LIBRARY 
 
 OF THK 
 
 University of California. 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. 
 
 Received October, i8g4. 
 Accessions No. ^^Jj''7Pi. Class No. 
 
If thou SHALT CONFESS WITH THY MOUTH THE LORD JESUS, 
 AND SHALT BELIEVE IN THINE HEART THAT GOD HATH RAISED 
 HIM FROM THE DEAD, THOU SHALT BE SAVED. — Paul of TarsUS. 
 
 Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CREED 
 
 ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE ON SOME PRESENT DANGERS 
 OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. STANLEY LEATHES, M.A., 
 
 iENDARY OF ST. PAULS, I'KOKESSOR OF HEBREW, KINGS COLLEGE, AKD 
 MINISTEK OF ST. nilLIP'S, REviENT STREET, LONDON. 
 
 :UHI7BRSIT 
 
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 E. P. BUTTON AND Co, 
 
 713, BROADWAY. 
 
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 757 3 
 
^UHIVBRSITYj 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 'HP HE object of the following pages is at once 
 -"" simple and obvious. I had occasion some time 
 back, in the course of my weekly ministrations, to 
 deliver a series of discour^s ,ort the articles of the 
 Apostles' Creed. In doing this I naturally had in 
 mind a somewhat larger gathering than the fluctu- 
 ating and precarious one of my own Church, and 
 wrote accordingly. The result is now given to the 
 reader, in the hope that the object thus aimed at 
 may, so far as it shall please the Divine Head of the 
 Church, be attained. 
 
 The Christian Creed, in its theory, cannot fail to 
 come into direct antagonism with the various forms 
 of unrestrained and self-chosen opinion that are rife 
 in the present day, and that attract attention because 
 of their apparent novelty, and elicit sympathy be- 
 cause they are bold in their unrestraint. Under the 
 circumstances it was clearly desirable rather to 
 glance at than to specify them more fully, or to 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 make direct reference to the works in which they 
 are found. It is, in fact, the tone of much of our 
 popular ephemeral literature that needs to be cor- 
 rected. Another standard of thought requires to be 
 presented to the popular mind, and such a standard 
 is afforded by the theory of the Apostles' Creed. 
 
 The Christian Creed, in its practicCy is the secret 
 spring of moral action to every believer, and contains 
 by implication the standard of all Christian conduct. 
 No sound treatment of the Christian faith can de- 
 liberately pass by the obligation to Christian practice. 
 While dwelling necessarily on those aspects of the 
 Christian faith which are opposed to very much of 
 the prevalent thought of the day, I have not in- 
 tentionally overlooked the practical bearing and im- 
 portance of the Creed.. 
 
 The Christian Creed, therefore, in its theory and 
 practice may concisely express the obligation of the 
 Church in all ages in the twofold direction of faith 
 and conduct. The subjects thus suggested can never 
 be obsolete. But there are sundry indications that 
 the due consideration of them is more than ever in- 
 dispensable at the present time; and under the present 
 aspects which the Church presents it may not be 
 out of place to dwell briefly upon some of these. 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 In speaking of the Church, however, it must be 
 borne in mind that the meaning of the word is one 
 that varies with the sentiments and predilections of 
 the persons using it. By education, choice, and 
 conviction I myself am a Churchman, and sincerely 
 attached to the Church of England as by law 
 established. Let it, however, not be supposed that 
 in speaking of the Church I have any desire to limit 
 the just application of the term to those who like 
 myself are in communion with that Church. The 
 Church of Christ is something vastly more than the 
 Church of England, and its limits can only be 
 assigned by Christ Himself Consequently, if these 
 pages fall under the eye of any members of non- 
 conforming denominations, such persons must not be 
 jealous if, for convenience sake, the term Church is 
 at tim-es here used in the restricted sense more 
 familiar to a Churchman. It is not the present 
 aspects of the Church of Christ that I wish to dilate 
 upon, but rather to offer in all humility to my fellow 
 Churchmen some brief observations on the present 
 position of the English Church. 
 
 There can no longer be any doubt that a consider- 
 able body of persons exists in the Church of Eng- 
 land, in open and professed membership therewith, 
 who are deliberately bent upon doing all they can to 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 assimilate it in teaching and practice to the Church 
 of Rome. During the last thirty years, and, indeed, 
 for little short of half a century, this has often been 
 affirmed ; but it has of late years, and by the pro- 
 gress of recent events been demonstrated to a degree 
 of certainty, greater perhaps than at any previous 
 time within that period. At the commencement of 
 what is called triumphantly the * Catholic Revival,' 
 the impulse was communicated solely by the agency 
 of doctrinal teaching. The Church was put forward as 
 the great source and depository of grace. The priest- 
 hood was invested with functions which had almost 
 entirely been in abeyance in the Church of England 
 since the death of Queen Mary. Those passages in 
 the formularies which gave any colour to them were 
 dwelt upon with greater emphasis and dragged into 
 fictitious prominence ; the Sacraments were insisted 
 upon as the chief and the only sure and direct means 
 of personally applying the benefits of redemption, 
 and the character of an elaborate and graduated 
 system was given, not only to the offices of the 
 Christian ministry, but also to the very relations of 
 the individual soul to its God. 
 
 There were not wanting many who detected at 
 once the real tendency of this teaching which was so 
 openly inculcated, but the great body of the reli- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 gious public were incapable of doing so. Many- 
 persons hailed the revived system of religion as a 
 promising and an agreeable substitute for much that 
 was naturally distasteful or unattractive in the tra- 
 ditional teaching that was in vogue. The Sacra- 
 ments had been greatly neglected, but they were 
 manifestly the ordinance of Christ. The Sacra- 
 mental system had this great merit to the ordinary 
 mind, that it gave something tangible and definite 
 to the perplexed, the enquiring, and the awakened. 
 
 And at the first beginning of the movement the 
 elaboration of the Sacramental system in its bearing 
 upon practical conduct, and as the most satisfactory 
 method of cultivating the development of the spiritual 
 life was the main object with its advocates. The 
 treatise of Robert Isaac Wilberforce on the Doctrine 
 of the Incarnation was the most perfect exponent, 
 and the most finished expression of this theory. It 
 was really an expansion of certain famous sections 
 of Hooker which, perhaps more readily than any- 
 thing else in English theology, lent themselves to 
 this treatment. But here, as in so many other 
 cases, the disciple outstripped the master whose 
 fervid rhetoric was turned into earnest and uncom- 
 promising logic. 
 
 The effect which the publication of this book had 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 upon the teaching of the English clergy was un- 
 doubtedly very great, and I am very far from 
 insinuating that the influence was only evil. I am 
 very willing to acknowledge my own great obli- 
 gations to the teaching of that book in many ways. 
 And as a work of pure theology there have been few 
 like it in the present century. But it was doctrinally 
 the highest achievement of the Sacramental theory 
 in the Church of England, both as a work of intellect 
 and as a treatise of systematic theology. When 
 however, a few years afterwards, its accomplished 
 author was received into the Church of Rome, it be- 
 came evident that whether or not the teaching therein 
 inculcated was the teaching of the Church of Eng- 
 land, it at all events was not essentially antagonistic^ 
 but might even be preparatory, to that of Rome. 
 In fact the development of the Sacramental system 
 may be regarded as in some respects more perfect In 
 the Church of England than in that of Rome, for 
 the very reason that the Church of Rome has a far 
 greater wealth of system to present than the existing 
 formularies of the Church of England gave any scope 
 for. Consequently the desire for system was at first 
 obliged to expend itself on the Sacramental theory, 
 and there can be but little doubt that many per- 
 sons earnestly endeavouring to serve God, found, or 
 seemed to find, all that they wanted in the practical 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 working out of the Sacramental system. They were 
 taught that in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
 there was provided a direct opportunity for coming 
 into personal contact with the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 which had the advantage of leaving nothing to be 
 desired, inasmuch as the union between the soul and 
 the Redeemer therein effected was complete, and 
 assured to the senses by participation in the elements. 
 The peace and joy thus palpably and tangibly given, 
 seemed to be the very fulfilment of all that redemp- 
 tion meant. Earnest and enquiring souls who took 
 refuge in this ordinance had the consolation that 
 they were acting on the express commands of Christ, 
 and were accordingly assured that the path they had 
 chosen was the right one. It followed, however, 
 necessarily, that if the Sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper was thus a means or direct channel of grace, 
 unto which there was none other like it, then, 
 the oftener the act of participation was renewed 
 the better. And hence the advisableness of 
 increased communions was largely dwelt upon. 
 Whereas the rubric of the English Prayer-Book had 
 ordered that every person should communicate "at 
 the least three times in the year," and exceptional 
 provision was made for " all Priests and Deacons " 
 " in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches and Colleges " 
 to communicate "every Sunday at the least," it rapidly 
 
xii PREFACE, 
 
 began to be the custom for communions in parish 
 churches to be monthly, and then weekly, until at 
 last, as now in the metropolitan cathedral and else- 
 where, they were made daily .^ Let it not be sup- 
 posed that this is mentioned as being in itself a 
 misfortune or a fault. We owe a debt of gratitude, 
 in this respect, as in so many others, to the pioneers 
 of the ' revival ' in stimulating the practice of the 
 Church, and leading it on so many degrees further 
 towards perfection. But, unfortuately, while its prac- 
 tice was improved, the principles of its faith as 
 a reformed and evangelical church were secretly 
 undermined and vitiated. And this in a way that 
 was the least suspected. There is so much that 
 appeals to our higher feelings in the multiplication 
 of communions, that it is difficult to suppose that 
 any danger can underlie it. There is no surer test of 
 vitality in a church than the increase of communions; 
 but I am regarding them now from the side of one 
 who, being anxious about his spiritual welfare, desires 
 to avail himself to the utmost of their increase, and 
 so is misled to seek in the frequency of the act that 
 which alone can be found in a deeper apprehension 
 of the meaning of the act. Very commonly in such 
 cases it is not more frequent communions that are 
 
 ' According to Mackeson's Guide there are now thirty-nine churches 
 in London where there is daily communion, and in two of them it is 
 twice a day. 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 wanted, but a greater degree of simple and childlike 
 faith, and the one is no substitute for the other. 
 The frequent, or even daily, multiplication of com- 
 munions, though not certainly, was probably a 
 characteristic of the Church's infancy ,i and, there- 
 fore, of the days of her innocence and first love ; 
 but it by no means follows that the direct imitation 
 of the early Church in an outward and accidental 
 characteristic of this kind carries with it the energy 
 or exercise of the same motive principle under the 
 present and existing circumstances of the Church. 
 If we suppose that daily communions were the 
 original custom, they were at least a spontaneous act 
 then ; the same cannot be said of the restoration in 
 the present day of a custom long obsolete, if, indeed, 
 there is any evidence of it in the Reformed Church. 
 The impelling motive in a case of this kind is every- 
 thing. In the early Church the practice would arise 
 from the intense freshness and power of the newly- 
 learnt faith and the newly-felt love. The practice 
 would flow naturally from the fountain but just 
 opened out in the regenerated heart. It is alto- 
 gether different now. The desire for daily com- 
 munions now manifestly arises from the feeling that 
 weekly communions are insufficient. But insufficient 
 for what ? For the due performance of the Church's 
 
 * Acts iL 46, and cf. xx. 7 and i Con xvi. 2. 
 
 b 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ministrations, or for the life of the individual soul ? 
 Manifestly not for the former reason, because if so he 
 who said " Let all things be done decently and in 
 order," ^ and made arrangements about the collection 
 for the saints, would not have omitted a direction of 
 this kind, or, at least, an allusion to it would have 
 escaped him in one or other of his epistles had it 
 been part of the original Apostolic order. Clearly, 
 therefore, it must be for the life of the individual 
 soul ; but if so then the rubric of the Church, which 
 prescribes as a minimum communion three times in 
 the year, is surely incompatible with such a notion, 
 and cannot be reconciled therewith. In short, it 
 is unquestionable that the demand for daily com- 
 munions can only arise from the fek insufficiency 
 of more infrequent ones to sustain at the requisite 
 height the spiritual vitality of the soul ; in other 
 words, the spiritual vitality of the soul is directly 
 dependent upon the frequency of the act of com- 
 munion. And thus frequent communions, weekly 
 communions, and even daily communions are re- 
 sorted to as a means of increasing that spiritual 
 vitality, to the abundance and overflow of which 
 they can alone be ascribed in the early Church. Let 
 it, therefore, be distinctly understood that it is not 
 daily communions or weekly communions in them- 
 
 ' I Cor. xiv. 40. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xv 
 
 selves that are objected to ; every Christian must 
 rejoice in every opportunity of meeting his Lord 
 in His own blessed ordinance of breaking of bread ; 
 in themselves they are neither right nor wrong, 
 neither good nor bad ; when proceeding spon- 
 taneously from pure and fervent faith they cannot 
 be otherwise than good ; but when resorted to as 
 a means of acquiring the increase, or even as a 
 substitute for the presence of that faith of which 
 the felt deficiency is the very motive impelling to 
 the use of them, they can only be pernicious as 
 leading the soul astray in a false direction and 
 to a delusive result. And this is proved by 
 the fact that the restoration of the early practice 
 of the Church at Troas^ is found to be so in- 
 adequate and insufficient for the spiritual sustenta- 
 tion of the soul, that it has to be multiplied to a 
 sevenfold degree in order that the result may be 
 obtained which may be presumed to have been 
 obtained in the case of the early apostolic Christians 
 of the Troad in St. Paul's days. The very great 
 divergence of practice in the two cases is enough to 
 show that the principles predominating in the two 
 cases must be no less different. Monthly communions 
 are found by experience to be insufficient till they 
 have been multiplied fourfold^ and weekly com- 
 ^ Acts XX. 7> 
 
xvi PREFACE. 
 
 munions are found by experience to be insufficient 
 or the wants of the individual life (be cause the cor- 
 porate necessities of a largely increased number of 
 communicants proportionate to the extended growth 
 of the Church is not now the question) till they have 
 been multiplied sevenfold. What room is there for 
 yet further increase ? But is it not obvious, from 
 the analogy of past experience that the actual result 
 desired has not yet been obtained, for if so, why this 
 sevenfold increase ? On examination of the gospel 
 history we find nothing that can in any way be 
 conceived to answer to these repeated communions. 
 Christ, on two several occasions, fed four thousand 
 and five thousand men, and when they were filled 
 He sent them away. We nowhere read that He 
 fed them again. He showed significantly by His 
 feeding them that He was the Bread of Life, but 
 with reference to that bread He declared that 
 he that came to Him should never hunger} The 
 coming, then, would seem to represent a per- 
 manent condition, and not an act which was ever 
 being repeated but was never complete. In the 
 various miracles of healing performed by Christ, 
 the cure effected was an instantaneous and a per- 
 manent one. We nowhere read that the same 
 person had occasion to come to Him twice. We 
 » John vi. 35. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 are taught, therefore, that when Christ heals, He 
 heals effectually, and once for all. The act needs not 
 oftentimes to be repeated^ ; it cannot be repeated 
 by any series of acts at all answering to the repe- 
 tition of communions. To suggest, therefore, that 
 for the health of the soul it is indispensable, or even 
 expedient, to repair to the Holy Communion every 
 week, or, in some cases, every day, is to suggest a 
 course which has nothing in common with those 
 incidents in the Gospel, which, if they are designed 
 to teach us anything, are designed to teach us the 
 fulness and the freeness of Christ's redemption, and 
 to show us the mode and method in which it acts. 
 
 It seems to follow, therefore, and the history of 
 the repetition of communions serves to show, that the 
 theory expressed by them is different from that 
 which is proposed to us in the historical gospels and 
 in the Apostolical epistles. At all events there is 
 nothing in the New Testament which can be alleged 
 in support of daily communions as a desirable means 
 of grace, — unless it can be assumed that the act 
 of communion is identical with something which is 
 otherwise expressed or implied in the language of it. 
 And if this is not so, it becomes more than doubtful 
 whether the over-repetition of the act of communion 
 
 » Cf. Heb. vii. 27, ix. 25—28, x. 14—18. 
 
 -^.^ oar ^x^.jj 
 
xviii PREFACE. 
 
 does not argue a confusion between the means and 
 the end, the significant act, and the thing which the 
 act signifies. The act of communion implies a par- 
 ticipation of Christ, but upon one condition only, 
 which is that of faith. And this means not that I 
 partake of Christ in the communion because I believe, 
 and by means of my believing that He is present in 
 the communion ; but that I partake of Christ when 
 I believe and by means of my believing in Him. It 
 is He and He only who is the life and significance of 
 the communion ; the act of communion itself, there- 
 fore, is invalid unless I see Him, and see Him aright 
 — -yea, unless I believe on Him to the saving of the 
 soul, for " the mean whereby the Body of Christ is 
 received and eaten in the Supper is Faith." ^ But 
 clearly to believe in the Holy Communion as the 
 means of applying Christ's salvation is something 
 very different from believing in Jesus to the saving 
 of the soul, and is it not possible that the very 
 repetition of the act of communion may be resorted 
 to, because even in the Holy Communion itself 
 there is no saving apprehension of the Lord Jesus. 
 Can the ever-recurrent hunger for the repetition of 
 the means be compatible with that coming to Him 
 of which He said that whosoever so came should 
 never hunger ? 
 
 'Art. xxviii. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It was soon found, however, that even the con- 
 tinual repetition of the act of communion was in- 
 adequate to accompHsh the end desired unless it 
 was supplemented and corroborated by something 
 else. And hence arose silently, secretly, gradually 
 and insidiously the restoration of the practice of 
 sacramental confession to the priest, which has in- 
 creased to an unknown and incalculable extent. It 
 must be borne in mind that there is an intrinsic dif- 
 ference between spiritual counsel and advice, and the 
 habit of sacramental confession. This is often for- 
 gotten by the advocates of the latter, who maintain 
 that a practice analogous in its essence to the confes- 
 sion of the Roman Church is to be found in those of 
 various reformed and evangelical bodies. The truth 
 is that the two practices are essentially and intrin- 
 sically different. When the Ethiopian eunuch asked 
 Philip the Evangelist, / pray thee, of whom speaketh 
 the prophet this^ of himself or of some other man ? and 
 in reply to his question, U nderstandest thou what 
 thou readest ? said, How can I, except some man should 
 guide me ? ^ there was no similarity or relation what- 
 ever in the incident recorded to the habit or act 
 of auricular confession as practised by the Roman 
 Church, and of late years revived in our own. When 
 the jailor at Philippi asked. What must I do to be 
 
 ' Acts viii. 30, 31, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 saved ? ^ the question was one of mental perplexity 
 and distress, and bore no analogy whatever to the 
 specific confession of sin. The object of the one act 
 is to seek guidance in perplexity and doubt ; the 
 object of the other to obtain the repeated assurance 
 of the forgiveness of ever-recurrent sin. This latter 
 is felt by experience to be the indispensable con- 
 comitant even of multiplied communions, and is thus 
 conclusive evidence of the inability of such commu- 
 nions to give peace. And hence, under the principles 
 of the Sacramental system, we are gradually but 
 surely committed to the entire paraphernalia of an 
 organised priesthood, and a complex system of sacer- 
 dotalism. And this is nothing less than an elaborate 
 machinery of mediation, and of mediation not be- 
 tween God and the soul, but between Christ and the 
 soul. Instead of the invitation Come unto Me I ^ being 
 urged and acted upon, we are assured that the only 
 effectual way of approaching Christ is through the 
 Sacraments of His own ordinance, and the only profit- 
 able way of approaching the Sacraments is through 
 the absolution of the priest. Thus fetters, and a 
 chain of insupportable weight and of slavish bondage ^ 
 are forged for the enquiring soul under the vain 
 pretext of facilitating its access to the Saviour.* 
 
 * Acts xvi. 30. ' Cf. John viii. 32, 36. 
 
 2 Matt. xi. 28. * Cf. John v. 40. 
 
PREFACE. xxi 
 
 It may seem as though such language were only 
 the commonplace outcry of Protestantism against the 
 enormities of the Church of Rome. But it is not so. 
 Not a word has now been used which does not equally 
 apply to hundreds and thousands of communicants 
 who boast of their union and membership with the 
 English Church. This is the doctrine and practice 
 which is inculcated upon a very large number of con- 
 gregations throughout the land. It is unquestionably 
 one of the signs of the times. 
 
 But how is it to be interpreted t How is it to be 
 dealt with .? There is and can be but one interpre- 
 tation. Such teaching and practice is significant, 
 and can only be significant of a return to the prin- 
 ciples of the Church of Rome. It is not to be denied 
 that a very large portion of the English Church at 
 the present day is not only unduly and extravagantly 
 enamoured of the principles of the Church of Rome 
 (save and except only the dogma of papal supremacy 
 and infallibility) but can find no rest or satisfaction 
 except as those principles are more and more nearly 
 approached, and more and more earnestly embraced. 
 It is not, indeed, everywhere or always that men 
 proceed to the full length of the principles and prac- 
 tices indicated, but they among whom principles 
 identical in essence with those of the Church of 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Rome are adopted and acted upon are to be counted 
 by thousands and by tens of thousands. What, 
 then, is to be done ? The evil is gone too far to be 
 suddenly checked, but one thing is quite certain, 
 there is no use in any longer concealing the fact. 
 Every minister of Christ who desires to be faithful to 
 his trust is bound to expose and condemn it boldly 
 and unhesitatingly. It is often supposed that the 
 less that is said on such topics the better, but it is 
 too late to hold one's peace, or to affect any ignor- 
 ance of or indifference to the magnitude of the evil. 
 It is high time to cry aloud^ and spare not, to lift up the 
 voice like a trumpet, to show the Lord's people their 
 transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins ! 
 
 The fact of the matter is this : it is of the utmost 
 importance to understand that the principle and 
 essence of the Sacramental system implies and in- 
 volves sacerdotalism or the mediation of the priest, 
 and the principle and essence of sacerdotalism implies 
 and involves the religion of the Church of Rome ; it 
 is virtually and actually identical with it in theory 
 and principle. If, therefore, the English Church owes 
 her very existence as a separate and independent 
 Church to the stand which she made three hundred 
 years ago against the usurpations, enormities, and 
 
 ^ Isa. Iviii. I. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 errors of the Church of Rome, it is absurd to suppose 
 that we can be loyal children of the English Church 
 if, instead of continuing to make that stand, we begin 
 to obliterate the distinctive difference of principle 
 upon which it was based, and throw ourselves heart 
 and soul into doctrines and practices which are alto- 
 gether identical with those errors and enormities. 
 Nor is it possible that there can be any sound and 
 healthy union between elements and principles in 
 their very nature opposed. If the very existence of 
 the Church of England is a witness that she does 
 abjure and protest against Roman teaching, how is 
 it possible that there should be more than nominal 
 union between those who heartily protest against and 
 those who systematically adopt that teaching ? It 
 cannot be for the strength and welfare of the Church 
 that we should endeavour to slur the difference over, 
 or to extenuate and ignore it. Rather to do so will 
 be fraught with imminent peril and with ultimate 
 destruction to the Church. 
 
 A wiser plan would be to look it fairly in the 
 face and act accordingly. A house divided against 
 itself cannot stand. Matters have proceeded to such 
 extremities that nothing but strenuous and vigorous 
 action can avail. When insubordination enters an 
 army its doom is sealed. Nor can it be otherwise 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 with the Church. When constituted authority is set 
 at defiance, and every man is content to do only that 
 which is right in his own eyes, the time of dissolu- 
 tion can hardly be far distant. If that day is to be 
 averted, it must surely be by prompt and decisive 
 measures, by bold and faithful utterance. A little 
 leaven leaveneth the whole lump. It is patent that 
 Roman leaven has very largely pervaded the English 
 Church. Let US CAST IT OUT. There can be no 
 peace while it is suffered to work insidiously. There 
 is nothing more wearisome and useless than the cry, 
 Peace J peace, when there is no peace} for peace is an 
 impossibility when incompatible antagonistic elements 
 are at work. In every human institution there must 
 doubtless be forbearance and toleration on all sides. 
 It is not desirable that the Church should consist of 
 only one party; but even opposite parties may be 
 loyal to a common head or to a common principle. 
 And those only have no place in the pale of the 
 English Church who are not loyal in the common 
 stand that should be made against the common 
 foes of Romanism and unbelief. 
 
 The fundamental principle of the English Church 
 is the recognition of the supreme authority of Scrip- 
 ture, and readiness to be bound by its decisions in 
 
 * Jer. vi. 14. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 every question, as by a court of ultimate appeal. It 
 acknowledges the volume of Revelation to be the 
 sole fountain of the knowledge of eternal life, and 
 believes that by the ministry of the Word the sick 
 may be made whole and the dead be quickened into 
 life, but that in no case can this be brought about 
 but by the operation of the Holy Spirit on the one 
 side, and by the exercise of personal faith on the 
 other.^ 
 
 But when the Sacrament of Christ's body and 
 blood is made the centre of all Christian life and 
 practice, there is always room for grave anxiety lest 
 the mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is 
 in Christ? Under certain limits a Sacramental form 
 of religion is fairly within the scope of the English 
 formularies, but when the Sacrament is made the pivot 
 of all individual life and of all public worship it has 
 unquestionably usurped the place of Christ Himself as 
 the sole sufficient and sufficing object of faith. The 
 apprehension, however, of Christ as the simple and 
 sole object of faith is an act too sublimated and 
 transcendental for the natural heart, which, therefore, 
 thankfully takes refuge in a sensuous worship of out- 
 ward and visible signs. So thoroughly is this the 
 case that the practice has become very common in 
 
 * Acts XV. 8, 9 ; xvi. 14; xiv. i. '2 Cor. xi. 3. ^ 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 the English Church of being present at the rite of 
 communion without communicating. As soon as 
 this practice is adopted, the motive for the frequent 
 repitition of communions, derived from a particular 
 interpretation of and inference from our Lord's lan- 
 guage about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, 
 is withdrawn, and a custom is introduced for which 
 there is no Scripture warrant whatever, and which 
 is by implication contrary to the intention of the 
 English Communion Service. 
 
 Another significant indication of the tendency of 
 a certain phase of religious teaching is the establish- 
 ment and restoration of duplicate altars in churches ; 
 a thing in itself perhaps innocent,^ and always, 
 probably, to be excused on the ground of con- 
 venience or symmetry, and the like; but assuredly 
 only to be explained upon the hypothesis of a 
 Sacramental religion having been confessedly ac- 
 cepted as the expression and agency of the ministry 
 of reconciliation. But this should be distinctly un- 
 derstood in every case, for the ministry of recon- 
 ciliation is the ministry of the word^ which operates 
 hy belief of the truth^ and not by participation in any 
 outward rites, be they what they may.* 
 
 In short, it is undeniable and only too manifest 
 
 * But cf. Hosea viii. ii. '2 Thess. ii. 13; John viii. 32. 
 
 ' 2 Cor. V. 18, 19. * Gal. v. 6 ; vi. 15; i Cor. vii. 19. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 that great efforts are being made in the English 
 Church to turn the sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
 into the Romish Mass. And it is not too much to 
 say when this is done that the principle affirmed is 
 that of a different Gospel which is not another} If 
 we are only saved by Christ's death through receiving 
 its benefits in the Sacrament, then there is an end to 
 the Gospel as proclaimed by Christ Himself, God so 
 loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Sony 
 that whosoever helieveth in Him should not perish 
 but have everlasting life?" And that this is virtually 
 the case is shown by an assertion openly made some 
 years ago by an Oxford divine of the highest note 
 in favour of sacerdotal religion, " There is not one 
 word in Holy Scripture of our applying to ourselves 
 fhe promises of the Gospel;"^ that is to say, they can 
 only be applied through the machinery of the priest 
 and the Sacraments. This is not the place to argue 
 the abstract question, it is enough to draw attention 
 to the fact that such teaching has very deeply pene- 
 trated and permeated the English Church, and is 
 openly advocated in a thousand churches as the true 
 way of salvation, while at the same time it is iden- 
 tical in principle with the teaching of the Church of 
 ^ Gal. i. 6, 7. 
 
 * John iii. 16. 
 
 ' See the well-known Sermons entitled Entire Absolution of the 
 Penitent, .. -:' ' . 
 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 Rome, and is fundamentally opposed to the whole 
 spirit and principle of the prayer-book. 
 
 The entire fabric of the Sacramental system rests 
 upon the fatal theory of post-baptismal sin. In a 
 church in which the great majority of members 
 are baptised in infancy, the question of post-bap- 
 tismal sin must always be one of the greatest 
 urgency. And it is a question which Scripture has 
 left, comparatively speaking, unanswered, unless the 
 answer which applies to all other sin applies also 
 to that. The assumption of the Sacramental theory 
 is that it does not, and hence the opening for 
 the elaborate organisation of the religion of the 
 priest ; an organisation, however, which is not 
 even sketched in outline in the writings of the New 
 Testament, nor, indeed, in those of the Apostolical 
 Fathers. Scripture, however, has by anticipation 
 answered and effectually demolished this theory by 
 the Epistle to the Galatians. The whole drift and 
 tenour of that Epistle is absolutely fatal to the Sacra- 
 mental system. Furthermore, Scripture strenuously 
 r.efuses to discriminate between kinds of sin. It tells 
 us that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God which taketh 
 away the SIN of the world} that the Holy Ghost 
 shall convince the world of sin^ and that the blood of 
 Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin} The words 
 
 » John i. 29. ^ John xvi. 8. * i John i. 7. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 must refer in the last case to the Christian Church 
 when past her infancy, and therefore necessarily in- 
 clude post-baptismal sin. We must decide, there- 
 fore, whether we will deal with sins after bap- 
 tism as we should with those before it, or whether 
 they come under another category and must be 
 dealt with otherwise. In the. onei case we meet 
 them with the proclamation of the word of faith, 
 in the other by the religion of the priest and the 
 Sacramental system. 
 
 But it is highly important to observe that the 
 two principles are directly antagonistic and mutually 
 destructive. One is the principle of the Church of 
 Rome, the other is that of the Reformed Church of 
 England, as it unquestionably is that of the Gospel 
 itself. The message of the Gospel appeals to faith 
 as the one only indispensable pre- requisite in the 
 heart of man. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and 
 thou shalt be saved} If thou believest with all thine 
 heart thou mayesf^ be baptised. It will doubtless be 
 said by the advocates of the Sacramental system that 
 these were words addressed to the jailor at Philippi 
 and to the Ethiopian eunuch, and not to mankind 
 generally, or at all events to recent converts ; but it 
 is hardly possible that the people of England with 
 
 * Acts xvi. 31. ^ Acts viii. 37. 
 
 C 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 their open Bible can have read it thus. They will 
 have received from the book its own message. The 
 laity, however, require to be put upon their guard 
 as to the real principle involved in the teaching 
 which is so attractive and so popular, in order that 
 they may know what it is they choose, and may 
 not think that they are faithful members of the 
 Church of England when they have largely imbibed 
 the essential doctrines of the Church of Rome. 
 
 It is, however, not a little remarkable that a 
 movement, which in its beginning was wholly one 
 of doctrine, should after a while have been mainly 
 indebted for its rapid progress to the development 
 of ritual, which was a matter altogether indifferent to 
 the original authors of the movement. The East- 
 ward Position, for example, was a thing utterly 
 unknown to John Henry Newman as vicar of 
 St. Mary's. Vestments not only were not adopted, 
 but were never even thought of for many years after 
 the publication of Tract 90. A movement which 
 was eminently intellectual when it began, has deve- 
 loped into the advocacy of puppet shows and child's 
 play. The popularity which the Eastward Position 
 has acquired in the last thirty years, before which it 
 was rarely if ever practised in the English Church, is 
 simply astounding, and only to be explained by the 
 
PREFACE. xxxi 
 
 principle it involves. The churches which have 
 adopted the Eucharistic vestments throughout the 
 kingdom are probably to be counted by the hundred.^ 
 Are these things, as some would have us believe, of 
 no importance, or are they not much rather of the 
 most profound significance, and of ominous fore- 
 boding to the peace and welfare of the Church, not 
 to say her safety ? It has no doubt been found 
 prakctically, that certain doctrines were far more 
 attractive with the accessories of form and show than 
 in the character of dry theological statement ; and 
 so things in themselves as trifling and even trivial, 
 as the position of the priest at the altar and the 
 colour of his robes have been made the subject 
 of the most deperate contention, because they were 
 the convenient instruments and appropriate channels 
 for conveying doctrines which, left to themselves, 
 would have had but small prospect of success. 
 This circumstance, however, is no slight indication 
 of the natural drift and tendency of a movement so 
 eminently intellectual as the * Catholic Revival ' was 
 in its origin and first efforts. In view of the re- 
 markable aspect it now presents under the form of 
 Ritualism we have reason to exclaim, with Desde- 
 mona, — 
 
 " O, most lame and impotent conclusion ! " 
 ^ According to Mackeson thirty-five in London and the suburbs. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 If the Church of England is to be faithful to her 
 original calling, as a witness for the saving power of 
 God's Word, there can be no doubt that the aspect of 
 affairs at the present time is calculated to give rise 
 to the most serious apprehension, and the more so 
 because there seems to be a general supineness per- 
 vading the more influential both of the clergy and 
 the laity. It may be that little can be done, or is 
 desirable to be done, by repression, or by calling into 
 play the machinery of the law. But a vast amount 
 can be done in all quarters by discouragement of the 
 evil, and by the mind of the laity being on the alert 
 and well informed. Is it possible that the people of 
 England will suffer the spiritual heritage of their 
 forefathers, which was purchased for them by the 
 blood of men who were faithful unto death, to become 
 the prey of false teachers, who will infallibly give her 
 over to Romish superstition and to Romish practices ? 
 Is it possible that the laity will consent to be beguiled 
 of their reward in possessing the pure and undefiled 
 religion of the true Word of God, by receiving instead 
 a religion of priests and human mediators who will 
 make merchandise of them with feigned words} and 
 draw their souls away from the knowledge and prac- 
 tice of the truth ? Is it possible that the bulk of the 
 people of this land and Church can be so blind as 
 ^ 2 Pet. ii. 3. 
 
PREFACE. xxxiii 
 
 not to see the magnitude of the dangers which 
 threaten them ; so indifferent or so infatuated as 
 to refuse to take warning against them ? 
 
 There is something apparently so reverent and so 
 laudable in doing honour to an ordinance of Christ's 
 own appointment, that it is oftentimes difficult to 
 persuade men that any danger can lurk beneath it. 
 But the ordinances of Christ are not more sacred 
 to the Christian than the Divine ordinance of the 
 Sabbath was to the Jew, and yet we know, on the 
 authority of Christ Himself, that a superstitious reve- 
 rence for the Sabbath had destroyed all its mean- 
 ing to the Jew. The Sabbath was a sign between 
 him and God, but he had put the sign in the place 
 of God, and so had both shut out God and had also 
 forgotten the message of the sign. Is it impossible 
 that Christians should do the same } When we see 
 the Eucharist exalted to the position it is, or may 
 we not rather say degraded} — and societies like the 
 Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament making it 
 a kind of masonic badge, it is surely time to re- 
 mind our brethren that it is possible to be very 
 devoted to the blessed Sacrament, and yet wholly 
 ignorant of the benefits which flow from the death 
 of Christ, and of the redemption through His blood. 
 It is quite possible to believe in the Real Presence 
 
xxxiv PREFACE. 
 
 and yet not believe in Christ : yea, even to be pre- 
 vented from believing in Christ by allowing the 
 ordinances of Christ to come between ourselves 
 and Him. 
 
 Let it not be thought, however, that what has 
 now been said has been said with any view to 
 depreciate the ordinance of Christ or to discourage 
 the practice of more frequent communions, the re- 
 storation of which we undoubtedly owe to the great 
 mercy of God towards our revived Church, — but much 
 rather to utter a seasonable warning against a misap- 
 prehension and misapplication of Christ's ordinance, 
 and to suggest to the most ardent votaries of it that 
 belief in Christ is after all something more than 
 belief in the Sacrament ; that there Is a danger of 
 supposing the two to be the same ; that the one is 
 the seal and confirmation of the other ; that the 
 Sacrament follows after faith, and is valid only upon 
 faith, while faith is to be sought, not from the Sacra- 
 ment, but from Him alone of whom the Sacrament 
 speaks. Lord, increase our faith} Lord, I believe, 
 help thou mine unbelief? 
 
 The greatest danger of the Church of the present 
 day is not improbably to be found in the vast amount 
 of machinery by which it is sought to supplement 
 
 ' Luke xvii. 5. * Mark ix. 24. 
 
PREFACE, XXXV 
 
 and prepare the way for faith, whereas faith is rather 
 stifled and overlaid thereby, and the wound of the 
 Lord's people has been healed slightly,^ because the 
 Great Physician in Gilead has not been sought, and 
 has not effectually applied His balm.^ A variety of 
 indications show but too plainly that in many quar- 
 ters the most elaborate development of the Sacra- 
 mental system has been adopted without suspicion 
 or alarm, while a less pronounced modification of it 
 is now the most fashionable and popular form of re- 
 ligion. The one, however, is nothing more nor less 
 than the preparation for the other, and will inevitably 
 grow into it ; and both are alike fatal to the simple 
 enunciation in all its depth and breadth and power 
 of the vital maxim. Believe and live} 
 
 The danger of the Church, however, arising from 
 the prevalence of Romanising theology and the fas- 
 cination of Roman practices, great as it is, is not 
 the only one in the present day. Wherever there is 
 superstition there is also unbelief And side by side 
 with doctrines and customs, which belie the whole 
 character of the Church as a reformed body, there 
 is a spirit of doubt and denial abroad, which tends 
 to sap the very foundation of the Church's existence, 
 
 * Jer. vi. 14. ' Jer. viii. 22. ' Hab. ii. 4; Rom. i. 17, etc. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 and to rob her of her supernatural life and her share 
 in the Divine nature.^ The authority of Scripture 
 is impugned or rejected as a Divine and supernatural 
 guide. The function of science as a natural revela- 
 tion of God is exaggerated at the cost of the super- 
 natural revelation in Scripture, and in forgetfulness 
 of the supremacy and permanence of the moral re- 
 velation in the conscience. While some are shutting 
 their eyes to the true light which lighteih every man ^ 
 in the personal revelation of the living Lord, and are 
 seeking it unadvisedly in outward, albeit Divinely 
 ordained symbols, others are turning away from it 
 altogether for the fatuous light which shines from 
 nature or the scintillations which glimmer from time 
 to time in the merely natural heart. They prefer 
 to walk in the light of their own fire, and in the 
 sparks which they have kindled, rather than in the 
 light of the Sun of Righteousness. 
 
 It is certain, however, that superstition affords no 
 protection against unbelief, but is itself unbelief in 
 another form. The Church of Christ at the present 
 day is brought face to face with questions affecting 
 her very life ; and to flee from the struggle with 
 these questions, and to take refuge in superstition or 
 in superstitious practices is to surrender the ground to 
 
 ^ 2 Pet. i. 4. * John i. 9. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 unbelief. The only engine which is capable of fairly 
 dealing with these questions is the Divine revelation 
 of the Gospel. That contains in itself the highest 
 philosophy, because it is based upon an absolute 
 knowledge of human nature. It is the sure word of 
 One who kneiv what was in man} But the Gospel 
 itself is powerless unless it is implicitly believed, and 
 has produced the moral and spiritual regeneration 
 consequent upon belief. It then becomes invin- 
 cible^ because, being the very truth itself, it is the 
 touchstone of falsehood ; and though falsehood may 
 again and again raise its head in one of its 
 myriad forms, and for a time lead captive many, 
 yet truth will ever ultimately detect, expose, and 
 overthrow it. 
 
 An immense amount of harm is done when the 
 revelation of the Gospel is represented, as it too 
 often is, as being so vague and uncertain as to give 
 scope for every variety of opinion. Those who are 
 interested in thus representing, or rather misrepre- 
 senting it, certainly do little honour to the human 
 understanding. If the Bible is regarded as a Divine 
 book we can conceive no object in its being given 
 in language unintellible to the human mind, or so 
 expressed as that its broad message should be un- 
 
 ' John ii. 25. 
 
xxxviii PREFACE. 
 
 discoverable ; and one of the most obscure of the 
 prophets was bidden to write his vision so plain that 
 he who ran might read it running.^ If the Bible is 
 regarded as a human book then it is still more un- 
 warrantable to assume that its general meaning or 
 message is impossible to be ascertained. Is the 
 general message of " Hamlet," of " Paradise Lost," or 
 of Homer's " Iliad " such that the ordinary mind 
 cannot grasp it ? And can we honestly say that any 
 of these as a human production, is more easy of com- 
 prehension than St. Mark or St. John } Can the 
 ordinary mind take in the broad message of Bacon 
 or Hooker, and yet fail to perceive the general drift 
 of one of St. Paul's epistles. Then if so, verily St. 
 Paul cannot have been the great writer we supposed 
 him. But, as a matter of fact, the general impression 
 left by the study of the Gospel is indubitable and 
 unvarying. It only becomes a subject of obscurity 
 or uncertainty when other considerations enter in 
 and confuse our mental vision, or cloud the ' dry 
 light ' in which we should regard it if our minds were 
 free from bias and prejudice. 
 
 " Knowledge is easy," we are told, " to him that 
 hath understanding," and assuredly it would be 
 doing wrong to the Divine knowledge of salvation 
 » Hab. ii. 2. 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 imparted by the Gospel to assume the contrary of 
 that. But, in point of fact, we may safely affirm 
 that the vast majority of Christians, of whatever 
 denomination — Greek, Roman, Anglican, Protestant, 
 Evangelical — are all agreed on the central elements 
 of their faith. It is not too much to say that the 
 entire body of Christians throughout the world 
 nominally accept the Apostles' Creed as the symbol 
 of their common belief ; the exceptions are so in- 
 considerable that practically they may be disre- 
 garded. Christianity is eminently a religion of 
 Divine facts. It is impossible that these Divine 
 facts can be held in their integrity and their sim- 
 plicity without producing in the mind certain results. 
 It is the philosophy of these results that generates 
 Christian doctrine, at least in certain branches. And 
 then, as a further consequence, doctrine becomes sub- 
 stituted for fact But fact being the central germ of 
 doctrine has the tendency to unite and combine, 
 whereas the tendency of doctrine is to divide and 
 subdivide. > The only way, therefore, in which 
 Christians who have received facts through doc- 
 trines, and have become separated in doing so, can 
 be reunited, is by gathering round the central 
 common facts, and learning to view them in the 
 ' dry light ' of reality, and yielding themselves to 
 the natural influence of their Divine power. 
 
xl PREFACE. 
 
 For example, it must be vastly more essential to 
 believe that Jesus Christ died^ and that He died for 
 our sins^ than to believe any one particular theory 
 about the cause, nature, or consequences of His death. 
 Now all Christians are agreed upon the Scripture 
 statement of these facts. It is about the theories 
 invented for them and the doctrines deduced from 
 them that they begin to differ, ^^ut surely it is 
 in the simple facts that the Gospel message lies, 
 and in the facts that its vitality is enshrined. If, 
 therefore, we would receive the vital message of 
 the Gospel, it must be by clinging to the reality of 
 the facts rather than by stopping short in the doc- 
 trines which are based upon or deduced from them. 
 
 It is, therefore, no slight indication of the Divine 
 forethought which kept watch over the Church that 
 in its early manhood, and while it was yet one, the 
 Apostolic Creed of Christendom was framed, we 
 know not how, which yet survives as the recognised 
 symbol of our faith. In that we breathe the atmos- 
 phere of fact rather than of doctrine, and assuredly 
 if its witness is accepted in all its length, and 
 breadth, and depth, and height, its fulness, meaning, 
 and vitality, it will be found to be not only a rallying- 
 point for all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sin- 
 cerity^ but also will supply the truest and most 
 
 * I Cor. XV. 3. ^ Eph. vi. 24. 
 
PREFACE, xH 
 
 powerful corrective for the errors and follies of our 
 time, whether they consist in a tendency to reject 
 the Divine and supernatural elements of the faith, 
 or in a desire to supplement and to overlay it by 
 the pernicious machinery of unscriptural and unau- 
 thorised human additions. 
 
 Stanley Leathes. 
 
 ), St. George's Square, S.W. 
 Sept. 24M, 1877. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. I BELIEVE I 
 
 II. IN GOD 13 
 
 III. THE FATHER r - 23 
 
 IV. ALMIGHTY 35 
 
 V. MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH - - - - 47 
 
 VI. AND IN JESUS - - - - - - - 59 
 
 VII. CHRIST ^ - - - 71 
 
 VIII. HIS ONLY SON 83 
 
 IX. OUR LORD ------.. 95 
 
 X. WHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST, BORN 
 
 OF THE VIRGIN MARY - - - - - I07 
 
 XI. SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE - - - II9 
 
 XII. WAS CRUCIFIED I3I 
 
 XIII. DEAD 143 
 
 XIV. AND BURIED I55 
 
 XV. HE DESCENDED INTO HELL 1 67 
 
 XVI. THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE 
 
 DEAD 179 
 
xliv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVII. THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM' THE 
 
 DEAD {Continued) 191 
 
 XVIII. THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE 
 
 DEAD {Continued) 205 
 
 XIX. HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN - - - - 21/ 
 
 XX. AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD 
 
 THE FATHER ALMIGHTY - - - - 229 
 
 XXI. FROM THENCE HE SHALX COME TO JUDGE 
 
 THE QUICK AND THE DEAD- - - - 243 
 
 XXII. FROM THENCE HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE 
 
 THE QUICK AND THE DEAD {Continued) - 255 
 
 XXIII. FROM THENCE HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE 
 
 THE QUICK AND THE DEAD {Continued) - 267 
 
 XXIV. I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST - - - 279 
 
 XXV. I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST {Continued) - 293 
 
 XXVI. I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST {Continued) - 305 
 
 XXVII. THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH - - - - 317 
 
 XXVIII. THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH {Continued) - 329 
 
 XXIX. THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS - - - - 341 
 
 XXX. THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS - - - - 353 
 
 XXXI. THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY - - - 365 
 
 XXXII. AND THE LIFE EVERLASTING - - - - 377 
 
I. 
 
 / BELIEVE. 
 
 Lord, I believe : help Thou mine unbelief. — St. Mark ix. 24. 
 
 'nr^HE cry of the distracted father of the demoniac 
 ^ at his child's distressing condition and his own 
 powerlessness to help him doubtless expresses the 
 feelings of many persons in the present day. The 
 complaint is often made, sometimes with sorrow, and 
 not seldom with triumph, that the foundations of 
 faith are being overthrown, and men's hold on Chris- 
 tianity is slackening. There is unquestionably some- 
 thing of truth in this, and something also to regret. 
 But it is not without its better and brighter side 
 also. Nothing can be worse than stagnation of 
 thought. It was an unhealthy condition of things 
 when all was taken for granted, when authority was 
 invoked to stifle enquiry, and those who thought at 
 all thought only as their fathers had thought before 
 them ; and when within the limits of the Church, at 
 least, everything was supposed to have been settled 
 once for all at the Reformation, or at the last re- 
 vision of the Prayer-Book. 
 
 Now we are becoming familiar with a state of 
 things totally different. Nothing is supposed to be 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 settled ; authority, of whatever kind, is challenged ; 
 prescription has a bad name ; Christianity itself is 
 on its trial ; and novelty, whether in practice or in 
 thought, is regarded as a recommendation. 
 
 There can be no question that to teach a man to 
 think for himself is the ultimate object of education. 
 Unless a man can think for himself his thoughts are 
 not likely to be of much use to any one else. But 
 if a man thinks for himself he is as likely to think 
 wrong as to think right, or at least the privilege of 
 being allowed to think right will not protect him 
 from the liability to think wrong ; and if all men 
 think for themselves it is perfectly certain that they 
 will not all think alike. 
 
 Putting aside, however, the abstract merits and 
 demerits of our present position, as not worth de- 
 bating, it is obvious that our only practical course is 
 to accept it. Alter it we cannot, act in it we must. 
 We have not brought ourselves into this state of 
 trial, but have been placed in it by the force of cir- 
 cumstances over which we had no control. Some 
 would have done what they could to prevent or to 
 retard its advent, but to no purpose, for come it 
 must and would, and our only wisdom now is to 
 adapt ourselves to circumstances, to make the most 
 of our advantages, to be patient and to deal pru- 
 dently with our drawbacks. 
 
 It is one of the features of olir position that 
 creeds and formularies are with many the special 
 objects of aversion. The notion of a stereotyped 
 
/ BELIEVE. 
 
 expression of thought is conceived of as absurd 
 on the face of it. Thought must either be fettered 
 or be free: if it is to be expressed in creeds it must 
 be fettered, if it is to be free it must dispense with 
 them. 
 
 In the view, therefore, of all these considerations ^ 
 it would seem that to discourse rationally and 
 frankly on the articles of the Christian faith would 
 not be otherwise than beneficial to many. To take 
 the several topics, for example, which are implied 
 and summarised in the Apostles' Creed, and treat 
 them in a candid, intelligent, and at the same time 
 reverential manner, will assuredly be found, we may 
 trust, useful and likewise interesting to many. It 
 may be presumed that all those at least who are 
 in the habit of attending the public worship of the 
 Church, and repeating on every occasion the sig- 
 nificant formula, / believe^ have as yet not broken 
 with that time-honoured symbol of our faith, which 
 is the cherished memorial of our baptism and of 
 our confirmation, and is probably that profession in 
 which we hope to die. On the other hand, it cannot 
 be doubted that there are many of us who at times 
 are sorely perplexed by various points concerning it ; 
 that thought and enquiry, in spite of ourselves, will 
 arise and confront us, and refuse to be put aside, 
 even if it were desirable to do so ; and that conse- 
 quently to have wholesome and substantial food for 
 thought presented to us, would be an advantage not 
 lightly to be esteemed. It is with this hope that we 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 enter on the present course of lectures, trusting that 
 by the Divine blessing they may be found helpful 
 and salutary to many. We have neither the wish 
 nor the intention to disturb the faith of any one. 
 Our purpose is to establish, not to destroy ; but since 
 we can hardly imagine the case of a thinking person 
 who is not also at times a perplexed or even a 
 doubting person, we will endeavour to meet such 
 perplexities and doubts, and yet, if it may be, not 
 suggest them. Still, it must be borne in mind that 
 to a certain extent it is impossible not to do this, 
 and it may be questioned whether it is altogether de- 
 sirable. The objection was brought against Bishop 
 Butler's famous Analogy that it raised more ques- 
 tions than it solved. However this may be, there 
 can be no doubt as to the value of that treatise, 
 or the desirableness of its having been written, 
 being, as it is, perhaps, the most precious heirloom 
 of English theology. We must still believe that 
 to think, and to be able to think, and to be allowed 
 to think, with all its perilous responsibilities, is a 
 greater privilege than to have no thought at all, or 
 only such thought as we are on sufferance allowed 
 to have. 
 
 Now it must be borne in mind that there are 
 three periods in the history of human thought and 
 of the human mind. The first is the period of child- 
 hood and youth, when every story is believed to be 
 true, when faith is unwavering, when we accept what 
 is told us, when we simply apprehend, or retain, 
 
/ BELIEVE. § 
 
 or reflect the sentiments and the beliefs of others. 
 Probably no one would be willing to affirm that this 
 condition of mind is, in the abstract, a really desir- 
 able one ; pleasing and enjoyable it may perhaps 
 be, but hardly in itself a good, or at least not the 
 greatest good. 
 
 But whether it is or not, it is certain that we 
 outgrow it. We pass from it in spite of ourselves 
 into the second stage, which is one of enquiry, dis- 
 crimination, hesitation, and doubt. Whereas before 
 we were happy in believing everything, now we 
 scarcely think ourselves wise if we do not doubt 
 everything. It is the result of a worldly-wise 
 experience, — the maxim that the man is a fool 
 who believes all he hears. 
 
 Now these two stages or conditions of thought 
 which formerly applied for the most part to all sub- 
 jects except the Christian faith, have been found in 
 our own time to exempt not even that. It is this 
 inherited possession of the Christian Creed which 
 has now in its turn been dealt with as any other 
 possession. Men treat it with no more deference 
 than anything else which they have accepted on 
 authority and believed traditionally. It is ques- 
 tioned, attacked, rejected. 
 
 This is true of our age. But it is true also of the 
 individual. First there comes the period of implicit 
 belief, secondly there comes the period of incipient 
 doubt or explicit denial. But there is yet a third 
 stage, which, though indeed it is not reached by all, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 is, at any rate, reserved for some. And this is 
 the stage when, after having faith shaken to the 
 very centre, or having actually surrendered it, we 
 are enabled to emerge from a stage of perplexity, 
 difficulty, doubt, or restlessness, to one of repose 
 and assured belief We are wiser for the experience 
 we have undergone. Our views of truth are wider, 
 our grasp firmer, our position is very different from 
 what it was at first. We see things with other eyes; 
 but the things we see are the same, though it may 
 be we see more. Now there can be no doubt which, 
 in the abstract, is the highest and most desirable of 
 these three conditions, that of the unquestioning child, 
 or that of the thoughtful and mature man. Neither 
 can there be any doubt that the three stages repre- 
 sent a natural and consistently progressive series, 
 in which as the third is higher than the second so 
 also the second is higher than the first. It is 
 indeed most undesirable to stop at the second, but 
 so also is it to stop at the first. To carry into 
 mature manhood the intellectual development of a 
 child is not only undesirable but unnatural. 
 
 But may we not say that to find ourselves in 
 declining years with nothing but the restlessness of 
 youth or manhood for our portion is equally un- 
 desirable, if not unnatural } The spectacle of an old 
 man who is still hampered and oppressed with the 
 labour and anxiety of sturdier age is certainly pain- 
 ful. If rest and repose are to be obtained they must 
 in tliemselves be good. Now it is precisely this 
 
/ BELIEVE. 
 
 second stage of thought which is characteristic of 
 our own day. Everything is unstable, unsettled, 
 anxious, restless. But the misapprehension which is 
 only too common, is that this condition is other 
 than transitional. That it is necessary, inevitable, 
 and a symptom of progress, we do not deny ; but it 
 is a great mistake to suppose that it is in itself a 
 final state, or that the very law of progress does not 
 require it to be succeeded by another. Let us by 
 all means avail ourselves to the very utmost of the 
 experience we have gained; let us not reject any 
 wider views that a longer toil, if it be circuitous, up 
 the mountain of life, has perchance given us; by all 
 means let us profit by the past and improve the 
 present ; but let us at least not stay where we are. 
 The human soul cannot be sustained on doubt any 
 more than the body can live on air; the mountain 
 breezes may be very salutary, but they are not 
 sufificing. To give up everything and arrive at 
 nothing is indeed to pass from the first stage of 
 thought to the second, but not to pass from the 
 second to the third; and this we must do if we 
 would be saved, for there is no salvation in resting 
 where we are. 
 
 And our own age is not the only one which has illus- 
 trated the same truth. In the infancy of the world 
 — that is to say, before Christ came — mankind were 
 in the first stage of thought, — they rested contentedly 
 in various absurd beliefs. When Jesus stood before 
 Pilate, and Pilate asked Him, What is truth 1 then 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 the second stage had been reached. Scepticism had 
 eaten into the received reh'gion. Men were growing 
 weary of it. In many cases they had rejected it. 
 Pilate's case was one. But there came a third stage. 
 He before whom Pilate stood, by the silent but 
 irresistible verdict of history, asserted Himself as 
 the Truth of which Pilate despaired ; and the throne 
 of the Caesars became, as a matter of fact, the pos- 
 session of the Christ. 
 
 The third stage for a time was reached. But it 
 was only for a time. The third stage again became 
 the first, — the mature age of the Church relapsed 
 into dotage. Everything was accepted with implicit 
 credulity, till credulity gave place to scepticism; and 
 when Innocent III. and Leo X. sat in the so-called 
 chair of Peter, the second stage had been reached 
 once more. Then came the glorious career of the 
 noble and heroic Luther, whose preaching made the 
 scepticism deeper than ever, and at the same time 
 created earnest faith; and once more the second 
 stage was succeeded by the third. How is it now } 
 Judge for yourselves, my friends. We — that is, the 
 majority of mankind (for some have not) — have 
 passed out of the first stage into the second; but it 
 is impossible that we can stop there, let the popular 
 voice of admiration for the prevailing thought of the 
 age be never so loud. The lessons of history can- 
 not be lost, her teaching cannot be wrong. The 
 destructive tendency must give place to one con- 
 structive, and the mind or the minds must arise 
 
I BELIEVE, 
 
 that shall have the wisdom to erect out of the 
 ruins of unbelief a solid and substantial edifice of 
 faith. 
 
 It must be so, let physical and metaphysical science 
 vaunt themselves as they please. We cannot rest in 
 negatives, and any teaching of which the result is 
 negative must give place to one whose results are 
 positive and substantial. 
 
 Now the cry of those who feel the pain of this 
 transition state, who feel that little by little every- 
 thing is being taken from them, and nothing given in 
 its place, is, or at least may be, this : Lord, I believe : 
 help Thou miite unbelief. It is, at any rate, those, 
 and only those, to whom I address myself, — those 
 who believe that the Lord of the human spirit will 
 hearken to the agonising cry of His perplexed and 
 blindfold children, — those who believe that a prayer 
 such as that of the distracted father of the demoniac 
 cannot be proffered in vain, that there is One who can 
 hear, and that He will hear. There may be those, 
 who are strangers to such agony, who would call it in- 
 fatuation or fanaticism ; to such I do not speak, or 
 at least, not now. Their condition of thought may 
 be that of the first stage or of the third ; if of the 
 latter, they also will appreciate my words, for the 
 effect of them will be to make their hold of truth 
 more firm, their standing-ground more stable and 
 secure ; but even the others I would hope will be 
 able to listen also, not without a certain degree of 
 profit. It is one class only to whom the words 
 
lo THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 spoken will be vain as wind, — those, namely, who 
 are so well satisfied with their position of doubt and 
 denial as not to desire to change it for any other; 
 who are willing to ask with Pilate, What is truth ? 
 but are unwilling also like Pilate to wait for the 
 answer, because they would rather believe there is 
 none. There is only one way in which we can 
 characterise such persons : they are not in earnest. 
 The gospel which presents a secure resting-place for 
 faith is not for them ; they prefer the so-called free- 
 dom of being tossed about on the billows of specu- 
 lation, without a rudder or a compass, and with no 
 prospect of a haven, to being steered across the 
 ocean to the appointed shore of hope. 
 
 But if you ask me whether it is requisite that in 
 ever)^ case the condition of childish belief should 
 give place to one of doubt in order that it may be 
 succeeded again by one of firmer faith, I should 
 answer, I cannot tell. The Lord does not lead us 
 all by the same road. I speak to those whom He 
 is leading by this road, and who feel that they want 
 a guide, or want to find in Him their guide. But 
 I may say that the condition I describe is one of 
 growth. It seems to me that no one can pass 
 from childhood into youth, and from youth to man- 
 hood, and not have his thoughts strangely modified 
 on many, and especially the most important, subjects. 
 Such thoughts as God and Christ and heaven must 
 surely have a vastly different meaning to the same 
 person in childhood and in mature age, and if so 
 
/ BELIEVE. II 
 
 there must be transition, and transition probably 
 accompanied with very violent shocks, — a giving up 
 of the old and a grasping of the new. We were all 
 told something about God when we were children. 
 That may have been true as it was told us then, but 
 if we believe it now as we believed it then, it will not 
 be true ; for if our minds grow, while the faith with 
 which we supply them grows not, the result cannot 
 be other than incongruous. Who, as a man, would 
 wear swaddling clothes, or even be content to array 
 himself in the garments of his childhood or his youth ? 
 When I was a child I thought as a child^ I under- 
 stood as a child ; but when I became a man^ I put 
 away childish things} is true of belief as it is of other 
 matters, and pre-eminently true of belief. And even 
 St. Paul himself had of all men found it most true, 
 for he had passed through the greatest possible 
 transition when, having been exceedingly zealous 
 of the traditions of his fathers, he found that Christ 
 was the end of the law for righteousness to every 
 one that believeth. 
 
 * I Cor. xiii. ii. 
 
13 
 
 II. 
 
 IN GOD, 
 
 Without faith it is impo^ible to please Him, for he that cometh to 
 God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that 
 diligently seek Him. — Heb. xi. 6. 
 
 IN speaking in the last lecture of the three pro- 
 gressive stages of thought which were evidenced 
 in the history of the world, and sometimes of indi- 
 viduals, namely, the stages of belief, doubt, and 
 faith, it must be borne in mind that this is specially 
 true of the cycles of thought that may be observed 
 in successive periods of long duration. It were 
 absurd to suppose that every individual man or 
 woman is to illustrate in personal history the vacilla- 
 tions of the centuries. Neither is doubt the indis- 
 pensable prelude to belief, any more than it is 
 invariably succeeded by belief. There are minds 
 naturally constituted to believe, as there are minds 
 naturally constituted to doubt. I question, how- 
 ever, whether any safe position of assured faith 
 is attained without renouncing something we have 
 already held. As Bishop Hall says, he that never 
 changed any of his opinions never corrected any of 
 his mistakes. The mature conviction of the whole 
 
14 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 man, which is what Christianity contemplates and 
 demands, and with nothing short of which it can be 
 satisfied, must differ materially and intrinsically from 
 the unquestioning, unthinking, and unconscious faith 
 of childhood. If the subject-matter of beHef does 
 not change, there must at any rate be a change in 
 the manner of believing it There must, therefore, 
 be transition of some kind, showing itself in some 
 way. This transition may or may not assume the 
 form of doubt. In the present day it unquestion- 
 ably often assumes this form ; and I believe that a 
 state of doubt is always a transition state, and that 
 it will be seen to be so as the history of our time 
 develops itself. And it is a transition state of this 
 or a similar kind that is implied in the gospel idea 
 of conversion. Our Lord told His own immediate 
 followers that they must be converted. If in their 
 case such conversion was needful, it is impossible to 
 conceive of the case in which it would not be need- 
 ful ; and as a matter of fact we say that the heathen 
 world in becoming Christian was converted to Chris- 
 tianity. Can we, however, say with equal truth that 
 those brought up and instructed in the Christian 
 faith, require to be converted to Christianity } I 
 think we may, and I think it is this truth which it is 
 needful to bring before men's minds in the present 
 day. The relation of the Christian faith to the human 
 soul is in no way altered because the world has nomin- 
 ally become Christian. That faith must still convert 
 men to itself, or rather must convert them to Christ. 
 
IiV GOD. 15 
 
 I believe it is impossible to make men Christians by 
 simply instructing them in the facts and truths of 
 Christianity. Such a course will not communicate 
 to them the spiritual quickening without which they 
 cannot become Christians. And this spiritual quick- 
 ening alone, and by itself, will suffice to change all 
 their previous conceptions concerning Christ, and 
 will show them that whether they believed or 
 whether they doubted, they had not attained to 
 what the Scripture calls faith. 
 
 But without faith it is impossible to please God. 
 Ponder these words, and then ask yourselves 
 whether the mere childish assent to the articles 
 of the Apostles' Creed makes it more possible for 
 you, or can make it more possible for you, to 
 please God ; and I think the answer must be. No. 
 If, then, we are to consider our relation to the 
 articles of the Apostles' Creed, or their relation to 
 us, we must first endeavour to understand what we 
 mean by faith. " I believe in God the Father 
 Almighty," if it means anything, certainly if it 
 means what the text seems to say it ought to mean, 
 must mean more than, " I have certain notions about 
 God, more or less indefinite; certain opinions about 
 Him, which I am able to express more or less philo- 
 sophically and logically." God cannot concern Him- 
 self with what such poor creatures as we are think 
 about Him, or are able to syllogise about Him. 
 This is not to have faith in God. And strange to 
 say, from first to last the Bible gives us little or no 
 
 ifrrsriVEESITY 
 
i6 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 material for such exercise. It gives us no philo- 
 sophical definition of God. It tells us, indeed, that 
 God is a spirit, and that God is love, if you choose 
 to regard these as definitions ; but these, I fancy, do 
 not help us much, and these even are among the very 
 latest declarations that are recorded. But the Bible 
 assumes everywhere that we know and understand 
 who and what God is, and yet it nowhere endorses 
 any one's thoughts about Him, knowing that every- 
 one's must be inadequate and vain. Thus we all pro- 
 bably have a different idea of God, — certainly should 
 express it differently, and yet it speaks as though 
 we all had the same idea, or at least had a common 
 idea ; and so no doubt we have. If it were not so we 
 should not have the witness that there is in human 
 language ; but the very fact that God is an idea which 
 finds an equivalent expression in every human tongue, 
 is a conclusive proof that the idea, whatever it is, is a 
 primary idea, common to the human race, inherent in 
 and indigenous to the human mind. When, there- 
 fore, the Bible speaks of God it speaks of that to 
 which there is a witness in your heart and con- 
 science that you cannot deny ; you may strive to 
 analyse it and debate it with yourself, but you can 
 do little or nothing with it. You can get no further, 
 and you cannot get rid of it. And yet the Apostle 
 says, without faith it is impossible to please God, — ■ 
 without telling us who or what this God is whom 
 without faith it is impossible to please, or what this 
 faith is without which it is impossible to please Him ; 
 
IN GOD. 17 
 
 for I apprehend that the definition in the first verse, 
 that faith is the substance of tilings hoped for, the evi- 
 dence of things not seen, does not help us much. 
 
 But in making this appeal to faith the Gospel 
 shows its wonderful adaptation not only to the wants 
 but to the character and constitution of man. It is 
 faith upon which the whole intercourse of human life 
 and human society is built. We cannot live for a 
 single day, nor act for a single hour, without exer- 
 cising that faculty to which the Gospel appeals when 
 it appeals to faith. Where would commerce be 
 without credit } Where would family affection be 
 without confidence } Where would love be without 
 trust } Where would our dealings one with another 
 be without reliance on one another, and reliance on 
 the unrealised t And, further, what is it that occa- 
 sions so much disorder in human affairs, throwing 
 out all our calculations, marring all our schemes, de- 
 stroying our happiness, and bringing us to a stand- 
 still, but the want of faith, the abuse of trust, the 
 failure of credit, the breach of confidence and the 
 like — the absence, namely, of that very faculty or 
 quality the necessity of which the actual constitution 
 of our nature shows } 
 
 And here it is that light breaks in. Unless 
 we feel and act towards God, whom we can never 
 fully know, but whom we cannot help knowing 
 of, with the same trust, confidence, faith, reliance 
 that are so essential in our dealings with our 
 fellow-creatures, we cannot please Him. Why, a 
 
 2 
 
1 8 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 moment's consideration will show us plainly that 
 we cannot. How is it possible that we should 
 please Him if we come to Him without that which 
 we should require of any one who came to us, and 
 the absence of which would be fatal to any inter- 
 course between us ? And if any one replies, Oh 
 yes, but it is a great mistake to suppose that God 
 is like ourselves, I answer, That may or may not be 
 so, but the Bible proceeds on the assumption that 
 there is sufficient analogy between our relation to 
 one another and our relation to God, for the expe- 
 rience of the one to be a safe guide in our conduct of 
 the other ; and we cannot but see the reasonableness 
 of this, and the absolute ignorance in which we are 
 left if we reject such an analogy. For if it is not 
 faith which is requisite for pleasing God, is it unbe- 
 lief which is requisite for pleasing Him, or what is it 
 which is requisite } We cannot tell. We can merely 
 see, then, that without faith it must be impossible to 
 please God. 
 
 Now the Apostle gives us two reasons which 
 will serve to show yet further the nature of the 
 faith which he declares to be so essential. He that 
 co7neth to God 7mist believe that He isy and thai He 
 is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. The 
 accurate language in which he spoke made this even 
 more precise, for there is a difference between the 
 He is and the He is a rewarder. It is this : He that 
 cometh to God must believe that He is ; that is to 
 say, that He exists, — must believe in His existence; 
 
IN GOD. 19 
 
 which I should imagine is self-evident. How can a 
 man come to God if he does not believe in His 
 existence, or if he doubts or is not sure of His exist- 
 ence ? The revelation of the Word enters at a point 
 further advanced than that at which the prelimi- 
 nary question of God's existence is even possible ; it 
 accepts and assumes it. How can we predicate 
 anything about God if He is non-existent ? 
 
