that account inaccessible 
 to true faith ; since faith reposes with intrepid assurance 
 upon the Wisdom and Holiness of God Who speaks in 
 revelation. 
 
 Is it granted that Christ is, morally speaking, a perfect 
 Man ? Then He is more than Man ; since He puts for- 
 ward claims -^, which if they are not simple and necessary 
 truths, are blaspheme vis pretensions. Is His Divinity 
 confessed, honestly and frankly? Is He God in such sense, 
 
 '^ Communion Service. 
 
 y St. Matt. xi. 27. St. Luke x. 21. St. Jolm viii. ;8 ; x. ^o. 
 
236 TJie Divine Victim. [Serm. 
 
 '^ that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour 
 the Father^?" Then the Gospel narrative of the Passion 
 is to be read by the light which is shed on the real pur- 
 pose of those Sacred Sufferings in the Epistles, and, in 
 particular, in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Indeed, to 
 Christians who confess the true Godhead of Christ, the 
 Apostolic teaching respecting His Death must seem to lie 
 far within the range of its possible consequences. The 
 Apostles teach that mankind are slaves, and that Christ 
 on the Cross furnishes their ransom. Christ crucified is 
 voluntarily devoted and accursed. He is paying the 
 penalty which sin inevitably merits. He is washing 
 human nature in the stream of His own Blood. He is re- 
 conciling sinful man to a holy, loving, but ofiTended God *. 
 The truth which underlies and illuminates the Apostolical 
 language is the truth of our Saviour's Godhead. " It is,'' 
 says Hooker, " the Son of God condemned, the Son of 
 God, and no other person, crucified; which only one point 
 of Christian belief, ihc infinite worth of the Son of God, is 
 the very ground of all things believed concerning life and 
 salvation, by that which Christ either did or suffered as 
 man in our behalf ^." 
 
 AVhat Avonder then if the ritual language and sacrificial 
 system of the Jewish economy, to which, men tell us, the 
 Apostles accommodated their conceptions of the Passion, 
 have in truth no abiding religious interest or meaning 
 apart from that mighty event ! The Passion was the 
 reality : the Jewish sacrifices were the shadows. The 
 sacrifices were but relative and temporary ; the Passion 
 was the absolute, and, in its efiects, the eternal fact which 
 could really explain them. 
 
 2 St. John V. 23. 
 
 * Gal. iii. i?,. IJoni. viii. 1-3. 2 Cor. v. 21. (!al. iv. 5. Kov. i. 5, 
 I St. IVtcr ii. 24, &c. 
 '' Eccl. Pol., V. liii. 4. 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 237 
 
 Wlio that thinks steadily^ believingly^ on the Divinity 
 of Christy can marvel at any revealed result of His death ? 
 The conclusion almost inevitably seems to be less_, far less 
 than might be expected from the tremendous^ the incom- 
 prehensible premise. Who shall^ iif^Jj) who can gainsay 
 it, if the Divine Christ when crucified is " bearing our 
 sins in His own Body on the tree '^ ;" if He is " the Lamb 
 slain from the foundation of the world ;" if " by one offer- 
 ing He is perfecting for ever them that are sanctified;" if 
 He is the true Melchizedek, Who since He must have 
 somewhat to offer, "offers Himself;" if He is at once an 
 omnipotent Priest and Victim ^ ? Why should we marvel 
 that Scripture speaks of the precious Blood that issues 
 forth from His Wounds, with such remarkable emphasis, 
 with such significant and varied epithets ; that it is " the 
 Blood of sprinkling ;" " the Blood which speaketh better 
 things than that of Abel ;" " the precious Blood of Christ 
 as of a lamb without blemish and immaculate ;" the Blood 
 with which the Church was bought ; the Blood which 
 ."cleanseth from all sin ^ ? What room is there for 
 astonishment if the Passion, which to sight was such a 
 humiliation, be to the eye of faith a signal victory ; if the 
 record of human condemnation, like some discredited 
 document, is cancelled when it is affixed to the Cross of 
 salvation by the very nails which pierce the sacred Flesh 
 of the Eedeemer ^ ! What wonder is it that the princi- 
 palities and powers of evil are stripped by the Crucified 
 One of their prowess and empire, and, like captives in a 
 Roman triumph, are compelled to illustrate the victory of 
 their Conqueror s ! What wonder, if the Passion were 
 thus indeed a triumph, that the Lamb in His ascended 
 
 c I St. Pet. ii. 24. d Tiev. xiii. 8. Heb. x. 14; vii. 17-27. 
 
 e Heb. xii. 24. ' Peter i. 19. Eph. ii. 13; i. 7. Col. i. 14. Eev. i. 5. 
 I St. John i. 7. 
 
 f Col. ii. 14. g Ibid. 15. 
 
238 The Divine Victim. [Seem. 
 
 glory is still " as it had been slain ^ ;" that the Kin<!^ of 
 kings in His last recorded Apocaly]3se rides amid the 
 hosts of heaven "^ clothed in a vesture dipped in Blood ' ! " 
 What wonder that when the Only-begotten Son "has 
 truly suffered to reconcile His Father to us and to be a 
 Sacrifice^ not only for original guilt but also for all actual 
 sins of nicn/^ the relations which previously subsisted 
 between earth and heaven^ between God and His creatures, 
 should have been changed, and that a New Creation should 
 have entered into history ! 
 
 Certainly, when from such chapters as the third of the 
 Epistle to the Romans, or the ninth of that to the Hebrews, 
 we look back on the Gospel narrative of the tragical 
 mystery of this day, we cannot but mark how through the 
 Redeemer's humiliations and agony His Deity flashes forth 
 upon us. The redeemed and regenerated Church, as she 
 reads the inspired story of her Lord's sufferings, may well 
 exclaim, " The Son of God it was Who loved me and gave 
 Himself for me," Every ancient utterance of His Sjiirit 
 respecting Himself is scrupulously fulfilled, and justified. 
 And as His very enemies advance to apprehend Him, they 
 involuntarily pay homage to His Omnipotence ; they " go 
 backward and fall to the ground '^." The Roman governor 
 contemplates his prisoner with erxibarrassment and awe, 
 not merely as a holy man, but as a preternatural Being. 
 The centurion cannot resist the inference that He is the 
 Son of God '. The majestic silence of Christ, chaHenged 
 and insulted before His judges, Avhat is it but a concrete 
 manifestation of God as He reigns in human history, 
 bearing with man's sin and unbelief and error, because He 
 can afford to wait — " patieus quia c\3terims '" " ? The 
 seven last W^ords of Christ, — how deep, how inexhaustible, 
 how world-embracing is their meaning ! The rent rocks, 
 
 '' Rev. V. f). ' Iliiil. xlx. 13. ^ St. John xviii. 6. 
 
 1 St. !M:itt. xxvii. 54. ni St. Augustine. 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 239 
 
 the darkness over all the earth, the open graves — what 
 were these portents but tokens of the profound sjonpathy 
 of the natural world with the awful anguish of its Creator ? 
 Throughout the narrative the Divine Person of the 
 SujBferer is scarcely veiled beneath His suflFering and 
 bruised Manhood. And on the other hand, each detail of 
 the Passion is illuminated with terrible meaning by the 
 doctrine of Christ's eternal Person. That buffeted Face, 
 that thorn-crowned Brow, those nailed Hands and Feet, 
 what are they but features, integral parts of That Nature 
 Which God has for ever united to His own ? It is none 
 other than the Infinite and Everlasting- Being upon Whom 
 His creatures are thus venting their scorn, and hate, and 
 cruelty ". He indeed pleaded for their pardon on the 
 ground that they understood not the significance of their 
 act : " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they 
 do °." But we Christians do know what in very deed they 
 did. " We know that the Son of God is come, and hath 
 given us an understanding, that we may know Him That 
 is True, and we are in Him That is Ti'ue, even in His Son 
 Jesus Christ. This is the True God, and Eternal Life p." 
 Our knowledge of the Divinity of Jesus is part of that 
 '^ hidden wisdom,^' which before the Day of Pentecost 
 ^' none of the princes of this world knew ; for had they 
 known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of 
 Glory 1." 
 
 III. ^^ He loved me, and gave Himself for me.'' The 
 Eternal Being gave Himself for the creature which His 
 Hands had made. He gave Himself to poverty, to toil, to 
 humiliation, to agony, to the Cross. He gave Himself 
 virep ifjiov, for my benefit; but also virep ifiov, in my 
 place. In this sense of the preposition, St. Paul claimed 
 
 n See this worked out in detail with unrivalled beauty by Newman, ubi 
 supra. 
 
 o St. Luke xxiii. 34. P i St. John v. 20. 1 i Cor. ii. 8. 
 
240 The Divine Victim. [Serji. 
 
 the services of Onesimus as a substitute for those Avliicli 
 were due to him from Philemon — 'Iva vjrep aou fiol 
 8iaKovf]\ Such a substitution of Christ for the guilty 
 sinner is the ground of the Satisfaction which Christ has 
 made iipori the Cross for human sin. But on what prin- 
 ciple did the sinless One thus take the place of the guilty? 
 Was it, as men speak, an arbitrary arrangement, for which 
 no other account can be given than the manifested Will 
 of the Father? No; the substitution of the suffering 
 Christ for the perishing sinner arose directly out of the 
 terms of the Incarnation. The Human Nature Which 
 our Lord assumed was none other than the very nature of 
 the sinner, only without its sin. The Son of God took 
 on Him human nature, not a human personality. "He 
 took not angels, but the seed of Abraham \" Therefore 
 He becomes the Redeemer of our several persons, because 
 He is already the Redeemer of this our common nature, 
 which He has made for ever His own *. " As in Adam all 
 die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." As 
 human nature was present in Adam, when by his repre- 
 sentative sin he ruined his posterity ; so was Human 
 Nature present in Christ our Lord, when by the voluntary 
 offering of His sinless Self, He " bare our sins in His 0^vl^ 
 Body on the tree "." For Christ is the second Head of 
 our race. Our nature is His ovm. He carried It with 
 Him through life to death. He made It do and bear 
 that which was utterly beyond Its native strength. His 
 Eternal Person gave infinite merit to Its acts and Its 
 sufferings. In Him It died, rose, ascended, and was 
 perfectly well-pleasing to the All-Holy. Thus, by no 
 forced or artificial transaction, but in virtue of His exist- 
 ing representative relation to the human family. He gave 
 
 r Cf. Hishop EUicott on Gal. iii. i.i. 
 
 8 Ileb. ii. 16. Hooker, Ecd. Pol., V. Iii. 3, 
 
 t I Cor. XV. 20. " I St. Peter ii. 24. 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 241 
 
 Himself to be avrlXvrpov virep Trdvrcov — a rausom for all ^. 
 In intention and efficacy His sufferings were endured on 
 belialf of all who sliare His liuman nature. In point of 
 fact tliey avail to pardon those who^ through faith and the 
 Sacraments^ are livingly one with Him^ so that His 
 Personal Acts have become their own. 
 
 And, as the Church of England asserts in her thirty- 
 first Article, and in the most sacred prayer of the most 
 solemn of her services, the Death of our Lord was thus a 
 ^^satisfaction" for human sin. It freed man, as the 
 earlier Fathers rejoiced to remember, from bondage to 
 Satan ; it also paid the debt which man owed, and which 
 man of himself could not pay, to the Justice and Sanctity 
 of God. St. Anselni ^ formalized one side of this teaching 
 of Scripture and the Fathers ; he did not really enlarge it. 
 The doctrine of a satisfaction found its place in each of 
 the two great schools of divinity which in the following 
 centuries ruled the thought of the Western Church. It 
 was perhaps most welcome to the Thomist divines, who 
 held the redemption of man to have been the primary 
 motive of the Divine Incarnation ^. The Scotist theology, 
 laying particular stress upon certain statements of St. 
 Paul", rejoiced especially to exhibit the Incarnation as 
 the eternal purpose of God, entertained irrespectively of 
 the sin of man ^. According to the Scotist doctrine, the 
 
 X I Tim. ii. 6. 
 
 y A slightly difl'ereiit estimate is stated with great force and ability iu 
 Mr. Oxenham's "Catholic Doctrine of the Atonement," p. 75, sqq. 
 
 2 For a summary of the arguments compare De Lugo, De ]\Iysterio Incar- 
 nationis, disp. vii. sect, i, 2. Such passages as St. John iii. 16 ; i Tim. i. 5 ; 
 Gal. iv. 4, 5, seem decisively to support the Thomist doctrine. So the 
 Nicene Creed, " Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from 
 heaven, and was incarnate;" and St. Augustine, "Si homo non periisiet, 
 Filius hominis non venisset." — Serm, VIII. de Verb. Ajyosf. 
 
 a Ephes. i. 4. Col. i. 26. 
 
 ^ It is noteworthy how nearly Scotus anticipated some modern Pantheistic 
 theories which deny the dogma of creative activity iu God, and which pro- 
 
 R 
 
242 Tkc Divine Victim. [Seem. 
 
 Incarnate Being was originally destined to be the crown 
 and glory of a race of sinless creatures. The Passion was 
 a modification, so to speak, of the original design ; it was 
 prescribed and accepted by Infinite Love, with a view to 
 meeting the needs of sinful and perishing humanity. In 
 an unfallcn Avorld the Incarnate Lord would still have 
 offered sacrifice. For the idea of sacrifice is anterior to 
 that of sin ; it is an acknowledgment due from His most 
 perfect creatures to the high Majesty of God. But in an 
 unfallcn world, sacrifice would have been eucharistic, not 
 propitiatory. AVTien, however, the Son of God had, by 
 His assumed Humanity, undertaken to represent a race, 
 which was actually a race of sinners. His Obedience to 
 the Divine AVill took the form of expiation, and that 
 which might have been only a sacrifice of thanksgiving to 
 the All -Good became in fact a Satisfaction for sin to the 
 All- Just. Scotist no less than Thomist theologians recog- 
 nized both the need and the fact of a Satisfaction for sin. 
 Tliat Sr.tisfaction was not the mere pajanent of an 
 obligation which man had incurred; it was not the ren- 
 dering of a bare equivalent for human sin to the outraged 
 Justice of God. It was more than plenary; it was super- 
 abundant; since it was offered in a finite nature, but by 
 
 claim a universal restoration of moral beings. Dc div. pranlrst. II. 46, 
 I. 44; especially, as to tlie first point, V. 311. " Dum vero Divinam 
 Naturam esse fiiicm omnium intransgressilcmquc tcrminum, Quem omnia 
 appetunt et in Quo limitcm motus sui naturalis constituunt, conspicor; 
 invcnio Eam neque creatam esse, 7ieqiie creantem. A nullo sicinidcm creari 
 potest Natura Qua? a Seipsa est neque aliitd crcaf. Quid creabit, dum Ipsa 
 omnia in omnibus fuerit, et in nullo nisi Ipsa apparebit ?" A friendly critic 
 in the U)iion Review (Jan. 1866) pleads earnestly for tbe Scotist view of the 
 Divine Incarnation. Admitting to tlie full what he urges as to the foi'ccand 
 depth of that representation, the writer would feel less hesitation as to its 
 claims, if he could be sure that it had no real connexion with theories 
 which obliterate some of those fundamental distinctions upon which Reve- 
 lation itself rests. Cf. Xeander, Church History, VI. pp. 167, 16S, sqq., 
 who quotes the passage cited above. 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 2^2 
 
 an Infinite Being. We may slirink indeed from saying 
 that such a Satisfaction must have exerted a peremptory 
 claim on the Justice of God. Needed it not, after all, to 
 be accepted by Infinite Mercy ? Might it not have been 
 dispensed with ? Might not the Almighty Father, Infinite 
 in His resources, have saved the world without exacting 
 the Death of His Son as the price of its salvation'^? 
 
 Here Revelation does not encourage conjecture. Enough 
 that the Satisfaction actually oftered, has been as really 
 accepted. We may presume, without hardihood, that, if 
 God might have saved us in other ways. He has chosen 
 the way which was in itself the best. And the freedom 
 of the Father^s gift of His Blessed Son, the freedom of 
 the Son^s self-oblation, are insisted on in Scripture, as 
 if with the object of condemning by anticipation any 
 mercantile estimate of Infinite Love. There 'is a pro- 
 fusion of self-sacrifice which meets us every where in the 
 history of the Passion. Throughout, it is the history of 
 a " plenteous Redemption.-" The bearing of the Divine 
 Victim is not that of one who is tendering an equivalent 
 for a debt which had been incurred. He does not seek 
 to undergo only that precise amount of ignominy and 
 pain which was needed for the Redemption. He has 
 offered His Human Will without reserve; and His 
 offering has been accepted. True ! one blow from the 
 soldier's sword, or hand, one lash from the scourge, one 
 pang of Christ's sacred Soul, one drop of His precious 
 Blood, might have redeemed our world, or a thousand 
 such worlds as ours. For each Act of submission, each 
 throb of pain, had infinite value in the sight of Heaven ; 
 not only as representing the perfect offering of our Lord's 
 
 ^ Hooker, E. P., V. li. 3. " The world's salvation was without the lucar- 
 natiou of the Son of God a thing impossible : not simply impossible, bnt 
 impossible it being presupposed that the Will of God was no otherwise to 
 have it saved than by the Death of His Own Son." 
 
 E 2 
 
244 The Divine Victim. [Serm. 
 
 Will, but as being penetrated by tlie informing presence 
 and boundless merits of His Divinity. Yet Jesus, AVlio 
 miglit have saved us thus, was in truth enamoured of profuse 
 self-sacrifice. " In His love and in His pity He redeemed 
 us^;" and His pity and His love knew no bounds. He 
 had surrendered His throne on high, His an gel -ministers, 
 His earthly home ; He had left His Mother and His 
 friends; and when His doctrine and His miracles had 
 brought to Him fair fame and popular ascendency He 
 chose to become " a worm and no man, the very scorn 
 of men and the outcast of the people ^." And so He 
 gave His Face to the smiters, and His Cheeks to them 
 that pulled off the hair. He gave His Body to physical 
 torture ; He gave His Soul to an unspeakable spiritual 
 Agony. He offered the long history of His suffering Life, 
 and of His Death of shame and pain, to atone for the 
 sins of us guilty men. He gave all to that Will, in 
 Which we are sanctified, by the offering of His Body ^. 
 Less might have merited the Father^s grace ; less might 
 have satisfied His justice. But Jesus would display the 
 range, the power, the prodigal generosity of Divine 
 Charity. The Cross was to be not merely the instru- 
 ment of His punishment, but the symbol and the throne 
 of His conquering Love. '' I, when I nm lifted up from 
 the earth, will draw all men unto ]\[c ^-'.'^ 
 
 " He loved me, and gave Himself for me!' Eacli .sinner, 
 each saint around His Cross might have used the words 
 of the Apostle. For His Blessed Mother and St. John; 
 for the Roman judge and for the Boman soldiers; for the 
 Chief Priest and for the Pharisee ; for the vilest and 
 hardest of His executioners, and for the thieves who hung 
 dying beside Him, our Ijord gave Himself to death. For 
 all who have been first and greatest, for all who have 
 
 <• Isii. Ixiii. 9. e Ps. xxii. 6. 
 
 ^ Ileb. X. 10. g St. John xii. 32. 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 245 
 
 been least and last in human history, for all. whom wo 
 have loved or seen, for our separate souls, He gave Him- 
 self. True, His creatures indeed are still free to accept 
 and appropriate or to refuse His gift. But no lost soul 
 shall murmur hereafter that the tender loving-kindness 
 of God has not willed to save it. No saint in glory shall 
 pretend that aught in him has been accepted and crowned, 
 save the infinite merit, the priceless gifts of his Redeemer. 
 The dying love of Jesus embraces the race ; and yet it 
 concentrates itself vfith direct, and as it seems to us, with 
 exclusive intensity, upon each separate soul. He dies for 
 all, and yet He dies for each ; as if each soul were the 
 solitary object of His Incarnation and of His Death. 
 
 It is well that we should individually realize this. 
 Doubtless self may be carried even into the regions of 
 sacred thought with disastrous results. Men may forget 
 thanksgiving in prayer, the Church in the needs of the 
 personal soul, the glory of God in this or that end, which 
 they are for the moment bent on attaining. So the Atone- 
 ment laa]! be valued onhj as the source of personal peace ; 
 and the Incarnation onhj as an explanation of the power 
 and completeness of the Atonement. But to-day beneath 
 the Cross we may each of us legitimately fix our soul's 
 eye on the great Sufferer, and we may say with His 
 Apostle, " He loved mc, and gave Himself for meP 
 
 Times doubtless there are in every true life, when no 
 other sight than that of the Crucified is tolerable to the 
 soul in its torturing sense of guilt : — 
 
 " At mens sibi couscia factis 
 Prfcmetuens adhibet stimulos, torrctque flagellis ; 
 Nee videt interea qui terminus esse malorum 
 Possit, quive sict pccnarum denique finis : 
 Atque eadem metuit magis liajc ue iu mortc gravescaut h." 
 
 "Who among us has not shruuk thus fearfully from self, 
 
 li Lucret. iii. 1031 — 1035. 
 
246 The Divine Victim. [Serm. 
 
 from God, from the thought of death? Who has not 
 known hours of solitude, of anguish, of depression, during 
 which the Holy Spirit of God has revealed to the soul 
 its inward load of sin ? At such times nothing can bring 
 help and comfort but the inward sight of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ crucified. These precious opportunities are ir- 
 remediably lost, if they do not lead us to His Cross. 
 The sinner takes his place in spirit on Calvary : he gazes 
 on the mangled Form, on the Eyes closing in death, on 
 the sacred Abounds ; he is taught by a heavenly whisper to 
 say with the Apostle, " He loved mc, and gave Himself for 
 me" It is by the Cross alone as a revelation and an 
 application of the eternal love of God to the soul that the 
 sinner is restored. 
 
 Certain it is that all sacraments, all prayers, all authori- 
 tative words of pardon, all sanctifying works of mercy, 
 draw whatever they have of power or virtue from the 
 Fountain which flows on Calvary. In the Death of the 
 Son of God we may find the consecration of every fresh- 
 ened sense of tlie fathomless abyss of being which each 
 of us bears within himself. This picture of triumphant 
 suffering braces and educates all those undefined yearn- 
 ings for a higher, purer, more supernatural liie which 
 force their way, ever and anon, upwards, heavenwards, 
 through the thick maze of earthly cares that weigh souls 
 downwards to the dust. On Mount Calvary is to be 
 inund tlic true secret of Christian energy; the motive 
 which of all others is properly, intensely, pre-eminently 
 Christian; the strength of each individual Christian life, 
 the certificate of the Church's final triumph. This volun- 
 tary outpouring of the Infinite Charity of God upon His 
 defiled and degraded creature touches the inmost heart of 
 man. This self-oblation of the Perfect Moral Being for 
 the sinner who grovels in inherited and self-augmented 
 corruption, has — it is an experience of eighteen centuries 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 247 
 
 — a controlling, subduing, elevating, tranquillizing power 
 wliicli no other truth can equally command. It is not the 
 awful mysteriousness of Christ^s Pre-existent Life, it is 
 not either the lowliness of His manger-bed, or the scene 
 of His Ministry, or the Words which He spake, and which 
 are WT.'itten for our learning-, or the splendours of His 
 ascended Manhood, that have sunk deepest into the heart 
 of His Church. From the first and -until now, among 
 all races, in all climes, as of old in Galatia', irpoe^pa^t] 
 iaTavpco/mepo'i. The picture upon which faith loves best 
 to dwell is the Crucifixion. It is the suffering Form 
 of the Son of Man which is most welcome and precious 
 to us perishing sinners : for in that Form, bruised and 
 pierced, we read God's answer to our deepest sense of 
 need; we understand, as we adore, that we are '^justified 
 freely by God's grace through the redemption that is in 
 Christ Jesus K" 
 
 Of all days in the year Good Friday is the most fitted 
 for solitary intercourse with God. Let us then, to-day, 
 indeed seek to " know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him 
 crucified ^.'^ Let us "consider Him that endured such 
 contradiction of sinners against Himself'"," such agony of 
 Body and of Soul. Let us pray Him to deepen or to 
 restore within us the sense of His peace, of His pardon. 
 To gaze on the groat Sufferer must be for all hearts that 
 are not utterly hard and dull, to learn a higher unselfish- 
 ness, a lowlier humility, a severer standard of Christian 
 life. The love of Jesus reproduces itself in the lives of 
 His working and suffering children. In some shape they 
 are ever giving themselves for God and for theu' fellow- 
 men. True love is no thin disembodied sentiment. 
 Love asserts its presence in a practical, visible way, when 
 once it really lives. It is the very soul of all that earthly 
 labour which, for Christ's sake, will be owned hereafter. 
 
 i Gal. iii. i. ^ Eom. iii. 24. 1 i Cor. ii. 2. ™ Hob. xii. 3. 
 
"248 The Divine Victim. [Seem. 
 
 Jesus Christ did not die upon the Cross that we might 
 lead a self-seeking life, whether by indulging our lower 
 appetites, or by wasting intellectual power uj^on subjects 
 which, hoAvevcr gratifying to ourselves, achieve nothing 
 for the honour of God or for the good of men. Only 
 when we devote ourselves according to our measure to 
 God's glory, and to the enlightening, or cheering, or 
 supporting our brethren, do we enter into the practical 
 spirit of our Lord's Death. Self-renouncement is the 
 temper of which His Death was the highest expression. 
 " He died for all, that they which live should not hence- 
 forth live unto themselves. But unto Him Which died for 
 them, and rose again ".'' 
 
 Threatening clouds are now gathering over the sky of 
 Europe, and men say that we may daily expect to hear 
 that a war has commenced, of which none may venture to 
 limit the range or the duration". On such a day, beneath 
 the Cross of Him Wlio died to reconcile earth and heaven, 
 we might indeed desire to forget even these grave 
 anxieties. Yet we do well to remember them, if they 
 should remind us, that no material ini])rovements in the 
 outward aspects of human life, no mental culture, no 
 social refinement, no political advancement, no lapse of 
 years can eradicate the deep-seated evil of that nature of 
 ours which was represented on the Cross by a sinless 
 Saviour. Man will never outgrow the need of the great 
 Expiation. Man will never be able to dispense •s^-ith the 
 cleansing virtue of the Atoning ]31ood. And it would be 
 a work of Christian charity, in strict harmony with the 
 purpose of this day's observance, if each one of us should 
 here resolve, on this very day, secretly and earnestly to 
 beseech Him Who alone can govern the unruly wills and 
 
 " 2 Cor. V. 15. 
 
 " Tliis siTinon was ])rcnchc(l a fuw days Ijcforc the liou'iniiinp: of tlic cani- 
 jKiiyn of yolfcrino, in 1859. 
 
IX] The Divine Victim. 249 
 
 affections of sinful men, tliat He would look once more on 
 the Face of His Anointed, and vouchsafe to give peace in 
 our time to the angry and distracted nations. May He 
 take pity upon us, and upon Christian Europe, "not 
 weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord"! In ourselves, indeed, there is 
 nothing that should stay His Ai'm or invite His mercy. 
 But may He have respect to' the Acts and Sufferings of 
 His Sinless Son ! . . . . Only while contemplating the 
 inestimable merits of the Redeemer can we dare to hope 
 that our Heavenly Father will overlook the countless 
 provocations which He receives at the hands of the 
 redeemed. 
 
SERMON X. 
 
 THE EISEN LIFE. 
 
 Col. iii. i. 
 Jf ye then he risen ivlth Christ, seek those things that are ahove. 
 
 OT. PAUL lierc implies a practical contrast without 
 ^ exactly asserting it. Colosse liad recently been the 
 scene of proselytizing acti\dty on the part of some 
 religious theorists. They seem to have combined a 
 theosophic doctrine about the nature of God and the 
 office and worship of angels, with the recommendation, 
 of certain practical observ^inceSj projoer not so much to 
 the Jewish ceremonial law as to some later Cabbalistic 
 developments. The Apostle implicitly condemns these 
 speculations and observances as alike human and earthly, 
 and therefore as unworthy of men who had been called 
 to something higher, to something divine. If the 
 Colossians had indeed risen with Christ, let them act 
 as the moral, the intellectual children of His Eesur- 
 rection. Men who did not possess a revelation from 
 Him " in Whom tlwelleth all the fulness of the Godliead 
 bodily =*," might fittingly occupy themselves with guesses 
 at truth which human thought had elevated into dogmas, 
 or with practical suggestions which a human authority 
 had prescribed as laws. The Colossians had risen above 
 
 * Col. ii. 9. 
 
