THE GOSPEL 
 
 AND MODERN LIFE.
 
 THE GOSPEL 
 AND MODERN LIFE. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. J. LLEWELYN DAVIES, M.A. 
 
 RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, ST MARYLEBONE. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Honfoott : 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1875. 
 
 [All Rights reserved."]
 
 CTamtnTrge : 
 
 PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
 
 
 The present volume includes, together with the 
 Sermons entitled "The Gospel and Modern Life," 
 a short course delivered at Cambridge in the 
 year 1867, on the names Eucharist, Sacrifice, and 
 Communion, and published separately under the 
 title of " Morality according to the Sacrament of 
 the Lord's Supper." 
 
 1906310
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface 
 
 • a 
 
 SERMON VII. 
 Religion 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 
 SERMON I. 
 The Kingdom of Christ and the Church ... i 
 
 SERMON II. 
 The Kingdom of Christ and the Christian . . 14 
 
 SERMON III. 
 The Kingdom of Christ and the World . . . 27 
 
 SERMON IV. 
 Christ and Modern Knowledge .... 41 
 
 SERMON V. 
 Humanity and the Trinity. 58 
 
 SERMON VI. 
 Nature 
 
 SERMON VIII. 
 The Conscience . . 101
 
 vi CONTEXTS. 
 
 SERMON IX. 
 
 PAflE 
 
 Human Corruption 115 
 
 SERMON X. 
 1 1 Umax Holiness 1-29 
 
 SERMON XI. 
 Lives of the Saints 142 
 
 SERMON XII. 
 Common Worship 156 
 
 SERMON XIII. 
 Preaching 171 
 
 SERMON XIV. 
 Giving by Calculation 1S3 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 Public and Private Expenditure . . . .197 
 
 SERMON XVI. 
 The Irish Church Question -211 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 The Eucharist- . . . . .',.•>. 226 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 Sacrifice 245 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 MUNIOtf I ....... 266
 
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF 
 "THE GOSPEL AND MODERN LIFE," 1869. 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette, besides its other claims on 
 public attention, has distinguished itself by taking 
 a decided line in matters relating to theology. The 
 conductors of this newspaper have declined to re- 
 gard theology as a province with which the general 
 public has nothing to do, and have had the can- 
 dour, whilst they attack the religious professions of 
 others, to enunciate in vigorous and plain-spoken 
 writing a creed of their own. They thus address a 
 fair challenge to those whose creed they assail, and 
 in one of their recent criticisms they have made it 
 especially incumbent upon those who hold such a 
 faith as is set forth in this volume to consider what 
 reason they can give for their hope. 
 
 The first article in the creed of the Pall Mall 
 Gazette is, that as to things belonging to the unseen 
 world certainty is not to be attained. Some sup- 
 positions are probable. Nothing is more than pro- 
 bable. To this preliminary article the Gazette 
 returns again and again. Amongst probable sup- 
 positions in the sphere of religion these are the 
 three which specially commend themselves, — the 
 existence of a God, a future state, rewards and
 
 via ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 punishments awaiting virtue and vice. Many argu- 
 ments point to these as probable; and a rational 
 man will at the same time guard himself from 
 assuming their certainty and allow himself to be 
 swayed by their probability. But every form of 
 systematic theology must be surrendered. For " as 
 soon as you admit that probability is the utmost to 
 which you can attain upon these subjects, it be- 
 comes plain that the uncertainty of every inference 
 which you draw increases in a geometrical ratio." 
 Accordingly on one Easter Eve (1867) the writer 
 whose voice is to be chiefly heard in the theology 
 of the Pall Mall Gazette, protested that the keep- 
 ing of Good Friday and Easter Day was an obsolete 
 superstition. The death and resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ were not to him historical facts which it was 
 worth while to remember. He did not care to have 
 these in any sense brought before him. 
 
 There are many, it must be admitted, who 
 similarly renounce all grateful commemoration of 
 the life of Christ. But what is very singular in this 
 writer is that he nevertheless thinks it well to so to 
 Church. He introduces a representative of his 
 opinions as saying, " I attend public worship, be- 
 cause I thoroughly believe it to be a good thing." 
 How he would reconcile the acceptance of any 
 form of Christian service with the repudiation of 
 Good Friday and Easter Day he does not explain.
 
 ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. IX 
 
 He only declares that his custom of going to Church 
 agrees exactly with his state of mind, and that his 
 state of mind is rational, decided, and contented. 
 I should have thought that such acquiescence as is 
 expressed in going to Church would have covered 
 the special observation of the Death and Resur- 
 rection on which all Christian worship is founded. 
 But it is at least evident that there might be a 
 more suitable " expression for the great supposi- 
 tions " mentioned above than prayers offered in 
 the name of Christ to the Father. The liturgy in 
 which this writer would rationally unite with his 
 fellow-believers would be something to this effect: 
 " O God, if there be a God (of which I am by no 
 means sure, and insist positively that no one else 
 shall be sure), I consider it highly probable (but 
 not, I emphatically insist, more than probable), 
 that virtue will be rewarded and vice punished. I 
 intend therefore to cultivate virtue." But those 
 who could adopt this confession of faith do not 
 generally think it worth while to come together 
 solemnly for the purpose of uttering it. 
 
 This, the writer contends, is not scepticism. It 
 is to be " in a state of enforced and therefore con- 
 tented ignorance on most of the great topics of 
 religion." According to him, the ship of our life is 
 " one upon which the sun never shines." Certainly 
 this state of mind is a different one from that which
 
 x ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 we commonly call sceptical. The writer is entitled 
 to protest against loose charges of scepticism, 
 atheism, infidelity, being thrown against a creed 
 so well defined and so consistently supported as 
 this to which the Pall Mall Gazette has given its 
 adhesion. Thinkers who have come to a stand a 
 little on the other side of Deism, and make that 
 contentedly their resting-place, ought on every 
 ground to be distinguished from the larger class, 
 properly described as sceptical, who waver between 
 moods of belief and of doubt. These are in the 
 better or the worse condition of not knowing 
 thoroughly their own minds. There is a pro- 
 founder doubt than that of the Pall Mall Ga- 
 zette, and a larger faith, which have conflicting 
 attractions more powerful than those of any juste 
 milieu of Deism. On the one hand there is a hope 
 of being rid of endless difficulties, if we once make 
 a clean sweep and resolve to know neither a God 
 nor a future life. We might still agree to cultivate 
 virtue as that which promotes the general well- 
 being; but why trouble ourselves with these ques- 
 tions which reach out into the unknown, and which 
 we can never satisfactorily solve? Deism, however 
 unimpassioned and calculating, leaves one a prey 
 to all the most difficult problems by which the 
 human mind has been vexed. On the other hand, 
 no one denies — hardly any one is insensible to —
 
 ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. XI 
 
 the attractions of the Christian Faith. Many have 
 wished they could be devout Christians, even when 
 inquiry has seemed to make it impossible. It is 
 true, as we should be quickly reminded in the Pall 
 Mall Gazette, that the question for a sensible man 
 is not what is attractive, but what is rational. But 
 I am now speaking, not of what is pleasant, but of 
 what draws and prevails upon the reason. And it 
 is not too much to say that there are innumerable 
 considerations, of varying degrees of power, which 
 might seem to any man when he gives his mind to 
 them — not to befool him into being a Christian, 
 but — to make it unreasonable for him not to be a 
 Christian. It is not wonderful, therefore, that a 
 great deal of simple uncertainty should prevail as 
 to the foundations on which men in these days 
 may build their lives, and the hopes by which 
 their efforts may be inspired. I do not take 
 upon me to say that those who, upon -the whole, 
 have resolved to believe nothing about the unseen 
 world cannot secure themselves absolutely against 
 misgivings ; but it must in candour be admitted 
 that loyal and devout Christians, now as always, — 
 for the personal history of the most zealous cham- 
 pions of the faith shews that this has been their 
 common experience, — have times when the very 
 things that they live by seem questionable and un- 
 real to them.
 
 xii ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 Christians in general, therefore, would oppose 
 to such a creed as that of the Pall Mall Gazette, 
 not the pretence of conclusions which they can 
 demonstrate against all comers, but strong and 
 deep convictions continually assailed and some- 
 times agitated by insoluble difficulties. These 
 difficulties are especially formidable to those who 
 mix with the world, and to those who study with 
 interest the progress of thought in the provinces of 
 natural science and historical criticism. And the 
 question which they have to ask themselves is 
 whether their convictions as to the nature of God 
 and the work of reconciliation are of such a kind, 
 and rest upon such a ground, that they do right in 
 saying, ' I cannot fully answer this or that objection, 
 nevertheless I will persevere in believing.' And 
 then it must come into view that the arguments by 
 which Christians of the firmest faith are and have 
 been always most powerfully moved are not such 
 as it is easy to lay out in controversy, or such as 
 can be conveniently weighed or measured by logical 
 instruments. One way of describing them is to say 
 that they are such as verify the Christian hypo- 
 thesis, which is, that there is a living God, acting 
 upon the spirits of men, and seeking to draw them 
 by the proper influences to a supersensual life of 
 faith and love. Christians are continually tempted 
 to do what all controversy solicits them to do,
 
 ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. Xlll 
 
 namely, to forget their hypothesis, and to argue as 
 if their business was to establish, in the light of the 
 understanding, certain conclusions to which every 
 rational person must assent. But this is to put the 
 main point, the attractive action of God himself, 
 out of the question. If the end of God be what we 
 hold it to be, to bring human souls to himself, then 
 the means he actually employs must be living and 
 spiritual. They are likely to be infinitely various 
 and subtle, but they will deal principally with the 
 conscience and the affections. God is likely — nay, 
 is certain — to manifest himself more and more in 
 proportion to faith and love. Christian appeals 
 belong naturally to a region that may be called 
 mystical, or may be otherwise described as personal 
 and spiritual. The experience of the inner life, 
 rightly understood and tested, is the best evidence 
 that can be adduced. Words which one man can 
 say out of his heart may strongly move another 
 man. If we will not acknowledge evidence of this 
 kind, the evidence does not perish or lose its power, 
 but we are simply remaining on the outside of the 
 question. 
 
 No Christian need be ashamed of trying to rise 
 into the sphere of those motives and to submit 
 to the government of those influences which have 
 produced all that is best in Christendom. But the 
 truth is that no one, Christian or non-Christian,
 
 xiv ON A> RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 can become serious and think of what he himself 
 lives by and for, without appealing to considera- 
 tions which may incur the taunt of being personal 
 and mystical. 
 
 The writer whom I am now criticizing appears 
 to me to be himself not exempt from the weakness 
 which he despises in others. The Pall Mall Ga- 
 zette contained not long since two articles of striking 
 ability discussing the grounds of religious belief. 
 The first of these (Oct. 17th, 1868) was a review 
 of a tract by Mr Thos. Hughes, originally published 
 in the series called Tracts for Priests and People. 
 The review was aimed at the school to which 
 Mr Hughes belongs. "If we are asked why we 
 have given so much space to this performance, 
 our answer is that it is a representative tract. 
 It illustrates the effect upon a man of standing 
 and talent of a school which we think is rapidly 
 losing its influence, but which in its day threw 
 numbers of promising men upon a hopelessly false 
 
 scent in matters of the utmost importance Mr 
 
 Hughes shews its characteristics in the most naked 
 
 form He considers that the great question about 
 
 every creed proposed to men is not whether it is 
 true but whether it ' answers,' — whether, that is, 
 those who have been brought up in it like it." Mr 
 Hughes's tract was entitled A L ay mail s Faith. 
 The intention of it was to give his own personal
 
 ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. XV 
 
 convictions and experience for what they were 
 worth. It may be presumed that he felt the re- 
 luctance of a modest and reverent nature to speak 
 about himself; but he thought it right to overcome 
 that reluctance and to profess himself to be a 
 believer, with his whole heart and mind, in the 
 simple Gospel of Christ. His faith, so he told 
 those who cared to hear him, was not a thine 
 worn lightly, but was rooted in his deepest con- 
 victions. So personal a statement as that of Mr 
 Hughes, requires, most persons will think, to be 
 justified by peculiar circumstances. But his re- 
 viewer raises no question about the taste or dis- 
 cretion of the tract ; he does not accuse the writer 
 of egregious vanity or assumption. His objection 
 is to the notion that it is worth while to consider 
 whether a creed "answers" or not. He wishes 
 to confound the whole school of those who think 
 that a faith is to be tested by the inward experience 
 of life. And so he sets himself to overwhelm Mr 
 Hughes with ridicule, rioting in that kind of banter 
 vulgarly described as " chaff," and bringing up against 
 him the stock difficulties which can always be cast 
 in the way of belief. And he does this in order to 
 show Mr Hughes and his associates that they are 
 " darkening counsel by words without knowledge." 
 But before they admit that they are finally 
 extinguished by this battery of ridicule, Mr Hughes
 
 xvi ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 and his fellow-sufferers may appeal to the real 
 nature of the question at issue. Supposing the 
 question in its most essential form to be such as 
 this, " Does God reveal himself to faith, or not ? 
 Can we hope to know anything about God, or 
 not?" — the testimony of every man who is in 
 earnest and who has appreciated for himself and 
 others the gravity of the question must be worth 
 something. Most of us surely would feel more 
 helped by knowing the serious convictions of an 
 honest mind than by seeing such convictions made 
 game of. Just that part of the religious literature 
 of all ages which has been most prized and has 
 actually stirred the minds of men with the greatest 
 power, — the utterance of what men have felt and 
 inwardly proved, — is that which the reviewer de- 
 nounces as futile. 
 
 This reviewer himself, as I have intimated, when 
 he becomes most reverent, naturally invokes the 
 same kind of personal experience. In the next 
 month (Nov. 28th) the Pall Mall Gazette contained 
 a review of the Archbishop of York's Lecture on 
 the ' Limits of Philosophical Inquiry,' in the con- 
 cluding part of which the writer threw his own 
 views into the form of an allegory. It is almost 
 too much to appropriate, but I find I cannot 
 criticize it without transferring the whole of this 
 interesting allegory to my pages.
 
 ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. xvn 
 
 " I dreamt that I was in the cabin of a large 
 ship, which was filled with people divided into 
 various groups listening to men who were ex- 
 plaining to them the beginning, the nature, and 
 the end of their voyage, and the rules of navi- 
 gation by which it was regulated. The different 
 speakers did not agree. There was a general re- 
 semblance between their accounts, but there were 
 also wide differences between them on which they 
 insisted with extreme eagerness. All, however, 
 seemed to think that to adhere with absolute con- 
 fidence to the teaching of some one of them was 
 an absolutely essential condition to every one who 
 wished to complete the voyage prosperously. The 
 cabin was handsomely furnished and brightly 
 lighted, but there was something about it which 
 filled me with depression and distrust. The various 
 maps and charts to which the different speakers 
 appealed were plain and systematic enough in parts, 
 but in other parts they were exceedingly confused, 
 obscure, and apparently contradictory, and when 
 this was pointed out to the speakers they became 
 enraged, and laid all the blame on the persons who 
 pointed it out. Moreover, the general character 
 of the prospects which they held out to us was 
 horrible in the extreme. We were assured in every 
 form of speech that what they had to tell was the 
 best and most glorious news in the world ; but 
 D. s. c
 
 will ON A DECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 when you put it all together the substance of it 
 was that nearly every one of us must expect upon 
 landing to be confined in a hideous dungeon, and 
 there to be put to a cruel death by lingering 
 torments. Some, we were told, were to be other- 
 wise dealt with for reasons and upon principles 
 which it was difficult to follow or apply, and all 
 our teachers with one voice agreed in extolling 
 with passionate raptures the glories of the country 
 to which we were bound, and the wisdom, good- 
 ness, and mercy of its sovereign and its laws. 
 Much saddened and somewhat confused with all 
 this, I managed at last to make my way from the 
 cabin to the deck, where I found myself enrolled, 
 I could hardly tell how, amongst the crew who 
 were working the ship. When I had time to look 
 about me a little I observed several tinners which 
 were strangely unlike the accounts given of the 
 voyage in the cabin. Our ship was one on which 
 the sun never shone. The voyage was made in 
 the dark under a sky which was often cloudy, 
 and where at best we got no other light than what 
 came from the stars. We could never certainly 
 tell whether we were in sight of land or not. In cer- 
 tain quarters of the sky there were indications of the 
 shore, and here and there we thought we saw lights. 
 Some of our crew declared that it was all non- 
 sense ; that there was no port and no shore at all,
 
 ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. xix 
 
 and that it was mere weakness and folly to think 
 about them ; that it was better to let the ship 
 drive where she would than give ourselves so much 
 trouble as wc did to try to keep her to what was 
 understood to be her course. The fact that there 
 was such a course was the strangest thing about 
 that strange vessel. Many theories there were 
 about it, none of which were quite satisfactory. 
 Yet it was a generally understood thing that, under 
 all circumstances whatever, we were to steer due 
 north, or as near thereto as we possibly could ; 
 and it was remarkable that the best and bravest 
 and wisest of our crew would run incredible risks 
 and undergo incredible dangers, often at the hands 
 of companions who were dissatisfied with them, 
 in order to keep the ship on that particular course. 
 It was also very remarkable that when she was 
 steered on any other it never turned out well 
 in the end. Putting these things together, and 
 connecting them with the fact that the ship ob- 
 viously was a ship framed, equipped, and suited 
 in every way to make a voyage, I could not help 
 feeling that she was bound somewhere, and that 
 she would find her port at last, although I doubted 
 the wisdom of those who professed to know all 
 about it. However this might be, I used to feel 
 that I would try to do my duty, in the hope that 
 it might turn out to have been a duty, and as 
 
 c 2
 
 xx ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 I stood on deck, with the fresh air blowing over 
 me, the stars shining silently from the sky, and the 
 ship leaning from the wind and riding over the 
 seas with a motion full of freshness and vigour, 
 I felt that there was something bracing in the 
 very mystery with which I was surrounded, and 
 that at all events ignorance honestly admitted and 
 courageously faced and rough duty vigorously done 
 was far better than the sham knowledge, the bitter 
 quarrels, the sickly odours, and the glaring lamp- 
 lights from which I had escaped." 
 
 The allegory does not seem to me in all points 
 so transparent as the writer assumes it to be. I am 
 not quite sure what the lamplight in the cabin 
 means ; but perhaps in this, and in more than this, 
 there is an unintended echo of a remarkable pas- 
 sage in Isaiah (1. 10, n): "Who is among you 
 that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his 
 servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no 
 light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and 
 stay upon his God. Behold, all ye that kindle 
 a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks ; 
 walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks 
 that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine 
 hand, yc shall lie down in sorrow/' The resolution 
 described in the allegory, I cannot but observe, 
 is not far from what the prophet called " to trust 
 in the name of the Lord, and to stay upon his
 
 ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. XXI 
 
 God." It is not quite obvious again how the 
 people in the cabin arc distinguished from those 
 on deck, for it appears that amongst the crew also 
 some thought one thing and some another ; but 
 probably the difference intended is between those 
 who have opinions and those who work, or between 
 speculation and matter of fact. Assuming that 
 to be so, we observe that the crew, or the most 
 sensible part of them, acted as if the ship were 
 bound for a port. What was the ground of this 
 action? There was "a general understanding" 
 that a particular course was to be kept ; " the best 
 and bravest and wisest" of the crew were so 
 satisfied in their own minds that they would en- 
 counter incredible risks and dangers to keep the 
 ship on that course ; and if the ship was steered 
 on any other it never turned out well, or did not 
 "answer." These things produce a "feeling" in 
 the mind of the teller of the story. He "could 
 not help feeling," he " used to feel," he " felt," that 
 he would do his duty, " in the hope that it might 
 turn out to have been a duty." There is singular 
 deference on the part of the speaker to a mys- 
 terious kind of feeling. Everything is dark and 
 uncertain to him ; but he surrenders his persevering 
 action, the dearest thing a man has to give, to be 
 governed by the stronger convictions of the best 
 and bravest and wisest, and by the experience
 
 xxn ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 of life. The ship looks as if it was meant to go 
 somewhere ; others tell him, and experience appears 
 to support their belief, that it is to be steered on 
 a particular course. Therefore he will do his part 
 of the work as if it was his duty. We cannot 
 withhold our respect from such a resolution ; but 
 what wins our respect is that the speaker does his 
 duty in circumstances of such oppressive gloom, 
 not that he despairs of receiving more encourage- 
 ment. We should turn from him to inquire what 
 the best and bravest and wisest who- are so per- 
 suaded in their minds have to say about their 
 hopes ; and if we found that one of them was 
 actually eager to explain his confidence so as to 
 get others to share it, we should hardly meet his 
 account of it with the question, Why can't you 
 hold your tongue ? It might turn out that the 
 thoughts of these best and bravest and wisest, 
 verified by their experience in working the ship, 
 were worth putting side by side with the accounts, 
 having a general resemblance to one another, of 
 the speakers in the cabin. After all, there might 
 be sunshine by times for those who knew where 
 and how to look for it. 
 
 Remembering, however, the article on Mr 
 Hughes, and other aggressive criticisms, I cannot 
 help suggesting that the allegory needs a sup- 
 plement, to some such effect as the following :
 
 OJV A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. XX1U 
 
 " Nevertheless I had a feeling as though it might 
 be right for me to descend from time to time into 
 the cabin, and to tell the people there what I 
 thought of them. This was unfortunately a rough 
 piece of duty, but finding it in me to do it vigor- 
 ously and with enjoyment, I spent a considerable 
 part of my time in the cabin, explaining to the 
 various disputants all round the weaknesses I 
 thought I could detect in their systems. On 
 one of my visits to the cabin for this purpose, I 
 observed a knot of persons who had offended the 
 rest by declining to believe that the end of the 
 voyage must necessarily be so gloomy as the 
 majority expected it to be. These persons were 
 endeavouring to dwell upon that general resem- 
 blance which I have mentioned above, in the hope 
 of promoting unity ; and they urged their fellow- 
 passengers to look steadily to such indications as 
 came to them from sky and water whilst they were 
 working the vessel, and to compare these with the 
 common statement in which the cabin-passengers 
 agreed, instead of wrangling down in the cabin. 
 It did not appear that this advice was receiving 
 much attention, so I thought it might be prac- 
 ticable to silence this particular set. I noticed 
 one of them, a cheery seaman, who made it his 
 business to persuade people to come up on to 
 the deck and help to work the ship, and who
 
 xxiv ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 tried to put hope and heart into them by telling 
 them in a very friendly way about his own feel- 
 ings and experiences. No one could be angry 
 with his kindly efforts, but I did not myself care 
 much about his feelings or experiences, so I told 
 him in a loud and rough voice, but with a good- 
 humoured smile, that his talk was that of a canting 
 humbug, and that it did not in the least matter to 
 anybody what he had felt or observed, and that — 
 unless indeed he could assure us that we were 
 adrift without guidance on a sunless sea — he had 
 better hold his tongue. I proceeded to banter 
 him in a style which raised great laughter against 
 him, and having done this I went on deck again 
 much refreshed." 
 
 Although it is not, as I have said, the obvious 
 moral of the allegory, yet the doctrine the writer 
 desires to preach is chiefly this, that in the things 
 by which our lives are governed certainty is unat- 
 tainable, and the best knowledge no more than 
 a supposition. And the strongest argument he 
 adduces is an argumentum ad verecundiam. ' If 
 the truth of what you are sure of were so evident, 
 would not all men acknowledge it ? But you 
 know, or may know, that there are serious men, 
 good men, who think your creed not only not 
 certainly true, but even the reverse of true.' This 
 difficulty has always existed, and the Gospel has
 
 OX A RECEXT PHASE OF DEISM. XXV 
 
 won its conquests in the face of it. But from 
 various causes the discouragement arising from it 
 at the present time is greater than usual. We 
 must recognize the force of the argument, — it 
 ought to succeed in making us modest and 
 respectful in all assertions of our faith. But the 
 fact that there are men in earnest who do not 
 believe in the Gospel, nor in a God who guides 
 men's destinies and hears their prayers, — this and 
 the many perplexities of which all thinking persons 
 are conscious do not destroy the fact that many 
 Christians have believed and still believe that the 
 love of God revealed in Christ is one of the most 
 certain things in the universe. Nor do all those 
 difficulties necessarily make such confident as- 
 surance irrational. They must first make our 
 hypothesis an absurd one. This is, that God 
 reveals himself to faith. This has been the Chris- 
 tian hypothesis from the day when Jesus of 
 Nazareth first proclaimed the kingdom of his 
 Father. No wise Christian ever pretended that 
 the Gospel could be demonstrated like the ele- 
 ments of geometry. The perpetual warning has 
 been, Except ye be converted, and become as 
 little children, ye cannot see, ye cannot enter into, 
 the kingdom of heaven. All the mysticism and 
 superstition and delusion that have cloaked them- 
 selves with this law cannot take away its authority
 
 xxvi OJV A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 as a primary condition of the faith of Christendom. 
 If it is a true law, then assurance will naturally 
 grow with spiritual insight. And before you can 
 pronounce the assurance to be a delusion, you 
 must shew that this law, not an afterthought but 
 promulgated from the first, has no ground in 
 reality. 
 
 And when we are thus bidden to be sure that 
 we cannot be sure about our faith and our hope, 
 another fact of great importance, depending upon 
 the connexion between belief and life, forces itself 
 upon our observation. When you have said 'This 
 or that is highly probable,' if this or that be a 
 relation involving life and action, the probability 
 will of itself grow into certainty. Imagine a young 
 man at the threshhold of his manhood to be satis- 
 fied that the existence and providence of God are 
 highly probable suppositions. This hypothesis is 
 such a one as to affect his whole being to the in- 
 most secrets of his consciousness. God claims his 
 trust, his love, his self-devotion. He goes on 
 therefore to make his entire life an offering to 
 God. Good and evil become to him inextricably 
 associated with his conception of God. Sin, shame, 
 self-approval, are rooted in the same belief. Imagine 
 further that whilst he thus gives his affections to 
 God, the hypothesis from which he starts is justified 
 by all his inward experience. He has children,
 
 ON A RE C EXT PHASE OF DEISM. XXVU 
 
 who must be taught something. He has a life in 
 public, intercourse with his fellow-men, which must 
 have one character or another. In his home, in 
 society, he acts upon the hypothesis which com- 
 mends itself to him more and more. He makes 
 God's will the avowed rule of his life, he adores 
 and loves God, he regularly prays to God. Is it 
 an exaggeration to say that God will become to 
 such a one the most certain reality in the universe? 
 Life puts this constraint upon a man. He cannot 
 always hesitate so much as he would like to do. 
 No doubt this pressure is often trying to the con- 
 science ; no doubt it is an influence of which we 
 ought to beware. We are in serious clanger of 
 being tempted to profess simply what it is expe- 
 dient to profess. But this fact, that action is 
 necessary and that it must spring from some as- 
 sumption, agrees singularly well with the hypothesis 
 that men individually and mankind in fjeneral are 
 under a spiritual discipline, and are intended to 
 learn as they go on. 
 
 It is a critical point in standing against such 
 formidable assaults as those of the Pall Mall 
 Gazette that we should take the right ground for 
 resistance. But apart from attack and defence, it 
 is of the highest importance for our own faith and 
 life as Christians that we should stand where we 
 are strongest or where God intends us to stand.
 
 xx via ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 Let us be warned that the primary consideration, 
 the question of questions, is whether we are under 
 a Divine discipline or not. Is there a God, the 
 Father of our spirits, dealing with us on the 
 understanding that we are his children and so as 
 to make us his true spiritual children ? What are 
 called dogmas assume their proper character when 
 they are referred to this question. When they are 
 separated from it, the assailant of dogmas gains an 
 advantage, the Christian suffers loss, not only as 
 against an opponent but for himself. It would 
 be the removing of a stumblingblock if this 
 misleading word dogma could be got rid of al- 
 together. But let me illustrate by one or two 
 examples from the Pall Mall Gazette the way in 
 which a false issue may be taken about dogmas. 
 Not long since it occurred to Mr Bright to say 
 something favourable of the disposition of people 
 in general. It did not seem a very original or 
 hazardous observation ; but the keen eye of our 
 critic saw a use to be made of it. This is one 
 symptom, he remarked, of the downfall of theology. 
 The dogma of universal depravity is the corner- 
 stone of all dogmatic theology, Catholic and Pro- 
 testant ; express any opinion to the effect that 
 most persons mean well, and the whole edifice 
 of theology comes tumbling about your cars. If 
 so, I should say, let it fall. In one of the sermons
 
 ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. xxix 
 
 of this volume I have endeavoured to explain the 
 right sense and application of the Christian doctrine 
 about human sinfulness. Here I will only remark 
 that when the supposed edifice of dogma built up 
 on the foundation of universal depravity has fallen 
 into ruins, there remains simply untouched the 
 Gospel of a living God who has reconciled man- 
 kind to himself and who seeks to make his children 
 wholly pure and good. Again, in the article on 
 the Archbishop of York's Lecture, the subject of 
 self-sacrifice occurs. The writer maintains that 
 absolute self-sacrifice is impossible in the Christian 
 scheme. It is flatly inconsistent with a belief in 
 future rewards. But how does he prove ^his ? By 
 assuming that self-sacrifice means self-injury. But 
 in Scriptural and Christian language sacrifice does 
 not mean injury or destruction, but offering. Sa- 
 crifice always implies a God to whom the offering 
 is made. In the true sense of the word, there is no 
 limit to the absoluteness of Christian self-sacrifice. 
 The more thoroughly God is believed in as a just 
 Father who rewards and punishes according to 
 right, the more possible and reasonable does it 
 become for a Christian to offer himself — to sacrifice 
 himself- — in absolute devotion to God. A third 
 example may be found in what is a very favourite 
 topic with the Pall Mall Gazette, the supposed 
 Divine commission of the clergy. The clergy, it
 
 xxx ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 is never tired of insisting, have no supernatural 
 functions. They are an educated class, whose 
 opinions have value in proportion to their inform- 
 ation. The most salutary of reforms would be to 
 abolish the Ordination services. But suppose, I 
 must repeat once more, that there is a God in 
 heaven desiring that men should be reconciled to 
 himself; then the fact that there is a class or order 
 of men actually existing whose professed function 
 it is to bear witness of the reconciliation which God 
 has laid as the foundation of man's life cannot be 
 thought of as unconnected with that other supposed 
 fact. The supposition is to our minds strongly 
 verified by the existence of such an order. The 
 Gospel and the Ministry mutually commend each 
 other. It would be a strange thing that for nearly 
 two thousand years there should have been a suc- 
 cession of men accepting it as their office to declare 
 solemnly in God's name that he had made peace 
 between himself and mankind if this declaration 
 had been a pure fiction. It would be inconceivable 
 also that there should be a purpose of reconciliation 
 in the mind of God and no utterance provided for 
 this purpose. Those therefore who accept the 
 simplest allegation of Christianity will inevitably 
 believe also in some kind of Divine Commission 
 for those whose calling it is to speak for God to 
 men and to speak for men to God. To argue
 
 0-V A R EC EXT PHASE OF DEISM. xxxi 
 
 about the Divine Commission of the ministry of 
 reconciliation as if it could mean nothing but some 
 quackish miraculous powers deposited in the indi- 
 vidual priest is surely to " darken counsel by words 
 without knowledge." 
 
 In the true sphere of our faith the Gospel and 
 the Church, as I have said, meet and sustain each 
 other. The Pall Mall Gazette theology gives us a 
 scheme of certain elementary propositions which 
 may be considered probable, — as that God exists, 
 that men are immortal, that virtue will be rewarded 
 and vice punished, — and affirms that all the articles 
 which constitute any " form of systematic theology," 
 as they hang upon those first propositions, become 
 less and less probable in a geometrical ratio. This 
 statement of the case appears to me singularly 
 unreal and unhistorical. That which Christians 
 would substitute for it, to be tested by the proper 
 criteria, would be something to this effect. Jesus 
 Christ, by his actual life and by the witness of him 
 which the Christian Church has carried on from 
 age to age, has led Christendom to the Father. 
 We in this day inherit a great tradition. The 
 Church of our time and the Christian books of 
 the age in which Christ lived tell us of a wonderful 
 revelation of God. But this tradition must fail, as 
 by its own profession it ought to fail, unless it is 
 supported by the experience of the present, that is,
 
 xxxu ON A RECENT PHASE OF DEISM. 
 
 by our own internal lives and by the common life 
 of mankind. The Christian tradition gives us a 
 certain account of God. We have considerable 
 reason to accept the tradition as having a unique 
 authority ; we have considerable reason to accept, 
 as good and true in itself, the account thus brought 
 down to us of God. The tradition is supported by 
 unrivalled historical evidence ; its theology com- 
 mends itself to us as meeting our needs and 
 helping our progress. The agreement between 
 the two contains the real force of the proof which 
 sustains our faith. The Son is the way to the 
 Father : we ascend by that way. The Father 
 draws us to the Son : we yield to this attraction. 
 We find the explanation of the twofold influence, 
 where we find the light of the spiritual w r orld and 
 the object of our humble trust, in the unity of the 
 Father and the Son.
 
 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 Ephesians i. 22. — "God gave him to be the head over all things 
 
 to the Church." 
 
 THE Kingdom of Christ, or the coming of Christ 
 to reign, is the general subject which the season of 
 Advent suggests to us. I propose that we should 
 consider this kingdom under three aspects, — as it 
 is in relation to the Church, to the individual, and 
 to the world. Our first inquiry will have reference 
 to the Church. How does the acknowledgment of 
 the Kingdom of Christ teach us to think of the 
 Church of Christ? 
 
 The Church is an institution or creation which 
 it is notoriously very difficult to define. What is 
 the Church ? Ask this question anywhere, and a 
 score of answers will be given by those who are 
 ready at defining, whilst those who are sensitive to 
 difficulties will probably feel constrained to remain 
 silent. 
 
 We speak of the CJiurch of Christ, of the Holy 
 Catholic Church. But when we look abroad upon 
 D. S. I
 
 2 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 the world, we see not a Church, but Churches. It 
 is useless to disguise from ourselves those differences 
 and disagreements with which Christians are taunted 
 by unbelievers. Earnest Christians deplore them, 
 and in deploring confess them. In this country- 
 there is our own Church, professing to be a na- 
 tional branch of the Church universal, holding 
 the chief place. But on all sides of it there are 
 bodies which call themselves Christian, standing 
 aloof from its communion. The Roman Catho- 
 lic Church is represented here ; even the Greek 
 Church has its congregations'; whilst of non-Epis- 
 copalian sects, from the large and respectable so- 
 cieties of the Methodists, the Independents, and the 
 Baptists, down to the smallest and most astonishing 
 confessions, there are more denominations than can 
 well be numbered. Each of these bodies, as a 
 matter of course, regards itself as the most perfect 
 and satisfactory Christian Church; but each of 
 them is troubled what to say about the rest. I 
 do not think there is more than one religious body 
 which professes to be itself exclusively the Church 
 cf Christ, The Church of Rome, which in this 
 country is numerically weak, elsewhere is the most 
 imposing Church in Christendom. It carries on the 
 tradition of the time when the Church was un- 
 divided. It still affirms, I believe, that there is no 
 part of the real Church of Christ outside the Papal 
 Communion, — that the Church of Rome is the 
 Church Catholic, and the Church Catholic is the 
 Church of Rome. But what can this doctrine
 
 I.] AND THE CHURCH. 3 
 
 mean, however loyally it may be professed with 
 the lips, to an intelligent Christian-minded Roman 
 Catholic who contemplates the vast Greek Church 
 and the Church of England, not to speak of those 
 whom we call Dissenters? Practically, such a 
 Roman Catholic would acknowledge you and me 
 as his fellow-Christians ; and if he says that we do 
 not belong to the Church of Christ, we are sure it 
 must be in some not very hearty or natural sense. 
 
 Everywhere in Christendom, therefore, there is 
 this difficulty of determining what the Church is. 
 If we try to justify the open separation of Chris- 
 tians by dwelling upon the greatness and gravity of 
 the differences of belief which make it impossible 
 for them to worship together, how, we cannot help 
 asking, can such a collection of communions ex- 
 communicating one another be called the Holy 
 Catholic Church ? If we try to make the most 
 of the faith held by Christians in common and 
 to treat their differences lightly, what is to be 
 thought of the spirit animating these bodies, which 
 holding, as we would fain believe, a common creed, 
 find it impossible to worship as one communion? 
 Where, under either supposition, is the Church of 
 Christ? 
 
 There is a partial escape out of the difficulty, 
 offered by the theory that there is an invisible 
 Church, as well as a visible Church, of Christ, — - 
 the invisible consisting of persons in every com- 
 munion who have the true faith in Christ and the 
 true love of God, of which only God can be the 
 
 i — 2
 
 4 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 Judge, and the visible, which is of comparatively 
 little consequence, and may therefore be held to in- 
 clude all who make any claim to belong to it. This 
 doctrine has satisfied the religious needs of the 
 greater number of pious Christians in this country, 
 and has enabled them to live in Christian charity 
 with their neighbours of different communions, — a 
 service for which it deserves cordial respect. But 
 it is an objection of some weight to this doctrine, 
 that there is scarcely a hint of it in the New Testa- 
 ment, where all that is said of the Church of Christ 
 evidently refers to the visible Church of baptized 
 persons. And it has an inevitable tendency to 
 create a kind of visible-invisible Church, of per- 
 sons drawn together by the religious fashions of 
 the day, and limited, by tests which are imposed 
 without any responsibility; and so a new kind of 
 excommunication begins. Through this tendency 
 the doctrine of an invisible Church of the truly 
 religious persons in all visible Churches has already 
 become discredited; and in many minds where it 
 retains a traditional place it no longer serves the 
 purpose of a genuine belief. 
 
 If there is a more excellent way to be shewn to 
 you, that way, I believe, is to be found in looking 
 to Christ as the Head of the Church, and seeing 
 the unity of the Church in him only. This way, if 
 it is one in which it is possible really to walk, is 
 certainly the Scriptural way. The Church, in the 
 New Testament, (and that is mainly in St Paul, 
 who is the great expositor of the New Testament
 
 I.] AND THE CHURCH. 5 
 
 doctrine of the Church,) is the body of Christ. He 
 is the head, men are the limbs. Or again, Christ is 
 the foundation-stone or the corner-stone, the Church 
 is built up of stones added to him. Or, as Christ 
 himself said, he is the vine, his disciples are the 
 branches. Or, Christ is the ruler of a common- 
 wealth, which is the Church, of which Christians 
 are citizens. 
 
 These Scriptural phrases are easy to quote, — 
 some will think, too easy. The difficulty lies in 
 connecting them with what we see to be the actual 
 state of things. I have admitted that we see the 
 Christianity of the world at the present moment 
 distributed amongst an indefinite number of reli- 
 gious societies, holding all sorts of opinions, some 
 of them violently antagonistic to each other. When 
 we glance over modern Christendom, does it seem 
 to be of any use to speak of the Church of Christ 
 as a body of which Christ is the head, and his 
 disciples the limbs ? There is a visible and perfect 
 unity in a healthy body: do the religious societies 
 of Christendom exhibit any striking appearance of 
 unity? 
 