 But, further, the faith of which the writer speaks 
 requires a man to believe that to those coming to 
 Him by faith He becomes a rewarder if they seek 
 Him such a way as to seek Him out, and so to find 
 Him. And here is where the Gospel comes into colli- 
 sion with our modern philosophy. This latter will 
 leave us our God as a bare existence, because there 
 is considerable difficulty, philosophical and otherwise, 
 in denying that ; but it takes from us the conditional 
 character of God, in which He becomes something to 
 those with faith which without faith He is not. And 
 here is the first point at which the Christian faith 
 conflicts with reason, and is assailed by reason. We 
 may as well confess it at once, and decide what we 
 will do, for if we are staggered here at the very out- 
 set I do not see how we are to become Christians. Phi- 
 losophy has sundry theories about nature being God 
 — becoming, that is, God — in transition, and the like. 
 If, therefore, philosophy can adopt such language for 
 her own purposes, I do not see why philosophy should 
 in the abstract object to the Apostle using such a 
 phrase. At any rate, this is what he says, and in 
 
20 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 saying it he gives a definite truth for faith to believe. 
 I come to God believing that He is. Do I come to 
 Him believing any more than this, believing that if 
 I seek Him out — that is, so as to find Him — He 
 will become to me a rewarder ; that He will stand 
 to me in a different relation from that in which He 
 would stand to me if I did not come to Him, or did 
 not seek Him out so as to find Him ; that He will 
 become, and therefore be to me, what He does not 
 become, and therefore is not, to others who do not 
 seek Him ? That is the question. Holding this 
 faith) I can please Him. Holding it not, I cannot 
 please Him. If I intend my profession / believe to 
 be of any value, I must believe this. I must believe 
 that upon faith, upon trust in God, I enter into a 
 new world : I set my foot upon another sphere : I 
 look up to another sky : I behold another land- 
 scape. That is the very reward. If God is not a 
 rewarder, then He is to me nothing. My position is 
 unaltered. Faith does nothing for me ; it leaves me 
 as it finds me. God is an abstraction, the contem- 
 plation of which can do neither good nor harm ; 
 certainly not good. 
 
 Now this is the kind of faith with which the 
 world is very well satisfied ; with which it is 
 perfectly willing to make a compromise, whether 
 in the way of ritual, or external acts of devotion, 
 or sacrifice of substance, or anything else, be- 
 cause it is a faith which leaves us as it finds us, 
 essentially unchanged, unrestored, secretly unin- 
 
IN GOD. 
 
 fluenced and unconverted. The shell of childish 
 indifferent, unconscious faith has not been pene- 
 trated and broken by the germinant and vivifying 
 seed within ; whereas, on the other hand, it is im- 
 possible to believe that God becomes to us who seek 
 Him out a rewarder, that is, one who modifies His 
 conduct towards us, and acts towards us in a special 
 manner, as a living and acting God, as a person 
 dealing with us, controlling, guiding, moulding, influ- 
 encing and blessing us, without being ourselves 
 changed and influenced thereby. Such being the 
 revealed character of God, we surrender and submit 
 ourselves to Him by going to Him with that belief. 
 We put ourselves in a position to receive of His 
 influence, to be moulded by His spirit, and are 
 moulded and influenced accordingly. For this is 
 what is implied by God's being a rewarder ; it mat- 
 ters not what the reward is, — in Abraham's case it was 
 sheep and oxen, in David's it was victory in battle, 
 in Elijah's it was national reform, in Paul's it was 
 the conversion ol many lands to the name of Christ. 
 The reward is varied and various ; the principle of 
 the reward is one, and the principle involved in the 
 reward is one ; it is that of God acting in a special 
 way, in which He would not otherwise act, in conse- 
 quence of or on condition of a special character in 
 those who come to Him. There is no thought that 
 men repudiate more readily than that of God's 
 action being conditional on man's belief or on man's 
 action, and yet what else do the words imply, He 
 
22 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 that Cometh to God must believe that He is, and that 
 He is a rewarder of them, that diligently seek Him f 
 
 It is possible, then, to believe this in a childish 
 way, and yet, when we have learnt by experience 
 its full meaning, to believe it very differently, 
 and yet like a child. There must be a transition 
 between the two conditions. It may or may not be 
 one of doubt, but the sequel of the transition is none 
 other than conversion. We are taught to believe in 
 a living God who has affixed a special reward to 
 special faith, which, in fact, is life. And without 
 such a faith as this it is impossible to please God, 
 because God can only take pleasure in what partakes 
 of His own life and reflects His own work. He 
 has no pleasure in anything short of this. He has 
 no pleasure in the legs of a man, in his physical 
 powers, or acquired skill, or mental endowments, or 
 in the results of all combined, but in his faith, in the 
 way in which he comes to Him, in the fulness with 
 which he trusts Him, the readiness with which he 
 serves Him, the willingness with which he accepts 
 the dispositions and decrees of His providence and 
 grace. Thus coming unto Him we shall have, as 
 Enoch had, this testimony ^ that we please God, 
 
23 
 
 III. 
 
 THE FATHER. 
 
 To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and 
 we in Him. — i CoR. viii. 6. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY, when it came upon earth, 
 came not only as a positive but as a protes- 
 tant religion. It was not only to an eminent 
 degree constructive in its form, but also terribly de- 
 structive in its operation. It presented certain facts 
 for man's acceptance, but waged likewise fatal war 
 with the Pantheon of heathenism. Here we have 
 an instance of this. For though there be that are 
 called gods, whether in heaven or in earthy (as there 
 be gods many, and lords many^ yet to us, says the 
 writer, there is but one God, the Father, of zvhom 
 are all things, and we in Him. The Gospel had 
 come with destructive power against these gods 
 many, and lords many, in heaven and in earth. If 
 there was one only, there could not be many ; the 
 many must give place to the one. 
 
 It is to be observed also that the gods and the 
 lords appear to be the same. Those who were gods 
 were also lords, and those who were lords were also 
 gods. This is important when we come to the one 
 
24 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 God and the one Lord who are immediately after- 
 wards proclaimed. 
 
 The Christian faith, therefore, believes in and 
 declares one only God. " I believe in God the 
 Father Almighty ; " or, as the Nicene confession 
 has it, " I believe in 07te God, the Father Almighty." 
 This is the corner-stone of revelation as to the being 
 of God. We must hold fast by the unity of God, or 
 else we relapse again into the exploded errors of 
 polytheism which Christianity denounced and did 
 away with. Thus there is but one God. The 
 Christian creed acknowledges one supreme object 
 of worship, and only one. In this, indeed, it is not 
 singular, for even polytheistic religions held that 
 there was one god supreme over all the others ; but 
 the inferior powers and essences were exalted into 
 gods. Now that we have learnt to study God 
 through His revelation of nature, we find that all 
 things point conclusively to the unity of God. 
 There is but one will expressed and executed, from 
 one end of the universe to the other. There is no 
 trace of any opposite or conflicting power to divide 
 with the one God the dominion of the universe. 
 The Christian belief, therefore, so far, is in harmony 
 with, and is confirmed by, the teachings of nature 
 and the conclusions of reason. 
 
 And there is ground for much joy and comfort and 
 consolation in this thought of the absolute unity of 
 God. For if we have found out God, then have we 
 reached the goal of all thought, and of all worship, 
 
THE FATHER. 25 
 
 and of all existence. We can get no further. The 
 object that we have apprehended is indeed in itself 
 infinite, but it is also one. There is none higher, 
 none holier, none mightier. It is one and it is all. 
 And thus being one, and being all, in relation to 
 God time and space are altogether eliminated and 
 taken out of the way. Thus the God who is near 
 us in London is near us also in China, and in the 
 uttermost parts of the earth, and is near our friends, • 
 if we have them, there ; and thus God is a meeting- 
 point between us and our friends who may be 
 separated by vast tracts of space or by long dis- 
 tance of time. There is but One between us and 
 them, and He is the same to us as He is to them, 
 and the same to them as He is to us. 
 
 If the doctrine, therefore, of one God were a 
 theory and nothing more, it would not be without a 
 certain amount of attractiveness and moral influence, 
 such as many opinions, which are opinions only, 
 oftentimes possess ; but knowing, as we do, that it is 
 a fact, and a fact of which we are assured by revela- 
 tion, and which is confirmed to us by science and by 
 reason, it cannot fail to be to us a source of strength. 
 It is the ONE before whom we now stand who deals 
 with us, and with whom we now deal; before whom 
 the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles stood in the 
 centuries that are past ; with whom Christ our Lord 
 in His manhood had to deal, and Who dealt with 
 Him. No wonder that the unity of God was found, 
 in the seventh century, to be the mighty engine 
 
26 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 which Mohammedanism proved it, at a time when 
 idolatry gross and multiform had usurped upon the 
 life of the Christian Church, because it is a living 
 truth, instinct with the life of Him whose truth it is, 
 and whose nature it proclaims ; and whenever it is 
 apprehended in its truth it will come with power to 
 the soul that grasps it. To us there is but one God. 
 But if this truth is mighty, how much more is the 
 next, which is one of the cardinal truths of the 
 Gospel, and, in some sense, its special and peculiar 
 revelation. The one God is also named the Father. 
 Our modern phraseology is very fond of speaking of 
 God as a Father, and the Fatherhood of God, from 
 the days of Edward Irving downwards, has been a 
 very popular doctrine, and one calculated to awaken 
 a hearty popular response. But I rather think that 
 to speak of God as a Father, in the abstract, is some- 
 thing more, and at the same time something less, 
 than is warranted by the teaching of the Gospel. 
 As was shown in the last lecture, the Gospel reveals 
 God as the conditioned and not as the unconditioned ; 
 it reveals God as He becomes to us upon accepting 
 His offer. The Gospel speaks of God as 07tr Father, 
 as yoiLV Father, as the Father, but never simply as 
 a father. That is to say, it pledges itself to no 
 philosophical or merely abstract affirmation about 
 the Fatherhood of God, or His independent cha- 
 racter as a father, but simply assumes the relation 
 in which He is willing to stand to us upon our com- 
 ing to Him as He invites us. The language of the 
 
THE FATHER. 
 
 27 
 
 Gospel is not, " I am a father, have a father's heart," 
 and the like, however true in themselves these state- 
 ments may be, but, / will be a Father unto you ; 
 which necessarily implies a condition to be fulfilled. 
 And thus God is to us the Father whom He has 
 proclaimed Himself. 
 
 But when we come to enquire how this is, we 
 find that the earliest historical announcement of this 
 truth was always, as a matter of fact, connected 
 with the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. The 
 original Gospel was not the Gospel of the Father- 
 hood of God, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son 
 of God, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. In 
 treating, therefore, of this subject, it is difficult not 
 to anticipate what must naturally, in the order of 
 things, come later. God is the Father, because He 
 is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and because 
 in Him, but only in Him, He is our Father. It 
 may seem hard even to attempt to assign any 
 limitation, or to appear to do so, to a truth so 
 popular and so grateful as the Fatherhood of God ; 
 but I conceive by the whole tenor of the Gospel 
 (which, pray remember, you can examine for your- 
 selves, and so determine whether I am right or 
 wrong) we are bound to do. Human language is 
 inevitably deceptive and necessarily ambiguous. 
 When men speak in a popular way of the Father- 
 hood of God, they not only state more, but they 
 mean less, than the Gospel states or means. That 
 God is a Father is a primary truth, not of revela- 
 
'28 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 tion, but of instinct or of reason, however little 
 reason or instinct may have been able unaided to 
 discover it. In this sense, not only Christianity but 
 also Judaism, not only Judaism but also heathenism, 
 has conceived of God ; and Father Zeus and Father 
 Jove are terms familiar to us even in the heathen 
 classics, as are likewise their equivalents in the 
 Indian epic and dramatic poetry. And certainly 
 the great Creator who has called into existence 
 millions of immortal beings who hold an exalted 
 and a supreme position in the scale of His creation, 
 cannot be regarded otherwise than as their Father. 
 His very creation has confirmed to Him that right, 
 and established to them their claim to regard them- 
 selves as His children ; but if the Gospel appellation 
 " Father " has no deeper or further significance than 
 this, then verily that Gospel cannot be a revelation. 
 We are no further than we were, after the life and 
 labours, the death and resurrection of the Lord 
 Jesus, and the preaching and martyrdom of apostles 
 and evangelists. But the Gospel teaches us plainly 
 that to call God " Father " with the full depth and 
 sweetness of the name is the result of the Holy 
 Spirit's teaching, and consequently is neither or- 
 dinary nor natural, is something more than instinct, 
 and higher than reason can pretend to be. 
 
 In fact. Scripture has itself furnished us with a 
 standard whereby we may gauge the meaning and 
 reality of this term " Father," as it is applied to God. 
 In one of our Lord's conversations with the Jews, 
 
THE FATHER. 29 
 
 we find them asserting emphatically, We have one 
 Father, even God, Whereupon our Lord rejoins, 
 If God were your Father, ye woidd love me, for I 
 proceeded forth and came from God ; neither came 
 I of myself but He sent me. Now it cannot be 
 doubted that the Jews, on this occasion, appealed 
 to the Fatherhood of God very much in the popular 
 sense, and something more, for their appeal was 
 special and not merely general ; but He disallowed 
 it because they lacked the sure and infallible test 
 of loving the Christ whom the Father had sent ; so 
 that there can be no true sense of the Fatherhood 
 of God unless it is coupled with a personal love 
 for Jesus Christ. Thus we are brought back by a 
 different path to identically the same point as 
 before — that God is only in the higher and the 
 only worthy sense a Father according as He is 
 acknowledged as the Father ; if He is the Father 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, then is He indeed a Father 
 to us ; if He is acknowledged as the Father, then 
 He becomes to us, in deed and in truth, a Father, 
 and that is our reward. 
 
 And how shall we attempt to express, far less 
 exhaust, the meaning of that word " Father " ? I 
 question if any one who is not himself a father can 
 understand the fulness of its meaning. Who has 
 not felt that when his own child has first called 
 him father he has had opened out to him an avenue 
 to the hallowed significance of that name which 
 imagination was unable to depict before ? There 
 
30 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 is always something about those consecrated rela- 
 tionships of life which experience alone can give 
 us. There is no one who is ignorant of what 
 fatherhood implies. We all know what it is to 
 have had or to have lost a father ; but those only 
 who have children can know the additional elements 
 of sacred love which are associated with the actual 
 experience of fatherhood. There is a special fatherly 
 joy which the father alone, and not the son, can know, 
 and which is taught, not in idea, but by experience. 
 
 But with reference to God it is not only idea but 
 experience also that fails to apprehend the full 
 significance of the name. For what is the earthly 
 relationship of father } Is it anything more than the 
 reflex of the heavenly t God has stamped a rela- 
 tionship which is peculiarly His own, inasmuch as 
 it is that in which He stands to His eternal Son, 
 upon the very constitution of human society ; but in 
 so doing He has bestowed a copy and not the original, 
 He has multiplied the stamp and not the die. He still 
 remains, and must to all eternity remain, the Father, 
 while each of us is nothing more according to the 
 disposition of His providence than a father. We 
 borrow our fatherhood from Him, as it is He alone 
 who has lent us the application of the title " Father." 
 
 And what, then, is the upshot of all this } Why, 
 brethren, that the Fatherhood of God, and that 
 which is implied thereby, is something vastly more 
 than even the most blessed experience of earthly 
 fatherhodd can enable us to apprehend. If we who 
 
THE FATHER. 
 
 are fathers know more of earthly fatherhood than 
 those who are not, yet even we, the fondest and 
 the tenderest of us, cannot rise to the full apprecia- 
 tion of that which His fatherhood involves. He 
 loves us, if we belong to Him, as we who are fathers 
 love our children, only with a love of which that is 
 the shadow and not the substance, the reflection 
 and not the image reflected. And when we say, as 
 we often do, so thoughtlessly, "I believe in God the 
 Father," this is what we ought to mean, if indeed 
 we do beheve in Him. 
 
 But this very fatherhood is itself a subject of 
 belief We cannot prove it. We can only believe 
 it, and we can only experience it by believing it. 
 Observe the difference. We do not create it by 
 believing it, for then we should be the victims 
 merely of delusion ; it reveals itself to us, it has 
 been revealed to us by Christ, it is revealed to us 
 by the Spirit, and we apprehend it by believing it. 
 But just as no exhibition of human love can pro- 
 duce the experience of that love if it is met with 
 coldness or lukewarmness, or suspicion and distrust, 
 so is it also with the Divine love, — the full experience 
 of it is obviously and of necessity dependent upon 
 faith; it cannot be otherwise, as faith worketh by 
 love, and love is apprehended by faith, and cannot 
 be apprehended without faith. If we do not believe 
 that God loves us as a father, it is impossible that 
 we can feel towards Him and love Him as children, 
 and it is equally manifest that if He really does love 
 us as a father, the practical evidence of that love 
 
32 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 US as a father, the practical evidence of that love 
 must be sought in the reality of the love with which 
 we requite it. To as there is but one God the 
 Father; therefore, must we express, not the bare con- 
 fession of an intellectual creed, but the heartfelt 
 acknowledgment of a spiritual fact of which we have 
 become experimentally conscious. This is further 
 implied by the peculiar idiom which is commonly 
 used in the New Testament, and is adopted by 
 the language of the Creeds, — "I believe into God 
 the Father Almighty." The faith is not sbmething 
 which we can regard as apart from ourselves, in 
 which we have no vivid or vital interest; not some- 
 thing which we can talk about with indifference, as 
 though it did not concern us ; it is a belief by which 
 we so to say project and cast ourselves on and lose 
 ourselves in God. We find that the one God is He 
 in whom we are, in whom we live and move and 
 have our being ; that, in the language of St. Paul, it 
 is not only He, their Creator, from whom are all 
 things as their origin and source, but also that we 
 are not in but into Him. It may be fanciful, but it 
 seems to me that there is something more implied 
 here than that we are, as Alford has it, for him, — 
 that is, His purposes, to serve His will; which is an 
 obvious truth, if not a truism ; as though the writer 
 meant that the Father was indeed the source of all 
 things, ourselves among them, but that we, moreover, 
 in virtue of His paternal revelation and His fatherly 
 love had been brought back again to Him, that we 
 had returned like the rivers to the ocean from which 
 
THE FATHER. 33 
 
 they had been drawn by exhalation, that the very 
 object of all God's dealing with us, whether in provi- 
 dence or in grace, was that we might return to and 
 be lost in Him. This, at least, is the full force of 
 the Apostle's language, whether or not we have ex- 
 pressed his thought. 
 
 What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter.? 
 That there is one God and Father of all, who is 
 above all and through all and in us all ; that our 
 relation to Him is not affected by time or space, — 
 He is ever near to us and always with us, — but by 
 the moral condition of the inner man. What is the 
 index of the relation of the human parent to the 
 child } is it not, in one word, the affections } When 
 they are unmoved, or cold and torpid, is not the 
 first principle of nature violated, her holiest law 
 broken.? It is so likewise with our relation to our 
 Heavenly Father; there can be, if I may so say, 
 no blood relationship between us, no vital bond of 
 living union, unless our affections are kindled 
 towards Him. We may boast of the Fatherhood 
 of God, of the proclamation of that truth being the 
 glory of our age, and the like, but unless we love 
 Him, and the yearnings of our heart go forth to 
 Him, we know Him not; for we love Him because 
 He first loved us} is St. John's assurance, and if we 
 love Him not, we have no witness in ourselves that 
 the love of the Father hath gone forth to us and 
 embraced us as His children. 
 
 ' I John iv. 19. 
 
 3 
 
IV. 
 
 ALMIGHTY. 
 
 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared 
 to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God ; walk before me, 
 and be thou perfect. — Gen. xvii. i. 
 
 THIS is the first time that the epithet Almighty 
 appears in Scripture, and you will observe 
 that it appears as a distinct revelation communicated 
 by God Himself. It would be interesting to enquire 
 whether the term was new, were it not clearly im- 
 possible to decide the question absolutely. Probably, 
 however, most persons nowadays will be disposed 
 to believe that it was not new ; that it sprang up 
 naturally in the course of linguistic formation, and 
 was adopted by God on this occasion. The passage 
 in Exodus, / appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, 
 and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but 
 by my name JeJwvah was I not known to them,^ may 
 seem perhaps to militate against such a notion ; but 
 whether it does or not, the statement of Genesis 
 is that the Lord appeared to Abram and declared 
 Himself as God Almighty. That was the revela- 
 tion, the personal manifestation, and not merely the 
 
 * Exod. vi. 3. 
 
36 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 invention or the adoption of the name. Let us try- 
 to remember that we know nothing of God Almighty 
 unless we know Him ; and this was the knowledge, 
 or at least a step in it, which was now revealed to 
 Abraham. 
 
 And it is interesting to observe the scriptural 
 history of this word. It is found about half-a-dozen 
 times in Genesis, once in Exodus as above, twice in 
 Numbers, but not elsewhere in the Pentateuch. It 
 is also found twice in Ruth, in the Psalms, and 
 in Ezekiel, and once in Isaiah, and Joel, but 
 more than thirty times in the book of Job. This 
 is its use in the Old Testament, and we may 
 perhaps gather that it is one of the oldest and 
 simplest appellations attributed to God by the 
 Semitic nations. When we turn to the New 
 Testament we find it once used by St. Paul in 
 his second epistle to Corinth, and eight times in 
 the Revelation of St. John ; but nowhere else. Thus, 
 with the exception of the Book of Job, it is more 
 common in the first and last books of the Bible 
 than it is in any other. It is clear, then, that as 
 in Genesis we find the Lord adopting this name, 
 so in Revelation we find it still acknowledged and 
 authorised as a Divine appellation. Among our- 
 selves its usage is somewhat similar ; it is an 
 epithet pertaining to and characterising natural 
 rather than revealed religion. When we speak of 
 the Almighty we allude, I fancy, to the Divine 
 Being in a somewhat distant and objective manner ; 
 
ALMIGHTY, 37 
 
 not as in immediate relation to ourselves, though 
 on the other hand "Almighty and Everlasting God" 
 is one of the most familiar and appropriate forms for 
 the commencement of our prayers. And so I appre- 
 hend that Job, living, as he did, beyond the pale of 
 direct revelation, although afterwards the subject of 
 revelation, very commonly spoke of the Almighty 
 as of a person known chiefly in the way of natural 
 rather than of revealed religion ; while the patri- 
 archs were clearly more familiar with this ancient 
 name than they were with Jehovah, the special name 
 of revelation, though it was, as we have seen, a 
 name readily adopted and sanctioned by God in His 
 earliest, as subsequently in His latest, manifestations. 
 
 The apparent meaning of the name also, as we 
 find it in the Old Testament, seems to differ slightly 
 from its equivalent in the New ; the one answering 
 perhaps more nearly to our own term — Almighty — 
 and suggesting the highest degree of power, and the 
 other suggesting that rather of dominion. 
 
 So much, then, for the history and the signifi- 
 cation of the name. What, then, does it tell us 
 about God, and how does it affect our relation to 
 Him } " I believe in God the Father Almighty " 
 is one of the earliest announcements that we receive 
 of God. Let us dwell upon it in the natural course 
 of our subject at the present time, and take for our 
 guide in doing so the words in which the Lord Him- 
 self first adopted the application of the name. 
 
 In continuation, then, of what was said in the last 
 
38 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 lecture, if there is but one God and one supreme 
 will, it is obvious that He must be almighty, other- 
 wise He could not be one, or could not be supreme. 
 Thus far, then, the declarations of the Creed are 
 simply moving along a parallel line with those of 
 instinctive and unrevealed religion, if indeed the 
 lines be not identical. "The Almighty" is a name 
 which spontaneously rises to our lips when we desire 
 to express our innate conceptions of the Divine 
 Being, so far as they refer to His power. The 
 conception of a being who holds in his hand un- 
 limited resources, who has absolute control of the 
 affairs of men, and is Lord of all the powers of 
 nature, is surely one that may be regarded as 
 indigenous to the soil of the human mind. It is 
 difficult to eradicate such a conception from the 
 heart. Our own weakness and subjection to a 
 variety of tyrannous and oppressive forces over 
 which we have no control, and against which it is 
 useless to contend, serves of itself to suggest to us 
 the existence of a being whom, inasmuch as he is 
 mightier than all, we term " All-mighty." Human 
 language is itself a witness to the naturalness, not 
 to say the inevitable rise, of such a thought. 
 
 And it is a very grand thought, for it implies 
 that the Divine Being is on the one hand perfectly 
 free, and on the other is absolutely independent of, 
 and disengaged from. His works. It is a natural 
 protest, therefore, against the old Greek notion of 
 the Deity Himself being bound by fate ; of there 
 
ALMIGHTY. 
 
 39 
 
 being some impersonal power mightier than the 
 power of the Most High, some irrevocable decree 
 of which He was not the author but the slave ; 
 and it is a protest also against that other idea, 
 with which perhaps this is cognate, or to which 
 it ultimately leads, that God is but another name 
 for nature ; that He is but the spirit of His works ; 
 that, in fact. His works are He. Those forms, then, of 
 natural religion, which admit of our using the term 
 " Almighty" and its equivalents, are opposed on the 
 one hand to the doctrine of necessity, and on the 
 other to that of God's being but the expression 
 of His works, or at the best a sort of anima mundi. 
 So far, therefore, as natural religion is what we 
 may term orthodox, it goes along with the confession 
 of the Creed. But if, on the contrary, natural religion 
 approximates to an atheistic or a pantheistic belief, 
 the Christian Creed is most distinctly opposed to it, 
 and so also are the declarations of Scripture, of which 
 the Christian Creed is professedly but the expression. 
 You will observe, therefore, that when the Lord 
 appeared to Abram, as we are told in the text He 
 did, and adopted, if He did not communicate, the 
 word "almighty," He took no pains to refute either 
 of the philosophical conceptions just alluded to, 
 but assumed altogether their falsehood, and made 
 a direct and positive enunciation of the truth, — " I 
 am the Almighty God;" "I am God Almighty." 
 The simple and unsophisticated mind of Abram had 
 very possibly never been crossed with these double 
 
40 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 alternative philosophical conceptions ; but whether 
 it had or not — for we cannot affirm that it had 
 not — the Lord concerned Himself only with the 
 declaration of the truth ; and the other questions, 
 as far as Abram was concerned, were for ever 
 settled and disposed of 
 
 And so they will be as far as we are concerned, 
 if we are content to accept the revelation to Abram 
 as a true revelation, and are willing to acknowledge 
 that it marked a distinct and definite stage of 
 advancement in man's knowledge of God. And I 
 confess that I do not myself see how the abstract 
 questions and claims of theism, atheism, and pan- 
 theism are to be finally set at rest on merely 
 philosophical grounds if we do not admit the 
 element of revelation to give the verdict of autho- 
 rity. The doctrine of necessity is one which has 
 exercised its sway over many master-minds, and 
 that is akin, if it is not equivalent, to atheism. The 
 doctrine that nature and God are convertible terms, 
 is* one that is greatly in vogue at the present day, 
 and numbers among its adherents minds of the 
 highest power and most varied accomplishments ; 
 but all these considerations are scattered to the 
 winds and reduced to their just dimensions if we 
 have adequate cause to believe that the actual voice 
 of the Divine Being was ever heard to say, mercifully 
 revealing that which His creatures could not finally 
 and conclusively discover, " I am the Almighty God." 
 
 If, therefore, we are prepared to accept this an- 
 
ALMIGHTY. 41 
 
 noun cement as in any sense Divine, and consequently- 
 authoritative and final, let us see what it brings us 
 to. In the first place it assures us of the power 
 of prayer. As soon as we are fully persuaded and 
 sincerely convinced that the term "Almighty" is not 
 a misnomer as applied to God, — that it is a term 
 oftentimes rising involuntarily to our lips, which 
 has had the direct sanction of the Lord Himself in 
 His earliest and latest revelations, then there is an 
 end altogether to any abstract theoretical difficulties 
 about the possibility or the efficacy of prayer. 
 
 It is a very just remark, that though very few 
 men are philosophers, yet an unconscious philo- 
 sophy enters into and tinges all forms and phases of 
 popular thought and speech. And so the mass of 
 irrelevant and crude ideas on the subject of prayer 
 that we frequently meet with are a true index of 
 the philosophy that underlies them. Take, for ex- 
 ample, the old stumbling-block of prayers for weather. 
 If we are persuaded that there is a God, and that 
 He is almighty — I say, if we are indeed persuaded 
 of those primary truths, then what becomes of any 
 theoretical difficulty about prayers for weather } 
 Just this, that we who do not see the whole, but only 
 see the smallest possible part, cannot regulate the 
 whole, and cannot decide how the part is to be 
 regulated without seriously disarranging the whole; 
 that is to say, that we, who are not almighty, 
 cannot conceive or determine how He, who is al- 
 n^ighty, is to act under certain circumstances. I am 
 
42 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 at a loss to know what issue such difficulties come 
 to, and I am sure that if we admit the theoretical 
 cogency of these difficulties, it becomes very hard 
 indeed to say at what point the difficulties cease, or 
 to determine what particular thing it is we may 
 pray for, or to decide whether any prayer at all is in 
 the abstract possible, or, therefore, to affirm that the 
 Son of Man did not deceive us when He who knew 
 the Father said, Ask^ and it shall be given you} ; and. 
 All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, 
 ye shall receive? 
 
 But, on the other hand, having settled that point 
 once for all, and having accepted God's own 
 endorsement of the term " almighty " as accurately 
 appropriate when applied to Him, see what scope it 
 gives to the exercise of prayer. I really do not know 
 what it is that we may not pray for if only we are 
 content to associate with our prayer the indispens- 
 able and the ever implied condition, if it be Thy 
 will, — Not my will, but Thine be done? When our 
 blessed Lord said. Let this cup pass from me^ He 
 was asking for that which, within all conceivable 
 limits, could not be granted ; He was certainly asking 
 what was as theoretically difficult as any change in 
 the weather; and yet that revelation did not prevent 
 His asking it. Surely, then, His example, if He is 
 an example for us, may be our guide in this matter. 
 
 My brethren, there is nothing more calculated to 
 
 * Matt. vii. 7. ' Luke xxii. 42. 
 
 2 Matt. xxi. 22. * Matt. xxvi. 39, 
 
ALMIGHTY. 
 
 43 
 
 restrain prayer before God than any limitations which 
 our carnal reason may choose to assign to the almighty 
 power of Almighty God. That such limitations do 
 exist is of course an obvious truth : for instance, 
 Grod cannot recall the past, and God cannot tell a 
 lie ; God cannot make that which is in itself wrong to 
 be in itself right. • It is He who has established the 
 eternal distinctions between right and wrong, and He 
 cannot, because He will not, confound or abolish 
 them. This also is the opposite side of that other 
 truth which declares that God is almighty ; but are 
 our minds so exceedingly circumscribed that they 
 cannot hold in their integrity and in their indepen- 
 dence two distinct and opposite truths ? All such 
 truths are reconcilable because they are united by 
 an invisible bond which we cannot discover, just as no 
 man ever yet discovered the axis of the earth, on 
 which, however, all men know that the earth revolves. 
 But in the matter of prayer it is enough for us to 
 know that there is absolutely no limit to the 
 almighty power of God except the almighty will of 
 God, coupled indeed with the knowledge of that 
 which is for our absolute good. We that are fathers 
 would gladly give anything that we can to our 
 children if we believed it was for their good; and 
 shall not He who is the Almighty Father give unto 
 us, His children, out of His infinite resources, that 
 which He knows is for our good } — and more than 
 that we should not be wise in desiring. 
 
 The revelation of the name "Almighty" has, how- 
 
44 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 ever, another and a very intimate relation to ourselves, 
 with which it is joined in God's words to Abram, 
 Walk before .me^ and be thou perfect. And it is 
 here that we discover the evidence that the former 
 announcement was a true revelation, because the 
 truth which is now implied is precisely that which 
 the natural mind cannot discover, and never has dis- 
 covered, namely, that in the walking before God 
 lies the secret and the power of human perfection. 
 Now, man believes that so far as man approximates 
 to perfection it must be by the development and in- 
 tegrity of his moral character. Humanly speaking, 
 the perfect man is he who is perfect in his relations 
 to his fellow-man, and human judgment can take 
 cognisance of no other perfection* The just, the 
 upright, the merciful, the pure, in human estima- 
 tion, is the perfect man — at least it can exhibit 
 and demand no higher perfection ; and yet such per- 
 fection is but another name for imperfection, is in 
 the highest degree imperfect, because it concerns 
 itself only with one side of human nature, and that 
 the smallest side. Now God says to Abram nothing 
 about his moral character, that is, his conduct to 
 his fellow-man, but only says. Walk before me, a7id 
 be thou perfect ; or, in other words, " Walk before 
 me, and thou shalt be perfect. I will guarantee 
 that thy perfection follows as a natural consequence 
 upon thy walk before me." Perfection, therefore, 
 is not a thing built up out of the materials of human 
 life on the basis of conduct towards our fellows. 
 
ALMIGHTY. 45 
 
 but it is a thing which follows naturally and spon- 
 taneously from the just perception and true realisa- 
 tion of the position and relation in which we stand 
 to God. That is to say, human perfection is to be 
 found in God ; not in human conduct, but in the 
 Divine regulation of the life, in its disposition God- 
 wards, which when it is as it should be carries with 
 it and secures the right discharge of all duties 
 relating to our fellow-man. And here we recognise 
 very plainly the vital force of that blessed Gospel 
 truth, that a man is not justified by his works, but 
 by faith towards God. That which makes a man 
 truly righteous is not any effort on his part to 
 achieve in action a completeness and wholeness of 
 character which may command, if it does not aim at 
 securing, the admiration of his fellow-men, the com- 
 mendation of himself, but the fact that, leaning on 
 the invisible God, looking to the Father who is 
 almighty, who can call those things which be not as 
 though they were, he finds in Him a righteousness and 
 perfection which he has utterly renounced in himself, 
 but which having been found in Him has a necessary 
 and inevitable tendency to dominate and sanctify all 
 his human and mundane relations, and which is 
 personally and inwardly the realisation of an idea 
 which cannot otherwise be achieved, but is doomed 
 to perpetual and recurring disappointment. And 
 thus the old words are verified when we know the 
 Almighty God, for we walk before Him and are 
 perfect. 
 
47 
 
 V. 
 
 MAKER OF HEA VEN AND EARTH, 
 
 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope 
 is in the Lord his God : which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all 
 that therein is : which keepeth truth for ever.— Psalm cxlvi. 5, 6. 
 
 T^HE next truth which is brought before us in 
 ■^ the Apostles' Creed is that God the Father 
 Almighty is maker of heaven and earth. The Nicene 
 Creed adds, "And of all things visible and invisible ; " 
 thereby seeming to imply what the other does not ex- 
 plicitly state — the existence of an invisible, that is, 
 an immaterial, world of spiritual essences. Hitherto 
 the conception of God has been that of a supreme 
 omnipotent fatherly Being, who stands in special re- 
 lations to us His children, which He has made known 
 to us by revelation. Now we have another aspect of 
 His character, which is that of the Creator of this 
 material universe, and of all the beings that inhabit 
 it. This is a very important fact concerning our 
 belief in God, and one by no means so simple as it 
 may appear. For all difficulties about revelation 
 easily resolve themselves into the question whether 
 the God of the Bible is the God of nature ; and 
 thus the very argument of Bishop Butler's Analogy 
 
48 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 was this, that objections to the Scriptural revelation 
 were virtually groundless, because the same difficul- 
 ties confronted us in our observation of nature which 
 were thought to be fat3,l to the Divine origin of 
 revelation. Now it is one of the most conspicuous 
 glories of the old Hebrew Scriptures that they are 
 distinct and unfaltering in their testimony on this 
 point. There is no hesitation or ambiguity in their 
 utterances about it. The very first words of them 
 are, In the begimiing God created the heaven and 
 the earth; and here in this Psalm we have the 
 clear assertion that the God of Jacob is He who 
 made heaven and eai'th, the sea^ and all that therein 
 is. I would just point out by the way that the 
 writer was manifestly conversant with, and is re- 
 ferring to, the Mosaic narrative of creation in the 
 opening chapter of Genesis, — that must have been 
 the foundation of his knowledge, even as it is the 
 authority for ours, — and then proceed to develop 
 the thought as it is here expressed, and deduce the 
 consequences which follow from it. 
 
 When we say that God made the heaven and the 
 earthy and the sea, and all that therein is, what do we 
 mean ? Is our assertion what may be called historic, 
 or is it chiefly causal } — that is to say, does it refer 
 principally to a moment in the past when these things 
 did not exist, or does it speak rather of their existence 
 in the present, and point us to what is behind them, 
 out of sight, as their primal ^ origin and cause 1 I 
 think that commonly, from the ideas of sequence 
 
MAKER OF HE A VEN AND EARTH. 49 
 
 which are innate to our minds, we do associate with 
 this statement one of time which does seem to carry 
 us back to that distant past when there was no 
 heaven or earth or sea. And at a period when the 
 present existence of the world was commonly believed 
 to date only from some six thousand years ago it 
 was very easy not only to do so but to acquiesce 
 in doing it. Vast as that space of time is, for it 
 more than embraced the whole of known human 
 history, it was as nothing to what was beyond it, for 
 beyond it there was an eternity of nothing — chaos 
 and old night. Now that science has taught us that 
 the past of the existing universe is, humanly speak- 
 ing, unlimited, that the human faculties are totally 
 incompetent to measure or to grasp it, there arises 
 at once a needless difficulty as to the conception of 
 this particular point of past time in which God made 
 the heaven and the earth, and the sea, and all that 
 is therein. We not unnaturally find it impossible 
 to conceive of such a moment or of such a condition 
 of circumstances. It baffles our powers. Whereas 
 then ignorance told us there was an eternity of 
 emptiness preceding the existing order of things, 
 which was, comparatively speaking, but of yesterday, 
 science has taught us to extend the eternity to the 
 existing order of things, and leave the previous 
 eternity, which even science cannot get rid of 
 entirely, alone, because our powers must fail some- 
 where, and they may as well fail there. The con- 
 ception of an eternity of chaos, upon which there 
 
 4 
 
50 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 supervened six thousand years of order, may have 
 been hard to conceive or reah'se; but it is not harder 
 to accept what it is clear from science we must 
 accept — an eternity of order supervening upon an 
 eternity of what we know not and cannot designate. 
 It may well be doubted how far the actual state- 
 ments of the Bible are responsible for some of these 
 conceptions which we know now to have been mis- 
 conceptions. Certain it is that in Scripture no limit 
 has been, as no limit can be, assigned to that begin- 
 ning, in which we are told that God made the heaven 
 and the earth. But now that from various causes 
 our conceptions of past time have become so vastly 
 increased, it may be as well to ask ourselves whether 
 there is not another and more profitable way of 
 understanding what is meant by God's making the 
 heaven and the earth ; because it is certain that 
 the further we put backward the first original crea- 
 tive act the less practical bearing it has upon us. 
 And therefore it is as well to inquire what this 
 creative act of God implies. 
 
 Now although of course all attempts at in- 
 vestigating the first origin of things must neces- 
 sarily be futile, because beyond our reach, yet it 
 is as well to divest our minds of any erroneous 
 notions which may serve to make the hard yet 
 harder ; and therefore I would say that it does 
 seem to me that great light breaks in upon this 
 profound and abstruse subject from our blessed 
 Lord's words. My Father worketh hitherto^ and I 
 
MAKER OF HE A VEN AND EARTH. 51 
 
 work ; more particularly when His argument there 
 seems to show that just as God's creative work 
 ceases not on the Sabbath-day, so there is no 
 necessity for His own redemptive work to cease 
 then. For does not this show us that creation is 
 not a completed but a continued work ? that it is 
 an act in progress, and not an act performed once 
 for all ? And I do think it is highly requisite that 
 we should take this view of creation as being the 
 really Scripture view, more especially when we 
 are confronted with these inconceivable periods of 
 past time which can only paralyse and astound 
 the mind. There is no analogy between God's 
 making the world and a man's making a watch or 
 any other complex piece of machinery. For as 
 soon as a man has made a watch his work is done, 
 and it will continue to perform its functions, be 
 they what they may, according to its capability 
 and perfection; the work is made, and it goes on 
 of itself ; but this is not the case with God's piece 
 of mechanism, the universe, for that when called 
 into existence cannot go on of itself for a single 
 moment without Him, nay more, it is even now 
 in process of formation ; the world of to-day is not 
 the world of yesterday, nor is it the world which 
 will be to-morrow. All things are in a condition 
 of continual and constant change, and no two 
 successive moments witness the existence of identi- 
 cally the same world. My Father worketh hitherto, — 
 there is the creative energy now being put forth, 
 
 UHIVERSITl 
 
52 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 now in operation. God is now making the world 
 that now is, and to-morrow He will then be making 
 the world that then will be. This is what creation 
 implies ; and this is how we are to look for the 
 Creator, not as a being who six thousand years, or 
 six hundred thousand millions of years, ago made 
 the world, and left it as He made it, but as a being 
 who now in every form of life is causing, upholding, 
 creating, preserving, changing, and destroying what 
 exists. It is a profound mystery ; mind cannot 
 fathom it, thought cannot follow it, tongue cannot 
 define it, but of this sort it is. This is at least 
 an aspect of the creative act upon which we must 
 by no means suffer any bare, bald historic thought 
 or conception of it fatally to usurp. What the rela- 
 tion is between the work created as we behold it 
 and the Creator, or what the method of operation 
 is which binds the two together, we cannot imagine ; 
 but this it is that the words maker of heaven and 
 earth suggest to me ; and when I am told that in 
 the beginning God created the heaven and the 
 earth, I understand that at some one inconceivably 
 distant point or epoch of past time He caused to go 
 forth that power which, however it may have ope- 
 rated at successive stages or periods, or on what- 
 soever graduated plan, we still see on every hand 
 working the wonders that it Vorketh, whether in 
 inanimate nature or in the complex machinery of 
 our own changing bodies. And it is the Word 
 alone which reveals or can reveal this God to us. 
 
MAKER OF HE A VEN AND EARTH. 53 
 
 Has it ever occurred to you, as it often has to me, 
 to ask yourselves what kind of a world this would be 
 if there were no God in it ? Let us put hypotheti- 
 cally the inconceivable and impossible hypothesis 
 that the world as we see it existed, but that there 
 was no God. Then, on the hypothesis, the trees 
 would still be green, the flowers would be bright and 
 fair and lovely, the breezes would still blow laden 
 with the ravished scents of the gardens and the fields 
 of May, the sun would still shine, the rainbow would 
 still span the vault of heaven, the moon and the stars 
 would still be bright and glorious, the sea would still 
 smile with his many-twinkling radiant splendour, but 
 there would be no God behind it all. Everything 
 would be a cause to itself, and there an end. The 
 greatest known brightness would be the brightness 
 of the sun, the greatest known beauty would be the 
 beauty of the earth, the greatest known strength 
 would be the strength of nature, and there would 
 be nothing more ; there would be no past and no 
 future, because all would be but the extension back- 
 wards and forwards of the same unvaried but ever- 
 varying present ; the life of the universe would 
 proclaim no life, it would only proclaim itself ; it 
 would not say, " Look on me, and judge how fair, 
 how glorious He must be," but only, " Rest content 
 with me, for I am all, and there is none besides." 
 The glories of heaven would not say, 
 
 For ever singing as they shine, 
 The hand thai made us is Divine. 
 
54 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 but "There is no hand that made us. We exist 
 because we are, by some inscrutable, unaccountable 
 necessity. We always have been, and we always 
 shall be." Now I cannot venture to say what you 
 would think and feel if this were so, but I can 
 distinctly say for myself that fair as the trees and 
 the flowers and the stars and the sky and the sea 
 might be, they would have no beauty left for me. 
 Their very loveliness would make me sick at heart, 
 for I could not love them ; they would fail to satisfy 
 me, for they would be like the apples of Sodom, dust 
 within ; and this magnificent universe would be no 
 longer the temple of the living God, but a pictured, 
 painted charnel-house. 
 
 And then let me set over against this picture the 
 simple, glorious words of the old Hebrew poet. 
 Blessed is he that hath the God of Jacob for his 
 help, aiid whose hope is in the Lord his God : who 
 made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that 
 therein is ; who keepeth His promise for ever. Or 
 the words of the Christian Creed, " I believe in God 
 the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." 
 
 And now let me show you wherein the difference 
 lies. The one begins with what it cannot deny, with 
 what it looks out upon and perceives with the natural 
 eye and touches with the natural hand, and goes no 
 further ; it sees no more and feels no more. The 
 other begins with what it does not see, with what it 
 can not touch, and then comes down to behold the 
 works that He has made, and because it comes with 
 
MAKER OF HE A VEN AND EARTH. 55 
 
 Him, beholds them fair ; it looks out upon them with 
 the eyes of God ; and God saw everything that He 
 had made^ and, behold, it was very good. And say 
 what we will, this is the only true order : unless man 
 will begin with God, he must end with nature ; but 
 ending with nature, he cannot even behold all the 
 glory of nature. If we begin with nature, we cannot 
 look up through nature unto nature's God ; but if 
 we begin with God, then we not only see Him before 
 nature, but likewise in nature and beyond nature. 
 Hence the Christian Creed and the words of the 
 Psalmist alike show us the indispensable necessity of 
 faith. We must begin, not with what we can prove, 
 but with what we must take for granted. For we 
 cannot prove the existence of God, or the love of the 
 Father, or the being of the Creator ; but if we accept 
 these facts, they will explain all others ; and if we 
 reject them, all others will reject us as their inter- 
 preters ; they will be and will remain unexplained 
 and inexplicable enigmas. 
 
 If, then, the eyes of our mind are opened by faith 
 so as to behold in nature the present and living God 
 of nature, we shall know that though nature may 
 and must be His handiwork, it can be no part of 
 Him. It may proclaim Him, speak of Him, point 
 to Him, be the echo of His voice or the shadow of 
 His presence, but it will be other than He ; and as 
 He is apart from nature, utterly and entirely dis- 
 engaged therefrom, choosing to reveal Himself in 
 nature, but not obliged to do so, so likewise will He 
 
56 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 be before and after nature ; there will of necessity- 
 have been a beginning in which He was without 
 nature, in which He called nature into being ; and 
 certainly, as existing nature is ever changing and 
 passing away, there will be a moment when He will 
 at least be without nature as she now is ; when the 
 first heaven and the first earth that were created in 
 the beginning are passed away, and there shall be no 
 more sea, whatever that may mean ; but we shall 
 look out upon the new heavens and the new earth, 
 even as He hath said. Behold, I make all things 
 new. And thus the conception of the Psalmist will 
 be verified, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid 
 the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the 
 works of Thine hands : they shall perish, but Thou 
 shalt endure ; and they shall all wax old like a 
 garment, ajtd as a vesture shalt Thou change them, 
 and they shall be chaiiged ; but Thou art the same, 
 and Thy years shall not fail. 
 
 Need we say, in conclusion, that unless a man can 
 thus see in the Maker of heaven and earth, whom 
 the external world, the sea, and the sky proclaim, 
 the Lord his God ; unless he can recognise in the 
 omnipotent Creator a Father, he will not, as the 
 Psalmist says, be blessed? He may not only have an 
 eye for the beautiful like the artist, a soul for the 
 fair and lovely like the poet, but also the power of 
 making these his own ; earth, out of the abundance 
 of her stores, may pour into his lap of her treasures 
 and her wealth ; but unless he has a part in the 
 
MAKER OF HE A VEN AND EARTH. 57 
 
 Lord of all, her very riches and glory will leave him 
 bankrupt and destitute : he will be like a sick man 
 at a banquet, unable to taste the fatness of the 
 pastures or the sweetness of the vineyard, for all 
 will be dashed with bitterness and emptiness and 
 poverty. It is he only who can say that his hope is 
 in the Lord his God, who can claim Him for his own, 
 and know that having given himself to God and his 
 heart to Christ, God has given Himself in Christ to 
 him, who has found, by the sure test of personal 
 experience, that He keepeth His promise and His 
 truth for ever, — yea, even to a thousand generations, 
 — who can call himself blessed ; but he can, for the 
 God of blessing is his portion here, and will be the 
 fulness of his joy for ever. 
 
59 
 
 VI. 
 AND IN JESUS. 
 
 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy 
 house. — Acts xvi. 31. 
 
 T T ITHERTO we have been concerned with 
 ^ -■- those articles of the Creed which receive 
 light from the Christian revelation, but are not 
 especially Christian, — the nature of God, the cha- 
 racter of God, the relation of God to the world in 
 which we live, and the like. Now we approach an 
 entirely different stage, which is directly and exclu- 
 sively Christian, inasmuch as it relates to the person 
 of Jesus Christ. Let us observe, then, in the first 
 place, that this comes before us in the Creed as a 
 separate and additional article: "I believe in God 
 the Father . . . and in Jesus Christ." Now what 
 do we mean when we say " I believe in Jesus Christ" ? 
 Clearly each person who joins in that confession of 
 faith pledges himself to the acceptance of it. The 
 prayers that are offered in this church are not offered 
 as individual supplications. They are all couched 
 in the language of number, — "Good Lord, deliver 
 us;" "We humbly beseech Thee, O Lord," and the 
 like. But with the Creed it is very different ; there 
 
6o THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 we seem to have no desire to lose our individuality, 
 but to assert it. We do not attempt to merge our- 
 selves and our own wants in the persons and the 
 wants of others, but we try to come out of the 
 multitude, we endeavour to individualise ourselves, 
 and adopt the language of solitude and unity, — "/ 
 believe." Now this fact cannot be too carefully noticed, 
 for it expresses and reflects a great truth. Faith is a 
 personal matter; it concerns the soul in its solitude, 
 in its individual responsibility before God. Our own 
 faith is no concern of others, the faith of others is no 
 concern of ours. Each unit is answerable for his or 
 her faith to Almighty God, and to Him alone. But 
 as Christians we all have a certain faith in common, 
 the profession of which is a bond of union between 
 the several units. If for any reason this common 
 faith is not our own faith, then by that circumstance, 
 independently of any other, we are cut off from the 
 unity of the Christian body. It is obvious that this 
 must be so. If Christians are people who believe in 
 Christ, and we ourselves do not believe in Christ, then 
 we are necessarily cut off from the unity of Christian 
 people. This is surely self-evident. We may, of 
 course, defend ourselves on the ground that we 
 object, for example, to the formula of the Christian 
 Creed ; we may deny its authority, or refuse to be 
 bound by it; but so far as that Creed is the Creed 
 of Christendom, so far as it expresses the faith of 
 Christian people, we are excluded by our rejection 
 of it. The test is applied to us, and we cannot 
 
AND IN JESUS. 6i 
 
 Stand the test. We are witnesses to ourselves, and 
 the Creed is a witness against us. I do not propose 
 now to examine the authority of the Christian creed, 
 but to accept it as the recognised authority of all 
 Christian men, and to enquire what it implies and 
 involves, as it is propounded to us in the familiar 
 apostolic symbol. 
 
 And it is manifest on the threshold . of this sub- 
 ject that there are momentous issues involved. The 
 Christian Creed is not a theory or a sentiment, or an 
 opinion ; it is a belief, it is that which is the subject- 
 matter of conviction, the result of deliberate and 
 entire persuasion; but it professes also to be the 
 means and the condition of salvation. Among the 
 ancient schools of philosophy, no one ever pretended 
 that his own particular tenets were necessary to 
 salvation. The disciples of the various schools were 
 no doubt very eager and earnest for the maintenance 
 of their personal doctrines, as men always have a 
 tendency to become on any abstract question, but 
 none ever went so far as to promise or deny salva- 
 tion according as they were rejected or received. 
 But this was notoriously and historically the case 
 with the Christian Creed from the very first. It 
 presented itself before men, alike in the teaching of 
 our Lord and His apostles, as the one condition of 
 salvation. The compendious assertion of the text 
 was the answer given by Paul and Silas to the 
 anxious jailer at Philippi, when he inquired with 
 fear and trembling, " What must I do to be saved .?" 
 
62 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved^ 
 were among the last words spoken by Christ upon 
 earth. I do not see how it is possible to escape 
 from this. If the Christian faith professes to do any- 
 thing for a man, it professes to save him. It does 
 not propose itself as an opinion he may hold or not 
 as he pleases, but it assures him that in holding it — 
 whatever may be implied by holding it — he is safe. 
 While, however, so much is absolutely certain, it 
 must be borne in mind that in so doing the Chris- 
 tian Creed implies no reference to any who may 
 happen to be beyond the reach of its influence. It 
 tells us nothing about those who are ignorant of the 
 name of Christ ; it tells us nothing of those who 
 lived before He came ; it pronounces nothing as 
 to the condition of Socrates, or of those ancient 
 worthies for whom we hope so much, but of whom 
 we know so little. It is absolutely silent with 
 regard to all questions that may be asked on these 
 and kindred subjects. All that it professes to do, 
 is to put him who accepts it in a state of salvation, 
 to assure him that his condition before and after 
 acceptance is marked by the difference between 
 being saved and lost. It reveals a great want in 
 humanity, a deep gulf .in the spiritual nature, from 
 which it promises to rescue us, and which it offers to 
 supply, but with respect to all others it asks. Who 
 art thou that judgest another mans servant ? to his 
 own master he standeth or falleth ;^ and, Shall not the 
 
 * I Rom. xiv. 4. 
 
AND IN JESUS, 63 
 
 Judge of all the earth do right ?^ Yea, we may go 
 further. While the promises of the Christian faith are 
 directly addressed to those who embrace them, and 
 to those, therefore, whose consciousness readily and 
 gladly responds to their truth, and while it cannot 
 but withhold these promises from others who do not 
 embrace them, it simply gives us no power to pro- 
 nounce upon the case of those who from mental 
 constitution or what not, are honest (but honest and 
 truth-loving they must be) in their rejection of them, 
 and are unable to embrace them ; it distinctly 
 declares that there is a special happiness and bless- 
 ing reserved for those who do embrace them, into 
 which no stranger can enter ; but with reference 
 to the rest it says, The Father judgeth no man^ 
 but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. 
 
 For be it observed that the Christian faith implies 
 the consciousness of a great want ; it does not enter 
 the arena of public discussion for the sake of com- 
 peting with the various systems of human invention, 
 but it comes to a world which is awakened to its 
 lost condition. It is only when the question. What 
 must I do to be saved ? has been asked, with all its 
 attendant agony, that the reply is spoken, Believe 
 on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. 
 It is perfectly futile and hopeless, therefore, to 
 advance the claims of the Christian faith, or to 
 argue for them never so cogently, as long as there 
 is no response within to the want which it offers to 
 
 * Gen. xviii. 25. 
 
64 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 satisfy. They that are whole have no need of the 
 physician^ but they that are sick} When we are in 
 rude health and strength we may deem lightly of 
 medical science and skill; but when those dear to us 
 are in imminent danger, or we ourselves seem to 
 catch a glimpse of the wings of the approaching 
 angel of death, then, as drowning men who clutch 
 at a straw, we are only too thankful for the advice 
 and the presence of the physician, we anticipate his 
 visits with eagerness, and take leave of him with 
 reluctance. And so long as the spiritual state is 
 whole-hearted and unconscious of something wrong 
 within, it is vain to expect that the message of the 
 Good Physician will be received with welcome. 
 There are but too many obvious reasons why it 
 should be unwelcome, and the only thing that man 
 can do when his Maker has failed, is to stand afar 
 off and watch. The hour has not come yet, and it 
 is just possible, it may never come in this world ; 
 but this world is not all, and it is only when things 
 visible have passed away, and things invisible have 
 begun to be, that we can fully decide upon the 
 actual merits of that which we reject. 
 
 And how is it, brethren, with ourselves ? Have 
 we hearts that are open to the message of the 
 Gospel ? Are we conscious of deep want within } 
 Are we convinced that life itself, with all its beauties 
 and bounties, has no power to satisfy; that pleasure 
 can only fatigue and pall; that riches are inadequate 
 ' Mark ii. 17. 
 
AND IN JESUS. 6$ 
 
 to feed the cravings of the mind; that honour and 
 fame and ambition are apt to lose their charm in 
 proportion to the success with which they are pur- 
 sued ? Does all this show us, or rather, does it not 
 show us, that whatever our outward state, within we 
 are not saved, we are not made whole and sound ? 
 Putting aside for the time all questions as to the 
 ultimate future, is it not sufficiently patent that now, 
 at this present moment, there is something wanting, 
 something wrong ; that our position here, in the 
 midst even of a prosperous life, is an eminently 
 defective one, and that when death comes it is 
 desperate, and after death — a blank ? In the con- 
 templation of all this, can any man doubt that we 
 are not saved ; that there is, so to say, an open field 
 for salvation, if only we could find it ? Setting aside, 
 then, altogether, for the while, any fears and mis- 
 givings about the eternal future, about the just 
 judgment of God, and the degree to which we may 
 have incurred it, is it not plain that we want health 
 and light and salvation, if so be we can get it ? 
 Surely, on the most favourable estimate, our condi- 
 tion is not such that we need not gladly listen to 
 the blessed announcement, Believe on the Lord Jesus 
 Christy and thou shalt be saved. 
 
 It is clear, then, that faith in Christ is propounded 
 to us by the Christian Creed as the one condition of 
 salvation. Now, what is implied by faith in Christ? 
 For the present we may answer this question in a 
 threefold manner, reserving the further consideration 
 
 5 
 
66 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 of it for future discourses. First, faith in Christ 
 assumes and implies a basis of historic fact. It 
 can never be sufficiently inculcated that the Chris- 
 tian Creed not only rests upon a series of historic 
 facts, but concerns itself with facts rather than with 
 doctrines. Taking the Apostles' Creed as an ade- 
 quate and authentic definition of it, we see at once 
 that it is concerned with doctrines less than facts. 
 There are few doctrines, there are many facts. 
 Christianity is an historic religion. The facts with 
 which it is concerned ai^e presented to us as of the 
 highest importance in the history of the world ; they 
 have affected all other history. The life and death 
 of Jesus was of infinitely more importance than the 
 life and death of Alexander or of Julius Caesar, 
 though in a Christian aspect it is impossible not to 
 see that the life and death of Csesar and of Alex- 
 ander, certainly their lives, had a very direct bearing 
 upon the life of Jesus Christ, and the effects of His 
 life. The conquest of Alexander, for instance, made 
 Greek the language of the world, and so introduced 
 to the knowledge of mankind the Greek version of 
 the Jewish Scriptures; and the conquest of Caesar 
 opened this country to the preaching of the Gospel, 
 and laid the foundation of its present position in 
 Christendom. But the Christian Church cares more 
 to teach her children the facts of the life of Jesus 
 Christ than she does to teach them those of the life 
 of Caesar or of Alexander. We are baptised into a 
 belief of the facts of the life of Jesus Christ, and 
 
AND IN JESUS. 6^ 
 
 when we are on our death-bed the profession which 
 is required of us is not that of particular doctrines, 
 but the profession of the articles of the Apostles' 
 Creed. We cannot, therefore, over-estimate the im- 
 portance of the historic basis to which the Chris- 
 tian Creed appeals. Though Jesus Christ was no 
 conqueror, His place in history was of the utmost 
 importance to mankind ; and just as Lord Bacon 
 or George Stephenson achieved a greater work in 
 the world than Napoleon or Hannibal, so the his- 
 toric importance of the life of Christ eclipses alto- 
 gether that of the greatest names in history, and 
 the entire mass of human history cannot but be 
 affected by such significant historic facts as the life 
 and death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 For, secondly, the framework of fact on which the 
 Christian Creed rests has reference to a particular 
 man of whom these facts are related. It is manifest 
 that whatever else faith in Jesus Christ may mean, 
 it must mean that He truly existed, truly lived and 
 died and rose again. Throw any doubt on the 
 person of Christ, and there is an end at once and 
 for ever to all belief in Jesus Christ. To believe 
 in Jesus Christ manifestly implies that there was 
 such a person. But, further, to believe in Him 
 implies also that He was a unique person, because 
 it implies an attitude towards Him which is de- 
 manded towards no one else, — it implies that we 
 believe in Him as we believe in no one else. That 
 
68 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 is to say, it implies that we believe in Him as the 
 Saviour, we believe in Him unto salvation. These 
 two ideas are quite distinct. First, we believe in 
 Him as a Saviour. This is the meaning of His 
 name " Jesus ; " this is why He was so named, that 
 we might believe in Him as a Saviour, as one who 
 could save us from our sins. That which we feel 
 within, of want and guilt and uncleanness, and 
 estrangement from God, and sin and wretchedness, 
 is removed by Jesus ; He is designed as the suf- 
 ficient remedy for it, He was called " Jesus " that 
 He might deliver us from it. This is as much His 
 name, and a part of Him, as the name of Caesar 
 or Hannibal is inseparable from them. This man 
 is only known in history as Jesus; it was the name 
 by which He was called before He was born, it was 
 the name which was written over Him when He 
 was crucified ; and in itself it speaks volumes, for it 
 is a witness that He claimed to be, and is, a Saviour, 
 For to believe in Jesus is manifestly to believe that He 
 is what His name proclaimed Him to be, a Saviour. 
 In professing this belief, then, we profess that 
 there is a man in whom we can find that salva- 
 tion which we acknowledge that we feel we want. 
 This belief implies, moreover, that the influence and 
 power of this person is not over; that whereas a 
 belief in any other historic character simply implies 
 a belief that his character is historic, that he actually 
 did exist, but implies no more, belief in this man 
 shuts us up to belief in His present existence and His 
 
AND IN JESUS. 69 
 
 present power to save. I cannot believe in Jesus 
 if I suppose that when He died there was an end 
 to His influence and power, except so far as regards 
 the moral influence produced by His life. If I be- 
 lieve in Jesus, I not only believe that His recorded 
 words have a certain beneficial influence on me, but 
 that He Himself is able to save me. I cannot 
 believe in Him as Jesus unless I believe this, for 
 His very name will otherwise give the lie to my 
 belief 
 
 This, then, is one thing to believe in Him as a 
 Saviour ; but it is quite another, and something 
 vastly more, to believe in Him unto salvation, for 
 that implies not only that He is able and willing 
 to save me, but that He actually, and as a matter 
 of fact, has saved me ; it implies an experimental 
 response in my spiritual being to the present influ- 
 ence and power which He is declared to possess ; 
 it implies that in Jesus I have found that salvation 
 which I so much need, that my personal sin has 
 met with its antidote in Him, that the yawning 
 chasm in my nature which nothing in this life or 
 this world can fill, though my cup were to overflow 
 with sweetness, has been filled by Him, that the 
 dread of death as an insuperable calamity which 
 is incidental to me as a mortal man has at least 
 been so far relieved and quieted that my heart can 
 be glad and my tongue rejoice, and my flesh also 
 can rest in hope ; it implies, finally, that I have in 
 myself the sure pledge and foretaste of eternal life 
 
70 AND IN JESUS 
 
 and felicity, because the power of His resurrection 
 worketh mightily in me. 
 
 This, brethren, is what it is to believe in Jesus. 
 Suffer me, in conclusion, to ask you two questions: 
 first, whether you have any anxiety like that which 
 the jailer's words expressed. What must I do to be 
 saved? and, secondly, whether, having earnestly asked 
 that question, you have found, like him, to your 
 intense joy, the blessed truth of the reply, Believe 
 on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. 
 
VII. 
 CHRIST. 
 
 For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, showing by 
 the scriptures that Jesus was Christ. — Acts xviii. 28. 
 
 'TPHE subject of the last lecture was that portion 
 -*- of the Creed which is implied and expressed in 
 the name of Jesus ; to-day we shall have to consider 
 the name of Christ and all that is involved in it. 
 Now it is eminently characteristic of Scripture that 
 a large amount of significance is assigned to the 
 names of particular persons. We notice this from 
 the very commencement. The name that was given 
 to the first woman was a significant name — a name 
 which was designed to express the character she 
 was intended to fulfil. The name of Abram was 
 changed to Abraham in order that it might express 
 his future destiny. It is plain that in all simple 
 terms and languages names must have a meaning, 
 but it is commonly a meaning that has reference to 
 the present or the past, rather than the future. In 
 Scripture it is otherwise; and thus with the two 
 names of our Lord one had reference to the work 
 which He came to do, and the other to the office 
 He was destined to fulfil. We must carefully 
 distinguish between these names. To us they have 
 
72 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 very much the character of proper names or per- 
 sonal appellations. But they are not so. "Jesus" 
 was our Lord's proper and personal name. When 
 we say that we believe in Jesus, we say that we 
 believe in the historic existence and reality of the 
 man Jesus. We say at least so much ; we say 
 indeed, more too; but. we undoubtedly do say no 
 less. "Christ," on the other hand, is not a personal 
 name, except so far as it has become such by appro- 
 priation. "Christ" is nothing more than the shorter 
 form of the Christy which is the designation of a 
 particular office or function. It was an official not 
 a personal name. We speak of Jesus Christ because 
 we, being Christians, acknowledge Jesus to have 
 been the Christ; but "Christ" was no part of His 
 name which was assigned Him in its integrity by 
 the angel before He was conceived in the womb. 
 It was the object and mission of Jesus to show 
 Himself to be the Christ, and this object was not 
 accomplished till He had ascended tip on high and 
 received gifts for men^ yea^ eve7i for His enemies^ that 
 the Lord God might dwell among them} Trinity 
 Sunday is the first Sunday when we are enabled, 
 looking back upon the completed office and work of 
 Jesus, to regard Him as the Christ.^ In the full 
 and complete survey which we are enabled now 
 to take of all t,hat Jesus did,. we can, if believers, 
 declare Him to have been the Christ; we can call 
 
 ' Ps. Ixviii. 1 8. ^ Preached on Trinity Sunday. 
 
CHRIST. 73 
 
 Him "Jesus Christ;" we can say, "I believe in Jesus 
 Christ," or, " I believe that Jesus is the Christ;" 
 
 And observe, there is very much more involved in 
 this than many persons may at first imagine, and that 
 which is involved is of the very highest importance. 
 While God's purposes are in process of fulfilment, 
 they are in the highest degree obscure and unintel- 
 ligible ; it is only when we can look back upon 
 them as fulfilled, that light breaks through and their 
 design is revealed. For example, that which makes 
 our present career so dark is our inability to see the 
 end. All things appear confused and perplexed, 
 because at present we wait for the solution of them. 
 When that is vouchsafed, then everything will be- 
 come clear which is now so puzzling. And when in 
 any case this position is arrived at, then it becomes 
 absurd to doubt the reality of a solution which has 
 thrown light on everything. Now apply this to the 
 case of the New Testament. It is absolutely impos- 
 sible to deny that everywhere in the New Testament 
 — in each of the Gospels, in the Acts, and in all the 
 Epistles — Jesus is spoken of as the Christ, that His 
 being the Christ was to a large extent the very issue 
 raised by the New Testament, that the name by 
 which from the first His followers were known, and 
 by which to the present day for a period of eighteen 
 hundred years they have continued to be designated, 
 is one which involves the acceptance of this issue; 
 for they are called Christians, their home is termed 
 Christendom, and their belief is known as Chris- 
 
U THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 tianity. This implies, then, as a necessity that the 
 rise of this society and the spread of this belief was 
 inseparably connected with the recognition of Jesus 
 as the Christ. There could have been no Christians, 
 no Christendom, and no Christianity, but for the 
 impression having been produced upon men's minds 
 that Jesus was the Christ. If this had not been a 
 prominent and distinguishing feature of the early dis- 
 ciples, they would have had no such name assigned 
 them. This is quite apparent — it is obvious and 
 irrefutable; 
 
 And, for a reason which will appear subsequently, 
 I cannot but think that when we are told that the 
 disciples were called Christians first in Antioch, 
 there was a Divine provision in this, even if a 
 Divine intention is not expressed in that passage by 
 the remarkable and, so to say, oracular word which the 
 historian there uses for called (%/077/iartcrat). In laying 
 the foundations of the Christian Church broad and 
 deep, it was part of God's design that this name, 
 however given — whether, as some have thought, in 
 jest and levity, or else, as others suggest, in Divine 
 earnest — should be permanently and inseparably 
 affixed to it, so that by friends and foes alike the 
 name of "Christian" should be distinctly understood, 
 and perfectly unmistakable when applied to the 
 disciples of Jesus. 
 