The Risen Life. 251 
 
 these tilings; they had risen with Christ. They were 
 emancipated from the trammels of the human and the 
 earthly. Let them be loyal to the idea^ to the principle 
 of their resurrection. The risen life had its clearly de- 
 fined obligations no less than its glorious privileges. 
 Those who had in very deed shared in Christ^s Eesur- 
 rection-life should seel^ things above the level of that 
 tomb which^ with Him and through Him, they had left 
 behind. A consideration this, my brethren, sufficiently 
 practical, and (as the use of this Scripture in the Easter 
 services of itself suggests '^) peculiarly suited to the 
 Paschal season. Brighter far than any other days in the 
 Christian year for the living members of God's redeemed 
 family are the forty days through which we now are pass- 
 ing. At the thought of the Divine Sa\'iour's triumph 
 over death, the Christian heart swells with a joy, nay, 
 almost (may I not say it ?) with a chastened pride. In 
 the realm of spiritual life, Easter feelings seem to cor- 
 respond to that union of deep thankfulness and of 
 triumphant exultation with which an Englishman, at any 
 rate, of the last generation was wont to hail the anni- 
 versary of Waterloo. "The Lord hath risen indeed, and 
 hath appeared unto Simon '^." He has risen, and we 
 Christians have a share in His Resurrection. "This 
 is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice 
 and be glad in it ^T . . . But high spirits are not 
 without their attendant dangers; and it is never so 
 necessary to insist upon the practical aspects of a truth, 
 as when we are being carried along by the full tide of 
 buoyant feeling which has been stimulated by dwell- 
 ing on it. 
 
 I. " Risen with Christ." Observe here, first of all, the 
 relation in which the miraculous, external, historical fact, 
 
 l) Epistle for Easter Day. c St. Luke xxiv. 34. 
 
 '^ Ps. cxviii. 24. 
 
252 The Risen Life. [Seem. 
 
 that Jesus Christ oui' Lord rose from the dead^ is made 
 to stand to the practical spiritual Christian life. In the 
 earliest teaching of the Apostles the Resurrection promi- 
 nently dominates over all other Christian doctrines. 
 That which chiefly gives it this early prominence is 
 manifestly its evidential value. With the Apostles, 
 especially in the Pentecostal period, Christ's Resurrection 
 is the palmary proof, the invincible assertion of the truth 
 of Christianity. The story how Jesus, after being 
 crucified and buried, rose in triumphant life from His 
 grave, provokes, as Jewish multitudes listen to it, a sense 
 of w^ondering- awe. It rouses the attention even of the 
 most indiflTercnt; and the interest thus created. is deep- 
 ened by reflection ; in the event, it is deepened and con- 
 solidated into a defined con\'iction of the truth of the 
 religion of Jesus Christ. The Resurrection is thus the 
 usual, the eff'ective weapon, by which the Apostles force 
 their way through the dense obstructive blocks of Jewish 
 or heathen thought around them. 
 
 The Apostles had themselves seen Jesus since His 
 Resurrection. They hnd spoken with Him. 'iliev had 
 eaten with Him. Nay, such was His mercy and His con- 
 descension, that they had at His invitation touched and 
 handled Him. They had tested a first impression again 
 and again and under varying circumstances. That Jesus 
 was literally risen, was for the A})ostles a fact resting 
 upon distinct evidence of their senses. Accordingly their 
 first ministerial effort was to publish this fact, and so to 
 lot it do its proper work in the understandings and the 
 consciences of men. AVlien the author of the Acts of the 
 Apostles is describing the missionary action of the earliest 
 Church, he tells us that " with great power gave the 
 Apostles witness of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus®." 
 AVith this general description tally the detailed records of 
 <^ Acts iv. ^T,. 
 
X] The Risen Life. 253 
 
 tlie earliest Christian preacliing wliicli liave been preserved 
 to us. St. Stephen's apology indeed was cut short by the 
 violence of his judges before his argument had been 
 allowed to reach its natural, its inevitable climax ^. St. 
 Philip the Deacon, when instructing the Ethio2:)ian Eunuch, 
 is said to have " preached unto him Jesus s." St. Philip 
 must surely have preached Jesus Risen, no less than Jesus 
 Crucified. Specially noteworthy as to this point is the 
 recorded teaching of St. Peter. His words on the day of 
 Pentecost, — " This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we 
 all are witnesses '^," — sound the keynote of the Apostolical 
 doctrine. And yet the Resurrection is not more pro- 
 minent in the teaching of St. Peter than in the teaching 
 of St. Paul. If St. Peter proves to the multitude on the 
 day of Pentecost that the Resurrection was the fulfilment 
 of Jewish, especially of Davidical prophecy ' ; St. Paul 
 proves this fulfilment, almost in the same language, in the 
 synagogue of the Pisidian Antioch '^. St. Peter is preaching- 
 to the people in the Porch of Solomon, or he is justifying 
 himself before the educated sceptics w^ho at that time 
 composed, or at any rate controlled the Sanhedrim. He 
 points fearlessly, again and again, to the Resurrection, as 
 the explanation of the miraculous power which he exer- 
 cised, and as the v/arrant, nay as the irresistible motive, 
 of his determined activity ^ St. Paul is insisting on the 
 great argument for natural religion before an audience 
 representing the jaded and languid indifference which had 
 resulted from centuries of fruitless speculation. He 
 informs the Athenians at the close of his discourse of a 
 startling supernatural fact. The moral phenomena of the 
 world demanded a future judgment; the Resuri-ection 
 proved that Jesus Christ was to be the Judge "". If St. 
 
 f Acts vii. 53, 54. g Acts viii. 35. h Acts ii. 32. 
 
 i Acts ii. 25 — 32. ^ Acts xiii. 32 — 37. 
 
 1 Acts iii. 15, 16; iv. 9, 10; v. 29 — 31. m ^c^g xvii. 31. 
 
2 54 The Risen Life. [Seem. 
 
 Peter is instructing Cornelius in preparation for his 
 baptism^ the fact of the Resurrection is the most pro- 
 minent featm-e of his instruction ". If St. Paul is 
 closing his last apology before Agrippa^ the prophecy 
 that Messias was to die and to rise from death is the 
 crowning point of his self -justification °. These cor- 
 respondences might be extended; but you may be 
 reminded of a theory which sees in them nothing more 
 than a later desire to harmonize conflicting elements in 
 the post-Apostolic Church, and consequently a proof of 
 the untrustworthiness of the narrative which contains 
 them P. The Tubingen school, however, still professes 
 its belief in the Pauline authorship of the Epistles to the 
 Romans and to the Corinthians. But the Epistle to the 
 Romans opens with a reference to the Resurrection, as a 
 powerful demonstration of our Lord's Divinity''. The 
 First Epistle to the Corinthians, written before the 
 earliest Gospel, exhibits the Resurrection as already part 
 of an Apostolical Creed '. According to St. Paul, the 
 
 n Acts X. 40, 41. ° Acts xxvi. 23. 
 
 V Baunigarten's Apostolic History contains u full reply to tlio theory of 
 Zeller. Eauninjarten, however, it should be observed, as a presbyterian, is 
 naturally uualjle to do justice to the full teaching of the Acts of tlie Apostles 
 respecting the real character and structure of tlio Church of Christ. These 
 are admirably drawn out in Eishop Wordsworth's Commentary on the 
 Acts. 
 
 '1 J{om. i. 4. 
 
 >■ I Cor. XV. 3, 4. Baur is somewhat end)arrassed in endeavouring to 
 account for the upgrowth of belief in the Kesurrection. He takes it for 
 granted that no real objective IJcsurrection of our Lord from the grave ever 
 took place. " Alle, welche an kcin wirkliches niaterielles AVunder glauben, 
 konnen uur annehmen, dass dcr Olaube an die .\uferstehung aus dem ganzeu 
 geistigen Process hervorgegangeu ist, welcher nach dem Tode Jesu im Geistc 
 der Jiinger erfolgte. Xach dem ganzeu P^indruck, welchen das Leben Jesu, 
 und Seine letzten Schicksale auf sie gemacht batten, war es filr sie einc 
 schlechthinige Unmuglichkcit zu denken, dass alles, was im Glauben an 
 Jesus nmi schon als absolute Wahrheit fiir ihr Bewusstsein feststand, in 
 Seinem Tode mit Einem Male zu (irabe gegangen sei. Audi in Seinem Tode 
 konuten sie sich Ihu nur als dcu Lebeudeu deukeu : Er musste als der 
 
X] The Risen Life. 255 
 
 Resurrection tlien rested upon tlie testimony of more 
 tliau two liunclrecl and fifty still living- eye-witnesses *. 
 According' to St. Paul^ the Resurrection is tlie very 
 corner-stone of the whole fabric of Christian teaching *. 
 According to St. Paul^ if the Resurrection could be dis- 
 
 Gestorbene leben, weil an Ihm, an Seiner Person alles fiir sich hieng, was sie 
 glaubten unci hoft'ten. Wie die Jiiuger nach dem Tode Jesu in die Notb- 
 wendigkeit Seiner Auferstebung sich hineindacbten, seben wir aus der Art und 
 Weise, wie sie durcb Anwendung Alttestamentlicber Stellen Sein ganzes Sebick- 
 sal fiir ibr religioses Bewusstseiu sicb zurecbtzulcgeu sncbten. Er musste ster- 
 ben,aber Er musste aucb aufersteben, well der Tod keincGewalt iiber Ibn baben 
 konnte. Vgl. Apg. ii. 24. Gott liat Iliu aiiferweckt, indem Er die Scbmerzen 
 des Todes loste, weil es nicbt moglicb war, dass Er von ihm iiberwaltigt werde. 
 Vgl. Luc. xxiv. 26. Ueberzeiigte man sich aus dem alten Testament dass es 
 Cbristus vorausbestimmt war, zu leiden und zu stcrl}en, so war in der Notb- 
 wendigkeit Seines Todes auch die iunere Notbwendigkeit seiner Auferstebung 
 enthalten. Stellt man sich nun vor, wie diesc inuere Xothwendigkeit in 
 ibrer ganzen Bedeutung vor dem Geiste der Jiinger stand, und bedenkt man 
 nocli dazu, wie iiberbaupt das relicjiose Beivusstsein jener Urperiode des 
 Chrlstentlmms sehr ekstatischer Art u-ar, wer konnte es fiir psychologisch 
 uumoglicb balten, dass die Gedanken, mit welcben sicli die Jiinger in ibrem 
 Geiste so lebhaft beschiiftigeu, sicb ihnen zu Yisionen gestalteten, die ibnen 
 als Erscheinungen des Auferstaudenen galten ? . . . Man kaun daber sagen, 
 wenn Cbristus nicbt leiblicb auferstand, so musste Er geistig aufersteben in 
 dem Glaubcn der Jiinger" (Tbrlesunqeti iiber Neutestamentliche Theologie, 
 von Dr. F. C. Baur, Leips. 1864, pp. 126, 127). In plain words, the disciples 
 were weak-minded enthusiasts, possessed of a strong conviction that the 
 Messiah was prophetically destined to triumph over death. According to 
 Baur, Jesus never did really rise from His grave. But the fervour of the 
 disciples made fact and inquiry unnecessary. The disciples addressed them- 
 selves to their countrymen and to the Roman world as the heralds of what 
 was a mere fancy ; and they succeeded in persuading the world and them- 
 selves that their fancy was a fact. . . . Surely it is easier to believe in the 
 Biljle narrative than in this wild endeavour to propagate disbelief in it. 
 Nothing is more certain than that the belief of the disciples in the Resur- 
 rection rested primarily on the evidence of their senses (Acts. ii. 32 ; x. 41). 
 Their belief in the prophetic announcements was far from being so strong as 
 Baur imples (St. Luke xxiv. 21, 25). And, as if to anticipate such insinu- 
 ations as that of the ecstatic credulity of the disciples, the good providence 
 of God, "for the more confirmation of the faith, suffered His holy Apostle 
 Thomas to be doubtful of His Son's Resurrection." Collect for St. Thomas's 
 Day (St. John xx. 25 — 29). 
 
 * I Cor. XV. 6. t iljiJ. i^^. 
 
256 The Risen Life. [Serm. 
 
 proved, the Apostles Lad propagated a lie in tlie Xamc of 
 God, and the idea that God had pardoned sin was an 
 empty delusion ". This unchalleng-ed Epistle, as no other 
 book in the New Testament, rests the doctrine of the 
 Resurrection upon its historical base, and pursues it to its 
 extreme theological consequences. In the light of this 
 great truth we behold the whole multitude of the glorified 
 dead gathered at length beneath the Throne of their risen 
 Redeemer; and thus, according to no merely idealistic 
 representation, but as an objective and literal fact, foretold 
 by the Apostle ^, death is swallowed up by the victory of 
 Triumphant Life. 
 
 In the text we encounter a very different aspect of the 
 Resurrection. St. Paul here teaches us its relation, not 
 to Christian belief, but to Christian living. Here the 
 Resurrection is not pressed upon us as a mere ^' historical 
 or external fact " or as a " detached and unfruitful 
 dogma;" it is a vitalizing principle in the living soul. 
 Indeed, all Christian doctrine is, in the living Christian 
 soul, inseparable froui Cliristian practice. This practical 
 relation between Christian dogma and Christian morality 
 is especially observable in St. PauFs Epistles. Un- 
 doubtedly St. PauFs general method is to devote the 
 earlier section of an Epistle to wliat is mainly a doctrinal 
 statement, and the later portion to moral and spiritual 
 exhortations. But the two sections are not sharply 
 separated, as a dogmatic treatise might be separated by a 
 modern writer from a treatise on Christian morals. In St. 
 Paul, the moral element interpenetrates doctrine, and rises 
 spontaneously out of it; while the dogmatic truth is con- 
 tinually re-asserted as the motive or basis of the morality 
 Avhich the Apostle is enforcing. As a matter of method 
 and for the sake of intellectual distinctness, morals and 
 dogma may be digested by later Church writers into 
 
 " I Cor. XV. 15, 17. ^ Ibid. 52-54. 
 
X] The Risen Life. 257 
 
 separate treatises. As a matter of fact they are inex- 
 tricably blended with and necessary to each other^ whether 
 in the heart of the Christian who is serving God^ or in 
 the Divine Scriptm-e, which exhibits the mind of God 
 respecting His servants. 
 
 Now here we see the doctrine of the Eesurrection doing 
 its work, not in the outer court of the Christianas under- 
 standing, but at the very heart and centre of his spiritual 
 life. The Christian is " risen with Christ.^^ The Eesur- 
 rection is not merely an historical fact, a transcendent 
 and significant mii'acle, a fulfilment of some projDhecies, a 
 warrant that other prophecies will be fulfilled. Certainly 
 it is an external objective event, which took place 
 eighteen centuries and a half ago; and we may not 
 resolve it into a merely subjective experience of our 
 Lord's fii'st followers "wdthout utterly discrediting the 
 very base of Christian evidences. But the Resurrection 
 has a subjective side ; it is a principle of spiritual energy 
 as well as a fact of human history. In the text the 
 Eesurrection is in close juxtaposition with, nay it gives 
 the form to, the life of the soul. It is a germinant 
 principle, out of which the soul derives its new life, and 
 by which the laws and obligations of that life must be 
 determined. Do you object that the Apostle's expression 
 is, after all, a metaphor ? I might demur to such an 
 objection ; because St. Paul elsewhere uses language 
 which seems to imply that he regarded the resurrection 
 of a dead body from the grave and the resurrection of 
 a soul from moral death, as only two analogous effects 
 of one and the same Divine energy y. But suppose that 
 we say that St. Paul is using a metaphor. What then ? 
 Surely a metaphor means something ; although persons 
 of inaccurate habits of mind sometimes seem to speak as 
 if Scripture was meaningless whenever it was metaphori- 
 y Eph. i. 18-20. 
 
 S 
 
258 The Risen Life. [Serm. 
 
 cal, A metaphor conveys a trutli under the form of an 
 illustration or a picture. But it conveys a truth just as 
 certainly as does a plain unmetaphorical statement. The 
 question before us is^ Wliat is the truth which is latent 
 beneath the metaphor ? Are we to suppose that the 
 Apostle is rechlessly flourishing a fine phrase to which he 
 attaches no definite idea, or that the idea which he does 
 attach to it is too vague, too pointless, too ethereal, if you 
 will, to be seized by our intelligence and stated in our 
 language ? It was once observed by a person of great 
 honesty of purpose, and gifted with a singular power of 
 appreciating and describing the phases of religious 
 experience through which he liad passed, that for many 
 years of his life he had read St. Paul, without supposing 
 that the great Apostle meant to assert any thing definite 
 in many of his descriptions of the Christian life. For this 
 person, such an expression as " risen with Christ ^^ was 
 the mere exubei'ance of rhetoric. It described, as he 
 thought, no tangible fact ; it represented no ascertainable 
 idea. To his apprehension, the Apostle seemed to have a 
 stock of phraseology at command, which was produced 
 from time to time ; the combinations of words being 
 varied, without any correspondent variation in the ideas 
 conveyed. He used to say, that in reading St. Paul, he 
 considered that all was very good, but that a great deal 
 was perfectly meaningless. Now I shall presently notice 
 a spiritual cause of this singular intellectual misfortune. 
 For the moment, let us note that it h a misfortune ; 
 unless indeed to be vague and unintelligent is seriously 
 desirable, when it is possible to secure intelligence and 
 precision. A man who closes his eyes to the dogmatic 
 teaching of Holy Scripture, by habitually saying to 
 himself that this or that statement is only a metaphor, 
 is, upon the best construction of his case, the victim 
 of an intellectual weakness. It may be that he is guilty 
 
X] The Risen Life. 259 
 
 of something much more serious than intellectual failure. 
 When we have to deal with a metaphor^ we have simply 
 to ask ourselveSj What is the translation — what is, so to 
 term it, the prosaic equivalent of the metaphor ? what is 
 its point ? how far may you press it without exaggerating 
 the aim of the writer ? how far are you bound to press it, 
 if you would really gain or convey an insight into the 
 writer's thought ? 
 
 2. " Risen with Christ." This Eesurrection, then, is a 
 moral change ; it is a spiritual movement. But observe 
 that it is not merely a movement, a shifting of spiritual 
 position from a lower to a higher point in the same 
 sphere. That would be an elevation. It would not be a 
 resurrection. A resurrection is a transfer from one state 
 to another. It is a passage from the darkness of the 
 tomb to the sunshine of the upper air. It is an exchange 
 of the coldness, stillness, corruption of death for the 
 warmth, and movement, and undecayed energies of life. 
 It is necessary to remark this distinction, because an 
 elevation, whether in thought or in morals, is sometimes 
 described as if it were equivalent to a resurrection of faith 
 and life. Whereas, in truth, individuals, families, popula- 
 tions are often 'elevated' by Christianity without being in 
 any true sense '^ risen with Christ." A certain mental 
 and moral elevation is a natural result of close contact 
 with a Divine religion. This elevation may even be 
 received by those who are wholly unconscious of re- 
 ceiving it. It comes to men as if from a subtle influence 
 afloat in the atmosphere. It passes unnoticed into the 
 vitals of a literary school, of a philosophical system, of a 
 political society. It may be thenceforward detected in 
 the presence of half-formed ideas, and fitful currents of 
 thought, and instinctive tui-ns of expression, of which no 
 other natural account can be given. This sort of eleva- 
 tion may or may not precede the conversion of a nation or 
 
 s 3 
 
26o The Risen Life. [Seem. 
 
 of au individual to the true Faitli. It may or may not 
 follow upon apostasy, whetlier national or personal, from 
 Christianity. It may not seldom be traced in those who 
 extend to the religion which creates it a condescending 
 but independent patronage ; and even in those who visit 
 the very Faith which elevates them, with a bitter and 
 relentless persecution. It arises naturally from contact 
 with truth ; even although such contact be purely ex- 
 ternal, and, with reference to the endless future, worth- 
 less. It comes to men as they gaze on the fair form of the 
 Church of Christ ; with her grand Episcopal organization, 
 fundamentally the same, even amid di\'isions, throughout 
 the world; with her vast theology for the intellect, and 
 her perpetual worship for the heart ; with her innume- 
 rable attractions for the educated and the refined; with 
 her tender, far-reaching ministries of consolation and of 
 mercy for the suffering and the poor. Men are 'elevated,* 
 as they mark the individual Christian, who is seriously 
 living for another world; whose life is an outflow of acts 
 and words which perpetually witness to the strength 
 and productiveness of its central fundamental principle ; 
 whose piety is at once consistent, intelligent, practical, 
 well-regulated, genial, simple, amiable, tender, as it 
 might seem, even to indulgence, yet withal penetrated 
 by the strength of decision and by the flume of zeal. 
 A man may not submit to, but he cannot be absolutely 
 uninfluenced by, a religion which he has seen closely 
 enough to know that it can give to a creature who carries 
 within him the same weaknesses and passions as those of 
 Avliicli we all are personally conscious, a heart of iron 
 towards himself, a heart of flesh for his neighbour, a 
 heart of fire for his God. Doubtless this moral spectacle 
 leads, in varying degrees, to the 'elevation^ of him who 
 steadily contemplates it. It begets in him sympathies, 
 aspii-ations, instincts, the sources of which he does not 
 
X] The Risen Life. 261 
 
 analyze. It is especially likely to do so^ if lie is naturally 
 open to impressions of moral beauty, or even if there be 
 in bis natural composition a vein of poetry. But tbe 
 question is, Wbat is this ^elevation/ wbicb reaches the 
 point of appreciation of a moral beauty external to itself, 
 really worth ? What is this '' elevation ^ worth, if it only 
 provoke sympathy, and mould the outward proprieties of 
 habit, and assert a place for itself in popular language? 
 What is it worth — the question must be asked — if it 
 should do no more ? It is easy, my brethren, to overrate 
 the value of such superficial improvement; and our own 
 times have an intellectual history which suggests peculiar 
 temptations to do so. But let us look at the matter in a 
 concrete form. 
 
 Surely Felix underwent a certain '^ elevation " of con- 
 science when he trembled at St. Paulas reasonings of 
 righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come^. Surely 
 Agrippa was raised above his natural level when he could 
 permit himself to exclaim to the prisoner who stood before 
 him, " Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian^.'" 
 The new Testament, however, would not authorize us to 
 speak of Agrippa or of Felix as " risen with Christ.^^ They 
 are left, each of them, by the sacred narrative, where they 
 were. In each case the moral pulsation dies away ; and 
 . the curtain falls upon a scene of darkness. In a different 
 sense, the Emperor Alexander Severus may be supposed 
 to have undergone a certain ' elevation ^ when he assigned 
 a niche in the private imperial Pantheon to the statue of 
 Jesus of Nazareth. But perhaps the instances which most 
 strikingly illustrate the difference between a superficial 
 elevation of thought or impulse, and a moral resurrection, 
 are to be found, not among heathen who knew Christianity 
 -only from without, but among those who, being Christians, 
 
 ' Acts xxiv. 25. ^ Acts xxvi. 28. 
 
262 The Risen Lije. [Seiim. 
 
 have sacrificed their faith to pohtical considerations, or to 
 the supposed claims of contemporary inquiry. 
 
 Consider the orig-in and the history of that remarkable 
 Eclectic system Avhich in the third and fourth centuries 
 was the great intellectual antagonist of the religion of oui* 
 Lord^. The philosopher Ammonius was educated in the 
 Catechetical School of Alexandria, beneath the eye of 
 Pantasnus or of St. Clement. He contrived to make in- 
 tellectual capital out of the stock of truths which he had 
 learnt within the Church, by forming a system which he 
 inaccurately or disingenuously attributed to Plato. His 
 system did in fact combine the form of Christian doctrine 
 with the Platonic spirit and method. It looked so like 
 Christianity, that for a time even Origen attended his lec- 
 tures ; and to this day it is a controverted point whether 
 Ammonius himself ever actually separated from the Church. 
 It might have seemed to us, if we had lived in Alexandria 
 in the first quarter of the third century, that philosophy 
 was yearning to be Christian, and that the Gospel was on 
 the point of receiving a scientific basis at the hands of 
 philosophy. Yet never had the Gospel a more intelligent 
 and bitter opponent than it encountered in a system whose 
 extreme intellectual results may be seen in Porphyry'', and 
 whose political action found its complete expression in the 
 apostate Julian. The Alexandrian speculation had its day. 
 It began as an offshoot from the Church ; it learned to 
 look with increasing disdain upon its parentage ; it died 
 as an apologist of the already expiring polytheism, while 
 vainly endeavouring to breathe into the worn-out frame- 
 Avork of a dead superstition the incongruous appendage of 
 a philosophical soul. Certainly too, Julian, apostate and 
 persecutor as he was, was in his way, ' elevated ' by 
 
 '' XcwiTian's Arians of the Fourth Century, cliap. i. sect. 4. 
 *-■ Porphyry \vas a impil of Longiuus, wlio was huiiself a inipil of Am- 
 monius Saccas. 
 
X] The Risen Life. 263 
 
 Christianity. In liis letters lie applauds the brotherly 
 love^ the benevolence^ the discipline of the Christian 
 Church. He even advocates the Catholic doctrine of the 
 Trinity, if it be understood as a Platonist might under- 
 stand it. Gibbon'^ represents the reign of Julian as 
 nothing less than a reconciliation of the piety and the 
 learning which had been divorced before ; and it is impos- 
 sible to deny that the Emperor's intellect and character, 
 even to the last, bore striking traces of the powerful, 
 although indirect action of Christian principles. Yet was 
 JuHan '' risen with Christ " ? Nay, dare we say this of 
 Rousseau, who in his enthusiasm would fain enhance the 
 beauty of the French language that he may express his 
 sense of the beauty of the Gospel ? Dare we say it of 
 others nearer our own time, of wi'iters of fiction, of writers 
 of would-be history ? Are they indeed '^ risen with 
 Christ," who lavish their encomiums with no sparing or 
 graceless hand upon the religion of our Lord, and who yet 
 apologize for the errors which His Teaching condemns, or 
 even for those dark sins, whether of body or spirit, which, 
 as we Christians know, bar the gates of heaven against 
 guilty and impenitent souls ? 
 
 Let us be well assured, that we here touch upon a dis- 
 tinction which is vital. The distinction between an ' eleva- 
 tion ^ and a ' resurrection ^ is based upon the deeper differ- 
 ence that parts nature from grace. The moral elevation 
 of a soul, of a country, of a literature, of a class, lies 
 strictly within the sphere of natm-e. It may be accounted 
 for by the operation of natural causes. The spiritual 
 resurrection of a soul belongs to nature just as little as 
 does the bodily raising of a corpse. It is an evidence of 
 the real introduction of a Higher Power into humanity. 
 It is, in short, simply and emphatically, the work of the 
 quickening grace of God. It is essentially sitj:)e)Tiatural. 
 ^ Decline aud Fall, vol. ii. c. 23. 
 
264 The Risen Life. [Serm* 
 
 3. " Risen with Christ." At length we reach the truth 
 which is latent beneath the Apostle's words. We are 
 taught by them that the life of the Christian is a super- 
 natural thing. You may ask, what is here meant by the 
 supernatural ? For it is sometimes said that the word 
 admits of no precise explanation; and that it is brandished 
 by orthodox divines, either with the unintelligent but 
 harmless purpose of producing rhetorical effect, or as a 
 shaft which may be spitefully yet effectively aimed at a 
 theological opponent. 
 
 Remark then, that any idea of the supernatural presup- 
 poses belief in God as a personal Agent, Who is absolutely 
 free and omnipotent in His action ^, Clearly therefore 
 the supernatural must be rejected by those philosophies 
 which deny the primary truths of Theism. The Positivist 
 must see in the idea of the supernatural a stupid phantom, 
 which is properly relegated to what he contemptuously 
 calls " the theological period " of human development ; 
 while the Pantheist wall object to it, as implying a dis- 
 tinction which, if it be admitted, must be fatal to the 
 essential principles of his philosophy. 
 