 Now I would first observe that, if the idea of 
 the Church as a body is not perfectly realized in 
 the distracted Churches of our own day, neither 
 was it so realized in St Paul's day. There is a 
 difference in degree, no doubt. The Church of the 
 Apostolic age had much more apparent, much 
 more real, unity than modern Christendom. Many 
 of the modern causes and features of disunion were
 
 6 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 then absent. But the members of the Churches to 
 which the Epistles were written were too far from 
 being spiritually organized into a perfect unity of 
 subordination to Christ and agreement with one 
 another to allow of that image of the body, or 
 the other of a temple, being an exact represen- 
 tation of their state. Remember for our present 
 purpose, what for other reasons it is often necessary 
 to insist upon, that the Church of the first age was 
 not composed of ideally perfect members. Theo- 
 logical controversies, personal jealousies, irregu- 
 larities, shameful sins, darken all the records of 
 that society which had for its immediate instruct- 
 ors and rulers the companions of Jesus Christ. 
 That was no undivided body, to which St Paul 
 addressed the reproach, "Ye are yet carnal: for 
 whereas there is among you envying, and strife, 
 and divisions, are ye not carnal, and Avalk as 
 men?" I take it therefore as certain that St Paul 
 was not merely describing the condition of things 
 which he beheld in the Church around him, when 
 he dwelt on the natural harmonies of the body, the 
 limbs divinely tempered together, all with various 
 functions inspired by one life and serving one will. 
 That account of the full-grown Man, according to 
 which " from Christ, who is the head, all the body, 
 fitly framed together and compacted by means of 
 every joint of the whole supply, according to the 
 working in its measure of each several part, effects 
 the growth of the body to the building up of itself 
 in love," did not correspond precisely to the actual
 
 I.] AND THE CHURCH. 7 
 
 state of the Church as it then was at Ephesus, or at 
 Corinth, or at Rome. 
 
 But St Paul would have said, ' That is what the 
 Church, as the Church of Christ. properly is. I know- 
 that the Christian community at Corinth, or that 
 at Ephesus, does not answer in its actual condition 
 to such an account; but that is because these com- 
 munities are not perfect as branches of the Church 
 of Christ. The true character of the Church is 
 striving, under Divine grace, to realize itself amongst 
 them in spite of all their divisions and sins ; that 
 amongst foolish and sinful men it has prevailed 
 and manifested itself as it has done, however im- 
 perfectly that maybe, is a triumph of Divine grace.' 
 
 What I thus suppose St Paul to have said, we 
 may even now say. We may take that image, of 
 the Church as a body of which Christ is the head, 
 exactly as St Paul left it to us, and may say, The 
 Church of Christ is realized amongst all these 
 Christians, just so far as they fulfil the conditions 
 of that image. The Church of Christ is not the 
 Roman Church, or the Greek Church, or the 
 Anglican, or Protestant Christendom, nor is it the 
 mere aggregation of all these bodies: it is the 
 spiritual body which is partially realized in each of 
 these. If we were able to form a true and vivid 
 conception of what the perfect Church of Christ 
 would be in modern times, — and we might approach 
 to such a conception, — if we could bring before our 
 minds an image of all men and all societies dis- 
 charging those functions which the Divine Creator
 
 S THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 and Ruler assigns to them in perfect subordination 
 to the Divine Will and therefore in perfect mutual 
 service and harmony, we might place such an 
 image by the side of every Christian Church and 
 people, and we might say, The one Catholic Church 
 of Christ is there, in that country, just so far as 
 this image can be seen in their actual constitution 
 and life : nothing prevents us from recognizing 
 there the noble features, the beneficent energy, of 
 the perfect Church, except the ignorance and per- 
 versity of men. 
 
 I think that this conception of the Church, — 
 this way of understanding what the one Church 
 truly is, — will be found to bear using. It enables 
 us to do justice, in proportion to our knowledge, to 
 every Church. We shall not feel compelled to 
 make out that one Church is peculiarly guaranteed 
 in any manner or degree as the true Church, or as 
 a branch of the true Church. We shall not depend, 
 with many and painful misgivings, upon doctrinal 
 formularies or Apostolical institutions as separating 
 off a safe fold from the unrecognized Christendom 
 around. We shall judge ourselves as we shall 
 judge others. And we shall see a hope, a real and 
 the best hope, of a true unity to come out of 
 present divisions, in the endeavour of every man 
 and of every society to be spiritually true to the 
 Divine ideal, and so to realize a portion of the one 
 perfect Church. 
 
 A fear may be felt that in thus thinking of the 
 Church as a Divine ideal partially realized wherever
 
 I.] AND THE CHURCH. 9 
 
 there is Christian faith and life, we are leaving 
 fact and taking refuge in imagination. The Holy- 
 Catholic Church, it might be apprehended, becomes 
 nothing more than a theory of some men's minds 
 as to what a Church ought to be. 
 
 In reply to such an apprehension I would make 
 two observations. 
 
 1. That ought not to be called a mere ima- 
 gination or theory, which we recognize as a living 
 and working reality. This Church of Christ, of 
 which I speak, does not depend upon our notions 
 of what is right ; it is actually alive amongst our- 
 selves, so far as we are loyal to Christ. All true 
 relations amongst us, so far as they are not marred 
 by our unfaithfulness ; all spiritual life, so far as 
 we do not quench it by our worldliness, — are the 
 constitution and the activity of that one body of 
 which Christ is the head. We see a human body 
 which is deformed and sickly ; we say that the 
 true human form is in that case distorted or muti- 
 lated, that the true human health is weakened and 
 corrupted ; and no one supposes that the normal 
 human form or the due human health is a mere 
 fiction ; we see them both, interfered with but not 
 destroyed, in the deformed and sickly body. So 
 we may justly and usefully speak of the one 
 Church of Christ as established and living all over 
 the earth. It only needs growth, redemption, per- 
 fection, to reveal itself everywhere in all its beauty. 
 
 2. The second observation is this. We shall 
 guard ourselves from unreality in this contempla-
 
 IO THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 tion of an ideal Church by looking steadfastly to 
 Christ and acknowledging him as the living Head. 
 "Holding the Head," this St Paul knew to be the 
 great security. There is no need for any of us to 
 struggle with a dull imagination, and to try to call 
 up an ideal before our minds, and to be continually 
 in fear lest we should lose it, — if only we can keep 
 ourselves alive to the presence of Christ the Head. 
 Christ, rightly apprehended, carries the Church 
 with him. To know Christ after the flesh is to 
 know him as an isolated person, whether we con- 
 fess him to be Divine or not ; to know men after 
 the flesh is to know them as connected by none 
 but fleshly ties. To know Christ and men after 
 the Spirit, is to know them as bound together — 
 Christ to them, and they to Christ, in a glorious 
 fellowship and order. To the spiritual eye, Christ 
 is evermore the Head of a redeemed humanity. 
 He is not to be thought of, except as ordering and 
 giving life to "the Church which is his body." 
 
 To know Christ therefore as actually reigning 
 through and by means of the bonds and relations 
 which unite spiritual men, and as exercising his 
 power towards the end of bringing men into a true 
 spiritual fellowship, — this is the best way to know 
 what the Church means. 
 
 We may see advantages in the definition of 
 truth ; we may be led to regard dogmatic formu- 
 laries as useful and indispensable. But if w r e are 
 knowing the Church through the living royalty 
 of a Head who cannot be without members and
 
 ].] AND THE CHURCH. 1 1 
 
 who claims believing men as his members, Ave shall 
 not be able to think of any part of the Church as 
 having its genuine life or support in its articles of 
 faith. The Church or congregation of fallible sinful 
 men will have its truth and life in conforming to 
 the conditions of the ideal Church, — that is, in 
 being brought near to God in the Spirit through 
 Christ. Every Church will be rightly guided to- 
 wards perfection and the desired unity by spiritual 
 allegiance to Christ. Thus it will be taught to put 
 on what is good, to put off what is evil ; to adopt 
 whatever will effectually bring mankind into the 
 true fellowship, to discard whatever is a cause of 
 disunion and isolation. 
 
 If there are any amongst you, who are disposed 
 to see something like perfection in our own Church, 
 who rejoice in it as a national Church, and yet 
 rejoice also that it cherishes an hereditary and tra- 
 ditional connection with the Christian Church of 
 the older centuries, who believe that it has sought, 
 not unsuccessfully, to preserve a spiritual theology, 
 who revere it as being — to use a common eulogy — 
 Evangelical in doctrine and Apostolical in order : 
 I, for one, sympathize too much with these feelings 
 to find any fault with them. But I may ask you 
 not to be too satisfied or too confident. Let us 
 keep our eyes not upon what seem the faults or 
 defects of our neighbours, but upon the advancing 
 perfection of the ideal Church ; let us strive to be 
 brought nearer and nearer to the Divine harmony 
 and health of the body of Christ. Let us remind 
 ourselves, also, to hold fast and value these An-
 
 12 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 glican principles of ours, not as instruments of 
 separation from other communions, but as bonds 
 uniting us to Christ and therefore also constraining 
 us to cherish sympathy with all other men. If out- 
 Church is a better Church than others, let us shew 
 it by our humility and sense of unworthiness, by 
 our longing for improvement of every kind, by the 
 courage of our sympathy with everything that is 
 godly and Christlike in the world. 
 
 The language of the New Testament bids us 
 think of Christ as having come to reign before the 
 close of the Apostolic age. If the thought of the 
 universal Church is to us a great conception, filling 
 our minds and feeding our imaginations, we cannot 
 but believe that that was an important coming of 
 Christ to reign, when the local centre of the Divine 
 Covenant and worship, the Holy City and Temple, 
 was removed out of the way, and Christ was re- 
 vealed to the conscience and understanding of his 
 followers as the invisible Head and Ruler of the 
 Church of all mankind. The movement by which 
 the universal Church was fairly launched upon 
 the world and constrained to know its Head as 
 only in heaven, was a great Advent of Christ. 
 
 But the more we dwell upon that Advent, and 
 the more we interest ourselves in the present con- 
 dition of the Church of Christ, — the more are we 
 driven and encouraged to look also to the future. 
 The most earnest and active members of the 
 Church of Christ have always been sustained by 
 hopes of a coming redemption. We can sec now 
 that their definite anticipations have generally been
 
 I.] AND THE CHURCH. 13 
 
 moulded by their merely human imagination or 
 fancy, and any empty-hearted critic can laugh at 
 their prophecies. But we may also see, if we will, 
 that the substance of their various expectations 
 was simply the coming of Christ in his glory. 
 They longed for the time when through judgments 
 and through the outpouring of the Spirit Christ . 
 should be known and confessed as the Head of 
 his Church, and the Church should be seen vic- 
 toriously fulfilling its Divine destiny. Such a hope 
 can never die out from the hearts of Christians till 
 all Christian faith is itself extinct. A Christian 
 cannot live in the present only. His present ne- 
 cessarily rests upon the past, and leads him back 
 to the past ; and as he feeds by faith upon what 
 the Father formerly did in sending his Son and 
 exalting him to his own right hand and giving him 
 to be the Head over all things to the Church, his 
 expectations of what must be the final issue of 
 such Divine acts become boundless in their am- 
 bition. If God has given a kingdom to his Son, 
 he could not mean that he should be for ever 
 disobeyed and thwarted. If there is a true Church 
 of Christ, it cannot be the will of the Eternal that 
 it should remain disguised, and unrecognized, and 
 buried under human ignorance and corruptions as 
 it is at present. No, we must hope for better 
 things ; we must hope for a full redemption to 
 come ; and the glory of the future to the Christian 
 can only be the coming of his Lord to reign un- 
 veiled in his kingdom.
 
 II. 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN, 
 
 Colossians i. 13. — "Who hath delivered us from the power of 
 darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear 
 Son." 
 
 In this sermon we are to consider how the cominc 
 of Christ to reign may be regarded as affecting the 
 individual man. In the last we inquired how, 
 when we confess Christ as King, we are led to 
 think of the Church. We now remember that the 
 Church is made up of individuals, each with a 
 distinct spiritual life ; and we ask, How is any 
 one of us, as an individual, concerned with the 
 coming and kingdom of Christ ? What difference 
 does it make to one or another, as he lives his 
 personal life, that Christ has come and is coming ? 
 There is a saying which is true in a sense, but 
 which is also, as it is often used and understood, 
 very untrue, that religion is a purely personal 
 matter between God and a man's own soul. It is 
 quite true that ultimately every man is responsible 
 to God only, and that men are very incompetent 
 judges and critics of a brother's faith. It is well 
 that we should all learn to say, "With me it is a
 
 SERM. II.] THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST, &*c. 15 
 
 very small thing that I should be judged of you or 
 of man's judgment... he that judgeth me is the 
 Lord." But if that saying is meant or understood 
 to imply that religion isolates a man from his 
 fellow-men, — that in matters of religion, as distinct 
 from those of secular life, a man stands alone by 
 himself, — there may possibly be some kinds of re- 
 ligion with reference to which it may be true, but 
 it is signally untrue of any which can properly be 
 called Christian. It belongs essentially to the 
 Christian religion to deal with individuals from 
 first to last as not standing alone in their relations 
 to God. It assumes that a man is, and may know 
 himself to be, most closely related to other men, 
 and it seeks to cherish all the sentiments and 
 convictions which belong to corporate life. 
 
 And yet it is a fact, which no religion denies or 
 could induce us to forget, that each of us has his 
 distinct personal life. In every man there is the 
 mystery of the individual consciousness, carrying 
 with it a personal responsibility, — of a will choos- 
 ing its own objects and working out its own issues, 
 — of secrets which we do not share with our fellow- 
 men, — of a private susceptibility to joy and sorrow 
 which is separately touched by the common out- 
 ward influences. In those relations to God and to 
 our fellow-men which Christian faith recognizes, 
 each man is a unit, though he does not stand 
 alone. It is a question of the deepest interest, 
 therefore, how we, as distinct individuals, stand 
 affected by the great revelation of Christ ruling in
 
 1 6 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 his kingdom. The personal conscience and per- 
 sonal will are not swallowed up by the corporate 
 life of the Christian Church. It is one of the 
 glories of the Christian scheme of human life, that 
 by learning how he is bound to God and his fellow- 
 men a man also learns most truly and thoroughly 
 what he is for himself. 
 
 When we turn our thoughts backwards upon 
 ourselves, the little fragment of each man's per- 
 sonal existence, bounded by his life and death, 
 shut in by the insurmountable barriers of circum- 
 stance, is apt to seem appallingly insignificant. 
 Take for example that old illustration, — "For 
 what is your life ? It is even a vapour, that ap- 
 peareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." 
 Like a puff of vapour, so frail, ineffectual, and 
 transitory, — is a man's life no more than that ? 
 What is it -makes us ask such a question, — what is 
 it that causes our life, such as it is, to make this 
 impression of insignificance upon our minds ? It 
 is no doubt the contrast between the indefinite 
 largeness of our thoughts and interests and the 
 smallness of one man's life, the little space occu- 
 pied by one life as compared with that vastness of 
 the universe which we can more or less compre- 
 hend with the imagination. We have power to 
 think of the indefinite past, of the indefinite future, 
 of the breadth and the length of human history, of 
 the indefinite greatness of the Divine purposes. 
 What is my little bit of a life in this world of 
 thought ? Less than a drop in the ocean.
 
 II.] AND THE CHRISTIAN. *7 
 
 We cannot destroy this fact of the proportion 
 between one human life and the vast imagined 
 world. The fact will remain. But we may learn 
 to accept it without bitterness or cynicism, if we 
 can perceive that our individual existence is justi- 
 fied and exalted, and that we in reality find our- 
 selves, by sharing intelligently to the utmost of our 
 spiritual power in the great Divine movements, and 
 by throwing ourselves heartily and thankfully into 
 the work of the Divine will. We are not compelled 
 to alternate between boundless aspirations and the 
 despair of self-contempt. All the scornful dis- 
 paragements of human strength and life will not 
 touch a soul that is laid hold of and strengthened 
 by the living purposes of God. The Word of God, 
 coming into men, makes them from men into gods. 
 
 Let us place ourselves, as individuals, in the 
 presence of Christ ruling in his Kingdom. What 
 are the impressions which form themselves in our 
 minds? They will be such as these. 
 
 I. If Christ is a King, we, so far as we are 
 Christ's, belong to a Kingdom. There is the King 
 ruling in heaven ; we are his subjects. Each man, 
 John or James or Paul, is not a mere accident; he 
 is not a thing of flesh and blood; he is not a waif 
 or stray cast upon this visible stage of pleasures 
 and pains. He belongs to a commonwealth, he is 
 a King's subject. 
 
 We may let our thoughts busy themselves upon 
 the various conditions which the idea of a Kingdom 
 seems to imply, and may ask how we find ourselves 
 D. S. 2
 
 i8 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 circumstanced in this Kingdom of Christ. The 
 centre and principal reality is the King; and he 
 is the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. There 
 must be laws of the Kingdom, and those laws will 
 be the various manifestations of the Divine mind. 
 Has the Kingdom a history? Has it enemies? Are 
 there officers, are there ranks, in it? Have we 
 fellow-citizens? Have we a birthright and privi- 
 leges ? Do we look for promotion and reward ? To 
 these and similar questions we may obtain answers 
 more or less definite and certain. And so we shall 
 get to understand better what we are and why we 
 have come into the world and what we have to do. 
 The main point of all is that we try to think rightly, 
 if we can, of the King, in whom the Kingdom has 
 all its form and life. 
 
 2. The commonwealth of which Christ is the 
 head, we cannot help observing, includes past and 
 future generations, as well as the present. Each 
 individual of the present age is linked, in this King- 
 dom, to innumerable fellow-subjects who have gone 
 before, and to a vaster multitude who are to follow 
 after. The King of all lives in the unseen world ; 
 and we cannot think of him as having none but 
 visible subjects. The first founders of the common- 
 wealth are to us still fellow-subjects. We see 
 others of our own time passing into the invisible 
 world without any rupture of their relations with 
 the King or with their predecessors in the common- 
 wealth. We look forward to treading in the same 
 path, and leaving others to follow us. We learn to
 
 II.] AND THE CHRISTIAN. 19 
 
 live not only in the present but also in the past 
 and the future. This faculty, this prerogative of 
 humanity, grows and is strengthened with our 
 growth as believers in Christ and his Kingdom. 
 
 3. And so we learn to feel that our most im- 
 portant relations are spiritual. Through the eye 
 and the ear and the touch, — through all the physical 
 senses, — I am manifestly related to outward things. 
 I have that in me which craves pleasure; I have 
 that in me which shrinks from pain. We see 
 around us creatures which seem to be governed 
 solely by such a desire of physical pleasure and 
 such an avoidance of physical pain. The brute 
 beasts are moved by their bodily instincts. So are 
 we. But is that all, with us? Are we in the same 
 rank with the brute beasts? The man who con- 
 fesses Christ as King feels himself to be in another 
 world from that of the bodily senses and pleasures 
 and pains. He has to do with powers which eye 
 cannot see and hand cannot handle. He must live 
 as one to whom invisible things are real; and if 
 they are real to him, these invisible powers are also 
 transcendant and sovereign. No man can acknow- 
 ledge Christ as Lord, and with any rational consis- 
 tency make the concerns of the daily outward life 
 of more importance to him than those which bind 
 him to Christ. Under the fostering influence of 
 this dominant spiritual relation — the bond between 
 the man and his Lord, — all spiritual ties and 
 affections are able to grow and flourish. The 
 Christian's life becomes essentially a spiritual one. 
 
 2—2
 
 20 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 His relations with visible persons and things are 
 transfigured. As he looks at them, the outward 
 phenomena disappear in a heavenly glory. The 
 bonds of parent and child, of husband and wife, of 
 mutual dependence and service, are things of the 
 unseen world, fraught with spiritual significance. 
 Whether a man eats or drinks or whatever he does, 
 he sees that it is possible to do all to the glory of 
 God. All physical enjoyment may be made to 
 minister to the great spiritual joy of thankfulness. 
 Physical privation and pain may be made another 
 road to the same goal, when a man needs to be 
 taught sharply not to look downwards but to look 
 upwards. The thankfulness taught by pain is in 
 the end deeper and richer than that prompted by 
 pleasure. And thus through knowing Christ after 
 the Spirit, the Christian learns to know no man, and 
 even no thing, only after the flesh. 
 
 To be truly human in the personal life is — to 
 live by spiritual relations; and there has been no 
 such way of realizing spiritual relations as that of 
 contemplating Christ in his kingdom. The most 
 remarkable attainment of spiritual sight and con- 
 sciousness of which we have any knowledge was in 
 the case of the disciples of Christ after his death. 
 Whilst he was with them in the flesh, their con- 
 ceptions were persistently carnal. Their spiritual 
 apprehensions were weak and rare. But when he 
 had gone to his Father's house, he prepared room 
 for them, and came again and received them to 
 himself, so that where he was, there they were also.
 
 II.] AND THE CHRISTIAN 21 
 
 They learnt to live in fellowship and as it were 
 companionship with their Master, whom they saw 
 at the Father's right hand. They too became thus 
 inmates of the Father's house, subjects and citizens 
 of a heavenly commonwealth. And a similar result 
 must always follow a similar faith. Let a Christian 
 know Christ in his Kingdom with anything like 
 clearness and steadiness, and it is impossible that 
 he should not live in the Spirit. He will see with 
 the mind where the eye can see nothing ; that 
 which his eye sees will be a medium revealing to 
 him the unseen. 
 
 4. And, to speak more definitely of the ruling 
 law of the spiritual life, if we contemplate Christ as 
 King, we shall feel that we owe him a persona/ 
 allegiance. 
 
 When he was on earth amongst disciples, lead- 
 ing and teaching and comforting them, he called 
 himself the true Shepherd. And he said, " My 
 sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they 
 follow me." He had at that time followers who 
 did recognize him as their spiritual Master, and 
 listened for his directions, and loyally obeyed them. 
 When he went to his Father, these followers con- 
 tinued to follow him. They remembered the life 
 he had led, going in and out amongst them, and 
 they set themselves to walk in his steps. But this 
 was not the only method of their following. They 
 believed that they could still hear his voice. They 
 believed that he was near them in the Spirit, speak- 
 ing to them in many ways, telling what he desired,
 
 2 2 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 shewing them the ways in which he would have 
 them walk. They were liable to mistake other 
 suggestions for his instructions, but their security 
 from error was found in watchful loyalty to the 
 great principles of his character, righteousness and 
 love. 
 
 With us, brethren, it is a great thing, and cer- 
 tainly a main part of our allegiance, that we should 
 consider the example of the Lord Jesus as the 
 Gospels have enabled us to become acquainted 
 with it, and bear in mind that, as Christians, we 
 also ought to walk even as he walked. The most 
 obvious and universal way of attaining any know- 
 ledge of Christ at all is through what is com- 
 municated to us, directly or indirectly, by Holy 
 Scripture. But when we have come to know him, 
 we do not fully discharge our allegiance to him by 
 trying to copy the example of which we find the 
 traces in that volume. The higher and truer kind 
 
 o 
 
 of following is to hear his voice still speaking to us 
 and to answer to his summons. It is impossible, 
 indeed, to urge obedience to the living voice of our 
 Master at the present time without remembering 
 how difficult it is found by many who would gladly 
 hear that voice to make sure that it is now speak- 
 ing in tones that we can recognize. The difficulty 
 is a genuine one, and no remarks in a sermon can 
 do much to remove it. But I may ask Christians 
 to be more careful to connect together the do- 
 minion of Christ and those directions, however 
 they may come, by which men are practically led
 
 II.] AND THE CHRISTIAN. 2 
 
 o 
 
 in the ways of righteousness and peace. All such 
 guidance must really come from him who rules in 
 heaven. And we may trust the testimony of the 
 loyal followers of Christ, that if we confess his 
 sovereignty in our inmost hearts, and honestly 
 seek to be guided by him who is the uttered 
 Righteousness and Love, we shall find our desire 
 met, our prayers answered. Only let us not limit 
 the variety of the ways which he uses, nor think 
 channels which we call secular unworthy of the 
 Lord of heaven and earth. You will easily ac- 
 knowledge that in proportion as we can behold 
 Christ in his Kingdom, we shall believe in the 
 unlimited range of his authority, and shall feel 
 bound to surrender ourselves in all things to his 
 guidance. 
 
 The question sometimes comes before us, as a 
 practical and important one, Are we to be guided 
 by old precedents or by the indications of new 
 circumstances ? Shall we go by the rules which 
 old experience has laid down, or shall we take into 
 consideration the facts of life and history which 
 have grown up since those rules were given ? In 
 such cases trust in a living Guide, loyalty to a 
 living Ruler, will have power to sway our judg- 
 ment. Those who believe in a Kingdom of Christ 
 making a history for itself out of the ages as they 
 roll on will be prepared for new circumstances and 
 will desire fresh light from heaven to shew how 
 new things are to be dealt with. 
 
 5. Lastly, then, when we stand face to face 
 with the Kingdom of Christ, we feel that it is our
 
 24 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 privilege and duty, single shortlived human beings 
 as we are, to interest ourselves in this progress of 
 its dominion. Let it be true that we are insig- 
 nificant and weak. But the Kingdom of Christ is 
 great and powerful. We may forget ourselves, we 
 may lose ourselves, in the great interests of the 
 Divine Kingdom, and find a blessedness in doing 
 so. My brethren, this would be the perfecting at 
 the same time of God's universal government and 
 of our individual destinies, — that we should give 
 ourselves intelligently and willingly to the accom- 
 plishment of the work of the Kingdom, and therein 
 find ourselves entirely satisfied. I can hardly 
 imagine any one doubting that such a scheme 
 would be the perfect reconciliation of the universe 
 and of the individual man, the perfect blending of 
 the Divine purpose and of the movements of single 
 lives. There can hardly be a lot better or more 
 satisfying to a human soul, than to see with trust 
 and hope the Fatherly mind of God drawing on 
 the progress of his creation from the worse to the 
 better, from the less perfect to the more perfect, 
 from the material and carnal life to the spiritual 
 and heavenly, from struggles for existence to the 
 contented harmony of fellow-work and mutual 
 kindness, — to see enough for faith of that progress 
 and to be called upon to work with it. ■ To a soul 
 which thus sees and believes and hopes, what is it 
 that its own sphere is narrow, that its own powers 
 are small ? There is no place in that soul for 
 discontent or jealousy or self-worship ; it is drawn 
 out into reverence and activity and love.
 
 II.] AND THE CHRISTIAN. 25 
 
 Such a personal existence, I repeat, is offered 
 to us by the revelation of the Kingdom of Christ. 
 We are taught by the traditions of our faith that 
 the Divine Kingdom entered as a universal king- 
 dom into human history, that the Son of man took 
 possession of his throne, at a given time, — namely, 
 when the Covenant of a special people was finally 
 superseded by the Covenant of humanity. The 
 anticipations cherished by believers in this King- 
 dom as to its future glory and triumph have had 
 the marks of eagerness and impatience upon them 
 as well as those of hope and joy. This has always 
 been the character of such anticipations ; it would 
 be so again, no doubt, if our faith were lively 
 enough to give them new birth. If we were so 
 earnest in pursuit of purity and peace, so intolerant 
 of evil, as to cry, How long, O Lord, how long ? — 
 we should see again in the terrors and afflictions of 
 our time the signs of an end of the world such as 
 has not yet come to pass, of a consummation more 
 final than any that has been. As it is, our faith is 
 weak, our assurance takes no hold. We are almost 
 afraid to think much of the Presence and Coming 
 of Christ. We see that our fathers have been 
 deceived ; we are shy of becoming the victims of 
 new delusions. Well, let us cry earnestly to hea- 
 ven, Lord, increase both our faith and our light. 
 And in the mean time let us feed our convictions 
 and hopes upon the things that we can see. We 
 see, I venture to say, such a progress of Christ's 
 Kingdom as agrees with the methods of Divine 
 action. We see a spreading of light slow, but real,
 
 26 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST, &=c. [serm. II. 
 
 over humanity, we see a higher standard of judg- 
 ment establishing itself; we see modes of work, 
 ends of endeavour, presenting themselves every- 
 where, with all new phases of life, to sincere 
 believers in Christ. We hear the summons re- 
 peated, and coming home to each of us personally, 
 You that are children of the day, cast away the 
 works of darkness, and put on the armour of light. 
 Christ is your Captain in the warfare in which you 
 are engaged. He shews you the enemies you are 
 to attack, he shews you where you may plant the 
 standard of his Kingdom of light. There are follies 
 and corruptions which the world admires or tole- 
 rates, which are nothing better than things of 
 darkness, against which you are to protest, which 
 it is your business as children of the light to 
 reprove. There is sensual degradation out of 
 which nothing but a new heart and a right spirit, 
 given from above, can lift men. There are graces 
 of reverence, of kindness, of purity, of happy in- 
 dustry, of mutual help, to be won for our homes 
 and cities and villages by the earnest spiritual 
 effort of faithful men and women. You see your 
 calling, brethren ; you are enlisted as soldiers in 
 Christ's army, you may help forward the success 
 of his Kingdom. Will you take this in faith for the 
 work of your lives ? Will you redeem, each man 
 and each woman, your several days from their 
 insignificance and barrenness and discontent, by 
 consecrating them loyally to the service of him 
 who has bought them ?
 
 III. 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST AND THE WORLD, 
 i Cor. x. 26. — "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." 
 
 We have considered on recent Sundays how the 
 confession of Christ as reigning and about to reign 
 affects our view of the Church, and also how the 
 destinies and duties of the individual man appear 
 to us when seen in the light of the same confession. 
 These are the relations which occur to us first : — 
 Christ and the Church of Christ, Christ and the 
 Christian. But we must not stop at these. We 
 must go on to speak of Christ and the world 
 together. We are urged forward by the necessary 
 tendency of our inquiries, as well as by the pre- 
 tensions of our faith, to ask, What is Christ to the 
 world ? How will the world appear to us, when 
 regarded in its connection with Christ ? 
 
 There is sometimes a danger of ambiguity and 
 confusion when we use this term "the world ;" but 
 for our present purpose it does not need any care- 
 ful defining. We mean by the world the whole 
 body of mankind with their secular organizations, — ■ 
 all nations and kindreds and people and tongues,
 
 28 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 whether they belong to Christendom or not. That 
 Christ is the Head of his Church, that the single 
 Christian owes him allegiance, are obvious articles 
 of our faith. But there are empires and kingdoms 
 and republics as well as Churches ; there are hun- 
 dreds of millions of human beings who do not 
 profess to acknowledge Christ. What has the 
 Lordship of Christ to do with the kingdoms of 
 this world and the various races of mankind ? 
 
 One tempting answer is to say, " Nothing. The 
 kingdom of Christ is spiritual, the world is secular. 
 Christ and his servants seek to win souls ; but 
 they have nothing to do with the affairs of this 
 world." This answer is supported by two well- 
 known texts, — that is to say, by misinterpretations 
 of them. Jesus said, " My kingdom is not of this 
 world." That is, really, "My kingdom is not from 
 this world." He did not say that his kingdom was 
 not over this world, that it was not in this world ; 
 but that it was not derived, that it did not obtain 
 its authority and strength, from this world. Again, 
 Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar the things that 
 are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." 
 But he did not therefore say that Caesar and God 
 have separate dominions, and that where Caesar 
 rules God has no authority. Our Lord no doubt 
 held what St Paul plainly taught, that it was right 
 to render his dues to Caesar, because Caesar was 
 ordained of God, — that we pay tribute to civil 
 rulers, because they are God's ministers. 
 
 This theory of the natural separation of the
 
 III.] AND THE WORLD. 29 
 
 Divine and the secular provinces is the mere re- 
 fuge of a narrow or an indolent mind. It will not 
 bear one moment's sincere and thorough thought. 
 In all the prophecies and aspirations of the New 
 Testament relating to the coming of Christ's king- 
 dom, we find the secular organizations of mankind 
 claimed as subject to him. Thus St Paul says 
 (Eph. i. 21) that when God raised up Christ from 
 the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the 
 heavenly world, he placed him "far above all prin- 
 cipality and power and might and dominion and 
 every name that is named, not only in this world, 
 but also in that which is to come." In the book 
 of Revelation the subject of the visions is the 
 triumph of the kingdom of Christ over the world. 
 These are its boasts, — '• The kingdoms of this 
 world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and 
 of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." 
 " I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse ; 
 and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and 
 True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make 
 war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his 
 head were many crowns... And he hath on his ves- 
 ture and on his thigh a name written, King of 
 kings and Lord of lords." Of the city which 
 descended out of heaven from God it is said, 
 " The nations of them which are saved shall walk 
 in the light of it ; and the kings of the earth do 
 bring their glory and honour unto it." Such 
 visions cannot but float before the mind of every 
 sincere and earnest Christian. Confess Christ as
 
 3° THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 your own Lord, confess him as the Lord of the 
 Church, and it is impossible you should not claim 
 for him all dominion in earth as well as in heaven. 
 If you acknowledge him as ruling now, though we 
 do not yet see all things put under his feet, (in the 
 Church or in the soul of any man, any more than 
 in the world,) how does the rule of Christ take 
 effect in the present history of the world ? In 
 other words, what has God to do with the fortunes 
 of nations, with the struggles of races ? If we 
 ascend to the top of a high mountain and survey 
 all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of 
 them, how do they place themselves in our mind 
 with reference to the kingdom of God ? 
 
 If I assume that it is difficult for us to think of 
 governments and dynasties, of commerce and war, 
 of races and languages, of all the social and poli- 
 tical interests of mankind, as working out, whether 
 through obedience or conflict, the purposes of the 
 Kingdom of Christ, I do not imagine that any of 
 you, brethren, will be inclined to question the 
 difficulty. The habit of thought to which I refer 
 is a different thing from that study which many 
 have found fascinating as a mere exercise of in- 
 genuity — the study of the fulfilment of prophecy. 
 We have more and other things to interpret than 
 what the frogs mean, and the little horn, and the 
 drying up of Euphrates. We may reasonably 
 confess our incompetence as interpreters. We need 
 not consider ourselves bound as Christians to put 
 a distinct meaning upon this event and upon that,
 
 in.] AND THE WORLD. 31 
 
 as working out the Divine will. If we try to do 
 so, we may expect to make many mistakes. But 
 we must admit, whatever the admission may cost, 
 that a Christian's faith is not securely grounded 
 until he has the habitual feeling that a Divine 
 hand is leading and controlling the nations, until 
 he believes that, whether he can see it or not, all 
 political and historical movements are working out 
 the ends of the Kingdom of Christ. Our faith in 
 Christ ought not to be divided from, but should 
 coalesce with, our interest as citizens and as men. 
 
 It is as helping towards such a faith and con- 
 sciousness that I offer the following observations. 
 
 1. First, God is slow and patient. We who 
 think and learn and believe and interpret are single 
 human beings, each but one out of the innumerable 
 host of our fellow-men, each with the short life of 
 a few years out of all time, each with a small 
 sphere of existence out of all creation : and when 
 we measure ourselves, as it were, in thought against 
 the great developments which constitute history, 
 we can scarcely fail to. find ourselves continually 
 out of froportion with them. We cannot easily 
 adjust ourselves to the wide and gradual march of 
 events. It is our human privilege and prerogative 
 to speculate ; and, as we speculate, we contract 
 things within too narrow a compass. We try to 
 trace things to their causes ; and the causes we 
 assign to them are apt to be too near, too limited 
 and partial. We look for issues in the future from 
 causes which we see to be in operation now ; and
 
 32 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 those issues are almost always brought too near, 
 and made too definite and isolated. Always as 
 we know more, things that were thought to be 
 near are found to be more remote. Origins recede 
 back further and further into the past, till they go 
 out of our sight. Ends of the world move away in 
 front of us faster than we approach them. This is 
 the general experience of mankind as the stock of 
 knowledge increases. We have learnt in some 
 degree to be on our guard against the tendency to 
 abridge and reduce the movements of the world to 
 the proportions of individual existence. But every 
 mind is liable over again to the same infirmity of 
 nature. The sharp and vigorous conclusions con- 
 cerning the ways of Providence which spring really 
 from the deep roots of a faithful and earnest mind, 
 and which therefore have more spiritual truth in 
 them than many lazy generalizations, are likely 
 to be at fault in this point of the proportion of 
 time and space. St Paul, with his inspired wisdom, 
 compares the intellectual conceptions of the best 
 Christians to those notions of our childhood at 
 which adult age smiles. "We know in part, and 
 we prophesy in part. But when that which is 
 perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be 
 done away. When I was a child, I spake as a 
 child, I understood as a child, I thought as a 
 child ; but when I became a man, I put away 
 childish things." Now one step for the Christian 
 in putting away childish things is to realize that 
 God works more slowly and over a larger space
 
 III.] AND THE WORLD. 33 
 
 than we had supposed. God "tarries," as devout 
 
 men have always been led to see. We also have 
 
 to learn patience from God's patience. We must 
 
 not resent it, if the drama of Divine Providence 
 
 turns out to be much vaster and more complicated 
 
 than we had conceived it. Let us endeavour to 
 
 see that we have not been baffled as to principles, 
 
 as to spiritual realities, if measurements of time 
 
 and space prove to have been incorrect. Let us 
 
 desire that our thoughts may be expanded to take 
 
 in the greatness of the Divine operations as God 
 
 reveals them to us. 
 
 People who fancy that because primitive notions 
 
 about the Coming of Christ and the end of the 
 
 world have been corrected by experience therefore 
 
 the primitive faith was only a delusion, are those 
 
 who have an eye for the outward shell but can take 
 
 no account of the inner spiritual reality. The faith 
 
 of Christendom has to shed many shells and coatings 
 
 of external and material conceptions as it grows 
 
 and enlarges. We often have to learn anew the old 
 
 lesson, that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, 
 
 neither are our ways his ways. For as the heavens 
 
 are higher than the earth, so are God's ways 
 
 higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our 
 
 thoughts. 
 
 2. Another reflection which will be useful to us 
 
 in connecting our faith in Christ's Kingdom with 
 
 the contemplation of the world is this, — that God 
 
 works and reveals himself most properly in the 
 
 victories of what we call moral principles, such as 
 
 D. S. 3
 
 34 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 righteousness, order, goodwill. What is called in 
 one language the progress of civilization, is, in 
 another language, — that of Christian faith, — called 
 the advance of Christ's Kingdom. 
 
 We may well be sorry for those who can speak 
 of nothing but civilization and equal justice, and 
 who cannot see the living fountain of human order 
 and happiness in the God who made himself known 
 by the sending of his Son. But we must take care 
 that we ourselves, who worship God through his Son 
 Jesus Christ, do not separate him in our habitual 
 thoughts from the righteousness and love which are 
 the essence of his nature, the living characters of 
 his Name. 
 
 You will remember that when the Hebrew pro- 
 phets saw Jehovah reigning and judging, the signs 
 in their eyes of the Divine Kingdom were always 
 the righteousness, the peace, the order, the pros- 
 perity, which were established on the earth. Truth 
 and goodness could come from no other than the 
 Lord God. Where wrongs were righted, where the 
 oppressor was laid low, where the poor and meek 
 were comforted, where the wilderness was made to 
 blossom, where joy and hops and energy were 
 planted, there was the reign of the Lord manifested. 
 