 For why } It is absolutely certain that the 
 various centres of Christianity discovered to us in 
 the New Testament are evidence of the extent to 
 
CHRIST. 75 
 
 which this belief had spread, and of the main 
 features by which it was characterised. All these 
 persons, whatever their number, in Rome, in Corinth, 
 in Galatia, in Ephesus, in Philippi, in Colosse, in 
 Thessalonica, in Crete, in Jerusalem, in Antioch and 
 elsewhere, believed in Jesus as the Christ. Of that 
 there can be no shadow of doubt, for otherwise they 
 would not have been called Christians. And it 
 must be borne in mind that though many of them 
 had been Jews, they were not all Jews ; that various 
 nationalities were represented by them. But, in all 
 cases alike, the very foundation upon which their 
 belief as Christians was built was the conviction 
 that Jesus was the Christ ; was the truth, that is, 
 with which Jesus fulfilled the office of the Christ ; 
 was therefore the existence of such an office for Him 
 to fulfil. Now observe this carefully, because it is 
 extremely important. You cannot account for the 
 special phenomena which we know were presented 
 by the early spread of Christianity, without acknow- 
 ledging that somehow or other — rightly or wrongly, 
 for it matters not now — there was such an impres- 
 sion in men's minds of the ideal character of a 
 Christ, — such a belief in the imaginary functions, if 
 you will, of the Christ, — as would admit of the su- 
 perstructure being reared thereon, that Jesus was the 
 Christ. No man could have become a Christian, 
 that is, who did not believe in the reality of that 
 particular function of the Christ which Jesus claimed 
 to discharge. Somehow or other, then, wherever 
 
76 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 Christianity spread, and that among the Gentiles no 
 less than the Jews, there must have existed so much 
 preparation of the mental soil as was implied in the 
 conception of that office and function of the Messiah- 
 ship without which the Christian confession and the 
 Christian name was an impossibility. That this 
 conception should have existed among the Jews is 
 the less remarkable because we know that a belief 
 in the advent of a Messiah was fostered by their 
 sacred writings. It was part of their national 
 inheritance that they believed in the existence of 
 such a person, and looked forward to His coming. 
 But it is surely not a little strange that those Gentiles 
 — and they were many who became Christians — 
 should have passed through, as it were, a preliminary 
 phase of Judaism in becoming so ; and yet this is 
 neither more nor less than they must have done. For 
 they must have accepted mentally the entire frame- 
 work and foundation of the Jewish belief about the 
 Christ before they could have acknowledged Jesus as 
 the Christ. The one belief obviously involved and 
 implied the other. 
 
 It is manifest, therefore, that this widespread 
 fundamental conviction about the person and office 
 of the Christ could not have existed but for the 
 Jewish Scriptures. It was mainly and directly 
 attributable to them ; if it was not actually and ex- 
 clusively created by them, it was at least developed 
 and kept alive by them. And thus we know, both 
 from the text and many other passages, that the 
 
CHRIST. 77 
 
 great storehouse of argument upon which the early 
 preachers of Christianity drew in their discussions 
 with the Jews, was the Old Testament scriptures. 
 To them they were never weary of appealing. In 
 them they had ready to their hand a large amount 
 of material, which was acknowledged as of unques- 
 tionable authority and of the highest value. There 
 they found a certain portrait depicted, a certain 
 character delineated, a certain office described, a 
 certain hope excited, and promise given ; and if in 
 every case they could show the correspondence be- 
 tween the written ideal and the actual person and 
 work of Jesus, all that they desired was accom- 
 plished. The Jew was rationally persuaded into 
 becoming a Christian. He had no need to be per- 
 suaded into a belief in the Christ ; he only had to 
 be persuaded that Jesus was the Christ. Sometimes 
 this was done successfully, sometimes the evidence 
 was resisted, but never, be it observed, on the 
 unsoundness of the premises, only upon the alleged 
 incompleteness of the conclusions. 
 
 We are not fully informed as to the process 
 adopted in the case of the Gentiles ; it seems pro- 
 bable that the dissemination of the Jewish Scriptures 
 through the Alexandrian Greek version had been 
 the means of infusing generally into men's minds 
 anticipations of the advent of some great personage, 
 so that these anticipations furnished a sufficient basis 
 for an appeal in favour of Jesus ; but if not, it is 
 pretty certain that the early preachers would point 
 
78 THE CHRISTIAN CREED, 
 
 to the obvious correspondence between the sacred 
 record and the historic character of the Saviour, and 
 on that ground demand a verdict in His favour ; 
 and it is perfectly clear that in a vast number of 
 instances the appeal was not made in vain. The 
 premises were invariably admitted, because the con- 
 clusion was accepted. We know, moreover, the 
 several passages that were alleged by the early 
 preachers to refer to the Christ, and we know yet 
 further that these were the passages which for a 
 thousand years after Christ were still applied by the 
 Jews to their Messiah. In the face, therefore, of the 
 undeniable results which were brought about, and of 
 the special conditions without which they could not 
 have been produced, we are, comparatively speaking, 
 independent of those questions which have been 
 raised in the present day as to the propriety of in- 
 terpreting the Old Testament as the Jews and early 
 Christians interpreted it. Had it not been for this 
 interpretation, the Christian Church could not have 
 been founded, as a matter of fact it was founded ; 
 therefore, this interpretation was sufficiently satis- 
 factory in its time to be the direct and immediate 
 cause of a vast revolution in thought and history, 
 with which no other can bear comparison. Even 
 if the means employed are declared defective, that 
 cannot touch the reality of the results produced ; 
 rather, the greatness of those results becomes the 
 more remarkable if the means were feeble or inade- 
 quate J but as a matter of fact the accomplishment 
 
CHRIST, 79 
 
 of the results by the means is no slight confirmation 
 of the adequacy and reality of the means employed. 
 When Apollos mightily convinced the Jews, and that 
 publicly y showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was 
 Christ, the greatness and solidity of thd work done 
 was sufficient proof of the soundness of the means 
 resorted to. The Scriptures as we have them, 
 being written ages before Christ came, and corre- 
 sponding as they do with the life and character of 
 Christ, are clear and unfaltering in their testimony 
 to Him. 
 
 And it is a testimony which nothing can ever 
 silence. Wherever there is a prepared heart, the testi- 
 mony will be accepted, and will do its work ; and 
 wherever Jesus is believingly acknowledged as the 
 Christ, there it will not be possible to impugn the 
 testimony of the Scriptures. The testimony, there- 
 fore, is one which will work in a twofold manner ; 
 either branch of it taken alone is incomplete, both 
 taken together are conclusive. The Scriptures with- 
 out Christ are unintelligible : Christ without the 
 Scriptures is an impossibility. We may seek to esti- 
 mate the character of Jesus, but we cannot separate 
 it from His claim to be the Christ ; we cannot recog- 
 nise His claim to be the Christ and yet demur to 
 the Divine authority of the Scriptures. 
 
 And thus, brethren, we see what is involved in that 
 name Christ which we all confess in that name Chris- 
 tian which we all bear. It has been designed in the 
 providence of God that that word Christ should con- 
 
8o THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 tain in itself an abiding testimony to the person of 
 His Son. To be a Christian is now what it was in 
 the days when Corinth rang with the eloquence of 
 Apollos. We cannot be Christians unless we ac- 
 knowledge Jesus as the Christ ; we cannot acknow- 
 ledge Jesus as the Christ and not confess that ages 
 before He came God gave the promise of His coming, 
 and endued with supernatural light and knowledge 
 through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit those who 
 spake of Him. We cannot be Christians unless we 
 confess to a Divine portrait in the Old Testament 
 which has been fully realised in the New. These are 
 the two halves, then, which being put together make 
 up a perfect whole. When the Spirit of God moves 
 upon the face of that mighty deep of Holy Scripture, 
 then one part answers to the other part, as face an- 
 swers unto face in water. The Psalms, the Prophets, 
 and the other writings are full of the coming Christ, 
 if we read them aright ; and the Gospels and 
 Epistles tell us of a Jesus who is the Christ come. 
 
 But what is the import of the name } It is " The 
 Anointed One." He is our anointed Prophet, Priest, 
 and King. Anointed with what ? With the Holy 
 Spirit. To Him the Spirit was given without mea- 
 sure, in order that He might be our Prophet, Priest, 
 and King. Our Prophet, because He who stands 
 between us and God, and comes, in the name of 
 God, with a message from Him, with the truth of 
 God upon His lips. We cannot accept Christ, then, 
 as our Prophet if we reject His testimony regarding 
 
CHRIST, 8i 
 
 Himself, which is clear, unfaltering, and unmistakable. 
 He announced Himself as our Saviour, as our Judge, 
 as the Son of God, as He who is to heal, redeem, 
 forgive, and sanctify us, as He through whom alone 
 we can come to the Father. Is this our testimony 
 concerning Him, as it is His testimony concerning 
 Himself .-^ Do we gladly recognise the anointing 
 which rests on Him t Does He touch our hearts 
 with love, and make us ready to do that will which 
 He proclaims } But He is our Priest, also ; because 
 He has offered a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice 
 for sin. He has procured remission and bestowed 
 it in His blood-shedding. He is consecrated as our 
 High Priest for evermore ; by Him we have boldness 
 and access with confidence by the faith of Him ; 
 and accepting His priesthood, we are enabled to 
 become priests ourselves, and to offer up spiritual 
 sacrifices acceptable to God by Him; and having 
 boldness to enter into the holiness through His 
 blood by a new and living way which He hath con- 
 secrated for us through the veil, that is to say. His 
 flesh, we are able to draw near with a true heart in 
 full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled 
 from an evil conscience. And thus He becomes our 
 King, to whom we owe allegiance and fealty, who is 
 fairer than the children of men, with grace poured upon 
 His lips, because God hath blessed Him for ever. And 
 so being in this threefold capacity our Messiah, that 
 is, our Anointed One, He is able to bestow upon us 
 those precious priceless gifts with which He is en- 
 
 6 
 
82 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 dowed Himself; He is ordained and qualified to pour 
 out upon us the gift of the Holy Spirit, that blessed, 
 sanctifying, purifying, strengthening, hallowing, con- 
 soling grace, which can alone make us one with 
 Him, as He is one with the Father in the unity of 
 the Holy Spirit. The sole condition of receiving that 
 blessed endowment is the confession of Jesus as the 
 Christ ; for when we acknowledge Him as the 
 Anointed One of God, then the Spirit of God is 
 shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which 
 is given to us, and we are enabled to say " Abba, 
 Father " with the voice of the regenerate, who, being 
 re-created in Christ Jesus, are made partakers of His 
 sonship, to the glory of God through Him. 
 
VIII. 
 HIS ONL V SON. 
 
 God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life.— John iii. i6. 
 
 HAVING endeavoured to unfold the significance 
 of the double name of our blessed Lord, we 
 must pass on now to consider His person and cha- 
 racter more fully, — what He is in Himself, and the 
 relation in which He stands to us. In the simplest 
 Christian Creed He is called "His only Son" which in 
 the Nicene form is expanded into "the only-begotten 
 Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds ; 
 God of God, light of light, very God of very God ; 
 begotten, not made, being of one substance with the 
 Father, by whom all things were made." This latter 
 language has a very much more elaborate cast about 
 it, and rings of polemical theology; but I do not 
 know that it is really stronger than the other, or that 
 it suggests any truth that the other does not imply. 
 The one word which is central and essential in the 
 Nicene confession is that mysterious word preserved 
 to us by St. John in the text — " only-begotten ; " a 
 word which is not indeed expressed in the Apostles' 
 Creed, though it is most undoubtedly not rejected. 
 
84 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 With regard, then, to this word St. John gives us 
 to understand that it was adopted by our Lord Him- 
 self. It is quite useless going into the question of 
 showing this. If we are not willing to accept the 
 authority of St. John, we are not much more likely 
 to accept any other authority. For those who desire 
 to be guided and to abide by the teaching of Scripture, 
 it is enough to know that this term is four times used 
 in the Gospel of St. John, and once in his first Epistle, 
 with reference to Jesus Christ, and on two occasions 
 is spoken by our Lord of Himself To dispute further 
 as to the possible conditions with which it may be 
 understood, or the possible limitations with which it 
 may be used, is vain and idle cavilling. Here is a 
 most exalted epithet ascribed to Jesus Christ, and if 
 we are staggered by it, we are clearly out of harmony 
 with the teaching of the beloved disciple touching the 
 nature of his Master. But in point of fact, though it 
 is true this particular term is peculiar to St. John 
 just as it is peculiar to the Nicene Creed, yet the 
 truth which it expresses is that to which the teach- 
 ing of all the rest of Scripture leads up. It is not 
 possible to examine carefully any one of the Gospels 
 and observe attentively what our Lord tells us of Him- 
 self, and not see that the inference we are intended 
 to draw is identical with that which St. John has 
 explicitly commended to us. The direct assertions 
 of the Gospels — not of one Gospel, but of all — 
 are inconsistent with the notion that Jesus Christ 
 was merely man, however high the position we may 
 
HIS ONLY son; 85 
 
 be willing to assign Him in the scale of humanity. 
 These assertions are no less inconsistent with the 
 notion that Jesus Christ was not man but some 
 higher and intermediate kind of being between God 
 and man, but neither the one nor the other. Logi- 
 cally, therefore, the only conclusion at which we 
 can arrive is the conclusion of the whole of orthodox 
 Christendom, that He was both God and man. I 
 am sorry to have to use this word "orthodox," but 
 it is difficult to avoid the use of it. There are those, 
 of course, to whom it will mean nothing and to whom 
 it will carry no weight, as of course it will prove 
 nothing ; but sooner or later we shall find ourselves 
 driven to decide who and what Jesus Christ was, 
 in what sense He was the Son of God, and in what 
 sense He was His only Son. It seems to me there 
 are but two courses open to us — we must either deter- 
 mine that He was some intermediate kind of being, 
 neither God nor man ; or we must acknowledge that 
 He was truly God and truly man. This, of course, is 
 dogmatic theology ; but how are we to escape from 
 it } We cannot escape from it. Until this dogmatic 
 issue is decided there are the most momentous 
 questions in abeyance. For example, shall we pray 
 to Jesus Christ or not .? If we pray to Him and He 
 is anything less than God — that is, an intermediate 
 being it matters not how exalted — then we are 
 guilty of idolatry ; for to pray to any one who is not 
 God, angel or archangel or mediator, is idolatry,^ 
 and can be nothing else than idolatry. If we pray to 
 
86 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 Him and it is right to do so, it can only be because 
 in one aspect of His being He is God. I say " in one 
 aspect of His being " because we^ must never forget 
 there is another. Jesus Christ is truly and com- 
 pletely man — in one aspect of His being He is 
 only man ; but He is also truly and completely 
 God — in one aspect of His being He is only God. 
 And thus it is that there is room for so many 
 statements about Jesus Christ which shall carry with 
 them the conviction that they are true, and yet shall 
 seem to contradict other statements that are true 
 likewise. Neither by itself is the whole truth — both 
 are true and go to make up the integrity of the 
 whole truth. 
 
 Essential, however, and important as I believe this 
 dogmatic aspect of the matter to be, it is itself but 
 one aspect of the truth, and that an aspect on which 
 it is not right or healthy to dwell exclusively or to 
 excess. Jesus Christ has told us something about 
 Himself ; He has told us that He is the only-begotten 
 Son of God. If He has told us this. He must intend 
 and desire us to believe it ; He cannot regard it other- 
 wise than with displeasure if we do not believe it ; but 
 still, after all. He does not wish us only to believe some- 
 thing about Him — He wishes us to believe in Him. If 
 we believe in something about Him it is pretty clear 
 that we have confounded believing something about 
 Him with believing ht Him. To believe in Him, as it 
 seems to me, involves believing something, and, in 
 fact, a great deal, about Him, even all that He has 
 
HIS ONLY SON. 87 
 
 told US of Himself. In fact, I do not see how we can 
 in any sense believe in Him and not believe a great 
 deal about Him; but I am sure we may believe a 
 great deal about Him, may take a delight in repeating 
 the strong expressions of the Nicene and Athanasian 
 Creeds, perfectly accurate in themselves, and yet not 
 believe in Him. 
 
 For why } Belief expresses that attitude of the 
 mind which it can hold only with reference to the 
 Infinite. It has nothing to do with the understanding 
 or the reason, except so far as the sphere of its opera- 
 tion includes them as the greater includes the less; 
 but it is distinct from them, and expresses the exercise 
 of a separate and independent faculty. If, then, this 
 is what belief is, the position or attitude of my mind 
 with reference to the Infinite, it is clear that I cannot 
 exercise belief in, or faith towards, Jesus Christ, 
 unless He is Himself the Infinite, or unless I can 
 find in Him an avenue to the Infinite. Now this is 
 what He has told us over and over again about 
 Himself implicitly in a thousand ways and explicitly 
 when He has taken into His lips such a word as this — 
 fiovoyevri<; (only-begotten). It is, therefore, mere sub- 
 terfuge and cavilling when men say, as they some- 
 times do, that St. John's language is very different 
 from that of the other Evangelists, that he claims 
 more for Jesus Christ than they do, that it does not 
 appear from them that Jesus claimed to be Divine, 
 and the like, in order to avoid what they regard as 
 the objectionable conclusions of theological language 
 
88 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 and ecclesiastical tradition about our blessed Lord. 
 The real question is, Does He demand from us alle- 
 giance and fealty that we cannot give to man ? 
 Does He assign to Himself positions and offices that 
 no man can hold ? Does He use language which 
 we cannot regard as other than ambiguous, if we 
 may not be excused for understanding it in the way 
 which the express declarations of St. John unde- 
 niably lead us to understand it } And I believe 
 that to these questions there is and can be but one 
 answer, if we are honest with ourselves, and deal 
 honestly with the record. 
 
 But in order that we may the better see the 
 bearing of this marvellous and mysterious epithet, 
 let us observe what it is that our Lord tells us 
 besides in the text. He says, God so loved the 
 world that He gave His only-begotten Son^ that who- 
 soever believeth in Him should not perish^ but have 
 everlasting life. I do not know how other per- 
 sons feel, but I can only say for myself that, after 
 being wearied with the conflicting theories, argu- 
 ments, speculations, and doctrines of men, there is 
 the greatest possible relief, sweetness, and repose 
 in the simple, childlike acceptance of such words as 
 these. Here is a definite, explicit statement, per- 
 fectly intelligible and easy to be understood, — diffi- 
 cult to mistake or to misunderstand. Shall we accept 
 it in its length and breadth, its simplicity and in- 
 tegrity, or shall we dispute about it and reject it } 
 
 God so loved the world. How was our Lord in 
 
HIS ONLY SON. 89 
 
 a position to make so distinct a statement unless 
 He had been one with the Father before all worlds 
 and was the only-begotten Son of God ? Can we 
 trust the fulness of the statement if it is not au- 
 thoritative ? How can it be authoritative if Christ 
 had not authority to utter it ? How could He have 
 authority to utter it if He was not what He said He 
 was ? If He was not what He said He was, is not 
 that absolutely fatal to the truth of the statement 
 which He affirmed ? For this, you observe, is not 
 one of those truths of which the evidence lies in 
 my sense of its being true. For I may have no 
 sense at all of its being true. I may be unable to 
 determine with myself whether or not God does love 
 the world. Sometimes I may fancy I can see that 
 He does; at other times, in the sight of appalling 
 calamities which are continually occurring when the 
 movement of His little finger might prevent them, I 
 may have serious doubts, and extremely painful 
 doubts, whether He cares at all about it ; but at all 
 events, there can be nothing in me capable of de- 
 ciding whether or not God did love the world as it 
 is here said He did, except the acknowledgment that 
 that love is proved by the particular act referred 
 to, the acknowledgment of which act, on the same 
 principles, must itself depend upon my sense of its 
 being true, which, if adequate in my own particular 
 case, is certainly far from being adequate in all other 
 cases. Certainly we can know nothing about the 
 love of God unless we have cause to believe what 
 
90 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 Jesus Christ told us about it, and we can have no 
 such cause unless He had more ground for knowing 
 than that very sense of truth in Himself which in us 
 is shown to be inadequate to judge of Him. That 
 is to say, unless He had a definite and distinct 
 mission, which depended on something else than His 
 conviction about it, we are literally and actually none 
 the better for all that He has told us about God, 
 because it may after all not be true, and on these 
 principles can only be proved to be true by our sense 
 of its truth. 
 
 Then how was this love shown ? By God send- 
 ing His only-begotten Son. Then clearly He was 
 His only-begotten Son when He sent Him : He did 
 not become His only-begotten Son by being sent, 
 for that would be absurd, and a contradiction in 
 terms. He who was naturally the Son of man would 
 thus become the Son of God by being made the Son of 
 man, — which is manifestly absurd ; therefore He was 
 the only-begotten Son when given and sent. Ponder 
 this, I beseech you, and you will find yourselves, in- 
 evitably, in spite of yourselves, led upwards, through 
 the avenue of Christ's humanity, to the boundless 
 regions of God's infinity. Paradoxical as the lan- 
 guage is — because all finite language on such mat- 
 ters must be inadequate — we are on the confines of 
 the infinite when we come into contact with Christ. 
 
 Again, the love of God, we are told, was altogether 
 without reference to the way in which it would be 
 met. As a matter of fact we know how it was met. 
 
HIS ONLY SON. 91 
 
 But God loved that very world which was in dark- 
 ness and misery, in sin and enmity, which required 
 Christ to be sent, and was lost without Him. Thus 
 we see that in no case was there anything to move 
 this love. Had there been desert in the object of 
 the love there would have been no need for the 
 manner Jn which it was manifested. In every case, 
 even in that of the beloved disciple, the love of God 
 preceded the love of man. We love Him because 
 He first loved us} And as the love was without 
 reference to the worthiness of the objects, so was it 
 universal in its extent, — it embraced the whole world, 
 for Christ was a gift to the whole world. And yet 
 the whole world did not accept Christ, but where He 
 was accepted there the love took effect, and evoked 
 love in return, the love of which it was worthy. 
 Only, in saying that the love took effect we must 
 question our own language, — Was it accidental that 
 it took effect, or was it intentional ? None of the 
 actions of God, least of all such actions as these, are 
 accidental ; it must therefore have been intentional. 
 Wherever the love took effect there was the result of 
 intention ; but intention on the part of whom > If 
 intention on our part, then our intention had the 
 power of controlling the exercise of God's love. Im- 
 possible ! Are we stronger than He ?^ Or is there 
 anything, can there be anything, in us to make Him 
 love us ? Impossible again ; for otherwise it could 
 not be true that we love Him because He first loved us. 
 
 ^ I John iv. 19. 2 J (^QT^ X. 22. 
 
92 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 And here, verily, we approach a profound mys- 
 tery — the operation and movement of the love of 
 God ; a mystery into which we must not gaze too 
 intently, or we shall be lost in perplexity and hope- 
 less confusion. God loves the world. He loves 
 especially those of the world who accept His Son. 
 Does He love them because they accept Him, or do 
 they accept Him because He loves them } Certainly 
 the latter ; but I think we may also say that He 
 loves them because they accept Him, for that is the 
 condition on which He virtually promises that they 
 shall become recipients of His further love. He 
 so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten 
 Sony that whosoever believed His love might not 
 perish — not believing the love wherewith he loved 
 him — but might have everlasting life ; that is, the 
 living reception in himself of the Father's love, 
 issuing in the interchange of love towards God, and 
 of yet further love of God towards him. 
 
 To perish, then, we observe, it is only too obvious, 
 is to be without love towards God, to be without 
 any feeling of God's love towards us. Observe very 
 carefully, not any general love towards us, but 
 the particular and special love which was declared 
 to be manifested in Christ. Unless, then, we believe 
 that Jesus is the only-begotten Son, it is impossible 
 that we can feel God's love in giving Him, for we 
 shall not believe in the reality of the gift ; but our 
 Lord declares that in this belief there consists the 
 possession of everlasting life. Everlasting life is 
 
HIS ONLY SON. 
 
 93 
 
 the response in the heart to the love of God which 
 was manifested in giving Christ, which therefore is 
 contingent upon belief in the Christ given. I do not 
 see how we can escape from these conclusions. A 
 certain definite belief about Christ is involved in that 
 belief in Him which is the condition of eternal life. It 
 cannot possibly be a matter of indifference what our 
 particular personal opinions about Christ may be, 
 certainly not if we literally accept the declarations of 
 His own language. He is to be the means through 
 which we apprehend the Infinite. We can, it is most 
 true, apprehend the Infinite without Him, but then, 
 it is only too evident we shall not be Christians, 
 for to be Christians we must apprehend the Infinite 
 through Cljirist. No man cometh unto the Father 
 but by Me} I am quite aware that there is, and 
 always has been, and always must be, a vast amount 
 of popular thought in direct defiance of this state- 
 ment ; but the question for us to determine is, 
 whether the statement is to correct our thought, or 
 whether our thought is to modify or to set aside 
 the statement. If God is a Father in Christ, then 
 it is perfectly evident that He is a Father in a 
 totally different sense to any other ; and if He 
 is a Father in Christ, then it is plain that we can 
 only appprehend this His fatherhood, in which His 
 love is infinite, by seeking Him in and through the 
 Son. 
 
 May it evermore be ours thus to seek Him, that 
 
 * John xiv. 6. 
 
94 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 believing in Christ we may find Him more and more 
 to be the sweetness of Divine love, and the centre of 
 Divine life, and the fulness of Divine truth ; so that, 
 bowing our hearts and minds before Him as the 
 only-begotten Son, we may dwell with Him in the 
 presence of the Father, and rejoice in the sunshine 
 of His light and love. 
 
IX. 
 
 OUR LORD. 
 
 To them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with 
 all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, 
 both theirs and ours." — i Cor. i. 2. 
 
 WE come now to the consideration of those 
 words in the Creed, familiar and of universal 
 occurrence as they are, which speak of Jesus Christ 
 as our Lord. They are actually employed by St. 
 Paul in this place, and he couples with them others 
 which may either be taken as expanding them or as 
 referring to the " every place " just before mentioned. 
 That is to say, his words mean, "Jesus Christ is our 
 Lord, and theirs too as well as ours ; " or else, " The 
 Epistle is addressed to all that call upon the name 
 of Jesus Christ our Lord, whether in their country or 
 in ours." The statement in the Creed really comes 
 to the same thing whichever way we take the literal 
 meaning of the words. 
 
 Jesus Christ belongs to others as well as ourselves, 
 whether we are in this place or another, whether we 
 are in this country or another, whether we are in 
 this quarter of the globe another, whether we are 
 in this hemisphere or another, whether we are in 
 this world or another. The great thought, then, 
 
 IttttivbesittI 
 
92 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 which is here brought before us is our unity and 
 union in Jesus Christ. To us there is but one Lord, 
 and because there is but one Lord we are one body 
 in Christ. 
 
 This, then, is a very apposite truth for us to be 
 reminded of upon St. Peter's Day,-^ when we com- 
 memorate the gifts and calling of an apostle whose 
 name more than any other has been constituted a 
 false centre of unity. The true and the only centre 
 of unity is our Lord, 
 
 Let us see, then, what this implies. 
 
 Jesus Christ founded a Church. The Church con- 
 sisted of believers in Him. Their belief in Him 
 made them members of His Church. Their being 
 members of His Church did not make them believers 
 in Him, for it was only by believing in Him that 
 they became members of His Church. This was 
 perfectly true when the whole area of the Church 
 was confined to the four or five disciples who were 
 first called. And the truth of it did not alter when 
 the area became of an indefinite extent. It is not 
 altered now. The Church that Jesus Christ is now 
 building up is the vast body of believers. Accord- 
 ing as we belong to that body, we belong to His 
 Church ; but no formal or outward membership with 
 what is called His Church can constitute us members 
 of that body, the only means of entrance is the 
 moral act of faith. 
 
 For, let us clearly understand it, Jesus Christ did 
 
 * Preached on June 29, 1873. 
 
OUR LORD. 
 
 97 
 
 not come to form a guild or corporation which was 
 to be united by certain Masonic tokens of member- 
 ship. Any one could have done that ; I could have 
 done it, you could have done it, hundreds have done 
 it. Every city in this empire has such a guild or cor- 
 poration. Jesus Christ came to do much more than 
 this ; He came to infuse into humanity a new, an 
 original, an extraneous, a peculiar and unique moral 
 influence ; which He did by attaching men to Himself, 
 by constituting Himself a new centre of unity. Be- 
 fore He came there existed various centres of unity. 
 A monarch, a lawgiver, a statesman, a city or a coun- 
 try, constituted such a centre, and for a time men 
 realised a certain unity in allegiance thereto. When 
 Christ came He acted on the same principle, but He 
 fulfilled it in a totally different way. He made infi- 
 nite faith in His own person to be the bond of unity. 
 It was thus that Peter became one with Christ. 
 When he uttered his noble confession, Thou art the 
 Christy the Son of the living God, he passed out of 
 himself and his old nature, and apprehended the 
 new nature in Christ. Peter then became a saved 
 man, and he continued a saved man by continuing 
 to retain his hold on Christ. But he had nothing in 
 himself which he found in Christ. He could not be 
 to others what he had need for Christ to be to him. 
 He could not give to others what he could only 
 obtain by giving himself to Christ. He needed life, 
 neither more nor less than life, and this he found 
 only in Christ, for he said himself, Lord, to whom 
 
 7 
 
98 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 shall we go ? ^ Thou hast the words of eternal life. 
 That confession shows Peter destitute — himself hun- 
 gering and thirsting ; it shows him likewise appre- 
 hending all that he wanted in Christ, dependent 
 upon Christ for it. And what we see to be true of 
 Peter is obviously true also of the Church. The 
 Church — that is, the aggregate of believers like 
 Peter — is in need like him, and dependent like him 
 for the supply of that life which is only to be found 
 in Christ. 
 
 It is sufficiently clear, therefore, that to seek for 
 that in the Church which the Church itself cannot 
 have except as she finds it in Christ, must be a fatal 
 error. And yet this is the error which the entire 
 Church of Rome notoriously commits, and of which 
 multitudes among ourselves are but dimly conscious. 
 People seem to think that Christ has delegated cer- 
 tain functions and privileges to the body of believers 
 which He has bestowed upon no individual member 
 of the body manifestly and confessedly, not upon 
 Peter himself But if no one member of the body 
 taken separately can be conceived of having that in 
 himself which he must either go to Christ for or else 
 not stand in need of a Saviour, how is it possible 
 that we can find in a multitude that which is seen to 
 exist in no unit of the multitude } If every unit of 
 the multitude is devoid of life, how can the multitude 
 itself possess Hfe, or how can we find life in union 
 with a multitude every member of which stands as 
 
 ' John vi. 68. 
 
OUR LORD, 99 
 
 much in need of it as we ourselves ? We can have 
 no union with Christ by ourself having an apparent, 
 visible union with those who belong to Him. We 
 can have no union with Christ by being i'n union 
 with Peter, unless that union with Peter is the result 
 of union with Christ. Union with Peter may or 
 may not lead to union with Christ. Unless it does, 
 it is absolutely worthless in itself. Least of all may 
 it be substituted for union with Christ. As Peter is 
 not Christ, so neither can the office of Peter be con- 
 founded with that of Christ, nor the office of the 
 Church which Peter represents. Christ proposes 
 Himself as the one centre of unity and source of 
 life, and we can invent no other. 
 
 This, however, is so sublime and ethereal a truth 
 that the ordinary mind cannot gr^sp it. We want 
 successive chains and gradations, steps and links, 
 leading from the lowest to the highest ; we cannot 
 soar all at once into the pure ether of heaven ; and 
 if we do, we find it difficult to breathe there, and 
 consequently we take refuge in the facile thougjit 
 that accommodation must have been provided for 
 the weak and halting on their way to Christ. But 
 all this is but a confirmation of the great truths. 
 Except a man be born again he cannot see the kin^- 
 dom of God;^ and. The natural mafi receiveth not the 
 things of the Spirit of God^ for they are foolishness 
 tmto him, neither ca7i he know them, becazcse they 
 are spiritually discerned.^ We want that very faculty 
 
 ' John iii. 3. * i Cor. ii. 14. 
 
loo THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 of sight which Christ alone can give, that very gift 
 of life which Christ alone can bestow. 
 
 But, then, ample provision is made for all that we 
 want in Jesus Christ Himself ; He is the sufficient as 
 well as the only Saviour. For example, the truth 
 that He is our Lord, in which this is implied, is 
 developed out of and flows from the truth we last 
 considered, that He is the only-begotten Son of God. 
 That truth enthrones Him on the summit of the uni- 
 verse ; it constitutes Him supreme over all, God 
 blessed for ever. In that capacity He is the exalted 
 One who is equal with the highest, and is Lord of 
 all. But, then, from His very exaltation He is un- 
 approachable, like the sun, whose glory we behold, 
 but dare not gaze upon. 
 
 Besides all this. He stands in a relation to us — 
 He is our Lord ; that is, the head or lord of our 
 humanity, for this is a title expressly relating to 
 our human nature ; He is its natural — or shall I say 
 supernatural } — head, for in Him the natural and the 
 supernatural are one and at one ; they are blended 
 in Him and reconciled in Him. Mark that. We feel 
 and know that He was naturally man, like ourselves ; 
 He was not a phantom. He was a real man, eating 
 and drinking, wearying, sorrowing, suffering, toiling, 
 weeping, bleeding, dying, like ourselves. But we 
 have gazed upon Him to little purpose if we have 
 not seen in Him something more than all this, if we 
 have not seen through every action of His natural life 
 the supernatural betraying and revealing itself Is it 
 
OUR LORD. loi 
 
 possible that we can gaze on Him and not believe in 
 Him ? is it possible that we can survey Him with 
 cold, critical, lack-lustre eyes, and calculate with super- 
 ciHous indifference the probabilities of the claims He 
 put forward being valid, — of His being what He said 
 He was ? Oh, surely not ! And yet we cannot in any 
 sense believe in him unless we see and confess that 
 He is the very incarnation of the supernatural, that 
 there is no character in all history at once so natural 
 and yet so supernatural as His. Then assuredly He 
 is our Lord, for we can nowhere find any one so truly 
 lordly as He is. He virtually had every one at His 
 command when on earth, whether it was the money- 
 changers whom He put to flight in the Temple; or the 
 Scribes and Pharisees who brought to Him the woman 
 taken in adultery, but whom He made to feel that 
 they were none of them without sin; or the band of 
 men and officers who, when they came to apprehend 
 Him, started backward and fell to the ground at 
 the simple question. Whom seek ye t or Pilate, the 
 representative of Imperial Rome, with her legions 
 and her lictors, when upon being reminded that he 
 could have no power at all against Him except it 
 were given him from above, forthwith sought to release 
 Him, notwithstanding the clamour of the people. 
 On these and a hundred other occasions He mani- 
 fested the existence in Himself of that fountain of 
 authority which compels an involuntary recognition 
 and is the inalienable birthright of those who are 
 born to rule. Who is the more lordly character, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 Christ suffering on the cross, with the twelve legions 
 of angels standing by with their hands upon their 
 sword hilts, but bidden not to draw ; or Napoleon 
 inditing despatches on the bloody but victorious 
 field, with thousands of the dying and the dead around 
 him, unheeded and uncared for ? The character of 
 the lordly conqueror, whose source of irresistible 
 might is his victorious sword, is nowhere in history 
 more conspicuous than in the great Napoleon ; but it 
 pales for grandeur and for dignity, for simple abso- 
 lute lordliness, before the character of the Son of 
 Man, whether you behold Him at the grave of 
 Lazarus or see Him dying on the cross. Search 
 through the annals of the world and the records 
 of many nations, and you shall find nowhere any 
 man of whom you can say so unhesitatingly, so 
 incontestably, " This man is the first-begotten of our 
 race, this is our natural lord, this is the rightful heir 
 to the throne of humanity, this is our legitimate 
 Head and King." For there is no one so truly man, 
 and there is no one because so truly man who is 
 so undeniably Divine. 
 
 And thus it is that because of the genuine Lord- 
 ship of Christ we all have an equal right in Him. He 
 is the natural and unique Head of our race, the crown 
 of our common humanity ; and therefore, because He 
 is our Lord, no one has a greater share in Him than 
 another, because that humanity of which He is the 
 Head is not a thing that admits of degrees, it is the 
 common attribute of all, and none can monopolise a 
 
OUR LORD. 
 
 103 
 
 larger share of it than another. We do indeed say 
 that such and such a one is more or less of a man, 
 but this is merely because he exhibits more or less of 
 the ideal attributes of a man, not because his human 
 nature differs from that of others, because if it did 
 it would not be human. And, therefore, the queen 
 upon her throne, or the nobles in her court, can have 
 no larger share in, no nearer interest in, or access 
 to Christ our Lord than the meanest beggar in our 
 streets, or pauper in our workhouses. The only 
 difference of share is that which can be measured by 
 the difference of faith. If you have more faith in 
 Christ, no matter what your outward circumstances 
 are or inward state may be, then you have a larger 
 interest in Him, a larger share in Him ; but not 
 otherwise. And it is because He is thus our Lord 
 that we can each go to Him with our several wants, 
 with our varied sins, and claim our share in Him ; 
 it is here that we can lay our hand upon the unap- 
 proachable and touch the inaccessible. We want 
 no Church, no organised society, no intermediate 
 agencies of any kind to enable us to do this ; the 
 more we let the mind rest upon these things, the 
 more likely we are to let them come between us and 
 Christ. The only right we have to go to Him, is the 
 right of that humanity of ours of which He is the 
 Head, and the only encouragement we need, and 
 the only claim we can advance is the fact that He 
 has called us to come to Him. There is one simple 
 solitary link which unites us to Him, one only 
 
I04 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 means by which we possess ourselves of Him and 
 pass into the actual personal enjoyment of all the 
 privileges and blessings of His humanity ; and that 
 is, faith. Peter himself was no nearer to Christ, 
 was not more truly one with Christ, than you and I 
 may be if we like Peter believe in Jesus ; and the 
 Church, of all times and countries, was never, is not, 
 and never can be more near to Christ or more truly 
 one with Him than you and I may be if we, by 
 believing in Jesus, pass into the innermost circle of 
 His invisible Church. Only, let us beware of the 
 fatal error of interposing the Church between our- 
 selves and Christ. The Church is not a mediator, 
 cannot become a mediator. The Church without 
 Christ is an aggregate of lifeless units, and the 
 Church with Christ is ,but an aggregate of the same 
 units, each of which lives according as it receives 
 life, not from the Church, but from Christ. Receiving 
 life from Christ, it becomes a living member of the 
 Church ; but not by being a member of the Church, 
 howsoever defined, does it receive life from Christ ; for 
 this life is a moral and not a mechanical gift, and 
 the Church has no power to give that which it is 
 Christ's alone to bestow, in virtue of His being the 
 revealed Head of our humanity. 
 
 Now sundry important truths are deduced like 
 corollaries from all this. First, as the head is one 
 so the body is one. The unity is a fact; we cannot 
 bring it about, we can only realise it. Men are 
 trying in tho present day to effect and bring about 
 
OUR LORD. 105 
 
 a formal unity ; sundry associations exist for that 
 purpose, which attempt upon this or that basis of 
 general agreement and sympathy to create a unity. 
 The intention is laudable but the principle is mis- 
 taken. We cannot create unity. Christ has done 
 it. He has revealed Himself as the Centre of unity, 
 the solitary Head of our nature. We become one 
 with each other by becoming one with Him and 
 realising our union with Him. If we are built upon 
 Him, then we must partake of His unity, whether or 
 not our angles fit closely into the angles of our 
 brethren. That stone which is built into the one 
 foundation at the east, is virtually one with those at 
 the west and the north and the south, though they 
 are all alike separated in position and will never be 
 brought together. Diverse as their functions, their 
 forms, their positions may be, they are one in the unity 
 of the building ; which is an essential unity, that 
 nothing short of total destruction can destroy. So, 
 then, those who believe in Christ are inevitably one 
 with each other, because one in Him, though their 
 nations and languages, their times and countries, 
 their modes of thought and sentiments may widely 
 differ. He Himself becomes responsible for their 
 unity, which is constituted indestructibly in him. But 
 if they are not personally united to him no efforts of 
 theirs can create their unity. 
 
 Lastly, the very object and idea for which we are 
 thus associated with Christ our Lord is that we may 
 become partakers of His holiness. There is indeed 
 
io6 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 no true life in Christ without a holiness correspon- 
 dent. This is the family likeness by which all the 
 children of the King are characterised and known ; 
 this is the title of royalty by which Christ as the 
 King of humanity will be always acknowledged 
 among men, because He is declared to be the Son of 
 God with power according to the spirit of holiness. 
 Let us seek to realise our union with Christ our 
 Lord by faith in Him, and our union with each other 
 by our union with Him, and then strive to exhibit 
 to our fellow-men that likeness to our Master which 
 consists in being holy as He is holy. 
 
X. 
 
 WHO WAS CONCEIVED Bl THE HOLY 
 GHOST. 
 
 The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the 
 Highest shall overshadow thee : therefore also that holy thing which 
 shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. — Luke i. 35. 
 
 ^ I ^HIS is the Scriptural statement of that which 
 •^ the Creed expresses in the words, " Who was 
 conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin 
 Mary." St. Luke tells us that it was a statement 
 made by the angel Gabriel. If there are such beings 
 as angels — which the materialistic philosophy of th^ 
 present day may perhaps hesitate to admit — and if 
 they have ever taken part in the affairs of men, we 
 can readily believe that they would do so at the birth 
 of Him who is the Lord of angels and of men, and 
 on such an occasion as the one which is here referred 
 to. It is, then, we must at once see, perfectly hope- 
 less to get rid of the supernatural in dealing with the 
 life of our blessed Lord. Rather, He is Himself our 
 escape from the perplexities attending the definition 
 of the natural and the supernatural, by combining in 
 Himself the characteristics of both. In Him we see 
 the two, not in collision, but in, so to say, natural 
 harmony. If our Lord's birth was after the manner 
 
io8 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 of men, destruction is laid at the root of all that He 
 ever did and said ; if it was not, the door is forthwith 
 opened to the admission of the supernatural, which 
 prepares us for its presence elsewhere, and we may- 
 then thankfully confess that we have known the 
 incarnation of the Son of God by the message of 
 an angel. It is no doubt perfectly true that nearly 
 every one in our assemblies may reverently and de- 
 voutly hold the Christian faith on this and similar 
 points, and never care to contemplate the alterna- 
 tive ; but forasmuch as we know there are at times, 
 at any rate, those present in them with whom it is 
 otherwise, and because it is not seldom laid as a re- 
 proach against us clergymen that we go along in the 
 rut and take a one-sided view of things, it may be 
 as well to show that we can contemplate the position 
 of faith and no-faith^ and that we are not blind to 
 the difficulties to which faith exposes us, and from 
 which it can leave no one free. 
 
 Now the birth of Jesus Christ introduced into 
 the family of man a new and a divine principle. 
 This is too much lost sight of. The philosopher 
 estimates Jesus Christ by what He did. Philo- 
 sophy takes the measure of Him according to the 
 wisdom of His recorded teaching and the great- 
 ness of the movement which He originated. But 
 Holy Scripture attaches an importance to tv/o per- 
 fectly natural incidents in our Lord's career, which 
 in fact the Creed places in juxtaposition, of which 
 philosophy takes no account; and these are, His birth 
 
WHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST. 109 
 
 and His death. As Christians, we are bound to 
 believe that the mere fact of our Lord's birth was, in 
 some sense at least, the salvation of man, — not as 
 containing in itself the pledge and promise of the 
 life which was to follow, with all its saving conse- 
 quences, but as being by its own virtue the commence- 
 ment of salvation. And what do I mean by this? I 
 mean that which I shall try to work out in the pre- 
 sent lecture. The Scriptural account of our physiolo- 
 gical and ethnological constitution is that all nations 
 of men are made of one blood. Science has not, at 
 present, disproved that, nor is it likely to disprove it, 
 for even allowing — which is the utmost that science 
 can ask us to allow — that the human race instead of 
 springing from one centre sprang from many, what 
 have we granted then .'' Certainly not that the human 
 race of which we speak and cannot help speaking 
 as one is after all not one. Does any one doubt 
 that any two units of this nation, taken where you 
 please, of the best blood and the basest, are not 
 essentially one now, though it is impossible to con- 
 ceive the actual case in which the blood of both 
 flowed in the veins of the same individual man. Is 
 not this unity something altogether independent of 
 the real genealogical origin .? So that it was not 
 virtually greater at the distance of two generations 
 from the actual common origin than at the distance 
 of five hundred, that it will not be less in the descen- 
 dants of both a thousand years hence than it is at 
 the present moment. It is something more than 
 
no THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 community of descent to which we owe our common 
 humanity. Our great poet teaches us this when 
 he says, " Hath not a Jew eyes, hath not a Jew 
 hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, 
 fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, 
 subject to the same diseases, healed by the same 
 means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and 
 summer, as a Christian is?" Our common humanity 
 consists, not in the continuity of origin, proved or 
 disproved, but in the continuity of all which makes 
 up man ; and this we share with the Maori and the 
 Hottentot as much as we do with the Saxon and 
 the Celt. The blood which flows in the veins of 
 all, whether or not it was originally one, is after all 
 human blood, can be physically identified as human 
 blood, and is so far an evidence of union, whether 
 or not it is historically the basis of unity. And of 
 this blood the commonest and the most universal 
 characteristic is its transmission from sire to son. 
 Science has given us no instance, professes not to give 
 us any instance, disdains to give us any instance, in 
 which this transmission has been broken. Revelation, 
 historical revelation, has given us one instance, and 
 only one. So that even granting that the theory of 
 evolution held good as regards the historic origin of 
 man, revelation, historic revelation, would propose 
 to our faith one solitary instance in which the links 
 of evolution were sundered, and that instance the 
 person and the birth of Christ. 
 
 Now this is proposed to our faith ; it is utterly and 
 
WHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST, in 
 
 hopelessly beyond the reach of reason alike to prove 
 and to comprehend it. But yet, at the same time, 
 no one can say that it is unreasonable; on the other 
 hand, it appeals in the highest degree to reason by 
 the very magnitude of the results which, if true, 
 it would accomplish. For then you would have 
 introduced into humanity — what we cannot but 
 acknowledge is our common humanity — an entirely 
 new element which had never been imparted before ; 
 you would have communicated not only the human 
 but the Divine element. 
 
 And now see the necessity for this. There is some- 
 thing common to us besides blood, and something 
 for which evolution cannot account whether or not 
 it accounts for community of blood, and something 
 which is strangely connected with this community of 
 blood, something which, if not seated in the blood, 
 is mysteriously associated therewith. For example, 
 we know that the blood is the seat of life, that, in the 
 words of Scripture, the life is the blood ;^ and in the 
 life is bound up the very germ of personality, so far 
 as our personality is dependent on and expressed by 
 our living, sentient humanity ; so that all the mar- 
 vellous complexities of the will, and the reason, and 
 the affections are wrapped up in that word " life," 
 which is intimately and inseparably associated with 
 that word "blood," so that if you shed the blood 
 you shed the life, — you dissolve the connexion with 
 humanity of the will, and the reason, and the affec- 
 
 * Gen. X. 4; Lev. xvii. ii. 
 
112 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 tions, because you dissolve the integrity of th^ 
 man. What is there, then, which is generally, 
 universally associated with us all in this life, and 
 therefore in this blood, which is common to us all ? 
 It is, in one word, sin. Sin pervades our life, is 
 seated in our blood. None will deny that sin per- 
 vades our life, or, if any deny it, sin itself will testify 
 against them. But, more than this, sin infects our 
 nature ; it corrupts and taints our very blood. We 
 cannot wash our hands clean from sin, as Pilate 
 sought in vain to do. No moral lustrations will 
 purify us from sin. Fasting will not eradicate it- 
 Penance will not destroy the tendency thereto. 
 Prayers and sacraments will not abolish the natural 
 proclivity. Confession, which some imagine to be 
 a panacea, will but develop it. We cannot get rid 
 of it, because we possess a sinful nature ; and the 
 nature which I have my father had before me, 
 my son will have after me, and so on even to the 
 years of countless generations. We do not say that 
 the nature develops itself, that it progresses or 
 recedes, — we do not undertake to pronounce upon 
 that ; but we say, and we appeal to the testimony 
 of facts, that the nature has been, and is, and will 
 remain, essentially sinful and corrupt, that the sin is 
 rooted in the will, which is immediately connected 
 with the life, which is intimately associated with the 
 blood. And it is obvious that if this nature is the 
 nature of all, — for though many may differ in the 
 degrees of sin, yet there is none who is not sinful, — 
 
IVHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST. 113 
 
 then no one who shares the nature can redeem or 
 deliver or purify the nature which he shares. He is in- 
 competent to redeem himself, and how can he redeem 
 his brother ? I use the word "redeem" in no technical 
 sense, but simply as expressing that riddance of the 
 nature from sin which the sinful nature is obviously 
 incompetent to effect. But given the admission into 
 our nature of a new element, given the admixture 
 with our blood of a sinless because a Divine prin- 
 ciple, and you have, at any rate, a conceivable 
 passage opened out for the deliverance of the nature 
 from sin. For in one particular case the entail of 
 sin is cut off, the connecting links are sundered. 
 Here isolation is at last effected. At this point sin 
 could not enter, did not enter into our nature. 
 Man felt that if he could only begin afresh much 
 might be done towards redemption ; but he never 
 could achieve this beginning — the power of old asso- 
 ciation was too mighty. This has been felt and 
 exemplified time after time in the individual, and it 
 was virtually the consciousness of the race. But One 
 was revealed to us who had another consciousness, 
 and in whom every individual could find his own 
 consciousness renewed and regenerated ; and this was 
 He whose birth was announced by the angel Gabriel, 
 even He who was conceived by the Holy Ghost 
 and bom of the Virgin Mary. 
 
 Thus far, then, you see that the Christian faith 
 proposes to our apprehension a distinct and definite 
 fact which took place in human history, namely, the 
 
 8 
 
114 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 communication to the race of a new element or prin- 
 ciple, in the person of Christ, who should henceforth 
 be the unit of attraction, cohesion, centralisation, the 
 foundation of a new society, the head of a new family. 
 Not, however, as heretofore, to be perpetuated by the 
 ever-recurring relation of sire and son, but by the ever- 
 recurring repetition of the moral act of regeneration, 
 through contact by faith with the sinless person of the 
 Son of Man. It is in the highest degree essential to 
 understand this. If we have not a sinless Christ to 
 believe in, we have no one to believe in. If we have 
 not a Christ to believe in, in whom there was not 
 the taint of a sinful nature, then the death-blow is 
 struck at all our hopes. There was in Him perfect 
 humanity, but humanity sinless because perfect, 
 humanity that was in its origin without the taint of 
 sin, and which in its immediate contact with sin had 
 asserted and proved its freedom from it and power 
 over it. 
 
 But then the great question arises. How do we 
 become partakers of this humanity } how can it be 
 communicated to us and become ours ? In answer 
 to this question two theories have been advanced, 
 which should be clearly distinguished. The one 
 theory is this, that the sacraments ordained by 
 Christ were ordained by Him for the purpose of 
 communicating and extending the effects of His 
 participation in our nature ; that so the baptised 
 man is metaphorically grafted into the body of 
 Christ, and in the Holy Eucharist partakes of that 
 
WHO WAS, CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST. 115 
 
 Spiritual body into which he was in baptism grafted ; 
 that thus there is, through the sacraments, a direct 
 communication of the renewed nature of Christ. 
 The objection to this theory is that in it metaphor 
 appears to be substituted for reality. In baptism 
 there is nothing that answers to the metaphor graft- 
 ing, unless it be spiritual union, and in the Eucharist 
 there is nothing that answers to participation unless 
 it be spiritual communication. But we cannot have 
 spiritual communication except by spiritual means. 
 Now the water and the bread and the wine, whatever 
 else they are, certainly are not spirit, even though 
 they be the channels, or the tokens, of spiritual com- 
 munication. We have the highest authority for 
 saying that it is the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh — ■ 
 that is, all that is short of or other than the spirit — 
 profiteth nothing} And I think we must acknow- 
 ledge that it is alien to the entire teaching of Christ 
 to understand that to be done by a succession of 
 sensible means, by the setting in motion of a visible 
 machinery which must after all in its method of oper- 
 ation and its effects be of the nature of a moral influ- 
 ence. And therefore we are bound to say that even 
 admitting this theory to be defensible — and it depends 
 for its truth rather upon subtlety of argument, and 
 upon a particular interpretation of the word " spirit- 
 ual," which appears to assign it an intermediate posi- 
 tion, between the moral and material, that namely of 
 an inappreciable tertittm quid, than upon the simplicity 
 
 * John vi. 63. 
 
Ii6 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 of scriptural demonstration; but accepting it as theo- 
 retically correct, it must certainly derive all its real 
 virtue from the other theory, which, in professing to 
 supplement, it too often supplants. And this theory 
 is very simple ; no less simple than the direct state- 
 ments of Scripture itself, namely that we become 
 partakers of the benefits of Christ's humanity, and 
 the virtue of that humanity is actually communicated 
 to us, by faith in Him. 
 
 Now as it is admitted on all hands that the 
 sacraments without faith are ineffectual, we can 
 only say that that which alone can give efficacy to 
 the sacraments must be more potent as a means 
 than they. The man who communicates without 
 faith, communicates to no purpose — he does not 
 become a partaker of Christ's humanity. Throw 
 into his communion the indispensable element of 
 faith, and he becomes a partaker of Christ by faith, 
 not by his participation in the visible elements which 
 are intended to assure him of that union which he 
 already enjoys through faith. Believe me, brethren, 
 that so far from deprecating the sacraments by 
 any such notions, we cannot truly appreciate them 
 till we become experimentally acquainted with what 
 is implied by communion with Christ by faith. We 
 enter into direct personal union with the Sinless 
 One, into actual participation in the blessings of His 
 renewed humanity, and into conscious oneness with 
 Him, when by faith we can say, "Thou, Lord, art 
 mine." If we can come to Him and say, " There is, 
 
WHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST. 117 
 
 Lord, nothing in me but sin, and death the wages 
 of sin : I come to Thee to be rid of sin, and to have 
 Hfe, even abundant and eternal life in Thee. Thou 
 art my perfected and restored humanity, for Thou art 
 that Son of Man, who is the Son of God. In Thee I 
 find that which I can find nowhere else, least of all in 
 myself. In Thee there is righteousness and peace 
 and joy in the Holy Ghost, for in Thee I am one with 
 the Father, even as Thou in Thyself hast made the 
 Father one with me," then we shall find, as thousands 
 have found before us, that our faith hath made us 
 whole. This will be our blessing and our reward ; 
 we shall know that we do indeed live because He 
 lives and we are partakers of His life. 
 
 But this mighty change is a moral and not a 
 mechanical change ; it cannot be brought about by 
 participation in any ordinances, by clinging to any 
 means which come between us and the end they 
 signify; it is a change that can alone be produced, 
 as the first entrance of the Divine element into 
 our corrupt human nature was effected, by the over- 
 shadowing of the Holy Ghost. Spirit alone can 
 act on spirit. The only way in which prayers, or 
 communions, or anything else can be made effectual 
 to our salvation is by our being united to the Saviour^ 
 which union is effected by the Holy Ghost through 
 faith. The person of Jesus Christ is the depositary 
 of the Holy Spirit, if we may so say; through union 
 with Christ we have union with the Spirit, and 
 through the guidance of the Spirit we have union 
 
ii8 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 with Christ. There is an appearance here of circular 
 motion, but it is of a kind analogous to that by which 
 the earth moves round the sun. Jesus Christ is 
 our Sun of Righteousness ; and if we believe in Him 
 and give ourselves to Him for life or for death, and 
 serve Him in truth, we shall find the harmony of 
 all the varied and opposite points upon the circum- 
 ference in the unity of the centre, and in our union 
 therewith. 
 
XL 
 
 SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE. 
 Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged Him. — ^John xix. i. 
 
 'TT^HE ancient confession of faith known as the 
 -^ Apostles' Creed has this advantage over every 
 formula of a similar kind, — that it is a summary of 
 facts and not of doctrines. There is little or no- 
 thing in it, strictly speaking, of a dogmatic character. 
 It is for the most part a simple record of historic 
 events. And more particularly is this the case with 
 what it affirms of our Lord Himself. We are not 
 taught some special theological tenets about Him, 
 but merely the bare incidents of His human life. 
 No doubt in many quarters this is regarded as a 
 great defect in the Creed. For myself, I believe it 
 to be the highest merit, and the principal cause that 
 the Creed has lasted for so long a time. It would 
 long ago have passed away had it not been for the 
 wisdom and tenacity with which it had seized upon 
 the more prominent facts of our Lord's existence, 
 and presented them as the all-important matters of 
 belief. 
 
 And thus, for instance, after having, in no ambiguous 
 terms, stated the Christian conviction as to who Jesus 
 
MO THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 Christ was, it proceeds immediately to say that He 
 suffered under Pontius Pilate. It is this brief but 
 pregnant truth that we are to consider to-day. You 
 must observe, therefore, that the Creed does not tell us 
 why our Lord suffered; it presents no theory for our 
 acceptance to explain the necessity of His suffering ; 
 it propounds no scheme setting forth the conse- 
 quences, actual or supposed, of His having suffered, 
 — it is content merely to enunciate the cold, frigid, 
 jejune and barren fact that He did suffer. Many 
 probably would have wished it had been more 
 explicit. But so it is. 
 
 You will, however, upon a moment's consideration, 
 at once see that whatever may have been the reasons 
 for our Lord's suffering, or the consequences of His 
 having suffered, all these must gather round and 
 centre in the fact itself that He suffered. Let the 
 reasons be never so valid which made it needful for 
 Him to suffer, these would all come to nothing if the 
 suffering was unreal or unhistoric. Let the conse- 
 quences which were supposed to follow be what they 
 might, these also would fade away completely if the 
 act or event of suffering had not happened. And^ 
 therefore on every ground the truth to be set in the 
 foremost place was not some theory about the suffer- 
 ing, but the fact itself that suffering was undergone. 
 
 Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged Him. 
 That was an incident in our Lord's suffering, — 
 which suffering, be it remembered, the Creed distin- 
 ^^uishes from the crucifixion which followed. Let us 
 
SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE. J2I 
 
 try, then, to concentrate our minds upon this one 
 point — ^Jesus Christ suffered : He suffered under 
 Pontius Pilate. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable that all the sweetness 
 which is associated in our Lord's name is centred, not 
 in the divinity which was veiled in human flesh, not 
 in the majesty which He ascended into the heavens 
 to share, not in the throne which He forsook in 
 order that He might resume it, not in the miracles of 
 power which He wrought when on earth, but in this 
 single fact that He suffered. And it is no less true 
 that the sufferings of other men, though they may 
 elicit our sympathy and call forth our compassion, 
 are yet not regarded in themselves as elements of 
 attractiveness. People who are continually obtrud- 
 ing their own misfortunes or sufferings, are certainly 
 not those who are most eagerly sought after. The 
 world at large shrinks from contact with adversity, 
 and finds no sweetness in sorrow. But it is quite 
 otherwise with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. There 
 is in them an undefinable element of attractiveness 
 and sweetness — so marvellously true are His own 
 marvellous words, Andl^ if I be lifted up ^ will draw all 
 men unto me} Though there may be many who pass 
 the suffering Jesus by unheeded, yet where He is 
 cared for, there it is the sufferings He endured for 
 which men care. 
 
 There are certain characters in history which 
 claim our affection because of their misfortunes. 
 
 * John xii. 32. 
 
122 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 For example, I suppose most persons in the present 
 day, whatever may be their political bias, feel a cer- 
 tain degree of affection for Charles I., when they 
 regard him on the side of his suffering rather than his 
 policy. "Pity melts the mind to love," and the human 
 heart, when mindful of its own liability to sorrow, is 
 apt to be drawn out in sympathy towards those who 
 suffer, and to feel a tenderness for the unfortunate 
 which is not felt for others ; and yet in all these 
 cases it is not the sorrows but the sorrowful that 
 we feel for. We love the sufferers on account of 
 their sorrows ; the mere contemiplation of the suffer- 
 ing itself gives no pleasure. Now it is quite other- 
 wise with Jesus, and the sufferings of Jesus. For 
 example, we dare not say that we are moved with 
 compassion for our blessed Lord. We dare not 
 presume to approach Him with anything like the 
 sentiment of pity. In His human lifetime we 
 never find Him asking for anything like sympathy, 
 and certainly His historical character is one to 
 which we cannot venture to offer the tribute of 
 condolence. It is so sublime that it says to us. Draw 
 not nigh hither : put off thy shoes from off thy feety 
 for the place wliereon thou standest is holy ground. 
 And yet, withal. His sufferings have an attractive- 
 ness in themselves. They never repel us ; they never 
 produce in the mind anything which answers to 
 satiety. We may turn away from them we may 
 come like the Levite and look at them and pass by 
 on the other side, but the more we contemplate them 
 
SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE. 123 
 
 the more they fill our mind with sweetness. It is 
 undeniable that in this respect the sorrows of Jesus 
 differ from those of all others, as does the effect also 
 which the contemplation of them produces on the 
 mind. In the history of the human sensibilities 
 the sufferings of Jesus Christ have produced an 
 entirely new and original phenomenon, which has no 
 parallel elsewhere. And when we attempt to analyse 
 this sentiment, or enquire into its nature and its 
 meaning, we find that it arises not on account of the 
 person who endured the sufferings, but on their rela- 
 tion to ourselves. We feel that we cannot approach 
 Jesus Christ with anything like condolence, partly 
 because He does not stand in need of our pity, and 
 partly because of His intense exaltation of character. 
 At the time when the beloved sovereign of 
 this nation was smitten with that terrible stroke 
 which left her desolate and a widow, it was often 
 remarked that there was an element in her grief 
 which was lacking in that of all others, who might 
 be smitten as she was, in that the eminence of 
 her position left her in unapproachable solitude. 
 Where could the friend be found, who, as an equal, 
 could draw near with the message of consolation .? 
 If this was in any degree true of her, how much 
 more true must it be of Jesus. And, yet again, here 
 also was the strongest possible contrast, because she 
 was in sore need of sympathy, but was debarred 
 from the access of it in consequence of her exalted 
 rank ; whereas He, although pre-eminent in suffering^ 
 
124 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 no less than in exaltation, had, strictly speaking, no 
 need of that which His creatures were utterly unable 
 to bestow, while at the same time He was literally 
 in the very extremest need. And thus, we are told 
 that while the chosen partners of His sufferings, and 
 witnesses of His agony were asleep, or heavy with 
 sleep, there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven 
 strengthening Him} Surely it was this very element 
 of solitude in our Lord's sufferings which rendered 
 them transcendent in their intensity. 
 
 We were led, then, on Sunday last, to see that 
 there was that in His origin which necessarily sepa- 
 rated Him from all those whose nature He assumed. 
 Needful, however, as it is to lay fast hold of this 
 truth, it is no less needful to grasp its correlative 
 and opposite truth. And the declaration of the 
 Creed that He suffered under Pontius Pilate, is cal- 
 culated to help us in doing this. 
 
 For what is there that at once and in a moment 
 reduces all men to a common level like suffering ? 
 Suffering is the demonstration of equality. The 
 wise man dieth as the fool. The rich man quails 
 before the agony of pain like the poor. Death, said 
 the poet of the Augustan age, smites with his undis- 
 criminating footstep the hovels of paupers and the 
 towers of kings. If there is one thing which gives 
 the lie to our selfish isolation and proud exclusive- 
 ness and makes us one, it is community of suffering. 
 But community of suffering does more than this ; it 
 
 * Luke xxii. 43. 
 
SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE. 125 
 
 not only makes us one, it not only compels us, as it 
 were, at the point of the bayonet, to surrender at 
 discretion, and forego our claim to a fictitious and 
 delusive superiority, but it also shows that we are one. 
 Whence this aching of the heart, this racking of the 
 brain, this writhing of the limbs, this troubling of the 
 soul, which we all feel and shrink from, but because 
 we are all made of one dust, to which, being heirs 
 of the same mortality, we shall all return ? We 
 suffer alike because we are made alike, we die alike 
 because we have sinned alike. There is not only 
 community of origin but community of end ; and the 
 community of end shows the community of need, 
 and the community of need shows the unity of 
 nature. 
 
 Now apply all this to the sufferings of Christ. If 
 Christ suffered. He was one with those who suffer. 
 He was scourged, crowned with thorns, pierced with 
 nails, rent with a spear. Was there no suffering in 
 all this } He was mocked, jeered at, spat upon, 
 reviled : He endured such contradictio7t of sinners 
 against Himself. Was there no suffering in all this 1 
 The more delicate the organism, the more acute the 
 suffering. It could not be but that His organism, 
 being most refined and delicate, was most acutely 
 sensitive. It could not be, therefore, but that He suf- 
 fered. But further being what He was, shall we say 
 that there was no suffering in the all but universal 
 rejection which He met with among men } Was 
 
 ^ Heb. xii. 3. 
 
126 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 there no suffering in the agony and bloody sweat, 
 which was His night-long preparation for the dreadful 
 morning of torture and death with which His earthly 
 career was closed ? Was there no suffering in the 
 bitter cry, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, with which, hav- 
 ing witnessed the flight of those nearest and dearest 
 to Him, He endured as a true man, and the Son of 
 Man, the desertion of His Father on a'ccount of sin ? 
 Yes, verily, here in the person of Jesus Christ you 
 find the perfection of suffering intensified and subli- 
 mated, without one redeeming element of mitigation, 
 the fulness of a bitter cup without dilution or dimi- 
 nution anywhere. In all our sufferings there is 
 generally some bypath along which we can ap- 
 proach to the goal which is fixed unalterably in our 
 just deserts; but here it is otherwise, and we can but 
 confess with the dying thief. We indeed justly, for 
 we receive the diie reward of our deeds; but this man 
 hath done nothing amiss} 
 
 Here, then, there is suffering in the perfection of 
 its refinement and purity, and the perfection of the 
 suffering showed the unity of nature in the sufferer 
 with those who suffer. He showed conclusively that 
 He felt with us. He was one with us in suffering, 
 for had He not been one with us He could not have 
 suffered. But because His sufferings are so refined 
 and purified, because there is discernible in them no 
 trace of sin or self-reproach, none of the smitings or 
 rebukes of conscience, therefore it is that they are 
 
 ^ Luke xxiii. 41. 
 
SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, 127 
 
 endued with an inexpressible sweetness. We cannot 
 presume to pity Him, but we can love His sorrows. 
 We dare not think of compassionating Him, but we 
 can adore His sufferings. We may seek to find our 
 fellowship in them, and finding our fellowship in 
 them we can adore Him. 
 