 The ground of Pantheistic thought is strewn with the 
 ruins of doctrines, among the most ancient and the most 
 fundamental known to the human mind. Pantheism 
 confuses and crushes those great distinctions with which 
 metaphysical science reverently surrounds and fences the 
 idea of God, throned, in His majestic separation from 
 creatures, at the summit of human thought. It huddles 
 together in the entanglement of a hopeless intellectual 
 disorder the finite and the Infinite, Substance and the 
 phenomenon, Cause and its effect. Instead of seeing in 
 natural order the manifest imprint of Creative Intelligence, 
 it can even suppose tliat intelligence itself is the unac- 
 
 e Cf. Wctzci- u. Wette Diet. art. "Naturalism." 
 
X] The Risen Life. 26^ 
 
 countable product of a still more inexplicable order. 
 With perfect consistency Pantheism does not tolerate a 
 distinction between natural life, or natural intelligence^ 
 and a sphere which transcends them. For such a distinc- 
 tion presupposes the idea of God, the absolutely free and 
 Almighty Creator, inflicting His Will upon a passive 
 creation by the establishment of two distinct conditions 
 of intelligent and conscious being. And the very idea of 
 God Himself is destroyed by the annihilation of those 
 distinctions which guard, to our apprehensions, His in- 
 communicable nature and His creative energy. Pantheism 
 cannot distinguish between nature and that which is 
 above it ; because to Pantheism nature is every thing. To 
 Pantheism nature is God, or God is natiu'e ^. And in 
 order to believe in the supernatural, we must first of all 
 believe in the existence of a Being, Who is distinct from, 
 and superior to, the work of His hands. 
 
 Nor would the existence of a supernatural sphere 
 approve itself to the sensuous materialism which is 
 making such advances in our day among the masses of 
 the people. This materialism is sure only of what its 
 senses can reach. It accepts what it sees, touches, eats, 
 and smells. It is sceptical of all that lies beyond. Of 
 course it will shrug its shoulders when you speak of a 
 world, of movements, of beings, inaccessible to sense. 
 To discuss the question in these regions, where questions 
 still more fundamental have first to be discussed, is a mere 
 loss of time and labour. Those who do not seriously 
 believe in the existence of a Personal Living God, 
 unfettered and all-powerful in His action, are in no 
 position whatever to understand, I will not say the 
 precise definition of the supernatural, but the bare 
 possibility of any thing which could deserve the name. 
 
 *' On tlie definition of Pantheism, see M. E. Saisset, JEssai de Philosophie 
 Heligieuse, vol. ii. p. 315 sqq. 
 
i66 The Risen Life. [Sekm. 
 
 Tliey ^ believe ' in nature ; and the frontier of nature is 
 the boundary of their creed. 
 
 To recog-nize the supernatural, a man must first believe 
 in the invisible Maker of heaven and earth. And no 
 serious Theist can deny the possibility of the super- 
 natural s. He AVho made the world which wo touch 
 by sense and by natural thought, Who upholds, and Who 
 rales it, can, if He will, superadd to it another world 
 which of themselves neither sense nor thought can 
 properly touch. It may be said that this is a gratuitous 
 supposition of miracle. But, after all. Creation itself is 
 the first and most startling of all miracles. Yet you 
 cannot deny the doctrine of a creation, and continue 
 to believe in God. You cannot believe intelligently in 
 creation and refuse to admit the possibility, that the 
 Creator may in His perfect freedom, act above, beyond, 
 independently of that entire sphere, physical, intellectual, 
 and moral, which we term nature ''. 
 
 As the term supernatural enters into theology, it is 
 generally concerned with the relations which God has 
 established between Himself and man. The supernatural, 
 in the case of man, is that which transcends the original and 
 necessary conditions of human life. Between the Almighty 
 Creator and man the creature of His Hand, certain original 
 
 B Compare tlic admission of INI. Th. l?ost, who is an eager advocate of an 
 advanced Hatioualisni among tlic French Protestants : — " Ceh\ ue veut pas 
 dire que nous trouvons le surnaturel impossihlc. Quand il s'agit do Dien, le 
 mot (V impossible n'a gucre de sens, et nous ne saurons jamais nous cxprimer 
 avec trop de reserve et do niodestie." — Le Protestantisme Liberal, p. 86. 
 Paris, 1865. 
 
 '» " Supernaturale est quod superat viros activas et exactivas naturre, 
 nempe quod nee causa? naturalcs facere valent, nee a Deo exigunt, ut com- 
 plemcntum sui generis : ut c. g. corpus organizatum cxigit animam, ignis 
 calorem, quaj idcirco natura'"a sunt. Contra vero Divina gratia, character 
 sacramentalis, mortui resurrectio, quaj nequc viribus natundibus habcri pos.- 
 8unt, ueque a naturil exigi, supernaturalla sunt." — J. Z. Mellinii, Lexicon 
 Veterinn Theologorum, pp. 82, 83. 
 
X] The Risen Life. 267 
 
 relations resulted from the act of creation. They are based 
 on the natures of the Creator and the creature respec- 
 tively. In describing' these relations we term man^s side 
 natural religion^ and God's side providence, or His moral 
 government. God sustains, feeds, governs; man looks 
 up to heaven, and at least yearns to know and to hold 
 converse with the Author of his being. This falls within 
 the province of ^ nature.' But God was not bound to 
 dwarf His work down to these limits, as conversely He 
 was under no obligation to grant man aught beyond them. 
 He is free in creation ; He is, as the Apostle represents 
 Him, alike in Creation and in Providence, not less master 
 of His handiwork than '^ the potter " who is moulding the 
 unresisting clay '. He gives or He withholds His gifts ; 
 and His creatures have no claims upon Him, and no 
 remedy against Him. None can question His right or His 
 power, if He should will to add to the relations which first 
 subsisted between Himself and His intelligent creature 
 other relations distinct in kind and of a higher order. 
 
 The Gospel assures us that He has done so. ^^ When 
 the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His 
 Son .... that we might receive the adoption of sons "^T 
 This ' adoption ' was indeed predestined in the Divine 
 counsels from all eternity^. But the word 'adoption' 
 describes a new relation to God, distinct from any in 
 which human beings had actually stood to Him, between 
 the fall of man and the Gospel dispensation. The Gospel, 
 then, did not merely reveal a Divine Fatherhood, which 
 had always existed, but which Christians were the first to 
 recognize. It introduced a new filial relation, distinct in 
 kind from any which had existed, or which could exist 
 in a state of '^ nature.' ^'^ As many as received" Jesus 
 Christ "■ to them gave He power to become the sons of 
 God, even to them that believe on His Name ; which 
 i Rom. ix. 2 1. ^ Gal. iv. 4, 5. ' Epli. i. 5. 
 
268 The Risen Life. [Serm. 
 
 were born not of bloody nor of tlie will of the flesh, nor 
 of the will of man, but of God'"/' Under the Gospel, 
 God is not merely the awful Creator, the Almighty and 
 Majestic ruler of the world. He is pre-eminently a tender 
 Father; and He sheds upon His children the many 
 tokens of a Father's love. He sets before the child of 
 His adoption an inheritance worthy of so extraordinary 
 and glorious a relationship, namely, the possession of 
 Himself in a life of endless happiness. He endows His 
 adopted child with new powers and new capacities, which 
 are expressly designed to fit him for this new and magni- 
 ficent destiny. And as He grants new powers and new 
 rights, so He exacts new and corresponding duties. He 
 illuminates the understandino^ and strengthens the will 
 of His adopted son; He awaits the return of a faith 
 and obedience which would have been impossible without 
 such strength and illumination. " Therefore if any man 
 be in Christ, he is a new creation {Kaivi) ktCo-l'^) : old 
 things are passed away ; behold, all things are become 
 new "." 
 
 The relationship, grounded as it is on union with the 
 Blessed and Only-begotten Son of God, this expectation 
 of an eternal home, this gift of new capacities, of heavenly 
 light and heavenly strength, this correlative power of faith 
 and obedience in the Christian sense of the words, are all 
 literally above nature. They are not included in its idea, 
 or granted under the terms of its constitution ; they 
 together make up a siipo-noiwYaX life. Some similar 
 supernatural privileges were indeed given to man in 
 Paradise ; they were forfeited by the fall ; they are more 
 than restored" in Jesus Christ our Lord. But the 
 Christian state of ' adoption ' was no part of those 
 original relations between God and His creature man 
 Avhicli arose out of the fact of creation. "Whether in Eden 
 
 f" St. .lohn i. 12, 13. n 2 Cor. v. 17. ° Rom. v. 15. 
 
X] The Risen Life. 269 
 
 or after Pentecost^ it is superadded to tliose relations ; it 
 is intrinsically of a higlier and distinct order ; it is^ in 
 theological language and properly, s/f^jernatural. 
 
 This point may be illustrated by the language of a 
 divine to whom the Church of England has always looked 
 with peculiar respect, and whose learning has been widely 
 recognized on the Continent. The word supernatural is 
 employed in the sense above stated by Bishop Bull, 
 when in his discourse on " The State of Man before the 
 Fall/' he tells us that " at the creation man was endowed 
 with certain supernatural gifts and powers, in which his 
 perfection chiefly consisted, and without which his natural 
 powers were of themselves insufficient to the attainment 
 of a heavenly immortality p ;" and again, that " man being 
 designed for a supernatural end,^^ was " furnished by God 
 with means proportioned thereto, i. e. with certain super- 
 natural gifts and powers which we commonly call original 
 righteousness ^i/' And this is the strictest theological 
 sense of the term, from which other senses more or less 
 popular have been derived; senses for many of which 
 theology is not in fairness to be considered responsible. 
 
 For instance, we sometimes hear men speak of mystery 
 and the supernatural as if they were interchangeable 
 terms. Whereas all that is mysterious is not super- 
 natural, and much that is supernatural is not mysterious. 
 Nature has her mysteries ; she makes us aware of 
 truths which are nevertheless shrouded from the direct 
 gaze alike of the eye of sense and of the eye of reason. 
 And grace has her simple and unmysterious discoveries of 
 truths, which nevertheless are higher than nature and dis- 
 tinct from it. Nor can any yearnings or efforts of natural 
 thought and feeling to break away from the bandages 
 and associations of sense, be deemed, as such, supernatural. 
 Natural forces may, upon occasion, rise above the average 
 
 P AVorks, Burtou's ed. Oxf. 1846, vol. ii. p. 53. q Ibid. p. 60. 
 
270 The Risen Life. [Seem. 
 
 attainments of nature ; and man's best efforts to compass 
 the ideal in thoug-lit and feeling are amply recognized 
 and provided for by philosophies which set out with a 
 resolute denial of the existence of the supernatural. lu 
 point of fact nature includes the world of thought not less 
 truly than the world of sense ; while the supernatural 
 lies beyond nature, whether it be mere sense or high 
 intelligence. Again, it is assumed in ordinary language 
 that miracle and the supernatural are names for the same 
 thing. AVhereas miracle is in any case only a small 
 department of the supernatural. Perhaps it might be 
 more correct to say that miracle is the proof of the 
 existence of a supernatural world, rather than a part of 
 it. Miracle is, strictly speaking, preternatural; it lies 
 off the high road of nature ; it impresses us by being at 
 issue with what we observe of the laws and order of God's 
 workincr in the natural world. But miracles mio^ht con- 
 ceivably be wrought for merely natural ends, if God had 
 opened with man no relations whatever that could 
 properly be termed supernatural. Sometimes indeed 
 men speak vaguely, as if every thing which excited the 
 sense of wonder was really supernatural. Were this so, 
 nature would be herself the supernatural. For nature 
 is the school and mother of wonders. Our ignorance 
 and our knowledge of the truths of natural science alike 
 foster our sense of wonder^; they are equally inde- 
 pendent of our real apprehension of the supernatural. 
 The supernatural then cannot be simply identified with 
 the wonderful, or the mysterious, or the miraculous 
 elements of religion. That which constitutes the super- 
 natural in the theological limitation of the term to man's 
 
 "■ " If if^norance is the cause of wonder, it is downright impossible that 
 scientific exphmation can ever take it away, since all which cx])lanation docs, 
 in the final resort, is to refer us hack to a jirior inexplicable." — Jlr. J. S. 
 Mill's Examination of Sir W. llumilion's I'lulosopht/, p. 545. 
 
X] The Risen Life. 271 
 
 dealings with God, is the introductiou of a new set of 
 relations between God and man, over and above those 
 relations which arise immediately out of the original fact 
 that man is the handiwork of God ^. 
 
 In short, the Apostle's expression, " risen with Christ," 
 is another term for the supernatural. The fountain-head 
 of the supernatural in the Christian life is the Incarna- 
 tion of our Lord. "As our natural life," says Hooker, 
 " consisteth in the union of the body with the soul ; 
 so our life supernatural in the union of the soul with 
 God '." But how is this union to be effected ? Hooker 
 replies by sketching the outline of an argument, which 
 from his day to our own has been ranked among the 
 choicest masterpieces of English divinity. '' Forasmuch," 
 he says, "as there is no union of God with man without 
 that Mean between both. Which is both, it seemeth 
 requisite that we first consider how God is in Christ, then 
 how Christ is in us, and how the sacraments do serve 
 to make us partakers of Christ." It is of course con- 
 ceivable that the virtue of the Incarnation might have 
 been limited to the Incarnate Lord Himself. But in fact 
 Christ reveals Himself as the living Centre, from Which 
 the higher life radiates throughout regenerate humanity. 
 " I am the Vine, ye are the branches. As the branch 
 cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, so 
 neither can ye, except ye abide in Me"." Accordingly, 
 " He that hath not the Son of God hath not hfe ^." And 
 we Christians " are members of His Body, of His Flesh, 
 and of His Bones y." "Christ in us" is "the hope of 
 glory ^." And since it is certain that " as many" infants 
 
 s Ou this subject see Presseuse, "Jesus Clivist," p. 7 : " Qui dit surnaturel 
 suppose uu ordre qui est on dehors et tiu dessus de la nature." Bushnell, 
 "Nature and the Supernatural," pp. 16, 17, cap. 25. Felix, Couf. i. annee 
 1865. 
 
 t Eccl. Pol. V. 1. 3. " St. John xv. 4. x i St. John v. 12. 
 
 y Eph. V. 30. z Col. i. 27. 
 
272 The Risen Life. [Serm. 
 
 " as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ */' 
 because in an infant there is nothing to resist the 
 effectual and triumphant operation of grace; it follows 
 that each of the baptized, who have not forfeited the 
 Divine Gift by deadly sin_, may say with the Apostle, " I 
 live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me^." 
 
 When the Church of England refers to the Christian 
 life or to Christian privileges, she coMsistently employs 
 language which at the very least amounts to saying that 
 the life of a Christian is altogether above nature, that it 
 is siqjernaturnl. A baptized inftint is, as such, in a "state 
 of salvation*^" until ho forfeits it by wilful sin. Every 
 child is taught " heartily" to " thank his heavenly Father 
 for calling him into it, through Jesus Christ our Sa- 
 viour." And surely to be " a very member incorporate 
 of the mystical Body of God's Son ^ ;" to be " a member 
 of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom 
 of heaven*/' this is to be in a supernatural state. Surely 
 to enjoy the high and awful privilege of " so eating the 
 Flesh of God's dear Son Jesus Christ, and drinking His 
 Blood, that our sinful bodies are made clean by His Body, 
 and our souls washed through His most precious Blood ^/' 
 is to be within the range of a strictly supernatural means 
 of approach to God. It is not necessary to insist upon 
 this topic ; no educated man Avho understands the meaning 
 of language can doubt that the Prayer Book invariably 
 takes the supernatural for granted. And the Prayer 
 Book lies strictly within the sense of Scripture. Scrip- 
 ture in various ways again and again asserts the truth of 
 our new relationship to God by virtue of our union with 
 His Blessed Son. It does so nowhere more clearly than 
 
 a Gal. iii. 27. '• Gal. ii. 20. <^ Church Catechism, 
 
 t* Communion Service. ^ Church Catechism. 
 
 ^ Commuuiou Service —Prayer of Access. 
 
X] The Risen Life. 273 
 
 when the Apostle addresses the Colossians as " risen with 
 Christ/^ 
 
 The lesson of the text often is not learnt; because the 
 difficulty of learning it is a spiritual rather than an intel- 
 lectual one. A person to whom I have already alluded, 
 as seeing no meaning in St. Paul, was ultimately 
 brought, by God's loving providence, to face the question 
 of his eternal future, and to accept the great doctrines 
 of grace. He then saw that you must live Scripture 
 (if I may so speak) in order to understand it. For '' the 
 natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of 
 God ; and they are foolishness unto him ; neither can he 
 know them, because they are spiritually discerned"." 
 Although baptized, this person had lapsed through sin 
 into what was practically a state of unrenewed nature. 
 Any of the regenerate may thus forfeit his higher life, 
 if he be unfaithful to light and grace. In the case before 
 us, conversion was brought about by a signal exercise 
 of Divine mercy. And with the return to God, came the 
 return of spiritual light. St. Paul was at once read and 
 understood by a light which came not from the exercise 
 of his natural powers (such light he had before), but from 
 heaven. 
 
 To understand what it is to be " risen with Christ," a 
 man must himself be leading the life of the spiritual 
 resurrection. To enter into the contrast between life and 
 death which the words imply, the soul's eye must in 
 practice have measured the chasm which yawns between 
 them. Mere criticism is utterly powerless ,when the 
 question is one of spiritual appreciation. In its bearing 
 upon the real meaning of the New Testament, textual 
 criticism is to practical devotion, what the anatomy of the 
 human body is to the manifold sensations, to the living 
 feeling, to the incommunicable experience of life. If you 
 S I Cor. ii. 14. 
 
 T 
 
274 ^/^^ Risen Life. [Serm. 
 
 can combine tlie exact knowledge whicli is won by 
 anatomy with the experimental sense of life, so much the 
 better. But no mere anatomy could convey an idea of 
 the experienced sense of pain, or of nervousness, or of 
 buoyant animal enjoyment. To form a true idea of these 
 things, you must live them. Thus we may, to a great 
 extent, measure the reality of our religious life, by the 
 distinctness with which we perceive the drift and force of 
 Scriptnre language. For the real Christian, such pas- 
 sages as our text do not merely describe a phase of feel- 
 ing or a mode of thought which he looks at from without, 
 and which he thinks or speaks of as having passed away. 
 Such Scripture is a transcript of something which he sees 
 within himself, which he feels and acknowledges, in the 
 inmost sanctuary of his soul, and beneath the eye of 
 his God. 
 
 " Eiscn with Christ ! " The Apostle elsewhere exj^ands 
 the sense of his pregnant phrase. " We aiy^ he says, 
 " had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our 
 flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, 
 and were by nature the children of wrath even as others''." 
 This is the state of death. The description cannot apply 
 to those who were baptized as infants, and who have, by 
 God's mercy, preserved baptismal grace; but all really 
 living souls throughout the Church must add ; " God 
 Wlio is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He 
 loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened 
 us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved ;) and 
 hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in 
 heavenly places in Christ Jesus '." What a picture is 
 here of the majesty and glory and beauty of the Christian 
 life ! Is this resurrection side by side with Jesus imagi- 
 nary ? Is this picture of a soul crowned and throned in 
 a heavenly court, as being already a companion of saints 
 
 'i Epli. ii. 3. ' Epli. ii. 4 — 6. 
 
X] The Risen Life. ' 275 
 
 and angels, a mere mystic outline wliicli for you has no 
 attractions, nay which is to you unintelligible ? Then let 
 me beseech you to pray with the Apostle "^ that the God 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give 
 unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the know- 
 ledge of Him ; the eyes of your understanding being- 
 enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of your 
 calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance 
 in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His 
 power to usward who believe, according to the working 
 of His mighty power, which He wi-ought in Christ when 
 He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own 
 right hand in the heavenly places '^Z' 
 
 Why wonder that all around us Christians in the 
 Church is supernatural, if it be thus a continuous exercise 
 of the power which raised Jesus from the dead ? Or that 
 our Bible is essentially unlike all merely human books ? 
 Or that the Church, our mother and our home, is distinct 
 in essence from the perishing polities and societies around 
 it ? Or that in the holy Sacraments we have the sources 
 and supports of a life that nature could neither create nor 
 sustain ? Or that in Christian souls we behold graces of 
 which nature is incapable ; faith, hope, charity ; charity of 
 the deepest, tenderest kind towards God, and for God\s 
 sake, towards man ; humility, purity, patience ; a joy 
 which no earthly pleasure could minister ; a peace which 
 passeth all understanding ? For all that really quickens 
 and strengthens the Christian soul is His work. Who 
 raised Jesus from the grave. The Resurrection of our 
 Lord is the measure of the risen life. The risen life is, in 
 the mental and moral order of things, what the Resur- 
 rection is among the phenomena which are discerned by 
 the senses. The reality of the moral fact before our eyes 
 is bound up with the reality of its historical counterpart. 
 ^ Eph. i. 17—20. 
 T 3 
 
276 The Risen Life. [Seem. 
 
 If Christ's Resurrection be not a fact, then is Christianity 
 false from the first and altogether, and its spiritual no less 
 than its intellectual life is a delusion. If Christ's Resur- 
 rection be a fact — so certain that Christians would die to 
 attest it — then the supernatural character of the Christian 
 life around us corresponds with the strictly supernatural 
 fact from which it dates its origin. And as we take the 
 measure of the beauty, and power, and glory of this new 
 and higher life which has been thus bountifully bestowed 
 on men, what remains but to lift up heart and voice to God, 
 and cry, " It is meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we 
 should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto 
 Thee, Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God"? 
 
 Yes ! one thing else remains, to see that we are living 
 as those who are ''^ risen with Christ." This glorious life 
 has manners, a temper, a bearing, a line of conduct, a 
 code of honour peculiarly its own. The grace of God does 
 not put force upon our wills : we are free to obey or to 
 resist it. Therefore the Apostle adds, " Seek those things 
 that are above." Surely, brethren, there is need for this 
 warning ; even when, as we trust, the light of heaven is 
 already beaming on our understandings, and the love of 
 God is already warming our hearts. 
 
 " Seek those things that are above." Seek, above all, 
 assured communion with God, real work for God, frequent 
 rest in the felt Presence of God, through and beyond all 
 these, the final reward of the soul in God. Seek thus the 
 supernatural. But seek also, if you will, that which is 
 highest, purest, truest, noblest, even in the sphere of 
 nature. As spiritual beauty is higher than strength and 
 sharpness of intellect ; so intellectual culture is nobler 
 than mere development of muscle. Even bodily exercise 
 is separated by a vast interval from aimless sloth. Body, 
 intellect, spirit; each has its claims. Let the best come 
 first in all schemes for laying out time and strength. 
 
X] The Risen Life. 277 
 
 " Seek tliose thinf^s that ai-e above." What a rule 
 for conversation ! All may do something* to raise or 
 to degrade it. The indirect allusion^ the half-concealed 
 innuendo, which stains the soul that speaks and the soul 
 that willingly listens, is a cowardly thing that skulks away 
 upon the least show of a brave resistance. Each may 
 insist that conversation shall take and shall keep, at least 
 in his presence, a high tone. We need not obtrude 
 religion in quarters where to mention it will only provoke 
 irreverence. Yet surely as Christians, we must bear ever 
 in mind that we are risen with Christ. A few men who 
 are simply determined to maintain a generous, pure, 
 elevated standard of social intercourse, can affect most 
 powerfully for good, if they cannot absolutely control, 
 the character of thought in an entire society. 
 
 " Seek those things that are above !" What a rule in 
 making- friendships ! How much, both for time and 
 eternity, depends on the choice of one, whose thoughts 
 shall mould or be moulded by our thought, whose afiec- 
 tions shall be entwined with ours, whose will shall insen- 
 sibly communicate something of its vigour or its weakness, 
 its secret warp or its inflexible rectitude, to our will, as 
 soul is pressed close to soul in the manifold intimacies of 
 daily life ! Are we then seeking a friend, because his name 
 is to be found in the English Peerage, or because he will 
 one day be master of so many thousands a year ? Alas, 
 indeed, for us, if these be our conceptions of "things 
 above ! " Or are we seeking to be the friend, not of rank 
 and wealth, which will rightly suspect our advances, but 
 of a mind and heart that can reciprocate and bless our 
 friendship ? Are we seeking to commune with some intel- 
 ligence, with some soul, around which there plays already, 
 at times, a ray of more than earthly beauty ? This were 
 indeed a friendship which becomes a life that is itself 
 supernatural. 
 
278 The Risen Life. [Serm. 
 
 " Seek those things that arc above ! " What a motto 
 for a library ! Seek that which instructs rather than that 
 whicli stimulates ; that which braces, rather than that 
 which is attractive ; the exact science, rather than the 
 vague mass of ill-assorted "views;" the poet who reveals 
 human nature to itself, like Shakspearc, rather than the 
 poet who flatters and flms sensual passion, like Byron. 
 WTiat a rule even for sacred studies ! Yes, as you open 
 your Bible, pray that you may seek those " things that 
 are above." At the entrance of this temple of sacred 
 .Truth you are met by her handmaids, philology, history, 
 geography. In the name of Truth they proffer their ser- 
 vices, and they do well, for their services are indispensable. 
 But woe to you, if, instead of leading you to their mistress, 
 they detain you by their own inferior charms or by their 
 own more noisy activities. Woe to you, if they persuade 
 you to read the Book of Life as a Pagan might read it, as 
 you yourselves might read Herodotus or Plato. Woe 
 indeed to you, if, while fascinated by the polish of style, 
 or by the power of language, or by the scenery of incident, 
 or by the sequence of history, or by the flow of poetic 
 fervour, you forget to dwell upon, nay to inquire for, the 
 " things above." The Being and Nature of God, the 
 nature and destiny of the soul, the nature and consequences 
 of sin, the reality and working of Redemption, the Great 
 Day of Award, the endless world which lies beyond the 
 grave — such truths as these we should first and most 
 earnestly seek in Scripture. And among the many bless- 
 ings of the Church's guidance in the study of Scripture, 
 it may not be deemed the least, that she forces us to look 
 upwards. She saves us from the folly of dwelling exclu- 
 sively on the external and the human side of things. She 
 points to the leading truths, to the awful and consolatory 
 revelations which will ever command the deepest and most 
 lasting interest of the human soul. 
 
X] The Risen Life. i-jf) 
 
 " Seek those things that are above." What a solemn 
 word to those who are deciding their line of work for life ! 
 Why not ask yourselves^ brethren^ what is really the 
 highest and best work ? Answer that question, not by 
 what you know of the world's opinion, but by what you 
 know of the Will of your God. If, for instance, you are 
 hesitating between law and medicine, it must be admitted 
 that modern English society seems to award a social 
 premium to law. Yet surely the study of the framework of 
 God\s noblest earthly creature is a higher study than that 
 of any system of human jurisprudence, dashed as every 
 such system must be by human caprice, by human short- 
 sightedness, by human error. Sm'ely the practice of a 
 profession, almost every activity of which is a fresh cor- 
 poral work of mercy, must have an increasing attraction 
 for those who, in the moral sense of the expression, seek 
 "things above.'' Pardon me, brethren, if I speak too 
 boldly in a matter on which there may fairly be difference 
 of judgment ; but I venture to hope — nay, to believe — 
 that as public opinion becomes more Christian, a higher, 
 nay, the very highest social consideration will be every 
 where assigned to the members of that noble profession 
 of medicine, which ministers with one hand to the pro- 
 gress of advancing science, while with the other it 
 daily lavishes its countless deeds of unkno^vii, unacknow- 
 ledged generosity and kindness on the sick and suffering 
 poor. 
 