 Let me recall some words I have already quoted 
 from the great New Testament prophecy. When 
 heaven was opened to the seer, he saw a white 
 horse; "and he that sat upon him was called 
 Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth 
 judge and make war His Name is called The
 
 III.] AND THE WORLD. 35 
 
 Word of God. And the armies in heaven followed 
 him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white 
 and clean." It is evident that the seer of this 
 vision recognized in all historical events by which 
 oppression was punished, and justice and purity 
 promoted, the direct action of him through whom 
 God utters himself in the creation and in human 
 history. The leader of the pure and righteous 
 host is The Word of God. Where justice is done on 
 earth, there is God speaking with his heavenly 
 power ; and where God speaks, there we recognize 
 the presence of him in whom the Father spoke 
 once and speaks for evermore, his Son Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Would it not become less difficult for us, bre- 
 thren, to see the Kingdom of Christ advancing, if we 
 were accustomed to look for it in the moral action 
 upon human affairs of him who is called Faithful 
 and True, and whose Name is the Word of God ? 
 It is a danger besetting professedly religious per- 
 sons, to think of the Kingdom of Christ exclu- 
 sively in connection with religious organizations 
 and creeds. I am not intending to disparage these 
 instruments of Christ's Kingdom. But I think it 
 important to point out to you, as I have done, that 
 the very essence of the authority of Christ as mani- 
 fested on earth is the assertion of justice and good- 
 will. This is what the Scriptures teach us. It 
 sometimes happens, as no one can refuse to admit, 
 that Christian men and Christian Churches offend 
 against justice and love in the very name of religion. 
 
 3—2
 
 36 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [SERM. 
 
 And then the royal judgment of Christ can only be 
 seen in the humiliation of the religious man or the 
 Christian Church. In other cases, we may see a 
 genuine zeal for righteousness and goodness and 
 self-sacrifice in those who do not profess to be reli- 
 gious, whom we should not acknowledge as ortho- 
 dox, or who are not even by name Christians. 
 What are we to say then ? — We may consider it 
 one of the strange and puzzling anomalies in human 
 things that the very Word of God should be speak- 
 ing- through those who have not learned to see God's 
 glory in the face of Jesus ChrLst : but we must con- 
 fess that it is the Word of God that speaks ; and 
 we ought to rejoice that, through whatever means, 
 the Divine Word is asserting his dominion. 
 
 The great spiritual or moral principles by which 
 the perfection of mankind is secured may serve for 
 a meeting-point and reconciliation, in this way. 
 Let us look at history and judge of events and 
 politics always from the moral point of view. Let 
 us look for the genuine good that there is in every 
 thing. Let us do this on the one side. Then, on 
 the other, let us accustom ourselves to think of the 
 Divine Kingdom as working through the vindica- 
 tion and establishment of the Divine morality. 
 Thus, secular history and the Kingdom of the 
 Word of God will be brought to one focus in our 
 minds. We shall see Christ wherever we see essen- 
 tial civilization. 
 
 3. A third consideration is this. The Coming 
 of Christ is most often described in Scripture as
 
 III.] AND THE WORLD. 37 
 
 the Coming of the Son of man. Let us take this 
 name as significant. Then whatever tends to the 
 advance and union of humanity is a part of the 
 glory of the Son of man. Now it is a generally 
 admitted fact that the progress of history from 
 the Apostles' days to our own has been a spread- 
 ing and strengthening of the bonds which unite 
 mankind together. There are painful problems in 
 history, — such as the prevalence of destructive 
 wars, and the dying out of inferior races before 
 the stronger and more civilized. But the general 
 result is a steady growth of humanity as a whole. 
 We cannot comfort ourselves with the thought 
 that the time has come for wars to cease in all 
 the earth. There have been wars recently ; there 
 may again be wars before long. A free nation 
 ought not to provoke war; but it ought not to 
 be too luxurious and ease-loving to fight, if the 
 occasion should arise. But, in spite of wars, — 
 sometimes in a remarkable degree by means of 
 wars, — mostly through a great and increasing com- 
 plication of influences, we see the hindrances to 
 human fellowship taken out of the way, and the 
 friendly and intelligent intercourse of human souls 
 spreading over the face of the globe. The wor- 
 shippers of the Son of man should surely see in 
 this progress of humanity a conspicuous sign of 
 his coming and glory. If there is a King of men, 
 desiring to bind them together in the bonds of 
 a Divine polity with the cords of spiritual fellow- 
 ship, is it not he who is acting, when old barriers
 
 o 
 
 8 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST [serm. 
 
 between nations are broken down, when new pos- 
 sibilities and stimulants of intercourse are dis- 
 covered, when in all most widely separated regions 
 of the earth men are learning to rejoice together, 
 to grieve together, and to hope together ? 
 
 Are such reflections as these which I have been 
 suggesting too broad to be compatible with faith 
 in Christ as the Head of the Church, and as the 
 Teacher and Judge of the individual conscience ? 
 Is there any inconsistency between the secular 
 aspects of the world and of civilization which the 
 study of history compels us to consider, and that 
 thankful acknowledgment of redemption through 
 the blood of the Cross upon which our private 
 Christian life is founded ? There is none, surely, 
 if we are attracted and sustained by what is really 
 Divine in the revelation of Christ. The principles 
 of love, of sacrifice, of spiritual obedience and fel- 
 lowship, of the blessed dependence of the souls 
 of men upon him who made them, — these shine 
 to us in the face of Jesus Christ, and these are 
 not falsified, they are illustrated and glorified, by 
 all that belongs to the real progress of humanity. 
 There was never any Christian who took in with 
 more joy of understanding as well as of heart and 
 soul the plain Gospel of redemption than St Paul 
 did ; and in his writings we may trace sufficient 
 indications that, instead of shrinking and shutting 
 his eyes, he would have exulted in all discoveries 
 which gave expansion to his thoughts and contem- 
 plations. To him it was a delight, it was food
 
 III.] AND THE WORLD. 39 
 
 and nourishment to his adoration, to look back as 
 far as he could see into past ages, to look forward 
 into the ages of ages that were to come, to see 
 how the barriers that included the chosen nation 
 were broken down, and to observe the fulfilment 
 of the prophecies which foretold that the God 
 of truth and love would make himself known to 
 all the ends of the earth and gather all nations 
 into a spiritual unity under the one Lord. 
 
 And what we want in these later ages is a 
 heartier and warmer faith in those principles of 
 the Divine nature which were manifested and 
 identified with our humanity in Jesus Christ the 
 Crucified. Nothing has been discovered in the 
 progress of ages, science and history and politics 
 can tell us of nothing, more good and blessed 
 than the Love of God in Christ. Nothing is now 
 known as truly good, which may not be seen in 
 its perfection in Christ. The believing Christian 
 ought only to rejoice, not to be afraid, as the 
 thoughts of men are widened with the process of 
 the suns. There is enough still to make us grieve, 
 enough to perplex and distress us and fill us with 
 a not unworthy impatience. But the spread of 
 light, of freedom, of equal justice, of human hap- 
 piness, ought to touch us as a tribute to the King- 
 ship of the Son of man. It is ours to claim every 
 note and fruit of progress in the world as illus- 
 trating the Kingdom of Christ. It is ours to take 
 care that no narrowness of those who glory in 
 the name of Christ, no setting of the temporary
 
 4© THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST eye. [serm. III. 
 
 form or of the imperfect conception above the 
 perfect spirituality, shall hinder those who are 
 moving towards the light from blessing the Sun 
 of righteousness in whose wings is healing, and 
 from advancing in his light to shine more and 
 more unto the perfect day.
 
 IV. 
 
 CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Colossians II. 3. — "In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom 
 
 and knowledge." 
 
 To St Paul and his first readers knowledge did not 
 represent exactly the same class of things which it 
 does to us. When St Paul speaks of knowledge in 
 his Epistles, he frequently refers to speculations 
 about the unseen world, to theories of creation, to 
 accounts of " principalities and powers " which filled 
 up the space between the visible world and God. 
 Another great branch of the knowledge of those 
 days was acquaintance with laws and traditions, 
 such as the Jewish doctors possessed. Those specu- 
 lations about the powers of the invisible world, and 
 the learning which handed down ancient traditions, 
 appeared to the Apostle of little value compared 
 with the knowledge of Christ. But he taught not 
 only that to know Christ was a more precious 
 knowledge, but also that by learning Christ a man 
 would come to understand more about the invisible 
 world and the mysterious space between God and 
 men, and about the meaning of sacred books and
 
 42 CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. [SERM. 
 
 historical traditions, than if he devoted himself 
 eagerly to the study of the current lore upon 
 those subjects. 
 
 In our day, knowledge happily represents some- 
 thing much more solid and fruitful than it did in 
 the New Testament age. I may speak of the 
 knowledge with which we have to do as also 
 consisting chiefly of two great branches. Of the 
 one branch Nature, or the world around us, is the 
 object ; of the other, Man, with all that relates to 
 human history. Whether you know much or little, 
 you may perceive that your knowledge belongs to 
 the one or the other of these great provinces. The 
 world of nature comprises all that we study as to 
 the laws of the outward universe, — such as the 
 movements of this earthly globe and of the hea- 
 venly bodies with which our earth is connected, the 
 properties of the things we manufacture, the growth 
 of the plants we cultivate, the habits of the animals 
 we keep. The world of man includes the principles 
 of human life in all its developments, — the instincts, 
 the feelings, the modes of reasoning, the mutual 
 obligations, of the human race to which we belong; 
 it therefore embraces all such subjects as those of 
 history, politics, and morality. When we make 
 progress in modern knowledge, we are learning 
 something either about the world which surrounds 
 man, or about man. The laws of nature are the 
 matter of one kind of knowledge, the life of the 
 human race is the matter of the other. 
 
 But is there not, for Christians, a third kind of
 
 IV.] CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. 43 
 
 knowledge, surpassing the others in excellence and 
 value, — the knowledge of God, and of Christ in 
 whom God is revealed? I answer, that it may in- 
 deed be convenient, for certain purposes, to treat 
 the knowledge of God, or Theology, as a third and 
 distinct branch of knowledge. But I would rather 
 say that God is at the heart of each of the two 
 bodies of knowledge which I have already de- 
 scribed. In studying nature, we are feeling after 
 God ; in studying the life of mankind, we arrive at 
 God. In the laws and uses of nature, we trace the 
 impress of the mind of him who creates and ani- 
 mates nature; in the history of man there is set for 
 our contemplation the life of him in whom we see 
 God perfectly revealed, and mankind perfectly 
 represented. Nature will be best known to us, if 
 studied as God's handiwork; mankind will be best 
 known to us, if studied as God's acknowledged off- 
 spring. This is the doctrine which I desire now to 
 illustrate. 
 
 I take what St Paul says concerning Christ 
 with reference to the knowledge of his time, and 
 claim it as true with reference to the far wider, 
 more real, more satisfying, knowledge of our own 
 time. To shew in any worthy or adequate manner 
 that in Christ are now hid all the treasures of 
 wisdom and knowledge, would be a far greater 
 task than I propose to attempt. But, as faith in 
 Christ has been too often divorced from a love of 
 modern knowledge — believers in Christ being too 
 distrustful and afraid of intellectual activity and
 
 44 CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. [SERM. 
 
 scientific research, and votaries of science being 
 sometimes induced to regard our old Christian 
 faith as unfavourable, if not a positive obstacle, 
 to the progress of knowledge, — I shall try to 
 suggest to you some helps which those who wish 
 to acquire knowledge may find in the contempla- 
 tion of Christ. 
 
 Let us suppose that we fix our eyes upon 
 Christ, the Word of the , Father, the Beginning 
 of Creation, the Head of the human race. We are 
 at the same time directing thoughts of interest and 
 curiosity towards the world around us, or towards 
 mankind and their history. In what ways, let us 
 ask, are our minds affected by the contemplation of 
 Christ ? 
 
 i. We gain, in the first place, a sense of unity. 
 
 Observation by itself suggests that all things 
 are connected- together. It shews us how a number 
 of little facts are gathered into one by the con- 
 ception of some law which they illustrate, how the 
 smaller laws are seen to be dependent on some 
 higher law, and how all the visible creation tends 
 thus towards one common centre. But the ob- 
 servation which discovers this tendency to unity, 
 this predominating principle of unity, is rather that 
 of highly-educated minds than that of those who 
 are beginning to learn. The ordinary mind, when 
 it is awakened to a genuine curiosity, finds itself in 
 the presence of a boundless and overwhelming mul- 
 titude of facts. What naturally happens to us is, 
 to pick up a bit of knowledge here, and another bit
 
 IV.] CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. 45 
 
 of knowledge there; to learn that the earth goes 
 round the sun, that the steam from boiling water is 
 irresistibly expansive, that there were emperors of 
 Rome called Caesar, that a glorious Reformation 
 took place in the 16th century. Now thoughtful 
 men, — those who really understand science and the 
 discipline of the mind, — tell us that knowledge of 
 this unorganized kind is all but useless ; that it is 
 of the very essence of real insight into things to 
 perceive the connection of one fact with another, to 
 learn the causes of things, and to accustom oneself 
 to look for sequence and subordination, for real 
 order and progress, everywhere. 
 
 Whoever believes in the Word of God as 
 bringing all things into shape and holding them 
 together, whoever accepts the Apostolic doctrine 
 that through him who came forth from the Father 
 all things were made, and without him was not 
 anything made that was made, — is also a believer 
 in a centre of creation, not merely imagined and 
 unknown, but revealed, living, and Divine. To 
 such a believer the wondrous order of the universe 
 is an expression of the mind of God, the myste- 
 rious force which moves creation onwards is an 
 energy of the will of God. Every recognition of 
 the abiding order of the world around us to which 
 the most enthusiastic philosopher can give utter- 
 ance will be welcome and sound natural to one 
 who believes that the Eternal and Absolute God 
 speaks (not only once spoke but continues to
 
 4 6 CHRIS T A ND MODERN KNO WLED GE. [sERM. 
 
 speak) the world into its being by and through 
 his Word. 
 
 I must not speak of the profound conceptions 
 of science, and of the mysteries of the Divine 
 nature, as if they were things within the easy 
 grasp of every common mind. But I venture to 
 think that even a school-boy or school-girl, who 
 is taught to regard the Son of God as the Lord 
 and Head of creation, — to whom such sayings as 
 this, "To us there is but one God, the Father, 
 of whom are all things, and we unto him, and 
 one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, 
 and we by him," are, if nothing more intelligible, 
 at least sacred dogmas, — holds already the key 
 to the oneness of the creation in his hands. He 
 has not yet learnt how to apply the key. But 
 he knows that the world is not a chaos, a mass 
 of confusion, coming by chance. He knows the 
 great truth, that all things serve. He knows that 
 there will be an order for him to apprehend, as 
 soon as he can find it out. He is fully prejudiced, 
 so to speak, in favour of law and unity. 
 
 2. But further, in contemplating Christ we 
 are considering a moral being ; not one who may 
 be described as merely the ultimate Law of all 
 laws, but a person manifesting will and affections. 
 And assuredly this is the prominent aspect of 
 Christ to the Christian mind. We see in him the 
 love of the Father declared. In him the Maker 
 of the universe is revealed as essentially a right- 
 eous and loving Father.
 
 IV.] CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. 47 
 
 One therefore who looks up to Christ inevi- 
 tably gains the impression that Love is at work, 
 and is supreme, in the universe. He has a pre- 
 judice, to use the word again, in favour of benevo- 
 lence as a principle and motive in the existing 
 order of things. 
 
 To the mere observer, the appearances of the 
 world, considered with reference to this point, are 
 puzzling. There are innumerable indications that 
 the tendency of the arrangements according to 
 which the course of things is ordered, is to produce 
 well-being and happiness. No one who studies 
 nature can resist the impression which these indica- 
 tions make upon him. But the observer honestly 
 admits that there is something to be said on the 
 other side. There is a dark side of nature as well 
 as a bright side. There are hurricanes strewing 
 their dreadful path with death and desolation, as 
 well as fields which smile to the rain and the 
 sunshine. The impartial observer must take note 
 of lightning and tempest, of plague, pestilence 
 and famine, of battle and murder, and of sudden 
 death, when he wishes to estimate the impressions 
 which the course of nature as a whole makes upon 
 him. The Christian, also, must not blind himself 
 to facts ; he may explain them, or mark them as 
 unexplained, but he ought to recognize them 
 fairly. It is unquestionable however that we who 
 believe in Christ as perfectly revealing the Maker 
 of all things can entertain no doubt as to the 
 supremacy of Love in the universe. If such a pre-
 
 4§ CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. [SERM. 
 
 possession, if the conviction that Love is supreme, 
 is a hindrance to the fair understanding of the 
 phenomena of the world, we have no alternative 
 but to admit that Christians are so far at a dis- 
 advantage for the acquisition of knowledge. Medi- 
 tate on the character and life of the Son of God, 
 as they are presented to us in the Gospels, and 
 you cannot possibly conclude that the Almighty 
 Ruler is partly kind and partly unkind, that his 
 disposition is mixed of good will and malice. But 
 happily, the more thoroughly the phenomena of 
 the world are investigated, the more does it ap- 
 pear that all that is created, all that belongs most 
 properly to the order and permanence of things, 
 is perceptibly good. Let us therefore have no 
 misgivings. Let us rejoice to believe that the 
 secret of the Maker is with those who trust in his 
 goodness. The prepossession which Christ pro- 
 duces in us as to the loving nature of the Father 
 is a help and not a hindrance to us in learning 
 anything about the course of things. So often is 
 it found under a steady gaze of inquiry that ap- 
 parent or transient evil is only a disguise of real 
 and permanent good, that in cherishing a confi- 
 dence in the Fatherly love of God we may be sure 
 that we are following so far a right and successful 
 method of investigation. 
 
 3. To take another step, the knowledge of 
 Christ is a knowledge of evil as well as of good. 
 Christ is not only the Love of God manifested ; 
 he is the Love of God in conflict with hatred and
 
 IV.] CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. 49 
 
 rebellion, the Love of God suffering- and submitting 
 to evil, for the sake of a higher and completer con- 
 quest thereby to be effected. This is the peculiar 
 mystery of the Cross of Christ ; it is this which en- 
 ters with the greatest power into the convictions of 
 the true Christian, this which has in fact subdued 
 the world to Christ. 
 
 Under the influence of this belief we cannot fail 
 to look for a purpose of redemption in history and in 
 nature. Christ teaches and constrains us to regard 
 his Father as having an end in view, which end 
 is the perfecting and setting free of his creation, 
 the bringing of all things into a living order and 
 harmony, unmarred by taint or discord ; — and as 
 working towards this end chiefly through a spiritual 
 conflict with spiritual evil. The Gospel of Christ 
 does not solve for us the problem of evil ; it does 
 not explain, to our satisfactory comprehension, how 
 a thing which God hates should enter into and 
 remain in a world which is wholly subject to God. 
 But it instructs us how to regard evil. It bids us 
 think nothing essentially evil except the perversion 
 of the will, or sin. It helps us to see what varied 
 and far-reaching disorder and misery flow from this 
 primary source. It teaches us to strive against evil in 
 all its forms through seeking a renewal and blessed 
 submission, and freedom in submission, of the will. 
 It gives us glorious hopes, by shewing the attractive 
 influences of God's grace to our unruly but suscep- 
 tible wills, and by bearing witness that God is work- 
 ing with us to accomplish his own glory through our 
 D. S. 4
 
 50 CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. [SERM. 
 
 redemption, and that our humble but hopeful part 
 is to submit to his guidance and inspiration. 
 
 The faith in a Divine purpose of redemption 
 running through the ages may be the occasion, as 
 it no doubt has been, of many mistakes of interpre- 
 tation. Good Christians have insisted upon seeing 
 a judgment of God, pronouncing some particular 
 sentence, in this event and in that. They have 
 hastily assumed that the Eternal Father sees 
 through their eyes. Against this danger earnest 
 Christians need to be on their guard. 
 
 But we have good reason to maintain that this 
 faith sheds the truest light on history and nature. 
 It explains some of the greatest and most impor- 
 tant facts. It shews how physical evil may be 
 made to minister to moral good, so much as to 
 reconcile our minds to the existence of such evil, 
 though not to deter us from endeavouring to remove 
 it. It explains human progress ; it shews how men 
 make mistakes in order that they may learn truth; 
 how one man may benefit by the failures of other 
 men, one generation by the failures of those which 
 have preceded it. Jt sets before us an ideal con- 
 sistent with all facts ; it teaches us what we must 
 do in order that we may all advance together to- 
 wards that ideal. Does not the Cross of Christ aid 
 all our studies, when it shews us God training man- 
 kind to universal sonship, preparing them to be 
 blameless before him in love, and promising then, 
 and not till then, to make all their outward con- 
 ditions those of peace, enjoyment, and delight ?
 
 iv.] CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. 5 1 
 
 4. Scientific observers toll us, that whilst we 
 may sec an undeniable progress upwards and 
 onwards both in nature ami history, that pro- 
 gress is exceedingly gradual and slow. Now it is 
 true that Christians have been impatient, ami our 
 Christianity does not altogether condemn impa- 
 tience. There is something noble in the righteous 
 
 impatience el" good men and Christians. But this 
 again has been the occasion of errors. The most 
 
 earnest believers, crying "Make haste, Lord, to 
 
 help us;" "llow long, Lord, how long?" have 
 
 been apt to make sine that the world was imme- 
 diately and suddenly coming to an end. Better, 
 this, than indolent ami ignoble acquiescence in 
 
 Wrong and foulness ami miser}-. Hut if the mind 
 
 be fixed on Christ himself, it appears to me that a 
 wondering sense of God's infinite patience is likely 
 to possess us. We see how long chid had waited 
 before sending his Son, what gradual preparations 
 went before his coming, with what modesty and 
 smoothness the introduction of the marvellous life of 
 the Son of Cod into the world's history was effected, 
 what a very little seed was sown for the brine- 
 ing forth o( the tree which was to overshadow the 
 whole earth. Then when Christ had been ex.dted, 
 we see how patiently the Father commended him 
 
 to the faith o( mankind, what humble and natural 
 instruments he employed, how he let this and that 
 instinct and custom ami passion resist almost as it 
 pleased the diffusion of the blessed Gospel. The 
 whole history of the Gospel, to this day, surely 
 
 4—2
 
 52 CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. [SERM. 
 
 teaches us, amongst other lessons, the patience of 
 God. So that I would not admit that the Christian 
 who has most truly studied the mind of God in 
 Christ would be the most likely to rebel against 
 those evidences of the gradual and continuous cha- 
 racter of the Divine operations in Nature which 
 science in these days so abundantly discloses. 
 
 Let me now mention one or two ways in which 
 the contemplation of Christ ought powerfully to 
 aid the cultivation of knowledge, without blending 
 so directly with the processes of acquiring it. 
 
 5. Imagine a man to be thoroughly possessed 
 by the belief that this whole round world is God's 
 world ; that God is not merely above it, but in it. 
 Let him believe with St Paul that " there is one 
 God and Father of all, who is above all and 
 through all and in all," that "of him, and through 
 him, and unto him, are all things ;" — with St John, 
 that "God has created all things, and for his 
 pleasure they are, and were created." Let him 
 be exercised in the conviction that "the invisible 
 things of God from the creation of the world are 
 clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
 are made." Do you not take it as certain, that in 
 proportion as such a man knows God through 
 Christ and loves and worships him, he will feel 
 drawn both by encouragement and by obligation 
 to the study of the things which, as he believes, 
 God is actually making and doing? No doubt 
 every person cannot give his mind to every thing. 
 Many of us are so busy with necessary labours
 
 IV.] CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. 53 
 
 that we have no time for anything like study, 
 whether of nature or of the human sciences. But, 
 of two men in the same circumstances and with the 
 same opportunities, surely the one who honours 
 Christ the most will prize knowledge the most, 
 and will have the most lively interest in learning. 
 Where another man will be thinking chiefly of 
 getting on in the world by the powers which 
 knowledge supplies, or of making himself superior 
 through culture to his neighbours, the simple and 
 loyal Christian will remember that in all study he 
 has to do with the works and ways of his Lord, 
 and that by reverent consideration of those works 
 and ways he may get nearer to the very mind of 
 God himself. I do not stop to speak now of the 
 comparative value of different objects of knowledge, 
 because my point is, that with regard to any and 
 every kind of knowledge, the Christian has a pecu- 
 liar reason, in the homage he pays to Christ, for 
 taking an interest in it. He is the more bound by 
 duty to know ; he has a higher reward in knowing. 
 6. Lastly, the moral discipline that belongs to 
 the contemplation of Christ is favourable to the 
 acquisition of knowledge. The pursuit of know- 
 ledge — as who does not know ? — has many hin- 
 drances to contend with. Not chill penury alone 
 has been the cause, with multitudes of men, that 
 
 "Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
 Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;" 
 
 but indifference and laziness, bluntness to higher 
 things, love of money or of personal display, have
 
 54 CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. [SERM. 
 
 kept them ignorant and stupid. In these days, 
 even the poor have wonderful opportunities for 
 self-culture and for gaining knowledge, if only 
 they care in earnest to avail themselves of them. 
 Now Christianity certainly places the spirit and 
 the affections first, and will dignify a simple man 
 who is true and loyal to Christ more than a well- 
 educated man who is ungodly. But it places the 
 mind above the flesh. The flesh and its lusts it 
 bids us keep down and bring into subjection. It 
 habitually raises the thoughts above the level of 
 sensual enjoyments and vanities. It strengthens 
 the resolution, making a man strong to do what 
 is right and worthy and not merely what is pleasant 
 for the moment. And it cultivates the habits of 
 docility and truthfulness. Christ taught that those 
 who would follow him must become like a little 
 child, — that is, teachable and truthful. And this is 
 the mind for acquiring knowledge. It has been said 
 indeed that scepticism is a most necessary habit for 
 one who would ground himself in real knowledge, 
 because he must be always ready to doubt whether 
 what he now believes is true. But then this scepti- 
 cism is not levity or conceit, but really another name 
 for teachableness and truthfulness. No doubt he 
 who reverences truth must always be ready to 
 abandon a cherished error. But this is a Christian 
 disposition ; and the better Christian a man is, the 
 more gladly will he submit to be corrected when 
 he is wrong. 
 
 These, my Christian brethren, are some of the
 
 IV.] CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. 55 
 
 links or influences through which our faith in Christ 
 will rightly act upon our pursuit of knowledge. 
 
 I must not be tempted to illustrate my subject 
 further. But suffer me, in conclusion, to urge upon 
 you a twofold exhortation. 
 
 I. In seeking and increasing knowledge, en- 
 deavour, if you feel the truth of what I have been 
 saying, to keep Christ always in view. This con- 
 templation will not render your minds less open 
 to the reception of new truths when they are dis- 
 closed to you. Some of you may remember indeed 
 that there have been conflicts of a long and even 
 bitter character between the champions of some 
 new discoveries of science and the believers in the 
 letter of Scripture. There is, we must admit, a 
 danger of such conflicts, where the letter of Scrip- 
 ture is exalted to the place which Christ, and 
 Christ alone, should occupy in the worship of the 
 Christian. The Holy Scriptures are of inexpress- 
 ible value, if it were only for this reason, that 
 without them we should have no secure knowledge 
 of Christ. But the loyalty of the Christian is due 
 principally to Christ ; and if his loyalty to Christ 
 is ever brought into apparent collision, — as it has 
 been more than once in the progress of knowledge, 
 — with the letter of Scripture, it is the letter of 
 Scripture and not Christ, the Lord of life and light, 
 that must give way. And I have no fears or mis- 
 givings in urging you, as you seek to know more 
 and more, to keep your eyes fixed as much as 
 possible on Christ. He will be your best guide.
 
 5 6 CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. [SERM. 
 
 He will exalt and purify your intellectual tone. 
 He will purge your mind of vanity, of selfish 
 rivalry, of that irreverence towards knowledge of 
 which we are guilty when we degrade it into a 
 mere stepping-stone for worldly advancement. 
 
 2. Secondly, in your character and endeavours 
 as Christians, in your zeal for Christ, do not de- 
 spise modern knowledge. Speaking of the Christian 
 world generally, for generations and centuries. I am 
 afraid it must be said that the most zealous Chris- 
 tians have not given the aid and impulse which 
 they ought to have given and which it was in their 
 power to give, to the advancement of knowledge . 
 Why has there been this defect ? I would not say 
 that it has been through want of sincerity in love 
 to Christ : but then it must have been through 
 some want of appreciation of Christ's true majesty 
 or sovereignty, through want of full confidence in 
 him as the Life and Light of men. May we be on 
 our guard against this narrowness ! We have need 
 to be watchful. There is a certain temptation to 
 some minds to throw themselves into religion, and 
 in doing so to put aside the thoughts and inquiries 
 of the age as secular and as likely to breed scep- 
 ticism. I might dwell on the folly, the impolicy, 
 of a religion allied to ignorance, of an attempt to 
 shut out by mere will the suggestions of doubt. 
 But I now venture to speak to you in a higher 
 strain ; I say that such rejection of knowledge is 
 in fact, though people may not be aware of it, 
 disloyal to Christ. Not only is Christ not afraid
 
 IV.] CHRIST AND MODERN KNOWLEDGE. 57 
 
 of the diffusion of knowledge and inquiry ; it is he 
 who gives the knowledge and stimulates the in- 
 quiry. If there are any beliefs in which we have 
 been brought up, to which the light of advancing 
 knowledge makes it impossible to us to cling, who 
 is it that bids us give them up ? Not some godless 
 spirit of the age, but the Lord Jesus Christ himself. 
 It is surely the vocation of us who live in these 
 days (might God only make us worthy of it and 
 true to it !) to rise out of and above bondage to 
 systems and the letter into the freedom of fellow- 
 ship with the Son of God himself. Depend upon 
 it, we need for this, not a light spirit of incredulity 
 and doubt, but a stronger and surer faith. Our 
 faith needs to be proved and tested and braced. 
 Seek then and promote knowledge without reserve, 
 I say not although you believe in Christ, nor will I 
 say only because you believe in him, but also in 
 order that you may believe in him more surely.
 
 V. 
 
 HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. 
 
 St John xvii. 10, i\. — "Neither pray I for these alone, but for 
 them also which shall believe on me through their word ; that 
 they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, 
 that they also may be one in us." 
 
 THIS day is our festival of the Unity of the God- 
 head. The question to which our faith gives 
 an answer to-day is this : Will we have three Gods, 
 or tzvo Gods, — or will we have One God? And 
 our Christian answer is the same as that of the 
 Hebrew worshippers of old, "The Lord our God is 
 One Lord." 
 
 At other times rather than to-day we ask our- 
 selves, Whether we confess Jesus of Nazareth, the 
 Crucified, to be the risen and exalted Son of God; 
 and whether we recognize a Divine Spirit proceed- 
 ing from the Father and the Son, given to be the 
 higher life of men. When the special doctrine of 
 the Trinity comes before us, it invites us to con- 
 sider, Whether we, believers in Christ, — we, be- 
 lievers in the Spirit of Christ and of the Father, — 
 are also believers in One only God. 
 
 It is the glory and the difficulty of our faith to 
 believe in Unity. To believe in more Gods than 
 One, is easy and natural. The heathen, ancient
 
 SERM. v.] HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. 59 
 
 and modern, have believed most frankly and libe- 
 rally in many gods. They have worshipped a 
 god in the firmament, another in the immense 
 ocean, another in the under world. They have 
 named a sun-god, and a moon-goddess. They 
 have had national gods, gods of Egypt, of Assyria, 
 of Greece, of Italy. But Christians have not been 
 exempt from the same tendency. They have wor- 
 shipped Christ, the peculiar God of Christendom ; 
 with him they have confessed a distant universal 
 Father ; they have added a goddess, in the Virgin- 
 Mother, to the heavenly court ; and they have paid 
 homage to tutelary divinities in angels and glorified 
 saints. And in this distributed worship Christians 
 have at times lost all thought and care about unity. 
 Can it be said that philosophers, who have set them- 
 selves free with more or less of scorn from heathen 
 and Christian modes of polytheism, are able to 
 attain easily to a real faith in Unity ? Are they not 
 tempted to make gods variously and in combina- 
 tion, of Force and Matter, of Nature, Humanity, 
 Art, Fate ? — As Christians, we confess the mystery 
 of the Divine Unity ; we do not call this Unity 
 a simple idea which you can grasp as easily as you 
 can name it ; we hold that we need to be led up 
 to it, and that unless we are sustained at a height 
 above that of our merely natural conceptions, we 
 fall as a matter of course into the worship of di- 
 vided powers ; we believe that we approach the most 
 absolute Unity in the universe by allowing the 
 Son to be the way for us to the Father, and by
 
 60 HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. [SERM. 
 
 contemplating the fellowship of the Son and of the 
 Father till our minds and our imaginations fail 
 before a task to which they know themselves to be 
 unequal. 
 
 The Divine Unity, then, is the object towards 
 which our thoughts and devotions are now directed. 
 As one way of observing what needs are satisfied 
 by the Christian doctrine of the Divine Unity, let 
 us endeavour to take a glance at Humanity as a 
 whole, so as to see how it is bound up both with 
 each Divine Person, and with One God. By hu- 
 manity I mean mankind, the race and nature of 
 man, the whole, of which we ourselves are members. 
 
 I. And, first, consider that in humanity there 
 is a filial heart which delights to confess and to call 
 upon a Divine Father. 
 
 In Christendom this may be said to be a culti- 
 vated rather than a natural instinct. And in all ' 
 the best religions, it has been made a duty and a 
 privilege to believe that there is in heaven or 
 the unseen world some kind of counterpart of 
 earthly fatherhood, some being to whom thanks 
 and vows and entreaties may be offered. 
 
 But in the most degraded races and under the ty- 
 ranny of the wildest superstitions this filial instinct 
 can hardly be said to be ever entirely wanting. 
 In all countries you may perceive rudiments or ves- 
 tiges of it. Where the fatherhood that can be seen, 
 the earthly human fatherhood, is a relation defaced 
 by carelessness and cruelty and caprice, there the 
 invisible world will hold no worthy image of Divine
 
 v.] HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. 61 
 
 Fatherhood. But it is scarcely possible to imagine 
 a race, — it would be quite impossible, I believe, 
 to find one, — which would not have at least some 
 flickering notions of providence, of invisible guid- 
 ance, of a power which has given, of a power from 
 which benefits may be hoped. 
 
 The filial instinct may no doubt appear to be all 
 but wanting in some populations. It may be said 
 perhaps to be unknown in the inhabitants of the 
 Andaman islands. But the human beings who are 
 without it are those who are scarcely human. We 
 may call it an essentially human instinct for this 
 reason, that it grows with the growth of humanity. 
 Where humanity itself is cultivated, there the sense 
 of a Divine Fatherhood becomes stronger, and the 
 image of that Fatherhood becomes purer. In Persia, 
 in Greece, in Italy, — to mention countries with 
 which we do not associate the idea of a special reve- 
 lation, — not only did men look up to the heavenly 
 world with filial instincts, that is to say, with grati- 
 tude, trust, and hope, with belief in a heavenly 
 order and beneficence, but the name of Father, as 
 applied to a supreme God, became distinct and 
 dear and sacred. The most perfect worship of the 
 Father is that which the New Testament teaches, 
 and which has in varying but always imperfect de- 
 grees been realized in Christendom. And even 
 those to whom the Christian revelation is no more 
 than a dream of man's excited imagination are 
 ready to admit that the faith of Christ has been 
 allied with all that is best in human progress, and
 
 62 HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. [sERM. 
 
 that the Christian nations have been in fact the 
 most humane amongst the nations of mankind. 
 
 Looking at the history and experience of indi- 
 viduals, you may see that the truly filial nature is 
 best developed in those whom you regard and 
 revere the most. The spirit which lives as in 
 response to the manifestation of a just and wise 
 and loving Father is the best kind of human spirit 
 you know. And those who try to live in this mind 
 think themselves to be living most worthily when 
 they are most fully governed by such a spirit. 
 They condemn themselves with the most assurance 
 and shame when they are unfilial towards God ; 
 they find their purest happiness, their most whole- 
 some vital element, in humility, in gratitude, in 
 faith and hope and love. 
 
 May we not say then with confidence that hu- 
 manity by its very nature seeks for and demands 
 a Divine Father, and when at its best goes forth 
 most joyfully in filial utterances towards a Father? 
 
 Tell men that this faith in a Father is nothing 
 but a superstitious reflexion of that relation between 
 Father and children which happens to be a law of 
 human existence. Tell them that science, upon 
 which alone it is safe to build, reveals no Father in 
 heaven to whom they may cry. Offer to them, 
 instead, a course of tilings in which they and all things 
 are moving onwards, a Nature originating in no 
 Will, tending to no desired end, only going on and 
 on, blindly, deafly, dumbly, inexorably. Bid them 
 repress as childish follies all gratitude for mercies
 
 V.] HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. 6$ 
 
 received, all desire of mercies to come. Would you 
 in this way feed and nourish the universal humanity 
 that is in men ? Does our human nature feel com- 
 forted and bettered by such prescriptions? Does 
 it not on the contrary feel starved as by cold and 
 hunger ? Where would, in such a case, be the refuge 
 of the solitary prisoner, of the reformer striving 
 with an evil generation, of every man when things 
 go against him, unless indeed he were able to find 
 his satisfaction in a sublime self-complacency ? 
 
 2. Secondly, I would suggest that, when we 
 endeavour to regard mankind as a whole, we are 
 constrained to look for some Head, some Pattern 
 and Ideal, some Centre to give unity to the members 
 which make up the whole. The human race needs 
 a more-than-human Son of man, in whom it may 
 find and become conscious of its unity. 
 
 This need will not, I am aware, be so evident to 
 you as that cry to a Divine Father which issues out 
 of the heart of universal humanity. But it is worth 
 our while to consider it a little. 
 
 We should not willingly abandon our belief in 
 the unity of the human race. This idea grows 
 upon men as they rise and advance. An improved 
 morality implies and strengthens it. Not only the 
 Christian faith, but also every higher and nobler 
 conviction, compels us to feel that we are united in 
 a peculiar manner to our brother-men, that every 
 man has a claim upon us because he is a man, that 
 we are members of one body. But on what does 
 this faith rest ? The researches of science, especially
 
 64 HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. [SERM. 
 
 in recent years, have had some tendency to 
 weaken and dissolve it. Science shews us human 
 beings whom it is dreadfully hard to recognize as 
 brother-men ; it has made it almost certain that 
 through unmeasured ages races of men have existed 
 in conditions not much raised above those of the 
 brutes ; it brings into view the likenesses which 
 exist between the animal nature of man and that of 
 the inferior creatures ; it exhibits relentlessly the 
 painful phenomena of disease and death, and com- 
 pels us to confess the dependence of the mind and 
 of the character upon the body. Science breaks 
 through any line with which we may hope to round 
 off into a compact and creditable whole this crea- 
 tion of the human race ; it gives a ragged edge, a 
 blurred outline, to any image of the human race 
 which may have presented itself to our minds. We 
 are not likely to strengthen ourselves in the belief 
 of the unity of mankind by looking, so to speak, to 
 the circumference, and assuring ourselves that in 
 that there is no breach. But if we can look to a 
 centre, it will not be so necessary for us to define 
 the circumference. If we can discern a perfect 
 Head, we need not be so much troubled by any 
 imperfections in the extremities. 
 