 For it is through the relation that His sufferings 
 have to us that we taste their sweetness. As long 
 as the sorrows and sufferings of Christ are regarded 
 with indifference, as things at a distance, they have 
 no effect upon us ; it is only when we find in them a 
 true link of connection with ourselves that they be- 
 come potent and effectual. And their potency con- 
 sists in this, that they take away sin. Christy we are 
 told, hath once suffered for sins;^ He died for our sins 
 according to the Scriptures?' The Creed has not em- 
 bodied this truth, because it is mainly careful of the 
 fact. The more we contemplate the fact, the more 
 we shall find ourselves at a loss to account for it, the 
 more we shall find ourselves face to face with a pro- 
 found mystery. Why did Christ suffer? Suffering 
 is inexplicable except on the supposition of guilt. 
 Suffering must either imply guilt or else it cannot be 
 suffering. Pain implies the presence of a disturbing 
 element, or else it is only another form of pleasure. 
 But intense pain is practically, if not philosophically, 
 the antithesis of pleasure ; and so suffering, if it be 
 suffering, can only be traced home to a source 
 which flows from guilt. But in the sufferings of 
 
 * I Peter iii. 18. * i Cor. xv. 4. 
 
128 . THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 Christ we lose ourselves in the search for a source 
 of guilt. We must either say that in Him was no 
 sin, or we must say that He justly suffered. Then 
 if we cannot trace suffering in Him to a cause of sin, 
 we must explain it as the remedy of sin. 
 
 And this is where we discover its great sweetness. 
 As we taste the sufferings of Christ and feel their 
 sweetness, we lose the sense and the taste of sin, we 
 find therein the antidote of the bane. We find that 
 they have an unexplained and inexplicable moral 
 connection with human sin, and the connection is 
 that of the remedy for it. Given the fact of Christ's 
 sufferings, which the Creed proclaims, we must either 
 acknowledge that they are like all other sufferings, 
 or else are unlike them. If they are like them, then 
 there is personal sin directly connected with them, 
 and they were the consequence of personal sin in 
 Christ, which God forbid ; if they are unlike them, 
 they are unlike only in this, that whereas all other 
 sufferings more or less directly flow from sin, these 
 sufferings flow against sin, to counteract, redeem, and 
 cancel it. And this is what they do, — though that 
 they do it is a matter of faith, and not of demonstra- 
 tion. We may believe that Jesus Christ suffered 
 under Pontius Pilate, but that bare fact will be 
 barren in ourselves unless we know and believe that 
 He suffered for us. This is the way in which the 
 belief of the fact affects us unto life and salvation, 
 but it Gannot do so unless it is a fact. And there- 
 fore we say that He suffered under Pontius Pilate, 
 
SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE. 129 
 
 because that is the point by which the fact is fixed in 
 the history of the world. We know when Pontius 
 Pilate lived, and who he was, and whence he came, 
 and whither he went, and as every fact in human 
 history is in order of time, and sequence of events 
 fixed by its relation to other events and facts, so 
 with the fact of Christ's suffering. That took place 
 during the time when Pontius Pilate was the 
 governor who represented Tiberius Caesar at Jerusalem. 
 He was the imperial viceroy or lord-lieutenant, and 
 under his viceroyalty Jesus Christ suffered. It is a 
 simple matter of history, attested by a variety of 
 independent witnesses and events, that cannot be 
 gainsaid. In those days the man Jesus Christ as a 
 man suffered. Those were the days of His suffering. 
 He then had taken our humanity, and was sharing 
 our sufferings. 
 
 From that commonplace visible fact which takes 
 its place among the other commonplace facts of this 
 very commonplace, and every day world flows the 
 unseen fact of our redemption. Destroy the one 
 fact and the other is destroyed ; but you cannot de- 
 stroy the one fact, and therefore the other is inde- 
 structible. Christianity is a religion, the roots of 
 which are planted deep in the soil of this sinstricken 
 earth, but the effects of it are felt in heaven. It is 
 like a tower, of which the foundation is laid deep 
 down in the solid rock, but the top of it reaches to 
 heaven. Of old men tried to rear such a tower, but 
 they could not rear it, and even now from time to 
 
 9 
 
I30 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 time they try and try again, but they cannot succeed, 
 for God hath reared the only tower, which He hath 
 ordained as a refuge for the sons of men, and that 
 tower is the person of His Son, who having His 
 roots in the natural soil of our humanity, and His 
 foundation in the solid rock of human history, hath 
 nevertheless ascended into the heavens as our repre- 
 sentative and redeemer. We have the abiding 
 witness of His being and having been one with us 
 in the record of His sufferings, which He suffered 
 under Pontius Pilate, when He was scourged, and 
 pierced, blasphemed, and spit upon, reviled, rejected, 
 and set at nought. And in the assurance that 
 we have, that these sufferings were on our behalf 
 and for our sins, we have the proof established and 
 confirmed that our sins have been forgiven, and that 
 through His sufferings we have been redeemed. 
 And thus, in all our sufferings for a brief space here 
 on earth, we have the confident hope, if we belong 
 to Him and have Him with us in them, that we 
 through them shall be raised eventually to triumph 
 and rejoice with Him in heaven. 
 
XII. 
 WAS CRUCIFIED, 
 
 And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. — Mark xy. 25. 
 
 THE Apostles' Creed is very full and circum- 
 stantial in its reference to the termination 
 of our Lord's earthly career, which is the subject of 
 no less than five separate statements : " He suffered 
 under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried ; 
 He descended into hell." Each of these incidents is 
 worthy of separate and independent consideration. 
 To-day, we have to consider the statement, " Was 
 Crucified." Here, again, we are dealing with the 
 simple fact, which must of necessity be the essence 
 and kernel of any doctrine that may be based upon 
 it. And of this fact there is the fullest possible 
 proof from the concise words of the historian Tacitus, 
 siipplicio affectiis erat} to the elaborate and detailed 
 narratives of the four evangelists. The statement 
 of the text, however, And it was the third hour^ 
 and they crucified Him, has the appearance of being 
 in collision with the corresponding statement of St. 
 
 ' Ann. XV. 44. 
 
132 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 John, '*' And it was the preparation of the Passover^ 
 and about the sixth hour^ and he saith unto the JewSy 
 Behold your king} But they cried out, Away with 
 Him, crucify Him,'' which seems to point to the 
 inference that the crucifixion did not take place till 
 the sixth hour, that is twelve o'clock at noon, instead 
 of the third hour, that is nine o'clock in the morn- 
 ing. Of this apparent divergence the utmost has of 
 course been made by the opponents of the Christian 
 faith. On this point, however, we may in passing 
 just make two observations. First, that even allow- 
 ing the actual divergence to be as great as it appears 
 to be, and to involve the whole difference of three 
 hours as to the time of crucifixion, yet even then the 
 credibility of the fact is in no degree affected thereby. 
 In ordinary life, if there were four witnesses to a 
 particular fact, about which they all agreed, though 
 one of the four differed from the rest as to the time 
 at which it occurred, no man would for a moment 
 doubt the reality of the occurrence by reason of this 
 minor discrepance. And secondly, the best explana- 
 tion of the difficulty that I have seen is the supposi- 
 tion that St. John alludes not to the sixth hour of 
 the day, but to the sixth hour of the preparation 
 he has just before mentioned, and that this hour is 
 counted not from the commencement, but after the 
 Jewish manner, from the close of the preparation. 
 As the preparation ended about three o'clock on 
 Friday, six hours before it would be about nine 
 
 ^ John xix. 14. 
 
IVAS CRUCIFIED, 133 
 
 o'clock on the same day, which is the time, when 
 according to St. Mark, our Lord was crucified. 
 Now as to the particular death He died, crucifixion 
 was not a Jewish but a Roman mode of punishment. 
 Had our Lord died by the Jewish law, He would 
 have been stoned, but the Jews in their subject con- 
 dition had not the legal right to stone a prisoner for 
 blasphemy. When Pilate, therefore, had reluctantly 
 given his consent to the execution of Jesus, it was 
 as a Roman citizen and not as a Jewish subject that 
 He died. And this was the second occasion on 
 which we find our Lord outstripping the narrow 
 bounds of Jewish nationality, and asserting His 
 identity with the Gentile world that, as well as the 
 Jewish world, He came to save. The first time was 
 when He went down into Egypt, to take refuge from 
 Herod ; the second was when He was led forth with- 
 out the holy city, to be crucified as a Roman male- 
 factor on the hill of Calvary. Thus it was that He 
 broke down the middle wall of partition, between 
 the Jew and the Gentile, and in His death united 
 those who in their lifetime had been irreconcilably 
 divided. It is one of the most remarkable features 
 of our blessed Lord's character, that it is entirely 
 devoid of nationality. Whereas we have no diffi- 
 culty now in recognising the Frenchman, the German, 
 the American, the Englishman, as a member of the 
 particular nation to which he belongs^ and we none 
 of us can divest ourselves of our own peculiar national 
 characteristics — in the character of Jesus Christ 
 
134 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 we find not the special features of the Jew, the 
 Roman, or the Greek, but that genuine breadth and 
 simplicity of character which we should expect to 
 mark the life of one who was emphatically the Son 
 of Man ; and in the particular kind of death He chose 
 to die, we see Him breaking loose from the trammels 
 of Judaism, and condescending to assert His oneness 
 with the heathen nation under whose authority and 
 jurisdiction He was content to suffer. 
 
 Now, this fact of our Lord's crucifixion, has, it is 
 needless to say, stamped itself on the mind of the 
 nations of Christendom. The cross is the most con- 
 spicuous feature of our material and artistic life, from 
 the dome of the magnificent cathedral that looks down 
 on this vast metropolis, to the ornaments of personal 
 attire, that are cherished and worn by men and women 
 alike. In the foreign countries of Christendom this 
 is of course even more obvious than among ourselves. 
 But if the figure of the cross has in certain cases 
 been turned to a superstitious purpose, there is no 
 reason why it should be proscribed by us. In itself, 
 it has manifestly and can have no virtue or intrinsic 
 merit, any more than the actual wooden framework 
 to which our Lord was nailed could have ; but as the 
 ■memorial and token of the extremest and most 
 transcendant act of love that was ever witnessed or 
 performed, it can never cease to be dear to the 
 imaginations and the eyes of Christians, and may 
 justly be regarded as a token full of the most signifi- 
 cant meaning, and consecrated by the most blessed 
 
WAS CRUCIFIED. 135 
 
 associations. In St. Paul's epistles, moreover, we 
 find that the cross of Christ has become so familiar 
 to the minds of His followers, that it has passed 
 altogether out of the realm of mere historic occur- 
 rence into that of ideal association and significance, 
 as for example, when He says, God forbid that I 
 should glory y save in the crossl or, We preach Christ 
 crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the 
 Greeks foolishness? There can be no question that 
 in such cases, what the writer means is the ethical 
 and spiritual doctrine connected with the fact of 
 Christ's crucifixion, and not that fact alone apart 
 from the doctrine, but still we must always bear in 
 mind that the doctrine depends upon the fact, and not 
 the fact upon the doctrine. It was the fact that origi- 
 nated the doctrine, and gave the impulse to the doc- 
 trine, and not the doctrine that originated the fact. 
 
 Let us then attempt to apprehend some of the 
 many and solemn lessons that are involved in and 
 inculcated by the fact of the crucifixion of Jesus. 
 First, by His crucifixion our Lord set the seal to all 
 that He had before taught and done. It was not, 
 humanly speaking, inevitable that He should be 
 taken and crucified. More than once we read of 
 His escaping from the hands of His enemies when 
 they were on the point of taking Him. More than 
 once we read of His deliberately avoiding such 
 places and persons as would naturally compass Him 
 about with peril. More than once we find Him 
 
 * Gal. vi. 14. 2 I (^or. i. 23. 
 
136 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 saying that His hour was not yet come, and acting 
 accordingly. The natural inference from all this is 
 that He who could and did at times protect and 
 deliver Himself, could have done so at the last, had 
 He seen fit. We must either believe that He was 
 finally circumvented by His enemies, of which there 
 is no evidence, or we must allow that when the fulness 
 of the time was come, He shrank not from allowing 
 His enemies to accomplish their malice upon Him. 
 We cannot but feel that the terrible end to which 
 He submitted, was, in effect, the confirmation of the 
 truth which He had before inculcated. We have but 
 to compare the difference of feeling that would have 
 been produced in our minds if our Lord had shrunk 
 from the last crisis, instead of facing it, if He had 
 preserved His life, instead of consenting to lose it. 
 There would have been an end to our love for Him, 
 His name would not have been regarded any longer 
 as a blessing to mankind. And yet it was clearly in 
 His power to avoid the final catastrophe, if, when He 
 was adjured bj^ the high priest, He had been willing 
 to retract His former teaching, and forego His claim to 
 be the Son of God. That was the very point in the 
 indictment upon which He was convicted. By that, 
 therefore, He must be judged; and so His death must 
 be acknowledged as the very proof and establishment 
 of His doctrine, unless, we, like the high priest, are 
 prepared to rend our clothes and exclaim, He hath 
 spoken blasphemy^ what need we any further witiiess f" 
 ^ Matt. xxvi. 65. 
 
WAS CRUCIFIED. 137 
 
 But again, the crucifixion of Jesus was not only 
 the seal of His own teaching, it was likewise the 
 fulfilment of prophesy. Ages before, there had 
 been dark utterances of no ambiguous import, 
 which, when the events foreshadowed had come 
 to pass, were found clear as day. Aivake^ O, sword, 
 against my shepherd, and against the man that is 
 my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts: smite the Shep- 
 herd, and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will 
 turn my hand upon the little ones} They shall look 
 on m,e whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn 
 for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall 
 be in bitterness for him as 07ie that is in bitterness 
 for his firstborn? As for Thee also by the blood of 
 
 Thy covenant, I have sent forth Thy prisoners out 
 of the pit wherein is no water? They parted 'my gar- 
 ments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast 
 lots. I may tell all my bones, they stand staring and 
 looking 2ipon me? Of these and many other pas- 
 sages we may truly say that in the light of the 
 crucifixion of Jesus they receive a depth and fulness 
 of meaning, which, on any other supposition, they 
 wholly lack ; and I believe it is simply impossible to 
 read the scriptures of the prophets as a whole, and 
 not feel convinced that there is in the combination of 
 them a marvellous anticipation and foreshadowing of 
 events to come, which was either baffled or thwarted 
 altogether, or else was most remarkably verified in 
 Jesus Christ. If you take passage by passage singly, 
 
 > Zech. xiii. 7. ' Zech. xii. 10, » Zech. ix. II. ^ Ps. xxii. 18, 17. 
 
138 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 and are determined to destroy the expectation of 
 the Saviour, you can do so, just as if you take a 
 bundle of sticks, you may break them singly, but 
 the combined result is one of conclusive strength, 
 which it is impossible to resist or to deny. The cross 
 of Jesus Christ has shewn in a manner altogether 
 unique and unparalleled, that the mission of the 
 ancient prophets was Divine, and that in their varied 
 utterances was expressed the mind of One who most 
 wonderfully spake by them, and who intended us 
 to understand that it was He by whose Spirit they 
 spake. 
 
 But again, in the cross of Jesus Christ we have the 
 whole mystery of redemption, as the apostle says. 
 The preaching of the cross is to them that perish fool- 
 ishness^ but unto us which are saved it is t/ie power of 
 God} With this double aspect of the cross let us 
 bring our present meditations to an end. To some it 
 is a stumbling-block, and it is foolishness. In the 
 Jewish mind, and in the Greek mind it encountered 
 and offended national and inveterate pride. The Jew 
 wanted an exhibition of national power, of external 
 and material glory. In the cross of Jesus, and in 
 Jesus he found one who had blasphemed the law, who 
 had died in disgrace, and had quenched for ever his 
 inherited hopes of power. The cross was the exact 
 opposite of all that he had longed for. It seemed to 
 ruin his fondest day-dreams, it was to him a stumbling- 
 block, a scandal. To the Greek, whose highly-disci- 
 » I Cor. i. i8. 
 
WAS CRUCIFIED, 139 
 
 plined intellect found pleasure only in the problems 
 of the mind, the speculations of the fancy, the dia- 
 lectics of the reason, the cross of Christ was simple 
 folly. There was nothing to satisfy the intellectual 
 taste. The cross dealt with no theoretical questions, 
 though practically it answered all ; but the Greek 
 mind was not practical, and the blood of Jesus 
 Christ was too sober and commonplace a fact to 
 possess any interest for the mere theorist. Besides, 
 it spoke to a sense of sin, and struck at the root of 
 vice. It trampled upon moral pride, and therefore 
 it was accounted folly. 
 
 But notwithstanding the imputation of foolishness 
 under which it laboured in the estimation of the 
 Greeks; notwithstanding the scandal and the stum- 
 bling-block which it cast in the path of the Jews, 
 the cross of Christ was the power of God unto 
 salvation ; and we can appeal to the testimony of 
 eighteen centuries in proof of the assertion. The 
 schools of Athens have brought all their glory and 
 intellectual wealth into the church of Christ. The 
 dreams of Plato have been more than realised in 
 the perfect constitution of the kingdom of heaven. 
 The wisdom of Aristotle has exercised no influence 
 to be compared with that of the cross of Christ : 
 for while the wisdom of Aristotle has enlightened 
 only cultivated minds, the cross of Christ has illumi- 
 nated the darkest spots of human existence, and 
 penetrated the mass of society from the highest to 
 the lowest The dominion of the gospel has long 
 
140 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 ago been acknowledged by a territory far wider than 
 that first promised to Abraham or afterwards ruled 
 by Solomon ; vastly more extensive than the em- 
 pires of Cyrus or Alexander, the Pharaohs or the 
 Caesars ; and the conquests it has achieved in the 
 past, and is yet achieving in the present, are but the 
 earnest and the pledge of that universal empire to 
 which it is surely destined in the future. Is not 
 this the power of God ? A power which beyond 
 all question has never been exhibited by man or 
 by the sons of men, and compared with which any 
 power recognised on earth is but very weakness, 
 because it is the power of Divine love. The cross 
 of Christ comes to the heart of each separate in- 
 dividual as the revelation to it of God's love ; as 
 the personal exhibition on the part of Christ of the 
 value He sets on each individual soul. The cruci- 
 fixion of Jesus as an actual historic fact, which 
 cannot be gainsaid, is the distinct message of Jesus 
 to each one of you declaring His love for you. He 
 hath loved you unto the death. He hath given His 
 life for you. His cross is the power of God unto 
 salvation. For it is the destruction of sin in the 
 individual — the blood of Jestis Christ cleanseth from 
 all sin} We are not told how it does this, but we 
 are told it does it. When the blood of Christ comes 
 into contact with sin it eliminates, abolishes sin. 
 And the fact that it does this, a fact which is over 
 and over again witnessed in the conscience of the 
 
 ' John i. 7, 
 
JVAS CRUCIFIED. 
 
 141 
 
 believer, is the evidence that the cross of Christ 
 is the power of God unto salvation. There is no- 
 thing else which can deal with sin : nothing devised 
 or invented by man is competent to deal with it, 
 because sin is violence done to God, disorder intro- 
 duced into God's world, and therefore only a special 
 act on God's part is competent to deal with it. But 
 such an act we have in the cross of Christ, /^r God 
 comine7tdeth his love towards us in that, while we 
 were yet sinners, Christ died for us} The act of 
 Christ is claimed as God's act. He proceeds on the 
 assumption that it is His own act. He presents and 
 recommends it to us as the all-conclusive proof of 
 His love ; and when it is so accepted it becomes the 
 power of God unto salvation ; it is mighty through 
 God to the pulling down of strongholds ; it over- 
 throws carnal pride, it subdues prejudice, it rebukes 
 and expels sin, it brings in peace, and so it saves 
 us ; it makes us whole where we were before sick, 
 it heals us where before we had need of healing. 
 And yet it is only too evident that there are many 
 on whom it fails to produce any such results. Those 
 who were spectators of the death of Christ were 
 only moved by it as by a spectacle of sorrow. It 
 was the moral consequence of the death of Christ 
 that made those whom it influenced new men ; and 
 this result can only be produced where the death of 
 Christ is received by faith. When we severally and 
 personally find in that death the union of our mor- 
 ' Rom. V. 8. 
 
142 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 tality with God, the extinction of our sin through 
 His righteousness, the destruction of the old man in 
 the resurrection of the new, — then His death be- 
 comes to us the power of God unto salvation. It asserts 
 its power in us ; it fulfils in us the Divine will, and 
 makes us strong to bear what He shall lay upon us. 
 In the broken body of the Lord we find our own 
 death unto sin, our own life unto righteousness, and 
 the fulness of ultimate redemption in the assurance 
 of present redemption from sin. Thus " He was 
 crucified " becomes the indelible mark in human 
 history of God's forgiveness of mankind : a forgive- 
 ness which becomes individualised and personal 
 according as it is personally apprehended ; and the 
 token also of that perpetual covenant whereof He 
 sware and will not repent, who said, Thou art a 
 priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec} 
 
 * Ps. ex. 4. 
 
XIII. 
 
 DEAD. 
 
 And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost ; and the 
 vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. — 
 Mark xv. 37, 38. 
 
 WE come now to the consideration of that one 
 solemn word in the Apostles' Creed, namely 
 "dead," which marks the close of our Lord's human and 
 natural career. And little did I think, my brethren, 
 when I last addressed you, of the solemn and mourn- 
 ful illustration which our next meditation would 
 receive in the lamentable accident which deprived 
 this nation of one of its brightest ornaments, and 
 this church of her greatest prelate.^ To be sure the 
 blow had already fallen on us, but for the most part 
 we knew it not. It came upon me like a thunder- 
 clap, upon returning home after the evening service ; 
 but in such a form that I scarcely knew whether to 
 believe it, just as when the sun is bright and warm, 
 and the birds are singing, and the flowers are gay, 
 there is a sudden murmur heard, and we pause and 
 ask, Was that thunder } For myself, I believe 
 enough has not been said, and it is hardly possible 
 
 ' Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester^ killed by a fall from 
 his horse, July 19th, 1873. 
 
144 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 to say enough of him whom we have lost. Just ten 
 days before his death I had the great privilege of 
 hearing him preach, in King's College Chapel, what 
 must have been almost, if not absolutely, his last 
 sermon. Very beautiful and touching it was, and 
 now never to be forgotten. In words almost pro- 
 phetic, he turned to his younger hearers and said, 
 "You who are coming forward into the life from 
 which I am fast retiring, let this thought, the 
 thought of my text, be your stay. He knoweth the 
 way that I take ; when He hath tried me I shall 
 come forth as gold" ^ Little, however, could he have 
 thought that his own time was so near. Little did 
 I know, when I grasped his hand, and gazed on his 
 beaming and brilliant countenance, and listened to 
 his silvery voice, that it was a privilege granted for 
 the last time. We need grieve, indeed, only for our- 
 selves ; for, as the Primate truly said in Parliament, we 
 cannot call it a calamity for a man to be summoned 
 away in the midst of his vigour, and in obedience to 
 a voice which he had long expected, not unprepared 
 but ready for the summons. It would be out of place 
 in me to attempt to offer anything like a eulogium 
 on Bishop Wilberforce ; but I could not bring myself 
 to pass by his death in silence, and it seemed that 
 the incident I have mentioned had now a special 
 and peculiar interest from its being connected with 
 probably the last occasion of a public and geneijal 
 kind on which he was seen among us, of whom it is 
 
 * Job xxiii. lo. 
 
DEAD. 145 
 
 not too much to say that " we shall not look upon 
 his like again," 
 
 And now, brethren, we pass from the death 
 of the great, the illustrious; the eloquent, the bril- 
 liant, the polished, the sparkling, the pure-minded, 
 the beloved, to another death without which the 
 contemplation, or the possession of any, or of all 
 these qualities combined could give us no plea- 
 sure, from the death of the servant who did his 
 work nobly and well, to the death of the Master 
 whom he served, and by whose death, we trust, he 
 lived and yet lives. Jesus Christ died : He was 
 crucified, dead^ and buried. I have taken for the 
 motto of my subject those words of St. Mark which 
 express the simple fact and its immediate results. 
 We have to contemplate the spectacle of death 
 never unfamiliar, now, alas, become so painfully 
 familiar, in Him whose death was the redemption 
 of mankind. We have to gaze upon that favourite 
 subject of the old masters, the dead Christ. The 
 ninth hour has come, the sixth of the crucifixion, 
 the third of the supernatural darkness spread over 
 all the earth, the great cry has been uttered, and 
 Christ has made His soul an offering for sin. We 
 must not forget His own words, Therefore doth my 
 Father love me^ because I lay dow7i my life that I 
 might take it again. No man taketh it from me^ 
 but I lay it down of myself : I have power to lay it 
 down, and I have power to take it again. This 
 commandment have I received of my Father. Our 
 » John X.I 7, 18. 10 
 
146 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 Lord did not die from the effects of crucifixion, — at 
 least, it does not appear that He did. Crucifixion 
 did not kill the thieves who were put to death with 
 Him. To pierce the hands and feet is not mortal ; to 
 place a crown of thorns upon the brow is not mortal. 
 When the side was pierced with the spear, which 
 would have been a mortal act, Jesus was already- 
 dead. But besides this, we are told that in the 
 very article of death He cried with a loud voice, 
 that heaven and earth might hear, FatheVy into Thy 
 hands I co^nmend my spirit. It is fifiished} There 
 was no exhaustion there, there was not even the 
 gathering together of the powers of the system for 
 one last convulsive effort ; but there was, as indi- 
 cated, the deliberate resignation of the life into the 
 hands of Him that gave it, when the hour was come. 
 This was the sacrifice of Christ — the crowning act of 
 self-sacrifice, not the self-immolation of one who 
 rushes madly on to death ; but the calm, conscious, 
 devoted surrender of the life that was dear to its 
 possessor, to Him who claimed it as His own. Into 
 the question of the physical causes of our Lord's 
 death I do not propose to enter. We are not con- 
 cerned with the verdict that a jury in a coroner's 
 inquest would have returned. To us there remains 
 the undoubted fact that our Lord was dead. Pilate 
 marvelled if he were already dead : ^ he did not sup- 
 pose that the sufferings inflicted had been sufficient 
 to extinguish life; of the other sufferings undergone, 
 
 * Luke xxiii. 46; John xix. 30. ' Mark xv. 44. 
 
DEAD. 147 
 
 and the mental agony of the sleepless night which 
 had sorely taxed a delicate and sensitive frame he 
 knew nothing ; but calling unto him the centurion^ 
 he asked him whether he had been any while dead, 
 and when he knew it of the centurion, who was 
 responsible for the fact, he gave the lifeless body to 
 Joseph} There was the perfected sacrifice. The 
 teacher at the early age of three and thirty was 
 summoned away, and his body became a corpse. 
 
 The sect of the Docetae in the first ages of the 
 Church denied the fact of our Lord's death — they 
 could not bear to think that He had actually suc- 
 cumbed to the conditions of mortality. They would 
 rather contemplate His departure as a solemn and 
 sublime spectacle, very affecting and tragic, but like 
 a tragedy, unreal. To us there is no temptation of 
 this kind ; we cling to the blessed assurance that 
 Jesus Christ expired, breathed out His life, gave up 
 the ghost, as much as we do to the assurance that 
 Jesus wept — each is a proof to us of His complete 
 humanity, that He was very man.^ He died as we all 
 die: as we watch our friends one by one fall asleep, 
 whether suddenly and in a moment without any 
 warning, as he whose loss is uppermost in our minds, 
 or in lingering hours of slowly advancing disease, 
 and ever increasing feebleness and pain. That fatal 
 state which comes alike, and in time to all, came 
 also to Jesus, in identity of results, though not as in 
 our case, without any concurrent will, because He was 
 
 * Mark xv. 44, 45. * John xi. 35. 
 
148 THE CHRISTIAN CREED, 
 
 not only the Sacrifice who died, but also the self- 
 sacrificing Priest who offered up Himself. 
 
 And I want to bring you near, brethren, to the 
 dead body of the Lord, I want you to feel that Jesus 
 Christ was dead, that in His human body life was 
 vanished, obliterate, quenched. The chills of death 
 came over Him — His body became cold, rigid, passive, 
 unresisting, motionless. Look upon the picture by 
 Rubens of the descent from the cross, see how truly 
 Christ is dead, the light is darkened in the pallid 
 fece, the eyes are closed, the limbs hang down, the 
 pulse has ceased. The body is dead, and dead 
 because of sin. What He was we all shall be, none 
 knows how soon, and none knows in what form, or 
 under what circumstances death shall come. But this 
 we know, that the death of Christ has taken away 
 the sting of death for us. We can now say, O death, 
 where is thy sting ? And why is this } because 
 of the momentous issues which the death of Christ 
 involved. These issues were, properly speaking, not 
 consequences such as every important death involves, 
 whether it be the death of a prelate or the death of 
 a king, but issues gathered up and concentrated in 
 the death itself. Christ was the high priest of hu- 
 manity, the representative man. When He breathed 
 out His Spirit, the human spirit was redeemed, it 
 was delivered from the burden of thfe flesh, it was 
 surrendered to God, and safe in the hands of God. 
 That is a fact, therefore, which requires to be appre- 
 hended, to be grasped and laid hold of, retained and 
 
DEAD. 
 
 149 
 
 clung to. There is redemption for you and for me 
 in the death of Christ. The death of Christ is our 
 hope and our stay. We die unto sin with Him. 
 We lay our sins on Him, and lose them in His death. 
 Let us believe this truth with all the heart, and live 
 by it. 
 
 We see then in the death of Christ, God's method 
 of dealing with the evils of our position. There can 
 be no doubt that our constant liability to death is a 
 terrible drawback. What a frightful shock to the 
 immediate companions of the late bishop must his 
 fatal accident have been — what a cruel and bitter 
 mockery of the golden and sunny hours of relaxation 
 they had hoped to spend ; but this is the condition of 
 of our existence here, we walk in the midst of pit- 
 falls, and know not which is to engulf us. Now, 
 how does God deal with such a condition, how does 
 He redeem us from the misery of it 1 By submit- 
 ting to it Himself — not by avoiding but by yielding to 
 that very stroke of death which we so much dread 
 and shrink from. He bows His own neck to the 
 yoke, and in doing so takes it off our neck.. This 
 being once for all done, becomes evermore the sure 
 remedy for death and the liability to death. We 
 have but to accept it as this, and we find it to be so- 
 The circumstances are not altered, they are rendered 
 innocuous ; the bitter waters are healed when the 
 cross of Christ is thrown into them. To know that 
 in death, whether the death of our friends or our 
 own death, we have Christ with us, as one who has 
 
I50 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 passed through it Himself, is to have the burden of 
 death lightened, and the venom of its sting counter- 
 acted. For the issues of the death of Christ are 
 illustrated to us by the immediate incident which 
 followed it, The veil of the temple was rent in twain, 
 from the top to tJu bottom. We have this fact on 
 the authority of three evangelists,^ it shews us very 
 clearly the Divine significance of the Jewish ritual, 
 and the completion of the Jewish system. It shewed 
 that the great High Priest had passed through into 
 the holy of holies. It shewed that he was never 
 more to be excluded, that all mankind might enter 
 in where He had passed. It shewed that this was a 
 work done by God Himself, because the veil was 
 rent from the top to the bottom, not from the 
 bottom to the top. It shewed that there was an 
 end to the unholy and profane, that nothing could 
 be called common because God had cleansed it — that 
 in the death of Christ the mysteries of God were all 
 revealed, that there was nothing to shroud off, no- 
 thing to conceal, nothing to hide that man could or 
 might know. Christ was Himself the revealer and 
 the revelation ; the death of the living Redeemer is the 
 climax of revelation, because it shows us the union 
 of all opposites, the highest and the lowest, the 
 eternal and the transient, the holiest and the sinful. 
 And then in the death of Christ, we have access to 
 the presence of God. We have boldness to enter 
 into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus through the 
 
 * Matt, xxvii. 51 ; Mark xv. 38; Luke xxiii. 45. 
 
DEAD. 
 
 new and living way, which He has consecrated for 
 us, through the veil, that is to say His flesh.^ We 
 have no further need of any priest, or* any altar, or 
 any sacrifice. The price is paid, the sacrifice is 
 offered, the atonement is completed. We may pass 
 through the veil into the holiest of all. We need 
 not stay, we must not wait till we are worthy or 
 even worthier, but we must draw nigh as we are, 
 and press through the rent veil to the sacred pre- 
 sence of the Most High, and so passing we shall find 
 that Christ hath made us worthy. Oh, blessed issue 
 and result of the death of Christ, which follows after 
 it as soon as it becomes an accomplished fact. 
 When the great High Priest enters in, the veil of the 
 temple which conceals the mysteries of God is rent 
 in twain from the top to the bottom. Oh my 
 brethren and fellow-sinners, have you felt the signifi- 
 cance of this fact } There is but one thing which can 
 keep you back from the presence of God, and that 
 is sin, but sin cannot now keep you back, because it 
 is done away in the death of Christ. When you 
 kneel upon your knees in secret you may know that 
 there is nothing to hide God from you, nothing to 
 destroy your communion with Him, nothing to mar 
 the fulness of access and approach to His mercy- 
 seat, because Christ hath died and rent asunder the 
 veil of the tabernacle which concealed the mercy- 
 seat. It is very sad to think how many there are 
 even of those who profess and call themselves Chris- 
 
 ' Heb. X. 19, 20. 
 
152 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 tians, who are practically ignorant of the effects of 
 Christ's death, and who are totally unable to realise 
 the privilege of assured access to God by reason of 
 the perfected work of Him who was dead and is 
 alive again, and now liveth for evermore. And yet 
 this is the privilege which has been purchased for us 
 by the Captain of our salvation. He claims to have 
 done that on our behalf, which we could not do for 
 ourselves, and it follows that because He has done 
 it. we should thankfully avail ourselves of what He 
 has done. For the death of Christ which is the 
 pledge of God's love for us, and the assurance of 
 the forgiveness of sins is also the foundation of our 
 hope towards God. We hide ourselves under the 
 shadow of the cross of Christ, and the darts of the 
 evil one cannot reach us, they fall short of their 
 object, and glide off blunted and pointless. There is 
 no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, 
 for He is their Vindicator and Redeemer. There is 
 this mysterious virtue about the death of Christ, that 
 it becomes the object of grateful contemplation. It 
 gives us no pain but only pleasure to contemplate 
 His death. In no human instance can we fail to 
 have our thankfulness mingled with regret, beautiful 
 as the death may be. But here in the death of 
 Christ regret is unknown, we are not affected with 
 grief but only with humble and heartfelt joy. Surely 
 this is very wonderful, but nevertheless it is the 
 special characteristic of the death of Christ. But 
 strange to say, though this characteristic is peculiar 
 
DEAD. 153 
 
 to the death of Christ, yet His death has also the 
 power of imparting it to the death of every Chris- 
 tian. We are bidden not to sorrow as men without 
 hope, for them that sleep in Jesus. His death is the 
 one atoning, reconciling, expiatory death, and in that 
 respect it must stand alone ; but it throws a halo of 
 glory over every Christian death,, for we know of" 
 those who sleep in Jesus, that them will God bring 
 with Him. Christ's death therefore is not only the 
 death of sin, and consequently the foundation of our 
 hope, but it is also the death of death. The swollen 
 waters of destruction reached their highest point 
 when they overwhelmed the Lord of Life, and thence- 
 forward they began to recede. He who holds in His 
 hands the issues of life and death, said to them, 
 *' Thus far shall ye come, but no farther ; and here 
 shall your proud waves be stayed."^ They are 
 destined still to accomplish a great work, for they 
 shall not finally assuage till they have overwhelmed 
 the whole family of man, and have swallowed up the 
 generations yet unborn, like the generations that are 
 past, but it is a work as far as believers are con- 
 cerned, which is limited to the present life and the 
 yet visible world. Our friends vanish from our sight 
 here, they fall like soldiers in battle, who one by 
 one drop out of the ranks, and forthwith another and 
 yet another takes their place, but we shall surely meet 
 again in that far-off mysterious land of which we 
 know so little, for which we long so much, but which 
 * Job xxxviii. 11. 
 
154 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 though it seems to be far off is in reality very near, 
 as the continual warnings of God evermore remind 
 us. Be it ours, beloved, so to live by the power of 
 Christ's death, 
 
 *' That so, before the judgment seat, 
 Though changed and glorified each face, 
 Not unremembered we may meet 
 For endless ages to embrace." * 
 
 * Christian Year ; St. Andrew's Day. 
 
XIV. 
 BURIED, 
 
 And that He was buried. — i CoR. xv. 4. 
 
 THESE v/ords are remarkable as being found 
 in the very brief summary of Christian truth 
 given by St. Paul in the fifteenth chapter of his 
 first epistle to Corinth. He mentions the burial 
 of Jesus Christ as one of the facts which he had 
 received. Subordinate, therefore, and unimportant 
 as it may probably seem to us to declare among 
 the articles of the creed that Jesus Christ "was 
 crucified, dead, and buried" we may nevertheless be 
 sure that it was not without its meaning in the 
 providence of God, nor without its essential place 
 in that foundation of fact upon which the edifice 
 of Christianity is reared, and without which it would 
 be nothing better than a cunningly devised fable. 
 
 And it is plain that such a statement as this 
 by St. Paul points to a small nucleus of incidents 
 connected with it which were alike present to his 
 own mind and to those of his correspondents at 
 Corinth. In other words, the casual mention of 
 this incident is no slight confirmation of the various 
 narratives which are extant in the four gospels. 
 
156 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 St. Matthew tells us that Joseph of Arimathea, 
 having obtained from Pilate the body of Jesus, 
 wrapped it in a clean linen cloth a7id laid it in 
 his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the 
 rock, and rolled a great stone to the door of the 
 sepulchre, and departed} St. Mark adds nothing 
 but that Joseph had bought fine linen, and taken 
 him down and wrapped him in the linen? St. Luke 
 merely states of the sepulchre that it was one 
 wherein 7tever m.an before was laid ; that the day 
 was the preparation, and that the sabbath drew 
 on} St. John, with the particularity characteristic 
 of himself, tells us that Joseph was not alone in 
 his kind offices to the dead, that Nicodemus also 
 had brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 
 a hundred pound weight, a circumstance which is 
 rendered the more probable, though the other gos- 
 pels have not mentioned it, from the obvious diffi- 
 culty that Joseph would have had in disposing of 
 the body by himself : then took they, continues 
 St. John, the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen 
 clothes with the spices, as the m,anner of the Jews 
 is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified 
 there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepidchre, 
 wherein ivas never man yet laid, there laid they 
 Jesus, therefore, because of the Jews' preparation day, 
 for the sepzdchre was nigh at hand^ The single 
 assertion of St. Paul at Antioch that when they 
 
 * Math, xxvii. 59, 60. ^ Luke xxii. 53, 54. 
 
 * Mark, xv, 46. ^ John, xix. 39-42. 
 
BURIED. 
 
 f57 
 
 had ftdfilled all that was written of Him they 
 took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a 
 sepulchre^ completes the entire bulk of that which 
 sacred tradition has preserved to us concerning the 
 matter of our Lord's burial. It is very brief ; but 
 brief as it is, allusion has been made to it in the 
 briefest and most ancient Christian creed which 
 remains thus embedded in one of the Pauline 
 epistles. One other reference to the same event is 
 found, and that, strange to say, in the words of 
 our Lord Himself. When His feet were anointed 
 by Mary, in the house of Simon the leper, he said 
 of her. For in that she hath poured this ointment 
 on my body she did it for my burial : Against the 
 day of my burying hath she kept this? He therefore 
 regarded His burial as having a special significance, 
 and spoke of it with a touch of mournful anticipa- 
 tion. Once also in the Epistle to the Romans, 
 and once in that to the Colossians, St. Paul uses 
 the burial of our Lord in a mystical and figurative 
 way, and speaks of our being buried with Him by 
 baptism into deathf and buried with him in baptism.^ 
 And these I believe, from first to last, are the only 
 occasions on which mention is made of our Lord's 
 burial. If, then, the burial of Jesus Christ has been 
 thus recorded and referred to, but only thus re- 
 corded and referred to, what is it designed to show } 
 First we may reply that it has its place as a sub- 
 
 ' Acts xiii. 29. ' Rom. vi. 4. 
 
 2 Matt. xxvi. 12; Mark xiv. 8; John xii. 7. * Col. ii. 12. 
 
158 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 stantial and permanent stone in the substructure 
 of Christian evidence : that our Lord died is the 
 very central point of Christian faith, the pivot upon 
 which everything else turns. And the manifest 
 concurrent testimony which we possess to the fact 
 of His being buried, with the attendant circum- 
 stances that have been specified, is at all events 
 a strong collateral proof of His death. Even sup- 
 posing that life had not been actually extinct at 
 the moment when the body was taken down from 
 the cross, as it clearly was believed to be both by 
 Pilate and the soldiers who forbore to break the legs 
 of Jesus, yet after the wound inflicted by the spear 
 which pierced His side, and the exhaustion conse- 
 quent upon the long torture of the cross, it is 
 obvious that burial in Joseph's sepulchre would have 
 been not only most unfavourable to anything like 
 the restoration of vitality, but would have effectually 
 quenched every remaining spark of life ; to have 
 been immured for many hours under such circum- 
 stances would have been nothing short of death 
 itself: and consequently the burial of Jesus Christ 
 is virtually a confirmation of His death, an evidence 
 of its reality. And being so, it becomes an addi- 
 tional basis or pillar for the resurrection itself to rest 
 upon. It is not only the apparent death of Jesus, 
 but the attendant circumstances of His burial that we 
 have to account for before we can explain away the 
 evidence for His resurrection. And unquestionably 
 in the providence of God it was so designed. 
 
BURIED. 159 
 
 This, however, is an aspect of the matter which 
 may be more or less forced upon us by the peculiar 
 necessities of our own day. But it is by no means 
 the only one. We must not forget that the gospels 
 were not only written by Jews, but that those who 
 took part in the transactions they record were Jews. 
 And we have only to run our eye through the narra- 
 tive of the Old Testament, to see how prominent a 
 feature the rites and associations of burial formed in 
 Jewish life. The first commercial transaction of 
 which we have any account in history is that of 
 Abraham purchasing a burial place of the children 
 of Heth for the interment of Sarah ; and the field so 
 purchased became actually the only pledge which 
 for many generations his seed possessed of their 
 inheritance in the land which was promised to his 
 posterity.^ The earliest associations, therefore, of 
 Israel with the land of hope and promise were those 
 of burial. The bones of her who was the first 
 mother of them all were laid there.^ Abraham, 
 Isaac and Jacob were buried there, and during the 
 long captivity in Egypt this link with the eastern 
 land no doubt kept alive in the recollections of the 
 people the promise which had been made to their 
 fathers, and the interest they themselves had in its 
 fulfilment. Frequently, also, we are told the cir- 
 cumstances which attended the burial of such and 
 such a personage. The bones of Joseph were to be 
 taken up out of Egypt that they might rest in the 
 
 * Gen. xxiii. « Gen. xlix. 29—31 ; 1. 13. 
 
l6o THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 soil of the ancestral grave .^ The very expression "to 
 be laid with his fathers," indicated that burial among 
 the royal tombs which was the common lot of the 
 descendants of David in Jerusalem. And though in 
 this respect of burying the dead, the Jews were not 
 singular among the nations of antiquity ; nowhere 
 is there so sweet a fragrance arising from the gar- 
 lands cast upon the tomb, as in the narratives of 
 sepulture which grace the scripture record. If, 
 therefore, Jesus Christ was to take His place in the 
 family of man as its prince and head ; if He was to 
 be the hope of the kings and patriarchs of Israel and 
 the promised Seed, it was surely fitting that the 
 record of His interment should find its place in the 
 brief narrative of His personal history, And so it 
 does. Nor is there anywhere among all the annals 
 of sepulture a more exquisite and lovely picture 
 than that which has been given us of the burial of 
 the Lord. Nowhere is death so beautiful, and the 
 very tomb so chaste and lovely as it is at the cross 
 of Jesus, and in the sepulchre hewn out in the rock in 
 Joseph's garden, wherein never man before was laid. 
 And there was surely special and abundant room 
 for the kind of glorification which the burial of 
 Jesus was designed to bestow. Death is an event 
 sufficiently terrible and appalling in itself But 
 surely it is not only the loss which is involved in 
 death that constitutes its chiefest terror, but much 
 rather all that follows death. The bitterest draught 
 
 * Gen. 1. 25 ; Josh. xxiv. 32. 
 
BURIED. i6i 
 
 of that very bitter cup is the sad necessity which 
 hides for ever features that perhaps were only beau- 
 tiful, and at least were only loved ; the thought 
 that we who love so dearly, would not for the whole 
 world gaze on that once angelic form of childhood, 
 or of youth, or it may be of old age; the busy, 
 ruthless touch and step of perfunctory and inevitable 
 service, which tries to be sympathetic but can 
 scarcely be less than hateful ; the wicked para- 
 phernalia of woe that attend the departure from 
 the home, and the passage to the grave, and all 
 the long etceteras of grief and pain that are remem- 
 bered but cannot be expressed ; it is these that 
 make death itself more painful and the grave to be 
 fraught with horror. Yes, it is not the act of dying, 
 or of seeing our loved ones die, that concentrates the 
 bitterness of death, but much more the untold and 
 unexplored awfulness of the grave. To be buried 
 at sea with the wave for our winding-sheet, and the 
 howling of the tempest for our dirge, or to be buried 
 in haste as we fall upon the battle-field, that is a 
 thought endurable ; but to be carried by hired mourn- 
 ers to the crowded cemetery, and to be laid to our 
 dust with a parade of misery is indeed a thought most 
 miserable. We can face the thought of dying, for 
 die we must, and we hope that to die will be to fall 
 asleep ; but oh ! to be buried with all which that 
 by the exigences and conventionalities of an odious 
 civilisation is made to imply, that is something 
 which we dare not contemplate. 
 
 II 
 
i62 THE CHRISTIAN CREED, 
 
 But with the recollection of Christ's burial there 
 is a marvellous alleviation even of the horrors of 
 the tomb. For not only is the story of Christ's 
 burial, as I have said, most pure and lovely, without 
 one element of painful association ; not only is the 
 story beautiful, but how exquisite also is the memory 
 of the fact, — He was buried. His dead body was 
 laid in the tomb in the cerements of death ; it was 
 wrapped in fine linen with myrrh and aloes ; the 
 fragrance of the spices filled the sepulchre ; and 
 there His body rested in silence and in dark- 
 ness, keeping its Sabbath amid the sweetness of the 
 spices within, and surrounded by the fragrance of 
 the vernal flowers without, awaiting the resurrection 
 morn. Was there ever any grave like that ? Most 
 certainly not. No peaceful nook in the sweetest 
 and most lovely of English churchyards, themselves 
 the loveliest resting-places of the dead that any- 
 where exist, can compare with that, the new 
 sepulchre hewn out in the virgin rock in the deepest 
 recesses of Joseph's garden. Verily here, at any 
 rate, the grave itself is despoiled of all its terror. If 
 He was buried, we need not shrink from going down 
 into that tomb where He has kindled once for all 
 the light of the resurrection. Behold then the simple 
 dignity which attaches to these solemn words we 
 rehearse in the Creed, "And buried." Well might the 
 great apostle not omit from his short and rapid 
 summary of Christian fact the statement which he 
 also had received, and add that He was buried. 
 
BURIED. 163 
 
 For, take away this blessed assurance and what 
 have we left ? The darkness and horror of the 
 tomb unmitigated, unenlightened, unsoftened, and 
 therefore unendurable. Take away even the story, 
 and you have robbed universal literature of one of 
 its purest and brightest jewels ; but take away the 
 fact which the story perpetuates, and you have 
 robbed humanity of the one only thought which 
 can lend courage to the heart in the prospect of our 
 own descent into the pit of corruption, which can 
 give those who mourn the loss of their nearest and 
 dearest and strew flowers on their grave, the vestige 
 even of a hope. 
 
 For just as the sting of all horror connected with 
 death is centred in the thought of corruption, so is 
 there the spring of all hope in the memory of the 
 ancient words which were fulfilled in Chrst, Thoii, 
 wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption} Jesus 
 Christ tasted death for every man ; He went down 
 into the tomb that He might once and for all take 
 out of it that association with corruption which is 
 so unutterably painful. He has strewed the fra- 
 grance of myrrh and spices over the chill and dark 
 recesses of the grave; He has put into it what did 
 not exist before, and now there is peace where there 
 once was terror, and sweetness where there once was 
 only the memory of corruption. 
 
 The circumstances of Christ's burial have not 
 seldom been made the vehicle of a mystical interpre- 
 
 * Ps. xvi. 10 ; Acts ii. 27 ; xiii. 35. 
 
i64 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 tation; for instance, the body of the Lord is to be 
 laid up in a pure and virgin heart and surrounded 
 with the fragrant associations of hallowed thoughts, 
 and the fine white linen of saintly action and the 
 like. But I am averse from this kind of treatment, 
 because to my mind it savours of unreality, and there 
 is a danger when we begin to allegorise lest we 
 break down the stonework of solid and substantial 
 fact v/hich must after all be found to be sooner or 
 later our only hope. The burial of Jesus Christ was 
 an historic fact, if it was not this it was nothing ; but 
 being an historic fact it was only one incident out of 
 many in His human career, and, like other incidents, 
 it was necessarily transient and of a limited duration. 
 Jesus Christ did die and He was buried, but He is 
 not dead now nor does He still rest in the grave. 
 The body of the Lord is the centre and fountain of 
 eternal life. We do not worship a dead Christ, but 
 one who is alive for evermore : let us beware then 
 how far we allegorise the story of our Lord's burial, 
 whether with reference to the sacrament of His death 
 or otherwise. Though in the communion of His 
 body and His blood we do show the Lord's death 
 till He come, yet that sacrament is emphatically the 
 pledge and evidence and memorial of the resurrec- 
 tion. We are only partakers of Jesus Christ in 
 proportion as we are partakers of His life. The 
 dead Christ would profit us nothing, even though we 
 could grasp Him in our hands or clasp Him in our 
 arms, and carry Him with Joseph and Nicodemus to 
 
BURIED. 165 
 
 the sepulchre in the garden. What we want is the 
 present evidence and power of Christ's eternal life, 
 and that is only to be had by faith in His life. No 
 allegories or minute directions of devout behaviour 
 or injaginary repetitions of the scenic accidents of 
 Christ's death can avail to give us life — that is only 
 to be had by the quickening influence of the Spirit 
 of life. 
 
 There is, however, another mode of allegorising the 
 burial of Jesus Christ, which has the authority of St. 
 Paul, and it is a healthier one. He compares the 
 one momentary fact of our baptism to the transient 
 and historic fact' of Christ's burial. He tells us that 
 we have been buried with Christ by baptism into 
 death. That which corresponds in our history to 
 the burial of Jesus Christ, once for all never to be 
 repeated, a whole in itself and the completion of all 
 that went before it, is our baptism. We were buried, 
 figuratively at all events by immersion, virtually by 
 the analogous act of sprinkling, which blotted out all 
 the past and originated all the future and the new, 
 with Christ in our baptism. When the body of 
 Jesus was immured in the tomb, that was the last 
 that was seen of His natural body, for it was raised 
 a spiritual body, a change indescribable and incon- 
 ceivable passed over it. There was an end to all 
 the past of royal, prophetic, patriarchal hope and 
 longing. There was the commencement given of all 
 the future, incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth 
 not away, the inauguration of all life, and progress, 
 
i66 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 and eternity, and rejuvenescence, and deathlessness. 
 So is it in the fact that is symbolised in Christian 
 baptism, which is itself a symbol of Christ's burial — it 
 is a single act of which the consequences are un- 
 alterable and permanent, if only the significance of it 
 which abides in Christ Himself and not in the rite 
 He has ordained is apprehended. We look to 
 Christ and we find that our sins are buried in His 
 burial, there is no more condemnation as there is no 
 more death — ransomed, pardoned, healed, restored, 
 we have cast off once and for ever the old, we have 
 put on once and for ever the new. We are among 
 those who have been washed, and having been once 
 washed to the purifying of the heart and conscience 
 by the bloodshedding of Christ which can never be 
 repeated, we have no need, save from time to 
 time, to wash our feet from the dust and mire of 
 occasion and convention, but are glean every whit, 
 and with the help and reliance of a sinless and ever- 
 living Christ we may go from strength to strength, 
 until we appear, each one of us, before the God of 
 gods in the heavenly and eternal Zion. 
 
XV. 
 
 HE DESCENDED INTO HELL. 
 
 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with 
 an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, He 
 would raise up Christ to sit on his throne ; He seeing this before 
 spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, 
 neither his flesh did see corruption. — Acts ii. 30, 31. 
 
 ^ I ^HE descent of our Lord into hell is the subject 
 -^ of a distinct article of the Church of England. 
 "As Christ died for us and was buried, so also it is to be 
 believed that He went down into hell:"^ to which, in 
 the prayer-book of 1552, there was added, " For His 
 body lay in the sepulchre until the resurrection, but 
 His Spirit, which He gave up, was with the spirits 
 which were detained in prison, or in hell, and preached 
 to them as the place in St. Peter testifieth." The 
 passage referred to is i Peter iii. 18-20, being put to 
 death in the fleshy but quickened in the Spirit^ by 
 which also He went a7td preached unto the spirits in 
 prison; which sometime were disobedient^ when once 
 the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noahy 
 while the ark was preparing^ wherein few, that is, eight 
 souls zvere saved by water. And in illustration of 
 this passage, we must add that other in the following 
 
 ' Art. iii. 
 
i68 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 chapter. For for this cause was the gospel preached 
 also to them that a7'e dead, that they might be judged 
 according to ine7i in the flesh, but live according to 
 God in the Spirit,^ and possibly also the words of St. 
 Paul, Eph. iv. 9, Now that He ascended, what is it 
 but that He also descended first into the lower parts of 
 the earth. These several passages, together with 
 that from the Psalms, which is quoted in the text, 
 make up all, or nearly all, that is told us in Holy 
 Scripture of that which we profess when we say He 
 descended into hell. It is to be observed that in 
 the ten years which followed the promulgation of 
 the earlier article, a considerable change had taken 
 place in men's minds, as is indicated by the omission 
 of the second clause referring to the passage in St. 
 Peter. That omission can only be explained by a 
 growing dislike to retain anything which, whether 
 rightly or wrongly, was thought to give any possible 
 countenance to the doctrine of Purgatory. Since 
 that memorable year, 1562, men have gone on 
 reciting the article in the Apostles' Creed, and sub- 
 scribing to that in the Prayer-book, as though no 
 modification in their belief had taken place in the 
 three hundred and ten years, although a modification 
 so important had been registered in the previous ten 
 years. Some persons, also, I believe, are staggered 
 by the assertion in the Apostles' Creed that Christ 
 descended into hell, and have been for generations 
 past. And although it seems to me that this, 
 ' I Pet. iv. 6. 
 
HE DESCENDED INTO HELL. 169 
 
 among many others, is a very trivial ground on which 
 to separate from the outward oneness of Christ's 
 body in this land, it may be as well to give our 
 attention for a brief space to the article of belief in 
 question, since it comes under our notice in the 
 natural order of these discourses. 
 
 The first point then, to be resolutely maintained 
 here, is the meaning of the word Hell. St. Peter's 
 statement in the Acts of the Apostles, which is very 
 important, and must be allowed to interpret, or at least 
 to throw light upon his words in the Epistle, is based 
 entirely upon the declaration of David in the sixteenth 
 Psalm. It must, therefore, be limited in its meaning 
 by the necessary limitation of David's own words. 
 Now David's own words about his soul not being 
 left in hell cannot possibly contain any reference to a 
 condition or place of torment, from the simple fact that 
 there is no word in the language of the Old Testament 
 which bears that meaning. People go on reciting 
 the verse in the Psalms, The wicked shall be turned 
 into helly and all the people that forget God} and think 
 that they are, or at least the Psalmist is, denouncing 
 a terrible doom upon such persons, and fancy, more- 
 over, that if it is not so, a very povverful restraint 
 will be withdrawn from evil action, and that sinners 
 will be encouraged in their wickedness. It is sad 
 in these days of enlightenment, first, that so much 
 ignorance of the real meaning of the Psalmist's 
 language should prevail ; and secondly, that people 
 ^ Ps. ix. 17. 
 
170 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 should be apprehensive as to the possible consequences 
 of a knowledge of the truth, and should acquiesce 
 in the perpetuation of ignorance, rather than recognise 
 a truth for fear it should act as an encouragement 
 to sin. Surely, we may say that this is nothing less 
 than unworthy cowardice — let us at all hazards seek 
 to know the truth, believing heartily that we can know 
 nothing better, and believing also that it is abun- 
 dantly capable of taking care of itself, for that the 
 truth is great, yea, greater than all, and that it will 
 prevail. The meaning, then, of the Hebrew word 
 Sheol, which is necessarily used in both these passages, 
 is sufficiently declared by the patriarch Jacob, when 
 he says, / will go down into the grave unto my son 
 motirning} and the^i shall ye bring down my grey hairs 
 with sorrow to the grave? It is this, and nothing 
 more than this, that David expresses when he says, 
 TJie wicked shall be turned into helly and all the people 
 that forget God. For Thou wilt not leave my soul in 
 hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see 
 corruption. If we choose to infer from such language 
 that in the Psalmist's mind there was no difference 
 between the death of the righteous and the death of 
 the wicked, that inference is one for which we alone 
 are responsible, and not the language he has used, 
 an inference, also, which is directly negatived by the 
 prayer of Balaam centuries before, Let me die the 
 death of the righteous, and let my last end be like 
 his, to say nothing of the irrepressible dictates of 
 
 * Gen. xxxvii. 35. ^ Gen. xlii. 38. 
 
HE DESCENDED INTO HELL. 171 
 
 the universal conscience of mankind. We may rest 
 assured that we greatly err when we suppose that 
 we can place any other more effectual or salutary 
 restraints to vice than those which are placed in the 
 eternal instincts of the human conscience. It was 
 no part of the revelation of the gospel to chain 
 fetters on the conscience, but rather to give it perfect 
 freedom, in order that it might serve God acceptably, 
 with reverence and godly fear. It is no part then 
 of the teaching of Scripture that after death the soul 
 of our blessed Lord was the subject of torment, nor 
 does the Creed teach us to believe this when it tells 
 us that He descended into hell. On the other hand, 
 those who quarrel with the teaching of the Church 
 must quarrel also with the teaching of Scripture, 
 because if it was true of Christ that His soul was not 
 left in hell, it is obvious that it must first have gone 
 down into hell. 
 
 Again, some ground for the preposterous notion 
 that Jesus Christ endured a foretaste of the 
 torments of hell is found in the equally erroneous 
 conception which prevails as to the nature of His 
 atonement. It is conceived that God, by the re- 
 quirements of His infinite justice, was pledged to 
 the eternal punishment of all the saved, unless 
 Christ, as an infinite substitute, had been found 
 willing to endure an equivalent amount of torment 
 in their place ; but as the torment of hell can only 
 be endured in hell, and as the torture of the body 
 can never be an equivalent for the torment of the 
 
172 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 soul, therefore, if He was to redeem His people 
 from hell, He must Himself go down into hell, and 
 then the infinite value of His soul would add an 
 infinite value to His sufferings, even though in 
 duration they were limited. I need not say how 
 contradictory any such awful notion is to the nar- 
 rative which we considered on Sunday last of our 
 Lord's burial, as well as to the universal silence of 
 Scripture on the subject, and to the notion which, 
 at least, was countenanced by the appointment of 
 the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews as 
 one of the lessons for Easter eve, that the rest of 
 the Mosaic Sabbath w^as typical of the rest of Christ 
 in the grave. 
 
 Rejecting, then, all such notions of our blessed 
 Lord's work as no part of the authentic teaching of 
 Scripture, let us pass on to enquire what is meant 
 by the article in question. I believe the key to the 
 true understanding of our Lord's redemptive work 
 is to be found in those words from the epistle just 
 mentioned. Forasmuch then as the children are par- 
 takers of flesh and bloody He also Himself likewise 
 took part of the same ; that through death He might 
 destroy him that had the power of deaths that is, the 
 devil} In other words, the basis of our Lord's 
 redemptive work was laid, not in vicariousness of 
 suffering, but in identity of nature. In Him there 
 was to be a revelation of humanity ; He, in fact, 
 was to be the one pattern and type man to whom 
 
 ' Heb. ii. 14. 
 
HE DESCENDED INTO HELL. 
 
 73 
 
 the creation of Adam looked forward. WJierefore 
 in all things it behoved Hi^n to be made like unto 
 His brethren ;^ and, It beca^ne Him, for whom are all 
 things, and by ivhom are all things, in bringing many 
 sons tmto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation 
 perfect through sufferings? As, therefore, identity of 
 nature was the basis of His work, so also was that 
 work to be carried out by complete identity of con- 
 dition with man. Man dies as a sinner ; Christ died 
 as the chief of sinners, for He was numbered with the 
 transgressors.^ Man is laid in the grave and turns 
 again to his dust ; Christ also was laid in the grave, 
 but the Scripture had said that He should not see 
 corruption, and should triumph over death. As, 
 however, the turning to corruption is not an essential 
 part of death, although a necessary and universal 
 consequence of death, and as corruption is that from 
 which we yearn to be delivered, so Christ, as the 
 redeemer, brought back His body from the grave, 
 and did not see corruption. But it is not all of 
 death to die and see the grave, for that is the 
 accident or condition of the body alone. Where is 
 the vital spark of immortality when the body gives 
 up its animal life } We know not, for Scripture has 
 not told us ; the language of the Old Testament 
 calls its place or state sheol, that is to say, the con- 
 dition in which we ask after our lost ones, Where 
 are they } or, according to others, the all-craving 
 
 ' Heb. ii. 17. ^ Isa. liii. 12; Mark xv. 28. 
 
 2 Heb. ii. 10. 
 
174 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 and devouring abyss which insatiably demands the 
 whole of the human race. It seems better then to 
 conceive of this, which is called in our Scripture 
 language the grave or the pit, as a state rather than 
 a place, inasmuch as it appears more consonant with 
 the nature of spiritual existence to predicate condi- 
 tion of it than place. The spirit even in the body 
 is not bound by the limitations of space or place, 
 much less when disenchained and disentangled from 
 the body ; but the spirit, when so enfranchised, is in 
 an unknown state, and that state may be one of 
 incipient weal or woe. We simply know nothing 
 about it, for Scripture has told us nothing, and 
 science with all its boasted acumen and knowledge 
 of the secrets of nature can discover nothing, for the 
 mystery lies hid deep in that impenetrable land, 
 
 " That undiscovered country, from whose bourne 
 No traveller returns." 
 
 But we know thus much, that Christ died exclaim- 
 ing. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit ;^ 
 and we are certainly led to believe that the 
 condition of our Lord was different at His death 
 from what it was at His resurrection ; and different 
 at and after His resurrection from what it was on 
 His ascension, and from what it has been ever 
 since and is now. There remains, therefore, the 
 mysterious interval between His death and His 
 resurrection to account for. Where was His human 
 soul then t or more accurately, what was the con- 
 
 ' Luke xxiii. 46. 
 
HE DESCENDED INTO HELL. 175 
 
 dition of His human soul then ? It was in hell, for 
 He descended into hell; there where Jacob said he 
 should go down to his favourite son; there where 
 David said he should meet his infant child ; ^ there 
 where the dead are gone, and there where we shall go. 
 And I cannot speak of this, my friends, without a 
 few brief words of tribute to the memory of those two 
 eminent Christians of Switzerland and Spain, Pronier 
 and Carrasco, who were called to a watery grave but 
 a few days back, in that ill-fated Atlantic steamship.^ 
 They were noble servants of Christ among the very 
 noblest who met in those happy meetings in New 
 York in October last. Carrasco was the head of 
 the evangelical movement in Spain, and had suffered 
 persecution for his attachment and loyalty to the 
 Word of God. Pronier was a young man of ardent 
 and simple faith. They are gone to their rest, for 
 their work was done ; but I, who crossed the same 
 ocean but a month before, on my return from the 
 same mission as theirs, have been mercifully pre- 
 served and snatched from peril in which one was 
 taken and another left. Why } Because my work 
 is not yet done. I have yet work to do for God 
 and for Christ, and may the life which has thus been 
 spared be evermore consecrated to the energetic 
 doing of His work ; for whether ive live we live unto 
 the Lord, and whether we die zve die tmto the Lord ; 
 whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's? 
 
 * 2 Sam. xii. 23. ' Rom. xiv. 8. 
 
 * The Ville du Havre sunk Nov. 22, 1873. 
 
176 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 But while we linger here we cannot forbear to ask, 
 Where are our loved ones gone — where do they go ? 
 And the only answer we can give is derived from our 
 Lord's own words to the dying thief, To-day shalt 
 thou be with Me in paradise} That is where Christ 
 went, He tells us Himself; that is where the peni- 
 tent thief went ; it was where Christ was. The 
 whole subject is impenetrably dark, and human 
 language cannot enlighten it, because human thought 
 cannot pierce it ; but we know that when we say 
 He descended into hell, we confess that Christ our 
 Lord, as the perfect and true man, submitted to fulfil 
 all the conditions of deceased humanity. His body 
 was in the grave, His soul was in paradise, that is, 
 in hell, in a state of incipient bliss ; not such as He 
 in His manhood was to enjoy subsequently, but one 
 which was antecedent and preliminary to it. 
 
 This is what we mean when we say that Christ 
 descended into hell. The term is indeed, unfor- 
 tunately a most ambiguous one, and the American 
 Prayer-book has prefixed to the Apostles' Creed this 
 rubric : " Any churches may omit the words ' He 
 descended into Hell,' and may instead of them use 
 the words, * He went into the place of departed 
 spirits,' which are considered as words of the same 
 meaning in the Creed." Notwithstanding, however, 
 this permission, I never heard any American con- 
 gregation avail themselves of the option given, 
 although the tendency of that prayer-book is to 
 
 ^ Luke xxiii. 43. 
 
HE DESCENDED INTO HELL, I'j'j 
 
 remove as far as possible every supposed blemish 
 arising from archaic or antiquated language. It 
 seems to me that to speak of i\iQ place of departed 
 spirits is, for another reason already specified, no less 
 objectionable than to speak of hell in this accepta- 
 tion. 
 
 What Christ did when His soul had descended 
 into hell it is idle to speculate. St, Peter's language 
 certainly seems to intimate that our Lord's mission, 
 as the first and great preacher of the Gospel, was 
 not accomplished when He died. There were those 
 waiting for His mercy in Paradise who were eager to 
 receive it. The patriarchs, prophets, and psalmists, 
 who like Abraham and David had seen His day 
 before He came, and who were in Sheol, Hades, or 
 Hell, would be the first to hail the glad message of 
 salvation accomplished and wrought out which He 
 thus was the first to bring them. This was to Him 
 the rest of the holy sabbath, that antitypical period 
 of rest which His body was keeping in the grave, 
 and to which every sabbath had looked forward 
 since the tnorning stars sang together, a?td all the 
 sons of God shouted for joy} This may be so — we 
 know not and cannot tell, and it is useless to en- 
 quire ; and we need not desire to know. Before 
 very long the mystery will be revealed to each of us. 
 It is one of the surest tokens of the Divine Gospel, 
 that it has not ministered to a vain spirit of specu- 
 lation. It gratifies no idle hunger of curiosity. It 
 
 • Job xxxviii. 7. 
 
 12 
 
178 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 deals with facts, with facts which contain in them- 
 selves the resolution of all mysteries, which are the 
 incipient germ of future and complete knowledge. 
 
 And the great facts which it reveals are these, that 
 Christ, as the Divine Son of the eternal Father, has 
 entered into all the conditions of our mortal or fallen 
 humanity, saving only that of personal guilt, on 
 account of sin committed, but not excepting that of 
 personal consciousness of sin in consequence of in- 
 tense sympathy and complete identification with the 
 sinner. He has suffered hunger, thirst, weariness, 
 weakness, pain, loneliness, desolation, desertion by 
 God, the hiding of His face, which is the very bitter- 
 ness of death. He has gone through the conditions 
 of this low estate in which we are dwelling now, 
 and He has encountered death and explored all the 
 mysteries of the undiscoverable state, the darkness 
 and solitude of the tomb, the shadowy visions of the 
 shadowy world where the spirits rest, as it were, in 
 prison ; in a state of inchoate and incipient joy, 
 waiting for the dawning of the resurrection morn, 
 when they shall come forth in glorious array, a 
 mighty and triumphant army, glistening like the 
 dew-drops of returning day, and reflecting each the 
 likeness of the Sun of Righteousness, the undying 
 and victorious Captain of their salvation. 
 