 Does the text bid you seek Holy Orders ? That ques- 
 tion must be answered by every man in the sanctuary of 
 his own soul. Alas for those who press to the steps of the 
 sanctuary only that they may keep a fellowship or please 
 a friend or a parent ! Alas for those who bring to the 
 service of the altar a sceptical intellect or an impure 
 heart ! These must earn for the Church of God a sure 
 legacy of confusion and weakness, and for themselves, too 
 
28o The Risen Life. [Serm. 
 
 probably, a forfeiture of endless peace. Those whom God 
 calls to His highest service, He draws onwards by many 
 tokens of His grace and will : and they find, even here, 
 that " the lines have fallen to them in a pleasant place, 
 and that they have a goodly heritage." Nowhere else, 
 among the various paths of life, are consolations so fre- 
 quent and so pure to bo met with ; — nowhere else are 
 hopes so bright vouchsafed to cheer the soul's darker 
 hours; — nowhere else is the thought of death, with the 
 endless Home and unfading cro"mi beyond, so constant 
 and so welcome as in the life of a conscientious clergy- 
 man. 
 
 But, above all, the precept is a rule for the regulation, 
 for the emploj-ment of secret thought. Our Lord appeared 
 after His Resurrection only at intervals. He manifested 
 Himself here in the upper chamber, there on the moun- 
 tain in Galilee, or to the wayside travellers, or on the shore 
 of the northern lake. He vanished as He came ; His dis- 
 ciples knew not at any moment whether the thin air might 
 not yield before their eyes the outline of His glorious 
 Form. They knew not whether, as He spake with them 
 and blessed them, He might not forthwith melt away, 
 veiling His Sacred Presence from the rude touch of sense. 
 The Risen Life of Jesus was as a w^holc " hidden with 
 God." And in this it is tj'pical of the life of a Christian. 
 Whether w^e will or no, the greater part of life is passed 
 alone ; and if we know any truth about ourselves at all, 
 we know how much depends on the upward guidance of 
 solitary thought ! How piteous is the mental degradation 
 and waste, of which again and again we have been guilty 
 when walking or sitting alone, or during the still hours of 
 a sleepless night ! AVhy cannot we recall the stirring 
 precept at these times of probation, and " Seek those 
 things that are above"? Why should thought gravitate 
 perpetually earthward, as if it were a senseless stone? 
 
X] The Risen Life. 281 
 
 Wliy should it grovel habitually amid the petty ambitions, 
 self-assertions, personalities, passions, lusts, which form 
 the moral mire through which our souls have so often to 
 drag heavily their anxious way ? Why do we not insist 
 at these seasons of providential opportunity, that thought 
 sliall rise upwards, and to heaven ? Why not make an 
 effort of strong pvirpose, that " whatsoever things are true, 
 honest, pure, lovely, of good report," we vnll think of 
 these things ? A passage of Holy Scripture committed 
 to memory ; some sentence of a great author consecrated 
 by the recognition of ages ; some lines of an ancient 
 hymn, or, if you will, of a modern one, — these may give 
 wings to thought. But for your own sakes, brethren, for 
 God's sake, let your thought rise. Bid it, force it to rise. 
 Think of the Face of Jesu^s, of your future home in heaven, 
 of those revered and loved ones who have gone before you, 
 and who beckon you on towards them from their place of 
 rest in Paradise. Think of all that has ever cheered, 
 strengthened, quickened, braced yourselves. In such 
 thoughts, to such thoughts, Jesus w411 assuredly and 
 increasingly reveal Himself. As He reveals Himself, 
 thought will take a new shape, it will melt insensibly into 
 the incense of a prayer that shall greet His Presence. 
 
 And this aspiration of the soul mounting towards its 
 Source and its Deliverer ; this speechless language of 
 faith, and hope, and love, bounding upwards towards the 
 Everlasting Throne, and then prostrating themselves 
 before it; these trustful, unformed, hesitating accents — 
 the language of the child who is artlessly pouring his 
 every grief and every joy into his Father's ear ; these are 
 the spirit, the essence of prayer, latent beneath the stately 
 movement of ancient liturgies, living ever in the secret 
 hearts of all the devoted children of the Church. Such 
 prayer, in its Divinely imparted strength and confidence, 
 is the very breath, the inmost movement of the super- 
 
282 The Rise7i Life. 
 
 natural life. It is the voice of love seeking its most 
 legitimate Object. The heart determines the gravitation 
 of moral beings : and He A\nio possesses for the Christian 
 heart a supreme and irresistible attraction^ is in heaven. 
 A true personal love of our Lord Jesus Christ makes the 
 " seeking things above," a constant, a necessary reality. 
 Without this love, all else that seems to be religious is 
 hollow and vain. The love of Jesus consecrates and 
 brings into a focus all earthly affection. It is the central 
 feature, the controlling principle, the mainspring, the 
 heart of a life which is risen from the grave of sin, and 
 which is abidingly supernatural. It alone forms in us a 
 real, personal, and practical religion; it alone generates the 
 thoughts, the feelings, the mental and moral habits of a 
 being who will have to live for ever in a higher and a better 
 world. May God vouchsafe of His great mercy to shed it 
 abroad more and more in our hearts ! May He, at the 
 last, when He beholds in us, not indeed our worthless 
 merits, but His own most precious gifts, " be merciful to 
 us and bless us, and show us the light of His Countenance, 
 and be merciful unto us ! " 
 
SERMON XL 
 
 OUR LORD'S ASCENSION THE CHURCH'S GAIN. 
 
 St. John xvi. 7. 
 It is expedient for you that I go atcai/. 
 
 AN tliis great festival our Book of Common Prayer supplies 
 us with a service wliich can liardly fail to engage the 
 whole heart and interest of the devout worshipper. Every 
 modification of the ordinary ritual of the Church that lends 
 importance to Christmas or Whitsu.nday is exhibited to- 
 day. We have proper Psalms, proper Lessons, a special 
 Creed, Collect, Epistle aiid Gospel, and a proper Preface. 
 If we except the opening anthem, Easter-Day itself enjoys 
 no distinctions in our English Prayer Book which are 
 refused to Ascension-Day. The compilers of the English 
 Liturgy have evidently laboured to sustain the ancient 
 dignity of this glorious festival, and to assert for the 
 Ascension of our Lord in the public devotions of the 
 Church that prominence which is given to it in the pages 
 of Holy Scripture. Of the three inspired records of the 
 event, the Gospel for the day gives that of St. Mark ; the 
 Epistle that of the Acts of the Apostles; the Second 
 Lesson in the Morning Service that of St. Luke's Gospel. 
 Jn the Morning Service the second ascent of the great 
 Jewish Lawgiver into the Mount of God, followed by the 
 separation of the tribe of Levi, foreshadows the greater 
 
284 Our Lords Ascension [Serm. 
 
 ascent of tlie Prophet of tlie New Covenant, issuing in the 
 Pentecostal blessing and its abiding results ^. At Even- 
 song a more exact anticipation ^ of the Redeemer's triumph 
 in the assumption of Elijah, whose mantle falls upon his 
 attendant and disciple '^y is followed by the most emphatic 
 reference to the consequences of the Ascension which is to 
 be found in the Epistles of St. Paul ^. The proper Psalms 
 too, whether by their plain direct literal sense, or through 
 the deeper mystical sense which underlies the letter, 
 happily set forth the event of the day, together with its 
 spiritual and historical consequences. David% when feed- 
 ing his flock at night under an Eastern sky, " considers 
 the heavens, the work of God's fingers ;" he marvels that 
 God should have been so mindful of man as to set all 
 things in this beautiful world under his feet. But David 
 is in reality chanting the praises of the Second Adam, as 
 He returns to His throne ^^ crowned with glory and 
 honour ^." After its long captivity, the sacred ark is at 
 length being carried to the royal city ; and the Psalmist- 
 King, girded in a linen ephod, is tracing the moral like- 
 ness of the man who is meet to dwell in the tabernacle 
 and to rest in the holy hill of Jehovah b. But the outline 
 suggests an unearthly standard of perfection ; the Psalmist 
 is shadowing out the spotless purity of our Ascending 
 Lord. Tlicn follows a celebration '' of Israel's victory over 
 the combined hosts of Ammon and Sp-ia. But the 
 
 a Deut. X. 
 
 '' Yet ill the narrative of the Ascension there is nothing parallel to the 
 mrs by and in which the Prophet went up to heaven. The cloud only 
 shrouded our Lord's Ascending Form from the gaze of His disciples {vire\a- 
 ^(t> airh TU3V 6(pOa\ix<t>v avrwy. Acts i. 9). For, as St. Gregory observes, 
 " Redemptor noster non curru, nou Angelis sublevatus legitur; quia Is Qui 
 fecerat omnia, nimirum super omnia virtute Sua ferebatur." — S. Greg. 
 Horn. 29, in Asc. Duiii., Opp. i. 1572. 
 
 <^ 2 Kings ii. <l Ephes. iv. 8—16. ' In Ps. viii. 
 
 f Ps. viii. 5 ; compare Ilcb. ii. 5 — 9. K In Ps. xv. 
 
 h In Ps. xxi. 
 
XI] the CJmrcJis Gain. 285 
 
 spiritual sense of tlie Chui-ch forthwith detects in the 
 " blessings of goodness/' and in the ^' crown of pure 
 gold " set on the Conqueror's head, and in the " long lifC;, 
 even for ever and ever/' the majesty of her Lord and 
 Saviour, Who "has overcome the sharpness of death/' 
 and to Whom " all power is given in heaven and in 
 earth '/' and " Whose kingdom shall have no end." The 
 gates of the city of the Great King ^ are bidden by the 
 choirs of Israel on some religious festival to welcome the 
 sacred ark and veiled presence of the Lord of Hosts. But 
 Christian thought mounts forthwith to the eternal gates 
 of heaven, and to the countless host of spirits that sweep 
 around the Easing Form of the true " King of Glory /' 
 and it accompanies the passage of that King, the ever- 
 lasting Son of the Father, clothed with His Human Nature, 
 into the Inaccessible Light ^ After the victory over Sen- 
 nacherib, a Hebrew poet ™ invites the Gentile world to see 
 in Israel's Lord, not, as Pagans might dream, a mere 
 national deity, but the great King over all the earth, 
 "' reigning over the heathen and sitting upon His holy 
 seat." But we cannot forget that the " princes of the 
 Gentile people " were never really " joined unto the 
 people of the God of Abraham," until, on a greater day, 
 and after a greater triumph, our God and Saviour had 
 " gone up with a merry noise " and " with the sound of 
 a trump " to heaven. If at a period of great national 
 depression, two portions of earlier poems have been fused 
 into one, as we find them at this day in Ps. cviii., the 
 inspired combination exactly expresses on this festival the 
 mind of the Christian Church. She " rejoices right early 
 
 i St.Matt. xxviii. i8. k In Ps. xxiv. 
 
 1 I Tim. vi. 16. Our Lord since His Ascension is v\l/r]\6Tepos rwv ovpavuv 
 yeyS/j-ffos, Heb. vii. 26. So, virepavui irivruv twv ovpavwy, Epli. iv. 10. 
 Contrast cnCT, 2 Kings ii. 11. 
 
 DJ In Ps. xlvii. 
 
286 Our Lord's Ascension [Seem. 
 
 with lute and harp " for her Lord " set above the heavens," 
 and " shedding His glory over all the earth ;" and she 
 reminds Him AVTio had promised " to go forth with her 
 hosts," how Moal3 and Edoin and Philistia, the heathen 
 world that lies close around her borders, is still unsubdued 
 to the banner of the Cross ". 
 
 We may not linger here. Yet surely we have been 
 kindled to-day by the voices of Hebrew Psalmists, or, as 
 in the Collect and proper Preface, by the aspirations of 
 Christian Fathers °j and this bustling world in which we 
 live has possessed a diminished interest for us, as we 
 have in heart and mind gone up in the track of the 
 glorified Jesus, our Ascending Lord. 
 
 What mean we, let me ask, brethren, by this service ? 
 What has been our governing thought in offering it? 
 Have we dwelt first and chiefly on the glory and majesty, 
 the joy and gladness of our great Redeemer ? Or have 
 we been solely or mainly engaged Avith the blessings 
 which He is winning for ourselves ? 
 
 Selfishness is never less attractive than when it would 
 leave its imprint on the sacred structure of Theology. 
 Yet we are not unfrequently confronted by systems in 
 which the assurance, or satisfaction, or consciousness of 
 the believer is made the centre of a theological panorama, 
 while the revealed Nature or economies of God are 
 banished to its circumference. Thus, for example, the 
 sense of acceptance demands a theory of justification; 
 
 " So generally Tholuck (Coviimcnt. in Ps.) for the historical references of 
 the Proper Psalms for this day : very differently, of course, in some parti- 
 culars, Kwald (Dichter des A. Bundcs, Zw. Th.). 
 
 ° The Collect occurs in the Gclasian, the Preface in the Gregorian Sacra- 
 mentary. The Latin of the Preface seems to point to the ape, if not to the 
 authorship, of St. Leo. In a.d. 400 St. Aupustiiic speaks of tliis festival as 
 one of those "qua3 toto terrarum orhe servantur," and suggests that it may 
 liave come down "ab ipsis Apostolis." Vol. ii. 125, cj). 54. Compare De 
 Bapt. contr. Don,, lib. iv. c. 24, n. 31. 
 
XI] the ChurcJis Gain. 287 
 
 tlie doctrine of justification requires a doctrine of the 
 Atonement; the Atonement is insufficient unless the 
 Victim be Di\-ine; the Divinity of the Saviour neces- 
 sitates the doctrine of the blessed Trinity^ if it is to be 
 held consistently with the primal truth of the Unity of 
 God. It may be true enough that many a soul has been 
 guided by the Divine mercy from a deep sense of personal 
 misery to gaze upon the full Light of heaven. We are 
 not, however, discussing the internal history of penitents 
 or saints; but the principles upon which theological 
 systems have been formed or taught. And it is plain 
 that in this way the Self-sustaining, Infinite, Supreme 
 Being comes to be regarded as only or chiefly interest- 
 ing on account of the satisfaction which He yields to the 
 subjective yearnings of a finite and created soul. From 
 this it is not a long step to a habit of mind whereby the 
 utterances of the holy Psalmist, the historic records of 
 Hebrew inspiration, nay, the very Words and Acts of 
 Christ, are patronizingly admired or contemptuously con- 
 demned. Scripture is accepted or disparaged, not on 
 external grounds of authority and evidence, but in 
 deference to the consciousness of that fallen humanity 
 to which it is addressed as the message of the All-wise 
 and the All-holy. In this way ruen may pass easily and 
 rapidly through the so -termed ' phases ^ of an evanescent 
 faith. Step by step the articles of the Creed of Christen- 
 dom are resolved into unmeaning platitudes, or are 
 explicitly denied. And at length the Everlasting Christ 
 is di'agged again before the judgment-seat of His crea- 
 ture. Again He is mocked and buffeted, and scourged 
 and spat upon by some feeble intelligence, to which He 
 Himself has given its acumen, nay its very existence p. 
 You know, my brethren, that I am not sounding a 
 
 P Cf. Phases of Faitli, c. vii., on " the Moral Perfection of Jesus." 
 
288 Oiir Lord's Ascension [Serm. 
 
 false alarm or describing an imaginary process. Would, 
 indeed, to God that it were so ! You may see, if you 
 ■will, in the circumstances of modern religious thought, 
 the fullest justification of that eagerly objective character 
 which belongs to Primitive Christianity. To the Apos- 
 tolical Christian, the Being of God, the Natures and 
 Person of Jesus Christ, the mysteries of His Human Life, 
 and His seat at the Right Hand of the Majesty on high, 
 are precious, for a higher reason than any which is merely 
 personal. They open out to his soul the awful and serene 
 beauty of that Existence, in the contemplation of Which he 
 utterly forgets himself. "We praise Thee, we bless Thee, 
 we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, we give thanks to Thee," 
 not simply for Thy mercies to usward, but that Thou art 
 what Thou art. We give thanks to Thee " for Thy great 
 glory," proj/fcr magnam (jlorlam Tiiam. We thank ^Jliee 
 that Thou art what Thou wouldest have been, if no 
 created intelligence had known and loved Thee, and if 
 Thou hadst lived on in the solitary majesty of Thy eternal 
 years. — " We give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory." 
 And it is in this spirit that the true Christian first of all 
 considers the mystery of his Lord's Ascension, " If ye 
 loved Me," said our Lord, " ye would rejoice, because I 
 said, I go unto My Father*'." Self would be forgotten in 
 the sight of the glory of One Wliom you love. 
 
 Such is, indeed, the true Christian temper, in the 
 presence of this, as of all the mysteries of the Gospel. 
 The manifested glory, the vindicated honour of Jesus 
 Christ takes rank before all other considerations. At 
 length that Life of humiliation is over; at length that 
 bitter cup of suffering has been drained ; at length that 
 wasted Form is to become visibly " fairer tliiin the 
 children of men," and the Bridegroom of the Church 
 is to " gird His sword upon His thigh, as becomes the 
 
 <] St.Jolin xiv. 28. 
 
XI] the Churches Gain. 289 
 
 Most Miglitj, and according to His worship and re- 
 nown ^" And so, in that last parting benediction, in 
 that solemn measured upward movement^, in that now 
 glorious Form, shrouded from sight by a passing cloud, 
 but still visible to Faith, as It moves onwards through 
 trackless space, thronged by an escort of ministering 
 spirits, the soul beholds a solemn act of reparation for 
 the suffering Life which had preceded it, and rejoices 
 with a joy which belongs to the highest sense of satisfied 
 Justice. " He emptied Himself of His glory, and took on 
 Him the form of a slave, and was made in the likeness of 
 men : and being found in fashion as a man. He humbled 
 Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of 
 the Cross ; — iclieyeforc also God hath highly exalted Him ^" 
 
 We cannot say that this is all. We cannot pretend 
 fully to determine wherein lay the especial fitness of the 
 Ascension in its relation to the Person and Majesty of 
 Chi'ist. Such was the glory of His Body and His Soul 
 after the Resurrection, that neither could become intrin- 
 sically more glorious ". But Heaven was His true abode, 
 when He had once risen from His tomb. He lingered on 
 earth only in condescension to the needs of His disciples. 
 The Ascension was the completion of that majesty to 
 which the Incarnate Being was from the first destined 
 in the eternal counsels. And those counsels were fulfilled 
 when He had placed Himself at that Eight Hand, where 
 " there are pleasures for evermore." 
 
 This, then, is our fii'st tribute of love and duty to the 
 mystery of to-day, and we may now turn to that other and 
 very difi'erent point of view which is sanctioned by our 
 Lord Himself in the text. " It is exioedieni for you that I 
 go away." 
 
 r Ps. xlv. 3, 4. 
 
 s 'Avecpfpero. St. Luke xxiv. 51. ' Phil. ii. 7-r). 
 
 " S. Til. Aq., Summ. Tli., psirs 3, qu. 57, art i. 
 
2^o Our Lord's Ascensio7i [Sebm. 
 
 No words that ever fell from the blessed Lips of Christ 
 can have at fh-st seemed to those faithful souls who heard 
 them to verge more closely tlian these on the confines of 
 paradox. 
 
 For let it be remembered that our Lord was speaking 
 on the night before His Passion. He had now taught 
 His followers the emptiness of all earthly aims. He had 
 taught them to look to Himself alone for light and 
 guidance^ and helj) and strength. He had weaned their 
 affections from business, from home, from relatives, from 
 earthly cares ; He had entwined those loving hearts 
 closely, jealously around Himself. They did not indeed, 
 even yet, fully know Him. But they clung to Him, all 
 the more perseveringly, it may be, as clinging in the dark 
 to One Who at least as yet had never failed them. To 
 Him alone could they go ; He certainly had the words of 
 eternal life. How then can He assure them " It is 
 expedient for you that I go away " ? Could it be expe- 
 dient for men who are still pilgrims upon earth that their 
 Guide should be taken from them ? Could it be expe- 
 dient for pupils who are still ignorant of so much neces- 
 sary truth, that their great Teacher should desert them ? 
 Could it be expedient for spiritual childi'en, still so 
 deficient in the practical realization of the Christian 
 character, that they should be deprived of His visible 
 Presence, Who taught by example even moi*e persuasively 
 than He taught by precept ? 
 
 I!vfi(f)ip€i vfxlv. He Himself says. It is expedient. He 
 might have said "expedient" for the blessed spirits of the 
 just made perfect, to whom, after overcoming the sharp- 
 ness of death. He was about to open the kingdom of 
 Heaven. He might have said, " expedient" for the 
 blessed Angels who had for thirty-three years been 
 *' ascending and descending upon the Son of Man," and 
 who had now higher ministries in store for them. He 
 
XI] the Chtu^cJi s Gain. 291 
 
 might have said^ "expedient" for Myself, Who, after 
 finishing' the work that was given Me to do, am to be 
 glorified by the Father with that glory which I had with 
 Him before the world was ^. But He does say, " for 
 you." My sorrowing, broken-hearted, despairing dis- 
 ciples, it is " expedient for you," that I, your Teacher, 
 and Friend, and Guide, and Strength, should leave you in 
 your weakness, in your wanderings, in your loneliness, in 
 your ignorance. You have hitherto believed Me; trust 
 Me now when I tell you, " It is exj^edient for you that I 
 go away." 
 
 Wherein then, it may be asked, did this expediency 
 lie ? Wliy was it for the advantage of those whom our 
 Lord had chosen out of the world ^', and whom He sent 
 back into it as sheep in the midst of wolves % that He 
 should leave them ? How were they to be gainers by the 
 departure of their Lord and Master, when they had 
 hitherto been indebted to His visible presence, to His 
 voice, to His companionship, for every spiritual blessing 
 that they enjoyed ? Why was it better for the Apostles 
 and for us that the Incarnation of the Blessed Son of God 
 should not be visibly perpetuated into Christian history ? 
 What then is this transcendent gift, more precious, as it 
 seems, than the hearing and seeing with the eyes and 
 looking upon and handling the very Word of Life ^ ? 
 What is this gift, so great that it can more than compen- 
 sate for the loss of that intimate companionship with our 
 Lord and Saviour which was enjoyed by His first followers? 
 We cannot look this question too steadily in the face ; for 
 on the answer to it depends nothing less than our estimate 
 of the true character of the Christian Dispensation. 
 
 I. It may, indeed, be said with much truth that there 
 
 ^ St. John xvii. 5. y Ibid. xv. 19. 
 
 2 St. Matt. X. 16. a I St. John j. i. 
 
 U 2 
 
292 Our Lord's Ascensio7i [Sebm. 
 
 was a kind of natural expediency in the Ascension, 
 grounded on tliat Liw of the human mind which makes 
 the appreciation of present blessings so very difficult. 
 Memory is perpetually endeavouring to atone, Avliether on 
 a large or a small scale, for such past ingratitude. Most 
 men look back with affection on the years of their child- 
 hood ; and nations have always surrounded their early 
 annals with an atmosphere of poetry. The Epicurean 
 warns his friend against an anxiety for the future which 
 might forfeit or diminish jDresent enjoyment ^. So limited 
 are our powers in this present state of existence, that, 
 generally speaking, observation must have ceased before 
 reflection can begin to do its work. Jacob must awake 
 from his sleep, before he can reflect, " Surely the Lord is 
 in this place and I knew it not. How dreadful is this 
 place *^ ! '' He must wrestle all night with the Angel, and 
 even ask his name, ere he calls the name of the place 
 Peniel, or can understand that he has seen God face to 
 face, and that his life is preserved ^. It was only after the 
 departure of the heavenly visitant, that Gideon became 
 conscious of having seen an Angel of the Lord face to 
 face *. And when the same awful being on another occa- 
 sion had departed from Manoah, then and not before, 
 ^' Manoah and his wife fell on their faces to the ground; 
 and Manoah said unto his wife. We shall surely die, 
 because we have seen God ^" At an earlier date, and at a 
 more solemn moment Moses only saw the glory of God 
 after it had passed him, and " made haste, and bowed his 
 head towards the earth, and worshipped s/' 
 
 Had Christ our Lord continued to live visibly upon the 
 earth, the spiritual force of the Church might have been 
 
 l» Hor. Od., I. ix. 13; II. xi. 4; III. xxix. 29; IV. xii. 25. Epod. xiii. 
 .1. <^f • 
 
 c Gen. xxviii. 16. '^ Ibid, xxxii. 30. t Judges vi. 22. 
 
 ' Ibid. xiii. 22. B Exod. xxxiv. 8. 
 
XI] the ChurcJis Gain. 293 
 
 expended iu an indefinitely prolonged observation. It 
 was natural tliat He, the Light of the world, should rivet 
 the gaze of those who beheld Him, too completely, to allow 
 time and leisure for analysis, and comparison, and infer- 
 ence. The strength even of saintly souls might have been 
 fatally overtaxed, if a moral miracle such as the Life of 
 Jesus Christ had been perpetuated here below. If Jesus 
 is to be seen by His creatures in His relative and awful 
 greatness. He must be withdrawn. Even on the night 
 before the Passion, St. Philip asks a question, which 
 proves that he does not yet know. Who Jesus really is ^. 
 On the road to Emmaus, the eyes of the two disciples are 
 holden that they should not know Him ; and yet when He 
 vanishes from their sight, they cannot but remember how 
 their hearts had burned within them, as He talked to them 
 by the way ' ! " What I do, thou knowest not now, but 
 thou shalt know hereafter V^ was an announcement from 
 His own Lips of the self-same principle. He was to be 
 comprehended, when He was gone. Of how many 
 mysteries of His life is it true that " these things under- 
 stood not His disciples at the first ; but when Jesus was 
 glorified, then remembered they that these things were 
 wi'itten of Him, and that they had done these things unto 
 Him '.■'' The Life of Christ on earth •", which manifested 
 the Essential Nature of the Father, had first to be brought 
 to a close, ere it could be dropped as a seed that would 
 spring up and bear fruit, into the heart of redeemed 
 humanity. In the Gospels, after all, we possess only a 
 fragment of the witnessed deeds, and of the uttered and 
 remembered Words of Christ. If all had been recorded, 
 the world itself, we are told, could not have contained the 
 
 ^ St. John xiv. 8. ' St. Lulce xxiv. 32. "^ St. John xiii. 7. 
 
 ' St. John xii. 16. 
 
 ™ See the heautifiil sermon " Christ manifested in remembrance," in 
 Newman's Parochial Sermons, 4, i;. 
 
294 ^^^^' Lord's Ascension [Seem. 
 
 books tliat should be w-ritten". But those recorded 
 Words and Acts of Christ have engaged the reflective 
 powers of Christendom over since. They are a mine 
 which may still be worked ■wdthout risk of exhaustion. 
 They have been drawn out into literatures. ITiey are the 
 basis of institutions. They are the spirit of codes of law. 
 They may have mingled with some earthly alloy, but they 
 are to this day quick with heavenly virtue. And each re- 
 presentative teacher that has unfolded, and each authori- 
 tative assembly that has enforced their true essential 
 meaning, has in adding, not to the stock of revealed 
 truths, but to the illuminated thought of Christendom 
 that surrounds them, attested the truth of our Master's 
 words, — " It is expedient for you that I go away." 
 
 II. But further, startling as it may seem, it is never- 
 theless certain, that the life of the separate souls of the 
 Apostles must have been quickened by the departure of 
 their Lord. Faith, hope, and charity are the threefold 
 cord that links the living spirit with its God. These 
 graces were dwarfed or merely nascent in the Apostles 
 before the Ascension of our Saviour. The belief of the 
 Apostles did not as yet materially differ from the creed of 
 the devout Jew. Their hopes were centred on the right 
 hand and on the left of an earthly throne. Their charity, 
 if it twined itself round their Lord at times with even 
 passionate fervour, was yet discoloured by the presence of 
 a subtle element of sense, which dimmed its spiritual 
 lustre. Christ left them, leading captivity captive; 
 telling them, that He Avould come again to receive them 
 unto Himself; telling them, that He had gone to prepare 
 a place for them ; telling them, that it was His desire that 
 where He is there should His servants be". Like the 
 deserted Elisha, they reach forward after Him as He 
 
 n St. Jolm xxi. 2?. ° Ibid. xiv. t,. 
 