 And this is the key which our Christian faith 
 gives us to the unity of mankind. Why are we 
 brother-men, fellow-members of one body ? Be- 
 cause we are a Divine family, having a Divine 
 Head and Elder Brother. We are all imperfect, 
 we arc all unworthy ; the Divine image is not per-
 
 v.] HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. 65 
 
 fectly traced in any of us. Who is to say by what 
 degree of imperfection and unworthiness man's 
 fellowship with the Son of man is broken ? We 
 renounce the attempt to determine it. We do not 
 know from what beginning, from what ruins, the 
 Living Head may be able to raise or restore a 
 member. We know that, in looking to the Divine- 
 Son of man, we learn to look upon ourselves and 
 our brother-men most reverently. In confessing 
 him, the bond which unites us to one another be- 
 comes most undeniable and most sacred. Can you 
 suppose that any other ruling conception than that 
 of a Divine and human Head would have wrought 
 
 o 
 
 out in the mind of St Paul that sublime theory of 
 human fellowship and mutual responsibility which 
 has ever since been the actual basis of Christian 
 morality ? — I say then, that in order to preserve a 
 high ideal and a substantial conviction of human 
 unity, we want such a being as the Christ of whom 
 the Gospel bears witness to us. Those who ac- 
 knowledge him need no other proof that they and 
 all men are rightly called brethren. Christ claim- 
 ing men as related to him declares them to be all 
 related to one another. The Christian faith in 
 human fellowship and unity may find support and 
 illustration in every token and symptom of com- 
 munity of race or identity of nature which inquiry or 
 experience may discover. But if we depend on such 
 signs alone, we shall have to balance arguments from 
 likeness against arguments from unlikeness. What 
 we read about development and variation of species 
 D. S. 5
 
 66 HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. [sERM. 
 
 will give us an uneasy feeling that moral unity is a 
 mere phantom, and that we know nothing of our 
 nature except that some creatures by happy circum- 
 stances have worked forward or been pushed forward, 
 farther than others. Consciousness of responsibility 
 would no doubt by some means or other survive : 
 but it is difficult to see on what basis it can firmly 
 rest, or by what contemplations it can be nourished. 
 If we are to look upon our kind as an ordered host 
 moving steadily though slowly forward, and ad- 
 vancing by rational and conscious effort, we must 
 have some leader ; there must be one to whom all 
 may attach themselves, whom all may follow. 
 
 And thus the higher idea of humanity bears 
 witness to him in whose likeness we are created 
 and by whose government we are kept together. 
 
 3. Thirdly, the common emotions and affec- 
 tions which make the higher life of humanity point 
 to a more than human Spirit breathing one breath 
 into men's souls. 
 
 As we are one body, so we are made to drink 
 into one Spirit. 
 
 The better life of men is expressly non-selfish. 
 When we are at our best, and most conscious of 
 our unity, we are also entering into feelings which 
 arc higher than those which belong to us as merely 
 separate individuals, into feelings which we recog- 
 nize as common to our race or kind, feelings which 
 are contagious as well as elevating. When we 
 yield ourselves to harmony and mutual service, we 
 know that we are raised by a spirit to which we
 
 v.] HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. 67 
 
 inwardly do homage, we rejoice in it without pride 
 or self-complacency". We count upon such a com- 
 mon elevating spirit. We are sure that other men 
 may be roused and wakened by it. In our ex- 
 hortations and rebukes, in our sympathy and in 
 our appeals to sympathy, we imply a common 
 spiritual atmosphere, in which we live and move 
 and have our being. Is it easy to interpret these 
 experiences, these demands, without plainly con- 
 fessing a heavenly Spirit, which is the better life of 
 our common humanity ? 
 
 Consider also, brethren, that we know ourselves 
 most certainly, and see our fellow-men most plainly, 
 to be animated by a better Spirit than that which 
 belongs to each man in himself, in those moments 
 when filial piety to the Divine Father, and loyalty 
 to the Divine Head, are strongest. Human beings, 
 of any race or country, are raised above themselves 
 then most, when they are truest to the Father and 
 to the Son. What is this, but that the Spirit of 
 the Father and of the Son takes possession of 
 human hearts ; that there is a true Spirit of the 
 Divine family, by whose inspiration men feel and 
 act upon their sonship and their brotherhood ? 
 
 The human dwellers upon this round earth are 
 greatly separated by differences of habits and as- 
 sociations and culture, as well as by the more 
 obvious barriers of language. The thoughts of 
 grown-up persons are not the thoughts of children ; 
 the thoughts of highly educated and civilized Eu- 
 ropeans are not the thoughts of untutored savages.
 
 6S HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. [SERM. 
 
 It is difficult to make a bridge from one sort of 
 intellectual conceptions to another sort. But kind- 
 ness, love, devotion, reverence, form a language of 
 hearts in which any human beings find it in some 
 degree practicable to converse with any other 
 human beings. Faith, hope, charity, these three, 
 not only abide, through successions of changes ; 
 they also spread over the whole surface of hu- 
 manity. They are not only permanent, they are 
 also universal. And these are the breath of the 
 One Divine Spirit, and always come most readily 
 into the soul when they are sought and thankfully 
 received as gifts from above. 
 
 Mankind, then, to be livingly and spiritually one, 
 wants a Spirit which can impart a worthy common 
 life, such a Spirit as that which came on the day of 
 Pentecost from the Father and the Son. 
 
 What I have been endeavouring to say con- 
 cerning the whole of mankind, may find illustra- 
 tions in any portion of mankind. We here,— to 
 take ourselves now gathered in this Church for an 
 example, — if we hear the voice of our common 
 humanity speaking strongly within us, are moved 
 to call upon one Father above us, to look to one 
 Lord, to open our hearts to one Spirit. And then 
 Ave feel our unity most deeply and cordially ; then 
 the powers which bind us in one prove themselves 
 stronger than the powers which separate us. 
 
 But if we are thus made ideally and practically 
 one by the joint confession of the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Spirit, there cannot be separateness
 
 v.] HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. 69 
 
 iii the objects of our worship. Father, Son, and 
 Holy Spirit, must be one also. There can be but 
 One God. And his unity is not that of singleness 
 and isolation ; it is that of a fellowship, passing 
 understanding, of the Father and Son in the Spirit. 
 
 The early Church was led gradually to the 
 confession of a threefold Unity in the Godhead. 
 The first Christians were worshippers of Christ. 
 Christ was a God to them, obviously the object of 
 a far more adoring homage than ever heathen god 
 was to any of his worshippers. None the less, so 
 long as they were true to Christ himself, were they 
 worshippers of the Father. The question did not 
 force itself upon them at first, hardly in New Tes- 
 tament times ; but it could not help coming, — Did 
 the believers in Jesus Christ worship two Gods, or 
 One ? They answered to themselves, that they 
 must believe in One God ; that they could not give 
 up their faith in Christ. What then was the issue ? 
 The fellowship of the Father and of the Sou, as they 
 contemplated it, became infinitely and mysteriously 
 close. They became convinced that that fellowship 
 might most rightly be described by the name Unity; 
 and that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit of the 
 Father and of the Son, were to be worshipped and 
 invoked as one incomprehensible God. 
 
 We are led along the same path by the order of 
 our Church seasons. Christ is kept continually be- 
 fore us, Christ as the Son revealing the Father, 
 Christ as uniting us to himself and bearing our sins. 
 We follow Christ up to the heaven from which he
 
 7° HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. [SERM. 
 
 came. We remember the coming down of the 
 Spirit to create a new common life, higher and more 
 heavenly than had before been known upon earth. 
 And then we are cautioned by the recurrence of 
 this day not to forget that we are believers in One 
 God, not to allow ourselves to offer divided homace 
 to three separate Beings. The Son is to lead us to 
 the Father ; and the Father, with the Son and the 
 Spirit, is to be One God to us, blessed for ever- 
 more. 
 
 But, this morning, I have been endeavouring to 
 lead your minds by another track to the same goal. 
 I have been inviting you to observe how Humanity, 
 with its higher voices and aspirations, seeks and 
 answers to a common Father, a common Head, a 
 common Spirit. The glory and perfection of 
 mankind is in its unity : but how is its unity to be 
 understood and to be realized ? Not by merely 
 studying human beings as they are and as they have 
 been, and shutting the eyes to all that is above 
 them : but by consenting to see the heavenly invi- 
 sible bonds which draw them upwards, which hold 
 them together, which lead them onwards. 
 
 If we, brethren, are permitted to discern how- 
 ever dimly with the eye of faith these nobler affini- 
 ties of our human nature, may we have grace to yield 
 ourselves to them and to rejoice in them ! If we 
 know ourselves to be more than earthly, more than 
 animal, let us take care that we rise in heart and 
 spirit above the cares and interests and limitations 
 of earth, above the sway of animal passions ! The
 
 v.] HUMANITY AND THE TRINITY. 71 
 
 doctrine of an absolute Divine Unity subsisting in 
 the spiritual fellowship of a Father and of a Son lays 
 a strong hand of obligation upon our spirits. It bids 
 us look everywhere for signs of fatherhood, of filial 
 obedience, of spiritual fellowship. It bids us strive 
 that our own lives may be conformed to the con- 
 stitution of our common humanity; that in all 
 things we may be followers and worshippers of 
 unity; that we may be true to the Father, to Christ, 
 and to the Holy Ghost ; that we may overcome all 
 the influences around us and from beneath which 
 would separate us from one another and from our 
 God.
 
 VI. 
 
 NATURE. 
 
 PsAI-M viii. I. — "O Lord our Governor, how excellent is thy name 
 in all the world; thou that hast set thy glory above the 
 heavens ! " 
 
 The present age, dating now from some time 
 back, has been remarkable for scientific discovery. 
 In all departments of inquiry, knowledge has been 
 greatly advanced and purified. It is especially, 
 perhaps, in theories concerning the surface of the 
 earth on which we tread, and concerning the history 
 of mankind, that common opinion has been modi- 
 fied. By observing the character of the strata or 
 layers which, one below another, make the crust of 
 this round earth, and by bringing together the re- 
 mains of life which are found in those strata, geolo- 
 gists have been able to arrive at conclusions as to 
 the antiquity and order and physical aspects of 
 great periods in the earth's history, which men 
 have been slow and unwilling to receive, but the 
 proofs of which have become practically irresistible. 
 In the history of the countries and races of mankind, 
 partly by the discovery of new sources of know- 
 ledge, partly by the better sifting and comparing 
 of the old, many received opinions have been shewn
 
 SERM. VI.] NATURE. 73 
 
 to be erroneous, and many new vistas have been 
 opened which begin with being clear and definite 
 and reach gradually through the obscure to the ut- 
 terly impenetrable and unknown. This progress 
 of knowledge has given much food and excitement 
 to the minds of men. Inquiry and speculation have 
 been stimulated ; intellectual ambition has been re- 
 warded by a sense of ampler possession and genuine 
 conquest. The sphere of intelligent wonder has 
 been immensely enlarged. If with such knowledge 
 as men had between two and three thousand years 
 ago a contemplative mind felt constrained to cry 
 out to the Creator, " O Lord, how manifold are thy 
 works ! in wisdom hast thou made them all : the 
 earth is full of thy riches!"— it is certain that the 
 wealth and complexity and mystery of the Divine 
 works are now indefinitely multiplied. 
 
 And no doubt the growing insight into the 
 variety and relations and unity of the Divine 
 works has been accompanied by much lifting up of 
 the heart in pious admiration and reverence to 
 God. But it is also true that the progress of 
 science has had some effect in confusing and blunt- 
 ing the old instincts of piety towards the Creator. 
 Old-fashioned religion and new-fashioned science 
 have been led to take even hostile attitudes towards 
 one another. Scientific men have accused religion 
 of being blind and bigoted ; religious men have ac- 
 cused science of being presumptuous and irreverent. 
 There are two characteristics of modern discovery, 
 as indeed of all discovery, which have been the
 
 74 NATURE. [SERM. 
 
 chief occasion of this lamentable opposition. One 
 is the increased proof of the presence and regu- 
 larity of laws of nature ; the other is the pushing 
 back of origins into obscurity. That these results 
 have come from inquiry is indisputable. Whenever, 
 and in whatever direction, knowledge has grown, 
 the presence of law has been in some way made 
 manifest, and some limit which had been set for a 
 beginning has been pushed back. With regard to 
 this latter point, I am not speaking of time merely. 
 In all countries tradition has been free with num- 
 bers in chronology as in other reckonings ; and 
 rigid inquiry has proved that things supposed to be 
 thousands of years old must date their age by hun- 
 dreds. But where beginnings have been described, 
 — by saying that this or that came first into existence 
 in such a wav, and that it was due to such and such 
 causes, — it is- found, I think I may say invariably, 
 that when more light is thrown upon the supposed 
 origin, we see that what appeared to be sudden 
 was in fact gradual, that earlier forms of the same 
 thing and remoter causes come into view, and the 
 origin, therefore, instead of being fixed at a certain 
 point, is pushed further and further back. Now if 
 religion has taught us to say, " The Creator works 
 his will in the universe, and it is his glory to do just 
 what he pleases without regard to rule;" and, " the 
 Creator suddenly projected certain forms of life, 
 certain events, certain epochs of history into exist- 
 ence, without relation to what went before, by a 
 fiat of his sovereign will," — it is inevitable that when
 
 VI.] NATURE. 75 
 
 all phenomena are seen increasingly to be ordered 
 by law, and when the boundaries of abrupt creation 
 tend to disappear, the ordinary utterances of our 
 piety should seem to be impeded. And to some 
 extent this has been the case. We have been ac- 
 customed, — and perhaps it could not have been 
 helped, — to associate our thoughts of God rather 
 with interference than with the giving forth and 
 sustaining of law, and rather with instantaneous 
 creation than with gradual evolution, and therefore 
 we are not ready at once to assimilate with our 
 reverence for God the beautiful and profound reve- 
 lations of God's work which have been made to 
 modern science. 
 
 I do not suppose that it is within any one's 
 power to explain the mysteries of Divine operation 
 in the universe, so that the freedom of God (or of 
 man either) shall seem easily reconcilable with the 
 fixity of laws, or so that God's leading of the ages 
 may naturally commend itself to every eye as the 
 secret of the evolutions of history. It seems to me 
 that in striving after the solution of such problems 
 we soon reach the limits not only of our actual but 
 of our possible knowledge, and that we become in 
 a strange and instructive manner conscious of the 
 inadequacy of our faculties. 
 
 But we may endeavour to put ourselves in such 
 a position that problems which we cannot solve may 
 not hinder our faith and worship more than they 
 ought to do. Now, according to all reason and all 
 Scriptural example, the most devout believer in
 
 76 NATURE. [SERM. 
 
 God, the most earnest Christian, ought to rejoice 
 with the most natural delight in the expansion of 
 knowledge, and the more God's works are unfolded 
 and explained the more ought he to admire the 
 Creators wisdom. We have admitted that, in con- 
 sequence of certain difficulties, it is not universally 
 true that in proportion to a man's genuine piety is 
 his delight in the revelations of science. I suppose, 
 then, the question to be asked, How may we best 
 seek for the true pious feeling towards the wonders 
 of nature and the world ? And as a partial answer 
 to such a question, I wish to call your attention to 
 one principle. 
 
 Our knowledge of God, and our interest in God's 
 works and ways, should begin, not with the begin- 
 ning of the Creation, nor with the phenomena of 
 the external world, but with the present relations 
 of God to our spirits, to ourselves personally and 
 to mankind. What is God to us, and what are we 
 to God ? These are the questions which concern us 
 most closely. If we can attain to a clear and firm 
 faith on these points, we may be content to remain 
 in some ignorance as to the mode of God's working 
 in nature. The trust and love which are based 
 upon our own spiritual relations with God, will not 
 depend upon our settling how the laws of nature 
 are made to serve the will of God, but will overflow, 
 as it were, upon the outward world, will be ready to 
 accommodate themselves thankfully to whatever 
 science may disclose to us. 
 
 It would be a great mistake to infer from the
 
 VI.] NATURE. 77 
 
 order of the books in the Bible, and from Genesis 
 coming first, that the natural and appointed way of 
 knowing God is to know him first as the Creator of 
 the visible universe, and then to advance to the 
 knowledge of him as our own Lord and Father. 
 As a matter of fact, we may easily satisfy ourselves 
 that this has never been the progress of men's faith 
 in God. God is the God of the conscience first ; 
 afterwards he is the God of the heavens and of the 
 earth. 
 
 Take the case of the Israelites themselves, whose 
 sacred books the ancient Scriptures were. In what 
 character was. God first and chiefly known to them ? 
 As Jehovah, the God of the Covenant, the God of 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The young Israelite 
 was taught, as soon as he was able to learn, that he 
 w r as the subject of a righteous King, whose laws he 
 was bound to obey. By this righteous King his 
 race had been called out and claimed. Jehovah 
 had been the Friend and Guide of his fathers, and 
 by a series of mighty acts had delivered the people 
 of Israel, and made a nation of them. The absolute 
 allegiance of every Israelite was due to a Lord who 
 was not to be confounded with any outward or visi- 
 ble thing. Worship of outward and visible things 
 was a crime against the invisible Lord. Jehovah 
 was the Lord of visible things, and he desired the 
 children of the chosen seed to be also spiritually 
 masters of visible things. He bade them serve him 
 and be true to him apart from any relations with 
 outward things ; and he then promised to reward
 
 7§ NATURE. [SERM. 
 
 with outward things those who in spirit were loyal 
 to him. 
 
 This was the primary religious education of 
 every Israelite. He was not insensible, any more 
 than the neighbouring nations, to the fascination of 
 the outward world. The sun in his splendour and 
 the moon in her beauty might have been gods to 
 him as to others. But his mind was called off 
 from these to the contemplation of the righteous 
 Lord. To know and to worship Jehovah, the 
 righteous one, the Redeemer, the Lawgiver, the God 
 of the people, — this was the religion of the Israelite. 
 In proportion as he was saved from idols and was a 
 true worshipper of Jehovah, he was himself raised 
 above visible things and enabled to assert his own 
 spiritual lordship. This being the most important 
 matter, the Jew was likely to ask, and he was not 
 discouraged from asking, What are these wonderful 
 and beautiful things around us, by which our life is 
 so much affected, though we may not yield to them 
 and serve them, these things upon which we our- 
 selves can exert some modifying force ? And the 
 answer given to him was, These things are the 
 works of Jehovah, not equal in dignity to man, but 
 yet his real products, the instruments of his will, 
 and subject to his gracious disposition for the train- 
 ing and blessing of men. God made these, and 
 therefore they are wonderful and glorious : but he 
 made man in his own image, and he intends them 
 to serve man. 
 
 I have alluded to the fact that other races made
 
 vi.] MATURE. 79 
 
 gods of the wonderful objects and powers of the 
 natural world. But in all heathen nations the reli- 
 gion of the conscience has taken precedence of the 
 religion of mere nature. If they have hardly 
 known the righteous Lord, men have made for 
 themselves in their own image arbitrary gods, not 
 passionless physical powers, but gods who might 
 be offended and propitiated, beings of will and pur- 
 pose. They have thus confessed the ascendancy of 
 the spiritual over the physical. And the more 
 clearly and firmly they have made this confession, 
 the more they have been themselves elevated ; 
 whereas those who have thought of human beings 
 as only items and portions of the physical world, 
 and have asserted no dominion over and little rebel- 
 lion against the natural forces, have been also the 
 most degraded and least progressive of mankind. 
 
 What is the testimony of our own Scriptures, the 
 Scriptures of the New Covenant, in this matter ? 
 If we are to look upon this volume as the book of a 
 religion (which is not a very good account of it), we 
 find hardly any attempt to explain the relations of 
 either God or man towards the physical universe 
 and the powers and laws of nature. The books of 
 the New Testament are the books of a spiritual 
 Kingdom, a Kingdom revealed in Christ, and 
 having for its sphere the spiritual natures of men, 
 Jesus Christ, the Son of God, manifests and declares 
 the Father. By his death and resurrection he 
 founds a Kingdom in which men are brought near 
 to their Father in heaven. The Apostles go forth
 
 So NATURE, [SERM. 
 
 to proclaim this Kingdom, and their Master the 
 Lord of it, and to invite men to enter into it and be 
 thereby saved. The high spiritual and human im- 
 portance of the Gospel would naturally make all 
 questions relating to the physical world compara- 
 tively insignificant to those who were charged with 
 the first promulgation of the Gospel. Accordingly, 
 in the New Testament we find scarcely a single 
 allusion to the earliest history of the world or of 
 mankind. The Apostles do not seem to have felt 
 the necessity of going back to the first chapters of 
 Genesis, to the origin of things or to the fall of man. 
 Adam is mentioned by St Paul in two important 
 passages, where he is the Representative of the sin- 
 fulness and mortality of the human race, in contrast 
 with Christ the Representative of its true sonship 
 and restoration to life. But these are philosophical 
 passages rather than plain historical or didactic 
 statements. The sin from which the Apostles 
 preached a salvation was the actual sin bearing 
 miserable fruits of death around them ; they bade 
 men be saved by trusting in Christ and in the 
 Father. through him. They probably thought little, 
 and therefore said little, about the sun and moon 
 and stars, about the beasts or the grass of the field. 
 In a broad but decisive and significant manner, 
 all things are referred in the New Testament to the 
 power and will of God, and in particular to that 
 Word of God which was made flesh in Jesus Christ. 
 This was undoubtedly a part of the primary and 
 fundamental faith of the Christian, whether any
 
 VI. J NATURE. 81 
 
 further explanation could be given or not. "Of 
 him and through him and unto him are all things." 
 " To us there is one God the Father, of whom are 
 all things." "To us there is one God the Father, 
 of whom are all things, and we unto him ; and one 
 Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we 
 by him." "One God and Father of all, who is 
 above all, and through all, and in all." "In him 
 we live and move and are." "Thou hast created 
 all things, and for thy pleasure they exist, and 
 were created." "The Word was in the beginning 
 with God: all things were made through him, and 
 without him was not anything made that was 
 made." 
 
 These and the like are familiar statements in 
 the New Testament, and they illustrate the position 
 of the first Christians, as believers in Christ, towards 
 the universe which surrounded them. Christ and 
 his redemption, Christ revealing the Father, are the 
 leading objects of thought ; and to Christ all 
 things are subject. The following passage from St 
 Paul sums up the Apostolic doctrine : "Giving 
 thanks to the Father, who has enabled us to be 
 partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light ; 
 who has delivered us from the power of darkness, 
 and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son 
 of his love ; in whom we have redemption through 
 his blood, the forgiveness of sins : who is the image 
 of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation : 
 for by him were all things created, that are in 
 heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, 
 D. S. 6
 
 82 NATURE. L SERM - 
 
 whether they be thrones or dominions or principali- 
 ties or powers, all things were created by him and 
 for him, and he is before all things, and in him all 
 things consist, or are held together." 
 
 But whilst there is this breadth and firmness, 
 but at the same time absence of detail and specu- 
 lation, in what the New Testament says about the 
 external world, we may remember that there are 
 narratives in the New Testament which are referred 
 to in almost every discussion about the laws of 
 nature. These are the miracles, whether of our 
 Lord, or of his servants. These have been stum- 
 blingblocks to many of the observers of the unifor- 
 mity of natural processes. It belongs to my pre- 
 sent purpose to observe that these acts undoubtedly 
 represent our Lord as claiming a mastery over the 
 powers of nature, and that when we consider them, 
 instead of being arbitrary interferences with the 
 natural course of things, we perceive them to fit in 
 very remarkably with the more ordinary course of 
 things as influenced and wrought upon by spiritual 
 force. No one can deny that spiritual force, ope- 
 rating by the human will, produces changes and 
 brings about designed results, in the natural world ; 
 and the mighty works recorded in the New Testa- 
 ment are far more analogous to this action than to 
 the marvels which the human imagination has been 
 accustomed to crave and to invent. The proper 
 effect of these miracles is rather to give us a feeling 
 that Divine will behind the veil can make the laws 
 of nature subservient to its ends, than to make us
 
 VI.] NATURE. 83 
 
 think of nature as going on by fate and of God as 
 sometimes interfering with nature. 
 
 If then we are to follow such guidance as is 
 given us in both the Old and the New Testaments, 
 we shall treat, I venture to say, all difficulties and 
 problems about the laws of nature and the antiquity 
 of the world and of the human race as insignificant 
 compared with the great truths of our relation to 
 Christ and to the Father in the Spirit. Here, in 
 these truths, is what is most essential ; and here 
 also we must look to find the principles by which 
 other relations are to be interpreted. Our own 
 education in the Church is founded on this basis. 
 In the Catechism we learn first, and we learn last 
 too, what God has made us to himself, what rela- 
 tions he has established between us and him by the 
 sending of his Son. The Catechism teaches our 
 children nothing about beginnings, nothing about 
 miracles, nothing about the mode of the Divine 
 operations in the Universe. It affirms plainly that 
 God has made us and all things : but it speaks 
 chiefly of our sacred calling, of the Divine mani- 
 festation in Christ, of the will and commandments 
 of God, of our privileges and our duty. These 
 are the things in which all Christians are to be 
 grounded. Let us take care to give these their 
 due precedence. 
 
 If we do, it will certainly follow that we cannot 
 regard any of the discoveries of science, however 
 wonderful and however useful, as competing in im- 
 portance or dignity with what God has revealed to 
 
 6—2
 
 $4 NATURE. [SERM. 
 
 us in the Gospel. It is a greater thing to know 
 that we and all mankind have been redeemed from 
 sin and death, and that we may take up the posi- 
 tion of reconciled children of the righteous and 
 merciful Father, and that we have a Spirit given 
 us, working in us and our brethren as a spirit of 
 love and sanctification, who is the Spirit of the 
 Father and of the Son, than to have all the know- 
 ledge of all the philosophers. If this is presump- 
 tion, it is a presumption of which our Christianity 
 makes us guilty, and we should be false to our 
 faith in consenting to take a lower position. 
 
 But, when we have thus believed concerning 
 God and ourselves, — ?when we have exalted what is 
 purely spiritual above all that is merely physical, 
 — may we not be the better prepared to see in 
 physical things the instruments and the vestures of 
 spirit? We. can learn in part from our own ex- 
 perience how closely the outward and visible crea- 
 tion may be connected with spirit. Our bodies, 
 the works of our hands, — how they are moulded 
 by our spirits, how much they reveal of our spirits! 
 So then this world around us, made by him who is 
 the Father of our spirits, how much may it not tell 
 us of him ! We shall surely look upon it not only 
 with respect, but with an inquiring and teachable 
 mind. What is going on now, by the operation of 
 natural forces guided by natural laws, — what we 
 can learn from relics and natural records to have 
 gone on in former ages and periods, — if we can 
 understand it, must tell us something of the mind
 
 VI.] NATURE. 8 
 
 3 
 
 and purpose of God. The very Word of God, of 
 whom St John speaks, is to be partially read in it. 
 If we can suppose St Paul or St John to have been 
 living in the light of modern science, we cannot 
 believe indeed that they would have been per- 
 suaded to think less of the primary all-transcend- 
 ing importance of their Gospel; but we may well 
 imagine that they would have found much more to 
 attract them, much more to reward their study, in 
 the laws which have already been discovered and 
 which men of science are still feeling after, than 
 they had to tempt them in their own unscientific 
 age. Natural science cannot of itself find out God 
 or declare God ; God has been otherwise made 
 known to us. We could not rise by natural step- 
 ping-stones from the Creator to the Father and 
 Redeemer. But if we will descend, so to speak, 
 from the Father to the Creator, from God in Christ 
 to God in Nature, we may find the whole world 
 endowed with new voices of testimony and revela- 
 tion. 
 
 Let this be our hope and faith. When we look 
 abroad on the scenes of heaven and earth, and say, 
 " Our Father made them all," let us not be content 
 with a mere unintelligent survey. Where God has 
 wrought, that which is most subtle, most inward, 
 that which is the law and secret of things, is more 
 Divine than the mere surface which strikes the 
 eye. Let us be grateful therefore to men of 
 science, and so far as we have opportunities let 
 us be glad to enter into their labours. We may
 
 86 NATURE. [SERM. VI. 
 
 most of us have no choice but to remain ignorant 
 of much that they know, but we need none of us 
 disparage or denounce the knowledge we are obliged 
 to forego. There can be no lie written upon God's 
 creation. In their own way all his works praise 
 him; though only his saints can give thanks to 
 him, with hearts that know and answer to his 
 grace.
 
 VII. 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 Hebrews XII. -28. — "Let us have grace, whereby we may serve 
 God acceptably with reverence and godly fear." 
 
 What is meant by "Religion"? I do not put this 
 question as if Religion were a strange or rarely 
 used word. It is an extremely common word, 
 which every one is supposed to understand. But 
 it is used in various senses, and to most minds the 
 term represents something very confused and vague. 
 I propose therefore to answer the question What is 
 Religion? as precisely as I can. I shall endeavour 
 to shew what the most proper sense of the word is. 
 and how it comes to be used in other senses. It is 
 worth while for all of us to attain to clear con- 
 ceptions about a term which we all have frequent 
 occasion to use. 
 
 The following is one reason amongst others for 
 representing to ourselves carefully what Religion 
 is. We sometimes hear Religion put in a kind of 
 opposition to Theology. " Let us have religion," 
 some people say, "but not theology." If we are to 
 agree to any such saying, we ought to know what 
 these two things are. If you see reason to believe,
 
 SS RELIGION. [SERM. 
 
 as I should contend, that theology is the indispens- 
 able basis on which religion rests, you can no more 
 give your voice for religion without theology, than 
 you can for theology without religion. This will, I 
 hope, be clearer to you presently. 
 
 In Holy Scripture the word Religion does not 
 frequently occur. In the Old Testament it is not 
 once used. We meet with it in three places of the 
 New Testament; but in one of these there is no- 
 thing which exactly corresponds to it in the ori- 
 ginal. Let us turn to this first. It is in the Epistle 
 to the Galatians, i. 13, 14. St Paul refers, in our 
 translation, to his conversation in time past " in the 
 Jews' religion," and says he had profited or ad- 
 vanced "in the Jews' religion" above many his 
 equals. In the original the word rendered "the 
 Jews' religion" is Judaism. St Paul says he had 
 formerly lived and been forward "in Judaism." 
 This word is like Christianity. And as we can 
 say " the Christian religion " to mean the same 
 thing as Christianity, so our translators used " the 
 Jews' religion " to mean the same thing as Judaism. 
 But when we are considering the word religion, we 
 cannot quote this passage as containing any Scrip- 
 tural illustration of it. In the other two places 
 there is a word which is accurately rendered reli- 
 gion. The first is Acts xxvi. 5> where St Paul, 
 speaking before Agrippa, happens to be saying 
 nearly the same thing as when he speaks to the 
 Galatians of his life and progress in Judaism. All 
 the Jews know, he says, that after the "straitest
 
 vii.] RELIGION. §9 
 
 sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee," St Paul in 
 his youth had followed the strictest school of his 
 country's religion, namely that of the Pharisees. 
 The religion here referred to means the whole 
 creed and worship of the Jews. The remaining 
 passage is the well-known one in the Epistle of St 
 James, i. 26: "If any man among you seem to be 
 religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth 
 his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure 
 religion and undefiled before God and the Father 
 is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their 
 affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the 
 world." Here religion stands for devout habits of 
 life. The religious man was one who had the form 
 of godliness according to the fashion of his time. 
 To be frequent at religious services is the most 
 obvious and common form of religion in this sense. 
 A man who assumes an exterior of religion, St 
 James says, professes that he desires to worship 
 God devoutly. Let him know that the devout 
 worship which is real and which God approves is 
 best shewn in charity and unworldliness. 
 
 This kind of meaning, — the habits of a devout 
 life, — is one which the term religion may be con- 
 veniently used to express. But the most original, 
 simple, and universal, sense of the word is fear of 
 God. It denotes the awe which instinctively pos- 
 sesses the human mind in contemplating the super- 
 natural. This awe or fear may be of any quality, 
 ranging from the noblest and most exalting reve- 
 rence down to the most superstitious cowardice.
 
 9° RELIGION. [SERM. 
 
 An irreligious mind is a mind without this awe. 
 With it, a people may be ignorant, cruel, fanatical, 
 immoral, may be very far from deserving appro- 
 bation ; but we should not rightly characterise them 
 as irreligious. 
 
 The religious sentiment is instinctive or na- 
 tural. In no portion of humanity will you find it 
 altogether wanting. It appears in various shapes. 
 When driven out of one habit it will assume or 
 create for itself another. That which is most oppo- 
 site to it is thoughtlessness or superficiality of 
 mind. If human beings can be kept in a per- 
 petual whirl of trivial occupations and interests, 
 the very instinct of religion may be almost starved. 
 But wherever an atmosphere is created for it by 
 reflection, there a feeling of awe is sure to be in- 
 spired by the mysteries of the unseen world. Re- 
 ligion naturally thrives where there are opportunities 
 for solitude, and therefore for brooding. In the 
 bustle of crowded life other influences favourable 
 to religion come into play, such as the needs and 
 suggestions of social and family life; but it has 
 been generally felt by those who are engaged in 
 incessant practical activity that occasions of retire- 
 ment and spontaneous thought are necessary if the 
 sentiment of reverence is to be kept living and 
 fresh. 
 
 In the early stages of civilization, it has always 
 been in a great measure through contemplating 
 the incidents and processes of nature that the fear 
 of the unseen powers has been developed. Man,
 
 vii.] RELIGION. 91 
 
 when he is brought by contemplation face to face 
 with nature, feels there is more at work in nature 
 than he can understand. He perceives forces work- 
 ing this way and that around him which he cannot 
 trace to their origin. These forces are the instru- 
 ments of endless benefits to him; they also bring 
 many dangers near him, and continually crush him 
 with unforeseen but relentless strokes. Man trembles 
 before these powers ; he pays homage to beings 
 imagined as wielding them. The more he ponders 
 and broods, the greater is the authority which these 
 supernatural beings exercise over his imagination. 
 Some races of men have been more in the way of 
 the dangerous and destructive occurrences of na- 
 ture, or there has been something in their constitu- 
 tion or history which has led them to take more 
 notice of these ; and their religion has been more 
 gloomy and full of fear. Others have been sur- 
 rounded by the orderly and beneficent aspects of 
 nature, or have been led to dwell chiefly on these ; 
 and their religion has been milder and more joyful. 
 In many cases, the two elements of fear and joy 
 have been mixed in religion so as to form very 
 strong contrasts. 
 
 The fact that Religion has often manifested 
 itself in hateful and cruel superstitions is an unde- 
 niable and important one, and has made this very 
 name Religion odious in the eyes of some. Re- 
 ligion has been denounced as productive of evils to 
 mankind, as unfavourable to morality. There has 
 been an especial alliance between Religion and
 
 92 RELIGION. [SERM. 
 
 cruelty, illustrated by many abominable heathen 
 rites, and by the bloody persecutions which have 
 reddened the history of Christendom. Pious per- 
 sons do not like to have the name of religion put 
 in connexion with these horrors ; they think they 
 are bound to defend the character of Religion. 
 But we are really not bound or concerned in any 
 way to clear the name of Religion from these im- 
 putations. It is far better that we should honestly 
 admit their truth ; it is profitable to remember 
 them. Understand by Religion the fear of the 
 supernatural, the fear of what men know or imagine 
 to be behind the veil of their ignorance ; and you 
 will not find it difficult to recognize that that fear 
 may be either noble or base, either salutary or mis- 
 chievous. In itself Religion is not to be called 
 either bad or good ; that is, it may be the one as 
 well as the other. It is a great and important in- 
 stinct of human nature, capable, — like strength, for 
 example, — of being turned either to bad or good. 
 It seems to me a mistake therefore to try to dis- 
 tinguish between Religion and Superstition, — to 
 insist that Religion shall always mean something 
 that we approve. It is better to bear in mind that 
 Religion may be either a terrible curse, or an exalt- 
 ing and purifying and sustaining sentiment. 
 
 (2) That of which I have now spoken is the 
 elementary and primary sense of Religion. A 
 secondary sense in which the word is often used 
 is that of customs and ordinances of worship. 
 These are the forms in which religion clothes it-
 
 Vll.] RELIC VOX. 93 
 
 self, and to these accordingly the name of religion 
 is naturally given. We are sure that in every 
 part of the world we shall find the fear of the un- 
 seen existing ; but we do not know, till we have 
 seen or heard, with what conceptions this fear will 
 be associated, nor in what rites it will be expressed. 
 The religion of one country is not the same as that 
 of another. Temples, sacrifices, and priests to offer 
 the sacrifices, have been the most general and 
 striking symbols in which the spirit of religion has 
 clothed itself. These or the like are the outward 
 signs and witnesses of religion in a country and in 
 the life of a people. 
 
 If any one attempts to describe a religion, he 
 will find it impossible to keep such modes and 
 forms of worship separate from the account of the 
 being or beings to whom the worship is paid. So 
 when a religion is spoken of, the creed and the tvor- 
 sliip are generally combined in one. The creed 
 represents what is believed concerning the unseen 
 world, — concerning God and man's relation to 
 God. The nature of the creed always affects the 
 nature of the worship. People fear God in a man- 
 ner corresponding to what they believe concerning 
 him. The creed, therefore, is sometimes what is 
 chiefly meant when a religion is named. For 
 example, when we speak of the Christian Religion, 
 we very generally mean the system of doctrines, or 
 the creed, supposed to be held by Christians in 
 common. 
 
 But when it has come to mean a system of
 
 94 RELIGION. [SERM. 
 
 doctrines, the word Religion has diverged con- 
 siderably from its first and most proper sense. In 
 that first sense we may call it the fear of God. 
 The fear of God is expressed in various kinds of 
 worship. Those kinds of worship are connected 
 with, and modified by, the faith of men concerning 
 God. So, Religion is first the fear of God ; second- 
 ly, by a natural extension, the mode of worship ; 
 thirdly, the belief on which the worship is founded. 
 
 When we desire to be accurate, it is better not 
 to use the word Religion in this third sense. There 
 are several words we may use instead, such as 
 creed, faith, or theology. These words denote 
 what men hold or think concerning God. The 
 Christian Creed or Faith or Theology denotes what 
 we have learnt to believe concerning God through 
 the revelation of him given to us in Christ. Our 
 religion, — that is to say, our reverence or fear or 
 spirit of worship, — should answer to what has been 
 made known to us concerning God. Religion rests 
 on Creed or Theology. 
 
 Let us dwell a little on this point. It is idle 
 to talk of having religion without a theology. If 
 you urge a man to be religious, he will want to 
 know whom or what he is to regard with awe, to 
 whom or what he is to consecrate himself. Sup- 
 pose you visited a superstitious people, full of fear, 
 given to base modes of propitiation,- — how could 
 you hope to purify their religion, to substitute, as 
 some would say, religion for superstition ? You 
 must try to correct their theology, to lead them
 
 VII.] RELIGION. 95 
 
 to a truer belief. When Barnabas and Paul were 
 at Lystra, they found the Lycaonian people abun- 
 dantly religious. Having seen a cripple enabled to 
 walk, the people came to the conclusion that the 
 gods had come down in the likeness of men, and 
 they proposed to do sacrifice to them. What did 
 Barnabas and Paul say to them, whilst they vehe- 
 mently refused to be thus worshipped ? " We 
 preach to you," they said, " that ye should turn 
 from these vanities unto the living God, which 
 made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things 
 that are therein ; who in times past suffered all 
 nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless 
 he left not himself without witness, in that he did 
 good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful 
 seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." 
 Thus they sought, in teaching these heathen Ly- 
 caonians, not to make them more religious, but to 
 give them a sounder theology, which might inspire 
 them with a purer religion. 
 