XVI. 
 
 THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIA 
 FROM THE DEAD. 
 
 And that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. 
 — I Cor. XV. 4. 
 
 nr^HIS statement, which also forms part of the 
 •^ early creed preserved to us by St. Paul, agrees 
 in word as well as in substance with that in the 
 Nicene Confession, while it differs from the article 
 in the Apostles' Creed by the addition of the 
 words "according to the Scriptures." That addi- 
 tion is a very important one, and it is not a little 
 significant that it is found in the apostle's letter 
 to Corinth. 
 
 We come, then, at last, to the fundamental and 
 characteristic fact of the Christian faith. For a long 
 time we have been dealing with events which were 
 not only transacted in the sphere of ordinary life, 
 but which did not transcend the limits of ordinary 
 experience. This was the case when we said that 
 "Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate," that " He 
 was crucified, dead, and buried." Nor was it essenti- 
 ally otherwise, when we confessed that " He descended 
 into hell," for the significance of His descent into hell 
 
i8o THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 was His conformity with the conditions of ordinary- 
 mortal existence. But now we take leave of the 
 ordinary, the human, the experimental. Now we ap- 
 proach, enter into, and deal with the extraordinary, 
 the supernatural, the Divine. It is, then, with the 
 Christian faith, as it was with the ladder that Jacob 
 saw in vision, which was established on the earth, 
 while the top of it reached to heaven. The foun- 
 dation of Christianity is laid in the earth in the 
 natural, the human, the temporal : but having esta- 
 blished and planted itself there, it does something 
 more, it rises into heaven, and takes us with it. 
 Unlike the ancient tower which was built on the 
 plains of Shinar, by which men sought to reach the 
 heavens but failed hopelessly, as they always must, 
 this was a tower raised by God, having its foundation 
 deep in the earth, but with its summit penetrating 
 the heavens. It is, therefore, what from the first 
 mankind felt the want of. It gives exactly that 
 which is confessedly desirable and desired, and 
 which is continually being sought after in one way 
 or another, even when its own way is rejected. If 
 the headstone of the corner is refused, it is only 
 refused that another stone may be taken in its place. 
 Men cannot do without stones to build with ; it is 
 only a question as to the choice of the fittest and 
 the best. 
 
 We must, therefore, by no means hide from our- 
 selves the nature of the territory which we are 
 now entering. It is not of this world, it is not of 
 
• THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAiy. i8r 
 
 the earth earthy, and therefore not of the perishing 
 perishable. We must resist, as the most unfair and 
 insidious of all endeavours, the attempt to represent 
 the cardinal truth we are now to contemplate, as a 
 mere distortion of the natural and the ordinary, 
 a mere accommodation to the thirst for the super- 
 natural and the marvellous. We start therefore with 
 this question, Can any rational being think it probable 
 for one moment that the writers of the New Testa- 
 ment did not themselves believe, and intend their 
 readers to believe, that Jesus Christ, their master, 
 having been dead was raised to life again, that His 
 body having been extinct of vitality was restored to 
 animation .? If any one can suppose that probable 
 there is an end to all argument. But as it is abso- 
 lutely impossible that we can have misunderstood 
 the disciples in this respect, it is the more incumbent 
 upon us to look the matter simply in the face, and 
 to resolve that we will not be the victims of any 
 deception or special pleading or word-juggling on 
 the subject. What we have to concern ourselves 
 with is the obvious belief that, the body of Jesus 
 Christ, having been actually dead, and, in popular 
 language, severed from His soul, which was "in hell," 
 was as actually by His own Divine power raised 
 to life again, how of course we do not presume to 
 say ; it is a supernatural fact that we have to treat, a 
 bo7id fide miracle, and nothing less than the greatest 
 of all miracles, though at the same time, if a fact, a 
 miracle which sheds a flood light over history, and 
 
i82 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 nature, and life, and science, and the whole world of 
 the miraculous. 
 
 And, brethren, terrible as it is, we must regard 
 the subject in this light, because there are senti- 
 ments propounded by so-called Christians in the 
 present day which deliberately endeavour to ex- 
 plain away the Lord's resurrection, to represent that 
 which is a miracle — or it is nothing — as no miracle 
 at all. 
 
 I wish, then, to guard myself most carefully 
 against all possible misinterpretation, and to state 
 plainly what I desire to be understood as plainly 
 — that in the creed of Christianity we confess that 
 the human body of the Lord of life was actually 
 raised to life again after having been dead ; that 
 ^ it was not merely that the disciples thought they 
 saw the Lord, and thought they talked with Him, 
 and thought they ate and drank with Him after He 
 rose from the dead ; that it was not merely their 
 senses that were imposed upon, but that a truth 
 answering accurately to those impressions of their 
 senses had really taken place in the word of fact 
 and nature. 
 
 So, brethren, let us clearly understand each other. 
 This is what you profess to believe, this is what I 
 have to enlarge upon and to maintain ; and it is, 
 with all its stupendous difficulties and contradictions, 
 what I deliberately believe when I deliberately re- 
 peat those words of the Apostles' Creed, " the third 
 day He rose again from the dead." 
 
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN. 183 
 
 You see, then, that though the character of the 
 facts which the Creed asserts is altogether changed, 
 yet they are not changed in regard to their being 
 facts. Christianity requires us to beUeve that it is 
 as much a fact that Jesus Christ rose again from 
 the dead, as it is that He was born, or died, or was 
 buried : these are what we may call natural facts, 
 that is a supernatural fact ; both took place in the 
 world of nature ; but this fact, though it took place 
 in the world of nature, altogether transcended the 
 limits of that world : it not merely seemed to trans- 
 cend them, but it actually did so. In the resurrection, 
 then, of the Lord of glory, there was, just as there 
 had been at His birth, a new exceptional fact intro- 
 duced into the category of historic occurrences ; a 
 fact which, had it been possible for science to be 
 cognizant of it, science itself would have been bound 
 to register, so that, in the report of the transactions 
 of such and such a society, we should have had it 
 recorded that on such a day, at such an hour, and 
 in such a place, a particular man who had been 
 dead was acknowledged on sufficient and satisfactory 
 evidence to have been raised again, or to have raised 
 himself again, to life. Let there be no mistake 
 about it. This, and nothing less than this, is the 
 direct statement of the Scriptures ; this, and nothing 
 less than this, is the professed belief of Christendom. 
 If, therefore, on this count the Scriptures are not 
 reliable, they are a dead letter; if here they are 
 worthy of credit, then, in this respect alone, waiving 
 
1 84 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 all Others, they are different from the reports and 
 blue-books of all scientific and statistical bodies, 
 inasmuch as they do record a fact which confessedly 
 no scientific body has ever had to record, and which, 
 in fact, we know, as the Scriptures themselves give 
 us to understand, that no scientific body will ever 
 have to record. 
 
 It is, brethren, verily a stupendous statement. 
 But I do not see that there is any getting out of 
 it. This, and nothing less than this, it was which 
 gave the impulse to the spread of Christianity in 
 the first age of the Church, and caused the desert 
 of the Roman world and of Roman civilisation to 
 rejoice and blossom as the rose. 
 
 Nor must we let our expressions of belief in this 
 cardinal fact take the form of self-revenge, which 
 is not seldom discernible in the case, for example, of 
 bigoted Romanists, who will maintain a belief in 
 the most monstrous statements simply because they 
 trample upon soul and sense, and because there is 
 a kind of self-gratification in so triumphing over self. 
 Doubtless we must confront miracle somewhere, 
 and, if anywhere, we must confront it in the resur- 
 rection of our Lord ; but it is not merely for the sake 
 of confronting it that we do so. A miracle merely as 
 a miracle is a worthless thing to contemplate, nay, 
 it is even a pernicious thing. And therefore it was 
 that our Lord was always so careful to place even 
 His own miracles in their proper position and 
 aspect; to represent them only as parts of a whole, 
 
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN. 185 
 
 as elements, ingredients, and items that had their 
 use in confirmation of moral and spiritual truth, but 
 which were by no means to be confounded with that 
 truth. It is so with His own resurrection : let us 
 by all means allow that it transcends the earthly, 
 and exceeds the natural, and belies the ordinary ; 
 but let us not turn it into an idol of the cave, a 
 kind of mental fetish, and worship it for its own 
 sake, or for the sake of worshipping it. Let us 
 remember that the resurrection of Christ was the 
 highest and most expressive symbol of the life 
 which was in Him, and that it is in and by that 
 life, expressed as His resurrection expresses it, that 
 we must live, and not by the mere confession of an 
 outward fact which may after all leave us lifeless 
 and dead. It is in Christ the Life who Himself rose 
 from the dead that we are to believe, and, it may 
 be, because He rose from the dead ; but not in our 
 own bare and barren belief that He so rose. 
 
 And surely, brethren, you will at once see that 
 this makes a vast difference, if we start with the 
 moral and spiritual conviction that there is a life 
 which is stronger than death, absolutely separate 
 from death, and into which death cannot enter, which 
 conviction may itself serve as an index of our own 
 spiritual constitution to show whether we are, so to 
 say, physically capable of becoming Christians ; if, 
 I say, we start with this conviction, — and I believe 
 there are some who have it not, — and start also with 
 the further conviction that such a life can be per- 
 
l86 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 sonally embodied in a man, then it becomes not 
 only easy, but we may even say natural, that the life 
 so embodied should surrender itself to death for the 
 express purpose of utterly throwing off death. And 
 this is what we believe Christ did. He was not a 
 mere unit out of the innumerable units of humanity, 
 who alone of all of them did the unnatural and im- 
 possible thing, rise again from the dead, but being in 
 His personality as a true man the One man who was 
 fore-ordained to bring life into this dying world. He 
 Himself was found willing to die in order that He 
 rilight cast out death from them who were willing to 
 accept His life. Looked at in this light, approached^ 
 if we may so say, from this direction, and from this 
 quarter, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus becomes 
 but the part, albeit possibly the chief part, of a 
 mighty whole ; but one which is essential, indis- 
 pensable, conformable in some sense even to nature, 
 and most undeniably consonant with reason. If 
 Jesus Christ was this, then it is no wonder that He 
 rose again from the dead ; but the greatest and most 
 impossible wonder of all would have been that He 
 should not rise, that Death should have had final 
 dominion over Him. Death was His creature. He 
 was its Lord. The resurrection showed unmistak- 
 ably the relation of the creature to the Lord, and if 
 you get rid of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, 
 then you get rid of the abstract superiority of life to 
 death ; you have the enjoyable prospect before you 
 of death without end as the ultimate lord of all, as 
 
7 HE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN. 187 
 
 the goal of all existence, and the extinction of all 
 personal hope. 
 
 And here it was that the apostles had such a 
 marvellous vantage-ground on which to place the 
 engines wherewith they were to move the world. 
 They had the conception of a Christ to work with, a 
 conception which was a unique fact in the history 
 of the world, just as much as the republic of Rome 
 or Athens was a fact. They had this conception, the 
 abstract possibility of the existence of such a person \ 
 in the national mind of Judaism, and even in the 
 national mind of Greece and Rome, and having this 
 conception it became comparatively easy for Peter to 
 tell the multitudes from all nations assembled in 
 Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost that God had 
 raised up Christ, having loosed the pains of death, 
 because it was not possible that He should be holden 
 of it.^ There was an appeal here, in the minds of 
 those men, to a sense of what was fit and natural, 
 and they could not help seeing it. And therefore 
 they accepted the resurrection as being itself the key 
 to many mysteries which would be unsolved without 
 it, as explaining more than it required to be explained, 
 as proving the confirmation and evidence of a hope 
 which without it could never be proved, and which 
 must vanish in despair. 
 
 Nor was it otherwise with St. Paul. In writing to 
 Corinth he could say of Christ, the ideal man, that 
 He rose again the third day according to the Scrip- 
 
 ' Acts ii. 24. 
 
i?8 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 tures. Had it not been for those Scriptures the 
 resurrection of Christ would simply have taken its 
 place among the exceptional, and abnormal, and 
 highly irregular facts of science, and observation, and 
 experience, which could only establish its claim to 
 be accepted according as the evidence advanced was 
 or was not deemed satisfactory by the individual to 
 whom it was presented. But seeing that there were 
 written documents of vast antiquity, which had been 
 the cause of remarkable anticipations being cherished 
 and maintained, not only by the Jewish nation, but 
 by the world at large, in which it was affirmed, for 
 example, as we read this morning, that the Lord God 
 would szvallow tip death in victory, and wipe away tears 
 from off all faces ;^ or, as we shall read this evening, 
 Thy dead men shall live^ together with my dead body 
 shall they arise : awake and sing, ye that dwell in 
 dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth 
 shall cast out the dead i'^ we can readily understand 
 the fulfilment of the sequel, It shall be said in that 
 day, Lo this is our God, we have zuaited for Him and 
 He will save ns ; this is the Lord, we have waited 
 for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salva- 
 tion? 
 
 For, given this preliminary faith in the Divine 
 word; given those natural yearnings and irrepressible 
 hopes to which even that word appealed, it became 
 then not a mere dilettante abstract question as to 
 
 ' Isa. XXV. 8. ^ Isa. xxv, 9. 
 
 * Isa. XX vi. 19. 
 
THE THIRD DA V HE ROSE AGAIN. 189 
 
 whether or not God could or would or should raise 
 the dead, but whether or not, under the special and 
 highly exceptional circumstances of this particular 
 case, as one part of the far-reaching and elaborate 
 plan of a mighty and gigantic whole, and as the ful- 
 filment of an ancient promise which was confirmed 
 by the oath of God, He had raised the dead ; — it 
 became then a question as to whether or not that 
 word could fail, and whether or not the resurrection 
 of Christ had once for all fulfilled it. 
 
 And this, my brethren, is our position now. We 
 have, to take one instance, those magnificent chap- 
 ters of Isaiah which are the customary spiritual food 
 and sustenance of Advent. We can see for ourselves 
 what it is they proclaim. They need no commen- 
 tary to enable us to take in their broad and patent 
 message, for whatever obscurities we may find in 
 them— and they are many — they are after all so 
 plain that it is as if they were engraven upon rocks, 
 that he who runs may read them while he runs, 
 without a pause or break. And of these we know, 
 as a matter of undeniable fact, that they were written 
 for centuries before Christ came. They tell us, then, 
 in the name of the Lord, what it is the Lord will do — 
 not brute nature or blind chance — but what God, the 
 living God, and the Lord of nature, will do for dying 
 man. The only question then for us to determine 
 is. Will He do it, and has He done it 1 If Christ is 
 risen He has done it, and He will do it again. If 
 Christ is not risen, then we not only have to do vio- 
 
IQO THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 lence to, in order to explain away, all the varied tissue 
 of converging evidence which shows — and for ages 
 has been understood to show — that He did rise again 
 from the dead ; but we have this inexplicable fact to 
 account for — the existence for long ages of written 
 testimony which declared that after the Lord's ser- 
 vant had been led as a sheep to the slaughter, and 
 had made His soul an offering for sin, He should see 
 His seed and should prolong His days, while the plea- 
 sure of the Lord should prosper in His hand;^ as well 
 as this other undeniable fact, that upon the authority 
 of this testimony to persons who knew it had not been 
 fulfilled, but anticipated its fulfilment, the Apostles 
 went forth, proclaiming that Jesus had risen from the 
 dead the third day according to the Scriptures, and 
 declared Him on this ground to be the Christ; and 
 that on their testimony He was accepted as the 
 Christ and the world became Christian, because men 
 had in their hands the cypher and the key to it, the 
 impression and the seal which corresponded to it, and 
 because without this fact the cypher was a cypher 
 still, and the impression was a thing of chance, on 
 which the stamp of no seal had come. 
 
 * Isa. liii. 7, lO. 
 
XVII. 
 THE THIRD DA Y HE ROSE AGAIN FROM 
 THE DEAD. 
 
 And that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.-— 
 I Cor. XV. 4. 
 
 A SUBJECT like that of our Lord's resurrection 
 -^^^ may well be allowed to occupy us for a longer 
 period than some others, and there were points upon 
 which we did not touch in the last discourse. When, 
 for example, it is said that He rose again the third 
 day according to the Scriptures^ there can be no 
 doubt that the proclamation of any such fact receives 
 additional testimony when it is shown that for ages 
 before Christ came it had been distinctly promised 
 in Isaiah that the earth shotdd cast out the dead} 
 It might, of course, be affirmed that such language 
 was merely poetical and was not to be taken literally; 
 but when an historic fact is declared to have taken 
 place in literal agreement with such language, it may 
 surely be required not only to disprove the fact, but 
 also to show cause why the language should not be 
 taken literally before it is disproved. And if, for a 
 variety of reasons, there is ground for accepting the 
 fact, a strong presumption is under the circumstances 
 
 ^ Isa. xxvii. 19. 
 
192 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 thereby created, that the language of the prophet 
 spoken in the name of the Lord was to be under- 
 stood to the fulness of its possible meaning. I do 
 not wish to imply that these words, the earth shall 
 cast out the dead, are those upon which alone or 
 principally I should rest the antecedent probability of 
 our Lord's resurrection, but that they, among many 
 others, vividly illustrate the general truth exem- 
 plified by His resurrection. 
 
 The words of the text, however, are joined with 
 others already commented upon, aiid that He was 
 buried ; and the expression, according to the Scriptures, 
 may be reasonably interpreted as applying to both. 
 The question then occurs, To what is it that this ex- 
 pression does refer } Is it to our Lord's burial and 
 His resurrection alone, or is it to His resurrection 
 the third day > Does the apostle mean to say that 
 had He lain in the grave more than three days the 
 Scripture would have been broken — that had He 
 lain there less it would not have been fulfilled ? 
 or is he content merely with the more general 
 statement that, by His resurrection from the dead, 
 the Scriptures were fulfilled 1 The question is by 
 no means an unimportant one in the present day, 
 because it bears directly upon the manner in which 
 the Scriptures are to be regarded. If, as a matter 
 of fact, Christ our Lord in minute particulars 
 fulfilled the Scriptures and was careful to do so, 
 then there can be little doubt that such minute 
 attention to them is important and even required. 
 
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN. 193 
 
 And thus the Scriptures are raised to a some- 
 what different level, and one in which these smallest 
 particulars are worthy of our consideration. If, on 
 the other hand, we may rest content with a mere 
 vague and general agreement with their spirit, then 
 they remain upon a lower elevation, and one on 
 which they approximate more nearly to the ordinary 
 literature of mankind. Here it may be enough to 
 say that the pervading spirit of the Old Testament 
 and the New are alike ; that one is nothing more, 
 than the higher manifestation of the other, and that 
 the one was commended to mankind because it was 
 not altogether original but had been partly antici- 
 pated of old .If, on the other hand, there is evidence 
 that St. Paul assumed a different ground from this, 
 and if from the representations of the Evangelists 
 there is proof that our Lord did also, then we can 
 hardly fail to conclude that this view of the ancient 
 Scriptures was not only that which was taken by 
 themselves, but also that which they were desirous 
 to commend to us. And I think from the way in 
 which the writer says, mid that He rose again the 
 third day according to the Scriptures^ he does mean 
 to be understood to say, that Christ not only rose 
 from the dead according to the Scriptures, but that 
 His rising the third day was anticipated by them 
 and fulfilled them. Let it be observed, then, that I 
 am not now advancing St. Paul's opinion as binding 
 upon ourselves, but only endeavouring to ascertain 
 what that opinion was. How far it may_be a 
 
 'Uiri7ERSITn 
 
194 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 rule for us is a subsequent consideration; we want 
 now to determine what it was, and if possible to 
 justify it. 
 
 Assuming then that he believed Christ's rising 
 from the dead on the third day was expressly 
 provided for by the Scriptures, what were the 
 Scriptures to which he referred? First, I think, we 
 may reply with certainty the i6th Psalm, For thotc 
 wilt not leave my soul in hell ; neither wilt thou suffer 
 thine Holy One to see corruption. This Psalm had 
 been in existence for ages. St. Peter had shown 
 before that understanding David's language, as the 
 LXX had understood it, of corruption, it was impos- 
 sible that that language could apply to him. If, 
 therefore, it had any meaning at all, it must apply to 
 someone else, and he asserted that it applied to 
 Christ. But if the Lord would not suffer His Holy 
 One to see corruption, doubtless a limit was assigned, 
 by the very choice of that expression, to the time 
 which His human body could, in the course of 
 nature, be held by the grave. Probably in such a 
 climate as that of Palestine three days would be this 
 limit, and if so, the language of Scripture would 
 demand that the resurrection of Christ should not be 
 longer delayed, supposing that language should be 
 rigidly adhered to. An antecedent probability 
 existed, therefore, in prophecy, that Christ should rise 
 from the dead within such a time that His natural 
 body, left to itself, would have succumbed to the 
 operation of natural law. But out of the mass of 
 
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN. 195 
 
 the prophetic writings, who, before the fact, could 
 have anticipated such an event as probable ? Verily 
 no one. And it is precisely in this inherent impro- 
 bability that the strength of the proclamation lay, 
 when it was shown to be — as it clearly was — in ac- 
 cordance with the Scriptures. It is futile to maintain 
 afterwards that David's language could have had no 
 reference to Christ, and yet profess to accept the 
 resurrection, because here is the statement which, at 
 all events when thus interpreted, corresponds exactly 
 with the fact. We may deny the fact, but we cannot 
 deny it on the ground that it failed to justify the 
 language. We may deny the possibility of the 
 Psalmist's language referring to Christ, but we cannot 
 deny the coincidence of correspondence between the 
 two. And this coincidence becomes the more re- 
 markable, and acquires indeed a degree of indepen- 
 dent, strength, when we see that to them who were 
 most familiar with the language, the fact of its 
 correspondence with the event came home with the 
 force of irresistible conviction. Granting the neces- 
 sity that the Scriptures must be fulfilled, here was 
 their fulfilment. Now they had a depth of meaning 
 which they never had before, and which they could 
 not have till the time that they should be fulfilled 
 had come ; but after the arrival of that time, and 
 the course of events had thrown a flood of light 
 upon them, it was too late to say that their 
 original capacity for any such meaning was a 
 mistake. 
 
196 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 There was, however, another wonderful prophetic 
 book, which had been in existence for many cen- 
 turies, whatever its origin and however it had been 
 interpreted. This book was the narrative of a 
 reluctant prophet, who was charged with a message 
 that he refused to deliver, who became the prey 
 for three days and nights of a sea-monster, and 
 was saved by a mighty salvation, in order to exe- 
 cute the office which had been entrusted to him, 
 and who, by his discharge of it, became the means of 
 preserving alive the inhabitants of a heathen city, 
 which was second to none among the great cities of 
 the ancient world. We are told on the authority of 
 St. Matthew and St. Luke that our Lord used the 
 history of this prophet as a parable of His own, de- 
 claring that the sign of the prophet Jonas was the 
 only sign that should be given to the men of that 
 generation, and saying, according to St. Matthew, 
 that as Jonas was three days and three nights in the 
 whale's belly. ^ so the Son of Man should be three days 
 and three nights in the heart of the earth} Here, 
 then, it is probable that we have the Scripture 
 authority for the third day. More than three days 
 the letter of Scripture did not demand ; anything 
 less than the third day would have been in violation 
 of it. We are told, moreover, on the high autho- 
 rity of Lightfoot, that a portion of three days 
 could be spoken of in the Jewish acceptation as 
 
 Matt. xii. 40. 
 
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN, 197 
 
 three days, and there are in Biblical language exam- 
 ples of such a method of computation ; so that the 
 resurrection on the third day has become an integral 
 part of the Christian Creed. Christ having been 
 buried on the Friday, having rested in the grave on 
 the Sabbath, and having risen from the dead on the 
 first or Lord's day, was in the heart of the earth a 
 portion of three several days, and rose from the dead 
 the third day. It is probable, however, that our Lord 
 intended a very much closer parallel to be observed 
 between Himself and Jonah the prophet than the 
 minor one of the three days and nights. However 
 the history of that prophet was regarded by the men 
 of his time, there it was as a substantive portion of 
 their literature. It recorded a marvellous deliver- 
 ance. Even if the record were not taken as history, 
 which it undoubtedly was, that would necessitate its 
 being taken as a parable, and that would further 
 necessitate a meaning being found for the parable. 
 What was its meaning > No one could say. Christ's 
 resurrection would provide a meaning, and such a 
 meaning as nothing else could give. The prophet, 
 moreover, had spoken of his own deliverance as a 
 deliverance from the belly of hell, or Sheol. Out of 
 the belly of hell cried /, and Thou heardest my voice} 
 Christ was to be delivered from the jaws of hell, be- 
 cause it was not possible that He should be holden 
 of its pains. But above all as Jonah's message was 
 
 ' Jonah ii. 2, 
 
198 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 only fruitful after his resurrection, so Christ's mes- 
 sage would go forth with far greater success after 
 His resurrection than before it ; and as the preaching 
 of Jonah had a great effect upon the Gentile city of 
 Nineveh, so the gospel of Christ would have a success 
 among the Gentiles that it lacked among the Jews, 
 and thus become a sign to the men of that genera- 
 tion, as the prophet had been to the men of His own. 
 There is yet another passage, occurring in Hosea, 
 that was probably remembered in this same connec- 
 tion : Come a7td let us rettirn unto the Lord, for He 
 hath torn and He will heal us ; He hath smitten and 
 He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us, 
 in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live 
 in His sight} What was the primary meaning of 
 the prophet here it is impossible to say, but given a 
 general reference to Christ in the scriptures of the 
 prophets, it is not hard to discover room for a special 
 one here. If all the promises of God in Christ are 
 Yea, and Amen, we can nowhere find this promise 
 so fulfilled as in the resurrection of His Son the 
 third day. But be that as it may, here we have the 
 aggregate of those Scripture passages out of which, 
 and out of which alone, the doctrine of Christ's resur- 
 rection the third day could have been constructed. 
 This was the kind of foundation the disciples had 
 to build upon, if they were so minded to invent the 
 story of their Master rising again. It must be con- 
 fessed not a very hopeful and promising one ; nay, we 
 
 * Hosea vi. i, 2. 
 
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIA. 199 
 
 may confidently say it was not one that could 
 possibly have suggested itself to such men, prior to 
 the fact ; but after the fact had occurred we may 
 readily perceive that the correspondence between it 
 and the written monuments of Scripture was much 
 closer than could have been supposed or anticipated, 
 and being so close, we can understand why it was 
 that St Paul taught the Corinthians that Jesus Christ 
 rose from the dead the third day according to the 
 Scriptures. We must not forget however, that of 
 this very message here summarised he says, / de- 
 livered unto you that which I also received. He throws 
 us back therefore on One beyond Himself, and we 
 know who that is. 
 
 We know, moreover, that it was our Lord's habit 
 to teach His disciples that the Scriptures referred to 
 Him, and were fulfilled in Him. We cannot say 
 that we know anything of our Lord's teaching, if we 
 may not determine that He taught thus ; and even 
 in the solemn moments verging on His agony and 
 death, we find Him saying, Thinkest thou that I can- 
 not now pray to my Father, and He shall presently 
 give more than twelve legiojts of angels, but how then 
 shall the Scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be ?^ 
 These were not the Scriptures of the New Testa- 
 mant, but the Scriptures of the Old. They were the 
 very identical ancient documents of the Jews, which 
 we now have in our hands, and which are so vehe- 
 mently assailed in the present day. It is impos- 
 
 * Matt. xxvi. 53, 54. 
 
THE CHRISTIAA CREED. 
 
 sible, then, for us not to see that both our Lord and 
 His apostles assign to these Scriptures a degree of 
 authority and certainty which must be maintained 
 intact, if their own language is not to be rejected. 
 This is one of the landmarks by which we must 
 direct our course. It cannot be that we are to re- 
 gard these Scriptures in such a light as will make it 
 incompetent for them to be the inviolable writings 
 which Christ represented them to be. On the con- 
 trary, we are clearly warranted in saying, there is 
 that in the Scriptures of the Old Testament 
 which made them the vehicle of a special Divine 
 message to man, and which still makes them so, 
 notwithstanding men's rash and destructive conclu- 
 sions with respect tt) them. And seeing that these 
 conclusions are oftentimes based upon conjecture 
 and not at all upon demonstration, it is they that 
 must suffer themselves to be corrected by our Lord's 
 teaching, and not our Lord's teaching that must be 
 made to yield to them. If there was any reason 
 whatever for His continually-expressed conviction, to 
 call it by no higher term, that the Scriptures referred 
 to Him, then they could only do so because they 
 were instinct with a Divine life and fraught with a 
 special Divine blessing. It was not fortuitous that 
 David had spoken as he did in the i6th Psalm ; it 
 was not fortuitous that the history (or, if you will, 
 even the legend) of the prophet Jonah had been 
 preserved, that it existed in the Jewish literature 
 and was classed among the twelve minor prophets, 
 
THE THIRD DA\ HE ROSE AGAIN. 
 
 recording a marvellous deliverance for a no less 
 marvellous end ; recording the salvation of a people 
 upon repentance by the preaching of a man who 
 had been rescued from the jaws of death after a 
 three days' entombment ; it was not altogether 
 without meaning or fortuitous that the prophet 
 Hosea had spoken as he had of God's raising up 
 Israel the third day. There was a predetermination 
 in all this; the threefold testimony of these three 
 writers, of various ages, was designed as a threefold 
 cord, not easily to be broken, and though it could not 
 be affirmed of any one that he directly contemplated 
 the resurrection of Christ in writing as he did, and 
 though it is impossible to prove from the nature of 
 things that the combination of the threefold testi- 
 mony was designed by God to point to this end — 
 just as it is impossible to prove that the mechanism 
 of the human eye or ear points to the working of a 
 designer ; yet, when we have the evidence before us, 
 so clear and patent as it is, there is no little diffi- 
 culty for the prepared, in one case or the other, to 
 resist the conclusion that eloquently suggests itself. 
 And when, in addition to all this, we have the 
 express declaration of Jesus Christ that all things 
 must be fulfilled which were written in the law of 
 Moses, and in the Prophets and in the Psalms, con- 
 cerning Him, it becomes nothing less than wilful 
 and determined obstinacy which resists it. The fact 
 is after all, and the more we ponder it the more the 
 truth of it will force itself upon us, that we may 
 
202 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 argue about these things till we are weary, but there 
 is a preparation of heart required for the acceptance 
 of the reasonableness of Divine truth. Unless we 
 are willing to see our God when He reveals Himself 
 to us, we shall not see Him. It is not within the 
 power of any human being to show Him who cannot 
 show Himself to those who will not see. And this 
 it is that is so extremely distasteful to man, because 
 it appears to take the power of faith out of his own 
 hands. We have not of ourselves the power to 
 judge aright, when that judgment is to show us our 
 vileness and nothingness in showing us the glory of 
 God. We need to come to the fountain of light, 
 not only that we may see light, but that we may 
 receive the power to see it. God has spoken by His 
 Word, in spite of all the difficulties attending the 
 determination of the way in which He has spoken, 
 as He has spoken of nothing else. The evidence of 
 this is the way in which Christ said that that Word 
 must be fulfilled, and the way in which He fulfilled it. 
 We cannot call ourselves Christians, and yet deny 
 the one or the other. If we are prepared to accept 
 Christ, and the teaching of Christ, then we shall hail 
 with gratitude the tokens which were given before 
 of Him, like coruscations of roseate light in the 
 eastern sky, heralding the advent of the lord of day. 
 We shall know that as these infallibly betoken the 
 glory that is to follow, so the longings and aspira- 
 tions and mysterious anticipations of prophecy and 
 psalm and law were ordained as the natural and 
 
 \ 
 
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN, 203 
 
 becoming harbingers of the advent of the Sun of 
 Righteousness, who should arise and shine with 
 healing in His wings, unto and upon all those, but 
 only those, who waited for His coming, and were 
 glad at His approach. 
 
i 
 
XVIII. 
 
 2HE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM 
 THE DEAD, 
 
 If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe 
 in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be 
 saved. — Rom. x. 9. 
 
 "^ I ^HERE Is yet another aspect of the Lord's 
 ^ resurrection which we must not omit to con- 
 sider before we proceed to treat of the next article of 
 the Creed, and that is its practical bearing upon life 
 and action. The ministers of the Gospel are fre- 
 quently taken to task because they represent Chris- 
 tianity too much as a creed and a system. The 
 only theology which finds favour with the popular 
 literature and the popular thought of the present day 
 is that of morality. An article on the English pulpit 
 in the Quarterly Review, which has attracted con- 
 siderable attention, expresses the opinion that drunk- 
 enness, for example, among other vices, might be 
 profitably treated by the Christian preacher. I confess 
 that I fail to see this. A discourse upon drunkenness, 
 for instance, in this place, would, I fancy, be more 
 ill-timed and inappropriate than you probably regard 
 many of those to which you are invited to listen. 
 
2o6 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 To be sure, if we could get together all the drunkards, 
 there would at least be an opportunity of preaching 
 to them — with what success one might; as in fact 
 the first requisite for preaching to any purpose is to 
 secure • a congregation who are willing to listen and 
 to learn. This, however, by the way. I have inten- 
 tionally selected an extreme case, to give the greater 
 point to what I want to say, which is, that the popu- 
 lar mind, for the most part, can only appreciate 
 Christianity as an ethical system. The same writer 
 observes that considering the multitude of sermons that 
 are preached in this land every week, the effect pro- 
 duced is, comparatively speaking, nil. I beg entirely 
 to differ from him. God knows that the appreciable 
 effect is small enough, but who shall calculate the 
 ^. effect which it is not in the power of man to appre- 
 ciate; which would only begin to be appreciated if 
 for a single month every pulpit in the land were 
 dumb ? Though Christianity of course rules the 
 whole province of morality, it is itself something other 
 than moral ; and this cuckoo cry of morality seems to 
 me to indicate that the age has not learnt one of the 
 first lessons of the " Pilgrim's Progress," that morality 
 is a miserable substitute for the Gospel. The more 
 legitimate conclusion is, that if our morality is defec- 
 tive, as it conspicuously too often is, then our Chris- 
 tianity is more defective still. It is not that morality 
 is to displace Christianity, but that Christianity is to 
 develop and to regenerate morality. 
 
 It is impossible, therefore, but that Christianity 
 
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN. 207 
 
 must be a creed and a system ; the very essence of 
 it is the person and life of Christ, — the very essence of 
 this is a series of exceptions and unique facts. If 
 we cannot have a Christianity without Christ, which 
 one would imagine was a truism, then we cannot 
 have a Christ without having what is exceptional 
 and unique in human life and history. We cannot 
 have a Christ, for example, who is dead as other men 
 are dead ; who is living only as Socrates is living, in 
 the spirit and influence of his teaching; who has 
 risen from the dead only as the teaching of Socrates 
 rose from the dead after he was poisoned ; who has 
 no other relation to the Father's home, or to us on 
 our way thither, than Aristotle, or Archimedes, or 
 Roger Bacon. And the men of this generation and 
 the people of this land will before very long have to 
 decide for themselves whether or not this is the 
 Christ that they will have, — whether Christ only differs 
 from other men by the bare superiority of His 
 teaching, when they may be pleased to consider it 
 superior ; or whether, apart altogether from the ab- 
 stract merit of His teaching, of which we are judges, 
 He has in Himself and of Himself something to 
 give and impart to us which we can only find in and 
 derive from Him. And if Christ has the power over 
 death which His resurrection proclaims Him to have, 
 then He has this exceptional and unique gift. 
 
 We take, then, this statement of St. Paul as 
 expressing the practical complement of the fact of 
 the resurrection which has engaged us hitherto, and 
 
2o8 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 shall endeavour to unfold it now. When he wrote 
 to the Romans he did not say, "All you have got to 
 do is to lead moral lives ; to be decent, respectable, 
 truth-speaking, truth-loving; honest and upright as 
 men of business, in your intercourse with your 
 fellows ; sober, temperate, and chaste in your manage- 
 ment of yourselves ; prudent and careful in your 
 management of your households ; not getting into 
 debt, but living strictly within your means, and 
 according to your station ; discreet and just in the 
 management of your children, seeing that they are 
 well and wisely educated up to the requirements of 
 the time," and a mass of the like judicious and time- 
 serving counsel. He did not say this, or anything 
 like this, however much what he did say may 
 have involved this, and far more than this ; but what 
 he did say was (and it was thus, you observe, that he 
 characterised his own preaching). If thou shalt confess 
 with thy mouth the Lord fesus, and shalt believe in 
 thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, 
 thou shalt be saved} 
 
 Now when this message is fairly and adequately 
 considered, it will always have, to the popular mind, 
 the appearance of being fanatical. It is impossible 
 to deal honestly with the apostolic language and 
 not find in it this unmistakable flavour of fanati- 
 cism ; because what does the writer say.-* Thou shalt 
 be saved. Then the men to whom he wrote wanted 
 saving. He had the offer of salvation; he came 
 
 * Rom. X. 9. 
 
THE THIRD DA V HE ROSE AGAIN: 209 
 
 professing to teach them how they might be saved. 
 Of course it is a further question what salvation 
 means — how we are to understand the word. I will 
 come to that by-and-bye ; what I want to implant in 
 your minds now is that the Romans were assumed by 
 St. Paul to be men who were in need of being saved, 
 they were lost men without that which he had to givQ 
 them. There can be no mistake about it. If lan- 
 guage means anything, then his language means this. 
 And he said, moreover, that the Lord Jesus could 
 save them : that by certain a relation to Him they 
 would be saved : not that by being moral men they 
 would be saved ; not that by being good citizens, 
 good fathers, good subjects, good husbands, good 
 masters, good servants, and the like they would be 
 saved ; but by confessing with the mouth and be- 
 lieving with the heart. Now if confessing with the 
 mouth and believing with the heart is equivalent to 
 being good citizens and the like, they are convertible 
 terms ; then you may of course substitute the one 
 for the other, but not otherwise. And I think that 
 no man in his senses can say that they are con- 
 vertible terms, or suppose it for an instant. If, 
 therefore, what St. Paul preached was the Gospel, 
 that which would substitute this for it cannot be 
 the Gospel ; if one was Christianity the other cannot 
 be. 
 
 How, then, shall we understand this crucial word, 
 being saved .? Are we to approach the matter with 
 the awful preliminaries of the bottomless pit and the 
 
 14 
 
2IO THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 everlasting fires of hell ? St. Paul does not do so. 
 Some men cannot get on without hell. There is a 
 substratum to all their theology, implied or under- 
 stood, of hell fire. Their gospel is paved with the 
 "burning marie" of the lost Archangel's dwelling- 
 place. This is one of the irreparable mischiefs done 
 to English theology by the immortal poem of Milton. 
 Surely it is possible to get a better idea of salvation 
 from the analogy of what we know and have expe- 
 rience of, than from that which we know not, and are 
 unable to form any probable conception of. Surely in 
 order to understand or appreciate the dealings of God, 
 it cannot be requisite first to attempt to sound the 
 depths and survey the horrors of the abode of Satan. 
 Is it not possible to save by the administration of daily 
 food, without first having a vivid apprehension of all 
 the conceivable horrors of starvation ? Is it not pos- 
 sible to save by the constant and careful preservation 
 of health, without being first exposed to the hair- 
 breadth escape from some perilous illness ? And is 
 not one the normal and the other the abnormal con- 
 dition of things ? Is it not possible, then, to land a 
 man safely at the very gate of heaven, without first 
 hanging him in mortal terror of his life over the 
 seething abyss of hell ? And if it is, why should we 
 insist upon the one method being followed in pre- 
 ference to the other? Nay, further, is it not possible 
 to save in the highest and noblest sense by a whole- 
 some and judicious education, in which the mind is 
 stored with sound and healthy knowledge, and im- 
 
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN. 211 
 
 bued with germinal wisdom, and noble sentiments, 
 and beautiful images, instead of first doing irrepar- 
 able damage by rendering the mind familiar with 
 the odious features of vice, in order that we may 
 have the glory of a somewhat ambiguous reforma- 
 tion ? Is it otherwise with the Christian doctrine of 
 salvation ? Man, as he is, in his lost estate, is a 
 being unsaved. This is the doctrine of the Gospel, 
 and surely it is one which is indisputable. Christ 
 professed to do what the greatest of the heathen"^ 
 philosophers had been proved incapable of doing, 
 namely, to regenerate the heart of man. Wherever, 
 therefore, the Gospel came, whether to intellectual 
 Athens, or to imperial Rome, or to sensual Corinth, 
 its message was precisely the same. " Under cer- 
 tain conditions thou shalt be saved. As it is, thou 
 art not saved. And everything testifies to the 
 fact. Thy wisdom has given thee no certain know- 
 ledge of God ; thy teachers have exemplified the 
 futility of their own wisdom ; thy social condition 
 is hopelessly and irremediably corrupt. Here is 
 that truth which will make thee wise unto salvation 
 and give thee life. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christy 
 and thou shalt be saved!' And it is not otherwise 
 now. Granted that there are most lamentable 
 plague spots on the surface of our social existence, 
 that our moral condition is vitiated with the foulest 
 blots ; granted that the spectacle presented by the 
 Christian Church is sufficient to make every wise 
 man sigh, there is yet this conspicuous difference 
 
212 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 between the condition of the modern and the ancient 
 world, that our evils exist, not because the precepts 
 and principles of our religion are, but because they 
 are not, carrried out. It is in spite of our religion 
 that we are what we are ; because we give the lie to 
 our belief in our practice ; because there are parts in 
 the mass of society which the leaven of the Gospel 
 has failed to penetrate, where it has encountered 
 insuperable opposition. The Gospel was to be 
 preached, not as something which was to make 
 men wise and good in spite of themselves, and their 
 depravity, and their unbelief, but for a witness, 
 simply a witness, unto all nations.^ The witness of 
 the Gospel is that men as they are (and by men, 
 brethren, I mean myself and you, we are no excep- 
 tion. Christians without Christ are exactly like 
 other men), I say the witness of the Gospel is 
 that men as they are, are unsaved. Surely the 
 state of London at Christmas time, the state that 
 is of the lower strata of society in London, whose 
 chief notion of a holiday is the flinging away of all 
 restraint, and the running riot in every way that 
 brutal appetite suggests, is enough to show this. 
 And what is exhibited in the most conspicuous man- 
 ner in the lowest masses, is felt to be no less true 
 virtually of himself by the conscience of the disci- 
 plined and educated Christian, that apart from Christ 
 he has no life, and therefore is not saved. And what 
 is more, the disciplined and educated Christian feels. 
 
 Matt. xxiv. 14. 
 
THE THIRD DA Y HE ROSE AGAIN. 213 
 
 also, that it is no mere alteration of conduct, to 
 whatever extent it may be carried, that will save 
 him, because it is not only in what he does, but in 
 what he is, and chiefly in what he is, that he requires 
 to be rectified. It is here that the Gospel of Christ 
 seems to me to join fatal issue with those professed 
 Christians who exalt the human will as the standard 
 of perfect action ; who represent the man who de- 
 termines to be good, and has moral energy and 
 self-control sufficient to enable him to act on his 
 determination, as being that which he determines to 
 be, or if not, as having only himself to blame. Be- 
 cause the Gospel seems to me to declare plainly 
 that, granting all this is not only resolved but 
 achieved, there is still room for the absence of that 
 which it proclaims, namely, spiritual life by Jesus 
 Christ. The Gospel of Christ does not say, Do 
 this or that definite thing, and it will be well with 
 you ; because in such a case all that can be said is, Do 
 this or that and it shall be done, leaving thee exactly 
 where thou wast before; but it does say. Believe and 
 thoUy in thine own incommunicable indivisible per- 
 sonal essence shalt be saved : thou shalt be made 
 whole, just there, where to thyself thou art most 
 conscious of defect, most sensible of having the 
 territory of thy personality invaded and usurped. 
 And if the Gospel of Christ does say this, as it 
 manifestly does say here, I conceive that that is a 
 misrepresentation of the Gospel which says any- 
 thing else, which implies that the Gospel is a gospel 
 
214 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 of morality, and that its ministers are wrong when 
 they proclaim it as a creed or a system. That it is 
 not only a creed or a system, is as evident from the 
 tenor of these words as that it is not only morality. 
 But the fact is, that the Gospel of Christ professes 
 to ^\YQ. man life, a life which, without it, he is 
 destitute of, and cannot have ; and this life it pro- 
 fesses to give, not as the effect or reward of doing 
 something, but as the consequence of believing a 
 definite fact, namely, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
 And yet not as the consequence of believing this 
 fact only as a fact, like the conquest of this country 
 by the Romans, or by William of Normandy, for 
 there have been thousands who never doubted this 
 fact, and yet have never been the better for believing 
 it, — but of believing it in the heart, that is to say 
 with the innermost centre of the personal being, 
 with all the faculties of the spiritual essence. For 
 nothing is more true than this, that the Gospel not 
 only revealed new facts to man, but also revealed 
 new capacities in man — discovered to himself the 
 possession of new faculties, which before had lain 
 dormant for the want of analogous objects on which 
 to exercise them. So the Gospel said, " Here is the 
 resurrection of Jesus Christ, a fact for the heart, and 
 not for the understanding, to lay hold on and appre- 
 hend. And the heart that is conscious of the want 
 of life, may find life in this fact." Only here again 
 it must be borne in mind that the fact is to be 
 apprehended, not merely as a bare fact like one of 
 
THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN. 215 
 
 those already mentioned, which being once over, 
 is removed farther and farther into the past by the 
 flight of time, but as a fact of which the significance 
 is perpetual, and ever fresh, as — if thou shalt believe 
 in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the 
 dead — it is indefinite in its operation without regard 
 to time. It must be brought home to the heart as 
 a recent work wrought by God, a work that is 
 specially redolent of the present God, and ex- 
 pressive of His will and favour. For the resurrec- 
 tion of the Lord Jesus is the highest exponent of 
 the law of Divine life in its relation to man. It 
 brings the life of God present to the soul of man, 
 in the person of a living man, whose physical con- 
 stitution has cast out death, and is the centre and 
 source of life. Can it be that this is a carnal view 
 of the Lord's new life } Is it not that any life which 
 left His body in any sense a prey to death, unre- 
 deemed from the power of the grave, must be an 
 impalpable life which we cannot grasp, or which, if 
 we grasp it, leaves us as it finds us, dead ; and must 
 not such a view be essentially inferior to one which 
 sees in His triumph over death a reality, and not a 
 metaphor, a blessed fact and not a shadowy idea } 
 Whereas the belief in Jesus Christ, as one who was 
 dead and is alive, is a belief that is fraught with life 
 to the heart of man ; which brings with it inextin- 
 guishable hope, which grows brighter and brighter as 
 life wanes and years pass by, and friends drop off or 
 change ; which survives the vicissitudes of perpetual 
 
2i6 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 and ever-recurring decay, and kindles a torch which 
 shall burn for ever at the smouldering ashes of mortal 
 joy, and makes the heart of the old man young, 
 and the courage of the feeble strong : while in the 
 contemplation of human sin, of that which stares 
 one in the face without, and of that which the heart 
 is privy to within, it is this and this alone which 
 can give the assured hope of salvation, which can 
 say with definite and unfaltering tones, if thou 
 shalt confess with thy mouth — for what is the secret 
 conviction of the heart without the open confession 
 of the mouth ? it is worth but little more than such 
 open confession without a corresponding inward con- 
 viction, — but if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the 
 Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God 
 hath raised Him from the dead^ thou shalt he saved : 
 not merely put in a state which may ultimately lead 
 to salvation, or which may possibly not, but saved 
 alike with a present and with an everlasting salva- 
 tion, the salvation of those who make the Lord, the 
 Rock of Ages, their everlasting hope; a salvation 
 which gives peace and joy here, which gives victory 
 over sin, and mastery over self, and confidence even 
 in despair here, and which, for the endless future of 
 the world beyond the grave, is content to rest securely 
 on the unfailing word of Him who says, Because I 
 livCy ye shall live also. 
 
XIX. 
 
 HE ASCENDED INTO HE A VEN. 
 
 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all 
 heavens that He might fill all things. — Eph. iv. lo. 
 
 npHIS passage is valuable, as showing that the 
 *- fact of our Lord's ascension was part of that 
 scheme of oral instruction which had been committed 
 to the Ephesians, or whoever the persons were, to 
 whom this epistle was sent by the Apostle Paul. The 
 allusions to that event in the Gospels are very few 
 and very brief. St. Matthew and St. John have not 
 recorded the fact. So that it might have been sup- 
 posed by some that the belief in our Lord's ascen- 
 sion was not part of the original mass of tradition 
 respecting Christ, were it not that here for example, 
 and again in the first Epistle to Timothy,^ and several 
 times in the Epistle to the Hebrews,''^ clear incidental 
 reference is made to that event. We cannot there- 
 fore for a moment doubt that the ascension into 
 glory was among the several incidents in our Lord's 
 life, which from the first were inculcated and be- 
 lieved by the Christian teachers and the Christian 
 Church. And in fact it follows as a natural and a 
 
 * I Tim. iii. i6. 2 j^^^^ j^ ^j ix. 24; xii. 2., etc. 
 
2i8 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 necessary sequel to our Lord's resurrection. He 
 shewed Himself alive after His passion by many 
 infallible proofs, being seen of the disciples forty 
 days, but only forty days, and speaking of the things 
 pertaining to the kingdom of God.^ When these 
 days were accomplished He was seen no more. 
 Why not t Having risen from the dead, He could 
 die no more ; but He was to be seen no more. Where, 
 then, was He > The most natural answer is that He 
 had ascended up where He was before. 
 
 We may observe, then, that the comparative silence 
 of the Gospels about the ascension is a strong colla- 
 teral evidence of its truth, under the circumstances, 
 rather than the reverse. If the Jesus, of whom they 
 spake, were He who they said He was, it would 
 follow naturally and obviously that He had returned 
 to the bosom of the Father. He had said that a 
 certain nobleman went into a far country, to receive 
 for himself a kingdom, and to return} He had 
 spoken of sitting on the throne of His glory to judge 
 all nations,^— -the fact of the ascension was involved 
 and implied in these and similar utterances ; and 
 therefore seeing that in itself it was an event so 
 marvellous, it is plain that the Gospel writers, if they 
 wished only to record the marvellous, would have 
 recorded the ascension. Whereas two Gospels only 
 have mentioned it, and that in the briefest possible 
 manner. 
 
 * Acts i. 3. ' Matt. XXV. 31. 
 
 * Luke xix. I2. 
 
HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN. 219 
 
 Again, we observe further, that we have now 
 taken final leave of the natural, the human, and the 
 earthly in the Christian Creed, as in our Lord's life. 
 We have now entered on the supernatural, the 
 heavenly, the Divine, and shall henceforth there 
 remain. If rising from the dead is a miraculous 
 and supernatural act, so also is ascending into the 
 the heavens. It is impossible to regard it otherwise. 
 We must altogether explain it away, and resolve it 
 into pure metaphor, if it is to cease to be miraculous. 
 But it is perfectly plain from the several accounts in 
 St. Mark, St. Luke, the Acts of the Apostles, and 
 the various allusions in the Epistles, that the dis- 
 ciples regarded the ascension of their Master in the 
 simple manner that their own senses bade them. 
 The chosen had seen Him go up into the heavens, 
 a cloud had received Him out of their sight. The 
 vision they beheld had been interpreted to them^ by 
 angels ; it was impossible for their plain, simple, 
 matter-of-fact and unsophisticated minds to imagine 
 or conceive any other method of understanding the 
 fact, — it was contrary to all laws of nature that a 
 human body should ascend into the air. The human 
 body of their Master in their own sight had done 
 so, and that was enough. 
 
 And it should be enough for us. Account for it 
 we cannot, believe it we may, get rid of it we dare 
 not, if we are willing that the simple faith of the 
 first Christians should be ours, or should govern 
 
 * Mark xvi. 19; Luke xxiv. 51 ; Acts i. 9-1 1. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 ours. The Lord Himself appears to have repre- 
 sented His own ascension as the greatest effort of 
 faith for those who were unspiritual. When some 
 of His disciples murmured at His teaching about 
 the mystical union between believers and Himself, 
 which He spoke of as eating His flesh and drinking 
 His blood, and exclaimed This is a hard sayings who 
 can hear it, He replied, Doth this offend you, What 
 and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where 
 He was before. It is the spirit that qiiickeneth, the 
 flesh profiteth nothing ; the words that I speak tinto 
 you they are spirit and they are life} He therefore 
 not only leaves the mystery in its undiminished 
 vastness and obscurity, but virtually supplies the 
 key for its solution. The ascension of Christ, like 
 all the other supernatural acts of His life, appeals 
 to a new organ in man, — an organ of which some 
 men appear to be entirely devoid and destitute, 
 — the spiritual faculty. Where this organ is found, 
 there is the capacity for embracing such acts and 
 words as present insuperable obstacles to the merely 
 natural, material, intellectual tendencies of the mind. 
 If we were to see a man profess to ascend into the 
 air now, we should at once know it was imposture or 
 delusion, or the like. When the Christian says He 
 ascended into heaven, he not only knows that this 
 was literally done, but never for a moment thinks 
 of resolving it as he would resolve it now. Why not t 
 Because with Him it is a foregone conclusion, that 
 
 * John vi. 60-63. 
 
HE ASCENDED INTO HE A VEN. 221 
 
 the person so ascending was the Lord of heaven and 
 earth. Given the premises whichi are indispensable, 
 and the inference naturally follows without effort 
 and without dispute ; but it is surely disingenuous to 
 attempt to explain away the accidents, while at the 
 same time not openly denying the premises ; and 
 still more so to reject the accidents for the express 
 purpose of denying the premises. The inevitable 
 consequence of such a course must be to leave this 
 world without its manifested God. 
 
 Now, to the Christian, the ascension puts the 
 coping-stone to the edifice before constructed. It is 
 the coronation of the Lord of life ; but like all the 
 other acts of His personal history, it is the very 
 opposite to what we should expect in earthly things. 
 There was no pomp or splendour about His ascen- 
 sion. It was quiet, unobtrusive, unobserved of any 
 multitudes ; unwitnessed by the world at large ; unac- 
 companied by those accessories of greatness and glory 
 which so powerfully affect the ordinary mind. All 
 the greatest acts of God are secret and unobserved. 
 What human eye detects the first pulse of life that 
 beats in the germ of the sprouting acorn that is to 
 produce the oak.? Who knows where is hid the 
 reserve of power which moves and guides the uni- \ 
 verse.? Very few were aware when the Child was ^ 
 born in Bethlehem which was to be the King of / 
 the Jews. Few, comparatively speaking, watched 
 His death. No one was present at His resurrection. 
 Eleven men only saw Him ascend into heaven. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 This is of a piece with the unobserved greatness 
 and majesty of God. 
 
 When the traveller crosses the western ocean he 
 may sail for days without seeing a ship ; but mean- 
 while the sun comes forth in his splendour and sets 
 with majestic glory in the distant wave, and as the 
 spray dances in the sunbeam, and the prow of the 
 vessel cleaves the billow, the prismatic colours of 
 refracted light sport gaily and joyously over the 
 surface of the deep. For whom is all this } Is this 
 miracle of nature wrought for him } Perhaps no 
 eye but his observes it — and oftentimes he observes 
 it not — ^yet the wonder is not withheld. The Lord 
 rejoices in His works, whether man is called to 
 witness, or cares to witness, them or not. Surely, 
 then, the majesty of Christ is seen in the compara- 
 tive silence and solitude of His mightiest works, and 
 He was likest unto God when He rose from the 
 dead with no mortal eye to witness His resurrection, 
 and ascended into heaven in the presence of eleven 
 only of His chosen ones, and not even of His 
 mother. 
 
 But seeing that He left not Himself without 
 witness when He ascended up where He was be- 
 fore, it is clear that He intended us to derive some 
 lessons of instruction and comfort from the fact. 
 Let us reverently ponder these. 
 
 The first undoubted lesson to be learnt is this. 
 The exaltation of the human nature in the person 
 of its head, He ascended up into heaven. What and 
 
HE ASCENDED INTO HE A VEN. 223 
 
 where is heaven ? It is other and higher than earth. 
 It is where our Father is who dwelleth in heaven. 
 It is there that Christ is gone, whatever and wher- 
 ever that is. The connection is thus clearly estab- 
 lished between us in our human nature and the 
 central dwelling-place of God. Be it observed, how- 
 ever, that this is a truth which we must be care- 
 ful of dealing with, according to the natural limits 
 and laws of our mind. As we have said, it is a 
 spiritual truth, to be apprehended spiritually, to be 
 grasped only by the spirit. 
 
 Again, we know how easy it is for us to become 
 engrossed in the affairs of life and circumstance. We 
 know when this is the case how completely non-exist- 
 ent all other things and places and persons are to us. 
 We know how thoroughly this is the case, from the 
 fact of our insular position, with us as a nation. How 
 comparatively rare a thing it is for an Englishman 
 to speak any language except his own. What a 
 common thing it is abroad to meet with people who 
 speak at least two or three. We know also that 
 the human mind is so constituted, that when its 
 attention is exclusively directed too intently to one 
 small area of business or routine life in this manner, 
 the health gives way. And therefore in this high- 
 pressure existence in which we all live here it 
 becomes absolutely essential that the strain of con- 
 tinuity should be broken from time to time. It often 
 happens that the best and the only thing we can do 
 is to get away out of the reach of the tentacles of 
 
224 I^HE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 our common life, where letters cannot find us, and 
 familiar faces cannot bring with them the train of 
 harassing and painful associations ; where change of 
 scene and change of incident, and an entirely new ad- 
 justment of things, and a re-disposition of time may 
 not only relax the tension of the over- wrought mind, 
 but likewise call into exercise as it were a new combi- 
 nation of mental nerves and muscles. Every man of 
 action has felt and is doomed to feel this. Such a 
 malady, the inevitable consequence of a highly artifi- 
 cial life, imperatively demands the natural remedy of 
 rest and change, and the direct influence of natural 
 scenery. That is to say, it is good for man that he 
 should be conscious of another life and of other 
 scenes than those in which he daily mingles. And 
 this is undeniably one great lesson of the Lord's 
 ascension. That has opened to our faith and to 
 our imagination the existence of another world in 
 which One who shares our nature and is clothed in 
 our flesh lives and reigns. He has invited us to 
 come to Him there. He is gone before to prepare a 
 place for us. He is ascended into the heavens that 
 we may also in heart and mind thither ascend and 
 with Him continually dwell. He who knows our 
 nature, knows that it is good for us to have before 
 our mind the definite existence of a place where He 
 is, where for the present we cannot come except by 
 faith ; but where, nevertheless, we may now by faith 
 dwell with Him, and where hereafter, the promise is, 
 that we shall be with Him for ever. 
 
HE ASCENDED INTO HE A VEN. 225 
 
 The ascension of Christ, then, shows us the wisdom 
 of living elsewhere and otherwise than in the present, 
 the temporary, and the local. It gives us a better 
 prospect, a higher aim, a more glorious hope. Man- 
 kind are not ignorant of the principle herein em 
 bodied. To be able to live in many circumstances, 
 to move naturally and easily from one experience to 
 another, from one engagement to another, from one 
 interview to another, is the mark of a comprehensive, 
 an able, and an agile mind ; but when the change is 
 simply from one department of the present or the local 
 to another, though the powers of the mind may be 
 refreshed, the spirit is not recruited. What we want 
 is an increase of spiritual strength. We want to 
 renew our youth like the eagle's. This is to be done 
 only by refreshment of the spirit, by recreation from 
 the spiritual reserve of the eternal world. 
 
 But what are those to do who have the like strain 
 with ourselves, but can know no change and enjoy 
 no relaxation, who are the victims day after day 
 of the perpetual harass and irritation of small an- 
 noyances which are like the continual droppings of 
 water that wear away the marble, who are chained 
 by the links of association to some oppressive and 
 exacting thought which is continually recurring, and 
 the recurrence of which is pain ; but who, unlike the 
 wealthy and the free, are forbidden the solace and 
 refreshment of relaxation, simply because they are 
 neither free nor wealthy, and cannot shake off the 
 weight of carking care t I say, what are such to do > 
 
 15 
 
226 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 And to them I would reply, Whatever the trouble is 
 which weighs upon you, whether family care or 
 pecuniary difficulty, or business responsibility, make 
 a conscience of forgetting it, let not that reflex action 
 of the mind, by which it contemplates itself and its 
 own position, be encouraged or permitted. While, 
 therefore, you give the requisite amount of mental 
 effort to the work immediately in hand, let that be 
 all you give ; shake off the recurrent and reflective 
 action by which the mind broods on the subject 
 that engages it. Determine not to think of it. Let 
 the words of the old song, " My mind to me a king- 
 dom is," be the maxim of your conduct. Resolve 
 that your thoughts shall only run as you deem it 
 expedient they should run. You have done your 
 duty, that is assumed ; I only speak to those who 
 desire to do their duty — others, the idle, the indif- 
 ferent, the inearnest, the frivolous, I am not con- 
 cerned with — you have done your duty, you can 
 do no more : leave the rest to God. He knows 
 better than you do the way that you take. It is 
 His prerogative to create light out of darkness. 
 There is no use in your taking thought, and indulg- 
 ing care. You cannot add one cubit to your age, 
 you cannot make one hair white or black. Care 
 will take away many cubits from your age, and will 
 turn your hair white before its time. The hour will 
 run on just as slowly, just as rapidly, whether you 
 take anxious thought or not ; every hour will have 
 its sixty minutes, neither more nor less ; every day 
 
HE ASCENDED INTO HEA VEN. 227 
 
 will bring its night, and every night will usher in the 
 morn. Cultivate, therefore, as a religious duty the 
 habit of obliviousness. When you have done your 
 work, dismiss it. 
 
 And what if, as sometimes happens, your work is 
 never done } Then, one thing at a time. Do not mix 
 up the work of to-morrow, with the duty of to-day. 
 To-morrow may never come, and then some one 
 else must do its work. Work was made for man, 
 and not man for work. Man was made for heaven, 
 and that is where Christ is gone, and that is the 
 home of the ascension. 
 
 It is not an unlovely thought that one of the first 
 scriptures that are read in the new year,^ according 
 to the new table of lessons, is the detailed narrative 
 of the ascension by St. Luke in the Acts. At such 
 a time we ascend, in spite of ourselves, to a higher 
 elevation. So much more of life is behind us, so 
 much less before us; and Christ also has ascended, 
 He is gone up on high. He hath led captivity 
 captive, and received gifts for men, yea even for his 
 enemies, that the Lord God might dwell among 
 them. Never had these marvellous words such 
 meaning as after that scene on Olivet. But we 
 misunderstand that great event, if we think that He 
 is gone up that He might go away. He is gone up 
 that the Lord God might dwell among us. In St. 
 Paul's wonderful language. He that descended is the 
 same also that ascended up far above all heavens^ 
 
 ' Preached on the first Sunday in the New Year. 
 
228 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 that He might fill all things. Place and space are 
 no conditions of the spiritual, any more than time is. 
 Higher or lower, as we measure by an earthly 
 standard, are not applicable to that world which is 
 imperceptible to the natural eye. Christ ascended 
 that He might fill all things ; not that He might 
 vanish, but that he might pervade. Mary Magda- 
 lene was bidden not to touch Him, because He was 
 not yet ascended, the necessary verbal inference being 
 thus left, that there was a sense in which she might 
 touch Him more readily after His ascension, and if 
 the purpose of His ascending was that He might 
 fill all things, this would be intelligible. We dare 
 not speculate upon the effects of His ascension upon 
 the conditions of His risen body, but we know this, 
 that there are no limits to His presence, — a presence 
 in many ways more real and more effectual now 
 than in the days of His flesh, when His presence was 
 conditioned by the limits of time and space. 
 
 If we thus apprehend the presence of our Lord, 
 we shall find in all the trials and cares of life that 
 we have a very present help in trouble, and shall 
 know that One who hath triumphed over death, and 
 ascended with His risen body into the heavens that 
 He might fill all things, is not only willing but able, 
 not only able, but willing, to succour and to save 
 all those who came unto God by Him, seeing He 
 ever liveth to make intercession for them. 
 
XX. 
 
 AND SITTETH ON THE RIGH2 HAND OF 
 GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY. 
 
 Who is he that condemneth ? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that 
 is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh 
 intercession for us. — Rom. viii. 34. 
 
 A T /"HEN we bear in mind that this passage was 
 ^ ^ probably written before any one of our pre- 
 sent gospels was in existence, it is very interesting 
 to note how the writer had fully embraced a fact 
 relating to the person of Jesus Christ, which is 
 directly stated only in the gospel of St. Mark. We 
 are there told that after the Lord had spoken u7ito 
 them he was received up into heaven^ and sat on 
 the right hand of God} In the epistle to the Colos- 
 sians St. Paul says, If ye then be risen with Christ 
 seek those things which are above^ where Christ sitteih 
 on the right hand of God? In the epistle to the 
 Hebrews we read that, when He had by Himself purged 
 our sinSf Christ sat down on the right hand of the 
 majesty on high ; ^ and again, We have such a high 
 priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of 
 the majesty in the heavens ; * and once more, Who for 
 
 ^ Mark xvi. 19. s jjgb j ^ 
 
 2 Col. iii. I. * Heb. viii. I. 
 
230 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, 
 despising the shame, and is set down at the right 
 hand of the throne of God} And lastly, in the first 
 epistle of Peter, Who is gone into heaven, and is on 
 the right hand of God, ajtgels and authorities and 
 powers being made subject unto Him? This is the 
 aggregate of scriptural allusion in the New Testa- 
 ment to that declaration of the Creed which we are 
 now to consider. 
 
 And this present passage in the Romans joins 
 with the session of our blessed Lord on God's right 
 hand, the statement about His making intercession 
 for us, which has no other parallel in Scripture but 
 the similar statement in the Hebrews, Wherefore 
 He is able to save them to the uttermost that come u7ito 
 God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession 
 for themf To my mind the solitary occurrence of 
 this direct assertion about our Lord's intercession 
 in the two epistles to the Romans and the Hebrews 
 would go a long way towards producing the con- 
 viction that the same writer was the author of both ; 
 this, however, by the way. We have several allu- 
 sions to our Lord's present position of glory on 
 the right hand of God. Usually this is represented 
 as one of session ; but on one remarkable occasion, 
 namely the martyrdom of Stephen, we are told that 
 he saw the glory of God in the opened heavens, and 
 Jesus standing on the right hand of God. We have 
 
 * Heb. xii. 2. ' Heb. vii. 25. 
 
 "^ I Peter iii. 22. * Acts vii. 55, 56. 
 
AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD. 231 
 
 only two allusions to His intercession for us, and 
 one of them is this. In the Creed there is no men- 
 tion of the Lord's intercession, but we cannot separate 
 it from the thought of His present position, nor indeed 
 His present position altogether from the thought of 
 His intercession, and therefore it may be well to 
 combine the two in our meditations to-day. 
 
 When I say that there are only two allusions to 
 our Lord's intercession in the New Testament, I 
 mean express allusions. We have in the Hebrews 
 such a statement as Christ is not entered into the holy 
 places made with hands, which are the figures of the 
 true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the 
 presence of God for us -^ and in the first epistle of 
 St. John, If any man sin we have an Advocate with 
 the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous^ and the like. 
 To the ordinary mind this will appear like a repe- 
 tition of the same idea, but to the careful student of 
 the exact declarations and language of Scripture the 
 difference will be worth noting. 
 