XI] the ChurcJis Gain. 295 
 
 passes away. They stretcli forth their hands to Him ; their 
 soul crieth unto Him as a thirsty land p. And^ behold, 
 they find springing up within themselves a new and 
 vigorous life. By leaving them, our Lord has made room 
 for the full play and power of faith : faith now apprehends 
 His Manhood as well as His Godhead. Faith, which 
 only begins where sight ends, requires that its Great 
 Object should leave the sphere of sense, ere it can per- 
 fectly lay hold on Him. Thus to Christians Faith is a 
 second sight, which reveals Jesus crowned in heaven with 
 glory and honour, and throned within the veil where His 
 very presence is an intercession 1. To faith He is no mere 
 bright record of the past, although it were traced on the 
 most sacred page of history. Still less is He an ideal of 
 humanity that never was realized before the eye of sense. 
 For faith holds daily communion with Him, as with a Person, 
 as with a vast all-comprehending Intellect, as with a resist- 
 less Will, as with a living Heart of surpassing tenderness. 
 ^' Whom not having seen, ye love ; in Whom, though now 
 ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeak- 
 able and full of glory '." Hope, too, rivals in its growth, the 
 growth of faith. It dwells no longer on any restoration of 
 an earthly kingdom to Israel. It reaches forth into an 
 eternal future. It follows in the track of Jesus ; it gazes 
 only in that one direction; it addresses itself to super- 
 natural objects. The Apostles henceforth look forward to 
 the glorious appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to 
 the times of refreshing, and to the crown of righteousness 
 which the Lord the righteous Judge should give them, 
 and to the seeing Him as He is ^ The mansions of the 
 Father^s House, the eternal fellowship of the Saints, the 
 endless vision of God, — these were the ambitions of their 
 later life. These were the fastenings of their hope, which 
 
 P Ps. cxliii. 6. T Hel). ii. 9 ; vii. 25. r i St. Peter i. S. 
 
 s I Thess.i. 10; ii. 19. 2 Tim. iv. 8. i St. Jolin iii. 2. 
 
296 OiLr Lord's Ascension [Serm. 
 
 sure and stedfast, like an anchor, was lodged within that 
 veil whither their Forerunner was for thcni entered*. 
 And that earthly love of Him which attached itself to His 
 earthly relations towards them, to the precise outward 
 circumstances which surrounded His manifestation in the 
 flesh, how has it been purified by His departure ! Ac- 
 cording to St. Augustine, this carnal knowledge of Christ 
 our Lord was the subjective cause which delayed the 
 descent of the Holy Ghost until after the Ascension ^. 
 To know Christ after the flesh was incompatible with the 
 higher knowledge of the life of faith ; and therefore it was 
 ex|3edient that He should go away. For when the treasure 
 of Christians had gone to heaven, the Christian heart 
 would follow^. When Christ was seated at the right 
 hand of God, love, as a matter of course, would seek 
 simply and constantly those things that are above, and 
 not the things upon the earths. And thus, historically 
 speaking, it is true not merely of the Passion, but of the 
 Ascension of our Saviour, that when lifted up from the 
 earth. He drew men unto Him ''■. He drew their intel- 
 lects, their wills, their affections, their imaginations, their 
 aims, and hopes, and anticipations, and sympathies up 
 from this cartlily scene towards Himself. He actually 
 quickened and enlarged their capacities for Avork and for 
 suff'ering here on earth, by transferring their deepest 
 interests, along with His own glorious Person, to the 
 courts of heaven. 
 
 III. But, if the Apostles had been altogether left to their 
 own resources by their ascending Lord, could they have 
 formed so true, so wonderful an estimate of the bearings 
 and proportions of His Life, as by their writings to rule 
 the thought nnd kindle the enthusiasiri of all the ages of 
 
 ' llcb. vi. \i). " S.An;,'., 'J'r. 94, in S. Joan. 
 
 ' St. Matt. vi. 21. 3' Col. iii. i, 2. ^ St. .lolm xii. 32. 
 
XI] the ChurcJis Gain. i(^^ 
 
 Christendom ? Were the faith^ the hope, the love, which 
 gave to their lives the beauty and the force of heroism, 
 thrown out, as plants of native growth, from the rich soil 
 of their natural hearts ? Are the Epistles of St. Paul, or 
 is the character of St. John, to be explained by any 
 searching analysis of their natural gifts, of their educa- 
 tional antecedents, of their external contact with the 
 manifested Redeemer, of the successive circumstances 
 and directions of their lives ? Surely not. Even though 
 the Pentecostal miracle had not been recorded, some 
 supernatural interference must have been assumed, in 
 order seriously to account for the moral transformation of 
 the Apostolical character, and for the intellectual range of 
 the Apostolical writings. Of itself the departure of our 
 risen Lord would neither have permanently illuminated 
 the reflections of the Church, nor yet have quickened the 
 graces of its separate members. But He left this earth in 
 His bodily form, to return as a Quickening Spirit, present 
 in force and virtue, before He comes to be present in 
 judgment. He ascended up on high to obtain gifts for 
 men ^ ; and having received of the Father, as the bounteous 
 firstfruits of His opening and omnipotent intercession, the 
 promise of the Holy Ghost, He shed upon the earth those 
 wondrous gifts which the first Christians saw and heard ^. 
 With the Apostles we must wait until Pentecost, if we 
 would enter into the full expediency of the Ascension. 
 
 And yet, in that great discourse, one sentence of which 
 is under consideration, and which was not given in 
 writing to the Christian world upon the authority of 
 St. John, until a lapse of nearly three-quarters of a 
 century had realized in experience its every promise, we 
 read beforehand, and in the Words of Jesus, why it was 
 expedient that He should go away. It was not merely 
 that He might prepare a place for His disciples, and then 
 
 a Epbes. iv. 8. Ps. Ixviii. i8. ^ Acts ii. ^^. 
 
298 Otir Lord's Ascension [Seem. 
 
 come again and receive them unto Himself*^. It was 
 because^ as He says^ "If I go not away^ the Comforter 
 will not come unto you ; but if I depart^ I will send Him 
 unto you''/' The whole action of the Spirit upon the 
 intellect^ and affections, and inmost character of the 
 Christian, as well as His felt Presence and power in 
 forming, enlightening, guiding, governing, and sanctify- 
 ing the Church, must have become a lengthened justifica- 
 tion of their Master's Ascension, in the eyes of the 
 Apostles. If the Apostles are to bo guided into all truth, 
 if they are to be shown things to come, if they are to be 
 taught all things, and if all the blessed words of Christ, 
 whatsoever He said to them, are to be brought home with 
 literal accuracy to their remembrance, it is expedient that 
 their Lord should go ^. If they are to do greater works 
 than the works of Christ, it is "because I go to My 
 Father ^," If dauntless missionaries of the Cross are to 
 bear witness of their Lord to a sinful and perishing world ; 
 it can only be because the Comforter, sent from the 
 Father by the ascended Saviour, witnesses through their 
 weakness to the strength and glory of their Lord^. If 
 the world is to be convinced of the sin of its own un- 
 belief, or of the righteousness of the all-lioly Redeemer; 
 such conviction is to be a consequence of Christ's going to 
 the Father and being seen no more '*. Pass the eye over 
 that last great discourse, and mark how it bears with re- 
 peated effort and significance upon the statement of the 
 text, that the Ascension was expedient for the Apostles, 
 expedient for the Christian Church. 
 
 But why did these supernatural l)lessings, which justified 
 the Ascension, thus absolutely depend on it ? Why should 
 there exist so strict a connexion between the departure of 
 
 •= St. John xiv. 3. '' Ibid. xvi. 7; xiv. 16. 
 
 e Ibid. xiv. 26; xv. 26; xvi. i.v ^ Ibiil. xiv. 12. 
 
 8 lljid. XV. 26, 27. li Ibid. xvi. 7-10. 
 
XI] the ChiLrcJis Gain. 299 
 
 our Lord and tlie coming of His Spirit ? Was it that the 
 glorious Intercession of Christ in heaven was to be a 
 main topic of consolation^ whispered by the Spirit's teach- 
 ing to the heart of the bereaved Church ? Was it that 
 the continued presence of our Lord in the Flesh might 
 have stimulated earthly yearnings towards Him more or 
 less inconsistent with that profound appreciation of His 
 work and of His Person which the Spirit would dictate ? 
 Was it that the victory must be perfedhj won^ ere the gifts 
 for men which the Conqueror receives can be dispensed in 
 their fulness from on high ? Or must the mighty power of 
 Christ's Intercession in Heaven be revealed to Christians 
 by the magnificence of its first result ? or may not the 
 heavenly Ai-tist descend to reproduce the image of Christ 
 in the conscience and heart of humanity until the Divine 
 Original has been completed ? All such suggestions do 
 but approach that fuller answer to the question which is 
 probably^Jiidden in the depths of Godhead — vmdisclosed 
 and inaccessible even to faith. For if the descent of the 
 Spirit depends on mission from the Son as well as from 
 the Father^ St. Augustine reminds us that the Son, " non 
 sic venerat a Patre, ut non maneret in Patre\" If it 
 depends on His Intercession, He interceded while yet on 
 earth for the unity of His followers; for their sanctification 
 through the truth ; for their being with Him where all 
 along in His Godhead He was, that they might behold 
 His glory '^j for those very results, in short, which were 
 to be due to the Pentecostal gift. Must we not conclude 
 that while it is doubtful whether the connexion in ques- 
 tion depends on a providential and free disposition on the 
 part of God, forming part of the economy of man's Re- 
 demption, or on some internal law of the Divine Life, 
 some relation between the Persons of the Godhead, the 
 sacredness of which forbids further speculation, however 
 i S.Aug., Tr. 94, ill Joan., ubi sup. ^ St. Jolm xvli. ii, 17, 24. 
 
300 Otcr Lord's Ascension [Serm. 
 
 reverent, it is in any case certain that such a connexion 
 was necessary ? For the Only -begotten Son, Which is in 
 the bosom of the Father^, to "Whom we owe all that we 
 know concerning God, has attested its necessity. " It is 
 expedient for you that I go away : for if I go not away, the 
 Comforter will not come unto you/^ 
 
 Before the Pentecostal Shower descended on the Church 
 there were drops which heralded Its approach. What 
 else were those burning hearts of the two disciples on the 
 Emmaus road™, and that opening of their understanding 
 to the true sense of the prophetical Scriptures " ? what 
 else that solemn bestowal of the apostolical commission, 
 " Receive ye the Holy GhostV^ even though He was then 
 given as the warrant and author of a ministerial faculty 
 rather than as the inward guest of souls ? what else 
 that " great joy ^^ with which, as on this day, the bereaved 
 eleven returned to JernsalemP ? Still, for ten days — weary 
 and anxious days they must have been, though passed in 
 retreat, in prayer, in intercession, — the expected Blessing 
 in its fulness was withheld. For ten days the Apostles 
 were denied the crowning proof of the expediency of their 
 Lord's departure. Our faith has never been submitted to 
 the ordeal of so agonizing a suspense. We live in that 
 Holy Home upon which, shadowed out by the tongues of 
 fire and the wind, the Spirit descended more than eighteen 
 huiidi-ed years ago. The Lord is our Shcplici'd : He feeds 
 us in the green pastures of the Church''; He still 
 "watereth her furrows, and sendeth rain into the little 
 valleys thereof, and maketh tlifin fat with the drops of 
 rain, and blesseth the increase of it'"." 
 
 Do we appreciate our real place in tlu> universe of God? 
 Do we understand what it is, not to have found the soul's 
 
 1 St. John i. i8. »" St. Luke xxiv. .^2. " Ibid. xxiv. 45. 
 
 ° St. .Tohii XX. 22. P St. Luke xxiv. 52. 1 Ps. xxiii. i, 2. 
 
 f Ps. Ixv. 10. 
 
XI] the Church's Gain. 301 
 
 true liome at tlic cost of the toil and pain of years, but as 
 infants to have been brought to " Mount Sion, the City 
 of the Living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an in- 
 numerable company of angels, and to the general assembly 
 and Church of the fii'st-born," and to that cleansing* 
 '' Blood ' with Which everything around us is sprinkled^ ? 
 Are our eyes opened, so that we can see the chariots of 
 fire and horses of fire round about the Mountain' ? is 
 the horizon of our spiritual vision not really so bounded by 
 sense and time, as to disqualify us for entering into the 
 reasons for that high and blessed expediency of which our 
 Lord speaks to His sorrowing followers ? 
 
 Believe it, dear brethren, while Christ our Lord tarried 
 here in the flesh, His Apostles who saw and conversed 
 with Him, who walked by His side, who rested at His 
 feet, who lay in His breast, were further, immeasurably 
 further from Him than we may be, if we will. To them 
 He was still an external example, an external voice, an 
 external force. Christ in its is the hope of glory". Our 
 ascended Lord has sent down upon us that promised and 
 gracious Friend, Whose office it is to unite us to Himself, 
 Therefore, by faith and love directed upon the known 
 channels of His Presence, man may renounce in a sense 
 his own sinful individuality, and be clothed with the 
 Sanctity and Perfection of His Saviour". Therefore, 
 united to Christ, man is no longer what he was in the state 
 of nature, an isolated unit ; he is a member of that 
 spiritual organization which is Christ's Body, and his life 
 has already commingled with that higher life which flows 
 from the Head and Heart of the redeemed Church >'. 
 Therefore the Saviour lives in His Church ; He lives in us ; 
 Therefore Sacraments have grace and virtue^; and prayer 
 
 s Heb. xii. 22, 23 : ix. 19-23. t 2 Kings vi. 17. ■ 
 
 u Col. i. 27. ^ Gill. ii. 20. y Eph. v. 30. 
 
 z St. John vi. 56 58. Gal. iii. 27. 
 
302 Our Lord's Ascension [Serm. 
 
 is co-operation with the Perpetual Intercession of our Lord. 
 He intercedes ^j and we pray. He claims the Divine Com- 
 passion, and we recommend each other to the Mercy of the 
 great Creator^. He offers Himself as the one Sacrifice for 
 sins*=, and lo ! we desire God's " fatherly goodness merci- 
 fully to accept our saci'ifice of praise and thanksgiving, 
 most humbly beseeching Him to grant that we and all 
 His whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and 
 all other benefits of our Saviom*'s passion''." If we feel 
 the expediency of the Ascension, Ave are men of prayer. 
 " In heart and mind " we " ascend thither " where prayer 
 is not an effort but an atmosphere. We know by blessed 
 experience that prayer in the Church of God is not the 
 voice of slaves who cringe in terror before a tyrant-lord ; 
 that it is not the petition of mercenaries, of whose service 
 the highest aim is to add to Avhat they have. Rather is it 
 the instinctive breathing of an informing Spirit, the voice 
 of children who without doubt or questioning throw them- 
 selves into their Father's arms% since they are conformed 
 to the image of His Blessed Son Jesus Christ the 
 Righteous. For indeed prayer is the life-blood of the 
 Church. We Christians pray because, if we live spii-itually, 
 we cannot but pray^ We are carried forward by an un- 
 seen force whicli fills the Hol}^ House where we are sitting^. 
 And this torrent of prayer, this pleading of all for each 
 and of each for all, this mutual service perpetually sought 
 and as perpetually rendered, this onward upward move- 
 ment of souls, at once in supplication and in thanksgiving 
 presenting themselves as brethren of Christ our Saviour 
 before the Tlirone of our Father and our God ; this con- 
 
 * Heb. vii. 25. '^ 2 Tim. i. 3. 1 Tlics. i. 2 ; iii. 10. 
 
 •^ Hcb. viii. 3; ix. 14. '^ Comnuinion StTvicc. 
 
 ^ Gal iv. 6. Rom. v. 5; viii. 15-17. 
 
 ' I Thess. V. 17. Rom. xii. 12. Kpli. vi. 18. Col. iv. 2. i Pet. iv. 7. 
 
 % Acts ii. 2. 
 
XI] the CIuLvcIi s Gain. 303 
 
 tinuous spiritual activity is the fresli warm blood tliat 
 circulates through the arteries of the Church ; it is both 
 its deepest life and the expression of that life ; it is the 
 voice of its adoring love ; it is the ceaseless sigh of the 
 everlasting Spirit within it. 
 
 Can we realize, each one for himself, what is involved 
 in this expediency of our Lord's Ascension ? Not if we 
 imagine that we can appropriate His divine teaching by 
 the mere exertion of our natural faculties, and that we 
 owe little or nothing to His solemn voice as it speaks to 
 each one of us in the recesses of conscience, and as it 
 echoes along the records of the Undivided Church, Not 
 if we propose to ourselves deliberately and upon theory 
 a moral standard which is lower and less than that of the 
 Great Teacher. Not if we forget the sharp distinction 
 which exists, and which will exist for ever, between the 
 very highest, noblest, purest, truest efforts of nature, and 
 the heavenly action of the Spirit of Grace. Not if we are 
 giving up the evangelical graces of faith, and hope, and 
 charity, and joy, and peace, and longsuffering ; while we 
 are falling back upon what are merely the highest 
 products of the unsanctified heart, manliness, and tem- 
 perance, and common sense, and justice, and perseverance, 
 and amiability, and integrity. Not if we thus content 
 ourselves with virtues which paganism might have taught 
 us, although the Son of God had never become Incarnate 
 and had never suffered on the Cross. We shall never 
 understand the expediency of the Ascension, if we forget 
 that we are the subjects of a Spiritual Dispensation, in 
 which forces more extraordinary are at work, and results 
 more wonderful are produced than any which fall under 
 the cognizance of sense ^. For us, this blessed day will 
 have no real meaning, if, now that our Lord is so very 
 near us, we neglect to claim and to deepen our communion 
 
 1' I Cor. ii. 7-9. 
 
304 Otir Lord's Ascension [Serm. 
 
 with Him in comraou ]irayer and in frequent Sacraments'; 
 if "we are altogether unhke that holy company^ which^ when 
 their Lord had gone from their sights returned to Jerusalem 
 with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising 
 and blessing God '^. 
 
 And there are in this place ]")eculiar temptations to an 
 exaggerated sympathy with mere natural excellence^ and 
 as our finite minds must generally have it so, to a corre- 
 sponding depreciation of grace. As is the aspect of the 
 renewed earth at this season of the year, such is human 
 life for the most part all the year round, within the pre- 
 cincts of a University. Here 3'outh and strength are 
 always in the ascendant ; few have time to grow sick, or 
 weak, or old. A generation is superseded before it has 
 lost its bloom ; and our constant changes perpetuate the 
 illusion ; they maintain the freshness of a perpetual spring. 
 Thus we live with those who are no fair sample of the 
 average weakness and sufferings of mankind. We live 
 among men at the very prime of life, when mind and 
 body rival each other in the putting forth and develop- 
 ment of new energies and of unsuspected force. We are 
 carried away with the current of natural vigour thus 
 poured around us ; we heed not that other side of the 
 picture which one English poet of the last age, as he 
 mused over another noble home of education, has so 
 touchingly remembered. We see not, we only hear from 
 others of that which so often follows when residence 
 here has ended. We forget the early sicknesses, the 
 early deaths, the blighted hopes, the heart-aches, the 
 graver anxieties of later life. We know little of those 
 most bitter sorrows which are caused by the sorrows of 
 those whom we love. We dream not of the blessed and 
 stem experiences which are meant to send all, and which, 
 by God^s grace, do send many, in utter earnest to the 
 • Heb. X. 25. Acts ii. 42. Judc 19. ^ St. Luke xxiv. 52, 53. 
 
XI] the CliurcJis Gain. 305 
 
 foot of the Cross. Yet to recognize a danger is to 
 "be on the road to escape it. 
 
 Nature indeed may well be beautiful^ since she too is 
 the handiwork of God. But we do not deny this, because 
 we trace on her forehead the brand of a superinduced 
 corruption, and proclaim the distinctness and superiority 
 of grace. 
 
 The Ascension reminds us of a Life which is higher 
 than this world, and than that which belongs to it. So 
 much higher, so much more blessed and glorious is the 
 life of grace, that One Who loved us men with the 
 truest and purest affection, yet withdrew Himself, as on 
 this day, from our sight, in order to enable us, if we will, 
 to live it. 
 
 Brethren, let us lift up our hearts, let us lift them up 
 unto our ascended Lord. Let us put from us the whisper 
 of those who only live in and for what they see, and who 
 tells us that the Divine life which strikes higher and 
 deeper than the life of sense is visionary, unpractical, 
 superstitious. A life "hidden with Christ ^^^ is blessed 
 beyond all words in the manifold proofs of its intrinsic 
 power and of the tender enduring compassion of our 
 Saviour. Let us mark and seek the generation of them 
 that seek Him '" ; let us, if we would be lightened, have 
 an eye unto Him Who is the True Light ". He ever 
 lives, now as on the morrow of His triumph ; He lives 
 in the city of the saints, the Lamb Throned and Omni- 
 potent ". Let us " in heart and mind thither ascend, and 
 with Him continually dwell." Let us continually, while we 
 tarry here, pierce the veil by prayer, and behold His 
 Presence in righteousness ; that hereafter we may wake 
 up after His likeness, and be satisfied with it p. 
 
 1 Col. Hi. 3. m Ps, xxiv. 6. n St. John i. 9. 
 
 o Rev. V. 6. P Ps. xvii. i;. 
 
SERMON XII. 
 
 FAITH IN A HOLY GHOST. 
 
 Acts xlx. i, 2. 
 
 Faid hav'nu/ 2^(tssed iJii'oiir/Ii. ilie vpper coasts came to JEpJ/esus : and finding 
 certain disciples, he said unto them, Have ye received the Hohi Ghost 
 since ye helievedl And they said unto him, We have not so much as 
 heard xchellier there he any Holy Ghost. 
 
 THIS sing-ular incident is remarkable, as stowing that 
 in tlie apostolical age, as now, there were persons, 
 and bodies of persons, in possession of fragments of 
 Revealed 'I'ruth, and yet entirely ignorant of some of its 
 most vital elements. The " disciples," whom St. Paul 
 found at P^pliesus, must have acknowledged a certain 
 relation to Jesus Christ as their Master, or the name 
 "disciples" would not have been given them. From the 
 circumstance of their having received St. John's baptism, 
 it might be argued with much seeming probability that 
 they were originally Jews; but their entire ignorance of 
 the existence of the Holy Ghost is irreconcilable with 
 that supposition. For the Old Testament, lioth in its 
 historical and in its prophetical books, alludes so often 
 and so emphatically to the work of the Holy Spirit, that 
 no Jew could possibly have been in the condition of not 
 having so much as heard of His existence, although 
 doubtless His Divine Personality had not been revealed 
 to the Jewish Church. It may, indeed, be urged, that 
 
Faith in a Holy Ghost. 307 
 
 this would apply equallj to anj disciples of the Baptist, 
 since St. John had foretold One Who would baptize His 
 people " with the Holy Ghost and with fire ^/' But it is 
 not to be supposed that these disciples at Ephesus had 
 actually listened to the Baptist himself. They were 
 probably heathens, who had been longing for something* 
 higher and better than the established idolatries of 
 Ephesus could supply. In this frame of mind they had 
 fallen in with Jews, who had told them of the Syrian 
 preacher of repentance, and of his symbolical baptism. 
 It is improbable that these Jews would have repeated all 
 the features of St. John's teaching which we at this day 
 gather from the Evangelists. Thus, then, these disciples 
 would have found a measure of real satisfaction; and 
 since St. John's baptism, as well as his whole teaching, 
 was simply anticipatory of the work of the Redeemer, 
 they would have arrived at a partial and indistinct 
 knowledge of Jesus Christ. Jesus was in some sense 
 their Master; they were His disciples. Still they had 
 not heard of the existence of the Holy Ghost. The 
 reference to the Holy Ghost which St. John's teaching 
 and baptism involved, might easily have fallen into the 
 background, and have been lost sight of in the hands of 
 his disciples ; and it would have corresponded to nothing 
 previously existing in heathen thought. But an interest- 
 ing question may be raised as to the motive which led 
 St. Paul to question professed Christians on a point whicli 
 he might have naturally taken for granted. We are not 
 told that the Apostle detected the grave hiatus in the 
 faith of these disciples by any supernatural insight. Nor 
 is there any suJBicient ground for the opinion that St. Pau] 
 expected and did not find a manifestation of those extra- 
 ordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost which were frequent in 
 the Apostolical age. At least St. Luke gives us no 
 
 a St. Matt. iii. 2. 
 X 2 
 
3o8 Faith hi a Holy Ghost. [Serm. 
 
 instance of the presence of any sucli j^ifts among tlie 
 Gentiles converted by St. Paul. It is probable, as Meyer 
 has pointed out, that the absence of some practice specifi- 
 cally befitting Christian faith astonished St. Paul, and led 
 him to question the disciples as to their spiritual know- 
 ledge and condition. So upon discovering the real state 
 of their case, St. Paul proceeds to lead on these partially- 
 instructed disciples, from the fragment of truth which 
 they actually admitted, to truth of which they were still 
 ignorant. He reminds them that St. John^s baptism was 
 only "with water." That is, it was a sign addressed to 
 the imagination ; it was not, like a Christian sacrament, 
 an outward and visible sign of an accompanying inward 
 and spiritual grace. It only pointed on to Christ ; it did 
 not carry with it the gift of Christ's Nature. Therefore 
 Christ's baptism was destined to supersede it. These 
 twelve disciples of Ephesus were not wanting in religious 
 faith or earnestness, but only in necessary instruction. 
 They at once acted upon the Apostle's advice ; and after 
 being baptized and confirmed, they were favoured with 
 some miraculous tokens of the presence of the Holy 
 Spirit in the Church, " The Holy Ghost came on them, 
 and they spake with tongues and prophesied ^." 
 
 The condition of '' not having so much as heard whether 
 there be any Holy Ghost," is not, I fear, literally impossi- 
 ble in England at the present day. In our great cities 
 there are multitudes to Avhom the presence and work of 
 the Holy Spirit in Christian humanity is as utterly un- 
 known as any of the most abstruse truths of physical 
 science. There are multitudes who have not even heard 
 that the gracious Author of our new life in Christ is 
 asserted to exist. But there are also sections of the 
 educated world to whoin the Avords apply, if not in their 
 literal sense, yet by implication, and practically. No 
 ^ Acts xix. 6. 
 
XII] Faith in a Holy Ghost. 309 
 
 educated man^ indeed, who as sucli is interested in Chris- 
 tianity as a great intellectual and moral system, which as 
 a matter of fact controls the thoughts and conduct of 
 millions of human beings, can fail to make himself ac- 
 quainted with its more prominent features. Among these, 
 he encounters the Church doctrine respecting the Per- 
 son and work of the Holy Ghost. But this intellectual 
 appreciation of an integral feature of the Christian faith, 
 may, or may not, go along with a belief in its absolute 
 and most significant truth. To have heard that there is 
 a Holy Ghost to any practical purpose, is to have accepted 
 certain lines of thought, and still more to be aiming at a 
 moral and spiritual ideal. But here it is desirable to go 
 into detail; and, therefore, without further preamble, let 
 us proceed to note certain intellectual and moral results 
 of a living* belief in His gracious presence and energy. 
 Whom the Church of God celebrates to-day. 
 
 I. It may, then, seem a poor and trite thing to say, 
 but real belief in the Holy Ghost implies an habitual 
 sense of the reality of a spiritual and supersensuous 
 world. There is in fallen human nature a constant and 
 profound tendency to sink under the dominion of mate- 
 rialistic habits of thought, that is to say, to surrender 
 ourselves to the fascination and so to the empire of the 
 senses. I do not now speak of formal materialistic sys- 
 tems, in which the conception of spirit is banished from 
 human thought by the decree of some pretentious theory, 
 which denies that there are any ultimate constituents of 
 being except matter and force. Materialism, considered 
 as a formal doctrine, enjoys, at least in England, only a 
 limited range of empire. English people do not like its 
 look; since, apart from its irreligion, it has a traditional 
 tendency to become pedantic. But materialism is not 
 always Positivism, devising a ritual for its ^ sacraments^ of 
 nature and humanity. It comes among us in an easy. 
 