 It was not indeed the aim of the first preachers 
 of the Gospel anywhere to awaken in their hearers 
 a fear of the supernatural or to make them more 
 religious. Their commission was to tell men about 
 God, to make announcements which had not come 
 from man or human wisdom, but which they knew 
 would commend themselves to the universal human 
 conscience. They substituted a Father, revealing 
 himself in a Son and by a Spirit, for the vanities of 
 heathen idolatry, for the many gods of the heathen 
 aitars. With the heathen, a debasing religion had
 
 96 RELIGION. [SERM. 
 
 gone with a corrupt theology. They believed in 
 gods who were capricious, selfish, immoral, revenge- 
 ful ; in gods who would favour the men who flat- 
 tered them and gave them gifts, and would afflict 
 those who neglected them. What good could the 
 fear of such gods do them ? Their gods were not 
 indeed wholly evil : if they had been, the worship 
 of them must have been wholly injurious. There 
 was courage and generosity, grace and beauty, in 
 the natures of the heathen gods, and so the religion 
 of their worshippers was not without its good effects 
 upon them. But the preachers of the Gospel de- 
 clared a God who was wholly and perfectly good ; 
 a God just, loving, patient, forgiving, capable of 
 sacrifice, desiring the highest blessedness of men 
 his children. They proclaimed this God to men, 
 and bade them turn away from idols, and invited 
 them to break the spiritual bondage in which the 
 worship of false gods held them, and enter upon 
 the freedom which they might enjoy in serving the 
 living God. 
 
 And, by bringing men to believe in Jesus Christ 
 and in the Father, the preachers of Christ undoubt- 
 edly nourished in them an ever increasing fear of 
 God. It is impossible to believe in God, to think 
 of him, and not to fear him. The absence of a 
 solemn religious reverence, of a fear of God, in the 
 heart of a Christian, would have been an unnatural 
 and incomprehensible thing to an Apostle. It is 
 true that one of the Apostles says that perfect love 
 casts out fear : but what does he add ? (i because
 
 VII.] RELIGION. 
 
 fear hath torment." Such fear, the fear that hath 
 torment, the fear that cripples and enslaves, does 
 not belong to the true Christian attitude towards 
 God. But St John would have agreed with his 
 brother Apostles when they inculcated the fear of 
 God. He too would have said, " Let us have grace 
 whereby we may serve God acceptably with reve- 
 rence and godly fear." He would have sympathized 
 with that appeal of St Peter, " If ye call on the 
 Father, who without respect of persons judges ac- 
 cording to every man's work, pass the time of your 
 sojourning here in fear ; forasmuch as ye know 
 that ye were redeemed from the frivolous life handed 
 down to you from your fathers, not with corrup- 
 tible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious 
 blood of Christ." 
 
 Yes, brethren. Christians cannot but know that 
 they have been redeemed from frivolity and levity 
 and irreligion. A revelation has come to them 
 which transcends all manifestations of destroying 
 fury in its right and its power to awe the heart into 
 reverence and fear. We shew too plainly that we 
 do not realize what has been done for us on the 
 part of God, if our spirits remain unimpressed by 
 deep religious awe. Remember that God has not 
 told us that there is no such thing as wrath, that he 
 is a Being who may be trifled with, that if we are 
 careless of his blessings we may at least be sure of 
 escaping his punishments. Through all the loving 
 life of his Son, through the sacrifice of Calvary, 
 through the victory over hell and death, God re- 
 D. s. 7
 
 98 religion. [serm. 
 
 mains a consuming fire. The terrors of the guilty 
 are not to be cast out by irreligion, though they 
 may be assuaged and purified by the discovery of 
 God's forgiveness. 
 
 The key to God's character is given us in the 
 name of Father. A child may be terrified by a ca- 
 pricious tyrant, and through the torment of this fear 
 its whole moral nature may be crushed and dis- 
 torted. But a perfectly loving and just and good 
 parent, — if we could conceive of any earthly parent 
 as triumphing over the weaknesses which make us 
 such imperfect fathers and mothers, — is not a per- 
 son to be regarded without reverence by a child. 
 Such a parent has grave displeasure for offences, 
 has stern punishment for rebellion ; and the very 
 exhibition of justice and love, apart from their func- 
 tions of chastisement, is such as to inspire a suscep- 
 tible human nature with reverence. So, those who 
 best know God to be a perfect Father, — those who 
 have most unreservedly accepted him as fully 
 revealed in his Son Jesus Christ, — will be most 
 thoroughly penetrated by the fear of him. Even if 
 they did not sin, they would serve him with reve- 
 rence and godly fear : but being conscious of con- 
 tinually sinning against God, their fear of him must 
 be often mingled with shame and misgivings and 
 dread. 
 
 Let us be sure, however, that true religion, — the 
 fear of the just and gracious Father, — is a sentiment 
 which emancipates instead of enslaving. Fear in 
 general enslaves : when it is completely dominant
 
 VII.] RELIGION. 99 
 
 it paralyzes the whole man. The fear of the true 
 God is allied with faith and hope and love. It 
 gives courage, instead of melting it away. To fear 
 God is the grand remedy for all other fears. There 
 have been many kinds of courage; it is possible for 
 men to be brave with a gay, reckless audacity. But 
 the courage which has stood best every kind of 
 proof, the courage which can face the terrors of the 
 invisible world as well as of the visible, the courage 
 which can resist the authority of greatness and 
 fashion, is the courage of the grave, reverent, God- 
 fearing man, who knows that his Saviour holds the 
 keys of death and hell. Some superstitions which 
 have been terribly tormenting and enslaving may 
 be dispelled, we know, by increased knowledge. 
 Dangers supposed to lurk in the dark may be 
 driven out by turning light upon their hiding-place. 
 The lives of all of us are much happier than the 
 lives of the bravest in former ages in being freed 
 from many imaginary terrors. But I do not see 
 how science can remove the fear of death, — that 
 last crowning fear which from the beginning has 
 held the souls of men in bondage. Faith in God is 
 the true preservative against the fear of death which 
 includes all other fears. 
 
 We may confidently therefore adopt the words 
 of the Psalm, "Fear God, ye saints, and you will 
 then Fear nothing else beside." Mere light-heart- 
 edness, the security of youth and happiness, is a 
 graceful quality, which a thoughtful Christian need 
 not gravely condemn. But it is not a buckler 
 
 7—2
 
 ioo RELIGION. [SERM. VII. 
 
 against the ills of life. Happy are they who possess, 
 — along with that light-heartedness, if they are so 
 constituted, — the grave convictions, the spiritual 
 earnestness, the fear of God, in which alone true 
 security is to be found. Let parents, if they seek 
 the permanent well-being of their children, train 
 them in godly fear. Let them encourage habits of 
 reverence, habits of meditation and prayer. The 
 young mind needs some auxiliaries in outward 
 habits to aid it in coming face to face with God. 
 But above all, for the young and for ourselves 
 alike, let us keep, if we may have grace to do so, 
 the nature and character of God clear and pure in 
 our conceptions. Let us hallow his name, as the 
 name of the heavenly Father, in our hearts. Let 
 him be the Living God to us, ever present, judging 
 according to every man's inward work, holy, just, 
 and good. Let him be our fear, and let him be 
 our dread. He may claim this worship at our 
 hands: by willingly giving it to him we may in- 
 herit safety and peace.
 
 VIII. 
 THE CONSCIENCE. 
 
 i Tim. iv. 2. — "Having their conscience seared with a hot iron." 
 
 The term Conscience, though not exclusively a 
 Christian word, has more importance and honour 
 in the properly Christian morality than it can have 
 in any other. The word occurs frequently in the 
 New Testament, and every teacher who has drunk 
 at all deeply into the New Testament spirit has 
 spoken of the conscience with deep interest and 
 awe. This fact may be connected with two causes. 
 First, the teaching of the Lord Jesus, and of those 
 who have followed him is marked by a tendency to 
 go inwards, and not to dwell in outward actions or 
 effects. Christian teaching is deep and penetrating. 
 It asks at once about the affections, the heart, the 
 will. It lays down the principle, " The evil things 
 which come from within, out of the heart of a man, 
 are those which defile the man:" "Cleanse first 
 that which is within the cup and platter, that the 
 outside of them may be clean also." The preach- 
 ing of the Gospel has always been negligent of the 
 outworks, in its zeal to gain possession of the inner
 
 102 THE CONSCIENCE. [SERM. 
 
 citadel, the heart, out of which are the issues of 
 life. And the conscience is that which is most 
 inward and secret in man. Secondly, it belongs to 
 Christian teaching to affirm emphatically a direct 
 relation between the individual soul and God. 
 Whenever the Gospel has had power, it has been 
 through persuading men that they might come 
 severally face to face with God, that God was not 
 too infinite to have dealings with each man, that 
 God could be offended by a man's sin, and that 
 man's sin might be forgiven by God. The ques- 
 tioning of God, says the Christian teacher, " pierces 
 even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and 
 of the joints and marrow, and discerns the thoughts 
 and intents of the heart. Neither is there any 
 creature that is not manifest in his sight ; but all 
 things are naked and exposed unto the eyes of him 
 with whom we have to do." The invitation to 
 men, being thus known and judged by God, to be 
 reconciled to him and to come into the blessedness 
 of being his loved and trustful children, has na- 
 turally brought the conscience, with which the 
 sense of wrongdoing and the sense of being at 
 peace are particularly associated, into prominence. 
 It is, in fact, upon this direct relation between God 
 and men, between God as a Father and men as his 
 spiritual children, that the doctrine of the con- 
 science rests. It is in the light of that relation 
 that the nature of what is called the conscience can 
 be best understood. By realizing that relation we 
 are guarded against letting the conscience become
 
 VIII.] THE CONSCIENCE. 103 
 
 hardened, and are enabled to keep it both tender 
 and satisfied. 
 
 It is desirable not to attribute to the conscience 
 powers and duties which do not properly belong to 
 it. From a desire to do honour to a faculty which 
 holds, as I have said, so important a place in Chris- 
 tian teaching, people have often used exaggerated 
 language about what the conscience does or mav 
 do. The consequences of a false estimate of the 
 rights and powers of the conscience are first to throw 
 the subject into confusion, and then to create a 
 prejudice against legitimate appeals to the con- 
 science. It has been imagined that the Creator has 
 placed in each man's nature an infallible monitor, 
 called by this name of Conscience, from which the 
 man ought to take his directions, — a sort of oracle 
 which the man may consult, and to the utterances 
 of which he ought to yield reverent obedience. 
 The New Testament says nothing at all to this 
 effect, and experience certainly does not support 
 such a theory. If the conscience is to be regarded 
 as an infallible monitor, you will soon have two 
 infallible monitors contradicting one another. One 
 man's conscience will pronounce one judgment, and 
 another man's conscience will pronounce another. 
 The truth is, that conscience has nothing to do with 
 forming opinions or pronouncing judgments. No 
 one ought to speak of his conscience instructing or 
 guiding him in any way. It is often a wise thing, 
 when some conception has become fixed and tech- 
 nical, and various associations have begun to cling
 
 104 THE CONSCIENCE. [SERM. 
 
 tightly round it, to give up for an occasion the use 
 of the term and to endeavour to express the same 
 thought in other language. Now when a man says 
 that his conscience compels him to act in a parti- 
 cular way, lie conveys the impression that some 
 inscrutable authority to which he himself owes 
 allegiance, but with which strangers cannot inter- 
 meddle, has spoken to him like an oracle, bidding 
 him take this course, and leaving him no alterna- 
 tive. But what does he mean? If he is forbidden 
 to use the word conscience, what will he say ? He 
 means that on the whole a certain course appears 
 the right one for him to take. It may be really the 
 right one. He may have taken all possible means 
 to come to a right conclusion, and his judgment 
 may be a sound one. But also it may not. Every 
 man is fallible, on matters of duty as well as on 
 other matters. On the whole we believe, — because 
 we believe that we are made and governed by 
 Divine wisdom, — that those who honestly desire to 
 find and do what is right will be rightly guided. 
 But it is impossible to affirm that any good inten- 
 tion will make a man infallible. Very soon, I re- 
 peat, you would have one personal infallibility set 
 against another. A good man will have no doubt 
 whatever, indeed, about the rightness and wrong- 
 ness of many acts : but these will be those on which 
 mankind are agreed, and on which therefore no one 
 would think of calling in the authority of an inter- 
 nal oracle. On points where there is any doubt, to 
 say, ' Some may think one thing and some another,
 
 VIII.] THE CONSCIENCE. 105 
 
 but as for me, my conscience decides so and so,' is 
 to set up an authority and then to bow down to it. 
 "My conscience" should be "my judgment," — such 
 judgment as I, a fallible man, have been able to 
 form. No man has any inward monitor different 
 from the general reason and truth of things. The 
 obligation to act according to one's conscience is 
 simply the obligation to do what, upon the best 
 consideration, commends itself to one as right. 
 
 Conscience says to each one, Do what is right, 
 or Be right. The voice of conscience is thus un- 
 varying, monotonous. It belongs to the judgment, 
 or to the whole man judging as truly as he can, to 
 find out what is right. Each man is inevitably 
 guided in a great measure by the common sense of 
 his time. If he does what he honestly thinks right, 
 his conscience will acquit him. But it may happen 
 nevertheless that the man was wrong. A higher 
 moral standard may unequivocally condemn the 
 conduct which a man's conscience approved. Take 
 such simple illustrations as slave-owning, or poly- 
 gamy. Where these customs were universally 
 allowed, conscience did not protest against them. 
 Were they then right ? or, is the conscience proved 
 to be an impostor ? No ; either conclusion would 
 be wrong. The moral standard is raised gradually, 
 through knowledge and experience. Conscience 
 has nothing to do with forming the moral standard. 
 It only says to each man, Be true to the best you 
 know. And in this way it will help, it is true, in 
 a most important degree, to advance morality.
 
 106 THE CONSCIENCE. [SERM. 
 
 Where slavery, for example, is being brought to an 
 end, the most conscientious persons will admit 
 most readily the new light, and will feel bound 
 most unhesitatingly to make the necessary sacri- 
 fices. 
 
 There seems then to be little occasion for any 
 man to speak about his conscience at all. If a man 
 mentions his conscience, he generally means his 
 opinion or conclusion, and by calling it conscience 
 he gives a fallacious mystical authority to it. The 
 phrase is appropriate, when there is any question 
 of inward truthfulness or purity of motive. A man 
 may say legitimately " In my conscience I believe 
 so and so," or " I have nothing on my conscience," 
 or " My conscience sustains me in what I am 
 doing," meaning that he is inwardly true to him- 
 self and to what he believes to be right ; but it 
 is not often needful or desirable to make such a 
 protest. 
 
 Recall to your minds what the relation of man 
 to God is. Man is made in God's image, to know 
 and to love God. He is under God's discipline : 
 God is teaching him by experience and by his 
 Spirit. Conscience denotes the feeling, the ac- 
 knowledgment, that God has a claim on man. It 
 is the confession of an ordained allegiance, on man's 
 part, to the law and nature of God. This confes- 
 sion has never been entirely wanting in any portion 
 of the human race. Where ignorance has been 
 very great, the confession of allegiance to the Di- 
 vine law has been uttered in so feeble and confused
 
 VIM.] THE CONSCIENCE. 107 
 
 a manner that we can hardly say we recognize the 
 action of conscience at all. But there has always 
 been a rudimentary conscience in man. And the 
 voice of conscience, being, as I said, monotonous, 
 has not itself been subject to change. It has always 
 been the simple answer, " I ought," to the Divine 
 Voice saying, " Thou oughtest." And this is what 
 it remains. Conscience is no oracle, no monitor or 
 adviser. The possession of a conscience does net 
 exempt a man in the slightest degree from the duty 
 and necessity of getting all the knowledge he can 
 and forming his judgment in any case according to 
 what he knows. His conscience will not tell him 
 whether he ought to be a Churchman or a Dissen- 
 ter, a Conservative or a Liberal. It is the witness 
 within him, springing out of the Divine constitution 
 of his nature, that what is right has a claim upon 
 him. It speaks against passion, against interest, 
 against cowardice, saying continually, Be true to 
 what is right. 
 
 I do not know that anything is gained by try- 
 ing to make conscience a distinct faculty in human 
 nature. It seems to be a Divine instinct, the in- 
 stinct of allegiance, not to be eradicated without 
 the destruction of human nature itself. As the 
 authority which claims the allegiance, — that is, the 
 authority of God himself, — becomes better known, 
 the instinct of allegiance naturally gains strength. 
 The more the whole nature of a man yields itself 
 in obedience to the Divine government, the more 
 will the confession of allegiance be developed. It
 
 Io8 THE CONSCIENCE. [SERM. 
 
 will pervade all his thoughts and feelings, creating 
 an instinctive repugnance to what is well under- 
 stood to be displeasing to God. 
 
 The revelation of Christ brought home the 
 Divine claims and the relationship of God to man 
 with new and unimagined force to the hearts of 
 men. It was natural therefore that by this revela- 
 tion almost a new life should be given to the con- 
 science. When Jesus Christ was received as the 
 Son and image of the Eternal Maker, that natural 
 confession of allegiance which had been evoked 
 by the manifestations of God's order in nature 
 and in the common government and experiences 
 of human life, was suddenly reinforced by per- 
 sonal knowledge, by gratitude, by a kindling of 
 the affections, by an inspiration of trust. The ac- 
 knowledgment, " I ought," seemed cold in answer 
 to that claim' which God had put forth in Christ, 
 the claim which God justified and commended 
 by so transcendent a sacrifice. Conscience indeed 
 remained the same in its own strict function : but 
 man learnt to judge himself, as to render himself up 
 to God, more deeply and thoroughly. God was 
 now speaking more manifestly to the inmost spirit 
 of a man. From the same inmost spirit the con- 
 fession of allegiance was required to come, and it 
 was found it could come. " Love so amazing, so 
 divine, Demands my life, my soul, my all." The 
 Christian conscience, or the human conscience in a 
 true Christian, was the acknowledgment that the 
 whole man when stirred to his depths belonged
 
 VIII.] THE CONSCIENCE. 109 
 
 of right to God, as much as his external ac- 
 tions. 
 
 In that world of mysteries in which the relation 
 of the soul to the invisible but ever-present God 
 has its place, there is only the greater need of a 
 quick and watchful conscience. In other words, a 
 man who confesses that God has a claim upon his 
 inward life, and that his inward life, according to 
 God's demand, should be a life of faith and love, is 
 in danger of self-deception. He may persuade 
 himself, or try to persuade himself, that he is giving 
 to God the religious service which God desires, and 
 not an outward religious service only, but one ac- 
 companied by feeling and emotion, when he is not 
 really giving himself. As a spiritual being, ac- 
 knowledging God as his Father, he knows that he 
 is bound to give himself to God. If he is true and 
 watchful, he will be on his guard against this snare 
 of giving a portion of himself to God and reserving 
 himself. 
 
 Where such a watch is kept over the springs of 
 life, there cannot but be perpetual self-condemna- 
 tion ; but at the same time there may be a conti- 
 nuous advance in moral sensitiveness, so that the 
 whole nature of the man may instinctively protest 
 against evil. There may be, so to speak, a tender- 
 ness of the spiritual nerve, causing it to shrink from 
 that which is believed to be displeasing to God. 
 This kind of shrinking is not, indeed, to be impli- 
 citly trusted. It may always serve as a valuable 
 warning, calling for the exercise of honest conscien-
 
 HO THE CONSCIENCE. [SERM. 
 
 tious judgment But it depends to a great degree 
 upon habit. If we have grown accustomed to 
 think an act wrong, and afterwards are convinced 
 that we were mistaken, a certain inward repug- 
 nance, hardly to be distinguished from the witness 
 of the conscience, is likely to be excited for some 
 time by the doing of the act. You may have felt 
 how, after a painful dream, if you wake without 
 remembering the dream, there remains a certain 
 mental soreness which is at first unaccountable, but 
 which explains itself when the dream is recalled. 
 So the spiritual nature does not reconcile itself 
 easily to an act which it has newly learnt to think 
 of as innocent. Those who have been bred in 
 habits of what we call puritanical strictness of Sab- 
 bath observance, if they deliberately change their 
 opinion as to what it is expedient to do on the 
 Sunday, may' very likely not be able to write a 
 letter or play on a musical instrument or take a 
 walk on Sunday without feeling uncomfortable as 
 if they were doing what is wrong. How far such 
 feeling's should be treated with deference or the 
 contrary is a matter for thoughtful spiritual judg- 
 ment and discipline. But they should never be 
 allowed to rule, as if they were identified with the 
 conscience. Conscience sustains deliberate judg- 
 ment, rather than the feeling which depends on 
 associations. It may be my duty to do what may 
 positively pain my whole spiritual sensibility ; and 
 then conscience, of course, bids me do it. The 
 bitterness of such a duty seems to find expression
 
 vin.] THE CONSCIENCE. m 
 
 in that terrible saying of our Lord's, " If any man 
 come to me, and hate not father and mother and 
 wife, and brother and sister, yea and his own life 
 also, he cannot be my disciple." No right-minded 
 person can separate himself from those near and 
 dear to him, without feeling as if he were doing 
 wrong. But this feeling ought not to govern his 
 conduct. Conscience says to him, Though the act 
 may seem to you like a wicked hating of those 
 whom you are bound to love, yet if God calls and 
 you hear his voice, you have no alternative but to 
 follow. 
 
 It is however this kind of diffused sensibility of 
 the spiritual nature which we mean when we speak 
 of a tender conscience ; and it is the loss of it that 
 we mean when we speak of the conscience being 
 hardened or seared. Those who are habitually 
 careless of inward truth gain some power to silence 
 the voice of conscience, — a terrible power to ac- 
 quire ! When the Divine voice says to a man, This 
 or that is right, — if he answers, I don't care what is 
 right, I will only think what is pleasant to me, or 
 what is to my interest, — the voice will become less 
 and less audible to him. It may then require some 
 rough awakening, some alarm, some unsparing 
 humiliation, to compel him to listen again with awe 
 to the voice of right and truth. We may harden 
 ourselves if we choose ; and, for hardening the con- 
 science, there is nothing like that plausible worldli- 
 ness which is so common a snare. You feel and 
 see that worldliness is hardening where it has its
 
 1 1 2 THE ■ CONSCIENCE. [SERM. 
 
 own way ; you can observe how the steady follow- 
 ing of fashion makes people callous to all the finer 
 spiritual appeals. If we are rightly advised, we 
 shall be more afraid of such a self-inflicted punish- 
 ment than of any chastening with which God may 
 visit us. 
 
 Let me say a few words, before concluding, on 
 two phrases, " a morbid conscience," " a good con- 
 science." The first of these is used when a man is 
 too scrupulous about small things. It is not that 
 any one can possibly be too conscientious, too 
 desirous of perfection. But to dwell upon little 
 things almost certainly means to withhold due or 
 proportionate consideration from the greater things. 
 Those who make themselves miserable with anxiety 
 about some action which to other sensible persons 
 seems insignificant can hardly be giving their minds 
 to the weightier matters, can hardly be thinking of 
 the duty and blessedness of living on terms of free 
 trust and affection with God. Such persons need 
 to look higher ; they need to think of God more 
 than of themselves. 
 
 But how is it possible for any sinner, who knows 
 himself, to have a good conscience ? Does this mean 
 that he is satisfied with himself? If he judges 
 himself strictly, how can he be satisfied with him- 
 self? If he is not, what does a good conscience 
 mean ? 
 
 Let us ask, what does a bad conscience mean ? 
 It evidently means the condition of one who is 
 cherishing a motive, or indulging in conduct, which
 
 VIII.] THE CONSCIENCE. n. 
 
 he is ashamed to allow to appear. To have a good 
 conscience is generally said with reference to other 
 men. You may have a good conscience when you 
 know you are not guilty of the baseness or profli- 
 gacy or falsehood which might be imputed to you. 
 From such faults as these every sinner who can 
 claim the title of a Christian ought to be free. 
 He may have a good conscience before his fellow- 
 men, when he cannot reproach himself with any- 
 thing which they would consider disgraceful or 
 unworthy. But it is not the same thing to justify 
 ourselves before God. He who gave his own Son 
 for us, and has called us to be his children, has a 
 different standard for us than that of men. Can we 
 have a good conscience before God ? 
 
 Only through God's forgiveness, and through a 
 faith in that forgiveness. If a man does not wel- 
 come God's forgiveness, does not desire that it may 
 cleanse him from sin, he cannot look God in the 
 face with a good conscience. So long as he holds 
 out against being reconciled to God, he must have 
 a bad conscience as regards God. But if he prays 
 for forgiveness, and accepts it, and desires to cleave 
 to God as a gracious Father who knows the frailty 
 of sinful humanity, then, with whatever sins and 
 shortcomings he may have to reproach himself, 
 these things will not separate him from God. As 
 often as he is conscious of sin, he may call to mind 
 the work of Christ the Son of God. He may have 
 confidence towards God, not because he is irre- 
 proachable, but because it is the very nature and 
 D. S. 8
 
 H4 THE CONSCIENCE. [SERM. VIII. 
 
 property of God always to have mercy and to for- 
 give. The question then will come to this : Does 
 the man turn towards God, or does he turn away 
 from God ? If he sees the face of God in Christ, 
 and is not repelled by it but drawn towards it, he 
 may have peace with God. He is satisfied, not 
 with himself, but with God. This kind of satisfac- 
 tion will not make him willing to remain in sin, but 
 on the contrary anxious and earnest to be delivered 
 from it. Yes, brethren ; those who accept reconci- 
 liation with God will have both a good conscience, 
 and a tender conscience. God grant to us this 
 blessed and hopeful spiritual condition ! may he 
 teach us to know him as a God of purer eyes than 
 to behold iniquity, and yet as pardoning iniquity! 
 may he give us the confidence of the true filial 
 heart, and at the same time the fear of displeasing 
 him which' will only increase with the growth of 
 filial faith and love !
 
 IX. 
 
 HUMAN CORRUPTION. 
 
 Romans vii. 18.— "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth 
 
 no good thing." 
 
 The doctrine of the general sinfulness of mankind 
 is one which has been a great stumblingblock. 
 How, it has been asked, can we reconcile the belief 
 that human nature is utterly corrupt with that trust 
 in human nature and with that hope for the pro- 
 gress of society which all kindly and well-disposed 
 persons desire to cherish ? To hold that the world 
 is utterly wicked, and to look for a coming of Christ 
 to overwhelm it with vengeance, may be orthodox ; 
 but can this be the way of thinking of those who 
 desire to take a cheerful part in increasing the vir- 
 tues and correcting the evils of society ? 
 
 It is evident beyond dispute that in the Bible 
 and in all theology which has ever taken hold of 
 the conscience the sinfulness of universal human 
 nature is strongly affirmed. Where the theological 
 feeling has been intense, there the corruption, the 
 depravity, of human nature has been described with 
 great energy of language. To minds dwelling on 
 the perfections and the claims of God, and desiring 
 to pay the utmost possible homage to God, it has 
 
 8—2
 
 Il6 HUMAN CORRUPTION. [SERM. 
 
 seemed obvious to call the nature of man altogether 
 vile and miserable and evil. The best and holiest 
 of men, — all with the one exception of Jesus Christ, 
 — have spoken of themselves with shame and even 
 with loathing; and what could be said against tlicm 
 could obviously be said with more truth against 
 men of inferior quality. In all earnest sermons 
 therefore, in the hymns which express the more 
 fervid emotions of the soul, in the doctrinal formu- 
 laries of stern and thoroughgoing minds, the essen- 
 tial sinfulness of human nature is prominently set 
 forth. More indulgent and liberal views of human 
 nature are felt for the most part by deeply religious 
 persons to belong to a less theological atmosphere, 
 — to be natural, that is, to those who start from the 
 world and not from God, who make the common 
 opinions and capabilities of men and not the perfec- 
 tions and claims of God the ruling objects of their 
 contemplations, and whose estimate of human life 
 is therefore on the whole superficial. 
 
 Now this strongly felt corruption of human na- 
 ture, when it is taken out of its right place and 
 proper relations, may become a monstrous and 
 unnatural figment. It is liable to be abused by 
 those who frame and support systems of theology, 
 to be misunderstood and misrepresented by those 
 who repudiate theology. 
 
 The corruption of human nature is abused by 
 those who believe in it when they make it the first 
 and fundamental article of the Christian faith. It 
 docs not belong, properly speaking, to revelation. It
 
 IX.] HUMAN CORRUPTION. 117 
 
 is a fact, a character, which is assumed and brought 
 out by revelation ; but the things revealed, the 
 foundations and proper objects of our faith, are the 
 righteousness and love and forgiveness of God. 
 These are what every confession of faith ought to 
 aim at setting forth, and not the faults and imper- 
 fections of man. 
 
 As I believe, therefore, there has been great 
 misjudgment on the part of theologians and religious 
 schools in drawing out the depravity of human 
 nature from its relative and dependent place, and 
 making it an absolute and primary object of faith. 
 This course has given excuse to unbelievers for 
 fastening upon this as the characteristic tenet of 
 Christian theology. But, apart from such perver- 
 sion, I have no doubt that the eye of unbelievers 
 would have been caught by the strong affirmations 
 of human sinfulness occurring in what I hold to be 
 their legitimate place, — in the complaints of the 
 prophets, in the profound theological expositions of 
 St Paul, in the fervid utterances of repentance and 
 adoration. It is too natural to be wondered at that 
 they should say, ' What an unreal doctrine this is ! 
 Who really believes that every human being is 
 utterly wicked ? These people who call themselves 
 miserable sinners are in fact and know themselves 
 to be a very good sort of people. They are for the 
 most part honest, humane, and conscientious. 
 What a tottering structure must the Christian faith 
 be, when it rests upon such an unbelieved figment 
 as this of universal depravity !'
 
 n8 HUMAN CORRUPTION. [SERM. 
 
 With reference to comments like these, let me 
 ask your attention to two considerations : — 
 
 I. The corruptness of human nature, as it 
 appears in Scripture and in such theology as agrees 
 best with Scripture, professes to be simply a fact of 
 experience and observation, liable to be tested and 
 corrected by the same processes by which it is 
 found out. Good men have spoken of themselves 
 as mysteriously and perversely inclined to evil. 
 Why ? — Not because they were bound to do so by 
 any creed, but because they were conscious of it. 
 I suppose they knew what they felt. In the Old 
 Testament, such language as " Behold, I was 
 shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother 
 conceived me " is a confession of King David, whom 
 no one thinks of as the worst of men, whom, in 
 spite of his flagrant faults, we are accustomed to 
 regard with, veneration. In the New Testament, 
 the corresponding language is chiefly St Paul's. 
 He says, " I am carnal, sold under sin.... The good 
 that I would I do not : but the evil which I would 
 not, that I do." St Paul was a man, so far as we 
 know, of singular blamelessness as well as of pre- 
 eminent self-devotion. Now, there is no reason 
 whatever to suppose that either of these men had 
 been taught that it was the right thing to confess 
 himself to be a miserable sinner. There was no 
 such dogma in the creed of the Jews : there was no 
 such dogma in the Gospel as Saul of Tarsus had 
 received it. The faith of King David was in the 
 righteousness of Jehovah ; the faith of St Paul was
 
 IX.] HUMAN CORRUPTION. 119 
 
 that the same Jehovah, the God of his fathers, had 
 sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. 
 Those confessions of sinfulness were the sincere 
 and spontaneous utterances of what they felt. 
 
 These same men and others, looking abroad on 
 the world, said very strong things of the evil ten- 
 dencies and evil acts of their countrymen and the 
 surrounding nations. One, for example, has left 
 the words, " Corrupt are they, and become abomi- 
 nable in their wickedness, there is none that doeth 
 good." Why did they say such things ? Were 
 they speaking, conventionally, in deference to the 
 exigencies of their creed ? No : in the first place 
 their words bear the stamp of personal feeling ; 
 and in the next place, there is no sign of their 
 having had any creed which required them so to 
 speak. They deplored the wickedness of mankind 
 because they saw it. They had no other reason 
 for regarding men as inclined to evil, except the 
 lamentable fact, as it appeared to them, that they 
 were so. 
 
 No more have we. If all that has been changed, 
 we are not bound to speak of human nature as 
 worse than we find it. 
 
 But it is important to understand how it was 
 that these men of the Bible came to have such 
 strong impressions. They had their eyes fixed 
 upon the perfect goodness of God. It was their 
 faith that there was a living God in heaven, not 
 merely distant in unapproachable purity, but mix- 
 ing himself with men his creatures and children,
 
 120 HUMAN CORRUPTION. [SERM. 
 
 making his qualities known to them, inviting them 
 to look to him, and enabling them through that 
 Avorship and trust to become like him. The Apos- 
 tles of Jesus Christ were continually living in the 
 presence and fellowship of One in whom the glory 
 of the Divine nature had shone as the glory of per- 
 fect sonship and perfect brotherhood. They felt 
 themselves claimed by a transcendent sacrifice to be 
 true in thought and word and deed to their Master 
 and to the Father. In the light of Divine glory 
 thereforethey judged of human shortcomings. When 
 do you perceive anything to be soiled ? Is it when 
 all the things that surround it are in the same con- 
 dition, and under a dim light ? Or, when it is 
 contrasted, in broad daylight, with something else 
 that is spotlessly white ? The glory of God in 
 the face of Jesus Christ, shining into human hearts, 
 made many things seem defiled and unworthy 
 which before had passed muster well enough. 
 
 The corruption of human nature, then, is treated 
 in Scripture and is to be regarded by us as a fact 
 of experience, subject to any of the corrections of 
 experience. 
 
 II. But there is a second consideration, of at 
 least equal importance. All Scriptural theology 
 invariably recognizes in human nature more than a 
 merely human element. We have just now heard 
 the penitent David charging himself with being 
 utterly sinful : " Behold, I was shapen in wicked- 
 ness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me." 
 But what docs he go on to say ? " Thou shalt
 
 IX.] HUMAN CORRUPTION. 121 
 
 purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean ; thou 
 shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.... 
 Make me a clean heart, God, and renew a right 
 spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy 
 presence, and take not thy holy Spirit from me. 
 O give me the comfort of thy help again, and sta- 
 blish me with thy free Spirit." This shame-stricken 
 sinner had before enjoyed the comfort of God's 
 help, and hoped to enjoy it again. He had fallen 
 in a way which made him feel that there was an 
 evil tendency at the very heart of his being ; but 
 the man David, as he lived amongst his fellow-men 
 and was known to them, was not a merely evil 
 creature. The Spirit of God upheld him, when by 
 himself he would have fallen to the ground. There 
 was a better nature in him, given from above, as 
 well as that evil nature which mastered him when 
 he sank in self. St Paul, again, our New Testa- 
 ment example, claims the better as well as the 
 worse nature. He does not know which to call 
 himself. He is conscious of two dispositions strug- 
 gling against one another within him, and of either 
 of them he may say, "/ desire this, / desire that." 
 When the rebellious disposition is urging him to 
 act, his conscience protests against it, and he feels 
 that he may say, "It is no more / that do it, but 
 sin that dwelleth in me." But in the very next 
 words he adds, " For I know that in me (that is, 
 in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing." He could 
 not help saying, "I lust, / rebel ;" and at the same 
 time, " / know better, I consent unto the law that
 
 122 HUMAN CORRUPTION. [sERM. 
 
 it is good." "So then," he concludes, "with the 
 mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the 
 flesh the law of sin." Inwardly, St Paul was con- 
 scious of this struggle, the best explanation of 
 which he found in referring all that was good in 
 him to God, and all that was evil to self separated 
 from God. Outwardly, he appeared to his fellow- 
 men anything but a bad, corrupt creature ; he ap- 
 peared to them noble and admirable. Nor would 
 he have said in his humblest moments that they 
 were wrong in thinking well of him. Only he bade 
 them refer what was good in him to the grace of 
 God. " Not I, but the grace of God which was in 
 me." 
 
 You will understand that when once this doc- 
 trine of God working in the souls of men and 
 changing and sustaining their dispositions is admit- 
 ted, the conception of a universal human corruption 
 is greatly modified. Each man becomes as it were 
 two men. There is the old man going to decay 
 according to the deceitful lusts, but there may be 
 also the new man created after the Divine likeness 
 in true righteousness and holiness. All the strong 
 language concerning the essential sinfulness of 
 human nature will apply to the old man, to the 
 man as he is in the flesh, to the man as he is in 
 self. It will leave untouched the new man, the 
 man as he is in the spirit, the man as he lives by 
 faith in a higher and a better. And you will find 
 that the religious persons who have spoken, as it 
 may have seemed, most extravagantly of the depth
 
 IX.] HUMAN CORRUPTION. 123 
 
 and universality of sinfulness have always been 
 those who have been most possessed by the be- 
 lief that God deserts no man, but is close to each, — 
 that in God we live and move and are. 
 
 III. If then the question is raised, What is on 
 the whole the prevalent character of the human 
 race, or of any people or society ? — such a believer 
 as St Paul is in no way hampered by any religious 
 theory about original corruption in endeavouring to 
 give a true and fair answer. He may very possibly 
 have a more favourable opinion of mankind than 
 some cynical person who holds that everyone is 
 born good, but is afterwards spoilt, more or less, by 
 bad laws and customs. If he believes in Divine 
 inspiration, he will prefer thinking as well of men 
 as he can, because he will then be recognizing a 
 more fruitful activity of that inspiration. It must 
 always pain a Christian to think that human sin- 
 fulness can oppose such a resistance as it does to 
 the good Spirit of God. 
 
 But the question whether there is more good or 
 evil in mankind generally is not a very useful one 
 to raise, because the answer to it must depend en- 
 tirely on the standard by which character is to be 
 measured. A kindly-disposed person, assuming a 
 sort of easy average of morality, may form a very 
 favourable judgment of mankind. Fix the stand- 
 ard higher, and the human nature of this age does 
 not pass so well. Theology, or the habit of refer- 
 ring all things to God, tends to raise the standard 
 of judgment. It keeps or ought to keep before the
 
 124 HUMAN CORRUPTION. [SERM. 
 
 mind the ideal of a true child of God, of a true 
 family of God ; and surely, judged by this ideal, 
 the best man and the best community must seem 
 to come lamentably short. On the other hand it 
 accustoms us to believe that God is moving where 
 we do not see him, and so to hope the best con- 
 tinually. But it makes no attempt to strike the 
 balance between the amount of evil and the amount 
 of good in the world. Good and evil are in the 
 eyes of a Christian believer too spiritual, too per- 
 sonal, too mysterious, to be fit subjects for that 
 kind of ponderation. Such a man says rather of 
 himself, " In me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good 
 thing. There is no health in us. But I know also 
 that the grace of God is sufficient for me and 
 for all, and that his strength is made perfect in 
 weakness." 
 
 It may possibly occur to some one to think, 
 " Then this old Scriptural doctrine of universal 
 sinfulness is explained away. Taken in a straight- 
 forward sense it says that every one is extremely 
 wicked. You protest it does not mean that. Then 
 you make it mean nothing." I reply that, though, 
 as I believe, it pronounces no judgment whatever 
 upon the actual goodness or badness of an indivi- 
 dual or of a society, it is yet a doctrine, or to speak 
 more accurately, an experience, which cannot be 
 absent from an earnest Christian faith and a sin- 
 cere Christian life. The contemplation of the 
 Divine goodness, the acknowledgment of God's 
 fatherly claim upon us, the acceptance of Christ's
 
 IX.] HUM AM CORRUPTION. 125 
 
 life and spirit as our true standard, will inevitably 
 brine out the sense of sin as something deadly, 
 haunting, indestructible, sitting close to the springs 
 of our personal being. I do not hold that sin is 
 trivial because I see that it is not overwhelmingly 
 dominant. I recognize sin as exceeding sinful, and 
 the righteousness of God as striving against it and 
 subduing it. 
 
 Let me put what I have been endeavouring to 
 say, dear brethren, in the form of two practical 
 conclusions. 
 