 We proceed, then, to the consideration of the 
 subject in hand ; and we must first observe that we 
 are dealing now with a matter altogether beyond 
 the scope and apprehension of our natural faculties. 
 We cannot see Jesus Christ now ; no exercise, there- 
 fore, of our natural faculties will inform us where He 
 is or what the conditions of His present existence 
 are, any more than you or I can divine the nature 
 of a particular country which we have never visited 
 
 ^ Heb. ix. 24. 2 I joijn ii. i. 
 
232 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 When Sir Roderick Murchison told Livingstone what 
 geological formations he would find in the centre of 
 Africa, he hazarded an assertion which was based on 
 a scientific induction of facts, and which was con- 
 sequently verified. Had the assertion proved false, 
 his science would heve been at fault, and the error 
 would have been capable of detection. But there 
 is no analogy between the geological formations of 
 Africa and the state or accidents of the kingdom of 
 heaven. No bow which is bent on earth will project 
 an arrow into the dwelling-place of God, and in- 
 duction fails us here. We may argue for ever, but 
 our conclusions will be invalid and void. Archimedes 
 used to say that had he where to place his engines 
 he could move the world : with equal truth we may 
 say that we cannot map out the geography of heaven, 
 simply because we have no instruments or lenses 
 which will carry or reveal so far. 
 
 But it must be borne in mind that the facts we 
 have already contemplated, which, as we have seen 
 rest on a basis of evidence so conclusive, throw great 
 light on those of which we have yet to treat. If 
 Jesus Christ is, as we believe Him to be, the human 
 manifestation of the Divine Being, then that cir- 
 cumstance must materially affect all that we are told 
 of Him after He left this earth. The conditions of 
 Christ's present existence are not difficult to appre- 
 hend because we have exalted Him too high, but 
 because we have not exalted Him high enough. 
 We are dealing with One, whose glory is infinite, 
 
AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD. 233 
 
 and commensurate with nature and with space ; we 
 are not dealing with a man, the conditions of whose 
 existence were limited by the limitations of our 
 natural life. 
 
 When we are told that Christ ascended into the 
 heavens, we must not forget who Christ was, and we 
 must beware of interpreting His ascension by the 
 degrees of higher and lower, but must remember 
 that ascension is a spiritual act, pertaining to the 
 spiritual body, and that it transcends the conceptions 
 of the imagination or the intellect, as much as the 
 spirit transcends the mind. If we are told that 
 Christ is at the right hand of God, we must correct 
 the thoughts suggested by the sober undoubted 
 truth, that God is a being without body, parts or 
 passions, and that He has no right hand on which 
 to sit, whatever the literal expression may be de- 
 signed to teach us. 
 
 This, as it seems to me, is one of the purposes 
 intended to be served by the Revelation of St. 
 John. Read in the first chapter the vision of our 
 Lord in glory, which was vouchsafed to His servant 
 John, in the isle of Patmos, and see how the right 
 hand of power is interpreted thereby. ^^ And when 
 I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead, and He laid 
 His right hand upon me, saying tmto me, Fear not, I 
 am the first and the last; I am He that liveth, and was 
 dead, and behold I am alive for evermore!' ^ Here is 
 the right hand of power in an altogether different 
 * Rev. i. 17, 1 8. 
 
234 THE CHRISTIAN CREED 
 
 aspect, not an aspect of locality, but an aspect of 
 condition, an aspect of exaltation and glory. 
 
 And let it not be said that such a subject is 
 unprofitable because it is beyond our powers to 
 comprehend it. I am well aware of that. I do 
 not profess to comprehend it, but I know how im- 
 possible it is for the human mind not to exercise 
 and to vex itself about the questions that arise out 
 of this and kindred matters, and how from the mind 
 being so exercised very serious obstacles may arise 
 to faith, and my object is, if possible, to remove 
 these and similar obstacles. The right hand of God 
 must be apprehended as a spiritual condition, not 
 as a local position. It expressed to the Jewish 
 mind the highest possible conceptions of glory, 
 majesty, power, dignity and the like. But what to 
 the Jewish mind may have been an assistance to 
 the conception, may be an impediment to ours. Let 
 us not suffer the bondage of the letter to become so 
 to us, but seek to be delivered from it by the freedom 
 of the spirit. 
 
 There is one interesting remark, however, to be 
 made here. We know that St. Paul was present at 
 the death of Stephen. There is every reason to believe 
 that he was powerfully affected by that scene. We 
 are told he was consenting unto his death, that he 
 was standing by, and kept the raiment of them that 
 slew him. He does not seem to have taken an 
 active part in it. The seeds of conviction which 
 germinated afterwards on the journey to Damascus 
 
AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD. 235 
 
 were, in all probability, sown at the death of 
 Stephen, and there are sundry indications of the 
 influence wrought by the defence of Stephen on the 
 apostle's mind. We seem from time to time to 
 come across verbal reminiscences of that speech. 
 I believe this is one of them. Among the books 
 composing the New Testament, this expression in 
 the Romans is probably the earliest reference to our 
 Lord's session we can find.' But though the Acts 
 may have been written later, it is clear that the 
 events recorded in the seventh chapter must have 
 happened earlier, and in point of time there is no 
 statement of the truth in question so early as that 
 in the dying words of Stephen. 
 
 Believing therefore, as we do, that the vision 
 vouchsafed to the first martyr was an actual revela- 
 tion, and believing that, under the circumstances 
 there was, humanly speaking, adequate cause for such 
 a revelation to be vouchsafed, we are led up at once 
 not only to the probable source of St. Paul's various 
 statements, about the condition of our Lord in 
 glory, but also to the actual foundation of those 
 statements not in the voluntary speculations of the 
 human mind, but in the true and actual revelation 
 of the glorified Son of God. We can only know 
 where and how He is now — what was the position 
 He assumed after His ascension, by His graciously 
 vouchsafing to reveal it. If He has revealed it, then 
 we know it with the assurance of absolute cer- 
 tainty. And that he has revealed it we have the 
 
236 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 authority of St. Luke in the Acts, for the fact, 
 together with the possible reminiscence of the event 
 recorded in the words before us. 
 
 For it can hardly be needful to allude to the 
 verbal discrepance between Jesus sitting at the right 
 hand of God, as He is commonly represented, and 
 His standing there as Stephen saw Him. The vivid 
 change of attitude has always been thought, and 
 rightly, to denote that accession of interest which 
 might fitly be supposed to characterise the Lord's 
 position as witnessing the death of His first martyr, 
 a thought which has found expression in our own 
 collect,^ which speaks of Jesus as " standing at the 
 right hand of God to succour all those who suffer 
 for Him." 
 
 For those eighteen centuries past, the Lord has 
 not been, if we may so say, an unimpassioned or at 
 all events an unconcerned spectator of the fortunes 
 of His Church. But every deed of blood, and every 
 act of faith, has had Him for a witness and a suc- 
 courer, not indeed by restraining the lawlessness and 
 fury of the adversary any more than it was restrained 
 at the death of Stephen, but by sending forth supplies 
 of spiritual strength and consolation with the fore- 
 taste of glory which was given then, and by making, 
 as was notably the case then, the blood of the 
 martyrs to be the fruitful seed of the Church. 
 
 But there is yet another thought which we must 
 not pass by, which is that of our Lord's intercession 
 
 » For St. Stephen's Day. 
 
AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD. 237 
 
 on our behalf, which is sometimes, as here, conjoined 
 with that of His session at God's right hand. This 
 also I feel sure is open to misconception, and is 
 likely to lead to fatal and pernicious error. The 
 notion, I fancy, which is commonly derived from our 
 Lord's intercession, is one which as it seems to me 
 can only do dishonour to the glory of God, or at 
 least which may serve to bring apparent honour to 
 Christ, at the expense of the honour due to God. 
 The idea of intercession is too apt to suggest that 
 of an offended and angry being, who is only with 
 reluctance won over to lay by his wrath upon the 
 intercession of another being, who is intrinsically 
 more merciful than he. I would not hesitate to say 
 that I can only regard this as a notion at once 
 unworthy of the nature of God and of the work of 
 Christ. 
 
 It may help us to a better conception of this 
 matter, if we bear in mind that the same expression 
 in a yet stronger form is applied by St. Paul in the 
 same chapter of this same epistle to the work of the 
 Holy Spirit which is here applied to Christ ; when. 
 he says the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us 
 with groanings which cannot be uttered} I am not 
 aware that any one has ever misconceived of the 
 Spirit's office in a similar way from the application of 
 this expression to it. We never imagine that any 
 natural reluctance on the part of God is overcome 
 by the Spirit's intercession on our behalf. Then 
 
 * Rom. viii. 26. 
 
238 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 why should we imagine it of Christ ? Is not the 
 Holy Spirit the very gift of God, and how can the 
 gift be mightier than the giver, or how should it 
 prevail against the giver ? Was it not God that sent 
 the Son to be the Saviour of the world ? How then 
 can that be a just and adequate representation of 
 the work of Christ, which conceives of it as a salva- 
 tion out of the hands of God, rather than a salvation 
 by bringing back to the love of His mercy and 
 grace. 
 
 Again, another passage in the epistle to the 
 Hebrews already referred to, is not without its 
 bearing on this matter, that, namely, which speaks 
 of Christ entering into heaven itself now to appear 
 in the presence of God for us} Surely it is this 
 which contains the key to the whole matter. We 
 are on earth, God is in heaven. We have not as 
 yet access to heaven, but we have One three in 
 substance of our nature to appear on our behalf; 
 He is our advocate, our intercessor, our representa- 
 tive, our substitute ; He is all that these words feebly 
 endeavour to express, and more than all that they 
 convey, but we must beware of suffering the lan- 
 guage chosen to bind us in a servile manner to the 
 rigid significance of the letter, otherwise what was 
 designed as a help will only becom a hindrance. 
 
 I speak, of course, mainly for myself. I cannot 
 answer for others. It is possible that you may have 
 no experience of the same difficulties. To me a too 
 
 * Heb. ix. 24. 
 
AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD. 239 
 
 literal acceptation of such terms as intercession, 
 advocate, and the like, would have the effect of 
 throwing so much of the haze of uncertainty and 
 inefficiency over the work of Christ as would suffice 
 practically to rob that work of its real completeness. 
 And this I believe to be at once fatal to that accept- 
 ance of the Gospel message, which is essential unto 
 life, and also to be out of harmony and agreement 
 with analogous statements of holy Scripture, which 
 are surely characteristic of its general tenor. 
 
 For example, in this very chapter, full as it is of 
 glorious hope, we have this assurance to start with. 
 There ts, therefore, now no condejnnation to them that 
 are in Christ Jesus, and again here. Who is he that 
 condemneth ? Verily, if there is one thought which 
 the writer is anxious to bring home, it is this, the 
 very elimination and abolition of condemnation. 
 But if condemnation is done away, and if there is 
 none to condemn, where is the place for further 
 advocacy or intercession } Certainly nowhere, if by 
 such advocacy and intercession is implied any the 
 smallest degree of reluctance on the part of God 
 yet remaining to be overcome. 
 
 But it is not so, for Christ's is a finished salvation. 
 The pardon He administered was a pardon absolute 
 and unconditional, a pardon which is neither to be 
 revoked nor suspended, which is not to be more free 
 and complete hereafter, but is free and complete 
 now. And, therefore, His advocacy and intercession 
 is not something ambiguous, tentative, ineffettual, 
 
240 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 incomplete, but an eternal, infinite, and complete in- 
 tercession, partaking of the essence of all His work. 
 
 And I know no truth so important to enun- 
 ciate and inculcate in the present day as this. The 
 high priesthood of Christ is an accomplished high 
 priesthood, exemplified and attested by His position 
 at God's right hand as the eternal mediator. There 
 remaineth no more offering for sin as there remaineth 
 no more condemnation in the conscience. It is an 
 evil day for the Church of England, and an evil day 
 for the Church of Christ when there is any hesita- 
 tion or uncertainty on this matter. Sin is either 
 put away, or its defilement remains. The death of 
 Christ, either put it away once for all, for each, and 
 for all of us, or it failed to do so and left some of 
 it for us to put away ourselves, by the monstrous 
 paraphernalia of sacraments, confession, penance, 
 priestcraft, and what not. 
 
 We must determine, brethren, in this our day, 
 which of the two Gospels we will believe ; the Gos- 
 pel of Christ, who offers us a full and free pardon 
 upon the exercise of direct personal faith in Him, or 
 the gospel of the priest, in which forsooth Christ 
 will communicate Himself to us through His Church, 
 that is to say, not immediately as Himself the one 
 only mediator between God and man, to whom not 
 priest, saint, angel, archangel, or virgin mother may 
 be added, but as mediating through an endless suc- 
 cession and continual repetition of sacraments and 
 ordinances, if so be at the last we may perchance 
 
AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD. 241 
 
 attain to the fulness of that assurance, which, if it 
 is ever ours must be ours eventually by the exer- 
 cise, sooner or later, of direct personal faith in Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 In distinct and decided opposition to such a theory, 
 as I believe, was the glorious fact revealed of Christ's 
 eternally complete and never failing intercession at 
 the right hand of the majesty on high, in the con- 
 templation of which the apostle asked. Who is He 
 that condejnneth ? It is Christ that died, yea, rather 
 that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of 
 God, Who also maketh intercession for us, heaping 
 image of confidence and assured hope upon image ; 
 and with reference to which our Lord Himself said 
 it should be the special work of the Holy Spirit to 
 convince the world concerning righteousness^ because 
 of His own permanent entrance into the presence of 
 God for us : Of righteousness ^ because I go to my 
 Father and ye see me no more} 
 
 * John xvi. 8, 10. 
 
 16 
 
XXL 
 
 FROM THENCE HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE 
 THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 
 
 Because He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the 
 world in righteousness, by that man whom He hath ordained, whereof 
 He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from 
 the dead. — Acts. xvii. 31. 
 
 IT is instructing to notice that those epistles of 
 St. Paul, in which perhaps more than in any 
 other, he makes allusion to the coming of Christ, 
 were the epistles to the Thessalonians, which in all 
 probability were written shortly after his speech at 
 Athens, here recorded in the Acts. Possibly the 
 persecution to which he had recently been exposed 
 in Macedonia, had had the effect of turning his 
 thoughts to the time of retributive justice which he 
 felt would surely come. However this may have 
 been, there is at all events, a striking coincidence 
 in the line of thought presented to us in the letters 
 and the speech. 
 
 The statement in the text, moreover, is further 
 remarkable in this respect, that it bases the declared 
 certainty of the judgment to come upon the assured 
 fact of the resurrection past. The doctrine of a 
 judgment to come, is not peculiar to Christianity, 
 
244 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 traces of it are to be found in other religions as well ; 
 but the announcement of the resurrection of Christ, 
 is of necessity peculiar to Christianity, and therefore 
 the announcement of judgment to come which is 
 based upon it, must be so likewise to such an 
 extent, and in that particular. The notion of judg- 
 ment to come, as an element of what may be called 
 natural religion, is suggested by, and springs out of 
 the notion of human responsibility, of which I fancy 
 it is extremely difficult to divest the mind. All must 
 admit that in a sense we are all responsible. For 
 example, we are all responsible to society, and if we 
 violate the precepts of society, society will make us 
 feel our responsibility. We are all responsible to 
 ourselves. There is a duty we owe to ourselves, and 
 every transgression of excess committed will force us 
 to acknowledge we have failed to discharge it. And 
 then it will be difficult for our thoughts the mean- 
 while to be neither accusing or else excusing one 
 another. But when we get so far, as it seems to me, 
 we cannot help getting farther ; it is not easy to avoid 
 taking the next step, that wherever there is duty, 
 there must be one to whom it is due ; that if we 
 have failed in our duty to ourselves it is not we who 
 established that line of duty, or so constituted our- 
 selves as to be sensible of dereliction from it; that 
 in fact the sense of violated duty points us to a code 
 of duty external to ourselves, which we did not in- 
 vent, but to which we owe allegiance, and that as we 
 did not invent this code to which conscience testifies 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, 245 
 
 SO neither did the code invent itself; that it is the 
 result of an arrangement and adaptation by which 
 we are bound, and which if it is to be referred to 
 nature then shows that we are responsible to nature 
 rather than to an imaginary code ; in short, it seems 
 to me that however we define or explain our respon- 
 sibility, it is hard indeed to get rid of the fact that 
 we are responsible : the thing does not admit of 
 denial whatever we do with the word. 
 
 Surely, then, it is impossible not to see that a 
 foundation is laid in human nature for the doctrine 
 of a judgment to come, which has approved itself to 
 many nations, and been expressed in many creeds. 
 
 For, given the fact that man is responsible to 
 some one who is the author of duty, and that this 
 responsibility is continually revealing itself — though 
 indeed in an uncertain and irregular manner — in 
 human life, it seems to be necessarily demanded in 
 proportion as the fact of responsibility is felt and 
 acknowledged, that the meaning of the fact should 
 ultimately be revealed both to the personal conscience 
 and to the world at large. What is every court of 
 judicature but an earthly and very imperfect shadow 
 of a perfect and Divine reality. The judge pro- 
 nounces a sentence, but his sentence, though final 
 as regards this life and present phase of things, is 
 not final as regards the inner world, which the several 
 stages of the procedure have revealed and implied, 
 nor even as regards the ultimate ends of justice. 
 How few are the criminals who are in any degree 
 
^46 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 bettered by the terrible discipline of crime and its 
 attendant punishment ; but surely the ultimate ends 
 of justice must be not merely punishment, but re- 
 formation. A man is not really judged in his inner 
 being unless he has been made not only to feel and 
 confess he has done wrong, not only obliged to 
 render such recompense as the law may demand 
 and his own ability provide, but also has been set 
 right in himself and delivered from the evil which 
 has enslaved him. It is obvious that this must be 
 the ultimate purpose of Christianity as a remedial 
 system, but it is no less obvious that such purpose 
 cannot be attainable here ; if, therefore, it is to be 
 attained at all, it must be attained hereafter. And 
 surely this is a hope which is not excluded from, but 
 encouraged by the thought of the Christian judgment. 
 There are, however, many associations connected 
 with that doctrine, as it is commonly apprehended, 
 which, I think, are calculated to bring it into dis- 
 credit, and which do not appear to be warranted by 
 the teaching of Scripture. Let us consider, then, 
 what that teaching is. First we have the personal 
 return of Christ — From tJtence He shall come: that 
 is to say, from the highest heaven whither He is 
 ascended, and from the right hand of the Father 
 where He sits. Then are we to understand that 
 Christ will ever cease to be at God's right hand t 
 are we to understand the highest heaven will cease 
 to contain the personal body of the Lord ? These 
 and similar questions, which appear to force them- 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QULCK AND THE t)EAD. 247 
 
 selves on the reflective mind, go far towards con- 
 vincing me that we really know very little of this 
 matter because we have been told very little. We 
 may certainly determine that we know nothing but 
 what we have been told ; and if it shall appear, as 
 it certainly does, that much of what we have been 
 told cannot possibly be understood literally, then, 
 we can only decide that we know less than we 
 thought we knew. In the face, therefore, of the 
 transcendant difficulties of the whole subject, the 
 best course seems to be to cling fast to what we 
 have been told and to add no more. For instance, 
 we have been told over and over again that Christ 
 shall return to judgment, but we have not been told 
 what that means or what we are to understand by 
 it. Undoubtedly we have been led to suppose that 
 whatever it means it did receive a partial and pre- 
 liminary fulfilment at the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 and this fact cannot but serve to modify to some 
 degree the sense in which we interpret the return of 
 Christ. Still I do not see how it is possible to do 
 away with so clear a statement as that of the angels 
 at the ascension. This same Jesus which is taken up 
 from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as 
 ye have seen Him go into heaven} The return at the 
 siege of Jerusalem was in no sense a fulfilment of 
 this language, whatever else it was. I hold, there- 
 fore, that both by the language of Scripture and that 
 of the Creed, we are shut up to the belief in a 
 * Actsi. II. 
 
248 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 personal return of Christ of some kind. He has too 
 often given us to understand this Himself, in a variety 
 of ways, to leave any impression but one upon the 
 mind. When, however, we are told that He shall 
 appear in the clouds of heaven, in fiaining fire, taking 
 vengeance on them that know not God and that 
 obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ} and 
 the like, I am free to confess — and I do so in all 
 humility before God — that I do not know what such 
 language means, partly because of other language in 
 Scripture to which manifestly no less deference is 
 due, and partly because the logic of events appears 
 to have warranted another interpretation than the 
 severely literal one. 
 
 The question, my beloved brethren, is just this. Are 
 we bound by the teaching of Scripture to expect a 
 tremendous physical catastrophe of stars falling, and 
 heavens shrivelling like a parched scroll, and moun- 
 tains falling, and seas dividing and the like, or are 
 we taught by the analogy of Scripture, and of nature, 
 to believe that the end will come rather as the 
 beginning came, silently, gradually, imperceptibly, as 
 when Simeon took up the infant Christ in his arms, 
 and that its likeness to the descriptions given must 
 be sought rather in the marvellous contrast finally 
 presented, than in the accidents by which it is 
 brought about. 
 
 And whether I am right or wrong, I do not 
 hesitate to say that my own faith would be much 
 
 ' 2 Thess. i. 8. 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 249 
 
 more easily confirmed if I thought this was the tenor 
 of Holy writ, than if I supposed that the pictorial 
 description of the day of judgment popularly and 
 traditionally received, was to be literally and minutely 
 fulfilled. 
 
 And I will tell you why. Christianity it appears 
 to me has revealed God to us. We no longer 
 worship an unknown God. We no longer worship 
 a God whose presence is restricted to place. We 
 have been told on the highest authority, that God is 
 a Spirit, and that we must worship Him in Spirit. 
 Christianity as it seems to me, is the revelation of 
 God in the present, in the personal phenomena of 
 human life, in birth, in marriage, in death, in joy, in 
 sorrow, in pain, in suffering, in trial, breavement, 
 affliction and the like. Christianity is the revelation 
 of the Divine in man, through the manifestation of 
 One in whom the human and the Divine are per- 
 manently, indissolubly, completely, and exceptionally 
 united. We do not wait for the perception of a 
 material God, or the entrance into a material heaven, 
 but for the fuller and more complete realisation 
 through the Spirit of the nature and the character 
 of God, and for, no doubt, the physical perception of 
 the person of Christ. When this physical perception 
 is vouchsafed to us, our eyes will see the King in 
 His beauty^ and so far He will at all events have 
 come to us. But when we say that He shall come, 
 and come from heaven, we must not fail to re- 
 
 ^ Isa. xxxiii. 17. 
 
2SO THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 member who it is that shall come, and where and 
 what the heaven is, from whence He shall come. It 
 is not the unknown God who shall come, but the 
 God whom we have learnt to know through His 
 manifestation in Jesus Christ. And as heaven is not 
 a physical, earthly, or material place, so we do not 
 look for the invasion of one physical material place 
 by the accidents of another, for the intrusion of an- 
 other and an unknown physical world upon our 
 present and known world, but for the more direct 
 and immediate presentation of the present spiritual 
 and eternal world, to the conscience and the sense 
 pf the redeemed and glorified Christian. 
 
 Our Lord Himself has led us to suppose that His 
 manifestation at the last will assume a very different 
 character to those who already know Him and to 
 those who knew Him not. To the former He says, 
 And when these things begin to come to pasSy t/ten 
 look up, and lift up your heads^ for your redeniptio7i 
 draweth nigh} That this world and this life is not 
 our all, none knows better than the Christian, and 
 none hopes more ardently than he. What shall be 
 the conditions of final transition from the one to the 
 other, no one knows, nor, as it seems to me, has Holy 
 Writ revealed ; but this transition is surely identical 
 with the coming of Christ and the day of judgment. 
 
 Does all this seem hazy and unsatisfactory to you, 
 my friends 1 If it does, then, I counsel you to reject 
 it; only if it seems to remove some of the difficulties 
 
 ' Luke xxi. 28. 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 251 
 
 that beset the popular and material notions of a tre- 
 mendous and final catastrophe, and to shed a gleam 
 of light on some of the most perplexing statements of 
 Scripture, then do I venture to offer it to your con- 
 templation. 
 
 We do our Christianity great violence, when we 
 believe that Christ is absent, or forget that He is 
 present, or cease to realise the dispensation of the 
 Spirit, which alone can help us to perceive Christ ; 
 qnd if to anyone Christ shall come to judgment, it 
 will surely be to those who have had Him pleading 
 with them all their lives, as a present and living God 
 and Saviour, whom they in their dulness and blind- 
 ness have refused to hear and to perceive. 
 
 While however, as it seems to me, Christianity has 
 given us no definite notion or idea as to how Christ 
 shall come, or what shall be the unmistakable signs 
 of His coming, it has placed the fact of His future 
 manifestation to the world at large, on the firm and 
 solid basis of His resurrection as a past and veritable 
 fact. And we can no more question the one, than 
 we can doubt the other. His resurrection is by all 
 Christians an acknowledged fact, historic and inde- 
 structible. The Christ, then, who was once seen by 
 mortal eyes, shall by mortal eyes be seen again. 
 How we cannot tell. The language of Scripture 
 may be unintelligible as it often has been, and I 
 believe is until it has been fulfilled, but that a tim6 
 shall come when not only believers shall see Him to 
 their joy, but those who do not believe in Him, shall 
 
252 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 see Him to their confusion, admits, I conceive, of no 
 shadow of doubt, being established as St. Paul says, 
 or seems to say, no less by the Divine Word than by 
 the natural inference from facts. 
 
 And this time shall be the consummation of the 
 ages, and the day of judgment, when He shall come 
 to judge the quick and the dead. The more we 
 ponder it the more inconceivable and unintelligible 
 it becomes. Who are the quick, or who shall they 
 be ? Those who are alive at His coming ! What 
 a stupendous thought, and how impossible to grasp 
 or shape it ! And yet, what is the alternative ? 
 Certainly no less difficult of conception, — either that 
 the present state of things shall go on for ever and 
 for ever in all essential aspects as it is, or else that 
 the race shall die out, and the poet's vision be 
 realised of a last man : — 
 
 •' I saw a vision in my sleep 
 That gave my spirit strength to sweep 
 Adown the gulf of time ; 
 I saw the last of human mould, 
 That shall Creation's death behold, 
 As Adam saw her prime." 
 
 Now in the abstract it is impossible to conceive 
 of either of these alternatives as being realised ; 
 whereas the statement that the one man ordained by 
 God to be the judge of quick and dead shall come to 
 judge them, is in itself antecedently probable, and is 
 certainly not in the abstract inconceivable, however 
 impossible it may be for us to determine or con- 
 ceive the conditions under which it shall take place. 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 253 
 
 We arrive, then, at this result, that as the declara- 
 tion of Scripture that there shall be a future judg- 
 ment is based on the instincts of human nature, and 
 corroborated by the verdict of the human reason, 
 when compared with the only alternatives possible 
 to our conception, so the very obscurity of Scripture, 
 which we cannot but acknowledge, must be regarded 
 as due to the inherent obscurity of the subject, and 
 the absolute impossibility of making it plain to our 
 apprehension, rather than to any other cause. Such 
 a result may appear to be superfluous to those who 
 are willing to accept the statements of Scripture, 
 whether they are intelligible or not ; but it will 
 hardly be deemed so by those who would be thankful 
 to accept the Scripture statements if only the pre- 
 liminary obstacles of rational thought arising out of 
 those very statements themselves, could be satis- 
 factorily removed. 
 
 And for the rest, brethren, it is a solemn matter^ 
 which time itself will, before long, reveal to all of us. 
 If the history of Jesus Christ is not all a fiction, 
 which it most unquestionably cannot be, then we 
 shall each of us, before very long, behold Him. In 
 Him will be revealed to us the tremendous signi- 
 ficance of that inextinguishable sense of responsi- 
 bility which burns within us. If His own word is 
 true, then He is the ultimate person to whom we are 
 responsible. He it is to whom duty itself is due. 
 There may be this and that owing to our fellow- 
 creatures, this and that due to ourselves, but beneath 
 
254 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 and beyond it all there is concealed and yet revealed 
 an obligation which is due to Him. He it is who 
 has bound us by this obligation — me to preach, 
 you to listen, one and all to do the work which what 
 we call chance and circumstance, profession and 
 vocation, has given us to do. We all acknowledge 
 certain duties — duties to our parents, children, 
 brethren, employers, servants, and the like. Will it 
 not be a great assistance to every earnest mind 
 among us to set the Lord Jesus Christ always before 
 us, the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord, as the 
 taskmaster of our work, the adjudicator of our 
 reward, to look to Him as the one Being whom 
 we strive to serve, knowing that He is not, like 
 our fellow man, hard to please, but that He accepts 
 the pure intent and the humble effort, that He does 
 not reap where He has not sown, nor gather where 
 He has not strawn ; but that, to every one who 
 seeks His grace, and desires His favour, and relies 
 upon His strength, and believes in His love in life 
 and in death. He will say in the judgment, Well 
 done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the 
 joy of thy Lord} 
 
 * Matt. XXV. 21. 
 
XXII. 
 
 FROM THENCE HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE 
 THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, 
 
 Because He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the 
 v/orld in' righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained, whereof He 
 hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from the 
 dead. — ACTS xvii. 31. 
 
 THERE are two main thoughts which, though 
 closely connected, are yet separate, which are 
 suggested by the article of the Creed we are now con- 
 sidering, namely the personal return of Christ and 
 the future judgment. The former of them chiefly 
 occupied us on Sunday last. To-day we will con- 
 cern ourselves more especially with the latter. 
 
 It is very frequently said that the strongest argu- 
 ment for the reality of a life to come is supplied by 
 the inequalities of the present life. It is thought 
 that the conspicuous injustice of the existing con- 
 dition of things can only be redressed by the further 
 advantages of another life, in which a different system 
 will prevail. At the same time, it is part of the 
 popular doctrine, which reasons thus — that the judg- 
 ment to come will decide irrevocably what the cha- 
 racter of that life is to be. 
 
 But first, I do not think that the popular ex- 
 
256 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 pedient of calling the future life into existence to 
 redress the balance of the present derives any sane- 
 tion from the teaching of Scripture. It is at the 
 best but a human inference drawn from it. We 
 have, indeed, in the parable of the rich man and 
 Lazarus the words, Son^ remember that thou in thy 
 lifetime receivedst thy good things^ and likewise 
 Lazarus evil things^ but now he is comforted and thou 
 ait tormented^ which may perhaps appear to favour 
 such a notion ; but it may be fairly questioned 
 whether these words are intended to teach it. And 
 secondly, though what they do teach, which is 
 equivalent to the hope suggested by the familiar 
 promise that the Lord God shall wipe away tears 
 from off all faces, is the legitimate and most blessed 
 consolation of the Word of God, this is altogether 
 very different from the argument in question. For, 
 granting that our present brief existence here is to 
 be succeeded by an eternal and unalterable existence 
 hereafter, I would ask, " How is it possible that any 
 just compensation for anything temporal can be sup- 
 plied by something which is eternal } how is it pos- 
 sible that the finite can be in any sense commensurate 
 with the infinite } " St. Paul says. Our light affliction^ 
 which is for a moment, worketk for us a far more 
 exceeding and eternal weight of glory :^ that is in- 
 telligible. The present pain is a way to the future 
 glory. The cross is the path of life, death is the 
 gate, and the condition of bliss, — all that we admit. 
 
 * Luke xvi. 25. * 2 Cor. iv. 1 7. 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 257 
 
 But in every case, be it observed, the less leads on 
 to the greater just as the seed produces the plant, 
 and the bud unfolds the flower, but it cannot be pre- 
 tended in any case that there is an equipoise or 
 equivalent. Who would not purchase, and gladly 
 purchase, endless felicity by the endurance of pain 
 which must shortly have an end ? Who would not 
 go through any amount of suffering if with the 
 suffering he could have the positive assurance of 
 eternal joy? One would necessarily surpass the 
 other as a grain of sand is outweighed by the sun 
 in the heavens. It would be absurd to say that the 
 one counterbalanced the other. 
 
 But this is far more apparent when we con- 
 template the alternative case. What would be the 
 value of a life spent here filled to the overflow with 
 all that life could ^\y^ — with health, wealth, ease, 
 honour, luxury, prosperity, fame, power, eminence, 
 and the like, even supposing that the enjoyment of all 
 these things were protracted to the utmost possible 
 limit of human existence, if all were to be succeeded 
 by an eternity of hopeless and unutterable misery.^ 
 Would there be anything like a counterpoise in the 
 one to the other t Unquestionably not. I venture 
 to say that there is no one in the whole world who 
 would consent to the enjoyment upon such condi- 
 tions of the utmost that the world and its fulness 
 could give. There is no one who, upon having placed 
 fairly before him the two alternatives, endless bliss 
 and endless woe, and placed in such a way that 
 
 17 
 
258 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 their reality could be somehow appreciated, and not 
 merely believed in as a tenet, would not gladly forego 
 present enjoyment and pleasure of every sort and 
 kind, and submit to present degradation and suffering, 
 rather than encounter the one or lose the other. 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, the instances in which 
 this extreme position of good or evil is realised in 
 life are very rare, and consequently it is obvious 
 that if in the most extreme cases the notion of a 
 counterpoise utterly fails, it cannot possibly hold 
 good in any cases that are not extreme ; that is, 
 it offers no solution whatever of the ordinary in- 
 equalities of life to throw into the scale for their 
 adjustment the prospect of a future endless life in 
 which they will be reversed. 
 
 I confess frankly, therefore, that to my mind the 
 ordinary argument that there must be a future state 
 in which the inequalities of the present one will be 
 rectified, fails utterly to come with any force, if that 
 future state is to be, as it is assumed to be, one of 
 unending bliss or woe. You will say then, do you 
 mean us to infer that under colour of dealing with 
 the subject of judgment to come, you are endeavour- 
 ing to destroy the notion of an unalterable future 
 state of existence? To which imaginary question I 
 reply emphatically. No. I am doing no such thing. 
 I am not at present going to touch that question, 
 if I touch it at all. What I want to show is 
 simply that the argument for a judgment to come 
 which shall rectify all that is wrong here, will 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 259 
 
 fail to satisfy any one who reflects that the perma- 
 nent readjustment of things upon a reversed basis 
 would offer no adequate compensation. To substi- 
 tute for temporal misery eternal felicity, and for 
 temporal felicity eternal misery, would surely be at 
 the best but a very clumsy way of rectifying the evil 
 of this world. Whatever cause the ideally good might 
 have to be satisfied with their lot, the ideally wicked, 
 as it seems to me, would have fair ground for impugn- 
 ing the justice of God. And such a conclusion, if 
 it is sound, need give us no alarm, supposing that 
 the misapprehension from which it springs is the 
 result of our own systematic theology and not of the 
 teaching of Scripture. 
 
 Now here again we must observe that the subject 
 is one of profound and hopeless obscurity, nor do we 
 pretend for one moment to throw any light upon it, 
 except so far as we can gather light from Scripture 
 itself Neither are we about to propound any other 
 theory which is to replace the popular one ; we de- 
 sire rather to disabuse the mind of theories altogether. 
 It is against the popular theories and the popular 
 notions of a rigid and inflexible system that we 
 protest, because we are conscious of their baneful 
 influence upon the free action of our faith and desire 
 to substitute for them the simple elemental principles 
 of Holy Writ. 
 
 And these, as it seems to me, are few and obvious. 
 For example, . there comes first of all that grand 
 foundation principle — the spontaneous utterance of 
 
26p THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 the father of the faithful, and the guiding star of his 
 own faith and hope, Shall not the Judge of all the 
 earth do right ?^ to which may be added the cor- 
 relative question, " Is it possible that He can do 
 wrong ? " Each of these questions admits of but 
 one answer. Then, if that is the case, the restless 
 and perplexing debates of our own mind may surely 
 have an end. The Judge of all the earth cannot do 
 do wrong — He can only do right. That is the first 
 principle. 
 
 ' - Then follows the second, which seems to me to 
 be no less plainly taught in Scripture, even if it be 
 not explicitly enunciated. And it is this: God's 
 notion of right and wrong can only be the comple- 
 ment of ours. Ponder that. I do not say that our 
 notion of right and wrong must necessarily be the 
 measure of God's, for that may be open to question ; 
 but I do say that God's notion can only be the 
 complement of ours. And I will shew you presently 
 what I mean ; but first I want you to apprehend the 
 opposite principle — which is frequently adopted in 
 the place of this, — which is that God's notion of 
 right and wrong must be something essentially dif- 
 ferent from ours ; that we can form no idea of what 
 to the mind of God would be either right or wrong ; 
 that we can frame no adequate conception of the 
 Divine justice. Now, these are the two antagonistic 
 principles which lie at the root of all our miscon- 
 ceptions on the matter before us. And I do not 
 
 * Gen. xiii. 25. 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 261 
 
 hesitate to say that this last principle, while it 
 appears to be the more humble-minded and pious 
 of the two, is in itself most pernicious and absolutely 
 fatal, not only to our worship of God, but to our 
 acceptance of His Word. How can I worship a God 
 of whom I do not know but that His conception of 
 justice may be something diametrically opposed to 
 mine ? If He has the absolute and arbitrary deter- 
 mination of what is right and what is wrong, how 
 can I have any confidence in my approach to Him ? 
 And what is more, how can His revelation have any 
 ground of approach to me, if it does not appeal to 
 those very notions and elemental conceptions of 
 right and wrong which He has Himself planted in 
 my moral nature ? It is because He has endowed 
 me with a moral sense, which however imperfectly and 
 inadequately reflects His own, and is not opposed to 
 it, that He by His Word can find in me a foundation 
 on which its acceptance may be built. Surely to 
 every thoughtful mind this can only be self-evident. 
 God's Word is God's Word, not because it contradicts 
 my sense of justice and right, but because it fufils 
 and confirms it. What else does our Lord imply 
 when he says, Yea, and why even of yotcrselves 
 judge ye not what is right f^ and again, Judge not 
 according to the appearance, but judge righteous judg- 
 ment}'^ Is not this the very accusation that He brings 
 against the Jews when He tells them, Ye seek to kill 
 Me because My word hath no place in yoiO.^ They had 
 
 * Luke xii. 57. ''■ John vii. 24. ' John viii. 37. 
 
262 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 quenched the natural God -given light of justice and 
 right within, and so were incompetent to judge of 
 Him ; but not because His sense of right wasone which 
 was essentially opposed to any they could attain to. 
 Having then arrived at these two elemental prin- 
 ciples, first, that the Judge of all the earth can only 
 do what is right, and that His idea of right must 
 be the complement, not the contradiction of ours, 
 we go one step further, and proceed to contem- 
 plate the scene which meets us here, and over which 
 most undoubtedly the Bible has thrown no veil — 
 the scene, that is, of iniquity, oppression, injustice, 
 misery, and vice. The reconciliation of this condition 
 of things as a matter of fact with the belief in the 
 rule of a great and righteous God, was the ever- 
 present and vexing problem of the saints of old. 
 This it was that tormented David and his fellow- 
 psalmists, Thus my heart was grieved^ and it went 
 even through my reins. ^ This it was that confounded 
 righteous Job, and to this problem the Old Testa- 
 ment presented nothing more than a partial solution. 
 The book of Job itself was the nearest approxima- 
 tion to a solution. It was reserved for the Gospel 
 to present the fullest solution yet proposed, and a 
 solution which, as far as the present condition of 
 things admits, is also entirely complete. It is not, 
 however, a theoretical but a practical solution, the 
 solution which is derived from the actual participa- 
 tion of the Lord of all in the evil to which He has 
 
 ^ Ps. Ixxiii. 21, cf. Ps. XXX viu, etc. 
 
^E SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 263 
 
 subjected His creatures. But to this problem the 
 saints of old had nothing they could bring, except 
 their indomitable faith that a time would come when 
 God would make His purpose plain, that He might 
 be justified in His saying, and be clear when He 
 was judged. Only here, observe, it was still man's 
 instinctive sense of justice and right that was to 
 pronounce God just. His notion of justice was not 
 something radically different from and opposed to 
 man's, otherwise man would never be competent to 
 pronounce Him just, but it was the highest develop- 
 ment of man's own moral sense to which when 
 rightly and perfectly informed man himself would 
 offer homage. 
 
 Then there enters in here another fact. We are 
 placed for the present in an imperfect condition of 
 things in which we have and can have only imper- 
 fect and inadequate information. If we knew the 
 whole our verdict would be different from what it 
 often is, not because the principles on which we 
 should pronounce it would be altered, but because 
 we should be better informed and have some ground 
 to build upon. Did we know more, we should 
 frequently not have to wait for a future readjust- 
 ment of things to make them straight, but should 
 see that they were far straighter than we supposed 
 already. Were this information to be supplied now, 
 such would be our judgment, and it would coincide 
 with God's. But when the day of revelation comes 
 this information shall be supplied, and then we shall 
 
264 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 confess that He is righteous in all His ways, and 
 holy in all His works, then we shall lift up the chant 
 of the redeemed, Great and marvellous are Thy works 
 Lord God Almighty , just and true are Thy ways thou 
 Ki7tg of Saints} 
 
 For the present then, as of old, we have nothing 
 to sustain us, but what the saints of God in all ages 
 have had — our faith. This faith, however, consists 
 not so much in believing that a particular subversion 
 of everything, a putting of bitter for sweet, and sweet 
 for bitter will take place, of which we can form no 
 definite idea because the foundation on which to 
 form one has not been revealed, as in resting in the 
 conviction that One who is perfect in knowledge and 
 in judgment is dealing with us, that He can make 
 no mistakes and cannot be party to a miscarriage of 
 justice. 
 
 But, furthermore, there are two other considera- 
 tions to sustain us. The first is that we are in 
 possession of all the light that is shed upon this 
 matter from the cross of Christ. This is a present 
 and not a future light. Our Lord said that the 
 Holy Ghost should convince the world about jijdg- 
 ment, because the Prince of this world had been 
 judged. The cross of Christ was the judgment of 
 this world. It was the practical and present sub- 
 version of all things, it gave, therefore, once for all, 
 that readjustment of all things which the popular 
 notion relegates to the indefinite future. It put 
 ^ Rev. XV. 3. 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 265 
 
 everything in a new light, it assigned a fresh valua- 
 tion to all that the world held precious, it showed 
 the Divine estimate of pain, suffering, and death, it 
 proved that the utmost degradation and rejection of 
 man could coexist with infinite nearness and dear- 
 ness to God. It threw, therefore, into all such 
 humiliation and suffering, into every lot of trial and 
 sorrow, and every passage of death, the possible 
 element of dearness and nearness to God. Thus tJie 
 cross of Christ went very far towards anticipating the 
 verdict of the judgment. 
 
 But the cross itself was but part of a whole. The 
 cross itself was nothing without the resurrection. It 
 was the condition and the passage to the resurrec- 
 tion. It is the resurrection which itself shed glory 
 on the cross. It is in the light of the resurrection, 
 and in that alone, that we can interpret or under- 
 stand the cross. Without the resurrection the cross 
 is an unsolved mystery. But the two together are 
 the prelude of the judgment, because God hath 
 appointed a day in the which He will judge the 
 world in righteousness by that man whom He hath 
 ordainedy whereof He hath given assurance unto all 
 men in that He hath raised Him from the dead. 
 Not only is the judgment based upon the resur- 
 rection, but the resurrection is the earnest of the 
 judgment. 
 
 And from the analogy of the light which it thro^ys 
 upon the cross we can understand something of the 
 nature of the judgment. It shall be the revelation 
 
266 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 of all mysteries, the solution of all problems. In 
 the light of it we shall see light thrown on all that 
 is most obscure ; even every tangled path through 
 the brushwood which hides the daylight will be 
 glorified by the influx of Divine light and perfect 
 knowledge, for then we shall know even as also we 
 are known. 
 
 Surely, then, we may regard the judgment less 
 after the manner of an irrevocable sentence, an 
 unalterable doom, than as a vast accession of light 
 and knowledge, in which we shall behold not only 
 a part but the relation of the part to the whole ; 
 not only the appearances which confuse and distort 
 the vision but the realities which will enable us to 
 judge righteous judgment. Then not only the mean- 
 ing of the problem will be revealed, but the result 
 also of the discipline will be declared ; then not only 
 the complex machinery of the clock will be exposed 
 to view, but the veil being withdrawn from its face, 
 we shall be able to read the hour indicated on the 
 dial-plate of eternity. We shall know not only 
 wherefore the trial was, but also whereto it has led, 
 and then man's judgment, which at present goes 
 limping and halting after God's, will overtake and 
 keep pace with it, and nature herself shall take up 
 the chorus of rejoicing, and the floods clap their hands ^ 
 and the hills be joyful together before the Lord, when 
 He Cometh to judge the earth, and with righteousness 
 to judge the world, and the people with equity. ^ 
 * Ps. xcviii. 8, 9. 
 
XXIII. 
 
 HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE THE QUICK 
 AND THE DEAD, 
 
 We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every- 
 one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath 
 done, whether it be good or bad. — 2 Cor. v. 10. 
 
 THERE is yet another aspect of the judgment 
 to come, upon which I desire to dwell, before 
 passing on to the next article of the Creed, and that 
 is the aspect which was briefly mentioned at the 
 close of my sermon on Sunday last, namely, that 
 the judgment will be the declaration or manifesta- 
 tion of our truest actual self. This is really the most 
 solemn and practical aspect of all, not, perhaps, the 
 most startling and sensational, or, therefore, that upon 
 which the popular mind is most willing to dwell, but 
 by far the most tremendous aspect, and that which 
 bears most directly on our personal and daily life. 
 
 For is it not an awful thought that it is impos- 
 sible to separate the present moment from its 
 ultimate issues in the world beyond the grave ? 
 What you and I are in the habit of doing day by 
 day, of speaking from time to time, and of think- 
 ing moment by moment, all this is imperceptibly 
 but inevitably moulding the form and fashion of 
 
268 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 that character which we must bear for ever. But is 
 not this the case ? It is certain that in this life we 
 cannot shut off our existence as it were in compart- 
 ments, so that one portion shall be wholly discon- 
 nected from another. The child is father of the 
 man. The dispositions which are manifested and 
 encouraged in childhood, the habits which are 
 formed, the practices which are acquired in early 
 youth, constitute a part of our future life. So 
 certainly and undoubtedly is this the fact that we 
 are all more or less aware of the importance and 
 necessity of education and early training, but I 
 believe that we are none of us sufficiently aware 
 of it, or what is but a corollary of the same truth, 
 of the prime importance of daily and hourly habit. 
 It is well known that the most supple of our joints, 
 if retained too long in the same position, will lose 
 their suppleness and become rigidly fixed. And if 
 it is so with the body, it is not otherwise with its 
 counterpart, the mind or the spiritual character. 
 The man who forms the habit of giving expression 
 to the first thought that comes into his mind, or 
 rather who continually does so till it insensibly 
 becomes a habit finds, sooner or later, to his sorrow 
 and pain, that this habit of expression has got the 
 mastery of him, and he has lost, when he most 
 requires it, the power of self-restraint. The mightiest 
 tree in all the forest was capable, when a sapling, of 
 being bent and directed to almost any extent, but 
 left to its own spontaneous growth and to none but 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 269 
 
 natural influences, it has followed the guidance of 
 those influences, and become the inflexible, unalter- 
 able thing it is. Would that we could all remember 
 what an allegory this is of human character and con- 
 duct. It is impossible but that the thoughts we 
 think in our inexpressive secret hearts, the words 
 we utter to our familiar companions, the manners 
 we assume in our intercourse with our fellows and 
 with the world should congeal and crystallise till 
 they are beyond all control, and should stamp them- 
 selves upon our being and our life, till they give us 
 what we call our character. 
 
 For character is but the result of habit, and it is 
 this thought and the subsequent thought that judg- 
 ment is but the manifestation of character, that the 
 true and inevitable issue of character will be revealed 
 in the judgment to come, that I want to lay before 
 you this morning. 
 
 And you will at once observe that this is not 
 necessarily a religious matter at all, but a most 
 ordinary commonplace matter-of-fact aflair which 
 concerns us all alike. People, as a rule, dislike 
 religion and religious topics; and the preacher who 
 would be popular in the present day must avoid 
 religion as much as he can, and discourse on any 
 subject in which people take an interest. I have 
 no intention, however, of avoiding religion, properly 
 so called, but only at the present time of showing 
 you that what you may probably regard as a purely 
 religious subject, namely, the judgmentta^co«ie„js 
 
 i^A^ oar ^^\,Jj 
 
270 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 not necessarily a religious subject at all. I want to 
 make everyone feel that what he or she is at this pre- 
 sent moment, is simply the result of habit. You have 
 grown up in certain habits, have acted repeatedly in a 
 certain way, and done certain things time after time, 
 and these have become habitual ; they have overlaid 
 your nature till they have fitted and confined you 
 like a habit, for the habit or garment which we wear 
 on the body is but a figure and emblem of the habit 
 which we adopt in our mental and moral being, and 
 which becomes thicker and thicker till it disfigures 
 and deforms our personal existence, and so shapes 
 our character. I was told there were not ten people 
 here who understood my sermon on Sunday last. 
 Now if this was really the case, which I can scarcely 
 believe, for I spoke as plainly as I could, why was 
 it ? Simply for this reason, that almost all people 
 have got the habit of looking at religion and religious 
 subjects in a kind of fictitious and unreal way, as 
 though the things of the world to come were 
 removed as far as possible from the things of this 
 world. Now, I want to disabuse the people who 
 come here of this habit, and especially I want to 
 show you to-day that in all you think and speak 
 and do you are, unconsciously it may be, but 
 assuredly and inevitably, laying up a minute and 
 imperceptible portion of that vast and immeasurable 
 result which the day of judgment will reveal. Judg- 
 ment is the declaration of character. The judgment to 
 come will be the day of revelation ; it will reveal 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD, 271 
 
 our character. And character is like the coral reef. 
 An insect so small as to be inconsiderable, if not 
 imperceptible, as but for the brightness of its colour 
 it often would be, is able in a succession of moments, 
 each of which is inappreciable as it flies, to build 
 up a vast accumulation of matter hard as rock, which 
 is capable of withstanding the utmost fury of the 
 raging mighty ocean, of forming a secure dwelling- 
 place for man, and of shattering the proudest trophies 
 of mechanical skill. The coral reef is the outcome 
 of successive and continuous repetitions, each one of 
 which is so small and inconsiderable that if taken 
 alone it might be disregarded ; but we cannot take 
 them alone, each has a relation definite and indis- 
 soluble to every other, and all that we can estimate 
 is the marvellous result. 
 
 It is so with character. In early youth an in- 
 ability to appreciate the difference between truth 
 and falsehood is manifested in a tendency, not, it 
 may be to perpetrate an actual lie, but rather to 
 look at things in a false light, to distort and to 
 misrepresent them. This tendency is unchecked, 
 perhaps it is unperceived by fond and inexperi- 
 enced parents and teachers; or the habit, in spite of 
 all their efforts, develops itself till the man enters 
 into life with the character confirmed and fully 
 set. Everything which concerns himself is re- 
 garded in this false light, is so represented and 
 expressed, till without being able to say that in any 
 given point the man has spoken or acted falsely, it 
 
272 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 is patent to all who have dealings with him that 
 nowhere has he spoken or acted strictly in accord- 
 ance to truth. Want of truthfulness is much more 
 common than actual falsehood, for the one is capable 
 of immediate detection and calls for immediate 
 exposure, but the other is ingenious enough to elude 
 detection and cannot be exposed. The consequence 
 is that no character is so dangerous as this, because 
 no man's conduct and no man's life can be proof 
 against misrepresentation. More harm may be done 
 by a few apparently undesigned and casual words 
 than it is possible to undo by the undeviating con- 
 duct of many years. Surely, if anywhere, there must 
 be a judgment here. It is impossible that the jus- 
 tice of the Searcher of all hearts and the discoverer 
 of their intents can ultimately overlook iniquity so 
 gross. The day of reckoning must come, and when 
 it comes it will come with speed swiftly. But mean- 
 while the judgment is infallibly shaping itself and 
 compassing its own ends. For what is the bare 
 possession of such a character incompetent to dis- 
 tinguish actual truth from virtual falsehood, utterly 
 unable to see the extent to which self enters into all 
 matters of personal concern and interest, but in 
 itself a very judgment on him who has it ? Is it 
 not more to be true and genuine as gold tried and 
 purified seven times in the fire than it is to feel that 
 every step one has gained is the result of craft, sub- 
 tilty and cunning } And if as it often happens, the 
 person so acting is not aware of his own inward dupli- 
 
' HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 273 
 
 city and want of truth, is not this the sorest judgment 
 of all and the surest earnest of the judgment that must 
 be reserved for lying lips and for a deceitful tongue ? 
 
 To take another instance, and one that is yet 
 more common, though probably we have most of us 
 been brought in contact with cases like the last. 
 What a lamentable affliction is an evil temper, and 
 yet how completely is temper (which is, if anything 
 is, a defect of character) the result of habit. I take 
 temper in its broader and more general sense, not in 
 its restricted one, as applying mainly to anger, but as 
 embracing the entire complexion of a man's inner 
 self, in relation to persons and circumstances. What 
 a curse — no less terrible than that of Cain, — does he 
 carry about within him who has a heart at enmity 
 with all the world, suspicious of His fellow-creatures, 
 censorious as to their conduct, contemptuous of their 
 opinions, unmerciful to their infirmities ! What a 
 harvest of dragons' teeth does not such a one sow for 
 himself in all his intercourse with the world ! What 
 needless and insuperable barriers does he not throw 
 in his own way to frustrate his efforts after good ! 
 No observation is more startlingly true and strikingly 
 vivid than that of Thackeray. The world is a mirror, 
 in which we see ourselves ; smile and it smiles, — 
 frown, and it frowns. And is it not a terrible judg- 
 ment, terrible in the present, and yet more terrible to 
 come, for a man to nurse within himself such a 
 temper as this ? 
 
 On the other hand, what an invaluable blessing is 
 
 18 
 
274 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 the possession of a kind, a genial, a happy, and a 
 cheerful disposition, which thinketh no evil because 
 conscious of none within ; which is buoyant and 
 equable, meeting the ever-recurrent waves of life like 
 our largest and most skilfully constructed steam 
 ships, at the angle of least resistance ; which is beaten 
 back only to rise again more buoyantly, and which 
 holds on its course undaunted and undeviating, well 
 knowing that if all is sound within, no violence from 
 without can injure. 
 
 This, then, be it understood, is what I call temper, 
 not the inability to be ruffled into momentary anger 
 or the sudden expression of transient warmth ; but 
 the kind of disciplined nature which has the whole 
 man well in hand, and is equal to either fortune be- 
 cause true to the central life. 
 
 Now though it is quite certain that the word just 
 used, nature, has a good deal to do with each of 
 these characters, it is not all. That indeed, is our 
 consolation, that we can and do mould our characters. 
 Would that we all remembered more than we do, 
 that we each have a character to mould, and that 
 the judgment will show to ourselves and to the world 
 what we have done to mould it. This of course has 
 a direct bearing upon the young, and upon all who 
 are in any way connected with the education of the 
 young ; but by no means only the young, for just as 
 whatever our education may have been education 
 proper does not commence till self-education has 
 begun, so also is it with that discipline which must 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 275 
 
 result in character. The old Latin proverb says, 
 " The way to good manners is never too late." We 
 have now each of us something to do with the forma- 
 tion of character, for we have each of us something 
 to do with the acquisition of habit, just as we have 
 something to do with the choice of our clothing. 
 
 And in illustration of this I cannot but observe 
 how almost universally we see people's character 
 strengthen as they get on in years, If in mid-life 
 we have known them to be hard and sour, have we 
 not seen that as age comes on that character of 
 hardness and asperity developes and increases. The 
 man who is fond of money in middle life, will become 
 miserly in old age. The man who is vain in youth 
 will become more and more so as the habit increases 
 with his years, till even in old age there will be no 
 concerns so interesting to himself, so usurping on 
 the claims of others as his own, and self will be the 
 centre of his centripetal system, round which he will 
 revolve with undisturbed complacency, together with 
 such lesser lights as he can attract within the circle of 
 his influence. We must all have seen it many times ; 
 the faults of character that we have lamented in 
 others have become stronger and more conspicuous, 
 not less so as the flight of time sped on. What a 
 solemn lesson for all — for you, brethren, and for me, 
 ■ — for this is the law of human life ; habit passes into 
 character and is the parent of character, and habit is 
 but the aggregate of separate actions. Habits of 
 carelessness are the consequence of indulged indif- 
 
±^6 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 ference to care : habits of sloth, of indulged ten- 
 dency to indolence ; habits of untruthfulness, of re- 
 peated disregard of truth, and the like. 
 
 And all this, you observe, is not called religion, it 
 is something very different from religion. It has 
 nothing to do with the soul, but it may and must 
 have very much to do with the present bias and the 
 ultimate issue of that spiritual being and essence 
 which we term our self. Moment by moment the 
 character of that self is formed. It is in process 
 of formation now. You are forming it now. You are 
 setting and shifting, perceptibly or impercebtibly the 
 hands of that dial-plate, to use again the metaphor 
 which I used last time, which is to indicate in eter- 
 nity the result of your life here. 
 
 Surely a most solemn thought. We must all be 
 made manifest, so the Apostle says, before the judg- 
 ment seat of Christy that every one may receive the 
 thiftgs done in the body according to that Pie hath done 
 whether it be good or bad} Then, when the things 
 are done here we have not done with them, we are 
 to receive the issue and long result of them ; the seed 
 must bring forth its fruit, for whatsoever a man soweth 
 that shall he also reap? I speak not so much now 
 of what is commonly understood by recompense, as 
 of that inevitable product which human action can- 
 not but beget, which is, apart from any further result, 
 its recompense. 
 
 And it is this slow, sure, certain, and steady result, 
 
 ' 2 Cor. V. 10. 2 Gal. vi. 7. 
 
HE SHALL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. ±^^ 
 
 that, as it seems to me, people are indisposed to wait 
 for, though they cannot escape it, in the present day,. 
 They would not otherwise attempt to accomplish 
 by spasmodic efforts what can only be the result of 
 time. Character is the product of habit ; character 
 is that which exists but is hidden now, and is to be 
 revealed hereafter. Character is not produced in a 
 day any more than a habit is formed in an hour. 
 A life which has been habitually flowing in one 
 direction cannot in a moment or a week be diverted 
 into another channel, and be made to flow in an 
 opposite direction. Not that I disbelieve in " con- 
 version," real and genuine, — far from it ; but I 
 believe that St, Paul's character did not differ 
 materially before and after his conversion. Other- 
 wise he would not have said that he profited above 
 many of his equals in his own nation, in the Jews' 
 religion, being more exceedingly jealous of the 
 traditions of his fathers ^ — there was the true Pauline 
 character in germ and essence. But when he became 
 a Christian his character was infused with another 
 spirit, and came under the law of another influence^ 
 and this was the influence of faith. 
 
 And that, my friends, is the influence that we 
 want to assist in moulding our character, as it is the 
 influence which can alone regenerate us. We want 
 a principle of new life. Who does not feel itl 
 The cry for exceptional and spasmodic agency which 
 is so loud now,^ is a proof of this. Religious London 
 ' Gal. i. 14. 2 The '♦mission" of 1874. 
 
278 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 feels itself irreligious, and grasps at a hoped for 
 remedy. There is but one remedy, and that is the 
 application to the personal life and conscience of the 
 death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. This 
 and this alone, taken into the heart as a vital and a 
 vivifying principle, can suffice to give us life, and life 
 is what we want. The power of the Holy Ghost 
 operating upon and through faith can alone quicken 
 and regenerate us. 
 
 And as there is nothing else which can do this and 
 do it now, so there is nothing else which can give us 
 confidence or hope in the future judgment. Only 
 think of the awful revelation in being exhibited to the 
 world, and to angels, and to men, as we really are, with 
 all the blots, voluntary and involuntary, upon our 
 hidden character that we are all privy to ; — the negli- 
 gence, the indolence, the selfishness, the vanity, not to 
 mention other and worse evils that infect and infest us, 
 one and all ; — if we have not learnt that there is One 
 who has taken all this and more than all this upon 
 Himself, and made it His own, in order that if we 
 were willing and obedient we might eat the fruit of 
 the promised land into which He has brought us, the 
 fruit, namely, of His own perfect and spotless right- 
 eousness in which, and in which alone, we can stand 
 just and accepted before God, and have boldness in 
 the day of judgment, being assured that as He is so 
 are we, if found in Him, not only in this world, but 
 also in that which is to come. 
 
XXIV. 
 
 J BELIE VE IN THE HOL Y GHOST. 
 
 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will 
 send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things 
 to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. — John 
 xiv. 26. 
 
 WE pass on now, not only to another article, 
 but also to a fresh division of the Creed: 
 "I believe in the Holy Ghost." It is a very remark- 
 able and significant fact that the phrase, " the Holy 
 Ghost," which is used by our Lord in fhis place, is 
 peculiar to the New Testament. Not only do the 
 words, " the Holy Ghost," not occur in the ancient 
 Scriptures, but so neither does the phrase which is 
 obviously equivalent, " the Holy Spirit." Every one 
 knows, of course, that the Old Testament speaks of 
 the Spirit of God, as for example, T/ie Spirit of God 
 moved upon the face of the waters^ and the like ; 
 and God Himself speaks of " My Spirit ; " and the 
 Psalmist says. Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me ; '^ 
 and Isaiah twice mentions His Holy Spiritf and 
 the Lord is called, chiefly by Isaiah, " The Holy 
 One of Israeli' and the like ; but there is no phrase 
 • Gen. i. 2. ' pg^ jj^ ^^ 3 ija. Ixiii. 10, 11., cf. 14. 
 
^ 
 
 280 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 in the Old Testament answering to My Holy Spirit, 
 or the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Ghost We must 
 take careful note of that fact. 
 
 But now let us turn to the New Testament. We 
 find the phrase, the Holy Ghost, or the Holy Spirit, 
 occurring some seventy or eighty times ; and not 
 only so, but it is used by our Lord, by each of the 
 Evangelists, by the writer of the Acts, by St. Paul, 
 by St. Peter, by St. John, by St. Jude, and by the 
 writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. What then, 
 is the inference } Clearly that a phrase so remark- 
 able which is entirely new, which is peculiar to the 
 New Testament, and to which there is no precipe 
 parallel in the ancient Scriptures, was used to denote 
 a new fact, and was used in a sense which was also 
 new. At all events, we cannot deny that the phe- 
 nomena relating to this expression are altogether 
 new. 
 
 And then further, along with these new pheno- 
 mena we must notice the fact that the Gospel 
 professed to come as an influence which was en- 
 tirely new, which claimed to give men new life, 
 which demanded of them a new birth, which was 
 itself the very power of regeneration. 
 
 Also we must remember that the books known 
 as the New Testament stand out from the rest of 
 literature as an entirely new creation, as not only an 
 attempt to produce something new, but also as 
 literary productions distinct and separate from all 
 others, not only in degree, but in kind. Or if it were 
 
THE HOL V GHOST. 281 
 
 to be claimed for the writings of the Christian fathers, 
 for example, that they are separated from the books 
 of the New Testament, not in kind, but only in 
 degree, still this fact remains, that the impulse which 
 gave these writings their existence was derived from 
 the New Testament, which was itself an original 
 production. 
 
 What then, again, is the inference ? Clearly that 
 a power which professed to be new, and which, 
 undeniably, produced results so novel and so new, 
 was itself as new as the results which it produced. 
 In other words, that just as the language of the 
 New Testament, in the particular mentioned, is 
 evidence of a new spiritual fact, is clearly the first 
 attempt to express a new spiritual conception, so 
 the moral and spiritual facts which originated that 
 expression were also new. The Holy Ghost had 
 made Himself known to the writers of the New 
 Testament in a way He had not made Himself 
 known to the writers of the Old, and the revelation 
 was witnessed to, and the fact confirmed by, the 
 influence manifested in the language of the writers. 
 This, as it seems to me, is a perfectly fair and 
 legitimate conclusion, and one which no sophistry 
 or ingenuity can set aside. Our Lord distinctly 
 promised to send the Holy Ghost, His disciples 
 distinctly claimed to bestow the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost, the subsequent history of their actions, and 
 the results of their teaching, and the phenomena of 
 their language, show that the Holy Ghost was given 
 
282 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 and received as a new influence. And consequently 
 this gift of the Holy Ghost was the greatest proof 
 and confirmation of the mission of Jesus Christ, and 
 of the promise He made to His disciples. 
 
 Thus the mere linguistic phenomena of the New 
 Testament are, so far, collateral and corroborative 
 proof of its character and its origin. The features 
 are new, it speaks of something new, and it is itself 
 an evidence of a power now for the first time in 
 similar active operation. 
 
 I need only remind you of one remarkable pas- 
 sage in St. John to establish the correctness of what 
 I say. When Jesus said. He that believeth on Me^ as 
 the Scripture hath said^ out of his belly shall flow 
 rivers of living water, the Apostle adds, But this 
 spake He of the Spirit^ which they that believe on Him 
 should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet [given] 
 because that Jesus was not yet glorified} The word 
 " given " is in italics. His words are, The Holy Ghost 
 was not yet, that is, was not yet as a personal posses- 
 sion of believers. 
 
 It is, then, of this Holy Ghost that we are now 
 to speak. The Holy Ghost in His distinct and 
 individual existence is the special revelation of the 
 New Testament, Very instructive it would be to 
 run through all the passages in which mention is 
 made of Him and His work, with a view to ascer- 
 taining exactly that which is told us of Him. But 
 we cannot do this now. Any one who will take a 
 
 ' John vii. 38, 39. 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 283 
 
 L 
 
 concordance, which, be it observed in passing, is a 
 most valuable and instructive teacher, may do it 
 for himself. All that is needful to observe now, is 
 that the New Testament view of the Person and 
 office of the Holy Ghost differs materially, because 
 practically, from the theological view. The con- 
 7 fusion which we get into by mental endeavours to 
 ^ Conceive of one who is a separate, and yet not a 
 separated person; of one who is three, and yet not 
 three ; who is one, and yet not one, and the like, 
 is so great, at least, — I speak now from my own 
 experience — as to be fatal to anything of the nature 
 of simple earnest faith and fervent worship. Be- 
 lieve me, it is no part of Christian faith or practice 
 to be able to have in one's mind a clear and lucid 
 notion of the technical difference between the three 
 Persons of the ever blessed Trinity, and of the 
 distinct mode in which each works. 
 
 Let me quote here some words of an American 
 writer, which seem to me most appropriate and true. 
 "The Persons of the Godhead are not to be sepa- 
 ted one from another as to presence and place ; as 
 if one were with us here upon earth, and the other 
 away from us up in heaven. Where the Son is, 
 there the Father is in the Son ; and where the Son 
 is, and is revealed in any soul, there the Holy Spirit 
 is as the'revealer of the Son. So it comes to pass, 
 that he who has the Son has the Father and the 
 Spirit also. And he who is the temple of the Holy 
 Ghost is the temple of the Triune God ; and he who 
 
284 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 is in abiding union with Jesus, is in abiding union 
 with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." ^ Now 
 this expresses, in a very clear and practical manner, 
 what we may term the net result of that great 
 mystery which, as many of us have been accustomed 
 to regard it is, I am persuaded, a source of stumbling 
 and offence to many. 
 