J I o Faith in a Holy Ghost. [Serm. 
 
 unofficial guise. If it is generally on parade across tlie 
 Chaiiuel^ it mixes with ourselves in undress^ and with the 
 popular manners of a civilian. It avoids technicalities; 
 it relieves itself of the difficulties and responsibilities of 
 theory ; it repudiates highly organized forms of thought ; 
 it is, perhaps, content to be represented only as '' a ten- 
 dency/^ a " point of view,^^ a " way of looking at things.^' 
 Whatever it may be or do elsewhere, it comes to us 
 English people with an adroit appeal to the characteristic 
 upon which we are wont to pride ourselves. It takes us 
 by the arm, and, as if feeling its way to our more accessi- 
 ble sympathies, it delicately congratulates us on our com- 
 mon sense. We are told that we are too sensible a race 
 to run distractedly after the metaphysical and theological 
 phantoms which are so attractive to men of southern or 
 oriental blood. It is our pride and glory to keep to that 
 which is really within our grasp. Perhaps at this point 
 materialism makes bold to furnish us, as if incidentally, 
 in some popular treatise on logic, with a doctrine of the 
 categories which leaves no room for God, and with a 
 theory of human action which, without denying free will 
 in terms, practically sets it aside as a speculative chimera. 
 " Go on your way,^^ it whispers to us English, " most 
 practical among the peoples of the earth ! Have done 
 with the theological toys which amused you in the nursery 
 of your mental civilization. Vex not your thought with 
 the consideration of problems which have wearied the 
 human soul, for so many centuries, to no real purpose. 
 Believe in your senses ; believe in what you see, and eat, 
 and feel, and smell. Subdue the elements of the visible 
 world; study their laws, their uses, their combinations; 
 make matter more and more entirely your slave. Organize 
 the social system, under which man passes his brief 
 existence, so as to better man's estate materially. Here, 
 here only, progress is jjossible. To seek happiness else- 
 
XII] Faith in a Holy Ghost. 311 
 
 where is only to build upon the quicksand of venerable 
 illusions, and to lose your time/^ 
 
 This is the langfuaffe of materialism, more or less dis- 
 guised. The strength of the doctrine lies in the fact, 
 that it puts into form and words the thought of a great 
 number of human beings, in all generations, but especially 
 in our own. Whether materialism is contemptuously 
 cynical, or gravely earnest, its bearing towards the idea 
 of an invisible world is unmistakable. It is not merely 
 formal materialism which is here in question ; but practical, 
 untheoretical, popular, perhaps unacknowledged, unrecog- 
 nized, unsuspected materialism. This materialism speaks 
 not in dry, formal, repulsive treatises, but in popular 
 journals, and in general conversation. Let us listen to 
 it, as on Easter Eve, in this present year of grace, it is 
 congratulating itself upon the decrease, as it imagines, of 
 religious observances in the present day. " The thoughts 
 of men,'' it says, " on all important subjects, their legis- 
 lation, their amusements, their very language, and the 
 regulation of their daily habits of life, are continually 
 growing to be less and less influenced by definite religious 
 doctrines. They are continually tending to become more 
 and more things of this world and this life. To many 
 persons," the writer continues, with philosophical tiaruj 
 frold, ^Hhis is the greatest and most interesting of all 
 contemporary phenomena "^j" 
 
 Whether this assertion be or be not borne out by facts, 
 it is plain that the writer records it with satisfaction, as 
 indicating movement in the right direction; and further, 
 that he calculates upon a large amount of sympathy in 
 the educated classes who read him. But no Christian, 
 I venture to think, can regard his statement with other 
 feelings than those of keen distress ; distress that it 
 should be advanced at all ; distress yet greater, if it 
 
 c Pall Mall Gazette, April 20, 1867. 
 
312 Faith in a Holy Ghost. [Serm. 
 
 should prove to have been advanced justifiably. For the 
 question at bottom is^ whether we know any thing at all 
 about a God, and a spiritual world, or not. If not, then 
 the state of things iipon which this writer congratulates 
 himself and his readers is, undoubtedly, as far as it goes, 
 matter for congratulation ; only perhaps, as honest and con- 
 sistent men, we might wish that the relics of old creeds, 
 and of the institutions which presuppose their serious truth, 
 could be swept into oblivion a little more rapidly than 
 is at present likely to be the case. If, however, Chris- 
 tians are right in supposing that a vast body of certain 
 truth about God and the invisible world is in our posses- 
 sion; then I say that, supposing this winter to be well- 
 informed, we have, as a nation, as a Church, as individuals, 
 the deepest reasons for self-humiliation and repentance. 
 In particular, how is it possible, that any belief at all in 
 the presence and activity of God^s Holy Spirit, can co- 
 exist with satisfaction at an increasing insensibility to the 
 claims of the Unseen ? Surely this popular, untheoretic, 
 yet most real materialism is radically inconsistent with 
 any recognition whatever of the great truth which is 
 before the mind of the Church of Christ on this high 
 festival. Credo in Sjyirlfuni Sancfiim : "I believe in the 
 Holy Ghost." AVliat does that involve ? If words mean 
 any thing, if I have any sort of belief in the self-con- 
 sistency of truth, it involves at least fliis .- that F l)elieve 
 in the existence of a supersensuous world, within and 
 upon which the Divine Spirit lives and acts. This belief 
 is, indeed, very far short of the statement of the Nicene 
 Creed; it is only that amount of spiritual truth which is 
 common to the Church of Christ with Sabellians and 
 Socinians. The Socinian, who believes that the Eternal 
 Spirit is only a name for the Divine Influence, and the 
 Sabellian, who acknowledges in Him only a phase or 
 manifestation of the Godhead, both admit the strictly 
 
XII] Faith in a Holy Ghost. 313 
 
 supernatural phenomenon of God's spiritual action upon 
 our spirits^ as distinctly as do we of the Church, who 
 recognize in the Holy Ghost a Personal Subsistence, 
 internal to the Everlasting Being of God_, and as such 
 entitled to that special adoration which we pay Him at 
 the beginning of our Litany, in our Ordination Service, 
 and in our use of the Gloria Patrl. Certainly, belief in 
 the existence of spirit at all carries with it as great a 
 weight of mystery, carries us as completely beyond 
 the precincts of sense, and right into the heart of the 
 world invisible, as does any portion of revealed truth. 
 What in Himself the Eternal Spirit is, who shall say ? 
 We can, perhaps, arrive at no nearer conception of a 
 spiritual substance at all, than is furnished by the crude 
 and negative idea of highly attenuated matter. And how 
 spirit acts on spirit; how the Divine and Infinite Spirit 
 acts on our human spirit ; how He penetrates it, lightens 
 it, warms it, strengthens it : this is and must for ever 
 remain, here below, within the province of high and 
 unsolved mystery. But to admit it at all, is to deny 
 with the utmost emphasis the premises of a great deal of 
 popular writing and popular conversation at the present 
 day, which may not mean to be, but which certainly is, 
 simple and downright materialism. 
 
 You may reply, that this practical materialism is not 
 refuted when its antagonism to belief in God's Living 
 Spirit has been insisted on. No : for theoretical mate- 
 rialists, I admit, it is not refuted. Nor do the limits of 
 this sermon admit of my dwelling on that long array of 
 cogent considerations, by which the advocates of spiritual- 
 istic truth, both within and without the Christian pale, 
 have disputed the ground inch by inch with the apostles 
 of materialism. Yet we may pause to observe in passing, 
 that civilization itself, which we are told is to advance in 
 an inverse ratio to man's belief in the Invisible, — civiliza- 
 
314 Faith in a Holy GJiost. [Seem. 
 
 tion itself oblig'es us to resist the advance of materialism. 
 Wlio were the tbuuders of modern civilization ? I answer, 
 men who believed in the Invisible. And upon what does 
 ci\nlization really repose ? Not upon our conquests in the 
 world of matter, which may merely add to our capacities 
 for extraordinary brutality in generations to come ; but 
 upon the prevalence of moral Ideas — of the idea of duty, of 
 the idea of justice, of the idea of conscience. Do we then 
 see these ideas ? can we handle them ? can we cut them up 
 with knives, or shape them with hammers, or measure 
 them with a rood, or label specimens of them on the shelf 
 of a museum ? No ; they are, you sa}', abstract forms of 
 our thought. Certainly they are; in other words, they 
 are products of the supersensuous world; they altogether 
 belong to it, although in the concrete they exercise such 
 energetic jurisdiction in the world of sense as to form the 
 very foundations of our social fabric. These powerful and 
 creative ideas are just as much out of the reach of sense 
 as is the action of the Holy Spirit of God upon a human 
 soul ; we see the ideas as Ave see that action, only in their 
 effects, not in themselves. A really consistent mate- 
 rialism has before now made war upon these ideas as 
 superstitious, and would have inaugurated pure barbarism 
 if it could have succeeded in destroying them. Certainly 
 to insist upon the antagonism between belief in a spiritual 
 world and prevalent materialistic notions, is not to* have 
 thereby convinced the materialists of their error. But it 
 is to have done something towards clearing the intellec- 
 tual atmosphere, and that is of prime necessity in the 
 present circumstances of modern thought. You may 
 hear the same man talk materialism one minute, and at 
 another speak as if the spiritual agency of God were really 
 not out of the question. In truth we arc fighting in a 
 fog, or in a wood, where the armies have lost sight of their 
 relative positions, and where even loyal soldiers have 
 
XII] Faith m a Holy Ghost. 315 
 
 sometimes donned the enemy's uniform. But those who 
 believe only in the philosophy of the senses are year by 
 year taking up, with more and more of fatal consistency, 
 the line which alone is their true one. Would that those 
 who recognize a spiritual world — still more that believers 
 in the supernatm-al — could see what these beliefs really in- 
 volve, and could detach themselves from forms of thought 
 which are, whether avowedly so or no, yet really and 
 vitally at issue with their dearest convictions ! Depend 
 upon it, my brethren, that whether we join in the 
 Apostles' Creed or not, if our real inmost thought is 
 shaped by the so-called philosophy of experience, we have 
 really taken up a position which only differs from that of 
 the Ephesine disciples in this; — that while we cannot 
 plead honest ignorance, it has ceased to be a matter of 
 any practical consequence to us whatever, whether there 
 be or be not any Holy Ghost. 
 
 Surely, if one thing is certain about Christianity, it is 
 that Christianity is an appeal from the visible to the 
 Invisible. Christianity is ever drawing us away from the 
 importunity of sense to the presence and action of the 
 Eternal Spirit. Nay more; Christianity pre-supposes a 
 spiritual world of which nature and the better philosophy 
 are cognizant; and then it proclaims the introduction 
 within this world of a higher power and principle, which 
 raises it above its original level, and thus constitutes the 
 supernatural. Surely Christianity, as a strictly super- 
 natm'al religion, is a fortiori the religion of the spiritual ; 
 and yet how constantly does the empire of materialistic 
 ideas force its way into the very sanctuary of Christian 
 thought. Let us take one or two leading instances. 
 
 2. There is such a thing as a materialized estimate of 
 the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. I do not mean merely 
 such a treatment of it as that of Strauss, who strips from 
 the Evangelical narratives every trace of the miraculous, as 
 
31 6 Faith hi a Holy Ghost. [Serm. 
 
 so mucli legend accumulated by the creative imagination of 
 the first Christians around the simple story of the peasant- 
 prophet of Nazareth. And^ undoubtedly, Strauss's criti- 
 cism is as fatal to the moral interest of the fragment which 
 he consents to recognize as the true life of Jesus, as he 
 conceives it to be destructive of the great miracles of 
 Christ, of His Birth of a \nrgin, of His literal Resurrection 
 from the dead, of His bodily Ascent to Heaven. Nor 
 again do I mean only a refusal to recognize the unrivalled 
 importance of the Life of Jesus Christ in the history of the 
 world. Such a refusal is an intellectual rather than a 
 spiritual error ; it is a misconception of the whole current 
 of human history. Who with his eye upon history, upon 
 Europe, upon Christendom, whether he be a Christian or 
 not, can dispute the importance of the Life of Jesus ? 
 Without Christ you cannot account for the phenomenon 
 presented by Christendom ; you cannot deny the import- 
 ance of the Life which created Christendom. But it is 
 possible to get much nearer the Truth than this admission, 
 and yet to stand outside it. How many men at the pre- 
 sent day conceive of Jesus Christ only as of a Teacher of 
 commanding influence. Who lived in this world eighteen 
 centuries ago, and AVhose life has left an impression not 
 merely indelible, but even yet, in some ways, deepening ! 
 Recognizing this, they gather up all that can illustrate 
 His appearance among men. The idioms of Eastern 
 speech, the scenery of the lakes and hills of Palestine, the 
 flora, the climate, the customs of the unchanging East, all 
 are summoned by the highest literary skill, that they may 
 place vividly before us the exact circumstances which 
 surrounded the Life of Christ. But here too often the 
 appreciation of that Life really ends. Men learn habitually 
 to think of Christ as of One Who belongs only to human 
 history. They think of Him as of one who lived on the 
 earth eighteen centuries ago, and has passed away. 
 
XII] Faith in a Holy Ghost. 317 
 
 Wliere He is now, what He is, whether He can be 
 approached by us, whether He can act upon us, are points 
 from which they either turn away their thoughts, or 
 which perhaps they contemptuously dismiss as belonging 
 to the category of theological abstractions. And if St. 
 Paul were here, whatever else he might say about such 
 students, would he not certainly say this, that they know 
 Christ only after the flesh ? 
 
 Now, belief in and communion with the Holy Spirit 
 rescues the Life of Christ in the thought of a livino- 
 
 o O 
 
 Christian from this exclusively historical way of looking 
 at it. For the Holy Spirit perpetually fulfils Christ^s 
 promise in the Church and in souls, — " He shall glorify 
 Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto 
 you ^r There are two prominent features in a spiritual 
 estimate of the Life of Jesus. First, the Spirit weans 
 Christian thought from too exclusive an attention to the 
 outward, and concentrates it upon the inward features. 
 It is not, that any thing which can illustrate That precious 
 Life is unimportant, God forbid; but, that the transient 
 circumstances in which it was set are less important than 
 its imperishable spirit and substance. Thus a spiritual 
 estimate of the Life of Jesus concentrates attention upon 
 our Lord's Character as illustrated and sustained by His 
 great miracles. Then it fixes upon the truth which lies 
 beyond, the truth apart from which His Human character 
 forfeits its beauty and becomes a moral deformity ; since 
 by that truth alone His constant self-assertion can be 
 morally justified ; the truth, I mean, of His literal, absolute 
 Divinity. But a Divine Christ is an Omnipresent Christ. 
 The life which He lived in the flesh, as being a transcript 
 in sensible form of the Eternal Mind, has as such an 
 undying significance. Thus the Life of Christ is trans- 
 
 ^ St. John xvi. 14. 
 
318 Faith ill a Holy GJiost. [Seem. 
 
 ferred by the Spirit from the region of merely his- 
 torical studics_, Avhere it is appreciated only by the 
 natural intelligence, to the region of spiritual experiences, 
 where it speaks directly to the soul. For the Spirit 
 forces in upon us His children the habitual recollection, 
 that Christ is what He was. The interest of His Life is 
 seen to consist in this, that it is the Life of One with 
 Whom we have daily, hourly converse. To the living 
 soul, the Nativity, the Sermon on the Mount, the Last 
 Discourse, the Washing- of the Disciples^ Feet, the Agony, 
 the Cross, the Resurrection, do not belong only to a 
 distant history from which we are severed by the chasm 
 of eighteen centuries of political, social, and intellectual 
 change. For the pupils of the Spirit those centuries do 
 not exist ; the Gospel mysteries are facts, perpetuated in- 
 dependently of their temporal setting, in the kingdom of 
 the Redemption ; and year by year, and day by day, we 
 kneel before the Manger, and the Cross, and the empty 
 Sepulchre, as before the mysteries of a kingdom which 
 has its place in time while yet transcending it. For the 
 children of the Spirit the Eternal Christ lives now, not 
 less truly than eighteen hundred years ago. Did He not 
 say, " I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to 
 you %^' — " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
 the world '^' ? And how ? Of what kind was this world- 
 enduring presence to be ? Politicians are present after 
 death, by the laws or djTiasties which they have esta- 
 blished. The intellectual survive by the force of the ideas 
 to which they have given currency. The good live yet 
 more nobly by the persuasive beauty of their examples. 
 Nay, the great criminals, who have disgraced humanity, 
 are too often present, energetically present, in the memory 
 and imitation of after-generations. Was the presence of 
 Christ to be of this description ? — a presence not of His 
 e St. John xiv. i8. f St. Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 
XII] Faith in a Holy Ghost. 319 
 
 Person^ but of tlie natural effects of His historical appear- 
 ance, — differing in degree, but not in kind, from tlie 
 posthumous presence of kings and wits, and eminently 
 good or bad characters ? No. It was to be a real, but a 
 spiritual Presence. It was not to be, as some Socinianizing 
 theologians have imagined, a presence of the Spirit, sub- 
 stituted for the presence of the Saviour. The Spirit is 
 emphatically the Spirit of Christ, because He is the 
 Minister of Christ's supersensuous Presence. The second 
 Adam is Himself a " quickening Spirit ".'' The promise, 
 " I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you," 
 is explained by that other promise, '^ If I go not away, 
 the Comforter will not come unto you ; but if I depart, I 
 will send Him unto you^\" Christ is eminently present 
 with us by the presence of His Spirit. We do not see 
 Him, but He has not left us. He is with us invisibly, but 
 as truly as He was in the streets of Jerusalem, or on the 
 shores of the Lake of Galilee; and the children of the 
 Spirit see Him, contemplate Him, cling to Him, as did 
 the disciples of old. The Life of Christ, in short, is of 
 present interest, as being the Life of our once visible but 
 ever living and present Lord ; and to fail to perceive this 
 truth, is to be practically ignorant of the effective Presence 
 of the Spirit; it is to have heard to no real purpose 
 whether there be any Holy Ghost. 
 
 3. Again, belief in the Holy Ghost rescues us from a 
 merely earthly and materialized estimate of the Christian 
 Church. 
 
 The Church of Christ has of course an earthly side. 
 She enters into human history, and her annals are inter- 
 twined with those of the kingdoms of this world ; nay, 
 more, they have been at times chequered with degradation 
 and crime. She interpenetrates natural society ; and she 
 has relations to civil governments, which are matters of 
 5 I Cor. XV. 45. 1' St. John xvi. 7. 
 
320 Faith in a Holy Ghost. [Seem. 
 
 ordinary business and discussion. Her ministers are like 
 otlier men, in their individual capacity, liable to infirmities 
 and to error, and depending for their usefulness very 
 largely upon their personal character and individual 
 acquirements. Her doctrines are stated in human lan- 
 guage ; sometimes in the very language which mere 
 natural thought has employed iij the service of human 
 philosophy. Her Scriptures, at first sight, are like any 
 other book; they are poetry, history, ethics, correspon- 
 dence. Her Sacraments are, viewed on their outward side, 
 the simplest of rites ; — a little water sprinkled on an 
 infant brow ; — a little bread and wine dealt out in the 
 early morning to a company of kneeling and silent guests. 
 Brethren, there are many souls in our day who lack the 
 spiritual sense which enables Christians to see more than 
 this in the Church of Christ. Their eye rests upon the 
 surface. They mistake the kingdom of the Spirit for a 
 merely human organization, patronized by the State in the 
 interests of civil order, education, and philanthropy. They 
 are exclusively concerned with the mere outward trappings 
 of the Church's teiupdral ]-)(tsitioii, witli the exact amount 
 of its political inHuencc in the country, with its relation to 
 the Government of the day, Avith the incomes of its chief 
 pastors, and their seats in the Legislature ; — just as if 
 these precarious accessories of its existing position in 
 England, wqvq of the essence of that world-embracing 
 kingdom, which was set up in the world on the Day of 
 Pentecost. Men speak sometimes as if the loss of these 
 things would be the loss of our all; as if there were no 
 such thing as a Church which was not richly endowed and 
 honourably recognized by the civil authority. Far be it 
 from us to speak unthankfully of the blessings of a 
 national recognition of religion. Yet those blessings may 
 be too dearly purchased by the culpable betrayal of strictly 
 spiritual powers to hands utterly uncommissioned by 
 
XII] Faith ill a Holy Ghost. 321 
 
 Christy if Caesar persists in claiming tlie things of God. 
 And, apart from this, it is easy to see that the whole cur- 
 rent of modern legislation is setting steadily, and it may 
 be is presently about to set with accelerated speed, in a 
 direction unfavourable to any State recognition of re- 
 ligion. Is this a reason for despair to those who heartily 
 believe in and love the Church of England, as a true 
 portion of that kingdom which God's Spirit organized 
 eighteen centuries ago, and which, amid all that is human, 
 and sinful, and erroneous, and disappointing in it. He 
 tenants at this moment ? No, assuredly. The Church is 
 not a mere material corporation, but a spiritual society. 
 Surely her indefeasible powers would only be put forth 
 with greater energy, when temporal succour was with- 
 drawn ; and it may be that she would gain in moral 
 vigour, in clearness of faith, in intensity and unitedness of 
 purpose, what she might have lost in the countenance of 
 the powerful, and in the wealth bequeathed to her by past 
 generations of her children. One thing only need we 
 fear; our own blindness or disloyalty to her true temper 
 and requirements. An infidel writer of the last century 
 observed, that the main hope of a destruction of Chris- 
 tianity throughout Europe lay in the prevalence of two 
 vices among the Christian clergy — ambition and self- 
 indulgence. Oh, most salutary and precious warning ! 
 for are not these two vices the most emphatic contradic- 
 tions of the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom ; in which 
 self-denial is the soul of all the highest virtue, in which 
 high office means only the liability to a stricter judgment 
 at the great day of reckoning ? We have nothing to fear, 
 brethren, for the futm^e, come what may, if only as we 
 live in the Spirit, so also we walk in the Spirit. We have 
 every thing to hope, if in our thoughts about and deeds 
 towards the Church of God, we bear in mind that she is 
 something better worth our labour and our love than any 
 
 Y 
 
322 Faith in a Holy Ghost. [Serm. 
 
 polity of this world, since we liavc heard indeed that there 
 is a Holy Ghost Who sanctifies her. 
 
 4. Once more, there is such a thing as materialized 
 worship ; and this is a danger from which those who 
 believe most earnestly in the realities of the kingdoni of 
 the Spirit do not always escape. 
 
 That the sense of beauty may be appealed to in order to 
 win the soul to God, is a principle consecrated not merely 
 by the express language, but by the example of Scripture. 
 Look, for instance, at the book of the Prophet Isaiah. 
 Isaiah is a great teacher of moral, spiritual, doctrinal 
 truth. But the instrument by which Isaiah expresses his 
 thought is a poetry so beautiful, that mere natural good 
 taste, whether it be religious or not, cannot choose but 
 admire it. It is, of course, possible to read Isaiah only 
 for the sake of his poetry, and to mistake an enthusiastic 
 admiration of his poetry for a spiritual interest in his 
 teaching. But it may be presumed that if the aesthetic 
 attractions of Isaiah^s poetry were likely to overshadow, 
 instead of recommending the truth which it enshrined, 
 Isaiah might have been guided to teach the people of 
 Israel in a series of dry propositions, like those of Euclid, 
 whose prosaic uniformity should have effectually repelled 
 any interest whatever of an aesthetic description. It is 
 obvious that whether music, or painting, or poetry, or 
 sculpture, be enlisted in the service of God, the advan- 
 tages and the risks are the same. It is possible to make 
 each of these arts a handmaid of spiritual truth ; it is pos- 
 sible in each case to be so fascinated by the graces of the 
 servant, as to forget the mistress whom she serves. 
 
 Now it seems to be the true and generous instinct of an 
 earnest piety to deem no measure of artistic beauty tcTo 
 great for the embellishment of the temples and of the 
 service of Christ. The genuine Christian spirit is not re- 
 presented as to this matter by the narrow prejudices of 
 
XII] Faith in a Holy Ghost. 323 
 
 tlie Puritan tradition. Even in tlie Catacombs the suffer- 
 ing Church ah-eady gave of her best to the Lord Who had 
 bought her, as out of the fulness of her grateful heart. 
 Nor is there any real connexion between spirituality of 
 mind and that particular slovenliness which is sometimes 
 termed ^ simplicity/ and which is in too many cases, even 
 now, the leading characteristic of the public services of 
 our churches. But this truth should not blind us to the 
 fact that a3sthetic aids to worship may, like other blessings, 
 be perverted, by coming to be regarded more or less in 
 the light of ends. If we find ourselves insensibly getting 
 to attach more importance to the visible symmetry and 
 beauty of the services of the Christian Sanctuary, than to 
 the power which we individually possess of entering into 
 real communion with God, and of offering to Him the best 
 adoration of the various faculties of our souls, we ought to 
 be very anxious. For after all, brethren, the kingdom of 
 the Spirit is the kingdom of the supersensuous. The 
 material beauty with which we surround our approaches 
 to its great Eucharistic mysteries, cannot enhance their 
 real sublimity ; but, alas ! such beauty can, unless we are 
 on our guard, too easily eclipse it. Let us not neglect 
 outward order, but let our chief care be lavished on grace 
 and truth. Let us give of our best to the churches and 
 the service of our God ; but let us ever remember, that 
 since, even in the Realm of the Incarnation, He is a Spirit, 
 they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in 
 truth. Surely, to realize the presence of the Holy Ghost 
 in the soul, and in the Church, is to be anxious that that 
 communion with God which cannot be uttered in language, 
 should be more constant and fervent ; that the inner reali- 
 ties of worship should as far transcend its outward accom- 
 paniments, as the kingdom of the Invisible transcends the 
 world of sense. Not to feel this anxiety is to be virtually 
 ignorant of the meaning of the Spirit's Presence; it is 
 
 Y 3 
 
J 24 Faith in a Holy Ghost. [Serm. 
 
 practically not to have lieard^ at least in one department 
 of our spiritual existence, whether there be any Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 5. Lastly, and above all, let it be remembeited that a 
 living belief in the Holy Ghost implies a correspondent 
 elevation of character. 
 
 It implies that a man aims at something higher than 
 natural or conventional morality. The difference between 
 natural systems of morality and the ethics of the New 
 Testament is even wider than the difference between 
 natural religion, as it is called, and the dogmatic teaching 
 of St. John. Just as human law aims at nothing beyond 
 the preservation and wellbeing of society, and leaves 
 human conduct practically unfettered, where it does not 
 affect social, but only individual interests; so natural 
 morality proceeds upon the tacit assumption that this 
 world is our all, and that, such being the case, we should 
 make the most of it. It is in this, as distinct from an}^ 
 deeper and higher sense, utilitarian. It lays stress upon 
 those excellences which paganism recognized; upon truth- 
 fulness, courage, justice, temperance. It certaiul}- is not to 
 be credited, in fairness, with such unseemly eccentricities 
 as the doctrine which makes man's moral progress to 
 consist chiefly in the development and culture of a healthy 
 animalism ; but, on th(> other hand, taken at its best, it is 
 separated, by a very wide inteiwal, from the moral standard 
 and life set before us in the New Testament. 
 
 Certainly, my brethren, before we speak or think dis- 
 paragingly of natural moralit}', we do well to ask our- 
 selves how far it may not rebuke us, for falling as far 
 below, as we profess to rise above it. We do well to 
 consider how far the courage, the justice, the severe 
 temperance of heathens, may not rise up in judgment 
 against us, who bi'eathe the atmosphere of the Spirit, and 
 who kneel before the Cross. There is such a thing as 
 
XII] Faith in a Holy Ghost. 325 
 
 mistaking Christian privileges for Christian attainments ; 
 and of imagining that we are what we know we ought to 
 be, simply because we know it. 
 
 Let us put the matter in a concrete and homely form. 
 Look at the question of our every-day work, in different 
 positions, here in Oxford. Is not work here too often 
 treated as a matter of taste ? Is it not ranged side by 
 side in our minds only with various forms of amusement 
 or with employments which, although admii-able in them- 
 selves and elsewhere, have not here the first claim on 
 our attention ? In short, are we not — I do not say all, 
 but many of us, and many of us, too, who have more or 
 less cause to thank God for teaching us something of the 
 unspeakable importance, and of the real range of His 
 revealed truth — are we not very imperfectly alive to the 
 moral meaning of work, to the moral necessity of work, to 
 the moi-al dignity, and the moral fruits of work, as work ? 
 My brethren, if here I say too much, my words will give 
 no possible umbrage ; but if what I say is justified, ought 
 we not to look well to it ? It may be true that a great 
 many men who work hard in this place have no higher 
 motive for their efibrts than an ambition to make the 
 best of this life; and no Christian would consider that 
 motive a satisfactory or a sufficient one. But there is 
 such a thing as God's Will, expressed by His calling us, 
 in the course of His providence, to the discharge of a 
 particular set of duties; whether manual, or social, or 
 intellectual, it matters not. And a perception of a 
 measure of moral truth far lower than that which is set 
 before us in the New Testament, ought to leave us with 
 no practical doubt whatever as to the moral claims of 
 those duties, that is to say, of work, of our particular 
 work, whatever it may be, in this place. 
 