 (1) If we desire to be uncompromising Chris- 
 tians, Scriptural old-fashioned Christians, there is 
 no reason why we should not take as charitable a 
 view of the motives and character of our neighbours 
 as the facts will allow us to take. Why, to be 
 Christian is to be charitable ; and it is one of the 
 signs of charity that it " hopeth all things." Don't 
 give up the deep serious feeling about sin as an in- 
 stinct of rebellion against the law of God from 
 which no human soul is to be supposed to be 
 exempt. But keep that feeling in its place by be- 
 lieving in the grace of God as visiting all human 
 souls, soliciting, guarding, inspiring them. 
 
 You look upon young children ; — the more you 
 have of the Spirit of Jesus Christ in you, the more 
 you feel inclined to rejoice in them, to bless them, 
 to think well of them. Does some perversion of 
 your creed whisper in you, But ought I not to 
 think of these as beings wholly corrupt, — at least 
 until I can discern proofs of a complete change of
 
 126 HUMAN CORRUPTION. [SERM. 
 
 nature ? Answer, that no doctrine of Christ ever 
 taught us to call good evil, although Christ and his 
 followers have always taught us to refer all good to 
 God, — not to man in himself, but to God working 
 with man. Say then, So far, indeed, as these are 
 mere children of the flesh, there is no good in them. 
 But to me they are children of God ; and I rejoice 
 to see that there is a great deal of good in them, 
 which confirms me in my belief. 
 
 Let me remind you how our Church, in its 
 office for that very Sacrament which embodies the 
 idea of a natural corruption and defilement, speaks 
 of the ordinary human nature of children. After 
 reciting the Gospel story which tells us how Jesus 
 welcomed some little children, — not some select 
 children, but chance specimens of the Jewish chil- 
 dren of the day, — the minister is bidden to say, 
 " Ye hear in this Gospel the words of our Saviour 
 Christ, that he commanded the children to be 
 brought unto him, — how he blamed those that 
 would have kept them from him ; how he exhort - 
 eth all men to follow their innocency." And be- 
 cause Christ loved and blessed the innocence of 
 little children, therefore we are encouraged to have 
 confidence in bringing our little innocent children 
 to our heavenly Father's baptism. It is striking 
 that in the administration of this Sacrament of 
 cleansing, the children, before their Baptism, should 
 be so explicitly declared to be loveable and inno- 
 cent in the sight of God and of Christ. 
 
 If we Christians then are to differ from men of
 
 IX.] HUMAN CORRUPTION. 127 
 
 the world and unbelievers in judging of men in 
 general, let it not be ours to be more suspicious, 
 more harsh, less ready to ascribe good motives. 
 Let us without misgivings assume our neighbours 
 to be good till we are compelled by proof to think 
 them bad. The world knows as well as we do, 
 that there is no danger of any mortal brother over- 
 throwing our theology by shewing himself pure 
 from every taint of evil. 
 
 (2) But again, while we are not only at liberty, 
 but are bound, to judge others in this favourable 
 spirit, it is certain that as we grow in spirituality 
 we shall see more truth and reality in the old 
 lamentations over the clinging sinfulness of the 
 human heart. You must have had some percep- 
 tion of this yourselves. The Christians who have 
 gone before us cannot have deceived us when they 
 have testified with one voice that along with the 
 knowledge of God and of his Son Jesus Christ 
 grows the knowledge of the deep infection of our 
 nature. Try to conquer a disposition of which 
 your conscience accuses you, try to cast out the 
 roots of some sin from your hearts ; think how un- 
 worthy it is of you, how displeasing it must be to 
 the Spirit of God : do you succeed at once or alto- 
 gether in your attempt ? What is it hinders you ? 
 Aim at a higher and more Christian tone of life ; 
 seek to be more trustful, more full of joy and hope, 
 more tolerant of annoyances, more pure and hea- 
 venly-minded, more courageous against the au- 
 thority of the world and the threatenings of evil,
 
 128 HUMAN CORRUPTION. [serm. IX. 
 
 more sympathizing with the unattractive, more 
 forgetful of self: — do you find a difficulty in real- 
 izing such an aim ? Why should you ? How can 
 you reflect on your failures without groaning over 
 the tenacity of the sin which lives in our members? 
 Surely we have good reason not to be self-compla- 
 cent or self-righteous. We have reason to con- 
 demn ourselves sincerely, and to pray for forgive- 
 ness. We have reason to give ourselves up with 
 the whole effort of faith into God's hands, that he 
 may drive out our sin with his righteousness, and 
 make us through willing submission to his love the 
 obedient instruments of his purpose.
 
 X. 
 
 HUMAN HOLINESS. 
 
 i Corinthian's i. i. — "Called to be saints. 1 ' 
 
 We do not now use the word saints as St Paul and 
 his fellow-labourers were accustomed to use it. 
 When we read in the New Testament of " the saints" 
 in this place or in that, what does the term stand 
 for ? The saints, as we easily see, are all the 
 members of the Church of Christ, whatever their 
 personal character may be, good, bad, or indifferent ; 
 they are all the Christians in the place. The word, 
 in fact, which we should use where St Paul uses 
 "saints" is this word " Christians." If a missionary at 
 the present day were to address a letter to those who 
 had received the Gospel in a heathen city, he would 
 very likely describe them as all the Christians 
 there, and he would by no means be understood as 
 implying that there were no questionable believers 
 amongst them; but he would hardly call them "the 
 saints." It is not natural to us, and hardly any- 
 thing could make it natural, to apply the title 
 "saints" to a promiscuous body of professing 
 Christians. I, for example, could not, without 
 D. S. 9
 
 HUMAN HOLINESS. [SERM. 
 
 feeling that I was using something like a foreign 
 language, speak of ourselves here now as the saints 
 gathered together for worship within these walls. 
 But that was the way in which the word was used 
 in New Testament times. 
 
 To us the word "saint" almost inevitably sug- 
 gests a life apart from the common work of the 
 world. We apply this title, above all, to those who 
 have been delivered by death from the bonds and 
 defilements of the flesh, — the spirits of just men 
 made perfect. We apply it also to those who have 
 lived in other ages, especially in the primitive 
 Christian ages, persons whom we think of almost 
 exclusively in connexion with their religious life 
 or their sufferings, not as men and women having 
 their work in the world to do. In very rare cases 
 we speak of Christians of our own time as saints, 
 and call their lives saintly ; but it is almost always 
 a particular type of character that is thus desig- 
 nated. Our saints are women rather than men, per- 
 sons who by ill-health or other cause have been 
 kept out of the common tasks and the common 
 enjoyments of human life, rather than those who 
 have roughed it with their fellows. 
 
 It is convenient perhaps that there should be a 
 word to designate this particular type of character. 
 We know pretty well what we mean when we 
 describe a life as a saintly one. We know that we 
 could hardly use this epithet to describe the good- 
 ness, — however perfect the goodness might be, — 
 say of a general in command of an army, or of an
 
 X.] HUMAN HOLINESS. I 
 
 1 
 
 active and vigorous politician, or of a thriving 
 tradesman. But it is a great price to pay for this 
 special use of the word "saints" and "saintliness," 
 that we are thrown out of gear, as it were, in reading 
 the same words in the Bible. When you remember 
 that '•holy" is the English form of "saint" and has 
 precisely the same meaning, you will realize at 
 once the great place which the idea of holiness or 
 saintship occupies in the thoughts of the sacred 
 writers. Whether you look in the Old or in the 
 New Testament, you find the term equally promi- 
 nent. And you perceive these differences between 
 the modern and the Biblical use of the term, — that 
 whilst with us it is applied to rare and exceptional 
 individuals, in the Bible it is applied to the general 
 body ; whilst with us it denotes a feminine, in the 
 Bible it rather denotes a masculine, type of charac- 
 ter ; whilst with us it is associated with seclusion 
 and meditation, in the Bible it is associated with 
 action and the rough work of the world. 
 
 In the Old Testament, holiness is the most dis- 
 tinguishing character of the people whose sacred 
 books constitute that volume. The children of 
 Israel are called a holy people. Now the Israelites 
 were not by any means, to judge from their own 
 books, a race of a peculiarly gentle and fastidious 
 disposition. They were a stiffnecked people. They 
 were somewhat fierce, given to complaining and 
 rebellion, desperate fighters, often cruel and brutal. 
 They were all this, whilst at the same time they 
 were distinguished by the rarest and noblest quali- 
 
 9—2
 
 132 HUMAN HOLINESS. [SERM. 
 
 ties. It is this stern and tough race of men, a 
 people of tumultuous and bloody annals, that is 
 throughout designated a holy people. They were 
 continually reminded by their priests and prophets 
 that they were holy. Their institutions, especially 
 those which were most peculiar, were intended 
 to convey the same assurance and the same witness. 
 Their life was made burdensome by regulations and 
 distinctions, concerning holy and unholy, clean and 
 unclean things, which had the purpose of stamping 
 the idea of holiness into their minds. As we read 
 this morning, "I gave them my sabbaths" — why? 
 — " to be a sign between me and them, that they 
 might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them." 
 We never find it said or implied that there were a 
 few Israelites, the pious and unworldly ones, that 
 were holy. It is always the people, the whole seed 
 of Abraham, that is holy. 
 
 When the preachers of Christ, whose words are 
 recorded in the New Testament, came to speak of 
 holiness, they were simply carrying on the old lan- 
 guage of their religion. It was not a newly invented 
 term to describe something peculiarly Christian. 
 But they no doubt gave the word "holy" a somewhat 
 different application. Before Christ came, the Jews 
 were holy, the Gentiles were not holy. In Christ, 
 the dividing-fence between Jew and Gentile was 
 seen to have been taken away. But it is still a 
 body, a multitude, that is called holy. The holy, 
 the saints, in the New Testament, are not the few 
 who were distinguished by devotion and unworldli-
 
 X.] HUMAN HOLINESS. 133 
 
 ness. They are the body of baptized men, all pro- 
 fessing Christians, amongst whom there were 
 many, as we know, who brought great reproach 
 upon their name. These however with the rest 
 formed the society collectively described as the 
 saints. 
 
 Therefore holiness, in the Bible sense, did not 
 consist in the dispositions of the individual soul. It 
 was not a greater predominance of religious habits 
 which entitled any one to be called a saint. 
 
 In what, then, did the holiness consist ? The 
 true answer is given in the phrase I took for my 
 text. The holiness consisted in the calling, "called 
 to be saints." 
 
 It was this that made the children of Israel a 
 holy people. Jehovah their God had called them. 
 They dated their origin from the Call of their father 
 Abraham. God had called him ; he had obeyed 
 the call, and followed the Divine hand. God made 
 a covenant with him, and included his seed with 
 him in the covenant. " I will be your God, and 
 you shall be my people ; and in you shall all the 
 nations of the earth be blessed." This then was 
 the meaning of that holiness of which we read so 
 much in the Old Testament. The Jewish nation 
 was holy, because it was in covenant with God, 
 because it belonged to God. It was a called or 
 chosen nation, and in this sense it was a holy 
 nation. 
 
 Under the New Covenant, the holiness consisted 
 
 in a precisely similar manner in the calling, but the
 
 134 HUMAN HOLINESS. [ SERM - 
 
 call was not the same. Now, the promise was not 
 to Jews and to their children only, but also to all 
 that were afar off. The Son of Man was proclaimed 
 as Lord and Saviour, and all the ends of the earth 
 were invited to look to him and to be saved. The 
 Gospel was preached to the Jew first, and also to 
 the Gentile. In Christ Jesus there was neither Jew 
 nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. 
 Those who accepted the call received a baptism or 
 washing, in token of the putting away of their sins. 
 They were thus marked as members of the called 
 society. God himself, they believed, had called 
 them into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ. 
 In this sense and for this reason they were holy or 
 saints. The society of believers in Christ belonged 
 to God ; it was admitted into a filial relation 
 towards God ; it was breathed upon by the Spirit 
 of God : all- therefore who had been taken into this 
 society were bound to regard themselves as holy. 
 
 Everywhere throughout the New Testament 
 you may recognize that the holiness of Christians 
 is thus grounded upon the Divine calling. The 
 natural feeling of the Christian teachers on this 
 matter is uttered in such addresses as this : " Holy 
 brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling." Why 
 were the brethren holy ? Because they were par- 
 takers of the heavenly calling. A single Christian 
 was not so much a saint, as one of the saints. He 
 shared in the holiness which was common to him 
 with his brethren. All who had heard the call of 
 God in the Gospel were claimed to be God's family
 
 X.] HUM AX HOLINESS. 1 35 
 
 and to know him in filial love. In virtue of this 
 Divine election they were all holy. 
 
 It is true that we find passages in which the 
 Christians are not only told that they are holy, but 
 are exhorted to be holy. " As he which has called 
 you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conver- 
 sation ; because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am 
 holy." This kind of language belongs to the whole 
 mystery of man's condition and duty. It assumes 
 that we are to be, by voluntary conformity, that 
 which God has first made us. God has made us 
 his children ; therefore we are to be his children : 
 God has made us holy to himself ; therefore we are 
 to be holy to him : God has called us ; therefore 
 we are to be loyal to our calling : God has re- 
 deemed us from bondage ; therefore we are to live 
 as free men : God has reconciled us to himself ; 
 therefore we are to be at peace and in harmony 
 with God. Language of this kind is peculiarly 
 characteristic of Christian teaching. Logically, it 
 is difficult to give the full sense to either member 
 of these statements without excluding the other. 
 You might say, ' If God has done all, what remains 
 for us to do?' Or, 'If we are to do all, what is 
 there that God has done?' For example, it might 
 be argued, ' If God has made us holy, then we arc 
 holy, and there is an end of it ; it is a contradiction 
 to exhort us to be holy, as if it were possible for us 
 to be otherwise.' Or, ' If we are to use our best 
 efforts to become holy, then we must not assume- 
 that we are already holy ; it is a contradiction to
 
 I3 6 HUMAN HOLINESS. [SERM. 
 
 talk of God having made us holy.' But in practice, 
 in the deeper spiritual life, this contradiction does 
 not present itself to trouble us. There is no 
 ground for moral action so secure, no help so great, 
 as the faith and knowledge that God has made us 
 what we ought to be. And amongst the Christian 
 teachers of all ages, you will find that those whose 
 own experience has been deepest and most intense, 
 and who have most powerfully moved others, have 
 been those who have been inclined to lay the most 
 stress on God's call and God's work. Such were 
 St Paul, St Augustine, Luther, — to mention only 
 some of the greatest. These men have discovered 
 the helplessness of the human will, when it starts 
 from itself; and they have learned how that will 
 may be guided and strengthened when it aims at 
 nothing but to rest upon and conform to and carry 
 out the Divine will. 
 
 Those then who by God's calling are saints 
 should find in the faith of this calling the true 
 reason and strength for being saints. They should 
 say to themselves, ' In God's gracious purpose, and 
 by his explicit call, we are holy ; let us take care 
 not to defile this holiness by anything profane.' 
 
 Now, brethren, if we were to apply to our con- 
 dition and duty these Scriptural ways of thinking 
 about holiness, we should be guarded from any arti- 
 ficial conceptions of what saints are, and should 
 seek to learn the nature of that sanctity of which 
 we all are or should be partakers, by considering 
 what our calling is, with which God has called us. —
 
 X.] HUMAN HOLINESS. 137 
 
 But are we called ? we all who are present here ? 
 Surely we are. The very least that the most 
 lightly-worn Christian profession can signify im- 
 plies a certain Divine calling. We receive the 
 Gospel — that is, God's message of forgiveness and 
 reconciliation through his Son. Our fathers re- 
 ceived it before us, and through them it came 
 down to us. We are, let us admit, hereditary 
 Christians, Christians by transmission. But still 
 in this way the Gospel has come down to us ; we 
 have received it, and that is God's call. In token 
 of our having received this call, we have been made 
 partakers of that one Baptism which is for the 
 remission of sins, that Baptism which is the out- 
 ward and traditional witness and organ of God's 
 reconciliation. We have been christened ; we are 
 Christians ; in Bible language we are holy to the 
 Lord, we are of " the saints." 
 
 Let me dwell a moment on this name of Chris- 
 tians, because as I have said it is our modern sub- 
 stitute for the Scriptural word saints. Those who 
 would not think of calling the mass of us holy 
 would not refuse us the title of Christians. And 
 we, brethren, would not give up this name. Con- 
 scious as we may be of our unworthiness, we yet, 
 as baptized men and members of the great univer- 
 sal Christian society, call ourselves and desire to be 
 called by the Christian name. Well, then, to you 
 it may be said, "Christian brethren, men and 
 women whom God by his Providence and call has 
 made Christians, be Christians ; be true genuine
 
 138 HUMAN HOLINESS. [SERM. 
 
 Christians." And if you want to know what it is 
 to be Christians, the way, the only safe way, is to 
 inquire what is your calling. You will not, if you 
 are wise, seek to collect from traditional religious 
 opinion what peculiarities make up the Christian 
 character. You will ask, rather, " To what has 
 God called us? What has he made us?" And 
 you will conclude that this is what it is right and 
 necessary for us to be. 
 
 By seeking to be Christians according to God's 
 purpose and calling, and not according to any tra- 
 ditional idea of the Christian character, we shall be 
 seeking just that kind of Christianity, that kind of 
 holiness, which will fit in with the circumstances 
 and occupations of each. You may find excuses 
 for not being religious in this way or in that ; you 
 may satisfy yourselves that you have no calling to 
 saintship, — to Protestant saintship any more than 
 to that which is admired in the Roman Church. 
 But what can you say as to the kind of life to 
 ivhicJi your Maker calls you ? have you no calling 
 to that ? What can you say as to an appropriate 
 Christian life ? will you plead that you have no 
 calling to that ? Think then what the Christian 
 society is, and what it must mean to be members 
 of it. Allow for circumstances ; make the most of 
 difficulties ; give yourselves every possible indul- 
 gence. Say, for example, ' I have to work hard, 
 and have no time to think about these things.' Or 
 ' I am beset by difficulties when I think about 
 them, and can by no means see my way clearly.'
 
 X.] HUMAN HOLINESS. 139 
 
 Or ' I am no scholar, and cannot read the good 
 books which the religious read.' But then ask, 
 ' For me, set where I am, what does it mean to be 
 a Christian ? If God has called me to be a Chris- 
 tian, what ought I in my circumstances to be?' — 
 Your Maker, it is certain, does not require or mean 
 you to be anything that you can't be. But if he 
 has called you to be at peace with him through 
 repentance and faith, is that impossible for one in 
 your position ? If God has called you to commit 
 yourself and those dear to you into his Fatherly 
 keeping, can you plead that that is not in your 
 line? If he has shewn you the privilege of being 
 unselfish and kind, can you reject this privilege as 
 unsuited to you ? If he has forbidden you to in- 
 dulge your appetites to excess or irregularly, to 
 give way to bad tempers, to cherish prejudices, be- 
 cause these acts are contrary to the nature of his 
 children, will you say you are not his children and 
 therefore may freely do these things ? If he has 
 shewn you his own image in our Lord Jesus Christ 
 his Son, and has called you to follow him, in truth- 
 fulness, in courage, in self-devotion, in love, — what 
 will you say ? I am too busy or too ignorant or 
 too perplexed, to be truthful, to be courageous, to 
 be self-denying, to be considerate of others ? — No, 
 brethren : you can find no bar or prescription 
 against your true calling. What God in his crea- 
 tive purpose makes you, that you ought to be, what- 
 ever the cost, whatever the circumstances. You 
 cannot escape from this exhortation ; you that are
 
 14° HUMAN HOLINESS. [SERM. 
 
 Christians, sons of the Gospel, be Christians ! You 
 may not profess to be religious, to be saints : well, 
 then, be what you profess to be ; decline to be 
 what your conscience sustains you in not professing 
 to be ; but if you are Christians, be Christians. 
 
 We all know, really, how much is involved in 
 that calling. Nothing, surely, but self-accusation, 
 self-condemnation, is possible for us, when we 
 once begin to judge ourselves in sincerity. We 
 have reason to cry, May God forgive us ! may God 
 help us ! We must confess that we have been too 
 careless of the grace with which he has blessed us, 
 of the privileges to which he has called us. 
 
 I have been afraid that we should not recog- 
 nize so universally the exhortation which speaks to 
 us as saints, and bids us live as those who are called 
 to be saints. But there is a force and simplicity in 
 the right idea of holiness, which it is indeed a pity 
 to lose. Holiness implies separation to God from 
 whatever is unworthy of God's presence ; — not se- 
 paration from work, from politics, from trade, from 
 recreation, because these are not displeasing to 
 God, but separation from the evil thoughts and 
 acts which offend him. To say, Be ye holy, for 
 God is holy, is to say, Guard your God-given soul 
 from ill-will, from lust, from idleness, from whatever 
 your conscience feels to be profane. There is a 
 lofty perfection and purity in the Divine holiness 
 which ought to be and may be our constant aim, 
 though we shall be very far from reaching it. And 
 if we could see souls as God sees them, depend
 
 X.] HUMAN HOLINESS. 1 4* 
 
 upon it, we should not find that the most active 
 are the least holy. Every state of life has its own 
 temptations, its own difficulties ; but over all states 
 the grace of God broods, and into all the misery of 
 our human sinfulness enters to corrupt and to en- 
 feeble. He will be in truth the holiest, who least 
 attempts to build up any holiness of his own, and 
 who consents with the most simplicity to be just 
 what God would have him be and what God by his 
 Spirit will make him.
 
 XI. 
 
 LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 
 
 Hebrews VI. 12. — "Be not slothful, but followers of them who 
 through faith and patience inherit the promises." 
 
 To-DAY, as you are aware, is called in our Calen- 
 dar All Saints' Day. It has the distinction of a 
 special Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, in the Prayer- 
 book. There are not a great number of days thus 
 distinguished. I find on counting that in addition 
 to those which commemorate events in the life of 
 our Lord, there are sixteen which bear the names 
 of leading persons in the history of the Gospel, as 
 Apostles and Evangelists, and two others, one that 
 of Michael and All Angels, the other this of All 
 Saints. It was a part of the work of our Church at 
 the Reformation to reduce the number of persons 
 thus honoured by special commemoration. A good 
 many other names are barely retained in the Ca- 
 lendar, but it was thought expedient to admit into 
 the Prayer-book services only those which were 
 eminent, as I have described, in New Testament 
 history. There were good reasons, no doubt, for 
 this judgment. It disposes at once of many diffi-
 
 SERM. XI.] LIVES OF THE SAINTS. M3 
 
 cult questions as to the comparative claims of per- 
 sons who are to be recognized by name in the 
 general worship of the Church. But the arguments 
 are certainly not all on one side. It is not desira- 
 ble that we should be led to think that New Testa- 
 ment names are alone worthy to be cherished with 
 affectionate veneration by Christians. There are 
 eminent Christians of subsequent ages who may be 
 remembered by us with more advantage than St 
 Simon or St Jude. It would be a real gain to us, 
 if we could have a selection made by some infallible 
 authority of the best men to be remembered by us, 
 taken not only from the first century, but from the 
 second and the third and so on down to the nine- 
 teenth. Our Church has not ventured on this 
 attempt. What it has done is this: It sanctions 
 and commends to us the principle of cherishing 
 personal memories and studying personal examples 
 in the Church by choosing names taken from a 
 field limited in itself and regarded by the whole 
 Church Catholic as exceptional, — I mean that of 
 the New Testament history; and then it further 
 bids us keep one day at the end of our list of saints' 
 days, as the day of all saints,— thus reminding us 
 that St Andrew and St Peter and St Paul and the 
 rest are not the only saints, but that we have a vast 
 heritage of examples which we are obliged thus to 
 crowd together because they are so many and 
 because we do not know how to distinguish amongst 
 them. 
 
 "All Saints," then, are the great cloud of wit-
 
 144 LIVES OF THE SAINTS. [SERM. 
 
 nesses by whom we find ourselves compassed 
 about when we move backwards in thought through 
 the ages of church history. To remember those 
 who have gone before us, who have trodden to the 
 end the path we are treading, who have fought 
 in the honourable conflict in which we also are 
 fighters, seems a kind of spiritual obligation ; but 
 it is also one of the best exercises for spiritual 
 training. The lives of the saints are always in 
 some form a chief part of the spiritual food of 
 every generation. There is nothing that influences 
 most of us so much as the contemplation of what 
 other men, men whom we revere, have done and 
 believed and suffered. Being dead, the saints yet 
 speak to us. Their experiences are assimilated by 
 us and enter into our own lives. The pious propa- 
 gate their piety; the brave man propagates his 
 courage: there is a spiritual descent and inheritance 
 more sure than that of race. 
 
 Look at the Bible, the universal book of the 
 Christian church. It consists in great part of lives 
 and acts. All its other teaching is impressed with 
 the stamp of personality. The real interest of the 
 Scriptural books centres about persons, who repro- 
 duce and exhibit in their human lives the purposes of 
 the Father of all. On no other plan could the Bible 
 have been to so great an extent the common book of 
 children and of philosophers. A human being, 
 simple and true, bearing a part in a great Divine 
 development, is a treasure of knowledge to all. 
 The crown of all that the Bible has to reveal to us
 
 XI.] LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 145 
 
 is the life of the Son of God in our flesh; no one 
 can fail to learn something from that, hardly any 
 one has even imagined that he has penetrated to 
 the depths of it, and exhausted all that it has to 
 teach. 
 
 And in every age of the church those who have 
 been interested in promoting a true religious spirit 
 have felt that there is no study so natural, so attrac- 
 tive, so powerful, as that of the lives of good men. 
 There has been no difference in this respect between 
 Roman Catholics and Protestants. All sects and 
 schools have had their lives of the saints. The 
 Protestant has not so interpreted his formula "the 
 Bible and the Bible alone," as to exclude from his 
 study the lives of those who have consecrated his 
 principles by their godliness and their endurance. 
 No doubt much exclusiveness has been shewn in 
 the selection of saints to be honoured. There have 
 been favourite Catholic saints and Protestant saints, 
 Church saints and Nonconformist saints. Some 
 choice in this respect in not only natural but reason- 
 able. Let the name of All Saints however be a 
 witness to us against narrowness and bigotry. Let 
 us not take for granted that loyalty to God and to 
 Christ is to be measured exactly by agreement with 
 our own opinions. Let us have courage to admire 
 those who have differed from us. And let it be a 
 pride and an encouragement to us to contemplate 
 the innumerable company, the splendid cloud, of 
 those who tell us that there is a God in whom men 
 may safely trust, a Saviour who leads and supports 
 D. S. 10
 
 146 LIVES OF THE SAINTS. [SERM. 
 
 those who follow him; that this world is a part and 
 subject of an invisible kingdom, and that they do 
 well who live not for the seen but for the unseen. 
 
 I spoke recently of the difficulty which we find 
 in recovering the Scriptural sense of the word saints. 
 The word to our ears suggests separation from the 
 business of the world rather than vigorous work in 
 the world. In the New Testament, as I shewed, 
 "the saints" are all the members of the Church, all 
 whom we should call Christians; and their sanctity 
 or holiness was regarded as depending not on their 
 personal character but on their calling. The eccle- 
 siastical use of the word with which we are now 
 concerned is not precisely the same as this. The 
 saints whom we are encouraged specially to remem- 
 ber are certainly those whose personal character 
 was such as to entitle them to remembrance. But 
 we must still be on our guard against such an idea 
 of saints as that which associates them with the 
 cloister or the sick room rather than with the work 
 of the world. They were a rough kind of saints, 
 fierce rather than gentle, who are referred to in the 
 second lesson for this morning, Gideon, and Barak, 
 and Samson, and Jephthah, David also, and Samuel 
 and the prophets. If we were to seek a few words 
 to characterize the saints whom we ought to follow, 
 we could not find better than those which our text 
 supplies. They were men of faith, and of patience. 
 By faith they overcame the world; by patience 
 they stood fast under the trials of their conflict. 
 Whatever their opinions may have been, whatever
 
 XI.] LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 147 
 
 their imperfections and lapses even may have been, 
 men of eminent faith and of eminent patience are 
 witnesses of the best things to us and worthy 
 leaders in the onward march of humanity. 
 
 Such men have been the living heart of the 
 Church, the salt of the earth. I need not say that 
 they have not always been honoured and promoted 
 in their lifetime. It is one of the most wholesome 
 lessons of their lives to us, that the approval of the 
 world does not always reward those who most 
 faithfully serve God and mankind. Of many such 
 might the world say, "This was he, whom we had 
 sometimes in derision, arid a proverb of reproach: 
 we fools accounted his life madness, and his end to 
 be without honour: how is he numbered among the 
 children of God, and his lot is among the saints!" 
 The true saints have encountered difficulties which 
 were mountains requiring all their faith to remove; 
 they have undergone tribulations, such as neglect, 
 persecution, contempt, which proved their Divine 
 gift of patience to the utmost. 
 
 In the Church of Christ, and outside also of the 
 nominal Church of Christ, when we have the oppor- 
 tunity of becoming acquainted with the historyof any 
 sreneration, we see how the number of witnesses for 
 God is continually being swelled by men of faith 
 and patience; and their multitude is impressive 
 through its very indefiniteness. But it is a suitable 
 thing, and plainly intended by the Providence of 
 God, that we should try to obtain a closer acquaint- 
 ance with the good Christians who have been in 
 
 10 — 2
 
 148 LIVES OF THE SAINTS. [SERM. 
 
 some way nearer to ourselves, with those for exam- 
 ple of our own race and country, whose circum- 
 stances and trials and achievements we may be 
 better able to understand. Lives of worthy Eng- 
 lishmen are precious treasures to us and to our 
 children. There is a continuous national life which 
 is enriched by every faithful life that is thrown into it, 
 and the contribution is the more valuable when such 
 a life is made the subject of an interesting record. 
 It is far from being true, indeed, that the lives 
 which are most written about are always the noblest. 
 We may believe without regret — rather with thank- 
 fulness — that there are many high examples of 
 faith and patience which are hardly known except 
 to God. In order to serve for the instruction of 
 many, a life must not only have been intrinsically a 
 noble one, — it must have been passed in the midst 
 of interesting circumstances, such as the hard-fought 
 conflict of a good cause; and it must not be with- 
 out another advantage, that of being well and 
 livingly set forth. 
 
 It has done good to many, and it will do good 
 to many more, to contemplate a life thus set on 
 high for our admiration, which has not yet passed 
 out of the memory of contemporaries, — the pure 
 and sweet and high-toned life of William Wilber- 
 force. It is to a great cause, the war against 
 slavery, that Wilberforce owes his distinction. Not 
 being one of the greatest of men, nor one of the 
 most severely tried, he was a man who for his resist- 
 ance to the temptations of his class, for his kindli-
 
 XI.] LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 149 
 
 ness and innocence, for his persevering devotion to 
 a generous cause through the seductions of a com- 
 fortable English life, and for his sincere and reve- 
 rent piety, is well worthy to be one of our later 
 saints. Our kinsmen across the Atlantic had to 
 finish their war against slavery in a far more terrific 
 struggle than any through which we in ours had to 
 pass, — a struggle of which the passions and animo- 
 sities still confuse the characters of those engaged 
 in it. But with them the crisis of this struggle 
 will be associated with the memory of a man made 
 of rougher and sterner stuff than our philanthropist, 
 a man of genuine faith and patience, a steadfast 
 God-fearing ruler; and Americans, according to the 
 testimony of those who know best, will have good 
 cause to revere the memory of Abraham Lincoln 
 as one of the faithful men whom it will be their 
 privilege and their glory to follow. 
 
 The history of the Hebrew people is one of 
 continual wars, and there is scarcely one of the 
 Old Testament saints who is not associated with 
 fighting. We have happily fallen upon more peace- 
 ful times. But there is still something in the 
 soldier's calling which exercises and sets off to 
 peculiar advantage a simple and manly piety. I 
 suppose there is no religious biography which has 
 been more popular in our time than that of Hedley 
 Vicars, the soldier who mixed his blood with that 
 of so many other brave Englishmen on the Crimean 
 hills. He was happy, certainly, in his biographer. 
 Without remarkable endowments, without great
 
 150 LIVES OF THE SAINTS. [SERM. 
 
 opportunities, without anything that could be call- 
 ed fame, he shewed Christian devotedness in the 
 trying life of a soldier, and thousands of hearts 
 have been touched and animated by his simple 
 history. Such another was Havelock, the strict 
 Christian soldier, who after many years of obscure 
 duty had at last the glorious end of a hero in the 
 awful crisis of our Indian rebellion. His name, 
 too, is rightly inscribed in the roll of our English 
 saints. 
 
 There is another class of recent lives which 
 impress more profoundly, and instruct more largely 
 and usefully, though they do not appeal in the 
 same way to the popular imagination; I mean 
 those of men like Dr Arnold of Rugby and 
 Robertson of Brighton. These lives, that of the 
 former especially, have been of incalculable value 
 to our generation. In them we see men doing 
 intellectual work and grappling with intellectual 
 difficulties in a high spirit of faith and loyalty 
 towards God, — and this in the midst of an intellec- 
 tual generation. Through a long life of varied 
 work, Arnold is seen uniformly Christian, patriotic, 
 sincere, — always longing to see his country become, 
 and striving to do his best to make it, a true Chris- 
 tian commonwealth. How good a career is that 
 for his country's sons still to contemplate! Robert- 
 son's life, shorter but more brilliant and poetical, 
 has the pathos of suffering mixed with it. How 
 noble was his patience, how deeply Christian his 
 aims, how splendid his intolerance of meanness and
 
 XI.] LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 151 
 
 falsehood and wrong! It is a proud thing for our 
 Church to reckon such a man amongst her loyal 
 ministers. Few lives could do more to elevate the 
 tone of her clergy, and to inspire them at the same 
 time with humility and independence. 
 
 To this class of lives has been lately added one 
 of great interest and value, — that of Baron Bunsen, 
 not long since Prussian ambassador in this country. 
 He too, in a profession beset by difficulties, was a 
 sincere and noble-minded Christian. A learned 
 scholar, a laborious diplomatist, he was a man of 
 ardent Christian faith; not merely leading, as some 
 have done, a narrow religious life by the side of his 
 secular employments, but accustomed to look at all 
 the studies of scholars and all the actions of states- 
 men in the light of Christ, and seeking to offer up 
 his whole being with its entire service on the altar 
 of a purified and enlightened Christianity. Such 
 a life as his, told as it has been by his widow, is 
 an important gift of God to our generation, a seed 
 sown where it may produce most precious fruit. 
 
 I have been speaking of lives that have be- 
 come public property, by being led in conspicuous 
 stations, or at least being described in interesting 
 records. But there have been lives of faith and 
 patience known to us individually, which never 
 drew the eyes of the public upon them, and which 
 have been put into no books. Some persons have 
 been happier in such knowledge than others. There 
 is surely no higher privilege, no greater responsi- 
 bility, than that of having been brought into close
 
 152 LIVES OF THE SAINTS. [SERM. 
 
 acquaintance with a sincere and resolute Christian 
 life. And it may have fallen to any one's lot to 
 have seen and known persons endowed with the 
 true spirit of the soldier and martyr of Jesus Christ. 
 Even as regards abilities, it has been said, " The 
 world knows nothing of its greatest men;" and this 
 is still truer as regards virtues and graces. The 
 very patience and meekness and contentment which 
 are precious and noble in the sight of God may 
 have helped to keep a life humble and obscure. 
 And there is no human lot, however humble and 
 obscure, in which the qualities of saints may not 
 be tested. 
 
 There is always " the world " to be overcome ; 
 and this is the victory that overcometh the world, 
 even our faith. To be worldly, — to submit to the 
 opinions and fashions and judgments of the circle 
 in which we live, and to care for the approbation 
 and envy of' our world, — is a universal snare, and 
 in some measure, we must say, a universal failing. 
 It is the glory of true saints to overcome the 
 world. A man gains this victory by guiding his 
 own life according to the will of God, according to 
 righteousness and love, and not according to the 
 mere spirit of his day. He gains the victory in a 
 more signal manner if he goes forth to fight against 
 some of the allowed evils in his time, meeting the 
 excuse " It cannot be helped " with the declaration 
 " It is not according to the will of God." Every 
 example of persevering loyalty to the will of God 
 and of confidence in the ultimate dominion of that
 
 XI.] LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 153 
 
 will is an addition to the blessed company of the 
 saints. 
 
 How frequent, again, in every human life, are 
 the calls for exercising' patience. I have protested 
 that we are not to look for saints only or chiefly in 
 the sick room. But I did not mean that we are 
 wrong in recognizing the virtues tried by sickness 
 and suffering, the virtues of endurance and amia- 
 bility and resignation, as saintly and admirable. 
 There has been no high Christian virtue, no emi- 
 nent nobility of life, without patience. Not only 
 those who serve by standing and waiting, but those 
 who speed actively at God's bidding, have need of 
 patience. Disappointment besets with its most 
 cruel blows those who labour most actively in God's 
 service. Sufferings and sorrows are mixed in the 
 lot of all. All have need of patience. And where 
 patience of the true quality has been shewn, a 
 patience sustained by hope, a sweet and kindly 
 patience, there we ought to recognize true saint- 
 ship. No matter what the circumstances have 
 been, if the patience has been there, there has been 
 the Divine gift and inspiration. 
 
 We may all of us feel therefore that the in- 
 numerable company of the saints is not a distant 
 body of another nature than ours, but that it 
 reaches even to us in the persons of those, whether 
 they be still with us or have gone before us, who 
 have displayed the like faith and patience. These 
 beckon to us to follow them in hope. We know 
 that they were not perfect ; we have seen and criti-
 
 154 LIVES OF THE SAINTS. [SERM. 
 
 cized their faults : but did they not press onwards ? 
 did they not keep a high aim in view ? did they not 
 acknowledge the authority of heavenly motives ? 
 were they not willing to test all their acts by a 
 heavenly standard ? And do we not see, as we 
 contemplate their lives, that they were not victims 
 of a kindly delusion, but servants of a living and 
 righteous Master, who led them, and sustained 
 them, and rewards them ? When we commune 
 with ourselves most sincerely, which kind of life 
 seems really the noblest and most to be preferred, 
 that of men who strove and suffered in faith and 
 patience, whether they were happy in this world or 
 not, or that of those who have selfishly steered 
 their course so as always to get the most pleasure 
 and to avoid the most pain ? 
 
 Brethren, let us try to breathe the better atmo- 
 sphere of .the saints, of the faithful men and 
 women of our race. We have companions around 
 us who would tempt us to live for the present only 
 and to acknowledge the world as our real master. 
 Let us choose a better society. And oh let us 
 beware that in our own influence upon others we 
 are not doing our best to neutralize the example 
 of the saints. Let us not by our habits and aims 
 discredit the testimony of the men of faith and 
 patience. Let us cherish the excellent ambition of 
 being a help and encouragement to others in walk- 
 ing along the heavenly path. Christ himself is the 
 head of the society to which we arc invited to 
 attach ourselves. Divine support, Divine inspira-
 
 XI.] LIVES OF THE SAINTS. 1 55 
 
 tion, are at the service of those who are willing 
 to do their best. Let us thank our God for the 
 conditions amidst which he has placed us, for the 
 forerunners whom he has given and points out to 
 us. Let us rejoice that we have brethren whom 
 we may follow, even as they followed Christ.
 
 XII. 
 
 COMMON WORSHIP. 
 
 Micah VI. 6.— "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and 
 bow myself before the high God?" 
 