 My brethren, there are not three Gods, neither is 
 God the Holy Ghost something which God is not, 
 or which is not God. Neither as when we speak of 
 the Spirit of God, do we speak of a distinct or 
 separate part of God, which is more Divine, or less 
 Divine than others, but just as the highest mathema- 
 tical science may be called a transcript of the mind 
 of God, because it expresses those eternal necessary 
 laws by which the Divine mind governs the material 
 universe, and guides the stars in their courses, but is 
 not otherwise holy than as all that He doeth is holy 
 and as the mental operations of the Divine mind 
 must be holy ; so also is the Spirit of God which 
 is apparent in the writings of Paul and John, the 
 highest operation and evidence of that fountain of 
 holiness which is in God, and which is the special 
 and the choicest characteristic of the nature of God. 
 It is self-evident that the combination of a Newton, 
 a Kepler, a Leibnitz, a La Place, a Pascal, and a 
 hundred other chiefest mathematicians would not 
 make one Isaiah ; and that, though when God gave 
 those great lights to mankind, He gave transcendant 
 
 * Boardman, The Higher Life, 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 285 
 
 geniuses to whom He discovered the secret workings 
 of His own mind, yet in giving them all, He did 
 not so pour out the riches of His grace, or make bare 
 His holy arm as when He gave to His chosen people 
 the prophet Isaiah, and yet each was a gift of God, 
 and each in His way was a revealer of God ; but it 
 was given to Isaiah to reveal that which no human 
 intellect could discover, and to speak under the in- 
 fluence of a Being whose very existence, as we have 
 seen, was but imperfectly revealed to him, but who 
 was to be more fully revealed hereafter. 
 
 The Holy Ghost, then, is a different and special 
 manifestation of the same God, and moreover He is 
 that manifestation of God in which we are specially 
 concerned as sinful creatures. As by the writer I 
 have just quoted it has been well said, " The Father 
 is all the fulness of the Godhead invisible. The Son 
 is all the fulness of the- Godhead manifest. The Spirit 
 is all the fulness of the Godhead making manifest." 
 And this is the office of the Holy Ghost to make 
 manifest. When Christ promised to send the Holy 
 Ghost, He promised to send a Spirit which should 
 make manifest. And as this Spirit did not come 
 historically till after Christ had gone, so, when He 
 came, he did most clearly and conclusively fulfil 
 what Christ had promised, for He made manifest to 
 the disciples the meaning and intention of all that 
 Christ had said and done. As a matter of fact, 
 which there is no denying. He did teach them all 
 things, and bring all things to their remembrance 
 
286 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 whatsoever He had said unto them. And if we 
 will not admit this reasoning, then we must affirm 
 that, the facts being what they are, the writers re- 
 sorted to the clumsy shift of ascribing these promises 
 to Christ in order to make more wonderful that 
 which was already so wonderful that it could not be 
 explained without them. 
 
 And, brethren, of all the names of the Holy 
 Ghost there is no name so sweet as this of the 
 Comforter. Even though it may not be the most 
 exact equivalent of the Saviour's own word 
 " Paraclete," yet being sanctioned by the usage of 
 five hundred years, for it is used by Wiclifif, 
 and being supported by the Troster of Luther's 
 Bible, we may well cling to it. For when the 
 Holy Spirit makes manifest to any one heart the 
 purposes and the will of God towards him, then it is 
 only to his comfort and to comfort him. Oh that 
 people knew the comfort of true religion. That it 
 was not something to make one timid and gloomy, 
 fearful at every moment of doing something which 
 would be visited upon us with unendurable severity, 
 but a present possession of holy calm filling the soul 
 with perfect peace. The Gospel is too often pro- 
 claimed as a threatened scourge, menacing chastise- 
 ment for the smallest offences, and exacting payment 
 to the uttermost farthing. For my part, I not only 
 can see no Gospel in this, but I believe it is utterly 
 opposed to that spirit of freedom and release which 
 the Gospel was to bring in, and is wholly ignorant of 
 
THE HOLY GHOST, 287 
 
 that blessing of pardon, free and full and final, which 
 was the special privilege of the Gospel. What 
 evidence is there in a religion like this, the religion 
 of servile fear, of the presence of the Holy Ghost 
 the Comforter ? None at all. The advocates of it 
 must confess with the disciples at Ephesus, We 
 have not so mtich as heard whether tJtere he any 
 Holy Ghost} The article of the Creed, " I believe in 
 the Holy Ghost " is indeed repeated as a charm or 
 talisman, too precious to forego, but the meaning of 
 belief in the Holy Ghost as in a person whose office 
 it is to comfort, and in whom we can repose our trust 
 is unknown. The Holy Ghost is an idol of the 
 mind, not the precious experience and abiding pos- 
 session of the heart. 
 
 "Oh," it will be said, "but you degrade the Holy 
 Spirit of God into a mere subjective feeling." No, I 
 reply, I do not. I do not identify any feeling of mine 
 with the substantive existence of the Holy Spirit, 
 but the substantive existence of the Holy Spirit is 
 nothing to me unless He works in me, and produces 
 an effect in me, and as far as His work in me is 
 concerned, I cannot separate His work in me from 
 the effect which that work produces. The work 
 which it was said He should produce, was the work 
 of comfort. He should strengthen and encourage 
 and console ; surely, at all times, a most Divine work, 
 and one altogether worthy of Him ; and if I find 
 that work produced in me, as Christ said it should 
 * Acts xix. 2. 
 
288 THE CHRISTIAN- CREED. 
 
 be produced, shall I turn round and deny it as the 
 work of the Holy Ghost, and say it is only a sub' 
 jective feeling of my own, which must be jealously 
 watched and carefully repressed. Then what be- 
 comes of the work of the Holy Ghost, so far as 
 that work is connected with comfort ? 
 
 And now I beg you to observe, that if we are 
 disciples of Christ, it is exactly this work which the 
 Holy Ghost is to perform. The Lord says nothing 
 here about making us holy. He speaks about giving 
 us comfort. If we follow the guidance of His own 
 words they will no doubt lead us right. The fact is 
 when the Holy Ghost doth comfort then He maketh 
 holy. He does not first make holy, and then com- 
 fort afterwards, because if so, who would be com- 
 forted .-* Are you so holy as to be able to take 
 comfort because you are holy } I trow not. All 
 such comfort, all such rejoicing is vain. But if you 
 suffer the Holy Ghost to comfort you, if you will 
 believe in His agency when He offers to comfort 
 you, then you may trust in Him to make you holy. 
 Depend upon it He will not come with comfort 
 where there is a lurking spirit of unholiness, just as 
 He will not come with comfort where there is a 
 lurking spirit of unbelief, whether in the truth of 
 Christ's Gospel or in the reality of His own agency ; 
 but if He comes with comfort. He will bring also 
 the gift of personal holiness. He will come with the 
 grace of sanctification. 
 
 It seems to me we have had rather too much 
 
THE HOL Y GHOST, 289 
 
 of the religion of the schoolmaster, Christianity 
 was to be a kind of moral or spiritual policeman, 
 perpetually parading up and down before our 
 windows, and reminding of this which we ought to 
 do, and of the other which we should not, and as a 
 matter of fact, religion became a thing of doing 
 and not doing. But surely the well-informed and 
 responsible manhood of Christian life is not satisfied 
 with this as any adequate expression of the mind of 
 Christ in the Gospel. The Gospel is described by 
 Him who first preached it as a healing of the 
 broken-hearted, a deliverance to the captives, a re- 
 covering of sight to the blind, a setting at liberty them 
 that are bound. I find, then, that spiritual emanci- 
 pation is the grand characteristic of the Gospel, not 
 legal restraint. I find that where the Spirit of the 
 Lord is, the Holy Spirit, there is liberty. I find, then, 
 that the Gospel, if it is to act with any power is to 
 set us free ; it is to give us peace, to make us clean 
 within, to give us thankfulness in prosperity and 
 cheerfulness in adversity — and this is the work of 
 the Holy Ghost. 
 
 " I believe in the Holy Ghost," then, means very 
 much more than " I believe that the Holy Ghost is 
 the third person in the ever-blessed Trinity ; that 
 He is separate from the Father and the Son, and 
 yet one with both, that He proceedeth not from one 
 only but from both," and very much of the same kind, 
 which is all very well if this sacred person were to 
 have only a name and no local habitation in our own 
 
 19 
 
290 • THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 hearts ; but if, on the other hand, He is only to be 
 known by His agency, and only to be discovered by 
 His fruits, then I say that we cannot separate His 
 influence from Himself, but must seek to know Him 
 through His hallowed influence on the heart. 
 
 This week is to be kept very generally in London 
 as a week of special intercession for more abundant 
 outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which is to be accom- 
 panied with special efforts to bring the indifferent 
 and the ungodly within the range of His blessed 
 operation. I am sure we shall all join in the most 
 devout and fervent aspirations that these blessed 
 objects may be attained, and shall earnesly pray that 
 every effort which is made in the faith of Christ, and 
 in dependence on the grace of God, may be blessed 
 abundantly with success. It is a great thing when 
 men so believe in the power of the Holy Ghost, and 
 in the power of prayer, as to combine together in 
 such a way as this, to ask for a larger outpouring of 
 His grace. It is the one petition to which we know 
 Avith absolute certainty that there is no limiting con- 
 dition. IJ y£ then, being evil,- know how to give good 
 gifts unto your children, how much 7nore shall your 
 heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
 Him} Though there may be many characteristics in 
 this movement, as it will be conducted, which may seem 
 to us to be not according to knowledge, yet what are 
 these but as the babbling and broken cries of children 
 calling on their Father who knoweth what things 
 
 ' Luke xi. 13. 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 291 
 
 they have need of before they ask Him, even if their 
 language is imperfect and stammering. And be it 
 ours, brethren, to pray also, that the cry may be 
 heard even more than we or they can ask or think; 
 that it may be answered, not according to our weak 
 intention or our poor endeavours, but according to 
 the grace and wisdom of Him who worketh all 
 things after the counsel of His own will ; who giveth 
 to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and is 
 able abundantly to supply all our need out of His 
 fulness in Christ Jesus. 
 
XXV. 
 THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities : for we know not what 
 we should pray for as we ought : but the Spirit itself maketh intercession 
 for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth 
 the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh 
 intercession for the saints according to the will of God. — Rom. viii. 26. 
 
 'T^O-DAY we pass on to the consideration of 
 ^ some of the other functions of the Holy Spirit 
 in His relation to us, reserving for the following 
 lecture the consideration of our duty in relation 
 to Him. The aspect in which we were led to re- 
 gard the Holy Spirit on Sunday last was that of a 
 Comforter. There are two aspects to the inherent 
 significance of this word comfort. One is that 
 which is now probably the more common one of 
 consolation, and it was this which chiefly occupied 
 us before ; the other is that of strengthening, the 
 giving of fortitude or strength, which will occupy us 
 to-day. The Apostle is~speaking of the trials of 
 the present state from which even the Christian is 
 not exempt, and to which he is even more exposed 
 than other men. He says, That the whole creation 
 groaneth and travaileth in pain together with ns even 
 
294 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 until now, that the burden of what has the appear- 
 ance of a curse is laid upon external nature as well 
 upon the beings who are made in the image of 
 God ; but that for us who believe there is not only a 
 present salvation in Christ, but also a future salvation 
 through hope. And in addition to this anticipated 
 redemption the Spirit of God also helpeth our infir- 
 mities, that is, not helpeth us to bear our infirmities 
 (which it is the object of earnest resolution and of 
 Christian discipline to lessen), but helpeth us to 
 bear the present burden of deferred adoption or 
 redemption of the body, by assisting us in rela- 
 tion to that burden, and making us strong to bear 
 it. 
 
 You will at once see, then, that here there enters 
 in the other office of the Comforter, not that of 
 consoling, but that of giving strength. The Spirit 
 itself helpeth our weakness to bear the burden laid 
 upon us, by giving us Christian fortitude, and 
 patience, and enduring courage. To St. Paul and 
 to the Romans we cannot for a moment doubt that 
 this was so, they had been made acquainted with 
 the whereabouts of supernatural strength, with a 
 fountain of Divine endurance, to which they had 
 continual access through prayer and the Spirit's 
 intercession. But how is it with ourselves.? We 
 have lately had the office of the Holy Spirit put 
 put before us in a very marked and sensational, 
 and even violent manner. His operation has been 
 invoked in the whirlwind and the earthquake and^ 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 295 
 
 the tempest, rather than in the still small voice in 
 which the prophet found Him. God forbid that we 
 should limit the agency of that Spirit whose opera- 
 tion has been compared to the wind which bloweth 
 where it listeth, and which can shatter the rocks 
 and overturn the mountains when He pleaseth. God 
 forbid that we should in any way discredit or dis- 
 courage any attempts that are, or have been, made 
 to overturn the mountains of difficulty and obstacle 
 that interpose themselves but too fatally to the work 
 of the Spirit in this place, and to break the rocky 
 hearts of prejudice, indifference, and unbelief that 
 exalt themselves on every side ; but forasmuch as 
 we have not all taken part in these special attempts, 
 slnd as we would earnestly hope there are some here 
 who do not need themselves to be the immediate ob- 
 jects of them, it is certainly allowable, and we would 
 hope it may be profitable, to contemplate the Divine 
 agency of the Holy Spirit in a somewhat different 
 aspect. And bear with us, brethren, if, as in the 
 presence of God, and by way of illustration, we 
 speak for a moment of ourselves and of our own 
 work. For almost sixteen years we have been 
 preaching the Word of God in this place. We have 
 devoted to that work the best of our power, our 
 energy, and our time. We have earnestly desired 
 and implored the Divine blessing on our labours. 
 What has been the result as far as we can humanly 
 judge ^ We do not know that one single soul has 
 been won for God. The arrows, however sharp 
 
296 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 and winged they may have been, have been arrows 
 shot in the dark. No great visible results have been 
 produced. Empty seats have not been filled, com- 
 municants have not been increased, multitudes have 
 not been added to our flock, still less added to the 
 Lord. Such facts as these call for the most serious 
 consideration and self-searching scrutiny. What has 
 been the cause of a failure so apparent and so trying, 
 if not so conspicuous } Has the message been at 
 fault 1 Has Christ not been preached t Have the 
 foundations of self not been shaken } Has the Holy 
 Spirit not been invoked, or has the need of His 
 personal agency been disparaged or overlooked t 
 Has the preacher's matter been jejune, or his manner 
 repellent } It is yours and not mine, brethren, 
 to answer questions such as these. Is there any 
 other fault near at home } Have we trusted to do 
 by might and by power what can alone be done by 
 the Spirit of the living God } I think not. Then 
 where, brethren, has been the fault t God knows 
 that we have tried to cut deep into the hearts and 
 consciences of men. God knows that we have tried 
 to get far beneath the surface, that we have tried to 
 bring Christ into contact with the individual heart. 
 If it has been all in vain, that, brethren, must rest 
 with those who have heard us and with God. If 
 there have not been, as some would say, many seals 
 to our ministry, we can but take refuge in the con- 
 fession of a greater than ourselves, and say, / have 
 laboured in vain, I have spejit my strength for 7toiight, 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 297 
 
 and in vain ; yet snrely my judgment is with the Lord, 
 a?id my work with my God} 
 
 And now the question arises, Is the work that is 
 so needful to be done to be accompHshed by other 
 agency ? Is the object confessedly to be to produce, 
 by whatever means can be brought to bear, a great 
 impression ? Are additional inducements and attrac- 
 tions, whatever such can be devised, to be laid under 
 requisition ? Is the church to be filled with eager 
 and expectant crowds by every conceivable expedient 
 (and I can only say that I wish it could be filled, not 
 for one day or one week, but for all days and every 
 week) or is there anything else to seek after and to 
 look for ? I confess that if there is not, then the 
 case is utterly hopeless ; but this has ever been our 
 hope. We have always been taught to believe, and 
 we have tried to act on the belief, that visible results 
 are fictitious and delusive ; that it was wisest neither 
 to look for nor to trust them ; — that the duty of 
 the Christian, and more especially of the Christian 
 minister, was to be regardless of results, to go on in 
 independence of, and with indifference to them, 
 believing assuredly that it was impossible to cal- 
 culate or to gauge the effects and issues of the word 
 preached ; — that being of the number of those who 
 disdain to make the preaching of the Gospel the / 
 engine for attaching to themselves friends and fol- I 
 lowers, the true and the only course was to steer J 
 right onward, to bate no jot of heart or hope, but to / 
 
 ' Isa. xlix. 4. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 leave all results and all consequences, all impressions, 
 fruits, and seals to the day of judgment and to God. 
 Whether or not this is right, brethren, time alone 
 will show, but this I hold to be the chiefest practical 
 duty, not only of the Christian preacher, but also of 
 the every day Christian. 
 
 The tide, however, of popular opinion is plainly 
 setting in the exactly opposite direction. The results 
 and impressions which confessedly are not produced, 
 if they are producible, by the ordinary means, must 
 be forthwith and at once produced by all and by 
 any means. Services must be multiplied, their cha- 
 racter revolutionised, another method adopted, other 
 machinery set in motion. Crowds must be gathered 
 together, and a great visible, or at least apparent, 
 effect produced. 
 
 Well, by all means let it be done ; let the churches 
 be filled, let the streets be emptied. Let multitudes 
 who have never thought on God and futurity if such 
 there be, assemble themselves and be turned unto 
 the Lord ; but I look at this matter in a practical 
 light, and decline to look at it in any other. What- 
 ever souls are thus brought to God, — for what are 
 they thus brought t That they may lead Christian 
 lives. Very well, and for what purpose are you and 
 I here now } That we may learn to do the same. 
 Precisely so, and for no other. If there is any one 
 who comes here for any other I cannot help that. 
 If, coming time after time to the wells of salvation, 
 you have gone away without drinking of them, or 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 299 
 
 without slaking your thirst I cannot help that. If, 
 coming time after time into the very presence of the 
 Crucified, you have not come into contact with Him, 
 have not touched Him, I cannot help that. If by 
 a different style of service, or a different style of 
 preaching, or by anything else a different effect can 
 be produced, by all means let it be produced. Only 
 beware of this, that you do not mistake the spurious 
 for the genuine. It is possible to go to church three 
 or four times a day, it is possible to take the sacra- 
 ment perpetually, and yet not to have that spiritual 
 life within the heart which can alone make the 
 presence in church of any value, or give any real 
 virtue to the act of communion. It is possible to 
 work the feelings and the imagination up to a great 
 degree of tension, to superinduce a fervour of excite- 
 ment, and yet not have that real thing within which 
 the Gospel calls faith, which can alone save the soul. 
 And again, although it may be highly desirable 
 that the vague generalities of any sermon may be 
 reduced to the specialities of what is technically 
 called the after-meeting, (what an extraordinary 
 development of language, by the way, unheard of 
 within the last few years or months), although it 
 may be even desirable that there should in certain 
 cases be direct spiritual converse between the 
 preacher and his flock, and although many of our 
 sermons may fall fruitless and ineffective, because 
 the questions they may have suggested have not 
 been asked, and therefore not been answered — ^yet 
 
300 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 I should imagine that the only legitimate purpose 
 and object of such intercourse, is to make all who 
 seek for it independent of it. For I believe it to be 
 a universal law of healthy, vigorous spiritual life, to 
 be self-supporting, and self-dependent, as our Lord 
 indicated, when He said, He that believeth on Me, 
 as the Scripttire hath said, out of his belly shall 
 flow rivers of living water} It is here, brethren, and 
 it is well that you should know it, that there lies the 
 radical vice of that practice of confession, which is 
 openly, to the shame of Christianity in this nine- 
 teenth century, and in this reformed church, being 
 introduced among us, but too commonly in the 
 present day. 
 
 My brethren, we are not alarmists, but we say 
 boldly, and with as much emphasis and weight as 
 we can command, Men and women, fathers and 
 mothers, husbands and wives of England, beware of 
 the confessional ! We say so, not to join in an 
 ignorant popular cry against it, which is sometimes 
 raised, but because the very principle it implies 
 strikes at the root of that self- sustained and 
 righteous independence and inalienable liberty of 
 a pure and single-eyed conscience which is the 
 necessary product of a true Christianity. We were 
 informed by the leading organ of popular opinion 
 yesterday, that the requisite machinery for confession 
 is now in public operation, in a notorious church 
 in London, as it is in Roman churches abroad. 
 
 ' John vii. 38. 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 301 
 
 Surely the time has come to ask, Fellow-countrymen, 
 and fellow-citizens, will you stand this ? Is it not 
 the duty of every Christian minister to lift up his 
 voice against it ? Is it not the duty of every 
 Christian layman to echo and gbiQ effect and influ- 
 ence to that voice wherever and in whatever way 
 he can ?^ Public opinion, when once created and 
 aroused, is a power that is irresistible. 
 
 But you will say to me, How have you fulfilled 
 your promise, and how does all this bear upon the 
 text? It bears upon it in this way, that whatever 
 may be the throes and travail pangs, by which a soul 
 is cast naked at the feet of Jesus, yet the living 
 result of the Spirit's work in after life must be 
 sought in calmness, quietness, and confidence, and 
 not in the constant repetition of such stringent and 
 stimulating methods of operation as have been 
 referred to. To prepare to die may be the work of 
 an hour, or of a moment ; but to prepare to live must 
 be the work of a lifetime. If you have not been 
 really converted to God, that is your affair and no 
 one's but yours. If you have, then your highest and 
 unceasing effort must be to live as those who have 
 been turned from darkness unto light, and from the 
 power of Satan unto God. 
 
 And this I take it, you will not find easy. The 
 atmosphere of everyday life is more chilling than 
 
 ^ Recent notorious events connected with The Priest in Absolution 
 have furnished an instructive commentary on the observations in the 
 text, which were written some years ago, and have shown them to be 
 neither exaggerated nor uncalled ior.—Se^t. 1877. 
 
302 THE CHRISTIAN CREED, 
 
 that of the hour of prayer, and the hour of com- 
 munion with Christ. It is easy to make one grand 
 effort and subside ; it is not easy to make a lifelong 
 effort of daily and hourly bearing of the cross, of 
 daily and hourly government of the thoughts, the 
 temper, and the tongue. Oh, how much easier it is 
 to go to Church, and even (hard as some of you no 
 doubt find it) to listen to a sermon, than it is to bear 
 up with manful Christian fortitude against the in- 
 evitable rebukes of life ; to go on in the path of duty, 
 when the path of duty does not go on with you; to 
 be true, patient, forbearing, hopeful, cheerful and 
 resigned, to curb the biting sarcasm, or restrain the 
 dubious jest ; to live habitually in the presence of God, 
 and in the continual communion of the Holy Ghost. 
 And yet, will anyone tell me, that less than this is 
 the Christian life, and that anything which does not 
 issue in this, as a lifelong habit, is worthy to be 
 called conversion. 
 
 The function of the Holy Ghost, then, is to make 
 us strong to bear the ills of life, the disappointments, 
 frettings, worries, vexations, annoyances of daily and 
 hourly existence. He or she who knows little of the 
 ecstatic rapture of devotion, or of the luxury of a 
 sustained effort of prayer, or of the sweetness of 
 drinking in a fervent and impassioned discourse, 
 may yet know something of the calmer and no 
 less blessed influences of the Holy Spirit, who is the 
 author of peace, and not of confusion, who is the 
 lover of order, and not of disorder. He or she who 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 303 
 
 would be sorely puzzled to take part in a so-called 
 ' chain of prepetual intercession/ or to emulate those 
 who made long prayers at the corners of the streets, 
 may yet derive strength and encouragement from 
 the thought that there is a Spirit who for believers 
 maketh intercession with groanings which cannot be 
 uttered. Yes, brethren, for believers, for the Holy 
 Spirit is the very joy and crown of believers, of those 
 who having by faith become personally and vitally 
 united to Christ, have the earnest of the Spirit in 
 their hearts. If you, being led by the Spirit of God, 
 have the prescribed evidence that you are the sons 
 of God, if you have received not the Spirit of 
 bondage to repeated and continual fear, but the 
 Spirit of adoption, whereby you can cry Abba, 
 Father, then you may rejoice to think that prayer is 
 the Spirit's own work, that it is a very real and not 
 a formal thing, that it consists not in the repetition 
 of stated formulas, but in the uplifting of the secret, 
 silent heart to God, by a spontaneous, ever-recurrent, 
 never wholly discontinued effort in which the im- 
 parted Spirit within holds its mystic converse with 
 the central and fountain Spirit in heaven. Then 
 you may take courage at the thought that if your 
 heart is in union with the heart of God, which no 
 will-worship, no compliance with external precepts 
 will ever bring about, but which is the promised seal 
 of the Spirit upon faith in Jesus, then He who is the 
 Searcher of all hearts knoweth what is the mind of 
 the Spirit — His own Spirit — in your heart, and that 
 
304 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 though through your manifold weakness, infirmity 
 and ignorance you may know not what to pray 
 for, nor know how to pray for it, as you ought, yet 
 nevertheless there is a Spirit making intercession for 
 you, though His language is inaudible, and His 
 groanings cannot be uttered, nor His sighs expressed. 
 For, lastly, more than all, this Spirit intercedes, 
 even as Christ intercedes, not that the will of God 
 may be contravened and thwarted, but according to 
 the will of God that it may be fully done. It is 
 with God's own will that the Spirit moves in har- 
 mony, not in opposition to it; or as though if God's 
 will left to itself were carried out, it would have a 
 different issue to the will of the Spirit, or of Christ, 
 for He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is 
 the mind of the Spirit^ and that His aspirations and 
 desires are, and can be, only for the more abundant 
 and successful accomplishment of the good, and 
 acceptable, and perfect will of God. 
 
XXVI. 
 
 THE HOL V GHOST. 
 
 Grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the 
 day of redemption. — Eph. iv. 30. 
 
 NOT only is the clear revelation of the Holy 
 Spirit of God the special glory of Christianity, 
 but it is remarkable also that this revelation is ac- 
 companied with an equally clear recognition of 
 corresponding duties which devolve upon ourselves 
 in consequence. There is no more forcible state- 
 ment of these obligations anywhere than that which 
 is made in this place, which entreats us not to grieve 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The language is, in the highest degree, anthro- 
 pomorphic, though it does not belong to an 
 anthropomorphic age. Had it occurred in the 
 ancient books of Moses, it might have been thus 
 explained away ; but it occurs at a time when, in 
 the Christian Church, at least, the knowledge of 
 God was in the very zenith of its brilliancy. In 
 this respect, however, the earliest and the latest 
 books of Scripture are in accordance, for Moses in 
 old time had written. It repented the Lord that He 
 
 20 
 
3o6 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 had made ma7i on the earth, and it grieved Him at 
 His heart} Now the revelation of St. Paul was 
 higher than that of Moses, and yet he adopts pre- 
 cisely the same image. 
 
 It appears, then, that holy and true men, wherever 
 their lot is cast, and whatever may be their outward 
 circumstances, agree in this, that the wickedness of 
 jnan is an occasion of grief and pain to God. We 
 may speculate and philosophise about this as we 
 please, in trying to find out how it is possible that 
 God can be sensible to pain or grief; but here is the 
 fact, if fact it is, or, at all events, here is the clear 
 and unfaltering statement. 
 
 The waywardness, and wilfulness, and perversity 
 of man's heart must either be regarded by God with 
 indifference and unconcern, or with approbation, or 
 with sorrow and grief, that is to say, if there is any 
 reality in the nature and heart of God which at all 
 answers to this human language. It is obvious 
 that we cannot worthily speak of the Almighty. 
 We can name His name, but higher than that our 
 language cannot reach. Whatever we predicate of 
 Him must be borrowed from the impoverished and 
 scanty treasuries of earth, must therefore fall short 
 of the true, if it does not suggest the false. Now, 
 the true question is. What is the position of human 
 language here > Does it suggest the false, or merely 
 fail adequately to express the true } As far as we 
 can at all trust the conclusions of our own mind, the 
 * Gen. vi. 6. 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 307 
 
 Statement just ventured must include every possible 
 aspect of the matter, and within the limits assigned 
 the actual truth must necessarily lie. 
 
 But heart and conscience alike bear witness that 
 God cannot regard the sin of man with approbation. 
 God must be greater than man, and holier than man. 
 Man cannot regard his own sin, or, at least, the sin 
 of his fellow-man, with approbation, therefore it is 
 clearly impossible that God can do so. The disap- 
 probation man feels must be but the measure and 
 not the multiple of that which is felt by God. 
 
 The only question, therefore is, whether man's sin 
 is regarded by the Almighty with indifference and 
 unconcern, or with sorrow and grief, always imply- 
 ing, of course, that these terms are used as only 
 defective expressions of the truth. 
 
 And this question is a very fair representation of 
 the issue between revelation and no revelation. If 
 God has given no revelation to man in His Word, 
 or has given us, in what we so term, a fictitious 
 revelation, a revelation which is deceptive and 
 illusory, then it is impossible to acquit the Almighty 
 Judge of all men of absolute indifference and un- 
 concern to all human action and to all matters of 
 sublunary interest. And, as a matter of fact, this 
 was how the heathen of old had become accustomed 
 to consider that the gods did regard themselves 
 and their actions, being not conscious of any valid 
 reason to the contrary ; but as a matter of no less 
 certain fact, the writers of the Bible being conscious. 
 
3o8 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 as they were, of a special and direct revelation had 
 learnt to look at this matter in a totally different 
 aspect. They had been told by the Spirit which 
 searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God, 
 that man's sin was to Him not merely an object of 
 disgust and hatred, that the unenlightened conscience 
 was only too ready to suspect, but yet more of grief 
 and sorrow. 
 
 And, surely, if the shrinking from expected judg- 
 ment is in any sense a revelation of God in the 
 heart, an answer however wrong and imperfect to 
 the voice of God without, which it certainly is, then 
 the deep and energetic conviction that we find in 
 the sacred writers of a different nature in God, which 
 could not only rebuke and chasten, but much more 
 could grieve and sorrow over, sin, was a higher, 
 further, and truer revelation than the other, and one 
 which, seeing it had historically not been aroused 
 in the natural heart, had every just right and claim 
 to be recognised as awakened by God Himself. 
 
 To Moses this conviction was vouchsafed in 
 consequence of a redemption which had been 
 commenced, and which he was assured would be 
 completed finally. To St. Paul and the Ephesian 
 Christians it was given in consequence of a redemp- 
 tion which had been accomplished in a Man, and 
 had been communicated to themselves. Certain 
 facts had taken place which had reduced to a 
 tangible certainty the merely abstract truth that 
 God cherished care for man. He had sent His Son 
 
THE HOL Y GHOST, 309 
 
 with messages from heaven which bore on their very- 
 surface more of the stamp of the ideal heavenly 
 than any others ; He had laid down His life in 
 defence and attestation of those messages, showing 
 thereby that the messages were genuine and authen- 
 tic ; He had risen from the dead to show that He 
 had personally the power to triumph over the 
 enemies of mankind, and to cast out their inherent 
 weakness, and to absolve them from their hopeless 
 captivity to sin, and withal He had shed abroad 
 upon them another Spirit which was identical with 
 His own, and the like of which they had never 
 experienced before. This was the Holy Spirit of 
 the living God which had come upon them as a seal 
 when they had surrendered themselves to the faith 
 of Christ. 
 
 What is a seal.? It is the recognised attestation of 
 validity and good faith, it is the witness of truth, it 
 is the pledge of security and of mutual obligation. 
 The Holy Spirit was all this to these believers. He 
 is all this to believers now. We do despite to the 
 Spirit of Grace, when we suppose that the historic 
 era of His operation has passed by. When we, 
 with false modesty and delusive humility, suppose 
 that a sign, which was vouchsafed at Ephesus, will 
 not be given in London, that a pledge which was 
 bestowed upon St. Paul will not be given to our- 
 selves. These people believed in Jesus Christ as a 
 living Man available to themselves and within their 
 reach, who was to them the direct and palpable link 
 
 ^ 
 
3IO THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 which individually bound and united them to God. 
 Each man saw in Jesus the Christ or chosen of God, 
 in whom he personally could lay hold on God, 
 could find God, could know God and retain God. 
 Each man found that in Jesus he had the strength, 
 the righteousness, the forgiveness, the favour, the 
 goodness and sweetness of God. Each man felt 
 that in touching Jesus, he touched God, that in 
 grasping Jesus he passed into and became one 
 with God. There was at once the abolition of 
 sin, the realisation of pardon, the enjoyment of 
 the grace of God. All this was to each man 
 not a theory, not a fiction of the mind, but a 
 felt reality, an experience. Each man took Jesus 
 for this, and found all this in Jesus. He became to 
 him the Christ, the fulness of God the manifested 
 God. He was to them health, salvation, joy, peace, 
 redemption, holiness, fulness of satisfaction, com- 
 pleteness of repose, assurance of acceptance and 
 Divine favour, the certainty of Divine truth, as well 
 as the promise of eternal life. Being all this to 
 each Ephesian convert, Jesus became to him the 
 source and fountain of a new gift, the bestower of 
 the Holy Spirit of God. Each believer knew now 
 that he was animated and actuated by a new spirit, 
 the spirit of exuberant and abounding joy, the 
 spirit of purity, and of unutterable sweetness in 
 communion with God. This new and hitherto in- 
 experienced flood of overflowing bliss in the realised 
 presence of God and the assured favour of God 
 
THE HOL V GHOST. 3 1 1 
 
 was to each believer the seal of the truth of Jesus. 
 He who had thus attested Himself to the conscience 
 of those who had yielded themselves to Him, who 
 had given Himself to them in the fulness of His 
 Christ glories and functions who had unreservedly 
 surrendered themselves to Him, was and could be 
 none other than the Christ, the chosen and promised 
 One of God, who was Himself anointed with the 
 Holy Spirit, that He might shed forth, as from a 
 fountain in Himself, the gifts of the Holy Spirit 
 upon His chosen ones. The reality of this gift was 
 the seal of the reality of His claims, of the validity 
 of His power to do that which they had believed 
 He was able and willing to do for thern. They 
 knew now that the question. What is truth ? which 
 had so often seemed to perplex them, had virtually 
 resolved itself to them. They had believed the 
 offers of Jesus Christ, and the claims of Jesus Christ 
 to be true, and lo, He had proved Himself to them 
 to be the truth. Henceforth they would no more be 
 like children, tossed to and fro, and carried about 
 with every wind of doctrine, but being established 
 in Him, would be established in the truth. 
 
 For the gift of the Holy Spirit was the pledge 
 also of security. Having wandered so long in 
 devious paths of error and folly, and having now 
 returned to the Shepherd and overseer of their souls, 
 they would wander no more. They had not yet 
 come to the heavenly inheritance, they had a long 
 march, a severe struggle, a desperate conflict before 
 
'312 7HE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 them, they had yet to take possession, though they 
 had received the promise of possession. But He who 
 had already done so much, would not leave His 
 work half undone. He would accomplish that which 
 was begun, He who was the redeemer, and had re- 
 vealed Himself as the redeemer, would assuredly 
 redeem. And the Holy Spirit was the harbinger and 
 earnest of the still future day of redemption, He 
 was Himself the very pledge and warranty of the 
 perfect and manifested individual salvation which 
 would assuredly come, but had hitherto not been so 
 much as dreamt of, when death would be cast out, 
 and this human personality would itself participate 
 in the unseen but heavenly and eternal glories of 
 the Lord. 
 
 This, undoubtedly was the position of St. Paul and 
 of his disciples at Ephesus. There is no question 
 about that. The only question can be how far our 
 own position answers to it. We have lately been 
 praying for the gift of the Holy Spirit, — that at least 
 was the ostensible object of the late ' mission,' but if 
 that object is to be attained, this is assuredly how 
 the gift of the Holy Spirit will manifest itself And 
 there is no reason why it should not thus manifest 
 itself to-day. I know there are those here who 
 have not thus felt His influence ; I know there are 
 those here who would deride it, who would regard it 
 all as so much infatuation. No wonder preaching 
 is useless when the ears are thus closed. Why, the 
 •archangel Gabriel himself could not open them ! 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 313 
 
 But depend upon it, this is not infatuation, if the 
 Epistle to the Ephesians is a reality, and it has been 
 a reality for eighteen hundred years. Here is the 
 written record of the Spirit's influence written in 
 such a way as to stand for ever. It is no question 
 whatever of authorship. It matters not one iota 
 whether Paul wrote this letter, — I have no doubt he 
 did ; or whether he sent it to Ephesus, — it very pro- 
 bably was sent there ; it was written, and it was read, 
 and as it was read it was endorsed by the answer of 
 the Spirit recognising His own work in ttie hearts of 
 those who read it. If it is not endorsed in your 
 hearts, I speak now only to the few, I trust, it is 
 not endorsed because and only because the Spirit's 
 assuring work is lacking there. You do not believe 
 in Jesus Christ, and therefore you cannot shew the 
 work of the Spirit written in your hearts. As long 
 as unbelief in Jesus, who is the giver of the Spirit, 
 lurks there, He will not, cannot, give the Spirit. 
 You have not accepted Him, He has oftentimes 
 been very near you, but you have not closed with 
 Him, you have not reached forth your hand and 
 grasped Him. You have not, as He was passing by, 
 stealthily, shrinkingly, and yet confidently touched 
 His garment. He is to you an unknown, because 
 an untried Saviour, that is why you know nothing of 
 pardon, nothing of holiness, nothing of sweetness, 
 nothing of peace. You let the fatal — I had almost 
 said the accursed — questionings of the intellect come 
 between your soul and Him. You debate this, and 
 
314 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 argue the other, with your proud and self-confident 
 intellect, and meanwhile the Saviour has passed by. 
 " Oh, it was only a vision, nothing but thin air." He 
 will not stand that sort of thing, He did not come 
 to save such as you, for you decline to be saved, you 
 laugh at His salvation. 
 
 There are two invisible elements in man, the 
 intellect and the spirit, they are distinct and separate 
 as the body and the soul are separate. You cannot 
 tell where the two unite, anymore than you can tell 
 where the body and the soul unite. That element in 
 man, by which Christ's salvation reaches the central 
 man, is not the intellect any more than it is the body. 
 Christ's salvation cannot reach you through your 
 body. There were many who touched the body of 
 Christ who were not saved by Him. Christ's salvation 
 must reach you, and reach you only, through the spirit. 
 When it so reaches you, your intellect will be 
 saved, and your body will be saved. You must lay 
 aside your intellect if you would have your spirit 
 saved, and when your spirit is saved, when Christ's 
 salvation has reached you, as it can alone reach you 
 through your spirit, then your intellect will acknow- 
 ledge the Spirit's salvation in its own deliverance, 
 and emancipation, for your intellect will thankfully 
 accept Christ as the truth of God and the wisdom 
 of God, and your intellect being enabled to expatiate 
 on the truth and wisdom of God will rest content in 
 the abundance of its joy. 
 
 And now, my dear friends, to press the matter one 
 
THE HOL Y GHOST. 315 
 
 step farther, as with a parting word, Why should it 
 not be so with you? There is nothing overdrawn or 
 exaggerated in what I have said. I have spoken of 
 facts, of things that I know to be realities, and they 
 may be realities to you. You may now, this very 
 moment, if you will, be sealed with that holy Spirit 
 of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance 
 until the redemptioji of the purchased possession unto 
 the praise of His glory} Have you received the 
 Holy Ghost since you believed ? If not, then it is 
 because your belief is a merely nominal belief. You 
 have not taken Jesus as I have put Him before you, 
 so as to make Him yours. You have not in Him 
 received the fulness of God. You have not given 
 Him your sins, your weakness, your timidity, your 
 unwillingness, your reluctance, your temptations, your 
 trials, your very self. You stand aloof from Him. 
 You are like a man in a nightmare, who has some- 
 thing within his reach which he cannot reach, he 
 longs to reach it, he seems to try to reach it, he 
 upbraids himself for not reaching it, but he wakes 
 and finds it gone. In this case, however, there is no 
 nightmare, it is a waking reality, it is within your 
 reach, and you may reach it if you will, you can 
 reach it if you try. You may touch Him now if 
 you will. There, did you touch Him then ? oh ye 
 faithless ones, how can ye be sealed unto the day 
 of redemption.? How can you be saved if you reject 
 the Saviour when He offers to save you — when 
 
 ■ Eph. i. 13, 14. 
 
 + 
 
3i6 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 He presents Himself within your reach, and you put 
 Him by ? Is not this to grieve the Holy Spirit of 
 God, whereby you might be sealed if you only would? 
 His seal is pardon, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, 
 power of endurance, inextinguishable hope whose 
 horizon is eternity and not time. But above all it is 
 the fulness of assurance and satisfaction, the sense of 
 spiritual completeness, of personal wholeness, which 
 is imaged to us by what is said of her who felt in 
 her body that she was healed of that plague. 
 
 I do trust there are some of you here to-day who 
 will determine to prove and verify for themselves, ere 
 the night close on them, the truth of what I have 
 been saying. Do not believe it because I say it, but 
 do not reject it because I say it. Test it for yourselves, 
 and then you will know the truth of it. The issue 
 is one in which the Almighty yearnings are specially 
 interested and moved. God is not an indifferent 
 spectator to the mental struggles of man, any more 
 than a father is to the opening character of his 
 child. What He desires is mutuality of surrender ; 
 He has surrendered Himself to you, He is now 
 offering to do so again. Your part is to surrender, 
 there is no other word that expresses it so well. 
 Give it over, yield yourself a helpless and therefore 
 a willing and an absolute surrender unto Him. 
 You can do nothing else, but you can do this, and 
 then you will know that He is the very joy of your 
 heart, and that He will be your portion for ever. 
 
XXVII. 
 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, 
 
 Which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. — 
 Ephesians i. 23. 
 
 " T BELIEVE in the Holy Catholic Church" is 
 ■^ that article of the Creed which follows on from 
 the one which we last considered, " I believe in the 
 Holy Ghost." Its relative position in the Nicene 
 Creed is the same, for there it succeeds the con- 
 fession with respect to the Third Person of the 
 Trinity, "Who spake by the Prophets," and the 
 form it assumes is, " I believe one Catholic and 
 Apostolic Church." From the combined confession of 
 the two Creeds, then, we obtain these characteristics 
 of the Church, that it is One, that it is Holy, that it is 
 Catholic, that it is Apostolic. We will take these 
 characteristics of the Church as they stand in order. 
 
 But first, with regard to the position of the article 
 on the Church in both the Creeds. The Church is the 
 creation of the Holy Spirit. The Church of Christ is 
 the Spirit's work. As in the book of Genesis we are 
 told that the Spirit of God moved on the abysmal 
 and chaotic waters till it formed of them the order 
 which now delights our senses and instructs our 
 
Y 
 
 318 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 minds, so we are taught that the Holy Spirit in the 
 new creation brooded on the face of the natural, 
 confused and unformed mass of humanity, till there 
 was produced that phenomenon of history which is 
 apparent to the observation and philosophy of the 
 believer and the unbeliever alike — the visible Church 
 of Christ. This, we are led to infer, is the result of 
 the Holy Spirit's operation. 
 
 Again, for the first time in the Creed, the expres- 
 sion " I believe " is applied to an object of which 
 there can be no opportunity of doubt. The Church, as 
 a matter of fact, exists. No one can call in question 
 the existence of the Church of Christ any more than 
 he can that of the Ottoman Empire or of the French 
 Republic. There it is, account for the phenomenon 
 and explain its existence as we may. The history 
 of the Church must remain for ever, whether we are 
 Christians or whether we are not, the most important 
 chapter in the history of the world and the history 
 of mankind that has ever been written. And it is 
 impossible to conceive that any chapter more im- 
 portant can ever in the future be written. 
 
 The visible Church of Christ, then, is not, strictly 
 speaking, an object of faith at all. It is an object of 
 sight as much as the sun in the heavens, or the exis- 
 tence of man upon the earth. Every article of the 
 Creed hitherto has made, in one way or other, a 
 direct appeal to the faculty of faith. " I believe in 
 God the Father," " I believe in Jesus Christ," " I 
 believe in the Holy Ghost," and the like, each draws 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 319 
 
 upon the exercise of the believing faculty, either as a 
 niatter of historic verity, or as an object transcending 
 the apprehension of the ordinary powers to which the 
 objects of sense appeal. But here it is different. 
 The existence of the Church is not a thing to be y 
 believed, it is a thing to be seen. 
 
 And that, brethren, is a thought worth pondering. 
 For the undoubted present existence of a fact so 
 patent, inevitably and imperatively demands some 
 explanation of its existence. What was its origin } 
 There was a time when it was not. There are lands ' 
 where it is not now. What was it brought the 
 Church into existence in the past ? What is it y 
 brings the Church into existence now .-* The Chris- 
 tian has an answer which may well challenge dis- 
 proof, inasmuch as when all things are considered no 
 other will be found satisfactory, which is, the being 
 and operation of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Although, however, the existence of the Church of 
 Christ is an obvious fact, demanding an explanation 
 of the enquiring and philosophic mind like any other 
 fact, and as such is not strictly within the limits of 
 things to be believed, yet there is an aspect of its 
 existence in which it passes strictly and accurately 
 within those limits. And for this reason it is that 
 " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," finds its 
 place among the articles of the Christian Creed. 
 And this aspect is its existence, independently of 
 our observation, as an object of which the senses can 
 jtake no cognisance. Most instructive, therefore^ is 
 
320 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 the occurrence of these words in the symbol of our 
 belief, because by them the Church is taken out of 
 the category of things to be merely seen, and placed 
 with those others which either cannot be seen at all, 
 or which, being patent to observation, like the life of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, appeal also, like Him, to other 
 
 >^ faculties than those of sight and sense for the full 
 apprehension of their being. 
 
 We are not warranted, therefore, in taking the 
 expression " I believe," when applied to the Church, 
 in a sense different from that in which we take it 
 elsewhere, as though its meaning were, " I believe, 
 not only in the existence of the Church," which none 
 can doubt, " but also in the absolute verity of all that 
 the Church has taught : I believe, not only that the 
 Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, but also 
 that it is indefectible and infallible : I believe, not 
 only in the Church as an organised and corporate 
 society, but also as an authoritative teacher of abso- 
 lute and indubitable truth." This, however accurately 
 it may express the belief of many Christians, is 
 unquestionably no part of the Apostles' Creed. We 
 are not required to believe by the Scriptures of 
 
 r Divine revelation — we are not warranted in believing 
 by the earliest Christian Creed — that God has 
 committed to mankind any authentic, living, standard 
 of infallible truth. 
 
 And a great blessing it is that we are not required 
 to believe that, and that we are not charged with the 
 responsibility of establishing an allegiance to it in 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, 321 
 
 the face of obstinate and awkward facts. Those 
 who would claim for the Church any such function as 
 this, must read into the word " believe " as it applies 
 to this article of the Creed, a meaning quite different 
 from that which it bears in every other instance^ 
 They must say, not merely " I believe in the 
 Church," but " I believe the Church." " I believe," 
 that is, " as infallible and incontrovertible, every- 
 thing which has been propounded in the name of 
 the Church, if only it comes with sufficient pomp 
 and paraphernalia — if only it can make good its 
 claim to be an article, which a respectable majority 
 of people, calling themselves Catholic and Apostolic, 
 have at any time believed." 
 
 Now this, I, for one, must emphatically protest 
 against, and most distinctly do not believe. Any 
 such view of the functions of the Church must result 
 in one of two positions. Either we must believe 
 that the Church has been continuous, unbroken and 
 progressive from the first, that her existence has 
 been maintained by an obstinate and persistent 
 method of rejecting everything which interfered with 
 her development in one direction as is the case with 
 the Church of Rome, who has, in our own days, 
 signally verified and illustrated her policy of devel- 
 opment and progress by incorporating into her Creed 
 ambiguous doctrine, declaring it infallible, and ana- 
 thematising those who decline to accept it — or we 
 must fall back upon the ideal Church of the first 
 three centuries, before violent and unnatural attempt^ 
 
 21 
 
322 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 at outward unity had resulted in dismemberment 
 and disorganisation, which is in fact equivalent to a 
 confession that there is actually in the present no 
 Church answering to our fond ideal of the past 
 coupled with an ardent and impossible hope that 
 eventually there may be. 
 
 Now in contradistinction let us rather say than 
 in opposition to these two conceptions of the Church, 
 we adopt the language of the Creed, and declare 
 " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church." Conse- 
 quently, as the first essential of the existence of the 
 Church, as a reality not obvious to the senses, I 
 believe in the invisibility of the Church of Christ. 
 The Church is a spiritual body, having indeed an 
 outward and visible existence, which cannot be 
 denied, but by no means dependent upon the 
 outward and visible limits of her existence for the 
 truth and reality of her being. The real Church of 
 Christ is not that which I see, whether in Rome, 
 England, or Russia, but exactly that which I cannot 
 see either here or there, but that which I believe 
 exists, and the limits and conditions of whose exist- 
 ence are known to Christ alone. Thus the true 
 and veritable Church of Christ, in which I believe, 
 is a Church which I cannot see, and the limits of 
 which I cannot define. 
 
 Oh, you will say, this is something very shadowy 
 and indistinct ; we want something palpable, some- 
 thing tangible, something which we can determine, 
 so that we may be able to decide whether or not we 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 323 
 
 ourselves are in it. Yes, my brethren, and it is that 
 which I cannot give you, and which I believe Christ 
 has not given you. The idea of " God the Father 
 Almighty " must be something shadowy and indis- 
 tinct, so must that of " Jesus Christ His only Son, 
 our Lord," so must that of the " Holy Ghost." We 
 are dealing with things which we believe, and not 
 with things which we can see, for we walk by faith 
 and not by sight} It is analogous, therefore, to the 
 rest of God's revelation that the Church of His Son 
 is not only visible, which is a fact, but likewise in- 
 visible, and an object of faith not to be apprehended 
 by the senses, but by the enlightened faculties of the 
 spiritual mind. 
 
 And now observe the consequences of thus believ- 
 ing in the Church. We are for ever delivered from 
 the responsibility of determining which is the true 
 Church. How many anxious souls in these latter 
 days have vexed themselves about this vexed 
 question, and are still vexing themselves. Which and 
 where is the true Church } Is the Church of England 
 with her various crudities, anomalies, enormities, 
 absurdities, contradictions, and scandals, a branch of 
 the true Church } I confess that if I believed there 
 was any mystical virtue in a visible Church, I should 
 at once, and without the slightest hesitation, say No, 
 she cannot be. If I am to have an outward and 
 visible Church, compact and definite, then give me 
 the Church of Rome, whose existence is not 
 ' 2 Cor. V. 7. 
 
324 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 merely on a piece of parchment, the result of a 
 compromise between conflicting parties, and the 
 creation of an act of Parliament which a vote of the 
 House of Commons may at any time dissolve. But 
 believing, as I am taught by the Creed to do, that 
 the Church of Christ is an invisible and spiritual ex- 
 istence created by the operation of the Holy Spirit, I 
 can regard with indifference any discussion as to the 
 locality of the true Church, because I am well assured 
 that the Church of England cannot shut me out of 
 it, and that the Church of Rome cannot put me into 
 it. The true Church is that which has the presence 
 of Christ and the possession of the Spirit of God. 
 And of this Church Christ Himself has said, Where 
 two or three — the thing is unconditional and un- 
 limited — where two or three are gathered together in 
 My name there a^n I in the midst of them ; ^ and If 
 ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your 
 children, how much more shall your heavenly Father 
 give the Holy Spirit to the^n that ask Him? And of 
 this Church, St. Paul has said, that it is Christ's 
 body, the fidness of Him that filleth all in all. ^ 
 Wherever, therefore, there is the fulness of Christ, 
 there is the true Church. 
 
 Again, by thus believing in the Church, we are 
 for ever delivered from anxieties arising from the 
 present condition of the outward Church. It is 
 hardly possible to exaggerate the outward condition 
 of the Church, take it where you will, in Greece, or 
 
 • Matt, xviii. 20. ^ Luke xi. 13. ' Eph. i. 23. 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, 325 
 
 Rome, or England, in conformity or nonconformity- 
 alike ; and I, for one, do not grudge the utmost that 
 the unbeliever and the adversary may choose to 
 make of so promising and fruitful a theme. For my 
 reply is, the home of the Christian is not here, and 
 the Church of the Christian is not here. He is not 
 dependent for his life upon the perfectness of organi- 
 sation, or upon the right exercise of discipline, or 
 upon the tradition of infallible doctrine, or upon 
 any adventitious circumstance of the kind, but upon 
 spiritual union with Christ. If he is one with 
 Christ then he is one also with all those who belong 
 to Christ ; and one with them, even though in conse- 
 quence of the various accidents arising from the 
 inevitable imperfections of our present condition, 
 there may be many impediments to the full realisa- 
 tion of this unity. Is not that Christian family one, 
 of which the several members are devoted in their 
 attachment to the father and mother, and among 
 themselves, even though the sons may be dispersed 
 in the four quarters of the globe, and the daughters 
 may themselves have become centres of Christian 
 homes in England or abroad. Thanks be to God, 
 Christianity has revealed to us a centre of unity, 
 permanent and indestructible, which is independent 
 alike of time and place, and which, though gathering 
 up into itself all the natural sentiments of the heart, 
 is no mere matter of sentiment, but a reality centred 
 in Christ. 
 
 And the Church is a Christian family, having 
 
326 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 one Father unseen and invisible in heaven, and one 
 Elder Brother, even Jesus who was crucified, dead, 
 and buried, but is risen and ascended, not that He 
 might be absent and govern by deputy, but that He 
 might gather together all and bind them in one by 
 His Spirit. 
 
 We have been led to dwell principally upon the 
 essential and invisible constitution of the Church, 
 because that must be not only of primary and funda- 
 mental importance, but because there is ever a 
 tendency in our nature to forget it. If the Church 
 is an object of faith and not of sight, then it is only 
 by faith that we can belong to it. We cannot enroll 
 ourselves among its members as we should in the 
 case of some municipal or corporate body, for we 
 one and all are members already of the visible 
 Church of Christ. The only question is, whether 
 that visible membership is the outward expression 
 of an inward reality in ourselves ; whether being 
 nominal members, as we cannot help being, we are 
 anything more, and sharers in an intrinsic unity 
 which is indestructible ; and this must be the work 
 of the Holy Spirit. It is the office of the Holy 
 Spirit to reveal Christ to the mind as the centre of 
 unity and the source of life. It is the office of the 
 Holy Spirit to bestow the gift of faith by which we 
 are enabled to perceive Christ, and to behold in 
 Him the fulfilment of our highest aspirations and 
 the satisfaction of our deepest wants. 
 
 There can be no greater fallacy, or more fatal 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 327 
 
 error, than to confound Christ and His Church, to 
 seek in and through the visible Church, or any form 
 of it, or any function of it, what is only to be found 
 in Christ Himself, and there is probably no mistake 
 more commonly made in the present day. It 
 arises from the want of experimental knowledge 
 of the Spirit's work. When St. Paul says the 
 Church is Christ's body, great honour, it is pre- 
 sumed, is laid upon the Church, as though to her 
 were committed some of those functions which are 
 the prerogative of Christ alone. For example, it is 
 assumed that the Church has power to forgive sin 
 and to impart Christ. But it is impossible that 
 the Church, which is made up of fallible and sinful 
 men, can be in her corporate capacity other than she 
 is in her component elements. If every individual 
 member of the Church is defectible and defective, the 
 Church herself cannot be indefectible and infallible. 
 She becomes possessed of the attributes of her Lord, 
 His perfection and holiness, in proportion as she 
 appropriates those attributes by faith ; and the faith 
 of the Church is neither more nor less than the 
 aggregate of the faith of her several members. 
 The Holy Spirit dwells in the Church because He 
 dwells in every member going to make up the 
 Church ; but He does not dwell in the Church apart 
 from the way in which He dwells in each several 
 member, for if so there would be some members 
 in whom He dwells and does not dwell at the same 
 .time, which is absurd. 
 
328 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 If we would be members of Christ's true, real, 
 and invisible Church, we must be filled with the 
 Holy Spirit, the Spirit of promise which is given 
 in answer to prayer ; then we shall know that it is 
 with individuals as it is with the Church of Christ, 
 that they are filled with Christ in proportion as they 
 are emptied of themselves. For it is the office of 
 the Holy Spirit to burn up the chaff with unquench- 
 able fire ;^ to consume what is of self and is not of 
 God, and to fill with all the fulness of Christ. And 
 as the state of fulness and the state of vanity cannot 
 coexist, so, if we are filled with Christ through the 
 Spirit, there will be no room for the emptiness of 
 self, but self, and the things of self, will be ^ swal- 
 lowed up, and then we shall know by experience, 
 the only safe guide to the spiritual meaning of 
 Scripture, what is the meaning of the Apostle's 
 language, as applied to the Church, by having that 
 language realised and fulfilled in our own condition, 
 for, being filled with all the fulness of God^ we shall 
 be able to understand practically how the Church 
 also can be the very substance and body of Christ 
 by becoming the fidness of Him who filleth all in 
 all? 
 
 * Matt. iii. 12. 2 Epjj^ j^^ j^^ 3 gpj^^ j 23. 
 
XXVIII. 
 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, 
 
 Which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.— 
 Ephesians i. 23. 
 
 HAVING dwelt in the former lecture on the 
 significance of the position which " the Holy 
 Catholic Church " holds among the other articles of 
 the Creed, we pass on now to dilate upon the terms 
 of that article itself, and first with regard to the 
 Church's unity. That the Church is one is not 
 expressly told us in the Apostles' Creed, but it is 
 implied : for the Holy Catholic Church admits of 
 no second any more than other ideas which are in 
 in their nature single. We speak, for example, of 
 the sun, the moon, the earth, and the like when we 
 do not contemplate any repetition of the object in 
 either case ; so the Church implies the one Church. 
 
 Now this again, it must carefully be borne in mind, 
 is an object of belief. I believe that there is one 
 Church and that there cannot be more. But then 
 it is a unity that is co-existent with endless divisi- 
 bility : as the body hath many members so also is 
 Christ, each member has its own collection of nerves, 
 tissues, vessels, and the like, which are characteristic 
 
330 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 of its peculiar organisation. Each member has its 
 own appropriate mode of action, which cannot at will 
 be changed for any other. In like manner we find 
 a frequent recognition of this principle of divisibility 
 in holy Scripture. St. Paul continually alludes to 
 the many churches of Christ} He speaks of all the 
 churches of the Ge?itiles "^ ; he speaks of the churches 
 of Macedonia,^ of the churches of God in Judea,^ of 
 the churches of Galatiaf and the like. He implies 
 that his own sphere of labour was distinct from that 
 of Peter.^ St. John, also, in the Revelation, speaks 
 of the seven churches of Asia, and does so in terms 
 that shows them to have been independent of one 
 another as regards practice, character, and the like. 
 All this seems to imply not only that the body of 
 Christ has many members, in the sense of being 
 composed of many individuals, but that it has also, 
 like the natural body, many groups of members, as 
 the head, the hand, the foot, each of which is pos- 
 sessed of an independent system of organisation, and 
 is of necessity committed to an independent mode 
 of action : the head cannot act like the hand, nor 
 the hand like the foot. 
 
 And from this, brethren, I derive a most impor- 
 tant inference, — that the Church of Christ was from 
 the first constituted on a basis of variety and in- 
 dependence quite as much as on one of uniformity. 
 It is perfectly absurd to suppose that in a society 
 
 ■ Rom. xvi. i6; i Cor.xi. 16. ^ 2 Cor. viii. i. * Gal. i. 2. 
 
 * Rom. xvi. 4. * I Thess. ii. 14. " Gal. ii. 9. 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 331 
 
 made up of members from various nations so dis- 
 tinct as the Jews and the Greeks, there should have 
 been one mode of thought, or even one habit of 
 practice in minor things : nothing but a perpetual 
 miracle could secure such a uniformity as this. And 
 whatever may have been the practice of the early 
 churches of the New Testament, which we can see 
 differed widely from our own, the writings of the 
 New Testament contain clear evidence of a consider- 
 able diversity of thought among the writers, as, for 
 example, in St. Paul, St. John, and St. James. 
 
 I believe, then, in the unity of the Church, and 
 by no means in its uniformity. I believe that its 
 essential unity is not and would not be secured by 
 any amount of uniformity, less or greater. I believe, 
 that its unity is entirely distinct from and indepen- 
 dent of its uniformity. And it is this essential, 
 invisible, inevitable unity of the Church which con- 
 stitutes the Church an object of faith. Suppose, now, 
 we were to substitute for such a unity, a visible, or 
 at least a professed, uniformity, like that of the Church 
 of Rome, what then would be the meaning of this 
 confession, " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church " .? 
 It would simply mean, " I believe in that outward, 
 dull, monotonous uniformity, predominating at Rome, 
 which I hold to be an essential characteristic of the 
 true Church, and which I see, or at least the pro- 
 fession of which I see, obtains wherever the authority 
 of Rome prevails " : that is to say, an object of faith 
 would be at once exchanged for an object of sight, 
 
B32 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 and the exercise of the spiritual faculty of faith de- 
 generate into the dogged retention of an opinion. 
 The unity of the Church, then, is something I 
 am taught to believe, which is deeper than anything 
 external which appears to contradict it. 
 
 For example, the unity of the Church is deeper 
 and wider than the principles and practice of any 
 one church, with regard to that which should be the 
 symbol and token of unity, namely, the rite of Com- 
 munion. A circular was sent me the other day, in 
 which mention was made of " all the churches in full 
 communion with the Church of England." I began 
 to think what those churches could be, and, as far 
 as I can determine, they seem to be pretty fairly 
 limited to these three — the Episcopal body in Scot- 
 land, the Irish Church, and the Episcopal Church in 
 America. All the reformed churches abroad are 
 excluded, all the Nonconformists in England are 
 excluded, all non-Episcopalians in America are ex- 
 cluded, and the two great sections of the Kirk of 
 Scotland are excluded ; while obviously the Greek 
 Church and the Church of Rome are not included. 
 Now here is a spectacle of realised Christianity, or 
 rather, here is a living example of Christian disunion. 
 Clearly the terms of communion do not constitute 
 unity ; and for any one who does not believe in the 
 essential unity of the Church, despite all the outward 
 marks of disunion, such a spectacle as this can only 
 make the heart ache, while it is enough to quench 
 love, to extinguish hope, and to paralyse effort. 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 333 
 
 • But we may illustrate this underlying unity yet 
 further. For example, persons of all communions, I 
 suppose, believe that the Holy Communion is a 
 bond of union between the living and the dead ; there ^ 
 the Church on earth meets with the Church in heaven 
 around the table of the common Lord : and yet the 
 outward disunion is apparent ; there are physical 
 barriers which we cannot pass, and surely these 
 physical barriers are not less than any which can be 
 interposed by the arrangements and ordinances of 
 internal organisation. In short, every Church or 
 community of Christians is compelled for the 
 purposes of internal economy to ordain precepts 
 and regulations which it has no right to impose 
 upon or require of other bodies ; just as every Chris- 
 tian family has a right to prescribe internal regula- 
 tions for its own observance, which it has no right 
 to impose upon any other family, still less upon the 
 community at large. The mistake is, when the 
 outward observance of these rules and regulations is 
 confounded with adherence to internal and essential 
 unity. If the Kirk of Scotland is not in communion 
 with the Church of England that is an accident of 
 family organisation ; it no more disproves the fact of 
 both bodies being in communion with their common 
 Head, and if so in unseen communion with one an- 
 other, in spite of themselves, than does the circum- 
 stance of one Christian family dining at one hour 
 of the day and another Christian family dining at 
 another show them to belong to different kingdoms or 
 
334 I^HE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 even to different counties, or than the fact that some 
 individuals of either family are to be found in the 
 nursery and some elsewhere shows that they cannot 
 be regarded as common members of the same family. 
 I am not aware that if any Nonconformist or any 
 member of any Christian Church on earth presents 
 himself at the table of the Lord I have any right to 
 withhold from him the symbols of Christ's body and 
 blood ; and I doubt very much whether any Christian 
 Church on earth would have any other than an 
 ecclesiastical right to censure any member who, 
 believing in the actual unity of the body of Christ, 
 puts that belief into practice by joining in the act 
 of communion with any other Christian body than 
 that to which he happens to belong himself; and 
 sure I am that no Christian body has any right to 
 impose as terms or conditions of communion any 
 others than those which it would regard as conditions 
 also of salvation. Now the conditions of salvation 
 are these, and none can dispute their authority. 
 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
 saved} and they are none other than these. We 
 may not substitute for them belief in the Thirty- 
 nine Articles, or the Westminster Confession, or the 
 Athanasian Creed, or anything else, and so neither 
 may we make the acknowledgment of one or other 
 of these formularies the condition of communion. 
 That you or I may, as a matter of accident, habit, 
 or preference, communicate only in the Church of 
 
 ' Acts xvi. 31. 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 335 
 
 England, by no means shows us to be not in com- 
 munion with other churches, any more than does the 
 fact of the communion service of the American 
 Church differing from that of our Prayer-book, 
 necessarily deprive a member of that Church of 
 the privilege of communicating with ours when he 
 happens to be sojourning among us. 
 
 So much, then, by way of showing that the 
 essential unity of the Church is not affected by 
 organic differences in the mode and practice of com- 
 munion among the Churches. As many members 
 differing organically and in principles of action go 
 to make up one body, so also many Churches differ- 
 ing organically and in principles of action go to 
 make up the one Church, which is bound together in 
 union with Christ, the Head, by the unseen principle 
 of faith in Him, and by nothing else. 
 
 The next characteristic of the one Church is, that 
 it is Holy. This also, I believe, although, as in the 
 case of its unity, I cannot see it. Nay, more, as I 
 should distrust the holiness of that man whose holi- 
 ness was too obstrusive and over-apparent, so I am 
 not staggered in my belief in the real and sincere 
 and substantial holiness of the Church by the mani- 
 fold contradictions of holiness which are only too 
 patent and manifest. You cannot find the perfect 
 Christian any more than you can find the perfect 
 Church. You cannot find the ideal Christian any 
 more than you can find the ideal Church. The 
 ideal and the real dififer here as painfully as they do 
 
336 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 elsewhere, in this routine and prosaic world. It is a 
 X^ great gain to be able to regard the two as distinct, 
 and not to be dismayed if we find the real falling 
 short of the ideal ; to be able to accept the real as 
 we find it, and yet at the same time to retain our 
 belief in the ideal. The Church is holy in reality 
 and truth, but all the members of the Church are 
 not holy ; they are called with a holy calling} and 
 called to be saints} but they do not all fulfil their 
 calling. Which of us, let me ask, would be willing 
 that the holiness of the Church should be estimated 
 by his own personal standard of holiness, and if we 
 do not fulfil our own ideal, need we be very greatly 
 dismayed if others fail to realise it too ? Here, 
 again, our safety lies in holding fast to the ideal, 
 and believing in One whose realised holiness is the 
 holiness of His Church. The command is. Be ye 
 holy, for I am holy^; but those very writings, like the 
 first Epistle of St. Peter, which dwell most forcibly 
 on the holiness of the Church, insist also most 
 emphatically on the practice of holiness, as though 
 such exhortations were, even in those cases, not 
 superfluous. There will ever be a want of corres- 
 pondence and conformity between the ideal and the 
 actual, at least, so long as the visible Church is 
 exposed to the trials and temptations of this lower 
 world. While, therefore, the holiness of the Church 
 is an article of the faith which is calculated to allay 
 our apprehensions at the spectacle of the unholiness 
 
 » 2 Tim. i, 9. 2 J Cor. i. 2. M Pet. i. 16. 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 337 
 
 of particular Christians, just as the belief in the 
 indestructible unity of the Church is the only 
 remedy for dismay at the present spectacle of the 
 Church's disunion, so also is it calculated to stimu- 
 late our personal efforts after holiness, because it is 
 a great help to action to know that the highest ideal 
 is not an unreality. This is how St. Paul employs 
 the marvellous elevation of thought to which he has 
 raised his converts in the fifteenth chapter of his 
 first Epistle to the Corinthians, when, after saying. 
 Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory (over 
 death and the grave) through our Lord Jesus Christy 
 he goes on to say. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be 
 ye stedfast, immovable, always aboU7tding i^t the work 
 of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is 
 not in vain in the Lord. I can meet the actual 
 unholiness of my brethren in the world with the 
 greater equanimity when I believe in the realised 
 holiness of the seven thousand uncontaminated ones 
 whom God has reserved unto Himself I can aspire 
 after higher attainments of inward holiness in myself 
 when I know and believe that there is One in whom 
 is no sin, and that those who belong to Him are, in 
 His sight, and therefore in reality and truth, holy as 
 He is holy. This is the natural consequence of be- 
 lieving in the Holy Church, which, in the midst and 
 by reason of surrounding unholiness, we cannot see. 
 Again, the Church is catholic, that is, universal : 
 surely there is no word in the English language 
 which has been more grossly abused than this ; and 
 
 \A^.f!!L,«fiW 
 
338 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 may we not add that from the very fact of its being 
 so un-English, and therefore not understood, it has 
 become a symbol for all sorts of associated ideas with 
 which it has nothing whatever to do. The word 
 does not occur in Scripture ; note that, I beseech 
 you, and then determine for yourselves the value 
 of the supposed mystical advantages of what is called 
 catholicity. The only approximation to it is found 
 in Acts iv. 1 8, where we read. And they called them 
 and commanded them not to speak " at all " \Ka6o\ov\, 
 nor teach in the name of Jesus. The position of the 
 analogous expression here is in singular, may we not 
 say ominous, contrast to the use hereafter to be made 
 of its derivative, " catholic." We fall back, however, 
 not upon its subsequently developed meaning, but 
 upon its natural significance as indicated by the place 
 in Scripture just quoted, which is that of iiberall, 
 everywhere, the Church which is universal. As a 
 matter of undeniable fact, the Church is far more 
 catholic now than ever it was, when it first adopted 
 the name ; but yet even now the significance of the 
 name is as nothing to what we believe it will be, when 
 the apocalyptic vision has been realised, and all the 
 kingdoms of the world have become the kingdoms 
 of our Lord and of His Christ. This is the Catholic 
 Church in which we believe, the Catholic Church of 
 the future, not the Catholic Church of the past, any 
 more than the Catholic Church of the present. We 
 believe in the Holy Catholic Church of God's in- 
 tention and design, not in some visibly defined body 
 which must first originate a meaning for the term 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 339 
 
 " catholic," and then establish its claim and exclusive 
 right to the conditions and qualifications of the term 
 which it has originated. No such Catholic Church 
 is found in Scripture ; no such Catholic Church, then, 
 can claim to legislate for that society which came 
 into existence fresh from the hands of its founder 
 long before the epithet was invented. Certainly 
 those who are the most inclined to take their stand 
 upon the supposed merits of this term are the least 
 mindful of, and the most opposed to its natural and 
 intrinsic meaning. What can be less catholic than 
 to circumscribe the boundless and unrestricted signi- 
 ficance of the term, and to make it synonymous and 
 identical with Roman. If I believe really in a Catho- 
 lic Church, that^ from the nature of the case and the 
 very necessities of language, cannot be a Roman church 
 in which I believe. Verily, in her jealous assumption 
 of this term, she bears unimpeachable evidence against 
 herself to her post- Scriptural, post- Apostolic, and 
 therefore post-Christian origin and growth. 
 