 This, I say, is a simple truth of morals, which a man 
 might master without the teaching of the Holy Ghost. 
 
326 Faitk in a Holy GJiost. [Serm. 
 
 There are plenty of reasons for paying our bills, and for 
 avoiding gambling, and for economizing time, and for 
 being careful to state the truth, and for keeping clear of 
 those evils which bring, sooner or later, their OAvn punish- 
 ments. These reasons would have had weight "oatli con- 
 siderate persons, if there had been no such event at all in 
 the world as that of the Day of Pentecost. Let us not 
 neglect these ethical lessons of nature ; but, as we believe 
 in the truth of the Gospel, let us not be content with 
 them. The Eternal Spirit, too, has set up in the world a 
 school of morals; and He whispers within the soul a 
 deeper and purer code than nature dreams of. Look at the 
 contrast between the works of our lower self, animated by 
 the principle of concupiscence, and the fruits of the Spirit, 
 as St. Paul traces them in his Epistle to the Galatians. 
 Tlie fruits of the Spirit, you will observe, are no mere 
 negation of the \ngorous forms of wickedness which make 
 up the catalogue of the works of the flesh. Tliey rise 
 higher than this, higher far. They have about them an 
 undemonstrative, passive character, singularly contrasting 
 with the bustling" ostentation of natural morals, and 
 implying that, in the school of the Spirit, the soul, like 
 Mary at the feet of Jesus, is listening to a Teacher Who 
 has awed her into the silence which becomes self-know- 
 ledge. "The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, 
 longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, foith, meekness, 
 temperance '." How unnatural, men say, they are ! Yes ! 
 my brethren, they are unnatural ; not in the sense of con- 
 tradicting nature so much as in that of transcending it. 
 It is not natural to love God for His own sake, and for 
 God's sake to love man as man ; it is not natural to 
 experience an inward sunshine which no outward troubles 
 can overcloud, a serenity of soul which no outward pro- 
 vocations can really ruffle ; nor in the face of continuous 
 
 i Gal. V. 22, 23. 
 
XII] Faith in a Holy Ghost. ^i^ 
 
 opposition are longsuffering, gentleness^ goodness^ faith, 
 meekness — natnral. Nature prescribes reprisals; for 
 nature is only flesli and bloody and vehement desires, and 
 hot passions, ordinarily controlled only by considerations 
 of social prudence. Leaning upon nature, we may as well 
 despair of getting beyond her as of forcing water to rise 
 permanently above its natural level. But if we will, we 
 may reach a higher standard ; since we are not really left 
 to our own resources. It is the Spirit that quickeneth. 
 He does not merely prescribe. He transforms. He is 
 perpetually asserting His presence by His spiritual trans- 
 formations ; He makes the feeble strong, and the melan- 
 choly bright, and the cold-blooded fervent, and the 
 irascible gentle, and the uninstructed wise, and the con- 
 ceited humble, and the timid unflinching. And now, as 
 of old. He filleth the hungry with good things, but the 
 rich He hath sent empty away'^. He has but a scant 
 measure of endowments to bestow on those who find in 
 the things of sense, in the pursuit or worship of wealth, 
 and rank, and reputation, their deepest and most solid 
 satisfaction. He gives Himself most fully to those who 
 ask for Him secretly and often. blessed gift, so 
 bounteously given in Baptism, and then again and again 
 repeated, of the Spirit of Christ ! We seek Him without, 
 and we find Him within us ; we seek Him in great assem- 
 blies, and find Him in solitude ; we seek Him in the 
 understanding, we find Him in the heart. He enters 
 the soul when all the doors of sense are shut ; He gives 
 His benediction to each and all of its faculties ; " Peace 
 be unto you ^" The soul hears Him, it sees Him not ; the 
 soul feels Him, yet as if insensibly ; and His presence is 
 itself that peace of God which passeth all understanding. 
 Henceforth enriched by His indwelling, the soul's desire is 
 to desire nothing, its will to will for nothing, its care to 
 k St. Luke i. 53. • St. John xx. 21. 
 
328 Faith in a Holy Ghost. 
 
 care for notliiug, its wealth to possess nothing, out of 
 God, its one, its everlasting Ti'easuro. 
 
 Brethren, this is not mysticism ; it is the experience of 
 those who have heard within themselves that there is a 
 Holy Ghost. This is the subjective side of lives which 
 have been spent in the purest and most unselfish benevo- 
 lence, but the secret of whose strength has escaped the 
 notice of ordinary lookers-on. Depend upon it, the king- 
 dom of the Spirit is as near to us as it was to our fathers; 
 and that no changes of human opinion can affect the 
 irrevocable gifts of God. One day, each and all, we shall 
 look back upon its blessed opportunities, upon its high 
 responsibilities, with what feelings of self-reproach or of 
 gratitude, who shall say ! Let us be wise while we may. 
 Let us " lay not up for ourselves treasures upon the earth, 
 where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves 
 break through and steal ; but let us lay up for ourselves 
 treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth 
 corrupt, and Avhcre thieves do not break through nor 
 steal '"." 
 
 m St. Matt. vi. 19. 
 
SERMON XIII. 
 
 THE DIVINE INDWELLING A MOTIVE TO 
 HOLINESS. 
 
 I Cor. iii. i6. 
 
 Knoio ye not that ye are the temj)le of God, and that the Spirit of God 
 dwelleth in you ? 
 
 T^HIS kind of appeal is very characteristic of St. Paul's 
 rapid turns of tliouglit, and also of liis liabit of bringing 
 religious convictions to bear sharply and importunately 
 upon religious practice. There are other appeals to the 
 same effect in this very Epistle, and their purpose is 
 obvious. 
 
 The Corinthian Christians were guilty of sins both 
 against purity and charity. The popular idolatries of 
 Corinth, aggravated by the commercial and maritime 
 importance of the place, would probably have exposed 
 them to considerable temptations to unclean living; and 
 they had even learned to look with self-complacency upon 
 evils which were not tolerated by heathen opinion. And 
 so little did they understand the love which was due to 
 their brethren in Christ, that they evidently regarded the 
 Church as only another form of political life, with its 
 natural divisions of opinion and its heated passions, and 
 its pervading earthly taint. For both evils the remedial 
 truth is one and the same : — Christians are members of a 
 
330 The Divine Indwelling [Seem. 
 
 society which the Spirit iuhabits_, because He dwells in 
 them individually^ and so has made them collectively the 
 Body of Christ. To the one it is said^ "Know ye not 
 that your bodies are the members of Christ ^?^' to the 
 other, " Know ye not that ye are the temple of God_, and 
 that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? " 
 
 I. Let us consider the fact to which the Apostle 
 appeals ; "Ye are the temple of God;" "the Spirit of God 
 dwelleth in you." 
 
 I. This is not, first of all, morcly a recognition of the 
 presence of God in nature. Doubtless, the sense of God's 
 encompassing, all-pervading life must be one of the main 
 factors in the thoug-ht of every thinkino- man who believes 
 in the existence and spirituality of God. He conceives of 
 God as the Being from Whom it is literally impossible to 
 escape. "Whither shall I go then from Thy Spirit? or 
 whither shall I go then from Thj^ Presence ? if I climb up 
 into heaven. Thou art there : if I go down to hell. Thou 
 art there also. If I take the wings of the morning, and 
 remain in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there also 
 shall Thy Hand lead me ; and Thy Eight Hand shall hold 
 me ''." 
 
 God, the every where present, enwrapping', upholding, 
 penetrating through and through each creature of His 
 Hand, yet in His Uncreated Essence distinct from all, is 
 before the Psalmist's soul. Man, if he would, cannot be 
 where God is not, cannot place himself outside this all- 
 pervading ubi(j[uity of God. Thus the universe is the 
 temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in it. This 
 is the most direct lesson of Psalm civ., which is appointed 
 for this afternoon's service. God is as truly present with 
 the lowest as with the highest forms of life : He is as 
 present with the lowest, and wildest, and fiercest animals, 
 with every variety of tree and plant, with primary rocks, 
 ^ I Cor. vi. 15. •> Ps. cxxxix. 7-10. 
 
XIII] a Motive to Holiness. 23 ^ 
 
 and witli slow processes of mineral transformations pro- 
 ceeding through nnmeasm^ed ages deep beneath the earth^s 
 crusty with heavenly bodies^ moving^ in their nndeviating 
 obedience to law, through trackless space — as with 
 glorified men, as with archangels. He cannot but be thus 
 every where present ; He cannot contract His illimitable 
 Being, and make corners in His universe where He is not. 
 And there are not, properly speaking, degrees of His pre- 
 sence, although there are various modes of its manifesta- 
 tion. He is every where, in all the proper intensity and 
 force of His Being, simply because He is God. 
 
 1. Yet the Apostle does not mean that the Corinthian 
 Christians were only God's temple as being a part of His 
 universe. For, obviously, man, as man, is differently re- 
 lated to the Divine Omnipresence from any thing else in 
 natm'e. Man alone can feel it, can acknowledge it, can 
 respond to it. God is just as present with a plant or an 
 animal as with man ; but neither animal nor plant is con- 
 scious of the Divine contact ; both animal and plant offer 
 only the homage of an unconscious obedience to God's 
 law. Man, however, can know and adore his God, by the 
 homage of his intelligence and of his moral freedom ; and 
 thus the human soul is a temple of God, in a distinct sense 
 from any of the lower forms of life. It is a living temple, 
 whereof each wall, each pillar, each cornice, nay, the arches 
 and the very floor, are instinct with the life whether of 
 thought or feeling, so designed and proportioned as even 
 by their silent symmetry to show forth their Maker's 
 praise. Such is the original draft of the soul of man ; it 
 was to be a true temple of God, nor even in its ruins is it 
 altogether un^dsited by Him. The moral and mental life 
 of man among the heathen bears abundant traces of 
 heavenly aid. Not merely because God sustains all men- 
 tal powers, whether thoy promote or retard His work and 
 His Glory, but because God is strictly the author of all 
 
23'^ The Divine l7idwelling [Serm. 
 
 good thoughts and truths which heathens have reached, as 
 He is the strength of all natui-al goodness which heathens 
 have practised. He is the giver of all the gifts which the 
 Greek or the Indian may possess, no less than of the 
 higher and distinct inspirations of Hebrew Prophets and 
 of Christian Apostles. " Every good gift and every 
 perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the 
 Father of lights <=." 
 
 Yet St. Paul did not mean that the communicants of 
 the Church of Corinth were only God's temple in the same 
 sense as the heathen priests, and philosophers, and prosti- 
 tutes who thronged the neighbouring temple of Aphrodite. 
 For although God is present to the thought and impulse 
 of all beings whom He sustains in life, so far as to sustain 
 them, He is not present so as to approve and bless, when 
 the powers which He has given are perverted by His 
 creature to the production of that which He hates, and 
 Avhich would, if it were possible, destroy Him. There is 
 a sense, indeed, in which man in his natural sinful state is 
 less properly a temple of God than is irrational nature. 
 For the trees and beasts have done nothing to insult God, 
 nothing to grieve Him, nothing to limit His authority or 
 to defy His will; whereas the soul of fallen man is in a 
 condition of normal contradiction, not to arbitrary rules 
 laid down by God, but to the very essence of His Being, 
 to those constituent moral truths which are rooted in 
 God's eternal self-consciousness, and which — God being 
 what He is — could not be other than as they are. But to 
 those among Adam's children who are alive in Jesus 
 Christ, God manifests His presence by His Spirit ; and 
 this manifestation makes them His temples in an alto- 
 gether intenser sense than is possible for unregenerate 
 man. 
 
 3. The presence referred to by the Apostle is not 
 *-' St. James i. 1 7, 
 
XIII] a Motive to Holiness. 'i)2)Z 
 
 only the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church. 
 Primarily^ indeed, the words imply that truth. "Ye are 
 the temple of God/^ "the Spirit of God dwelleth in^' or 
 " among you." It is indeed in the Church as a whole, 
 and not in the individual, that the full majesty of the 
 Spirit^s presence is to be witnessed. The "whole body 
 of the Church is governed and sanctified " by the Spirit, 
 in a deeper sense than any individual can be. In spite 
 of human errors, the sensible tokens of the Spirit's 
 presence fill the whole house wherein, through their 
 successors. Apostles sit to rule and to prophecy until 
 the end of time. In spite of himian lukewarmness, 
 tongues of fire, kindling into burning words the soul's 
 consciousness of the sublimest truth, and the rushing 
 mighty wind, endowing a company of feeble peasants 
 with a heaven-sent impulse to save and bless humanity, 
 live on through the ages, not as the monopoly of the 
 recipients of such gifts, but as the appanage and endow- 
 ment of the holy Body. And there are promises attach- 
 ing to the Spirit's presence, which the Church, and she 
 alone, can realize. The Church alone, and not the indi- 
 vidual ; the Church alone, and not any fragment of the 
 Church ; not, for instance, even the great Latin Patri- 
 archate, between the tenth and sixteenth centuries, 
 severed already from the East, but not as yet itself further 
 subdivided by the Reformation ; only the entire body, 
 acting collectively or by fair and recognized representa- 
 tion, is really warranted in the certainty of guidance into 
 all the truth ^. And in the same way, of the whole body 
 alone can we say that, through the preserving breath and 
 vital force of the Spirit, it will never fail^. Particular 
 Churches, diocesan, national, provincial, patriarchal, may 
 become heretical ; entire continents may be lost to Christ 
 for centuries ; much more may individuals, the saintliest, 
 d St. John xvi. 13. e St. Matt. xvi. 18. 
 
334 ^'^^ Divine Indwelling [Serm. 
 
 the most gifted, after they have preached to others, them- 
 selves become cast away *". For as the soui'ce of her cor- 
 porate infallibility, as the conservative force which makes 
 her utter failure impossible, the Divine Spirit is given 
 only to the collective Church ; nor do the misunderstand- 
 ings or the errors whereby man has marred the Spirit^s 
 work, imply that the one gift is permanently withdrawn, 
 any more than the losses and divisions of Christendom, 
 or the advances of unbelief, can threaten, however 
 remotely, the guarantees which assure her possession of 
 the other. 
 
 Doubtless the Church is the Kingdom, the Home, the 
 Temple of the Spirit ; but how ? The Spirit governing 
 the Church is not like a human monarch, controlling his 
 subjects, so to speak, as a force above and without them. 
 The Spirit is not only an atmosphere, in which the 
 Churches members move and breathe; He is not any 
 merely external jjower or influence. The presence of the 
 Spirit in the Church is realized by His presence in the 
 separate souls of her children. He is given without 
 measure to the whole, because He is given in a measure 
 to each. Although Ho lives in souls because He lives in 
 the Church, yet the collective Church is the Temple of 
 Deity, not as being a vast abstraction, having no relations 
 to concrete and appreciable realities, but because the souls 
 of regenerated Christians, which in their totality compose 
 the Church, are already so many tenements in which the 
 Heavenly Guest vouchsafes to tarry and to bless. And 
 here it is that we touch upon the real groundwork of the 
 Apostle's appeal. 
 
 4. The presence upon which he insists is ultimately a 
 
 presence in the individual. It differs from the presence 
 
 of the Spirit with saints and prophets under the Jewish 
 
 Covenant, and still more from the occasional visits which 
 
 * I Cor. ix. 27. 
 
XIII] a Motive to Holiness. ^ZS 
 
 He may have vouclisafed to lieatliens, iu that, so far as 
 the will of the Giver is concerned, it is normal and 
 continuous. "■ The Spirit of God dwelleth in you/^ No 
 passing visit is here, no sudden but transient illumination, 
 no power, fitfully given and suddenly withdra^\Ti. " I 
 will dwell in them, and walk in them ; and I will be their 
 God, and they shall be My people ^.^^ Such was to be 
 the law of the Messianic Kingdom : each of its subjects 
 was to be gifted with an inward presence of the Holy 
 One. 
 
 This presence carries with it the gift of a new nature — 
 the nature of God's sinless Son. The Spirit is the Spirit 
 of Christ, because He makes us Christ's members''. 
 According to the New Testament, His work is not dis- 
 tinct from the work of Christ, as if the work of Christ for 
 man ujoou earth altogether ended at the Ascension, and 
 that of the Spii'it began on the day of Pentecost. On the 
 contrary, the action of the Spirit in the Church is the 
 prolongation of Christ's work into Christian history. It is 
 the extension, it is, with due limitations we may say, the 
 perpetuation of the Incai'nation, in its power of making 
 humanity partakers of the Divine Nature. Therefore, " if 
 any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His '.'' 
 Along with this Spirit comes the gift of a new moral being, 
 a new capacity and direction to the affections and the will, 
 a clear perception of truth by the renewed intelligence. 
 " If any man be in Christ, he is the new creation ^!' 
 " The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes free 
 from the law of sin and death '." " The fruit of the Spirit 
 is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, 
 faith, meekness, temperance '"." All this is but the 
 result, the accompaniment of the gift of gifts itself, of the 
 
 g 2 Cor. vi. i6. Exod. xxxi, 45. Jer. xxxi. ^tZ- 
 
 h I Cor. xii. 12, 13. ' Rom. viii. 9. ''2 Cor. v, 17. 
 
 1 Rom. viii. 2. ^ Gal. v. 22. 
 
23^ The Divine Indwelling [Serm. 
 
 great cliaracteristic gift of the New Covenant, of the 
 Divine indwelling really vouchsafed to each faithful Chris- 
 tian soul. And it becomes us to-day to remember that 
 this gift dates from the morning of the first Christian 
 Pentecost. 
 
 II. If we have difficulty in habitually realizing such 
 a truth, it is, I believe, because we fail to do justice 
 in our ordinary thoughts to that higher side of our 
 composite being, which is the seat of the Spirit's Pre- 
 sence within us. Man is not merely a perishing animal 
 gifted with life, a "^vyj) : he is an immortal spirit, a 
 irvevjJia. Our Lord and His Apostles distinguish care- 
 fully between the life of the animal human organism, 
 which becomes extinct at death, and the immaterial, indi- 
 visible essence, which is indestructible, and which is the 
 seat and scene of the Divine Presence. Thus our Lord 
 excuses the Disciples, when sleeping in the garden 
 of Gethsemane, by drawing this distinction : " The spirit 
 indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak ".'' Thus, at the 
 moment of His death, He commends His own Spirit into 
 the hands of the Father". Hero it is obvious that His 
 Spirit cannot be the Divine and Almighty Being; the 
 word must describe a created being needing, in some 
 sense, protection and succour; it stands for that part 
 of Christ's Human Nature Which did not become inani- 
 mate at death. Conformably with this, St. Peter speaks 
 of our Lord as having been put to death in the flesh, but 
 quickened in Spirit, in Which also He went and preached 
 to the spirits in prison p. Here too Scripture clearly 
 recosrnizes that which remains of man after death, as a 
 conscious intelligence capable of understanding the Good 
 News of God. St. John alludes to living men as he 
 might speak of disembodied spirits, simply as centres of 
 thought and knowledge : " Every spirit that confesseth 
 n St. Matt. xxvi. 41. ° St. Luke xxiii. 46. P i St. Peter iii. 19. 
 
XIII] a Motive to Holiness. 337 
 
 that Jesus Christ is come in the fleshy is of God 1." St. 
 Paul gives point to this language by his well-known tri- 
 chotomy, as it is called, in his First Epistle to the 
 Thessalonians. '^ I pray God your whole spirit and 
 soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ ^" Did St. Paul, then, believe 
 that man has a triple and not merely a double nature ? 
 Much discussion has been expended upon this question ; 
 but it is in reality a question of words. St. Paulas con- 
 trast between the flesh and the spirit, in the Epistle to 
 the Galatians and elsewhere, shows that he usually asso- 
 ciated the animal life or ■^vyj] with the animated body ; 
 and that he contrasted this merely animal vitality with 
 the living spirit, which is above and distinct from it. A 
 life according to the flesh is a life in which animal 
 vitality and instincts control thought and action; a life 
 according to the spirit is a life ruled by the immortal 
 principle within man, itself renewed and reinforced by 
 the eternal Spirit of God ^ In like manner, the spiritual 
 man (Trz^ef/^aTi/co?) is contrasted both with the man of 
 animal life, and with the man of the flesh {^v^lko'^ or 
 crapKiKos:), as being two aspects of the same thing'; and 
 St. Paul does not really present us with an analysis of the 
 constitutive parts of human nature, differing from that of 
 his Divine Master. 
 
 Now this clear recognition of the distinctness of the 
 human spirit from the animal life of man, which we find 
 in the New Testament, has at certain times been ob- 
 scured in the popular Christian thought of later days. 
 When the Christian revelation made its way into the 
 world of Graeco-Roman ideas, it first of all came into con- 
 tact with the dualism of Plato, which regarded body and 
 
 1 I St. John iv. 3. r I Thess. v. 23. ^ Gal. v. 16 — 24. 
 
 ' I Cor. ii. 14— iii. 4. See as to this Auberlen's art., " Geist der Men- 
 schen," in Herzog's lleal-EncycL, vol. iv., p. 732. 
 
 Z 
 
33^ Ihe Divine hidwelling [Serm. 
 
 soul as distinct substances, and which thus offered to 
 the Christian apologists a convenient philosophical basis 
 for the defence and explanation of their faith. But some 
 of them at least applied the language of Scripture re- 
 specting the spirit to the Platonic conception of the soul ; 
 and thus the spirit came to be conceived of as a part of 
 the animal soul, or at any rate as the sum of its higher 
 faculties. In the scholastic period the same practical 
 result may be traced to the influence of Ai'istotle. With 
 Aristotle there is only one real substance, whether it be 
 formalized matter or materialized form. Aristotle's lan- 
 guage about the nature of the soul is not consistent with 
 itself; on the whole, he seems to have held that the soul 
 is " the supra-sensible form of the ensouled body "." But 
 the Christian revelation was already committed to the 
 soul's immortality j and it was difficult to see how a being 
 could be immortal unless it was an independent sub- 
 stance, an "aliquid quod substat et cui nihil substat." 
 Hence Scholasticism projected the idea of substantial 
 forms, — "formse substantiales." The conception is not 
 purely Aristotelian, nor is it intrinsically Christian. The 
 soul, thus conceived of, belongs equally to vegetables, 
 to animals, and to men. There were vegetable, animal, 
 and reasonable souls. In man the reasonable soul could 
 only be also the animal soul; the nTve.v\xa of Scripture 
 was the '^v)(i] of Scripture. But if the reasonable soul 
 was also the animal life-principle, why was it any thing 
 more than tlie life of a plant or of an animal, at a higher 
 point of finish and development; why was it immortal 
 unless they Avere? It must be admitted, that although 
 
 " Kilter, Anc. Phil. iii. p. 245. Dc An. ii. 4. A friend refers me to the 
 passages quoted in Zeller's " Pliilosophie der Griccben," 2ter Tlieil, 2te Abth., 
 pp. 234—246, wliich warrant a higher estimate of Aristotle's psychology 
 than that given above. liut Aristotle does not seem to have been consistent 
 with himself. 
 
XIII] a Motive to Holifiess. 339 
 
 the idea of the soul^ as a reasonable and independent 
 beings created immediately by God, was never lost sight 
 of, its close popular identification with the animal life- 
 principle during long periods of Christian history has 
 supplied arguments against its spiritvial essence to the 
 more acute materialists. And the formula, " I think, 
 therefore I am/^ which has been so fruitful in philosophy, 
 has not been without its indirect services to Christian 
 theology. It has given an experimental base to the 
 revealed representation of a spirit, as of a self-deter- 
 mining being, conscious of its thought and of its free- 
 dom, conscious thus of its indivisible oneness, conscious 
 that it is an indestructible seat of personality ^. 
 
 It is this truth which the Pentecostal Gift presupposes. 
 That intimate, absorbing, transforming gift of Himself by 
 God, presupposes a recipient, unlike all creatures that 
 merely grow and feel, while they are incapable of re- 
 flective thought and of absolutely free self-determination. 
 Man, as an immortal spirit, is the temple of God. But 
 how the Divine Spirit enters into and tenants the human, 
 who shall say ? The ideas of extension, of inclusiveness, 
 belong in fact to matter; the Uncreated Essence is as 
 immaterial as the created. But just so far as any one 
 of us bears constantly in mind the immateriality of his 
 real self, can he understand the high privilege to which 
 he is called in Christ. Not, however, that the presence 
 of the Spirit leaves man's lower nature unsanctified and 
 unblessed. The presence of the Spirit, having its seat in 
 the immortal spirit of man, is inseparable from the pre- 
 sence of the Incarnate Christ, Who renews and trans- 
 forms, by incorporation with Himself, man's lower life of 
 animal instinct and feeling. This sanctification of man's 
 whole being radiates from the sanctification of his inmost 
 
 ^ See this traced by G. C. Mayer, art. " Gelst," iu Wetzer and Wette's 
 Encycl. 
 
 Z 2 
 
340 The Divine Indwelling [Seem. 
 
 self-consciousness, involving the self-dedication to God of 
 that imperishable centre of life, of that '^ I/' which is at 
 the root of all feeling and all thought, which is each 
 man's true, indivisible, inmost self. 
 
 III. Let us observe, in the substance of the Apostle's ap- 
 peal, all the conditions of a really powerful religious motive. 
 
 I . Of these the first is, that the truth or fact appealed to 
 should not be an open question in the mind of the person to 
 whom the appeal is made. Not that considerations which 
 are regarded as only probable, or as open to dispute, have 
 no moral weight whatever : they have a great deal of weight 
 in minds which are not balancing between good and evil, 
 but are perplexed by having to decide between opposite 
 courses of conduct, neither of which could fairly be regarded 
 as culpable. But a disputed fact or doctrine is of no use 
 whatever for the purpose of inciting to unwelcome duty or 
 of resisting temptations to welcome gratification. The force 
 and the weapons which may suf&ce to keep order in the 
 streets of a well-disposed capital would be of little service 
 against a great military enemy, whose cavalry is sweeping 
 all before it in the open country. Indeed, those of us who 
 have been in the habit of watching ourselves at all accu- 
 rately, must know that the will soon takes alarm at the 
 approach of a motive which is likely to interfere with the 
 attainment of a cherished object; and that at its bidding the 
 intellect becomes particularly acute in discovering and 
 urging objections against the claims of the interfering 
 motive. Therefore the motive which is to resist strong 
 pressure must, if possible, be impregnable : a challenged 
 or discredited thesis will not do the stern work for which 
 a truth, accepted by the understanding as practically 
 axiomatic, is required. 
 
 St. Paul's appeal, then, to the inward presence of the 
 Holy Ghost, is of itself conclusive as to the faith of the 
 Church of Corinth. St. Paul wanted, if I may so speak, 
 
XIII] a Motive to Holiness. 341 
 
 all the moral leverage that he could command : nothing 
 would have served his purpose that was not an un- 
 questioned certainty. St. Paul wished by his appeal to 
 bring into the field a power of will sufficiently strong 
 to make head against a large body of perverted opinion, 
 reinforced by two energetic and almost universal passions. 
 He might as well have been silent altogether as have 
 invoked the aid of a precariously-held or controverted 
 doctrine. All half-beliefs give way before strong torrents 
 of social pressure or of personal inclination. If such 
 half-beliefs are to be discussed with any chance of 
 strengthening them, it must be at times when passion 
 has nothing to gain by stunting their growth or by 
 rooting them up. If the idea of an inward Presence 
 in the soul had been a theory of a few refined and 
 speculative minds, or the faith of a small school within 
 the Church having a tm-n for mystical theology; if it 
 had been any thing else or less than the deep, broad, 
 popular, strong, ineradicable faith of every Christian, as 
 a Christian; it would not have sufiiced to bear the strain 
 which is put upon it by this appeal of St. Paul. St. Paul's 
 " Know ye not V^ means that his readers had no doubt of 
 the Presence of the Holy Ghost among them and in them; 
 and he appeals to it, as to the shining of the sun in the 
 heavens, as to a fact which among them at least was 
 beyond dispute. 
 