 THESE phrases, "to come before the Lord," "to 
 bow myself before the high God," denote acts of 
 worship. The words themselves are sufficiently 
 expressive of worship ; but it becomes more evi- 
 dent, as the question proceeds, that the inquirer is 
 asking what kind of worship will be acceptable to 
 God. " Shall I come before him with burnt-offer- 
 ings, with calves of a year old ? Will the Lord be 
 pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thou- 
 sands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my firstborn 
 for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the 
 sin of my soul ? " 
 
 But it is to be observed that the worship 
 spoken of is that of the individual, not that of the 
 congregation. 
 
 In all ancient systems of worship means were 
 provided by which worshippers might singly, as 
 individual persons, approach their God. If you 
 recall the institutions of the Jewish temple-worship, 
 you will remember that the rules of sacrifice are, in
 
 SERM. xii.] COMMON WORSHIP. 157 
 
 a very large proportion, made for single persons. 
 The directions in the book of Leviticus begin with 
 the words, "If any man of you bring an offering 
 unto the Lord." The Temple was not, in its first 
 intention, a place of meeting. It was the shrine of 
 the one national altar, to which every Israelite, 
 according to the various circumstances of his rela- 
 tion to Jehovah the God of Israel, might bring 
 his offerings. The Levitical law made no provision 
 for regular congregational worship. When the 
 need of regular meetings was felt, synagogues or 
 meetincr-houses rose throughout the land. But 
 these are not mentioned in the Law, and the uses 
 of them were not confounded in the minds of the 
 Jews with the uses of the Temple. The Temple 
 was for the sacrificial worship of the whole people, 
 regarded as one person, and of the individuals 
 composing the people. Thus Solomon says, in his 
 grand prayer of consecration (2 Chron. vi. 29), 
 "What prayer or what supplication soever shall be 
 made of any man, or of all thy people Israel, when 
 every one shall know his own sore and his own 
 grief, and shall spread forth his hands in this house: 
 then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling-place, and 
 forgive, and render unto every man according 
 unto all his ways, whose heart thou knowest." 
 
 You will perceive therefore that the words in 
 our text, "to come before the Lord, and bow my- 
 self before the high God," do not correspond 
 exactly to what we say when we speak of "coming 
 to Church." It is worship that is intended in the
 
 158 COMMON WORSHIP. [SERM. 
 
 prophet, but not common or public worship. It is 
 the worship of the individual man, that personal 
 worship which each man owes to the God of all. 
 
 This personal worship was rendered, under the 
 Jewish Law, through the form of appointed sacrifices. 
 On the significance and the value of this kind of 
 symbolism I do not now propose to dwell. But I 
 may say so much as this, that the language of the 
 prophets shews us that the true significance of the 
 sacrifices was continually beingmisapprehended, and 
 that therefore instead of being valuable they became 
 mischievous. Such is the danger which besets all 
 forms and expressions of worship — a danger from 
 which no one form or expression in our day more 
 than in any other can boast of being exempt. The 
 Jews, when they forgot the character and mind of 
 their God Jehovah, began to think that they might 
 propitiate him by their sacrifices, — that he cared 
 for the sacrifices in themselves, and, if he re- 
 ceived liberal sacrifices, would overlook the wrong- 
 doings of the worshippers. It was the office of 
 the prophets, or inspired preachers, amongst the 
 Jews, to bear witness against this superstition. 
 They proclaimed continually that Jehovah did not 
 care for the sacrifices, but for the mind which 
 accompanied the sacrifices. If the sacrifices were 
 to be substitutes for a right mind and for welldoing, 
 they became not only not acceptable, but abomin- 
 able. God did not desire them, but hated them. 
 The sacrifices which the Lord God really desired 
 were, a contrite heart, mercy, justice. To this
 
 XII.] COMMON WORSHIP. 159 
 
 effect is the answer given to the question of our 
 text: "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, 
 and bow myself before the high God? Shall I 
 come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves 
 of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with 
 thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers 
 of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgres- 
 sion, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" 
 No : all the rams, all the rivers of oil, if God could 
 be supposed to delight in them, belong to him first, 
 and are his gifts to men. "He hath shewed thee, 
 O man, what is good: and what doth the Lord 
 require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, 
 and to walk humbly with thy God?" These are 
 the offerings in which God delights, justice, mercy, 
 and humility. 
 
 As the principles of personal worship, these still 
 abide. If a Christian would render acceptable 
 worship to God, he must strive to do justly and to 
 love mercy and to walk humbly with his God. 
 But in considering the whole passage in the prophet 
 with reference to our condition as Christians, a 
 distinction occurs to us to which I desire to call 
 your special attention. In the Church of Christ, 
 there is no provision, to speak broadly, for that 
 separate personal worship to which a sanction and 
 opportunities were given by the Jewish Law. 
 From the Day of Pentecost, worship in the Church 
 of Christ, so far as it has had any organized expres- 
 sion, has not been single and separate, but common. 
 The appointed worship throughout Christendom
 
 160 COMMON WORSHIP. [SERM. 
 
 has always been that of the society, not that of 
 individuals. An Israelite of old came before Jeho- 
 vah, by the appointment of his national law, with 
 his sin-offering to express his sense of sin, with his 
 thank-offering to express his gratitude: he came by 
 himself, according to the circumstances in which he 
 found himself. The Christian is not invited to 
 come alone; he is taught to approach God always 
 as a member of a body. 
 
 The highest act of Christian worship is the 
 joining in the Communion of the Body and Blood 
 of Christ; and this is, as the name Communion 
 testifies, essentially a social or common act. The 
 worshippers gathered together for this, or for the 
 less sacred acts of worship, may be few; but how- 
 ever few they may be, they come together on the 
 ground of fellowship, and represent the principle of 
 society. There is a twofold form of sacrifice pro- 
 per to our communion-worship, — the offering of 
 thanks and praise, and the offering of gifts or alms. 
 With such sacrifices, as we read in the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews, God is well pleased; and these we 
 are invited to offer as brethren together, as often as 
 we join in the Holy Communion. The rest of our 
 appointed worship, — all that comes under the gene- 
 ral head of church-going, — is professedly common, 
 not single. Our book of religion bears as its title 
 the name of the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 If there are apparent exceptions to this general 
 statement in the case of the Sacrament of Baptism 
 and the other occasional services, we find on con-
 
 XII.] COMMON WORSHIP. 161 
 
 sidering the offices for these ceremonies that they 
 are made to the utmost degree social. Whatever 
 is done in church is supposed to be done in the 
 presence and with the assistance of the congrega- 
 tion. 
 
 There has been, however, a tendency which we 
 may easily recognize and which we may probably 
 most of us detect in ourselves, to individualize our 
 worship, in opposition to the truer spirit of the 
 Church. According to this tendency, the congrega- 
 tion has been an aggregate of persons who joined 
 for convenience to do together what each desired 
 to do for himself. If many persons were to be in- 
 structed and exhorted, the preacher might conve- 
 niently take them together. The religious exercises 
 which were binding on each, might find a better 
 opportunity through forms of united worship. 
 Whatever most promoted private thought and 
 feeling in the individual would be held to be most 
 edifying in the way of church order. Those who 
 have endeavoured during the last quarter of a cen- 
 tury to induce neglecters of church-going to come 
 to church, have often been met by the answer that 
 people could read their Bibles and say their prayers 
 at home ; and when they have been dissatisfied with 
 this answer it has been chiefly on account of the 
 suspicion that those who do not come to church 
 are not very fond of pursuing solitary religious 
 exercises at home. But in truth our social wor- 
 ship has a special ground, and a special life, of its 
 own. 
 
 D. S. 1 1
 
 1 62 COMMON WORSHIP. [SERM. 
 
 It was a marked change, for the first believers 
 in Christ, when the habit of offering sacrifices 
 singly as individuals was abandoned, and only- 
 social or common acts of worship were henceforth 
 open to them. But this change accompanied a 
 corresponding new conviction. In being converted 
 they became believers in an invisible Head and 
 Lord. To him they were joined, as they believed, 
 by spiritual bonds, so that they might regard him 
 as continually present with them. Their fellow- 
 believers were joined to Christ by the same bonds. 
 And they were all united together in a spiritual 
 fellowship of a mystical but most close and inti- 
 mate character. Their life as Christians consisted 
 in realizing this relation to their Lord, and to one 
 another in him. And for those who were most 
 earnest, and in whom therefore we are to look for 
 the character of the early Christian faith, to be a 
 Christian was not merely to take up an opinion 
 which might afterwards be easily dismissed ; it was 
 to undergo a mighty change with regard to all the 
 aspects and concerns of existence. All other rela- 
 tions, duties, aims, interests, were as nothing com- 
 pared with those which centred in Christ. It 
 became therefore a fundamental and permanent 
 conception in the mind of a genuine Christian, to 
 regard himself as bound to his brethren, and as 
 having a share in a corporate life. Remember 
 with what force and frequency St Paul is continu- 
 ally urging this thought upon his fellow-believers. 
 "You are members one of another." This thought
 
 xir.] COMMON WORSHIP. 163 
 
 is to forbid all sin, to serve as the key and incen- 
 tive to all duty. 
 
 This being one of the most essential characters 
 of the Christian life and calling, and the common 
 partaking of the sacramental bread and wine being 
 handed on to each new Christian society as the 
 most sacred and typical act of worship, it seems 
 natural that it should have been settled, as it were 
 by a deep-rooted instinct, that in the organized 
 system of Christian worship individuals should no 
 longer approach God with solitary devotions, but 
 that whether in confession, or iri prayer, or in 
 thanksgiving, or in praise, every Christian should 
 come before God as a member of a family, and 
 thus should learn to know himself as not standing 
 alone in the spiritual world, in the kingdom of 
 God, but as linked in Christ to his fellow-men. 
 
 This then is the ground of our social worship. 
 It rests upon that real and actual fellowship with 
 one another which is revealed to us in our common 
 relation to Christ. The more thoroughly any one, 
 from a high moral point of view, looks into the 
 circumstances of human life, the more sure he is to 
 find proofs of this law according to which our 
 Creator has made us. We come into the world 
 sons and daughters, brothers and sisters ; we grow 
 to be husbands and wives, parents, friends, neigh- 
 bours, fellow-countrymen, fellow-worshippers ; we 
 are forced to work in union if we would produce 
 any results worth having ; we find all the mani- 
 festly more delicate and more human faculties of 
 
 11 — 2
 
 1 64 COMMON WORSHIP. [SERM. 
 
 our nature exercised and developed through mu- 
 tual duties and mutual intercourse. The severest 
 trials, the happiest privileges, of our lives, come to 
 us through our being members one of another. 
 Now this great law is fully declared, and is conse- 
 crated to our reverence and submission, in Christ. 
 And we therefore act upon it in Christian worship. 
 We assume that God does not desire to have deal- 
 ings with us as separate creatures, but will hear us 
 and help us and bless us as partners and brothers. 
 Believino- in the communion of saints, — in other 
 words, that God has knit together his elect in one 
 communion and fellowship in the mystical body of 
 his Son Christ our Lord, — we take it as a natural 
 inference that the forms of our worship must repre- 
 sent to the utmost this fellowship. 
 
 Common worship, being thus grounded, com- 
 mends itaelf by a spirit and life peculiar to it. 
 Every one knows how, under exciting circum- 
 stances, a contagion of enthusiasm will spread 
 through assembled multitudes, how one catches 
 fire from another, so that, for great emotions and 
 lofty actions, the bringing of people together is not 
 merely the summing-up of their separate capabili- 
 ties, but is the development of a new and different 
 power. The striking examples of this effect belong 
 to rare occasions. But in varying degrees it is 
 always natural that emotions cherished in common 
 should be warmer and more animated. Amongst 
 the first Christians it is plain that the meetings for 
 common worship were marked by much warmth
 
 XII.] COMMON WORSHIP. 165 
 
 and excitement. There is danger attending such 
 excitement. If allowed to spread and advance 
 uncontrolled, it may lead to disorder and other 
 pernicious results. The Christians had experience 
 of this danger, and St Paul is very emphatic in 
 urging that all spiritual emotion must be governed 
 and guided. But he does not object to excitement, 
 even though it be, as it always will be, in part 
 merely physical and nervous. He more than al- 
 lows it, he encourages it. " Be not drunk," he says, 
 " with wine, wherein is excess ; but be filled with 
 the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and 
 hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making 
 melody in your heart to the Lord." The Apostle 
 is speaking of a pleasure which may be a kind of 
 substitute for the intoxication of wine. Seek, he 
 says, another kind of fulness, sensations of enlarge- 
 ment and freedom caused by a higher kind of 
 stimulant. Meet together, and let the Spirit of 
 the one Body possess you. Let music and singing 
 exert their power upon you. Utter the joy and 
 thankfulness which are suitable to your redeemed 
 state in hearty strains of praise. 
 
 In ordinary times and unexciting circumstances 
 the fervour of common worship is not likely to be 
 raised to a high pitch. But by observing or re- 
 membering what that fervour may be, we learn 
 what is the appropriate element or atmosphere of 
 united worship under the most inspiring conditions. 
 And I say it is the privilege of Christians who 
 realize their fellowship in ' one body ' to drink into
 
 1 66 COMMON WORSHIP. [SERM. 
 
 that spirit. The consciousness of a common par- 
 taking of the highest gifts and a common seeking 
 of the highest ends should properly generate an 
 atmosphere of joyous and impulsive feeling. 
 
 No one is likely to attribute to our congrega- 
 tions in these days any high degree of fervour or 
 enjoyment in worship. We hear frequent com- 
 plaints, on the contrary, of the dulness and cold- 
 ness of a decorous Church of England service. 
 Where there is so much repression of feeling, and 
 so little encouragement or opportunity for the 
 display of emotion, it is not easy to say how much 
 individual Christians are inwardly moved by their 
 coming together for worship. I, for my part, 
 brethren, do not doubt that in all congregations 
 where there is reverence and openness of mind, 
 even though they seem listless and uninterested, 
 the Spirit of the body is at work, and something is 
 done by means of the community of prayers and 
 praises to save the souls of the worshippers from 
 losing the sense of brotherhood and sinking into 
 the coldness of selfish isolation. But, on the other 
 hand, is it not obvious that we have been careless 
 about this life and spirit of common worship, and 
 quenched it by indifference, even if we have not 
 turned our backs upon it ? Who can say how this 
 spirit might be quickened, if we were resolved to 
 claim our heritage and to open our hearts to the 
 conscious joy of united thanksgiving and praise ? 
 
 And if our common worship became more 
 inspired, more fervent, and more joyous, it would
 
 XII.] COMMON WORSHIP. 1 67 
 
 be more in harmony with this day of rest, with 
 which our worship is so closely associated. It is 
 the Christian custom of common worship that has 
 made the Sabbath so expressly a religious day, 
 that we can hardly think of the Sabbath-day as 
 kept except by church-going'. But if we go back to 
 the Old Testament, in which we find all our exhor- 
 tations to the keeping of the Sabbath, it is remark- 
 able to find that there the Sabbath-day is hardly 
 associated with worsJiip at all, but only with rest. 
 And, if our worship were done by each individual 
 singly, there would be hardly any reason for 
 making the day of rest a religious day. But as it 
 is, the day and the custom meet in a beautiful and 
 blessed harmony. The day of common public rest 
 is the opportunity for common worship. As we 
 take our hands off from our ordinary labour, that 
 we may yield ourselves to contemplation and think 
 of him who guides our work and gives us the re- 
 ward of it, how fit that as Christians we should join 
 our thanksgivings in one, and refresh ourselves 
 together with the remembrance of our common 
 redemption ! It is to be regretted that as a general 
 rule we do not find ourselves able between Sunday 
 and Sunday to connect our work still more closely 
 with our worship : but it is fit and natural that the 
 rest-day should be also the great Christian worship- 
 day. Each idea should sustain and throw light on 
 the other. The worship of the day of rest ought 
 to be joyful and refreshing. The rest of the day 
 of worship ought to be thankful and reverent.
 
 1 68 COMMON WORSHIP. [SERM. 
 
 We might get rid of the strange contradiction of 
 being afraid of the intrusion of pleasure upon the 
 Sabbath-day, if our recreation and our worship 
 could be more perfectly harmonized, by our wor- 
 ship becoming more of a pleasure, our recreation 
 more thankful and pure. 
 
 And now, brethren, if we, remembering our 
 calling as members of Christ, ask the question, 
 Wherewith shall we come before the Lord, and 
 bow ourselves before the high God ? — we may find 
 the answer plainly written in our New Testament 
 teachers. We may still hear the voice bidding 
 each man in his own life, " Do justly, and love 
 mercy, and walk humbly with thy God ! " But 
 when we come as a body of Christian worshippers 
 before God, there are offerings which we are to 
 bring with us, which we are sure will be well- 
 pleasing to. God. We must bring with us hearts 
 sensible of our common sins, sensible of our com- 
 mon blessings. We must come repenting together, 
 for ourselves and for each other, giving thanks 
 together for ourselves and for each other. We 
 must come with the true love, the filial and 
 brotherly love, which will knit us to God and to 
 our brethren ; with the love which will not be 
 satisfied without expressing itself in uttered praise, 
 in good deeds and oblations. We must come with 
 the hearty resolve to lead more simply the life of 
 sonship, the life of fellowship. 
 
 If we could thus come to God with the inward 
 sacrifice, sincerely and naturally expressing itself
 
 XII.] COMMON WORSHIP. 169 
 
 ill the outward tribute, may we not believe that he 
 whom we worship would manifest his acceptance 
 of our offering ? 
 
 Let me read a passage from the history of the 
 Jewish Temple, which may serve us as a parable : 
 " It came to pass, when the priests were come out 
 of the holy place, and the Levites, the singers, with 
 their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in 
 white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and 
 harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with 
 them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with 
 trumpets : it came even to pass, as the trumpeters 
 and singers were as one, to make one sound to be 
 heard in praising and thanking the Lord ; and 
 when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets 
 and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised 
 the Lord, saying, For he is good ; for his mercy 
 endureth for ever : that then the house was filled 
 with a cloud, even the house of the Lord, so that 
 the priests could not stand to minister by reason 
 of the cloud ; for the glory of the Lord had filled 
 the house of God." 
 
 Yes, my brethren, God will thus meet those 
 who wait upon him humbly according to his will. 
 Let us hope to be rewarded for increased earnest- 
 ness of devotion with a deeper sense of his presence 
 and of his Fatherly goodness. May he give us the 
 spirit of prayer, in which crying to him as our 
 Father we may find him near to us ! May he 
 awaken us out of sleep, and purge our eyes, and 
 quicken us with a stronger life, that we may
 
 170 COMMON WORSHIP. [sERM. XII. 
 
 behold him and cleave to him with true purpose of 
 heart ! May our hearts be so wrought upon in this 
 sanctuary, that the natural course of our daily life 
 may be that of doing justly and loving mercy and 
 walking humbly with our God !
 
 XIII. 
 
 PREACHING. 
 
 St John xi. 9.— "If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth 
 not, because he seeth the light of this world." 
 
 Light is given to men in order that they may- 
 walk in it and not stumble. The fellowship of our 
 faith demands a corresponding life. It has oc- 
 curred to me that, as we dwell on this appointed 
 connexion between truth and life, between seeing 
 and doing, the peculiar Christian ordinance or 
 custom of Preaching explains and justifies itself 
 most completely. 
 
 The habit of seeing truth and life as naturally 
 connected with one another must have an im- 
 portant effect upon our thoughts concerning truth 
 and life severally. When we think of truth, we 
 shall be asking ourselves more or less consciously, 
 How does it bear upon life ? What does it tell us 
 as to the way in which we should walk ? — When 
 we think of life, we shall be asking ourselves,. How 
 far does this or that conduct agree with what we 
 confess to be truth ? How shall life be brought 
 into conformity with the truth which we have 
 apprehended ? There is this danger in such 
 habitual linking together of truth and life, that a
 
 1 7 2 PREACHING. [SERM. 
 
 low conception of the one will drag the other 
 down. Speaking generally, unspiritual conceptions 
 of truth will tend to unspiritualize life : and un- 
 spiritual conceptions of life will tend to draw the 
 mind towards the less spiritual aspects of truth. 
 But on the other hand if we steadily believe in and 
 keep in view the connexion between truth and life, 
 every higher thought as to the one will exalt the 
 other in our eyes. And the harmony between the 
 two is so real and natural that to be careless of it 
 will lead us almost certainly into insincerity and 
 confusion. All experience proves to us that man 
 lives by knowing, and that he knows in order to 
 live. Knowledge and life,— each continually calls 
 for and solicits the other. Step by step, from the 
 earliest infancy, knowing and doing advance to- 
 gether. The child learns by degrees the laws of 
 nature, and thus at the same time acquires both 
 safety and power. In order to be able to escape 
 from this and to do that, the child is constrained 
 to gain an increasing knowledge of the laws of 
 nature. Spiritual knowledge and spiritual life 
 similarly act and react upon one another from the 
 very beginning. The child learns to recognize a 
 wise and loving will, and so obeys it. By obe- 
 dience and sympathy the child learns to under- 
 stand better the will and the reason by which it is 
 guided. Never does any part or province of life 
 become independent of knowledge. There is more 
 appearance of some kinds of knowledge having 
 nothing to do with life. But on consideration we
 
 XI i I.] PREACHING. 173 
 
 should find that such kinds of knowledge only 
 have less to do — not nothing — with life ; or that 
 they touch life in some way, or at some point, 
 which had not been thought of at first. 
 
 As Christians, it is a first principle with us, that 
 the highest Truth and the highest Life are in the 
 closest fellowship with one another. Our know- 
 ledge of God is inseparably connected with our 
 inward and our outward life. God is revealed to 
 us in Christ, in order that we may be good Chris- 
 tians. If we desire to be good Christians, we must 
 seek truly to know God ; if we become good Chris- 
 tians, we shall be enabled to know God more truly. 
 To see our faith and our life thus mutually re- 
 quiring each other, is a matter of the greatest 
 importance to us ; I do not know whether it is 
 most important for our creed or for our conduct. 
 To consent, however unconsciously, to any division 
 between them, is to condemn ourselves to a dan- 
 gerous unreality. In that case, our faith will not 
 have the truth and worth to us which it claims to 
 have and ought to have ; our conduct will be really 
 prompted by unrecognized motives other than 
 those to which it professes allegiance. A St Paul 
 or a St John saw nothing in the Divine mysteries 
 which did not make an immediate difference to 
 what he himself was to be and was to do. The 
 springs of his daily life were found in his know- 
 ledge of God. The reward of his fidelity in life 
 was to be a growth in the knowledge of God. 
 
 Now preaching, in the form which it has come
 
 1 7 4 PRE A CHI JVC [SERM . 
 
 to take amongst Christians, has this office com- 
 mitted to it, — to touch continually the chords by 
 which Divine truth and our common life are con- 
 nected together. 
 
 Preaching, as it exists now, is not, properly 
 speaking, a New Testament ordinance. The word, 
 it is true, occurs in the New Testament ; but it 
 misleads us if we attach the same meaning to it 
 there which it has amongst ourselves. It there 
 means " to proclaim : " and it is used to signify the 
 proclaiming of Christ as Lord or Saviour, espe- 
 cially to those who had not heard of him before. 
 Preaching, in this sense, has very little to do with 
 the delivering of sermons twice or three times on 
 Sundays and whenever any number of Christians 
 are assembled for worship. The modern sermon 
 is unknown in the New Testament. It has grown 
 up in answer to the instinctive demands of the 
 Christian community. 
 
 Probably not many persons believe, as some 
 seem to do, that sermons are an infliction to which 
 the clergy compel the people to submit. Sermons 
 are really called for by the laity. A hundred years 
 ago, far fewer sermons were preached throughout 
 the country than are preached now. Why has the 
 number of sermons increased ? Partly, no doubt, 
 because the clergy, with increased zeal, have de- 
 sired to preach ; but chiefly, because the people, 
 with revived interest in the things of faith, have 
 desired to hear them. It would not be received as 
 a boon by you, brethren, if the sermon at any one
 
 XIII.] PRE A CHING. 1 7 5 
 
 of our services were discontinued. We clergymen 
 are sometimes taunted in periodical literature with 
 the length as well as the frequency of our sermons; 
 but we know perfectly well that, on the whole, the 
 great majority of the people do not wish our ser- 
 mons to be shorter. When that wish becomes 
 general, we shall be sure to conform to it. 
 
 Sermons, it is needless to say, must for the 
 most part be all that they are sometimes com- 
 plained of for being. That is, they must be com- 
 monplace ; they must be repetitions of what has 
 been said a hundred times before. Why then do 
 people think it good for them to be perpetually 
 hearing sermons ? What is the secret of the in- 
 fluence of sermons, such as it is ? In what does 
 their virtue consist? Chiefly, I think, and most 
 universally, in this : That they strike the unseen 
 chords which connect together the highest truths 
 and our common life. A very commonplace 
 finger may have just the power to touch those 
 chords. It is a great mistake, in estimating 
 the influence of sermons, to think only of the 
 sermons. The hearers contribute more to the 
 effect than the preacher. This is well understood 
 where there is any great common emotion by 
 which the hearers are possessed, and to which 
 the speaker appeals. But amongst ordinary con- 
 gregations and in ordinary times, every hearer 
 has a human history of his own. He has his trials, 
 his perplexities, his reasons for joy and sorrow, his 
 causes of fear; he has his sins and his struggles
 
 I 7 6 PRE A CHING. [s ERM . 
 
 with sin. These particulars are not known to the 
 preacher ; but they may make all the difference to 
 the effect of his sermon. I suspect that if each one 
 of us were able to look back over his church-going 
 experience, and to fix upon the sermons which 
 have come home to him most, and in which he has 
 seemed with the greatest awe and conviction to 
 hear God speaking to him, those sermons would 
 not be what others would agree to call the most 
 remarkable or impressive which he has heard, but 
 those which he has happened to hear at critical 
 moments in his own personal history. The preacher 
 may be saying something which passes as mere 
 commonplace through the ears of almost all the 
 congregation ; but there may be one heart the soil 
 of which God has himself prepared to receive what 
 is spoken as seed from heaven. The heart may 
 have been softened by sorrow or by thankfulness ; 
 the self-conceit may have been taken out of it by 
 humiliation ; earthly props and refuges may have 
 abruptly failed ; remorse for sin may be impercep- 
 tibly gnawing at the inward spirit ; a course of 
 thought and inquiry may have led up just to one 
 particular point ; doubt of a particular kind may 
 have come to a momentary crisis ; and so it may 
 happen that the old familiar testimony to the 
 grace and the righteousness of God the Saviour 
 may come like comfort or warning or guidance 
 specially vouchsafed to the one sinner needing it, 
 and may be bread from heaven to the hungry, 
 living water to the thirsty.
 
 XIII.] PREACHING. 1 77 
 
 I do not rate lightly the special effects that 
 may be produced by remarkable preaching. It 
 is a grand thing when the Spirit of God rouses 
 masses and generations of men by the voice of 
 an inspired preacher. New aspects of truth, new 
 vehicles of emotion, are necessary to wake men up 
 to hear and to think. It is most desirable that 
 conventionalities of preaching should be broken 
 through and rejected, and that the preacher should 
 strive to speak God's word with all the directness 
 and all the freshness with which the Divine word 
 has a right to be spoken. But in thinking of 
 ordinary sermons and their influence or value, let 
 it be remembered that the hearers of them are not 
 guided or fed or disciplined by the preacher only 
 or chiefly, but by God himself. When has this 
 not been true ? In whose case is it not true ? The 
 preacher has his opportunity; the spiritual director, 
 where it is attempted to give up the direction of 
 life to a priest, has his greater opportunities : but 
 God's opportunities are more various, his forces are 
 more irresistible, his influence is closer. The truest 
 "direction" for any man is that which leads him to 
 look for God everywhere and to submit to him at 
 all times ; it is a most baneful direction which in- 
 duces a human soul to think of God as only speak- 
 ing- through some one man's voice. Now if you 
 are actually under God's government in your re- 
 spective lives, and if it is your faith that you ought 
 to know and acknowledge this government, it may 
 be a profitable and a welcome office for sermons 
 D. S. 12
 
 178 PREACHING. [SERM. 
 
 simply to bear witness in some way Sunday after 
 Sunday — no need of much novelty for this — to 
 those great unchanging aspects in which God has 
 revealed himself. For we do not see God with our 
 bodily eyes ; the truths by which our lives are 
 guided do not force themselves continually upon 
 our senses. We need therefore to be reminded 
 who and what God is, what he has done for us, 
 what he has said to us, what the heavenly vocation 
 is by which we are to live. And even a poor and 
 commonplace preacher, as you and other Christian 
 people feel, may be able to render this service. 
 
 The considerations which justify the demand 
 for so many sermons explain also why there should 
 be such sameness of subjects in sermons. There 
 would be a certain attraction, to preachers as well 
 as to some of their hearers, in greater variety. But 
 we remember that we have to speak to a certain 
 number of our fellow-sinners, who might be more 
 or less interested to hear something new, but who 
 are all, as we know, — rich or poor, learned or igno- 
 rant, moving much in the world or hardly ever 
 going out of their own houses, — exercised by the 
 greatest and deepest of human experiences. They 
 all know what it is to sin, to be tempted, to be 
 disappointed. They all stumble because they are 
 in darkness, they all want the light of life. When 
 I remember this, I say, Here are the great univer- 
 sal needs, and I ask, Must they not be met with 
 the great universal helps ? There is variety in the 
 luxuries of life, hardly in its necessaries. The
 
 XIII. ] PRE A CHING. 1 7 9 
 
 light of the sun, the air, water, do not weary by 
 their sameness, because they are used for every 
 day's life, worked up into the varying products of 
 human energy and will. And so we preach conti- 
 nually of Christ and the Spirit, — of the Sun of 
 Righteousness who has risen with healing in his 
 wings, of the breath of God which awakens spiri- 
 tual life and nourishes it, — because Christians of 
 every sort and of every degree are enlightened by 
 the contemplation of Christ and moved by the in- 
 fluence of the Spirit. We can hardly fail to do 
 some good if we only are the means of keeping the 
 image of Christ before so many minds and of 
 naming as Divine that one Spirit of righteousness 
 and peace and joy by which they are conscious of 
 being visited. We cannot convince you unless 
 God convinces you ; but we may ask you to look 
 for the light of God, to listen for the voice of God ; 
 and as you do this, it may be that you will see that 
 light and hear that voice. 
 
 ' How dull sermons are, compared with the 
 brilliant compositions which may be read in the 
 newspapers !' Yes, but I am pretty sure that most 
 of you would rather hear sermons when you come 
 to Church, than have those brilliant compositions 
 read to you. And, if what I have already said is 
 true, this is not because you are darkened and en- 
 slaved by superstitions, but because you know what 
 you really want. You are all alike in wanting to 
 come near to the great Light of life, to contemplate 
 the ultimate principles of action. You want to go 
 
 12 2
 
 180 PREACHING. [SERM. 
 
 away from Church, if by God's grace you may be 
 so blessed, with more faith, more assurance, a 
 clearer vision of what is right, a more resolute pur- 
 pose to do it, more hope, more peace, more good- 
 will towards all about you. Do you really desire 
 this, dear brethren ? Then it is not for us to at- 
 tempt to entertain you with variety. We must, we 
 do, preach Christ to you ; Christ crucified, Christ 
 risen ; Christ the consecrator of suffering, Christ the 
 hope of glory ; Christ the image of the Father, 
 Christ the head of mankind ; Christ the judge of 
 our actions, Christ the adviser of our consciences ; 
 Christ at the right hand of God, Christ present 
 with us here. Look to Christ, and to God through 
 Christ, and in that light you will see light, you 
 will know where you are, and how you ought to 
 walk. 
 
 The guidance which God gives us is well repre- 
 sented by the image of Light, and is not such as 
 can be comprised in any number of precepts. If 
 you look into the Bible for directions what you 
 ought to do in this or that conjuncture, you will 
 probably be disappointed. I do not know in which 
 book of the Bible or in which chapter you would 
 best begin to search. The titles of the sacred 
 books are enough to shew that the Bible is not a 
 volume of directions describing our duties in a com- 
 plete and systematic form. No good Christian 
 values most those parts of the Bible which consist 
 of precepts. The most precious portion of the 
 Bible by universal agreement is the collection of
 
 XIII.] PRE A CUING. l S I 
 
 the four Gospels ; and the precepts contained in 
 these are rather casual than formal, profound and 
 universal rather than circumstantial. The chief 
 purpose of the Gospels is to set forth Jesus Christ, 
 and the Kingdom of heaven as he announced it. 
 And this is God's way of teaching us our duty. 
 He shews us in a Life the true principles of human 
 life. He calls us his children ; and that we may 
 know what that means, he has revealed himself as 
 our Father through his Son, and at the same time 
 has shewn us in the same person what the filial 
 mind towards God is. All life is a means for us to 
 learn and prove and shew what it is to be children 
 of the true and righteous and loving God, and 
 brethren in Christ towards one another. At any 
 particular time, in any particular circumstances, 
 the question for a Christian to ask is, How shall I 
 serve God's glory best ? How shall I come nearest 
 to the Spirit of Christ ? It may be extremely diffi- 
 cult to decide ; we may need for our judgment the 
 best practical wisdom and knowledge ; we may 
 after all, with the best intentions, — or at any rate, 
 with an honest and good intention, as human 
 motives go, — make mistakes. But we shall not 
 permanently go astray if we take the Sun of 
 Righteousness for our light ; our mistakes will 
 be turned into valuable lessons for us. By seeing 
 how we have gone wrong in a small matter we 
 may be preserved from erring in a greater matter. 
 And above all things, truth of conscience is the 
 essential need. If we heartily desire to commend
 
 182 PREACHING. [SERM. XIII. 
 
 ourselves to him who is perfect truth and perfect 
 love, and to be sustained and guided by him, we 
 may trust to him to justify us, both in his own 
 sight and at the right time before our fellow-men 
 also.
 
 XIV. 
 GIVING BY CALCULATION. 
 
 Acts iv. 32. — "Neither said any of them that ought of the 
 things which he possessed was his own." 
 
 THERE are two principles, either of which we may 
 act upon in discharging the Christian duty of 
 giving. 
 
 (1) We may wait till some existing distress, 
 or some good object to be attained, is made to 
 touch our feelings powerfully, and then give under 
 the impulse of the emotion so excited. Or (2) 
 we may make up our minds that we ought to give 
 some proportionate amount of what we have, and 
 then distribute this amount according to our best 
 judgment. 
 
 In shorter terms, our giving may be governed 
 either by feeling or by calculation. 
 
 We may think only of the suffering to be re- 
 lieved and the good to be done ; or we may have 
 the conviction, when no appeal is being made to 
 our feelings, that we ought not to spend all that we 
 have upon ourselves. 
 
 It is true that we may admit both considerations 
 to act upon us, and this I shall presently commend 
 to you as the most excellent way ; but it is con- 
 venient first to distinguish these from one another.
 
 184 GIVING BY CALCUIATION. [SERM. 
 
 Now, when any particular benevolent action is 
 to be promoted, the former way, the way of giving 
 when we are moved, may be turned to the best 
 account. We may take our case this morning for 
 an example. We are going to make a collection 
 for our local Dispensary ; and I should like the col- 
 lection to be a good one. If I had no other wish 
 or thought in the matter than that of inducing you 
 to give as much as possible, what should I do ? 
 The natural course would be to draw as touching- a 
 picture as I could of the sufferings of the poor from 
 sickness. It would not be difficult, without depart- 
 ing at all from truth and observed facts, to exhibit 
 poverty aggravating illness and illness aggravating 
 poverty, till you became softened and unhappy. 
 I could then dwell upon the skill and kindness 
 with which the resources of the medical art are 
 brought to bear upon such suffering by the officers 
 of the Dispensary. I can imagine this being done, 
 — with no departure, I repeat, from truth,- — in such 
 a way that it would be a positive relief to your 
 burdened feelings to give, and to give a little more 
 perhaps than you intended when you came into the 
 Church : and so the collection might be made a 
 heavier one. And yet I confess I feel some repug- 
 nance to a charity sermon of this sort. So far as I 
 understand what creates the repugnance, it is due 
 to these reasons. (1) Such an appeal, though 
 strictly accurate in its statements, might offend 
 against another sort of truth than that of literal 
 accuracy, — I mean the truth of proportion. An
 
 XIV.] GIVING BY CALCULATION. 185 
 
 exaggerated and unreal conception and state of 
 feeling might be produced, from which there would 
 be afterwards a reaction. (2) There seems also to 
 be a touch of irreverence in using such means for 
 such an end. The sufferings of humanity are not 
 things to be trifled with ; our own feelings of sym- 
 pathy are not to be trifled with. I would rather, 
 out of self-respect, that my feelings were not har- 
 rowed for the mere end of inducing me to give five 
 shillings or a sovereign. And I would rather, out 
 of respect for others, not dress up the afflictions of 
 our neighbours for the sake of adding ten pounds 
 to a collection. (3) And, if one looks beyond the 
 present occasion, it is to be feared that such exhi- 
 bitions may harden rather than soften. After being 
 subjected to them once or twice, people know that 
 this kind of thing may be done, and they find it 
 necessary to be on their guard against it. They 
 treat such an appeal as a piece of charitable art. 
 Possibly they get to like a little temporary tragic 
 emotion, and make themselves comfortable by a 
 contribution which they regard as adequate to the 
 
 occasion. 
 
 It is one of the disadvantages of the habit of 
 
 not giving except when the feelings are strongly 
 moved, that it puts people in a continual attitude 
 of self-defence as regards charitable objects. Pru- 
 dent persons become possessed by the idea, espe- 
 cially when they think of the multitude of appeals 
 always going about, that there is no safety except 
 in refusing. To give anything they feel would be
 
 1 86 GIVING BY CALCULATION. [sERM. 
 
 a sort of letting out of waters. Where is it to 
 stop ? — -Then this habit, by a kind of natural selec- 
 tion, lets the coldest and most calculating persons 
 escape. They are not weak, and they do not wil- 
 lingly put themselves in the way of appeals, and 
 they have learnt not to believe half they hear ; and 
 so it is extraordinary how little is given from one 
 year's end to another by many prudent and well-to- 
 do persons. And, to mention only one other objec- 
 tion to it, this habit places a great temptation in 
 the way of the managers and promoters of chari- 
 ties, making their language sentimental and over- 
 coloured to a degree that may reasonably excite 
 disgust. 
 
 The other way of giving is exempt from these 
 disadvantages. But let me speak of some positive 
 advantages attaching to it. The habit of devoting 
 to religious or charitable or public uses a certain 
 proportion of our expenditure is a valuable witness 
 of a twofold claim. 
 
 It serves as a practical acknowledgment, in the 
 first place, of God's claim upon all that we have. 
 What a man has may have come to him in various 
 ways. He may have earned it for himself or may 
 have received it from others. He may be a rich 
 man, with nothing to do with his money, or a poor 
 man, with many demands upon him. But through 
 all varieties of condition this principle remains con- 
 stant, that it is by God's permission and gift that 
 every one holds what he has, and no prescription 
 can bar God's primary claim upon it. To the plea,
 
 XIV.] GIVING BY CALCULATION. 187 
 
 therefore, that a man may do what he likes with his 
 own, it is sufficient to answer that nothing is his 
 own to do what he likes with. There is no absolute 
 proprietor but God. All human owners, to use the 
 Scriptural phrase, are stewards. 
 
 This truth cannot be stated too strongly or too 
 broadly. Every Christian man, as he contemplates 
 his possessions, is bound to say, These earnings, 
 these profits, these lands, are not mine, but God's. 
 God lends them to me, in order that I may make a 
 good use of them. 
 