 Lastly, the Church is Apostolic, though this term 
 is derived from the Nicene and not from the Apostles' 
 Creed, but we need not hesitate thankfully to accept 
 it. Th^ Church of Christ was planted and watered 
 by apostles, whose work is known and registered in 
 the writings of the New Testament, and whose very 
 existence and conduct is unexplained and unaccount- 
 able if it does not rest upon the person and teaching, 
 and word and work of the Lord Jesus. Every in- 
 vestigation of the being and existence of the Church 
 must take us back eventually to the apostles of 
 
340 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 Christ ; for example, the Church of the present 
 century rests upon, is derived from, cannot be ac- 
 counted for, but by presupposing the Church of the 
 last century. The Church of the last century leads 
 us back to the Church of the seventeenth, and so 
 on till we come to the second, which in like manner 
 leads us back to the first, where we find, established 
 by unexceptionable pedigree, the very writings and 
 monuments of the first preachers of Christ, who re- 
 ceived their commission from Christ. Here we are 
 face to face with the very men who were com- 
 manded by those in authority not to speak at ally nor 
 teach in the name of Jesus. 
 
 That is the apostolic origin of the Church ; and 
 we who have bowed the knee to Jesus on His sap- 
 phire throne to-day^ are, in virtue of the faith of that 
 act, one with the apostles who first proclaimed His 
 name, and one with those who by faith accepted 
 their proclamation, and one with those behind the 
 veil who believed in Him to the saving of the soul, 
 and one with those beneath the altar who were slain 
 for His testimony, and still cry "O Lord, how long?" 
 and. one with all those of every communion and of 
 every clime, of every age and of every church, who 
 receive their life from and acknowledge Him, and 
 one with each other and with Him whom they and 
 we receive and believe ; for this is what we mean and 
 say when we confess, " I believe in the Holy Catholic 
 Church." 
 
 * Preached on Trinity Sunday. 
 
XXIX. 
 
 THE COMMUNION OF SAIN2S. 
 I am the vine, ye are the branches. — ^John xv. 5. 
 
 AS the " Holy Catholic Church " derives much of 
 its true significance from the fact that it follows 
 after the article about the Holy Ghost, so likewise 
 is it further illustrated by the article " on the Com- 
 munion of Saints" by which it is immediately followed. 
 I tried to show in the last lecture that the true 
 unity of the Church was that which underlay all 
 apparent and outward disunion. The true recog- 
 nition of this truth seems to me to present the only 
 remedy that can be found for this open disunion, 
 and at the same time to reveal a source of real 
 consolation, such as no other conception of the 
 Church can promise or present. Nor only so, for 
 a union of this nature points us at once to a power 
 above nature, creating and causing it. He who 
 gathers up in Himself the most discordant elements, 
 and gives them a union with one another in their 
 union with Him, which before they had not and 
 could not have, has done a work which is at once 
 worthy of God and impossible for man : and this 
 
342 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 is the work of Christ as it is manifested to us in 
 the communion of saints, which we proceed now 
 to consider. 
 
 This also is an article of belief; and if there is 
 any justice in the position already adopted, and any 
 truth in the sentiments expressed, this also must be 
 something the cognisance of which is not derived 
 from the senses. We do not see the communion of 
 the saints, we only believe in it ; we cannot see the 
 communion of saints, we can only believe in it. The 
 two great thoughts, then, are — the communion sub- 
 sisting between the saints, and the character of those 
 between whom it subsists. Furthermore, it is this 
 communion which is the prerogative of the Holy 
 Catholic Church, and the result of the operation of 
 the Holy Spirit, — which is to be found only in the 
 Holy Catholic Church, and in which the special and 
 peculiar character of the Holy Church of Christ's 
 mystical body consists. 
 
 Now, in order to understand wherein the special 
 character of this communion consists, let us look for 
 a while at the nearest resemblances to it. No doubt, 
 in the old world, there was something analogous to 
 it in the mutual interest which was felt by those who 
 enjoyed the privileges of Roman citizenship. There 
 is something, as it always seems to me, very striking 
 in that incident in the twenty-second chapter of the 
 Acts, where a Roman officer who commanded the 
 garrison in the castle of Anton ia, which overlooked 
 the temple, suddenly discovers that the prisoner 
 
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 343 
 
 whom he had in his power and was about to scourge 
 is a Roman citizen. As tJiey bound him with thongs^ 
 Paul said unto the centurion that stood by. Is it law- 
 ful for you to scourge a man that is a Romany and 
 uncondemned f When the centurion heard that, he 
 went and told the chief captain^ savings Take heed 
 what thou doest : for this man is a Roman. Then 
 the chief captaift came, a7id said uitto him. Tell me^ 
 art thou a Roman ? He said. Yea. And the chief 
 captain answered. With a great sum obtained I this 
 freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born. 
 There we see the Christian prisoner at once set at 
 a great advantage above the Roman officer, who 
 only had by purchase what was Paul's by birth; but 
 it is manifest that the magic talisman of that word 
 Roman citizenship has at once established a bond of 
 union and sympathy between the chief captain and 
 his prisoner which had not been felt before. 
 
 And this is a fair specimen of what the adven- 
 titious circumstances of similar nationality and the 
 like are capable of producing. Frequently, to belong 
 to the same country, or the same county, or the 
 same city, or the same university, or to have been 
 educated at the same school is the cause of a union 
 which lasts as long as life lasts ; and whether or not 
 this is so, all are aware of the subtle links of associa- 
 tion which under any circumstances may be thereby 
 created. To have undergone the same experience, 
 to have lived in the same place, to have visited the 
 same scenes at home or abroad, to have engaged in 
 
344 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 the same pursuits, to belong to the same society or 
 the same club, to have filled the same office, to have 
 served in the same campaign, to have taken the 
 same journey, to have sailed in the same ship, — 
 these and a hundred other things at once open out 
 channels of communication, avenues of interest, and 
 create links of association and connection between 
 one mind a^^d another, and not seldom between one 
 heart and another, which, but for these things would 
 have been left closed, or never have existed. 
 
 But, perhaps, of this kind there is nothing more 
 potent than the accidentally discovered link of com- 
 munity of friendship. We are thrown across this 
 man and that man in the journey of life, and we 
 presently find that he is a friend of a friend of ours, 
 and is known to some one whom we know, and at 
 once there is a new principle of concern awakened, 
 a new motive for intercourse, or kindness, or friend- 
 ship, or the like, established. We are conscious of 
 the subtle bond of common relation to a common 
 object, and are at once affected thereby. Yet more 
 is this the case where there is community of senti- 
 ment. The influence of a common idea, a common 
 opinion, a common endeavour, and the like, is per- 
 haps the most potent operative principle in bringing 
 men together who were before totally unknown, or 
 had not the slightest interest in one another. To be 
 members of the same political party, of the same 
 church party, of the same school of art, philosophy, 
 or science, is to have a basis for intercourse and 
 
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 345 
 
 friendship established which, but for such an excuse, 
 had not existed. All this, however, while it reveals an 
 undoubted and a very deep-lying principle in human 
 nature, is also a token of its weakness and defect. 
 Why should I feel and surrender myself to an interest 
 in that man because he happens to be a conservative 
 or a liberal, a high-churchman, a low-churchman, or 
 a broad-churchman, a geologist, a botanist, or an 
 antiquary, for whom, on merely personal grounds, 
 I should have no interest whatever } Simply 
 because there is in one or other of these things a 
 principle of possible communion between us which 
 otherwise would not exist. When, in youth, we 
 are commencing a new study or a new language, 
 what an element of joy it is to meet with some one 
 who has engaged in it already, and is competent to 
 be our companion and guide along the road, and in 
 after years the philologer finds pleasure in the 
 society of philologers, the mathematician in that 
 of mathematicians, and the like ; but all this is 
 special, and therefore I think that society itself 
 teaches us that the more truly a man is a man of 
 culture, the more truly he is independent of any of 
 these specialities. The mere mathematician and 
 mere botanist may have little in common, but no 
 t^wo men of real culture, whatever their specialities 
 may be, can fail to derive pleasure from their inter- 
 course with one another. And all this leads us up 
 to the truth which had revealed itself to the Roman 
 poet of old. Homo sujUy humani nihil a me alienum 
 
346 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 puto — " I am a man, and regard nothing that is of 
 human interest as alien from myself." The real bond 
 of union between us is, after all, our common huma- 
 nity. " One touch of nature makes the whole world 
 kin." It is this which gives the novelist, the poet, 
 the dramatist, his power, and it is nothing else. It is 
 this which alone can give the preacher or the speaker 
 any power over his hearers. He who is not a true 
 man himself can have no access to the hearts of 
 men, nor does he deserve to have. Now, the com- 
 munion of saints is a communion established on 
 this broad basis of a common humanity. If it were 
 not for the natural truth which lies hid in the maxim 
 of Terence just referred to, the communion of saints 
 would have been an impossibility. As it is, Christ 
 has taken this basis and reared upon it the edifice of 
 the communion of saints. He has revealed Himself 
 as the true vine, of which His disciples are the 
 branches. He has .presented to us, in Himself, the 
 true and root principle of humanity, the perfect ideal 
 of man. He has shown us what man was designed 
 by God to be. He has revealed, in Himself, the 
 original stock, essence or principle of humanity, so 
 that, as it was accidentally, and yet most truly, said 
 of Him, Ecce Homo, Behold the man !^ so he says 
 of Himself, Homo sum, / am the true Man, the true 
 Vine, the original Son of the Father, who alone was 
 made in the express image and likeness of the 
 Father, the subdued human and humanised bright- 
 
 ^ John xix. 5. 
 
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS, 347 
 
 ness of His Divine and unapproachable, incommu- 
 nicable glory. 
 
 Here, then, in Him, is the natural and the super- 
 natural basis of the communion of saints. If we 
 admit, as we must admit, that He is the truest, the 
 greatest, the loftiest, the most perfect, the most 
 human, also the most Divine man that history pre- 
 sents to our contemplation, then we can preceive 
 without effort, that it is only just, and right, and 
 natural, that He should be the foundation stone of a 
 new edifice of humanity, and that He also in Him- 
 self should be the centre of a new union among 
 men, who are raised by their recognition of the 
 Divine in Him, to a new dignity and degree of 
 manhood. In Christ then, and the Christian com- 
 munion of saints, we have the fulfilment of the 
 two qualifications which we have seen our common 
 nature demands. The broader the basis, the truer the 
 union. We are not united by those things which 
 distinguish us, but by those things which we have in 
 common, though we commonly prize ourselves most 
 for the things which we have, which others have not, 
 such as wealth, station, and talent. Yet it is not 
 these things which constitute our greatest glory, but 
 on the contrary, those things which are common to 
 us all, the power of feeling or of doing a kindness, 
 the perception of goodness, justice and truth, the 
 natural affections of the heart, by which we are 
 capable of love for one another, whether it be our 
 wives, our parents, or our children. What mother is 
 
348 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 not touched by the spectacle of motherly love, in 
 another, however far removed from herself 'in posi- 
 tion, or however degraded. And this is the Divine 
 link of humanity, this is the glory of womanhood. 
 Rightly and wisely did the old painters dwell with 
 unwearied assiduity on, and continually repeat, that 
 loveliest and most Divine, because most human of all 
 subjects, — the mother and her child. These were the 
 commonest of all objects, and yet the most glorious 
 of all — the perfection of self-sacrifice, the unsullied 
 purity of love, the spotless innocence of infancy, the 
 very original form of a recreated humanity. Christ 
 thus gathers up in Himself all the commonest and 
 most characteristic features of our humanity. He 
 is the meeting-point of the highest and the lowest, 
 because in Him there is that which alone is common 
 to both, and therefore the glory of both. His basis 
 of union is coextensive with the widest limits of the 
 family of man. Oh that we could make men see 
 this in Christ, for then indeed we should make them 
 Christians. 
 
 Thus, then, Christ fulfils in Himself the desire for 
 breadth, which our nature demands. But He also 
 fulfils in Himself that other qualification which it 
 no less requires. For He appeals likewise to the 
 instinct in man, which demands only the best. It is 
 the highest goodness, the highest truth, the highest 
 beauty which is found in Christ, for in Him is re- 
 vealed the point in which the human is merged in 
 the Divine, the point where man touches God. 
 
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 349 
 
 Thus while Christ says, Because I am truly man, I 
 regard nothing that is manly, nothing that is human, 
 as alien from Myself, and thus appeals to universal 
 man. His character is essentially such that it appeals 
 only to the highest in man, and to that in which 
 men are like unto God. It can only be therefore as 
 men are won to Christ, that they can love Christ, 
 and find their centre in Christ. Men do not 
 commonly love the highest, but only what they think 
 to be the highest. The love of the highest is a 
 specialty, just as mathematics or geology is a speci- 
 alty, and the specialist prefers his specialty, just as 
 the Christian prefers Christ And thus as geology 
 or philology is a bond of union between geologists 
 and philologists, so is Christ a special bond of 
 union between Christians, between, that is, those 
 who have been taught to see in Christ the greatest 
 glory of humanity, and the greatest good of man. 
 For such there is established on the old, the world- 
 wide, and the natural basis of humanity, a new bond 
 of union in the love of the highest humanity, and 
 the worship of the perfect man. This is the prin- 
 ciple of the earthly communion of saints, of those 
 who have become holy through their union with the 
 Holy Man, who have thus been grafted into and 
 made branches of the true vine. Between all such, 
 there is not only the natural bond of union, which 
 even in a heathen could lead him to esteem nothing 
 human as alien from himself, but also that talismanic 
 principle of union which discovers a new motive for 
 
350 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 interest, a fresh attraction for sympathy, in attach- 
 ment to the same person, in admiration for the same 
 character, in pursuit of the same object, in possession 
 of the same idea, in devotion to the same senti- 
 ment. 
 
 As all true patriots, whatever their political 
 creed, are equally loyal to the constitution and the 
 crown, and are necessarily drawn together when the 
 safety or honour of either is threatened, so all true 
 Christians, whatever their individual sentiments, or 
 their denominational creed, are mutually drawn to- 
 gether, and sympathetically united in love and 
 allegiance to their common Lord. There is a magic, 
 talismanic power in the name of Christ, and in the 
 name of Jesus, who is the Christ, which like the 
 touch of nature that makes the whole world kin, 
 convinces every Christian of a community of origin 
 between all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in 
 sincerity, of an origin that cannot be broken by 
 the accidental severance of the Churches, any more 
 than those who are united in a common friendship 
 or bound to a common friend can be severed by 
 the flight of time, or by the billows that wash 
 divided continents. 
 
 The communion of saints, then, is a communion 
 which they have with one another, through their 
 union with a common centre and common object of 
 love. Just as any point on the circumference is 
 united by an invisible line to the centre, and may so 
 be united with any other point by a line passing 
 
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS. 351 
 
 through the centre, or by two lines meeting in the 
 centre, so also is the union of the saints in Christ. 
 He is their invisible Head, to whom they one and all 
 are joined by invisible bonds of faith and love ; and 
 as nothing can separate between Christ and those, 
 whom He calls His own, so nothing can separate 
 between those who belong to Christ, because they 
 are united one with another, by being one and all 
 united to Him. They are, as He says, all several 
 branches of the true vine, which is Himself. They 
 all derive their life from Him, as the sap flows 
 through the branches of the vine. One branch 
 differs from another branch : as in any one tree there 
 are no two branches similar, no two leaves alike, so 
 in the true vine there are many members of various 
 characteristics, various conditions, various capacities, 
 but all possessed of a general likeness, as the leaves 
 and branches of the vine are like one another, but 
 distinct from the leaves and branches of the oak. 
 
 And there is one special and peculiar feature in 
 the communion of those who are holy as Christ is 
 holy, which is, that the communion is not confined to 
 this living world. As the communion is not to be 
 detected by the sight, so neither is it limited to the 
 world of sight. The friends whom we have lost yet 
 live in Christ. As when they were here our com- 
 munion with them was not dependent on anything 
 we found here, but on the union that we found in 
 Christ, so now that communion cannot be broken 
 because we find them no longer here. Their com- 
 
 > 
 
352 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 munion is where it was, and ours is where it was, 
 before we lost them; our communion was not one 
 which we found in them, but one which they and 
 we alike found in Christ, and it is one we may find 
 there still. They have passed beyond the circumfer- 
 ence of our ken, and their circle is a larger one than 
 ours, but it is concentric with ours, for the centre 
 of both is Christ. Nothing can separate them from 
 Christ, and nothing need separate us from Christ, 
 and nothing can separate us from them if we do not 
 separate ourselves from Christ. If we abide in Him, 
 and He abides in us, then we are branches of the 
 true vine, and being branches of the true vine the 
 communion which we have with Christ is the measure 
 of the communion we may have with them in Him, 
 a communion which is an object of faith now, and 
 shall be one of reality and fact hereafter. 
 
XXX. 
 THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 
 
 In Whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness 
 of sins. — Col. i. 14. 
 
 " 'np'HE forgiveness of sins " may be regarded as the 
 -■- distinctive tenet of the Gospel. No other 
 religion has made the same daring proclamation of 
 the remission of sins that Christianity has made. 
 Every religion that has instructed or deceived man- 
 kind has professed to deal with sin and with the 
 consciousness of sin in some way or other which has 
 of course been assumed to be efficient and effectual, 
 and consequently the necessary inference has been 
 suggested that the sin has been forgiven. And it is 
 obvious that all these methods of dealing with sin, if 
 they were really effectual, must have depended upon 
 one of two things for their efficiency — the discovery of 
 man or the revelation of God. If they depended on 
 the revelation of God, then, as the methods of deal- 
 ing varied in various religions, the revelation of God 
 would vary and be inconsistent which is not con- 
 ceivable ; if they depended on the discovery of man, 
 then the question would arise, Which religion had 
 discovered the truth or made the true discovery.? and 
 
 23 
 
354 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 then, of necessity, all other religions would be worth- 
 less, and, in proportion to the strength of their claims, 
 would be deceptive. 
 
 Now we may certainly say that there was a strong 
 point of contrast between Christianity and all other 
 religions, that the forgiveness of sins was not left by it 
 to the ingenuity of an inference, but was declared as a 
 fact. Here then, at once, there would be an additional 
 ground of accusation against Christianity if there 
 was not therein an additional evidence of its truth. 
 But in point of fact, Christianity not only contrasts 
 with all other religions in respect of its declaration 
 of forgiveness, but also in respect of its denunciation 
 of sin, and of the far greater and more intense con- 
 viction of sin which it produces in the conscience. 
 
 And here is the strength of Christianity. It first 
 of all accuses man as a sinner and reveals his sin. 
 It declares plainly, not only that the natural con- 
 science was warranted in the estimate it had formed 
 of sin, which was sufficient to justify the worst mis- 
 givings and misapprehensions that had been ex- 
 pressed in the more terrific forms of sacrifice, but also 
 that these misgivings and misapprehensions were 
 short of the mark. Christianity, that is, revealed a 
 sin that the natural conscience had not discovered, 
 and to which it did not spontaneously plead guilty. 
 In this consisted its charge against mankind, its 
 indictment against man. 
 
 And here we are dealing with facts which it is 
 simply impossible to deny. The deeper conscious- 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 355 
 
 ness of sin brought in by Christianity is a patent 
 fact, to which h"terature, morals, social life and the 
 conscience itself alike bear witness. We may join 
 issue with Christianity on this ground, that its esti- 
 mate of sin is an undue and exaggerated estimate, 
 but that such is its estimate admits of no doubt 
 whatever. And therefore it is that Christianity 
 anticipates a ground of objection to itself, because as 
 its distinctive mark is the freedom" of its declaration 
 of forgiveness it virtually declines to deal with those 
 who are blind to the necessity for such forgiveness. 
 Christianity offers pardon to those who feel the want 
 of it ; if there is no felt want of pardon the offer of 
 pardon becomes a nullity. But it is no proof of the 
 unreality or invalidity of the pardon offered to con- 
 fess to a consciousness of no need for it. That 
 there is no such consciousness may itself be a radical 
 and primary defect. Christianity affirms that it is. 
 If ye were blind ye should have no sin : but now ye 
 say J We see^ therefore your sin remaineth} When the 
 Pharisees questioned our Lord's authority, which is 
 precisely what men do now-a-days, He asked them 
 the previous question. What was the authority of 
 John's baptism.?^ Now John's baptism was a baptism 
 of repentance for, or with a view to, the remission 
 of sins. If, therefore, they had not accepted that 
 baptism as authoritative, if they had not quailed 
 under a sense of sin, they were not competent judges 
 of Christ's authority which professed to give a re- 
 
 * John ix. 41. ^ Matt. xxi. 24 sq. 
 
356 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 mission of sin that implied a prior repentance. And 
 so it will ever be. Those objections to Christianity 
 are of no avail that betray in the objector an ignor- 
 ance of the true evil of sin. We may boldly say, as 
 the Gospel itself says, that it is not for such. It 
 comes professing to forgive ; its profession cannot 
 apply to those who acknowledge that they have 
 nothing to be forgiven. 
 
 And this is really a fair question that we may 
 reasonably put to all objectors to supernatural reli- 
 gion in the present day, How do you propose to deal 
 with sin } And the answer would be, We do not 
 propose to deal with it at all. We say that sin is a 
 misconception. Sin is the appearance of imperfec- 
 tion in that which, regarded in a broader view, is a 
 vast and perfect whole. In the wise and cultivated 
 man there should be no such thing as sin. Failing 
 and infirmity there may be, for it were absurd to 
 seek for perfection and entirety in the imperfect and 
 the partial ; but sin presupposes a relation between 
 the finite and the infinite, which is impossible and 
 unreasonable. Very well, then, be it so ; let us grant 
 that the relation between the philosopher and the 
 deity, if he admits so superannuated a conception, 
 is perfectly smooth and satisfactory. Then, I ask, 
 What about crime } because crime is a fact, and a 
 very awful fact, and crime is not something distinct 
 from sin, for sin is the cause of crime, and though 
 you and I may not be criminals, yet there may be, 
 and there is, in us that which is of the nature of 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 357 
 
 crime, namely, sin, and we do not acknowledge the 
 absence of the same nature in the philosopher. Is 
 it possible, then, that this sin which is liable to out- 
 breaks, so tremendous as those of our prisons and 
 police-courts, can be a misconception resolvable into 
 a mental error on our own part ? I think not. 
 
 But we may go nearer home. We will assume 
 that you have not sinned lately, that there is nothing 
 in your life now for which you need shrink from the 
 severest scrutiny ; but has it always been so } You 
 will hardly ask us to believe that. You can hardly 
 believe it yourself. You can hardly say that you 
 have never sinned. There must be something in 
 the area of the past that you would wish otherwise, 
 that you would gladly forget, perhaps have for- 
 gotten. With respect to this you must either be 
 self-condemned, or you are self-forgiven. If you are 
 self-condemned, then there is the evidence of sin ; if 
 you are self-forgiven, then the reality of sin is not 
 disproved, but it appears that instead of an external 
 fountain of forgiveness, the source of your forgiveness 
 is within ; but unless your sin is merely against your- 
 self this is of small avail. You can have no power 
 to forgive that which is a sin, not against yourself, 
 but against God. If your sin has really been against 
 God, then the fact of your being self-forgiven does 
 not prove that you are God-forgiven. You may 
 have forgotten your sin, but it does not follow that 
 God has forgotten it. And all speculations as to 
 its forgiveness must be vain, unless there is some 
 
358 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 way of getting at, or of receiving an authoritative 
 declaration from God on this matter. 
 
 So far, then,as to the fact of forgiveness, supposing 
 there is the acknowledgment of sin to be forgiven ; but, 
 then, observe that the condition of sin according to 
 the Gospel is something very different from the mere 
 overt act of sin. It may not be that you are guilty 
 of sin now, but it by no means follows that you are 
 not sinful ; the very ignorance and denial of sinful- 
 ness may be your sin. The root-sin of the Gospel 
 is a negative and not a positive sin. Whejt the 
 Comforter is come^ He shall convince the world of si?i, 
 because they believe not in Me} The condition of man, 
 irrespective of his acts, is one of sin. This is the 
 allegation of the Gospel. If man denies it, all we 
 can do is to leave him alone with his conscience, and 
 to pray for him ; if he responds to it, then we can 
 proclaim to him the forgiveness of sins. And in 
 evidence of the reality of this forgiveness, and of the 
 authority on which it rests, we can say, that as the 
 depth of the consciousness of sin produced by 
 Christianity was greater than nature could or did 
 attain to in any other religion, so the certainty and 
 the adequacy of the forgiveness offered being greater 
 than nature could attain to or conceive of too, is an 
 evidence of the validity of the offer. For if we reject 
 this forgiveness as Divine, we must either deny the 
 reality of sin, and therefore the need of forgiveness, 
 or else we must forgive ourselves, which is obviously 
 
 * John xvi. 8, 9. 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 359 
 
 something very different from God forgiving us, or 
 else we must be content to rest in the bare presump- 
 tion' that we have been forgiven, or shall hereafter 
 be forgiven. Now, in direct opposition to each of 
 these points, the Gospel declares, in distinct and 
 emphatic language, that we have redemption through 
 His bloody even the forgiveness of sins} It is plain, 
 then, that the Gospel offer of forgiveness is linked in 
 some special and intimate way to the death of Christ. 
 This is plainly affirmed in the text, and it is corro- 
 borated by our Lord's own words. This is My blood 
 of the New Testament which is shed for many^ for 
 tfu remission of sins? 
 
 Thus, then, the Gospel assurance of forgiveness 
 appeals at once to the senses, and is such as cannot 
 be called in question, and admits of no dispute. 
 That the blood of Christ was shed, is a fact of 
 history which nobody denies, or can deny. If His 
 death had anything to do with man's forgiveness, 
 then man is as surely forgiven as he may be sure 
 and cannot doubt that Christ died. This, then, is 
 the root-question : granted the death of Christ which 
 we must all grant, was His death a death for the 
 remission of sins t It is not a question of the fact, 
 but only of the interpretation of the fact. The 
 message of the Gospel is not merely that Jesus 
 Christ died, which is the message of history — of the 
 historian Tacitus — as well as the Gospel, but that 
 Christ died for sin, for that which is the cause of 
 crime, and is perpetually breaking forth into crime, 
 
 ' Eph. i. 7 ; Col. i. 14. " Matt. xxvi. 28. 
 
36o THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 for that to which the conscience of universal man, 
 except only the philosophers, for thousands of years 
 has borne spontaneous witness, for that which, in the 
 individual heart, is continually asserting itself, con- 
 tinually accusing or excusing its presence, and equally 
 in either way, calling aloud for condemnation. 
 
 And this is not only the message of the Gospel, 
 that Christ died for sin, but His death is likewise the 
 evidence of the Gospel message. For as long as we 
 have these words of Christ, This is my blood that is 
 shed for the remission of sins ^ it is impossible to deny 
 that He taught that His death was a death for sin, 
 and that He died in attestation of the truth of what 
 He taught. This, then, being so, we must either 
 admit that He taught what was false and died for 
 what was false, or we must accept His death as the 
 inseparable crown and culmination of His teaching, 
 and therefore as a death for sin. But if we accept 
 Christ's death as a death for sin, and the remission 
 of sin, then the sins for which He died are remitted 
 and forgiven, and then we may believe in the for- 
 giveness of sins, not as an invention of priests, not 
 as the self-deception of the naturally lax and self- 
 forgiving, self-indulgent heart, not as the mere pre- 
 sumption of nature and of human speculations on 
 the general amiability and benevolence of the Divine 
 Being and character, but as the very voice of God 
 to the sin-stricken heart, proclaimed to a guilty but 
 repentant world, and ratified so that none can ques- 
 tion it in the blood of His own Son. 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 361 
 
 And this, verily, is the message of the Gospel 
 to a sinful world, and to a world which acknowledges 
 its sin. In whom we have redemption through His 
 blood, even the forgiveness of sins. If we have it in 
 Him, then we have it, not out of Him, apart from 
 Him, independently of Him. If God forgives us by 
 Christ, then we may be quite sure He does not and 
 will not forgive us in any other way. The con- 
 sistency of the Divine conduct would be impaired 
 and violated were He to do so. Christ would not 
 have shed His blood for the remission of sins if sins 
 were to be, or might be, remitted without His shed- 
 ding of blood. Christ must, in His life, teaching, 
 and death, cease to be the exponent of the will of 
 God ; or God must, as St. John says, be made a liar 
 if, after the death of Christ as a death for sin, it were 
 to be in any way probable or possible that sin should 
 be forgiven independently of Him. Whatever the 
 mysterious relation may be between the death of 
 Christ and the forgiveness of sins, as to the reality, 
 validity, and actuality of the relation, there can be 
 no possible room for doubt. So neither can there be 
 any question as to the finality of this relation, for if 
 we have redemption through His blood, then we do 
 not wait for it : it is a present possession, not a 
 future or conditional or contingent promise. It is 
 not something to come, but something already come, 
 not something to be given, but something already 
 bestowed ; not something to be had, but something 
 already had — through the past, historic, never- to- 
 
362 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 be-repeated, solitary act of the shedding of His 
 blood. 
 
 And so the possession of this forgiveness is direct 
 and immediate through Christ, not from Christ 
 through others, whether persons or things, ; it is 
 distinctly not through the sacraments or through the 
 priest in such a way that but for them it would not 
 have been through Christ. The Christian, v/e are 
 assured, is a priest unto himself. We have the 
 authority of St. John for saying so, for he tells us 
 that Christ hath made us priests unto God and His 
 Father P- and if He has made us priests unto God 
 and His Father, He must have made us independent 
 of a priest to come between us and Himself ; for if 
 we have not yet accepted Christ as our priest He 
 has not yet made us priests 'i*ito God and His 
 Father. If the order is — first the priest, then Christ, 
 then the priesthood unto God the Father, all we can 
 say is, that the first term in the series is here entirely 
 omitted, and the position of the Christian described 
 at a point ulterior to it, where, having Christ for his 
 priest, he is in that sense and so far a priest unto 
 himself, because himself made a priest unto God and 
 the Father. 
 
 In fact, we have redemption in Him, He is the 
 source and centre of it ; we go to Him for it, and 
 find and receive it in Him ; for we believe that He 
 died for the remission of sins, and that the redemp- 
 tion which we have in Him is the remission of sins, 
 involves and implies and includes the remission of 
 » Rev. i. 
 
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. 363 
 
 sins. Unless every barrier is broken down between 
 ourselves and Christ, unless there is immediate con- 
 tact between ourselves and Christ, we have not that 
 in Him which is to be had alone in Him. To say 
 that we have contact with Christ through the priest, 
 or in the sacraments, is to imply that we have a 
 special contact in and through them, which differs 
 from ordinary contact ;. or a contact which we can- 
 not otherwise have, which is to establish an addi- 
 tional machinery of mediation between us and Christ, 
 independently of, and over and above His mediation 
 between us and the Father which, so far as this 
 machinery is necessary or indispensable, is thereby 
 shown to be defective and incomplete. Whereas, on 
 the contrary, the priesthood and the sacraments exist 
 solely and only to proclaim and to manifest Christ : 
 in proportion as they discharge their office they 
 accomplish their work, and Christ is proclaimed and 
 manifested ; in proportion as they fulfil their office, 
 they are lost in Him, on the principle that, as He 
 must increase^ I must decrease} not in the discharge 
 of my functions, but in their relative importance and 
 necessity in the eyes of them who most thankfully 
 receive them unto edification. There can be no 
 room for the priest and the Saviour in the believer's 
 presence. As the priest fulfils his office, and his 
 office is effectual, the Saviour becomes the priest, 
 and takes his place. The sacraments do not give 
 us a participation of Christ, which but for them we 
 could not have, but, having become partakers of 
 
 * John iii. 30. 
 
364 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 Christ by faith in Him, the sacraments assure us of 
 that participation, and demonstrate it to the senses. 
 But the sacraments cannot convey to the spirit a 
 participation which cannot reach the spirit through 
 the senses but must come to it through faith. To 
 partake of the sacrament is not necessarily to partake 
 of Christ, but we may partake of Christ in the sacra- 
 ment by faith ; and so partaking of Him, the sacra- 
 ment will confirm our faith, assuring us through the 
 senses of the reality of that participation, and de- 
 monstrating to the reason that the act in which we 
 have engaged is the counterpart and derivative of, 
 and in fact identical with the act of Him who, in 
 the same night that He was betrayed, took bread 
 and blessed and brake it in the upper room and 
 said, This is My body which is given for you ;^ and 
 who likewise after supper took the cup, when He had 
 given thanks, and said, This is My blood which is 
 shed for you for the remission of sins ; do this i7i re- 
 membrance of Me? Thus remembering and believing 
 in Him to the saving of the soul, we have, as a 
 matter of fact and a realised present possession, that 
 redemption through His blood which is the remission of 
 sins ; and though we see Him not, yet, believing in 
 Him and in the remission of sins through Him, we 
 rejoice with joy unspeakable and fill of glory. 
 Oh, my dear brethren, will you not so believe .? 
 
 * Luke xxii. 19 ; M Pet. i. 8. 
 
 * Luke xxii. 20 ; Matt. xxvi. 28. 
 
XXXI. 
 
 THE RESURRECTION QF THE BODY. 
 
 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption ; it is 
 raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonour ; it is raised in glory : it is 
 sown in weakness ; it is raised in power : it is sown a natural body ; it 
 is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a 
 spiritual body. — i CoR. xv. 42-44. 
 
 TN the article which announces or implies the dis- 
 ■^ tinctive promise of the remission of sins, in the 
 clear emphatic and authoritative manner in which 
 the Gospel proclaims it, we may perhaps say that 
 we have taken leave of those doctrines which can 
 be regarded as peculiar to Christianity. " The resur- 
 rection of the body," it is plain from the New Testa- 
 ment, was a doctrine in vogue among the Jews at 
 the time of our Lord, for otherwise the Sadducees 
 would have been deprived of the very reason for 
 their existence as deniers of it. By some, it has been 
 supposed that the doctrine of the resurrection was 
 adopted by the Jews as a foreign belief, and derived 
 by them from the ancient Persians. Our Lord, 
 however, declared plainly, that the belief in a resur- 
 rection was implied in the words addressed by God 
 to Moses, / mn the God of Abraham, a7td the God of 
 Isaac y and the God of Jacobs for he said, God is not 
 
366 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 a God of the dead, but of the living^ and any one 
 who believes that He has in the words of the Old 
 Testament something more than the unaided and 
 untaught utterances of men, will have no difficulty 
 in recognising the germs of a similar belief in 
 various parts of it. Whether or not, however, other 
 religions have apprehended or taught the doctrine of 
 a resurrection to come, certain it is that no religion 
 has spoken out upon this subject, in the same open, 
 and unmistakable way that Christianity has. What- 
 ever other religions may have taught, or not taught, 
 there is, and can be no shadow of doubt that Christi- 
 anity has taught, distinctly and emphatically, the 
 doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. It may be 
 worth observing therefore, that in whatever degree 
 this doctrine is common to other creeds besides that 
 of Christendom, it ceases to be a doctrine for which 
 Christianity alone can be held responsible. If the 
 human mind, outside the pale of Christendom, has 
 clung to this belief, and thought it reasonable, it 
 can hardly be alleged as a ground or evidence of 
 unreasonableness against Christianity. 
 
 Assuming, therefore, that the doctrine of a resur- 
 rection has entered to any extent into the national 
 beliefs of mankind, what does that fact teach us } It 
 teaches us either that the belief must have been 
 arrived at by the unaided effort of the reason, or that 
 it must have been imparted from without. It must 
 have been the result of a deep instinct, or of a definite 
 
 ' Matt. xxii. 32 j Mark xii. 26, 27 j Luke xx. 37, 38. 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 367 
 
 act of revelation imparting it to man. Now what is 
 there in reason calculated to lead us to this belief? 
 It is unquestionable, that to a certain extent, nature 
 herself seems to speak of a resurrection. When in 
 returning spring, the aspect of the world is changed, 
 and the earth awakens from the deep sleep of winter 
 to clothe herself once more in the habiliments of life 
 and gladness, is not the very word we use to express 
 it, resurrection.!* When "the jolly hours lead on pro- 
 pitious May," we see, as it were, the resurrection of 
 nature. She was dead and is alive again. And 
 yet the flowers and the leaves, the foliage and the 
 fruit of each returning season are not the same as 
 those of last year, they are a new series connected 
 with the former one only as one link of a chain is 
 connected with another, by the order of succession, 
 and yet more intimately by derivation. All that we 
 can say in this case is, that the result is similar, but 
 it is not the same. The law of nature is reproduc- 
 tion, repetition, the multiplication of individuals 
 after the same type, but not the preservation of the 
 individuals. So also is it with the generations of 
 the human family. One generation succeeds another. 
 The aspect of man upon the earth now is very much 
 what it was a hundred or a thousand years ago; but 
 the individuals are not the same, though they are in 
 this case the representatives and derivations of their 
 predecessors. It hardly seems, therefore, that these 
 analogies of nature are adequate to suggesting the 
 doctrine of a resurrection in any real sense. If this 
 
368 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 is all that could be learnt from nature, it would 
 hardly account for the belief in a resurrection. To 
 say that resurrection is nothing more than endless 
 repetition, infinite reproduction of the type, is to fall 
 far short of what would seem to be its natural and 
 necessary meaning. If then the belief in a resurrec- 
 tion had really been attained, it would seem that it 
 must have come fronr other sources. When a son 
 stands over the open grave of his dead father, and 
 professes his belief in the resurrection, he does not, 
 cannot mean that the father is risen again in himself, 
 the son — that would be a truism, and an obvious 
 fact. Whatever nations have held the faith of a 
 resurrection, must have meant by it much more than 
 this. But it does not seem that nature could teach them 
 much more, or therefore lead them to the doctrine of 
 a resurrection. Surely to whatever extent they held 
 that doctrine, it must have been the result of a deep 
 irrepressible inextinguishable instinct : and therefore 
 the inculcation of the Divine, just as the mother's 
 love, is taught by God, or else it must have been the 
 remnant of an original Divine revelation. 
 
 And though considering the extent of its hold 
 upon the human mind, it cannot be said that the 
 doctrine of the resurrection is contrary to reason, yet 
 it would be absurd to say that it is not a doctrine 
 above and beyond reason. So manifestly is this the 
 case, that it is well-nigh impossible that the belief 
 can have been derived from reason, and it must 
 almost necessarily point us to revelation. 
 
THE RESURRECTION' OF THE BODY. 369 
 
 What then, is it, that we learn from Revelation ? 
 A seed is cast into the ground and dies, but after it 
 has died it springs up again, not as it was before, but 
 another " body " : the same, inasmuch as the "body," 
 a plant derived from one seed, is different from that 
 derived from another seed, but not the same inas- 
 much as the plant is different from the seed. Here, 
 then, we get the great law of the preservation of in- 
 dividuality in and through dissolution. That which 
 thou sowesty thou sowest not that body which shall be, 
 but bare grain , it may chance of wheat or of some 
 other grain, but God giveth it a body as it hath 
 pleased Him, and to every seed his own body} That 
 which is raised is the same and yet not the same ; and 
 so also is the resurrection of the body, which is the 
 same inasmuch as it is not another as the son who suc- 
 ceeds his father is another, but yet not the same, for 
 it is sown in corruption, and raised in incorruption. 
 
 A profound mystery, my brethren, for the simple 
 reason that everything which transcends the limits 
 of our experience must be mysterious until we have 
 experienced it, but therefore for that very reason a 
 truth, which, if a truth, can only be derived by 
 revelation from the source of truth. St. Paul must 
 have been as ignorant as you or I on this matter of 
 the resurrection, and as incompetent to arrive at any 
 knowledge about it, except so far as that know- 
 ledge was imparted to him by the Most High. 
 
 In the statement of Scripture, then, about the 
 
 ' I Cor. XV., 37, 38. 
 
 24 
 
370 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 resurrection, we seem to have got more than reason 
 could have guided us to, and therefore that which 
 reason cannot understand. By reason alone we could 
 not have got so far ; no wonder therefore, if being 
 where we are, we find our reason baffled. 
 
 But let us gather up what Scripture has taught 
 us on the matter. 
 
 First, then, the resurrection of the body is some- 
 thing distinct from the resurrection of the spirit. It 
 is clear not only from this chapter, but from others, 
 that there were those in the Apostle's time, who had 
 made the two convertible. The notion of a resurrec- 
 tion of the body was a stumblingblock to them, as 
 it is to us, and they tried to elude it by dwelling on 
 the resurrection which takes place by faith in Christ. 
 If St. Paul is orthodox on this matter, it is perfectly 
 certain they were not. He taught distinctly that 
 there is a resurrection of the body. And in fact the 
 body is an integral part of the human entity. We 
 cannot have a man without a body, any more than 
 we can have a flower without petals, or a fruit with- 
 out substance. If therefore there is to be a resur- 
 rection of the man, there must be a resurrection of 
 the body. 
 
 But how, if the body is dissolved into its component 
 elements, which are scattered to the four winds, and 
 become portions of other beings, beasts, fishes, birds 
 and plants, and are destined again to return to cor- 
 ruption, in never-ending succession ,!* Here is the 
 very point at which reason, having been led thereto 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 371 
 
 by faith, turns back in dismay, faint and dizzy at the 
 prospect before her. 
 
 And it is manifestly hopeless to render her posi- 
 tion more secure. We cannot do it. Reason must 
 wait, and stay herself upon faith, but she has certain 
 principles to cling to, one is the preservation of the 
 individual, or of personal, identity. As a matter of 
 fact, we know that this preservation is maintained 
 under circumstances no less staggering to the pro- 
 cesses of reason and the efforts of the understanding. 
 There is not one particle of the same substance or 
 matter in your body, or in mine, now that there was 
 ten years ago, and yet our identity is preserved, and 
 in many cases our appearance even is but little 
 changed. We know that we are the same, our 
 friends recognise us as the same. Is not this a 
 mystery } Can you account for it t Can I ? Can 
 anyone } Take again the law of growth. A child 
 is bom with a very small body, it is preserved with 
 great solicitude and care, through a variety of acci- 
 dents and dangers, and it gathers bulk — where from ? 
 — till by slow degrees the child has become a boy, 
 and the boy has become a man, and then the process 
 of growth which has continued, perhaps for twenty 
 years or so without intermission, suddenly stops, but 
 why } Can any one tell } The only reason we can 
 give is, that these things are so, because they are so ; 
 but " O most lame and impotent conclusion ! " But 
 it is, however, perfectly obvious, that of the child who 
 has thus become a man, no vestige has remained at 
 
372 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 various successive stages of his growth. Every par- 
 ticle has become dissolved, over and over again, has 
 passed into other beings and the like : is there no 
 mystery here ? And yet this is a patent fact before our 
 own eyes, occuring in thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands of instances, in fact in every instance. And 
 shall we say that the preservation of the individual 
 and of personal identity, in and through death, after 
 a visible dissolution has passed upon the body is a 
 thing impossible } Why impossible 1 What do we 
 know about the possible or the impossible ? In the 
 vocabulary of the Almighty, the word impossible is 
 not found ; inconceivable it may be ; unintelligible it 
 is ; incredible, but for certain considerations it might 
 well be ; but impossible ! nay we must know a little 
 more about the limits of the possible before we dare 
 say that. When it is a known fact then, that the 
 actual body of every one of us has already been the 
 subject of a certain resurrection many times, shall 
 we refuse to believe that there is yet another and a 
 greater resurrection reserved for it, which may or 
 may not have a greater or less analogy with those 
 which have already occurred, but which, unlike them, 
 shall be its final resurrection. On the conditions of 
 this resurrection it were vain to speculate. We can 
 only suppose that the body shall be a body still, 
 though no longer corrupt, dishonourable or weak, it 
 shall be a body, even as the body of the risen 
 Christ was a body which bore the marks of the nails 
 and spear ; but it shall not be a natural or psychical, 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 373 
 
 but a spiritual or pneumatical body, that is to say, 
 it shall not be an animal body, but it shall be a 
 spiritual body More than this we know not and 
 cannot find out, and what perchance even this may 
 mean we dare not guess. 
 
 But two other relative thoughts Scripture seems 
 to give us. As we have seen, our Lord deduced the 
 doctrine of the resurrection from the words spoken 
 to Moses in the memorable declaration, God is not 
 the God of the dead, but of the living, implying surely, 
 therefore, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were yet 
 alive in God, and also, as it seems to me, in some 
 sense risen, if we are to preserve the validity of His 
 argument, otherwise, how would their being alive in 
 God prove the resurrection t If God was the God 
 of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and thereby the God 
 of the living and not of the dead, then those of whom 
 He was the God were living, and in communion 
 with Him ; their mortal bodies had turned again to 
 their dust, but they were not dead, and the bodies 
 which had died and turned to dust did not constitute 
 them. We do not wish to dogmatise on a mattei? 
 of such profound obscurity ; but, verily, the thought 
 appears to be suggested by the words of our Lord, 
 that, after all, we may have erred in mixing up the 
 notion of time with the fact of the resurrection, in 
 relegating that resurrection to a point beyond a vast 
 and unlimited gulf of time. 
 
 The resurrection is a condition which is inde- 
 pendent of time, and not measured^ by time, nor 
 
374 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 modified by time. Thy brother shall rise again^ 
 said Christ to Martha. / know that Ju shall rise 
 again in tJie resurrection at the last day} was her 
 reply, mixing up the condition of the resurrection 
 with an indefinite conception of future time ; but 
 Jesus said unto her, in ever memorable words, / am 
 the resurrectiony and the life : he that believeth in Me, 
 though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever 
 liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest 
 thou this f'^ If the body is essential to the integrity 
 of man, though particular parts or accidents of the 
 body are not essential to the identity of the indi- 
 vidual, we know not what change has passed upon 
 the man when the being with whom we held personal 
 and spiritual converse has passed away and left us 
 nothing but the husk of his visible and lifeless clay. 
 Thou sowest not that body that shall be^ but bare 
 grain ; and, That which thou sowest is not quickened 
 except it die ; ^ but out of the body so sown, though the 
 when and the where we know not, any more than we 
 know the how^ there cometh forth a body the same, 
 yet not the same ; the same as regards personal 
 identity, but not the same as regardeth accidents ; 
 for, It is sown in corruption; but, it is raised in 
 incorruptio7i : the verbs are impersonal verbs without 
 a subject, (nreipeTai iyeipeTat,. It is sown in dis- 
 honour, it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness, 
 it is raised in power : it is sown a natural body, it is 
 
 * John xi. 23, 24. ' I Cor. xv. 37, 36. 
 
 2 Johnxi. 25, 26. 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 375 
 
 raised a spiritual body} There is a natural body, and 
 there is a spiritual body. Does not this, and similar 
 language, suggest the thought that the resurrection 
 is the change of the natural body into the spiritual 
 body, and if this was already a fact to Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, as our Lord's language seems 
 partly, at least, to hint, may it not also be a fact to 
 all those who are heirs with them of the same promisef ^ 
 What if this was that very mystery which the Apostle 
 would show the Corinthians, IVe shall not all sleep, 
 but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling 
 of an eye, at the last trump? 
 
 But this brings us to the other thought of which 
 I spoke, that though the language of our Lord and 
 St. John seems to point us to an actual and present 
 resurrection, which becomes a reality to those who 
 believe in Christ, whether in life or in death, yet 
 there is also another aspect which seems well nigh 
 to have cast out the other from our popular belief, 
 which is that of a final and general resurrection, at a 
 definite but unknown point of future time, When the 
 sea shall give up the dead which are in it ; and death 
 and hell shall deliver up the dead which are in them?" 
 How far such expressions are to be interpreted 
 literally, we do not presume to say. It might seem 
 that the truth they teach is the preservation of every 
 single responsible human agent in his integrity in 
 the safe custody of God till the day of final reckon- 
 
 * I Cor. XV. 42—44. » I Cor. xv. 51, 52. 
 
 * Heb. xi. 9. * Rev. xx. 13. 
 
376 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 ing, and only this ; but, at all events, the day is 
 hastening on which shall declare it, and already 
 the Lord of Hosts muster eth the host of the battled 
 That there shall be a great gathering at the last, 
 when the Lord comes to make up His jewels, from 
 all times, nations, and languages, none can doubt. 
 How far that gathering has even yet been prepared 
 for in the invisible world we know not. In the 
 obvious obscurity of Scripture we cannot say. This 
 only we know, that if Jesus is the resurrection and 
 the life, then to believe in Him is to be risen from 
 the dead now, and to live for evermore, to have the 
 promise of the life that now is^ and of the endless life 
 to come^ and then to die is to fall asleep in, and to 
 live again in Him. For if we believe that yesus died 
 and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus 
 will God bring with Him? For to this end Christ both 
 died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both 
 of the dead and living.^ Even so be it, Amen. 
 
 * Isa. xiii. 4. ' I Thess. iv. 14. 
 
 ' I Tim. iv. 8. * Rom. xiv. 9. 
 
XXXII. 
 THE LIFE EVERLASTING. 
 
 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 
 — ^JOHN iii. 1 6. 
 
 T ^ JE come now to the issue of all practice, and 
 ^ ^ the end of all belief — the " life everlasting." 
 This, according to the words of our Lord just read, 
 was the purpose for which He was given to the 
 world, that we might have eternal life. We say 
 that we believe in the life everlasting. What do 
 we mean by it } Strange to say, there is perhaps 
 nothing which is at once so intelligible, and yet so 
 hopelessly unintelligible, as this same life everlasting 
 or eternity of existence. 
 
 The belief in immortality is an instinct. Is there 
 any one of us whose heart, when questioned nar- 
 rowly, does not assure him in accents unmistakable, 
 albeit inaudible, that he cannot die; that there is in 
 him an indestructible essence, an unquenchable spark, 
 which is independent of change and unrelated to 
 time, and which therefore must be unaffected by and 
 superior to death ? There can be no question but 
 that a very large induction, based upon the ex- 
 perience of the vast majority of mankind, confirms 
 
378 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 this statement. It is not that in earlier and later 
 times there have not been those who have grudged 
 and endeavoured to wrench from man his birthright 
 of immortality, but not only the great majority of 
 thinking men have arrived at the conviction that 
 man is immortal, but, what is even more to the point 
 in such a case, the popular belief of by far the larger 
 portion of mankind has instinctively declared in 
 favour of such a conviction. Indeed, the immortality 
 of man, or as it used to be called the immortality of 
 the soul, was a doctrine familiar to many nations 
 and to many beliefs long before Christianity was first 
 preached. To acknowledge this, which is an un- 
 questionable fact, is not at all to detract from the 
 glory of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who, St. Paul says, 
 abolished death and brought life a7id immortality to 
 light through the gospels Here, however, as was 
 observed in the last lecture, we must distinguish 
 carefully between the immortality of man and the 
 deathlessness of the individual. The immortality of 
 the soul is a Pagan and a very chilly doctrine, as 
 well as a shadowy and a very vague doctrine. The 
 thought of the former inhabitants of the world being 
 reduced to the condition of insubstantial disembodied 
 spirits is a notion calculated, I should imagine, to 
 give but little comfort to any one. It is the notion 
 which the irrepressible instinct of the human heart, 
 when left to itself and unaided is likely to beget. 
 It is the net result of the heathen poet's belief which 
 
 * 2 Tim. i. lo. 
 
THE LIFE EVERLASTING. 379 
 
 he cannot get rid of, Noit omnis moriar^ " I shall not 
 wholly die." It is the witness to that instinct, the 
 evidence and token of it. Even this notion, however, 
 vindicates to a certain extent the immortality of the 
 separate man, the deathlessness of the ego or the I. 
 
 But it is obvious that the notion of the immortality 
 of man is perfectly well susceptible of a very different 
 meaning, only then it becomes the expression of a 
 fact, and not the utterance of a belief It is obvious 
 that man is immortal. Any one who has stood in 
 the magnificent amphitheatre at Verona must have 
 felt the presence of this fact. Man is immortal in 
 his works ; the pyramids of Egypt and the ruins of 
 Rome alike attest it. There is the abiding evidence 
 of the existence of men who have long passed away. 
 Even greater than such evidence is the witness of 
 literary monuments, Exegi monumentum (Ere perennins : 
 " I have reared for myself a monument more durable 
 than bronze " was the proud consciousness of the 
 Roman poet, which is that also of all who, like him, 
 have produced works that cannot die. This, how- 
 ever, is and can be the heritage only of a few. It 
 bears witness to the immortality of certain men, but 
 not to the immortality of man. It is the glorious 
 achievement of select exceptions, not the inalienable 
 birthright of the many and the all. 
 
 But man is immortal in his race. The gemis homo 
 does not die. One generation passes away, but an- 
 other takes its place. Man is perpetually dying and 
 being buried, but he is likewise perpetually rising 
 
38o THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 again from the dead. Phoenix-like, from the ashes 
 of the dead there comes forth the inextinguishable 
 hope of an undying futurity, though it is the futurity 
 of succession, and not of the separate and solitary 
 one. The Christian doctrine of the life everlasting 
 is something more than the eternity of the type, it 
 is the deathlessness of the individual. It is not that 
 I am immortal, because the race to which I belong 
 cannot die, and because I belong to it, but it is that 
 I am immortal because death cannot ultimately ex- 
 tinguish me. The doctrine has been proclaimed of 
 late that Christianity does not predicate the immor- 
 tality of man in the abstract, but only of those whom 
 it invests with immortality through faith in the 
 Redeemer. With reference to this doctrine, I can 
 only say that I do not go to Christianity to learn 
 whether or not I shall die, but to the scrutiny of my 
 own heart. I learn there, and thousands besides me 
 have learnt the same, that there is that in me which 
 death cannot touch. 
 
 And I should say that the very fact of man being 
 able to debate such a topic as that of his own im- 
 mortality is an unmistakable proof of the immortality 
 which he debates. Who told thee that thou wast 
 immortal t Didst thou dream it of thyself } If so, 
 whence came the dream .> How was it that such a 
 dream could take possession of thee, nay, could visit 
 thee at all, if from the nature of the case thou wast 
 incapable of immortality "i It is like the thought of 
 God. How came that thought into the mind of 
 
THE LIFE EVERLASTING. 381 
 
 man ? How did the thought stamp itself indelibly 
 on the language of man unless because it was the 
 expression of a fact. Human language expresses 
 only those things which need to be expressed. The 
 existence of a word for God in all the languages of 
 man as a primary, elementary, and necessary thought, 
 and not as an artificial or refined necessity, is surely 
 no small proof of the fact which man felt compelled 
 to acknowledge and express. 
 
 I take it, then, that this immortality of man's 
 nature is a primary truth which Christianity assumes 
 and does not inculcate. The immortality of man is 
 involved in the fact of his moral superiority no less 
 than in that of his marvellous power of contemplat- 
 ing himself as a whole, from a point external to 
 himself. If man is responsible, there must be a 
 time and place, or something that answers to a time 
 and place, for him to ^\w^ an account. Let those 
 who like take refuge in the thought of annihilation, 
 of total extinction after death ; there is, after all, I 
 presume, something to be annihilated, something to 
 be extinguished ; this is clearly not that which we 
 see annihilated, which we see touched by the icy 
 hand of death ; but what is /it } If we say that it is 
 annihilated, how do we arrive at the knowledge that 
 it exists to be annihilated } Surely it is a cumbrous 
 operation first to call it into existence and then to 
 annihilate it, better by far to deny its existence ; but 
 then, what need for its annihilation } Surely man's 
 consciousness, his sense of responsibility, his per- 
 
382 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 petual tendency to reach forth into worlds unknown, 
 are all so many undeniable indications of a capacity 
 which he has in virtue of his being, which Chris- 
 tianity does not, and has not given him, but to which 
 it only appeals. And annihilation is nothing better 
 than a cowardly way of baulking the inevitable in- 
 ference which forces itself upon the conscience and 
 will not be put by. 
 
 On the other hand, however, there are two great 
 difficulties connected with this matter of immortality 
 which, as they are not invented by Christianity, so 
 neither are they solved by it. The first is, that if 
 man is eternal with reference to futurity, he must, or 
 may be eternal with reference also to the past ; which 
 brings us face to face with the mysteries of previous 
 existence, a doctrine which has oftentimes been held, 
 and of which there may have been a trace in the 
 words, Master^ who did sin, this man, or his parents, 
 that he was born blind ? i but upon which our Lord, 
 with characteristic indifference to such abstract and 
 idle questionings, has thrown no light in His reply. 
 Certain it is, that the testimony of human conscious- 
 ness on this point is incomparably less distinct than 
 it is on the other of immortality, and the notion of 
 pre-existence is probably nothing more than the 
 logical penumbra of the doctrine of immortality. 
 There appears to be nothing inconceivable in the 
 notion of the Almighty Creator calling into exist- 
 ence in time and in the world of matter beings whom 
 
 * I John, ix. 2. 
 
THE LIFE EVERLASTING. 383 
 
 He has endowed with the capacity of eternal exist- 
 ence ; but however this may be, we cannot refuse to 
 believe in man's immortality simply because to do 
 so would oblige us, if so be it were to oblige us, 
 logically, to believe also in his pre-existence. His 
 responsibility, which is the condition of his existence 
 here, has reference to the all-golden present, and not 
 to a past of which, as far as we are concerned, nothing 
 whatever is known, but which clearly is as though it 
 had never been. This is a matter on which I do not 
 pretend to pronounce. I personally do not believe 
 in it, I only say that, supposing the logical consequence 
 of accepting the doctrine of immortality were to be 
 the belief in pre-existence, this would not constitute 
 a valid reason for rejecting that doctrine. 
 
 But we pass on to the second difficulty. And 
 this is the stupendous magnitude of the thought, and 
 the terrible oppressiveness of the attempt to realise 
 it. Towards the end of the London season, there 
 are two words which frequently suggest themselves, 
 which, happily, have no equivalents in our language, 
 but which are expressive of conditions unhappily too 
 common among us ; one is blas^, the other is enmii. 
 It is sad, indeed, when the continued stroke of afflic- 
 tion and suffering has made us weary of life ; but it 
 is sadder far when the repeated draught of pleasure 
 has wrought the same preternatural effect ; when we 
 have drunk to the fill of the sweet wine of amuse- 
 ment and society till we are fain to put the cup from 
 us with disgust, when we have enjoyed so much that 
 
384 . THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 we can enjoy no more. It is not all of whom this 
 is true, but is it not true of some ? If, however, to 
 be weary of the hours and moments as they fly is 
 the experience of some in this life, what is not the 
 very thought itself of a life which knows no change 
 and can have no end ? Fortunately, imagination 
 itself fails to apprehend the conception, she sinks 
 under it, baffled and crest-fallen. To live for ever ; 
 it is a solemn, an awful, an overwhelming, and 
 oppressive thought, and one which, in its positive 
 aspect, we dare not realise, and cannot hope to 
 appreciate ; but, happily, this is hardly the aspect 
 in which we need to apprehend it. He that believeth 
 in Me, saith our Lord,^ shall neve7' die, and that, I 
 imagine, is appreciable. Miserable as life, whether 
 from a surfeit of pleasure or from excess of pain, some- 
 times is, there is a deeper, because an unknown 
 misery yet in death. We quail before the notion of 
 death, we shrink from the prospect of dissolution 
 and the thought of dying. It is still, under all cir- 
 cumstances, " life and fuller life we want," and not 
 annihilation, or any form of death. 
 
 And this is what Christianity has to give us, this 
 is the assured promise of faith in Christ, that whoso- 
 ever — the insignificant no less than the distinguished, 
 the fool no less than the reputed wise, the poor man 
 no less than the mighty rich ; not the select or the 
 favoured few, whether among the philosophers, or the 
 fashionable, or the blameless and the moral, but that 
 
 * I John xi. 26. 
 
THE LIFE EVERLASTING. 385 
 
 whosoever — -high and low, rich and poor, great and 
 small, one with another, all and everyone alike 
 who believeth in Jesus, may not perish but have 
 everlasting life. It is not the Christian Creed 
 which gives this life but faith in the Christ who 
 gives it, that faith in Him as the living centre 
 which carries with it the radiating, subsidiary and 
 subordinate faith in the various articles of the Chris- 
 tian Creed. 
 
 And here we must for a moment contemplate the 
 alternative, for there surely is an alternative to be 
 contemplated. St. John, the apostle of love, does 
 not hesitate to say so : He that hath the Son hath life 
 he tJiat hath not the Son of God hath not life} It 
 man's birthright in virtue of his constitution is 
 immortality ; if he is endowed with an inextin- 
 guishable spark of life, what will not, must not, that 
 life be apart from Christ. He that hath not the Son 
 hath not life. The language is itself stamped with 
 the mark of the eternal, for it is studiously and 
 conspicuously independent of time — it is couched in 
 the terms of an unqualified and interminable pre- 
 sent ; it expresses an unfailing condition which, from 
 moment to moment, from year to year, from century 
 to century, is unalterably true, which, perhaps, since 
 the words were first penned, was never so capable 
 of being apprehended, or likely to be apprehended, 
 as it is now. But can we limit their significance 
 to the present life or the present state of being } I 
 
 ' I John V. 12. 
 
 25 
 
386 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 think not. Wherever and in whatever state man is, 
 if he hath not the Son of God, though he may last 
 for ever, yet he hath not life. It is an awful 
 thought, verily, but it is a thought, the truth and 
 awfulness of which we see around us. Christianity 
 gives us no light on the necessary problems of our 
 being : it does not tell us what our history in the 
 past has been, nor even whether or not we have 
 a past ; it does not tell us what our future shall be ; 
 it does not help us in the slightest degree to grasp 
 the thought of that immortality which our very 
 nature bears witness to, and the thought of which we 
 cannot suppress because it is our nature. Christianity 
 does not rend aside the thick veil of uncertainty and 
 perplexity which envelops us on every side and in- 
 tercepts our view. But Christianity knows perfectly 
 well what it offers, and is perfectly distinct and clear 
 about what it has to give. It has life, eternal life, to 
 give. This life, despite man's natural inextinguish- 
 able immortality, he does not possess. Christianity 
 comes to him, telling him he does not possess it, and 
 he knows that he does not. It comes to him and 
 says, God so loved the world that He gave His only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not 
 perish : therefore, whosoever believeth not is perishing, 
 doth perish, is dead while he liveth, will continue dead 
 as long as he so liveth, for what is true at any given 
 moment of a particular condition, is tru^ at any given 
 moment as long as that condition is unaltered, must 
 be true for ever if the condition remains for ever un- 
 
THE LIFE EVERLASTING. 387 
 
 altered — should not perish as all without Christ are 
 thus perishing, but have everlasting life} 
 
 Then what of those who know not Christ and 
 have never heard of Him ? Nay, from the very- 
 nature of the case, the statement applies not to them ; 
 it applies only to those who, by the presence and 
 the preaching of Christ, have been made conscious, 
 or at least have been assured, of their great want, 
 of their lost condition without Him. Of these no 
 one needs to continue perishing, as, without Him, he 
 must perish. Belief in Christ, or rather Christ, upon 
 his belief, will ^\nq. him eternal, everlasting life — that 
 is to say, a life which is devoid of death, which is 
 independent of change ; though verily we know not 
 what changes may be reserved for it, changes mani- 
 festly here many and various, touching oftentimes 
 the very apple of the eye, penetrating even to the 
 quick, and piercing to the dividing asunder of the 
 joints and marrow ; but changes possibly also here- 
 after : does not the very word al(t}VLo<;, aeonian, per- 
 taining to cycles of ages, serve to suggest as much ? 
 It shall give an everlasting life which is out of the 
 reach of change, which looks down unmoved upon 
 the flux of time and change beneath, enduring and 
 surviving all. About this life there is and can be 
 no mistake to the possessor. He knows that his 
 heritage by faith in Christ is a distinct, palpable, 
 substantive possession, which he had not before he 
 believed, and which he holds only upon condition of 
 
 ' I John iii. 16. 
 
388 THE CHRISTIAN CREED. 
 
 belief. Nor can others question its influence and 
 effects, however stoutly they may deny its reality. 
 There is such a thing as Christian peace, which is 
 the result of Christian faith ; there is such a thing 
 as Christian joy, which springs out of Christian peace ; 
 and there is such a thing as Christian hope, which 
 no prospect of death can quench, and for which the 
 stolid indifference of blank materialism can offer but 
 a miserable substitute, which can in no way be con- 
 founded or compared with it. 
 
 This is everlasting life ; not the infinite prolonga- 
 tion in an eternally protracted time of the life we 
 naturally live here, but the super-addition to our 
 natural life of another condition and capacity of 
 existence, which gives scope for the infinite develop- 
 ment of all the existing powers, and calls into 
 operation other faculties, energies, and perceptions 
 which, but for its influence, had otherwise lain dor- 
 mant or had not existed — the communication to the 
 spiritual nature of man of that new life of love, 
 which is the endowment of those who have learnt 
 to believe that God is love, and to find strength in 
 the thought that He has encouraged them unre- 
 servedly to trust His love, inasmuch as He has 
 called them to the fellowship of the Son of His love, 
 and given them in Him the free promise of all things 
 else. For this is life eternal^ that they might know 
 thee^ the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou 
 hast sent} 
 
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