 3. A second condition of a strong religious motive, is 
 that it shall rest upon a positive and not upon a merely 
 negative conviction. Not that a negative faith, so to 
 term it, has no power; it has just so much power as is 
 necessary to assert itself. Men have died in the extremity 
 of pain, not only on behalf of what they have believed 
 to be positive truths, but simply as a preferable alternative 
 to acquiescence in what they have accounted falsehoods. 
 Yet the conviction that a creed is false, is only powerful 
 
34- The Divine hidwelling [Seem. 
 
 as a motive to action so long as you are confronted 
 with that creed. When the false creed is out of sight, 
 the conviction of its falsehood has no independent and 
 permanently substantial existence ; the existence of the 
 conviction was merely relative, relative to the creed which 
 has now disappeared. This is a point which requires to 
 be insisted on, as men are apt to imagine that the moral 
 force of resistance to a particular creed will be continu- 
 ously as operative as the resistance itself may have been 
 momentarily vehement. Whereas, in point of fact, every 
 negative conviction has only strength to impel us in one 
 particular direction ; and, as a religious motive, it 
 collapses altogether when you lose sight of the enemy who 
 has provoked it into life. 
 
 Suppose, for instance, that St. Paul had only insisted 
 upon the social evils of party warfare, or upon the 
 speculative absurdities involved in the cultus of Aphrodite. 
 Party spirit might be a social mischief; but to crush the 
 passions which produce it, you need a strong positive 
 truth. Aphrodite might be a disreputable shadow; but 
 unless something could be done besides demonstrating 
 her nonentity, little would have been gained in this human 
 world for the cause of virtue. 
 
 We are justified, not by our rejection of error, but by 
 our acceptance of truth. To accept truth, it may be 
 necessary enough to reject error ; but it is truth, positive 
 truth, which illuminates and invigorates the soul of man. 
 To recognize the nonexistence of what is not, cannot do 
 more than clear away obstructions to our real improve- 
 ment : we are only made better and stronger by what is. 
 St. Paul does not say, Know ye not the moral inde- 
 fensibility of party spirit, or the religious indefensibility 
 of the popular paganism ? He does say, " Know ye not 
 that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God 
 dwelleth in you?" 
 
XIII] a Motive to Holiness. 343 
 
 3. A third coudition of a strong working religious 
 motive is, that it shall rest upon what is felt to be a 
 present truth. Not that the memories of the past or the 
 anticipations of the future are without moral jjower. The 
 future or the past may be just as certain as the present ; 
 but they appeal less directly to the imagination. It has 
 been remarked, that those who profess to unravel the 
 scroll of unfulfilled prophecy with certainty, do not always 
 regulate their worldly concerns in the way which might 
 be expected from their published convictions. It is not 
 that they are insincere ; but only that, between the actual 
 present and the approaching future of which they are so 
 certain, various contingencies, as they feel, may arise, upon 
 the effects of which they cannot calculate. All men know 
 that they will die; yet how few seriously prepare for 
 death ! All serious Christians believe in the Day of 
 Judgment; yet who among ourselves looks forward to 
 it, in the same practical spirit with which we prepare 
 for the next examination in the schools ? The truth is, 
 that the moral importunity of the future is arrested by 
 the imagination, which suggests a variety of intervening 
 contingencies, not contradicting the ultimate result, but 
 modifying the pressm-e which it ought to exert upon the 
 will, very considerably. 
 
 And as with the future, so with the past. The ascer- 
 tained past is indeed certain : " even the gods,^^ said 
 a heathen, '^ cannot change the past." But the imagina- 
 tion can rob the past of its legitimate moral power, as 
 easily as it can rob the futm-e. It can lay stress upon 
 all the difference of moral and mental circumstance which 
 separates us from the remote past to which the appeal is 
 made, and which is considerable in proportion to its 
 remoteness. The culture of the historical imagination, 
 as it is termed, has of late years weakened the moral 
 powei', while it has enhanced the gesthetic appreciation 
 
344 The Divine Indwelling [Serm. 
 
 of tlie past. Would the examples of the ])ractical results 
 of faith which are cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 from the Old Testament^ have as much weight with an 
 ordinary Christian of to-day as with a Christian in the 
 first century ? And if not, why not ? Partly, no doubt, 
 because most Christians now-a-days are less in earnest. 
 But partly also because we are more keenly alive to the 
 differences of outward and inward circumstance which 
 separate either the first or the nineteenth century of 
 Christianity from the age of the Patriarchs. Often these 
 differences are extremely exaggerated, especially when 
 the will wishes to rid itself of a troublesome motive. 
 Often it suits us to forget that the Eternal Laws of God's 
 Providences and of man's probation, subsist unchanged 
 amid the largest change of social, moral, intellectual 
 atmospheres. It may be natural to suppose that wo 
 should have been heroes in an age of ignorance, and that 
 we are only dilettanti students or workers because we are 
 flooded with knowledge. It may be natural ; but it is 
 neither wise nor accurate. Yet such a disposition may 
 illustrate the powerlessness of the past to move us, as con- 
 trasted with the present. The life of a St. Boniface, or of 
 a St. Augustine of England, rouses in us a vague sense of 
 curious wonder j but we experience a totally distinct sense 
 of the moral power of Christian example, when we hear of 
 the labours of one who, a few years since, walked our 
 streets, prayed in our chapels, and conversed in our halls 
 and common-rooms with our very selves, and who now, in 
 honourable rivalry with the brightest deeds of faith in by- 
 gone days, is winning the Melanesian islanders to Christ. 
 When St. Paul, then, appeals to a strong motive, he 
 appeals to a present fact. While he works, while they 
 read, Christians arc the temple of God; the Spirit of 
 God dwells in them. St. Paul does not point to an age 
 of miracle which had toned dowTi during centuries into 
 
XIII] a Motive to Holiness. 345 
 
 an age wherein miracle is " proscribed by invariable law." 
 He is not anticipating a future gift or judgment, of which 
 the present gives no promise or sign. The Day of Pente- 
 cost was not to be deemed a day apart ; it was merely the 
 first day of the Christian centuries. The tongues of fire 
 might no longer be visible; but the gift which they 
 symbolized would remain. The Spirit, being the Spirit 
 of Christ, had made the life of Christ to be for ever in 
 Christendom, nothing less than a reality of the present. 
 Whatever the past might have been, whatever the future 
 might yet be, one present fact was certain ; the Christian 
 knows himself to be a temple of the indwelhng Presence. 
 From the moral pressure of this conviction, enforcing 
 activity in good, and resistance to evil, and the constant 
 homage of an inward worship, there is no escape except 
 by a point-blank denial of it. 
 
 4. A fourth condition of a strong religious motive is, 
 that it shall appeal to the better side, to the more 
 generous natural impulses of human natm'e. Doubtless 
 He who made us knows well the moral power of fear; 
 and His revelation certainly contains doctrines and 
 threatenings which excite fear to a point at which it 
 convulses the whole composite life of man. '^My flesh 
 trembleth for fear of Thee, and I am afraid of Thy 
 Judgments y." This fear of the Lord is often the blessed 
 beginning of spiritual wisdom. But while fear exerts 
 even a revolutionary power for good in the sleeping or 
 diseased soul, it does not maintain the Christian life 
 in its loftiness and fervour so efiectively as do more 
 generous motives. A time comes when perfect love 
 casteth out fear. It is true that the passage before us 
 is immediately followed by an appeal to fear : '' If any 
 man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; 
 for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are ^." 
 y Ps. cxix. 120. ''■I Cor, iii. 17. 
 
346 The Divine Indwelling [Serm. 
 
 But fear is not the first moral idea Avliicli would be 
 suggested to a Christiau by the knowledge that ho is 
 a temple of God. That knowledge appeals primarily to 
 his generosity. All that goes to form and to sustain 
 among men the virtue of hospitality; all that invests 
 it with the charm it wears alike in the highest and 
 in the lowest civilizations, is called into play by the 
 sense of the presence of a Divine Guest, Who trusts 
 His disarmed Majesty to the chivalry of His subjects. 
 The recollection of a wife and child at home has ere 
 now stayed the hand of a criminal, who would have been 
 reckless if he had had only to think of himself. God 
 commits Himself to us; and thus He throws us back 
 upon our sense of generosity. We are, it may be, like 
 some children at school, who would resist an oppressive 
 discipline to the last, but who are won at once by a 
 confidence so much beyond our deserts. Had the 
 Apostle said, "Know ye not that your prudence or 
 your self-respect should make you peaceable and pure?^' 
 human nature would perhaps have muttered that it knew 
 of impulses wath which self-respect and prudence cannot 
 compete. But the Apostle points to the Upper Chamber 
 and to the baptistery, and asks, "Know ye not that ye are 
 the temple of God, and that the S]:»irit of God dwelleth in 
 you?" And Christian faith is silent, as in the presence of 
 a Truth, which love has made morally irresistible. 
 
 IV. Lastly, be it remarked that this conviction furnishes 
 the true basis both for the moral training of children, and 
 for real self-improvement in later life. 
 
 I. Wlien the doctrine of Baptismal Grace was chal- 
 lenged some years ago, surprise was expressed by some 
 philosophical observers of what was passing, that an 
 abstract question as to whether this or that cff'ect did 
 not follow upon the administration of the Sacrament, 
 could possibly have excited so much strong feeling as 
 
XIII] a Motive to Holiness. 347 
 
 was actually the case. " What can it matter/' men said, 
 " whether, when you pour a little water upon the forehead 
 of an infant, it is right to suppose that an invisible 
 miracle does or does not take place?" Now the answer 
 is, that it does matter a great deal. If only the value 
 of our Lord's ordinance and the plain teaching of His 
 Apostles were at stake, if it had been possible to connect 
 no practical interests, as they are called, with this or that 
 settlement of the controversy, a Christian must have felt 
 that it mattered much. But in point of fact, the practical 
 question which was at issue was this ; — whether Chi'istian 
 doctrine does or does not supply a working basis for the 
 education of children. For there was no question then, 
 as in truth no question can reasonably be raised by 
 Ckristians, touching the reality of original sin. The New 
 Testament and the Church are sufficiently explicit in 
 teaching that we are born into this world with a trans- 
 mitted inheritance of loss, and, in some sense, of ruin 
 certainly attaching to us ; and on this point, experience 
 may be invoked with ample effect in aid of the statements 
 of faith. But is a child, after baptism, still without the 
 indwelling Presence ; or is it true, that " being by nature 
 the child of wi-ath," it is hereby made "a member of 
 Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom 
 of heaven," in virtue of a real communication of the Holy 
 Spirit at the administration of the initial Sacrament ? 
 The answer to that question is of the utmost practical 
 importance to the moral educator. If the baptized child 
 is in reality still unblessed and unregenerate, still waiting 
 for some future gift of God's transforming and invigo- 
 rating grace; what right has the moral educator to 
 complain if the child is persistently disobedient, or ill- 
 tempered, or untruthful ? The child has a right to say 
 in its secret thoughts to its instructor something of this 
 kind : " On the one hand, you tell me that I am an 
 
348 The Divine Indiuclling [Serm. 
 
 unregenerate child, and that until God changes my heart 
 no good can ever come of me. But on the other, yon 
 expect me to produce the fruits of goodness, of real 
 energetic goodness; you expect me to be loving, and 
 unselfish, and obedient, and true. Are you not dealing 
 with me in the same way as the Egj^tians dealt with the 
 Israelites, when they wished the Israelites to make bricks, 
 yet did not give them straw ? Surely this is not just. 
 Of two things one : either I am not all that you mean by 
 unregenerate ; or else, you have no right to expect me 
 to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit." A child may think 
 a great deal which it cannot put into words, and it is 
 especially likely to be alive to the inconsistency of a 
 religious theory which conflicts with its rudimentary 
 instinct of justice. But if, with the Church, you tell the 
 child, that since its Baptism it is a temple of the Holy 
 One ; that by His Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ 
 has made a homo in its heart ; that it must not be 
 imgrateful to so kind and gracious a Friend ; that it 
 can obey and be truthful, and respectful, and loving, if 
 it wills, because God enables it to be so ; that it must bo 
 these things, because else God will leave it to itself; — 
 you appeal to the child's sense both of justice and of 
 generosity. In other words, the doctrine of Baptismal 
 Regeneration really supplies the moral leverage which is 
 essential to an effective Christian Education. " I never 
 understood the Church Catechism " — they are the words 
 of a very thoughtful woman — " until I became a mother, 
 and felt that I had to answer to God for the moral 
 training of my children. I do not know how I could 
 have even set to work, unless I had been sure that He 
 was with them; that I could count upon something 
 stronger than any thing I myself could give them; that I 
 could appeal to His Presence and to His gifts." 
 
 2. And as with the training of the heart in childhood. 
 
XIII] a Motive to Holiness. 349 
 
 so with the self-education of later life. It may be true, 
 as S. T. Coleridge observes, that motives, or at least that 
 a very conscious and habitual recognition of motives, are 
 *' symptoms of weakness,'^ as being "supplements for 
 the deficient energy of the law within us, the living 
 principle *." In other words, we do not always go right, 
 in virtue of a predominant instinct which makes right 
 under all circumstances the natural and easy course to us. 
 Certainly we can afford to make — certainly we cannot 
 help making — this confession; and therefore, if motives 
 are symptoms of weakness, they are not on that account 
 to be despised by moral beings who may find it easier 
 to say fine things about a manly or a transcendental 
 system of ethics, as the case may be, than to act up to 
 that knowledge of the Will of God which they actually 
 possess. Do not let us deceive ourselves, dear brethren; 
 we need motives, strong motives, one and all of us. We 
 need them for pui'poses of action, and for purposes of 
 dogged resistance. We need them, to counteract all that 
 gives way and depresses from within, and to oppose all 
 that would crush om* wills into culpable acquiescence 
 from without. A few strong motives, perhaps, are better 
 than many weak ones. A few primal truths, to us clear, 
 indisputable, cogent, again and again examined and 
 proved, and burnished like well-prized weapons, by an 
 admiration which will not tire of handling them, and held 
 up to view ever and anon, that their form and polish may 
 be duly honoured in the sunshine of truth, and then only 
 laid up, where they can be seen by the soul's quick eye, 
 at the moment when they are needed for action ; — these 
 are assuredly part of the inner furniture of every Chris- 
 tian who hopes to pass through this woi'ld without for- 
 feiting the next. And among these none is better and 
 more serviceable than that of the text — the motive which 
 * Aids to Keflection. 
 
350 The Divine Indwelliiigy etc. 
 
 appeals to the sanctity, the responsibiHty, the powers, the 
 capabilities implied in that Inward Presence of the Eternal 
 Spirit, which is the great gift of the New Covenant 
 between God and man. In moments of moral surprise, 
 in moments of unusual depression, in moments of a felt 
 sense of isolation which threatens to take the heart out 
 of our whole life, in moments of spasmodic daring, when 
 ordinary sanctions have, as it seems, we know not why, 
 lost their hold upon us, it is well to fall back upon the 
 re-assuring, tranquillizing, invigorating resources of such 
 an appeal as that of the Apostle : " KJnow ye not that 
 ye arc the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God 
 dwelleth in you ? " Let us emblazon these words, if not 
 on the walls of our churches, as a Whitsun decoration, 
 yet at least within the sanctuary of that inner temple 
 where the All-seeing notes our opportunities for acquiring 
 a clear vision and a firm grasp of truth, and still more the 
 use which we really make of it. 
 
 THE END, 
 
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28 
 
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 CA TEN A CLA SSICOR UM— Opinions of the Press. 
 
 Mr. Jcbb's Sophocles. 
 
 "Of Mr. Jebb's scholarly edition of 
 the ' Elcctra' of Sophocles \vc cannot 
 speak too highly. The whole Play 
 bears evidence of the taste, learning, 
 and fine scholarship of its able editor. 
 Illustrations drawn from the literature 
 of the Continent as well as of England, 
 and the researches of the highest clas- 
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 notes, which are brief, clear, and 
 always to the point." — London Re- 
 view, March 16, 1867. 
 
 "The editorship of the work before 
 us is of a very high order, displaying 
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 * The Electra ' is founded, and institutes 
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 is mainly that of Dindorf In the notes, 
 which are admir.able in every respect, 
 is to be found exactly what is wanted, 
 and yet they rather suggest and direct 
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 CA TEN A CLASSICORUM— Opinions of the Press. 
 
 concise and succinct style of English 
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 mentary is deserving of the higher 
 praise : the skill with which I\Ir. Jebb 
 has avoided, on the one hand, the 
 wearisome prolixity of the Germans, 
 and on the other the jejune brevity of 
 the Porsonian critics, or the versatility 
 which has enabled him in turn to 
 elucidate the plots, to explain the 
 verbal difficulties, and to illustrate the 
 idioms of his author. All this, by a 
 studious economy of space and a re- 
 markable precision of expression, he 
 has done for the 'Ajax' in a volume 
 of some 200 pages." — Atheiuemn. 
 
 Mr. Simcox^s Juvenal. 
 
 "Of Mr. Simcox's 'Juvenal' we can 
 only speak in terms of the highest com- 
 mendation, as a simple, unpretending 
 work, admirably adapted to the wants 
 of the school-boy or of a college pass- 
 man. It is clear, concise, and scru- 
 pulously honest in shirking no real 
 difficulty. The pointed epigrammatic 
 hits of the satiri.st are every where well 
 brought out, and the notes really are 
 what they profess to be, explanatory' in 
 the best sense of the term." — London 
 Revie-M. 
 
 " This is a link in the Catena Classi- 
 comm to which the attention of our 
 readers has been more than once di- 
 rected as a good Series of Classical 
 works for School and College purposes. 
 The Introduction is a very comprehen- 
 sive and able account of Juvenal, his 
 
 satires, and the manuscripts." — Atlic- 
 7iienm . 
 
 "This is a very original and en- 
 joyable Edition of one of our favourite 
 classics." — Spectator. 
 
 " Every class of readers — those who 
 use Mr. Simcox as their sole inter- 
 preter, and those who supplement 
 larger editions by his concise matter 
 — will alike find interest and careful 
 research in his able Preface. This 
 indeed we should call the great feature 
 of his book. The three facts which 
 sum up Juvenal's history so far as we 
 know it are soon despatched ; but the 
 internal evidence both as to the dates 
 of his writing and publishing his Sa- 
 tires, and as to his character as a 
 writer, occupy some fifteen or twenty 
 pages, which will repay methodical 
 study." — Chjirchman. 
 
 IConKon, ©iforir, anti ©ambri^igc 
 
so 
 
 Jttcssrs. IRibington's Jicto publications 
 
 CA TEN A CLASSICORUM— Opinions of the Press. 
 
 Mr. Bigg's Thucydides. 
 
 "Mr. Rigg in his 'Thucydides' 
 prefixes an analysis to each book, and 
 an admirable introduction to the whole 
 work, containing full information as to 
 all that is known or related of Thucy- 
 dides, and the date at which he wrote, 
 followed by a very masterly critique on 
 some of his characteristics as a writer." 
 — A titciuriiin. 
 
 " While disclaiming absolute ori- 
 ginality in his book, Mr. Bigg has so 
 thoroughly digested the works of .so 
 many eminent predecessors in the same 
 field, and is evidently on terms of such 
 intimacy with his author as perforce 
 to inspire confidence. A well-pondered 
 and well-written introduction has formed 
 a part of each link in the ' Catena ' 
 hitherto published, and Mr. Bigg, in 
 addition to a general introduction, 
 has given us an essay on 'Some Cha- 
 racteristics of Thucydides,' which no 
 one can read without being impressed 
 
 with thelearningand judgmentbrought 
 to bear on the subject." — Standard. 
 
 " We need hardly say that these 
 books are carefully edited ; the rtputa- 
 tion of the editor is an assurance on 
 this point. If the rest of the history is 
 edited with equal care, it must become 
 the standard book for school and 
 college purposes," — yohn Bull. 
 
 " Sir. Bigg first discusses the facts 
 of the life of Thucydides, then passes 
 to an examination into the date at 
 which Thucydides wrote ; and in the 
 third section expatiates on .some cha- 
 racteristics of Thucydides. These 
 essays are remarkably well written, 
 are judicious in their opinions, and 
 are calculated to give the student much 
 insight into the work of Thucydides, 
 and its relation to his own times, and to 
 the works of subsequent historians." — 
 Museum. 
 
 Mr. Hcsiop's Demosthenes. 
 
 "The usual introduction has in this 
 case been dispensed with. The reader 
 is referred to the works of Grote and 
 Thirlwall for information on such 
 points of history as arise out of these 
 famous orations, and on points of 
 critical .scholarship to ' Madvig's 
 Grammar,' where that is available, 
 while copious acknowledgments are 
 made to those commentators on whose 
 works Mr. Heslop has based his own. 
 Mr. Heslop's editions are, however, 
 no mere compilations. That the points 
 required in an oratorical style differ 
 materially from those in an historical 
 style, will scarcely be questioned, and 
 accordingly we find that Mr. Heslop 
 has given special care to those cha- 
 racteristics of style as well as of lan- 
 guage, which constitute Demosthenes 
 the very first of classic orators." — 
 Staiidani. 
 
 "We must call attention to New 
 Editions of various classics, in the 
 excellent ' Catena Classicorum' series. 
 The reputationand high standing of the 
 editors are the best guarantees for the 
 accuracy and scholarship of the notes." 
 — U 'csttiiinstcr Ri-.'U-.v. 
 
 " The notes are thoroughly good, .so 
 far as they go. Mr. Heslop has care- 
 fully digested the best foreign com- 
 mentaries, and his notes are for the most 
 part judicious extracts from them." — 
 .Mustruiu. 
 
 "The annotations are scarcely less to 
 be commended for the exclusion of 
 superfluous matter than fur the excel- 
 lence of what is supplied. Well-known 
 works are not quoted, but simply re- 
 ferred to, and information which ought 
 to have been previously acquired is 
 omitted. " — A tJu-tueum. 
 
 lEoniJon, ©ifortr, nxCa ffiambriHgc 
 
ittcssrs. IRtbtngton's i^ctn publications 
 
 CATENA CLASSIC OR 
 Mr. Green's 
 
 "The Editors of this Series have 
 undertaken the task of issuing texts 
 of all the authors commonly read, and 
 illustrating them with an English Com- 
 mentary', compendious as well as clear. 
 If the future volumes fulfil the promise 
 of the Prospectus as well as those 
 already published, the result will be 
 a very valuable work. The e.xcellence 
 of the print, and the care and pains 
 bestowed upon the general getting up, 
 form a marked contrast to the school- 
 books of our own day. Who does 
 not remember the miserable German 
 editions of classical authors in paper 
 covers, e.xecrably printed on detestable 
 paper, which were thought amply good 
 enough for the school-boys of the last 
 generation ? A greater contrast to 
 these can hardly be imagined than is 
 presented by the Catena C/nssicoriun. 
 Nor is the improvement only external : 
 the careful revision of the text, and 
 the notes, not too lengthy and con- 
 fused, but well and judiciously selected, 
 which are to be found in every page, 
 add considerably to the value of this 
 Edition, which we may safely predict 
 vnW soon be an established favourite, 
 not only among Schoolmasters, but 
 at the Universities. The volume before 
 us contains the first part of an Edition 
 of Aristophanes which comprises the 
 Acharnians and the Knights, the one 
 first in order, and the other the most 
 famous of the plays of the great Athe- 
 nian Satirist." — Clmrclunati. 
 
 " The utmost care has been taken 
 with this Edition of the most sarcastic 
 and clever of the old Greek dramatists, 
 facilitating the means of understanding 
 both the text and intention of that 
 biting sarcasm which will never lose 
 either point or interest, and is as well 
 adapted to the present age as it was 
 to the times when first put forward." — 
 Bcil's IVec/ily Jlcsseiiger. 
 
 "The advantages conferred on the 
 learner by these compendious aids can 
 only be properly estimated by those 
 who had experience of the mode of 
 study years ago. The translated pas- 
 sages and the notes, while sufficient 
 
 UM— Opinions of the Press. 
 Aristophanes. 
 
 to assist the willing learner, cannot be 
 regarded in any sense as a c?am."~ 
 Clerical Journal. 
 
 "Mr. Green has discharged liis part 
 of the work with uncommon .skill and 
 ability. The notes show a thorough 
 study of the two Plays, an independent 
 judgment in the interpretation of the 
 poet, and a wealth of illustration, from 
 which the Editor draws whenever it is 
 necessary. " — Ahiscian. 
 
 "Mr. Green presumes the existence 
 of a fair amount of scholarship in ail 
 who read Aristophanes, as a study of 
 his works generally succeeds to some 
 considerable knowledge of the tragic 
 poets. The notes he has appended are 
 therefore brief, perhaps a little too brief 
 We should say the tendency of most 
 modern editors is rather the other way ; 
 but Mr. Green no doubt knows the 
 class for which he writes, and has been 
 careful to supply their wants."— j'/fc- 
 tator. 
 
 " Mr. Green's admirable Introduction 
 to 'The Clouds' of the celebrated 
 comic poet deserves a careful perusal, 
 as it contains an accurate analysis and 
 many original comments on this re- 
 markable play. The text is prefaced 
 by a table of readings of Dindorf and 
 Meineke, which will be of great service 
 to students_who wish to" indulge in 
 verbal criticism. The notes are copious 
 and lucid, and the volume will be found 
 useful for .school and college purposes, 
 and ^ admirably adapted for private 
 reading. " — Ejca7iii7ier. 
 
 "Mr. Green furnishes an e.xcellent 
 Introduction to ' The Clouds ' of 
 Aristophanes, explaining the circum- 
 stances under which it was produced, 
 and ably discussing the probable object 
 of the author in writing it, which he 
 considers to have been to put down 
 the Sophists, a class whom Aristo- 
 phanes thought dangerous to the morals 
 of the community, and therefore ca- 
 ricatured in the person of Socrates, — 
 not unnaturally, though irreverently, 
 choosing him as their representative." 
 — A tlicncejtm. 
 
 llionlfon, ©iforlf, anlt ©amfirilrgc 
 
"3* J^lcssrs. ?Ril)ington"s <lcto publications 
 
 CATENA CLASSrCORUM. 
 The following Parts are in course of preparation:— 
 
 PLATONIS PHAEDO, 
 Edited by Alfrkd Barry, D.D. late Fellow of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, Principal of King's College, London. 
 
 DEMOSTHENIS ORATIONES PUBLICAE, 
 Edited by G. H. Heslop, M.A. late Fellow and Assistant Tutor 
 of Queen's College, Oxford. Head Master of St. Bees. 
 
 [Part III. De Falsa Legatione. 
 
 MARTIALIS EPIGRAMMATA, 
 Edited by George Butler, M.A. Principal of Liverpool College ; 
 late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. 
 
 DEMOSTHENIS ORATIONES PRIVATAE, 
 Edited by Arthur Holmes, M.A. Fellow and Lecturer of Clare 
 College, Cambridge. [Part I. De Corona. 
 
 HOMERI ILIAS, 
 
 Edited by S. IT. Reynolds, M.A. Fellow and Tutor of Brasenose 
 College, Oxford. [Vol. I. Books I. to XII. 
 
 HORATI OPERA, 
 Edited by J. M. Marshall, M.A. Fellow and late Lecturer of 
 Brasencjse College, Oxford. One of the ]Masters in Clifton 
 College. 
 
 TERENTI COMOEDIAE, 
 Edited by T. L. Pai'ILLOn, M.A. Fellow and Classical Lecturer of 
 Merton College, Oxford. 
 
 HERODOTI HISTORIA, 
 
 Edited by II. G. Woods, M.A. Fellow and Tutor of Trinity 
 College, Oxford. 
 
 TACITI HISTORIAE, 
 Edited by W. II. SiMCOX, M.A. Fellow and Lecturer of Queen's 
 College, Oxford. 
 
 Hoiiijon, <!I>x(ovij, nnti (Tamftritigc 
 
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