 But is not this, as some may feel, an unpractical 
 and extravagant claim ? Will it not imply that I 
 ought to strip myself of all that I have, and conse- 
 crate it to some religious use ? It would certainly 
 involve this result, if this were, on the whole, the 
 best application of what you possess. But there 
 are very good and sufficient reasons for believing 
 that it would not be the best use that any of us 
 could make of what he has, to give it all away to 
 the poor or to the Church. In that case we should 
 not, by so doing, be rendering up to God that over 
 which he has a claim. But we are none of us 
 exempt from the obligation of considering how we 
 may best apply to the carrying out of God's will 
 the means with which he has intrusted us. 
 
 Now the question what use we should make of 
 our money is by no means an easy one to settle. 
 When it is asked in the court of conscience, How 
 shall a man spend ? how much, and to what, shall 
 he give ? — let him who finds it easy to answer call
 
 1 88 GIVING BY CALCULATION. [SERM. 
 
 it easy. To me it seems that the matter is full of 
 difficulties, and that there are objections to almost 
 every general rule that can be laid down. But there 
 are two great considerations which come home to 
 the mind with peculiar force. It suits the well- 
 being and progress of society on the whole that 
 people should spend most of their income, with 
 such taste and judgment as may be given them, on 
 the necessaries and comforts and luxuries of life. 
 This may be called a law of nature, which no other 
 law manifestly steps in to override. When we see 
 therefore richer people spending more than poorer 
 on houses and the like, there is no reason why we 
 should say, This is not in accordance with God's 
 will. The other consideration is that it has always 
 been a rule, denied by no one, felt most strongly by 
 the best men, that a man should spend a part of 
 what he has in trying to do good, that is, upon ob- 
 jects and aims outside of the circle of his own per- 
 sonal and family interests. These two conclusions 
 we may regard as placed beyond doubt : (i) that in 
 ordinary cases we are justified in spending the 
 greater part of our income, so to say, upon our- 
 selves ; and (2) that it is not justifiable for any one 
 to spend the whole of his income upon himself. 
 
 Now if any one lays down a rule for himself to 
 give such or such a proportion of his income, he is 
 acknowledging in the most practical manner that, 
 as an owner of money, he is under obligations, — 
 that his means are not his to do just what he likes 
 with, but that he is bound to consider how to use
 
 XIV.] GIVING BY CALCULATION. 189 
 
 them wisely and well. The simple resolution to 
 give so much as a matter of duty will react upon 
 the man's whole conception of property, helping 
 him continually against the mischievous and un- 
 christian notion that because other men may not 
 take his money from him at their pleasure therefore 
 he has an absolute right over it. Just as the rule 
 of giving certain hours to formal worship is a useful 
 witness to us that all our hours should be really 
 given to the service of our Maker, so the rule of 
 devoting a certain sum to good and charitable 
 purposes may remind us that all our expenditure 
 should be so regulated as to promote the glory of 
 God. 
 
 And there is this advantage in contributing our 
 charitable gifts in the serious manner provided for 
 us by our Communion offertory as express offer- 
 ings to God, that it condemns all feelings of levity 
 and vanity and patronage in giving, and reminds 
 us that to give is a solemn duty, and that in giving 
 we are only rendering up by a deliberate and 
 voluntary act of sacrifice a part of what God has 
 first bestowed upon us. 
 
 The other claim to which I referred as being 
 recognized by a rule of giving away a certain pro- 
 portion of our income, is that which our brethren 
 have upon us. There is only a distinction in 
 aspect, not in reality, between this claim and that 
 of which I have been just speaking. But it is 
 important that we should recognize the obligation 
 under this aspect. We very much exaggerate our
 
 19° GIVING BY CALCULATION. [serm. 
 
 supposed rights to the free enjoyment of what we 
 own. We really receive what we have from the 
 community, and we owe it to the community 
 again. The only thorough justification of private 
 property from the moral point of view is in its 
 being made to serve the public good. Now, when 
 a man says, ' I set apart so much of my income in 
 order to do good if I can to the less favoured mem- 
 bers of my community or of my race,' he is helping 
 himself to remember that he holds all his property 
 upon the tenure of making it serviceable to his 
 country and to mankind. This conviction will not 
 require you to surrender all that you possess to 
 some public or charitable uses, because the good 
 of society would not be so furthered. But it may 
 influence strongly and decidedly what you do with 
 your money, and the more it is allowed to have its 
 due influence on your conduct, the better : for it is 
 certainly true in the eyes of God that every man's 
 right of private ownership, be he the wealthiest 
 duke or a labouring man, is controlled and sub- 
 ordinated, as it is also in reality sustained, by the 
 higher right which society has to the utmost 
 benefit which every member of it has the means 
 and opportunities to render. 
 
 We ought then to say to ourselves habitually, 
 'These poverty-stricken people, these uneducated, 
 these neglecters of ordinances, have claims upon 
 me. I cannot thrust them aside with the sneer, 
 Am I my brother's keeper ? I and my money 
 exist in part for them. Can I suppose that He
 
 XIV.] GIVING BY CALCULATION. 191 
 
 who made both them and me had no purpose in 
 giving me more money and other advantages 
 except that I should enjoy myself with them ? I 
 will at any rate be mindful that I do not withhold 
 from my poorer brothers such benefits as a reason- 
 able liberality on my part may help to confer upon 
 them.' 
 
 Let us not overrate what money can do. The 
 giving of money is very far from being a discharge 
 of our obligations to our fellow-men. We owe 
 them more and better things than money. And it 
 is a mistake to suppose that by giving money 
 enough we can do as much good as we please. 
 The best services to the world have not been 
 rendered by money or by what money could buy. 
 We soon discover the weakness of money in the 
 work of doing good. But it must be admitted that 
 there are few things which test and exercise the 
 inner nature of a man so much as his use of his 
 money. There are many mysteries of human 
 nature connected with ownership and spending. 
 So large a part of human activity is employed not 
 only in the getting, but in the holding and spend- 
 ing of money, that man might be described as a 
 spending animal. A great deal of character, a 
 great deal of virtue or of weakness, is shewn in 
 every man's relations to what he owns. It is no 
 trivial matter therefore as a moral act, not a duty 
 which any one can look down upon as insigni- 
 ficant, to resolve carefully and cheerfully to apply 
 a substantial proportion of income to religious and
 
 192 GIVING BY CALCULATION. [serm. 
 
 charitable uses. Such action, you may depend 
 upon it, will tell upon the whole spiritual nature. 
 
 Need I say, that the increased prevalence of 
 such a custom would soon shew itself in the swell- 
 ing of the streams of our charitable resources ? 
 Most persons give much less than they fancy they 
 do. Partly from that attitude of self-protection to 
 which I have alluded, and partly from the time and 
 trouble which it costs them to make up their minds 
 to give a moderate sum, many not unkindly 
 persons are under the impression, which their 
 account-books would correct, that they have given, 
 say within the last year, a good deal more than 
 they have. A rigorous inquiry, Have I given such 
 or such a proportion of my spendings ? would be 
 likely to lead to a paying-up of considerable 
 arrears. 
 
 I have , not named any particular proportion of 
 income which it may be right to set apart for 
 giving. There is one proportion which Scripture 
 and tradition combine to suggest ; but I know of 
 no principle which makes that proportion of one- 
 tenth binding, and I confess it to be extremely 
 difficult to find conclusive reasons for one propor- 
 tion more than another. There is some guidance 
 perhaps in this fact, that if a considerable majority 
 were to give anything like one-tenth, the adminis- 
 trators of voluntary offerings would have more 
 than they would know what to do with. We some- 
 times boast of the largeness of these offerings, but 
 at such times we generally forget how immense our
 
 XIV.] GIVING BY CALCULATIOX. 193 
 
 wealth is. There may well be variety in the pro- 
 portion given, as there is variety in circumstances 
 and in warmth of liberality. I have known of 
 persons giving away a third part and even more of 
 their income. But I should expect it to be a 
 great advance in liberality with most, if they began 
 to give a twentieth part. And I should not at all 
 object to their ascertaining what part of their rates 
 goes to the actual relief of the poor, and then 
 reckoning that as a part of their charity. The 
 most real difficulty, let me say, is in the case of 
 those who have hardly been able to make a bare 
 provision for their children, and who feel it a duty 
 to lay by almost everything that they seem able to 
 spare for the future support of those who depend 
 upon them. 
 
 One argument more in favour of this habit of 
 giving deliberately a proportion of income. It 
 would lead to thought and discrimination in giving. 
 It is better for society, though apparently not for 
 themselves, that people should spend their money 
 in any ordinary way than that they should give it 
 foolishly. An incredible amount of moral harm is 
 easily done by carelessness in giving. It is difficult 
 to believe this. It seems perplexing that so good 
 an emotion as that of compassion should lead to so 
 much moral evil. But the fact that it may do so is 
 only too certain to those who have had any expe- 
 rience in such matters. And when once this has 
 been learnt, it is positively culpable to give way to 
 simple feeling, and to relieve apparent distress 
 
 D. S. 13
 
 194 GIVING BY CALCULATION. [serm. 
 
 without knowing what the effect of the relief is 
 likely to be. It is a most desirable thing that 
 Christian and humane persons should be led to 
 consider how they may best apply what they have 
 made up their minds to give. To judge rightly in 
 this question is a high and excellent wisdom ; but 
 to try to judge rightly is a wholesome exercise, 
 and likely to promote reverence, humanity, and a 
 sense of responsibility. The extension of such a 
 practice, together with the increase of the amount 
 to be given, would probably lead to the choice of 
 good public objects for the exercise of liberality, 
 rather than to any considerable addition to the 
 amount spent on feeding the poor. 
 
 I have been arguing, as you perceive, against 
 the uncontrolled sway of feeling, and in favour of 
 calculation, in this matter of giving. Is, then, 
 Christian liberality, Christian charity, of all things 
 in the world, to be turned into mere arithmetic ? Is 
 emotion to be suppressed, in order that our benefi- 
 cence may be done mechanically ? That would in- 
 deed be a strange doctrine to preach in a Christian 
 Church. I will not draw back from what I have 
 said in favour of calculation. But I venture to be- 
 lieve that feeling may be kept alive more healthily 
 with the guidance and the support of calculation. 
 I would have you, my brethren, still susceptible to 
 every cry of distress. I would have you never turn 
 away your face in hardness and indifference from 
 any poor man. Let the feeling excited in you by 
 any suffering which you may see or hear of set you
 
 XIV.] GIVING BY CALCULATWX. 195 
 
 considering whether you can do anything to relieve 
 it. If in some way, it may seem by mere chance, 
 this or that kind of suffering, this or that good to 
 be aimed at, be brought specially home to you, 
 take that as an indication of Divine Providence, 
 and believe it to be legitimate and right for you to 
 exert yourself and to give in that particular way. 
 Some teachers, holding as I do that it is well to set 
 apart a certain proportion to good works, have said 
 that those who are deeply moved may fitly indulge 
 their feelings by giving something in excess of that 
 which in their coldest and most prudent moments 
 they have set apart. And always, if we do not give 
 more in money, it is a good thing to be stirred be- 
 yond the giving of money. By prayers, by sym- 
 pathy, by some uncalculated moral action, we may 
 often give far more precious aid than if we were to 
 multiply our money contributions tenfold. 
 
 The great thing would be, my Christian bre- 
 thren, that we should arrive by God's grace at such a 
 state of mind as that indicated in the words of my 
 text, " Neither said any of them that ought of the 
 things that he possessed was his own." A man, 
 and the things he possesses, are very closely bound 
 up together. It is very hard to weaken the myste- 
 rious ties of this binding. Let us try another way. 
 Let the man give himself first, and then he will 
 give, with himself, whatever he has. Let him give 
 himself to God, to his fellow-men. St Paul was 
 not content with saying, What you hive is not 
 yours ; he went further and said, " Ye are not your 
 
 13—2
 
 196 GIVING BY CALCULATION. [SERM. XIV. 
 
 own." If we have learnt that lesson, we have learnt 
 all. If Ave are inwardly persuaded that we have 
 been bought with a price, so that we belong body 
 and spirit to God, we shall have no mind to with- 
 hold anything that God asks of us from him. 
 
 Let me add a few words to connect what I have 
 said with another subject. We are entering to-day 
 upon an election week. I have nothing to say to 
 you about the election itself. But the stir of an 
 election brings home thoughts of politics to the 
 minds of all. Now in all politics, whatever side we 
 take, and whether we have much or little to do with 
 politics, there is one consideration which I may urge 
 as never out of place. We ought always to cherish 
 the desire to help the weak and to serve the com- 
 mon good. The politician, the statesman, most de- 
 servedly honoured in the long run, whether he has 
 been called Whig or Tory, Conservative or Liberal, 
 has been he who has sympathized with the unpros- 
 perous, and has earnestly desired to exalt the bro- 
 thers of low degree. To take the side of those 
 who are pushed out of the way is the cultivated 
 sentiment of the true gentleman, the proper instinct 
 of the common man : it is, above all, the duty and 
 grace of the Christian. If we do not cherish the 
 sense of responsibility towards and on behalf of the 
 humblest, we are no followers of him who emptied 
 limself of Divine glory and took upon him the 
 form of a servant, — who, though he was rich, yet for 
 our sakes became poor. May the Christian spirit 
 be poured out upon all parties and all classes, that 
 our country may prosper and be at one !
 
 XV. 
 
 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EXPENDITURE*. 
 
 i Cor. iv. 7. — "What hast thou that thou didst not receive?" 
 
 IN a country not yet civilized, or in one decaying 
 back into anarchy, where the stronger and bolder 
 could seize with impunity the possessions of the 
 weak, and where the poor were therefore liable at 
 any time to be plundered either in the name ot 
 government authority or in defiance of it, it might 
 be the duty of the preacher to do what he could to 
 foster the idea of the sacredness of private property, 
 so as to strengthen the barriers of custom and 
 opinion against injustice. But the preacher's duty 
 alters with circumstances. In our country at the 
 present time there is no need to preach on behalf 
 of the rights of property. Law is omnipotent here 
 against violence. The traditions of many genera- 
 tions of settled possession have given prodigious 
 strength to the claims of property, and there is 
 hardly anything so practically and universally sa- 
 cred in an Englishman's eyes as the right of a man 
 to hold fast his own and to do what he likes with it 
 against every kind of interference. Respect for the 
 
 * One of a course of political sermons preached at St Mark's, 
 YVhitechapel.
 
 I9 8 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE [SERM.' 
 
 rights of private property has grown into an undue 
 reverence for those rights. There is a widely pre- 
 vailing notion that to secure each man in the enjoy- 
 ment of what he can call his own is an ultimate end 
 for which society and its institutions exist. The 
 rights of private property, therefore, need no sup- 
 port from the English preacher. His advocacy is 
 wanted at the present time for another doctrine, 
 — that the individual and his property exist rather 
 for the common or public good. 
 
 I speak in this place as a minister of the Gospel 
 of Christ, whose first and proper business it is to 
 consider how the teaching of that Gospel bears 
 upon any subject which he may have in hand. The 
 political philosopher would inquire what grounds 
 there are in nature and history and utility for the 
 unquestioning reverence so commonly paid to the 
 right of private ownership. It is enough for me to 
 ask what are the ideas which the New Testament 
 encourages, and what therefore should be the ruling 
 prepossessions of the Christian mind, on this sub- 
 ject of property. 
 
 There is one great support given by the New 
 Testament to the security of personal ownership. 
 It repeats the old commandment, "Thou shalt not 
 steal," and reinforces it with the argument drawn 
 from that spiritual fellowship of men which is re- 
 vealed in Christ. More generally, the New Testa- 
 ment is in favour of justice, order, and government. 
 It absolutely condemns fraud and oppression and 
 everything that could rightly be called robbery of
 
 XV.] EXPENDITURE. 199 
 
 private persons. Wherever the principles of the 
 Gospel might prevail, they would secure that every 
 one should dwell safely under his own vine and his 
 own fig-tree. But beyond this, you will not find in 
 Holy Scripture any honour paid to the principle of 
 private property. It is never spoken of there as the 
 basis of the social system. You could never learn 
 from the Bible the habit of reverencing private 
 property, of making it the primary consideration in 
 social arrangements, of consenting that important 
 ends should be sacrificed out of deference to it. 
 
 On the contrary, possessions (including, as one 
 may say, the very principle of possession,) are 
 treated with systematic and surprising depreciation 
 by our Lord and his Apostles. You may perceive 
 throughout their words an endeavour to resist and 
 overcome the natural feeling of respect for posses- 
 sions. Property is spoken of as a false god, which 
 men are dangerously tempted to worship. A man's 
 life, we are taught, consists not in the abundance of 
 the things he possesses. The disciples of Jesus are 
 bidden to seek treasure in heaven and not in earth. 
 The rich are seldom mentioned without disparage- 
 ment. Riches are a snare, the love of money a 
 root from which all evil may grow. We are told 
 in a parable of a rich man who said to his soul, 
 " Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many 
 years : take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 
 But God said to him, Thou fool, this night thy 
 soul shall be required of thee : then whose shall 
 those things be which thou hast provided ?"
 
 zoo PUBLIC AND PRIVATE [SERM. 
 
 There is a simple theory consistently assumed 
 in the New Testament concerning possessions of 
 every kind. However acquired, whether by inheri- 
 tance or gift or labour, they are entrusted by God 
 to the possessor. Man is a steward, bound to make 
 such use of what he possesses as may satisfy the 
 real owner. Faithfulness in this stewardship is 
 strictly demanded. And the use of property which 
 God prescribes is to lay it out for the common bene- 
 fit. If we are not to sell all that we have and 
 give the price to the poor, we ought to be able to 
 shew that we can do better not only for ourselves, 
 but for the poor also, by making some other use of 
 the money. We use money rightly when we " make 
 friends" by means of it, — that is, when we confer 
 benefits and promote unity and good feeling. A 
 man will take the true view of his possessions if he 
 says, These things belong, not to me, but to God 
 and to my brethren. The broadest statement of 
 this doctrine is that which lays down that each man 
 himself belongs to God and to his brethren ; then 
 money is one of the instruments with which he 
 works, one of the talents which he is charged to in- 
 vest. And in order to shew the Christian theory of 
 property at work in an example, the ordinary laws 
 of human life were suspended for a moment at the 
 first creation of the Church, and the newly inspired 
 believers were constrained to make an actual sur- 
 render of all claims of ownership. " The multitude 
 of them that believed were of one heart and of one 
 soul ; neither said any of them that ought of the
 
 XV.] EXPENDITURE. 
 
 20I 
 
 things which he possessed was his own ; but they 
 had all things common." 
 
 Now what are our reflections when we are 
 reminded of this teaching ?...' A system of com- 
 munism is not suited to the present condition of 
 society ; it was but a momentary phenomenon in 
 those first Pentecostal days.'... Granted. But are 
 we then to dismiss the whole teaching of Scripture 
 on this subject as unpractical, and to ground our- 
 selves in some different philosophy ? There is no 
 sufficient reason for our thus setting at nought, on 
 a point of intense and universal interest, the autho- 
 rity which we deem most sacred. It may be main- 
 tained on the contrary, that if our common notions 
 were brought more into harmony with the New 
 Testament, they would be worthier of a free and 
 civilized people, and would conduce to the unity 
 and stability of our country. 
 
 The effect of the Scriptural teaching, if it were 
 allowed to operate upon our convictions, would be 
 to alter in some degree the relative standing, to 
 our minds, of the public good and of private in- 
 terests. It would tend to elevate the former and 
 to depress the latter, and so to increase the propor- 
 tion contributed by individual possessors to the pub- 
 lic and to diminish that expended upon themselves. 
 
 It may be a surprise to some persons to hear 
 the amount of what we contribute in this country 
 towards public objects treated as inadequate. Our 
 contributions are of two kinds, compulsory and 
 voluntary, — what we pay in rates and taxes, and
 
 202 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE [SERM. 
 
 what we give in subscriptions or otherwise. We 
 are apt to think that we are heavily taxed, and 
 that we give very largely. But neither supposition 
 is right, if we compare England with other countries, 
 and if we take into account the great wealth of this 
 country. A traveller coming to our shores from 
 any other country in the world, and observing our 
 public and private expenditure, would be certain to 
 be struck by the splendour of our private displays 
 as far surpassing the beauty and perfectness of our 
 public arrangements. This metropolis of ours is a 
 marvellous city, but rather on account of the un- 
 paralleled number of rich and well-to-do people 
 who are gathered here and spend their money 
 in various ways according to their tastes, than 
 because we can be proud of it as a richly adorned 
 capital. There is much that is extremely and 
 needlessly mean in London. No one living here 
 would think of saying that Londoners or other 
 Englishmen give their minds much to making 
 London one of the noblest capitals in the world. 
 But this is what it ought to be. We have money 
 enough to make it so. This capital and our other 
 great towns ought to be enriched with every beauty 
 and comfort which can be procured for money. 
 Our rural districts, again, would make the same 
 impression upon our traveller. Our parks and 
 mansions are unequalled in the world. But almost 
 everything that strikes the observer as specially de- 
 lightful is private property. The condition of the 
 rich is all that they could desire. But in many
 
 XV.] EXPENDITURE. 
 
 parts the condition of the labouring class is com- 
 fortless and depressed to a degree which the luxu- 
 ries of private houses make only more painful. 
 To say the least, there is very little deliberate out- 
 lay in our country districts with a view to making 
 the life of the common people a happier one. But 
 something, surely, might be attempted in this direc- 
 tion, if we cared enough about it. 
 
 I am speaking of what may be called our 
 domestic public expenditure, such as is chiefly pro- 
 vided for by our rates, but partly also out of our 
 national funds, and partly from voluntary contribu- 
 tions. One of the most interesting and important 
 items in this home public expenditure is the sum 
 invested in education. We do not at present * pay 
 for education out of local rates ; the cost of it, so 
 far as it is of a public character, is provided partly 
 by an annual grant from the national funds, partly 
 from endowments, and partly from voluntary sub- 
 scriptions. In these days nations in which there is 
 much concern for the public interests spend freely 
 on education ; but in this way of spending we — to 
 our shame it must be said — are most niggardly. I 
 do not know why we should be behind any nation 
 in the world in efforts to raise the whole mass of 
 our citizens: but I am afraid to say how much 
 we are behind — say Switzerland or the United 
 States. This is not the place for details. But I 
 will take by way of illustration, and for the sake of 
 
 * This was written before the passing of the Elementary 
 Education Act.
 
 204 PUBLIC AND PRIVA TE [SERM. 
 
 comparison, one fact, which we shall most of us 
 find it very difficult to believe. In all parts of the 
 United States the people are used to being heavily 
 rated for public objects ; and perhaps there is no 
 place in that country in which there is greater con- 
 cern for the general wellbeing and for the elevation 
 of the lower classes than there is in Boston. Now 
 in Boston, as we learn from the Report of our re- 
 cent Schools Inquiry Commission, the local tax, 
 answering for the most part to our rates, is esti- 
 mated as amounting to a rate of 20 per cent, on in- 
 come, of which the School tax is generally about 
 one-third. What should we think of that ? What 
 would a family spending £$OD a year think of 
 having to pay a rate of ^20 a year towards public 
 schools ? The result of this tax is that schools 
 good enough for the children of the rich are thrown 
 open free to the poorest. The poor have the boon 
 for nothing. The richer who pay the tax, when 
 they have large families, get their money's worth in 
 the schooling. The burden falls on those who can 
 best afford to bear it. 
 
 We are apt, as I said, to think our rates already 
 heavy. In some parishes in the East of London 
 they are said to be overwhelming. Morally speak- 
 ing, rates are no doubt always heavy. But as a 
 matter of arithmetic, a rate of so much in the 
 pound means that, whilst we are spending the 
 main part of our income in private ways, we are 
 called upon to spend so much for the advantages of 
 paving and lighting and police and the like, and so
 
 XV.] EXPENDITURE. 205 
 
 much for the maintenance of the poor. Now if we 
 calculate what we get for our money, and try to 
 realize what we receive in return for the £5, or the 
 .£10, or £20, which we pay in rates, it is impossible 
 that any other things we get for the same sum 
 should appear to us so good a money's worth. 
 Such is the advantage of combination. The same 
 consideration does not apply to what is raised for 
 the maintenance of the poor. But this is not 
 really so heavy as it looks. If the ratepayer will 
 ascertain what proportion of what is called his 
 poor-rate is strictly for the poor, and then will 
 compare this with his income, he may be as un- 
 willing as ever to pay a shilling more than is 
 necessary or advisable ; but he will hardly find the 
 sum itself an overwhelming one. I should be 
 surprised to learn that there are many ratepayers 
 who in the worst times have paid as much as £2 
 per cent, of their income towards the support of 
 the poor, — as much, that is, as yVth part of what 
 the people of Boston pay for their local expenditure. 
 I am no advocate, however, for spending more 
 upon the direct relief of the poor. If it were good, 
 indeed, for the indigent themselves that they 
 should have more relief, the principles I have been 
 urging upon you would compel us to give it un- 
 grudgingly. But no one can see much of the 
 working of public charity or of any kind of alms- 
 giving, without becoming most painfully impressed 
 with the risk that there is of demoralising whole 
 classes of society by simply making it easier for
 
 2o6 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE [SERM. 
 
 them to obtain relief when they are in want. The 
 countries where there is the most liberal public 
 spirit do not spend much upon feeding the poor. 
 It is at least as important to be judicious as to be 
 liberal in giving. And there is positive evil in 
 allowing people to make themselves dependent 
 upon either public or private charity more than can 
 possibly be helped. I should be proud to see 
 larger rates willingly paid, but not for the relief of 
 the poor. They should go towards education and 
 public improvements of every kind. 
 
 Still, it will be objected, many of the rate- 
 payers are very poor, and they would be crushed 
 by any increase of the rates. That would be a 
 lamentable consequence, and is certainly one to be 
 avoided. I should only wish, when the pressure of 
 rates is spoken of, that it should be reduced to 
 arithmetic, and that it should be clearly seen what 
 proportion of income (not merely how much in the 
 pound of rent) is demanded for the numerous and 
 most important public advantages which the rates 
 provide. No rate was ever dreamt of in this 
 country but was slight in its pressure compared 
 with the cost of other necessaries required by a 
 family. Those who are crushed by the rates are 
 also crushed at the same time more effectually by 
 their butchers' or bakers' or grocers' bills. But if 
 we cannot find it in our hearts to lay more upon 
 the poorer ratepayers, there is the alternative of 
 laying it on the richer. Our economists are very 
 much afraid of propositions for taxing the rich
 
 XV.] EXPEXDITURE. 207 
 
 more heavily. They condemn most strongly the 
 policy adopted in ancient Athens, of making peo- 
 ple pay an increasing rate on a larger property, so 
 that the richer man should not only pay more, but 
 a larger proportion, than the poorer. And we owe 
 great deference to their objections. But in all free 
 states there will be and must be arrangements, 
 such as we are already in some degree familiar 
 with, to relieve the poorer citizens in some mea- 
 sure from the weight of public burdens. And it 
 seems intolerable that the expenditure of a great 
 country on important public objects should be 
 regulated by the poverty of the poor class rather 
 than by the wealth of the rich. 
 
 In the free states of antiquity the wealthy 
 citizens were made to feel, by the traditions which 
 surrounded them from their birth and by the com- 
 mon opinion of their countrymen, that their coun- 
 try had claims on them and their wealth which 
 they must seriously set themselves to discharge. 
 Although so much was exacted from them in the 
 way of taxation, — or partly, perhaps, because they 
 were taught by these demands, — they were accus- 
 tomed to vie with one another in magnificent 
 voluntary outlays for the benefit or the delight of 
 the public. Every man's " talent " was expected to 
 be at the service of his country, and the rich man's 
 talent was his wealth. Can it be said that such a 
 conviction prevails at all generally amongst our 
 rich men ? If it does not, is not this a sign of the 
 comparative weakness of the public interest when
 
 2o8 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE [SERM. 
 
 matched against the tenacity of private ownership ? 
 Very moderate subscriptions will win a man a good 
 character for charitable liberality. Class feeling 
 has considerable power in extracting large sums of 
 money, as when a man holds himself bound to 
 fisfht an election contest at an immense cost for 
 the sake of his party. But where do we discern, 
 amongst our crowds of rich people who are always 
 spending against each other and daily inventing new 
 forms of extravagance, a generous rivalry in en- 
 dowing their country with gifts of use or beauty ? 
 The spectacle of a great fortune destroyed by folly 
 and profligacy is, I am afraid, more common than 
 the devotion of equal revenues to the public ser- 
 vice. Three examples of such munificence readily 
 occur to our minds, — three when there might be 
 fifty, — the noble gifts of Miss Burdett-Coutts, Mr 
 Peabody, and Mr Whitworth ; and of these three 
 one is an American. Let us not withhold from 
 them the honour which is the more due to these 
 individual benefactors because they are so few. But 
 it would be well at the same time if we could 
 diffuse the impression that these few millionnaires 
 are only doing what hundreds more ought to do. 
 We ought not to worship money with too profound 
 a reverence even in its best form of liberal gifts. 
 It would be useful, I believe, to put into circulation 
 a demand that the wealth which the country has in 
 fact given to the rich should be in part returned by 
 them to the country in well-chosen schemes of 
 munificence, and a grave social condemnation of
 
 xv.] EXPENDITURE. 209 
 
 those who glory in their riches as though they had 
 not received them. And this is my justification 
 for speaking to a Whitechapel congregation of the 
 duty of great proprietors. 
 
 I am unwilling to believe that there is any 
 decay of essential public spirit in the minds of 
 Englishmen. It would be grievous to be driven to 
 the conclusion that we of the present age, who have 
 inherited a greater accumulation of treasures, care 
 less than our fathers did for this England of noble 
 memories, and are more inclined to grudge to our 
 country the devotion of our individual selves. If 
 our public spirit seems inactive, let us say hopefully, 
 It is not dead but sleepeth. If a great crisis were 
 to come, to die for his country would still be held 
 to be the plain duty of every citizen. But we are 
 called upon now, I venture to urge, not to die for 
 our country, but to do the harder thing — to live for 
 it. And as to live is in great part to spend, I com- 
 mend to you the duty and discipline of spending 
 on the public interests. There is a great strain and 
 pressure of political teaching in the opposite direc- 
 tion. To keep down the rates, which may mean 
 one of two things, — either to prevent extravagance 
 and waste, a most laudable object, or to cause that 
 the inhabitants shall spend less on public improve- 
 ments and the poor, that they may have more to 
 spend upon themselves and their families, — is re- 
 garded without discrimination as an unqualified 
 virtue. It is proclaimed that Parliament ought to 
 cut down the public revenue, and then tell the 
 D. S. 14
 
 2 io PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EXPENDITURE, [xv. 
 
 Government that they must do as well as they can 
 with what remains. Encouragement is given to the 
 notion that education must be left to be starved 
 in the poorer districts by the method of voluntary 
 subscriptions. There seems to me to be a different 
 ideal of public policy, — not to repel every higher 
 interest and pride of the members of the common- 
 wealth from public action, not to regard the coun- 
 try as having its being mainly in order that indivi- 
 duals may grow rich and enjoy themselves, not to 
 labour that the expenditure supplied by taxes and 
 rates shall be limited to the barest necessities of 
 national existence, and shall cover nothing splen- 
 did, nothing fruitful of popular happiness and well- 
 being, — but to aim sedulously at making our coun- 
 try one of which we and our children may be 
 prouder, to give heart and mind to the devising of 
 public improvements and to grudge no money that 
 may be needed to carry them out, to call upon and 
 to train our population to bear as cheerfully as 
 other free nations have done the burdens of a noble 
 State.
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION*. 
 
 Micah vi. 8. — "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; 
 and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and 
 to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" 
 
 THE subject on which I am about to speak to you 
 this morning, my brethren, is that which is well 
 known to have become the leading- political ques- 
 tion of the day, and which promises to occupy the 
 public mind in an engrossing manner for some time 
 to come. You will understand that I refer to the 
 Irish Church question. 
 
 I make no apology for referring to politics in 
 the pulpit. I believe, indeed, that it is not often 
 expedient to give up a sermon entirely to a politi- 
 cal topic. A preacher who considers the wants of 
 the whole congregation finds himself constrained 
 for the most part to keep to Bible texts, and to the 
 great sacred subjects which concern all men and 
 women, and which have power to interest them 
 most profoundly. But it is on every ground right 
 and good — it is good for us as Christians, good for 
 us as citizens — to connect together our politics and 
 
 This Sermon was preached before the General Election by 
 which the question of the Irish Church Establishment was decided. 
 
 14 — 2
 
 212 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. [SERM. 
 
 our devotions ; and there are occasions on which 
 the politics of the time claim more than a passing 
 allusion in the exhortations of the preacher. When 
 the whole country is called upon to choose a par- 
 ticular policy, and a public opinion of all classes is 
 to be formed, we may expect that the political 
 question will commend itself to the congregation 
 generally as both important enough and interesting 
 enough to be made the subject of a sermon. And 
 this is now the case with regard to the legislation 
 to be adopted in the matter of the Irish branch of 
 our Church. 
 
 My purpose is not, I can confidently say, to 
 urge my own opinions upon your acceptance. Nor 
 is it primarily to give such suggestions as may lead 
 to the formation of a right opinion. I write and 
 speak, as you will believe, in the seriousness 
 impressed, on me by a twofold responsibility. I re- 
 member first the obligations which rest upon one 
 who speaks in so sacred a place and so sacred an 
 atmosphere. And I remember also that I speak to 
 persons who have formed, it may be with strong 
 conviction, different opinions ; and who, as they are 
 constrained to listen with respectful silence to what 
 is preached here, may certainly claim that the pul- 
 pit of our English Church should not be used for 
 the purposes of partisanship. What may be done 
 with advantage here, and what I aim at, is this, to 
 bring our views and our reasons into the highest 
 light. Every one knows that, on all sides, many 
 less worthy impulses mix with the prosecution of
 
 xvi.] THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. 213 
 
 political objects. There is a spirit of party, there 
 are rough and stubborn prejudices, — not to speak 
 of baser alloys, — from which it is idle to expect any 
 political movement to be exempt. Here in the 
 Church, as in our closets, the question to ask our- 
 selves is not, What do we like ? nor, What does 
 party allegiance demand ? but, What is right in the 
 sight of God ? What is the policy most becoming 
 to students of the Scriptures and to disciples of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ ? Here I may beg you, whatever 
 your opinions may be, to consider what objects per- 
 sons of all opinions ought to regard as paramount, 
 and what principles all must be careful not to violate. 
 
 That the country should come to the right con- 
 clusion upon any controverted question is the point 
 of most obvious practical importance ; but it is a 
 matter of scarcely secondary consideration that the 
 contest should be carried on with a constant refer- 
 ence to high principles. And this is especially to 
 be thought of when the question, like that now 
 before us, is one which involves the interests of reli- 
 gion and of the Church. To neglect and surrender 
 high interests, out of carelessness or worldliness, is 
 a bad thing ; but to support a sacred cause in a 
 spirit of blind and factious partisanship is perhaps 
 a worse thing. 
 
 Within the last few months, then, we have been 
 brought face to face with a problem which has 
 loomed distantly for some time. What the exi- 
 gencies of political warfare may have had to do 
 with forcing on the issue, is a matter which does
 
 2 14 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. [SERM. 
 
 not concern us here. The question is grave enough 
 to demand to be settled on its own merits. What 
 we perceive is, that it has been resolved by one of 
 the great parties in the State, with the support of 
 a majority of the House of Commons, to put an 
 end to the political ascendancy of the Church now 
 established in Ireland, in the name of justice to the 
 Roman Catholic population, and in order to re- 
 move one of the causes of the disaffection which 
 unhappily prevails in that country. On the other 
 side, an appeal is made to the constituencies to 
 maintain the existing status of that Church. 
 
 The Protestant Church in Ireland is a part of 
 our own Church. When we look at the title-page 
 of our Prayer-book, we find that our worship is 
 arranged "according to the use of the United Church 
 of England and Ireland." So far as doctrine and 
 discipline .and government are concerned, the 
 Church in Ireland stands on exactly the same 
 footing as the Church in England. If we were to 
 go into any part of Ireland, we should find our- 
 selves in a parish like an English parish, with a 
 clergyman ordained like an English clergyman, 
 under a Bishop appointed by the Sovereign as in 
 England, and with all our Anglican services per- 
 formed in the Church. An attack on the Church 
 in Ireland is therefore an attack on a member of 
 our own body. We may justly be called upon 
 to sympathise with our fellow-believers and fellow- 
 Churchmen in Ireland when they are in any adver- 
 sity. We may be justly asked to consider whether
 
 XVI.] THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. 215 
 
 it is honourable, and whether it is for our own 
 safety, to surrender an outpost because it is weak 
 and surrounded by enemies. 
 
 There are many personal ties by which the 
 Church in Ireland is linked to the Church in Engr- 
 land. People move from Ireland to England, from 
 England to Ireland, and have been accustomed to 
 find themselves surrounded by the same Church 
 system. Families live partly on this side of St 
 George's Channel, partly on the other. An Eng- 
 lish clergyman of distinction becomes an Irish 
 prelate ; an Irish clergyman becomes an eminent 
 English preacher. Are all these living ties, it is 
 asked, to be ruptured ? 
 
 Another strong bond of sympathy unites the 
 great majority of English Church-people to their 
 Irish brethren. We most of us live in great fear 
 and horror of Romanism ; and Irish Protestantism 
 is an encampment in the midst of Romanism. Ire- 
 land is substantially a Roman Catholic country, 
 and its religion is of an excessively Roman or Ul- 
 tramontane character. Naturally, this religion is 
 not very favourable to loyalty ; and it is notorious 
 that there is a strong tendency to disaffection run- 
 ning through the Irish Roman Catholic population. 
 Can we have the heart to take away a single privi- 
 lege from our loyal fellow-Protestants thus belea- 
 guered by Popery and disaffection ? 
 
 Such appeals cannot fail to have influence, and 
 surely ought not to be without influence, on right- 
 thinking and right-feeling persons.
 
 2i6 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. [serm. 
 
 On the other hand, we are reminded that we 
 are not only members of the English Church, but 
 also citizens of the British Empire. And it is in 
 the latter character that we are now called upon to 
 deliberate and to act. The question is not with 
 what feelings English Churchmen ought to regard 
 their Irish brethren, but what policy the Govern- 
 ment of Great Britain ought to pursue towards 
 Ireland. In a free country like this, we, the popu- 
 lation generally, through public opinion and our 
 representative institutions, determine the action of 
 the Government. We cannot therefore put off our 
 responsibility, and say we will have nothing to do 
 with public policy. God and our country have 
 charged us with a greater or less burden of respon- 
 sibility. Still less is it open to us to express an 
 opinion, and to vote, and so practically to take a 
 part in the government of the Empire, and yet to 
 plead that we act only as sympathising fellow- 
 Churchmen and fellow-Protestants, and take no 
 account of the public interests and of the claims of 
 fellow-subjects whose creed is not the same as ours. 
 
 As citizens of the British Empire, then, (it is 
 said,) we are responsible in our degree for the just 
 and good government of every part of the Empire. 
 Past history has made the British Crown supreme 
 over populations of various races and beliefs. We 
 govern in India, for example, vast multitudes of 
 Mussulmans and Hindoos. We have Roman Ca- 
 tholic fellow-subjects, and Presbyterian fellow- 
 subjects. The governing class in this great Em-
 
 XVI.] THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. 217 
 
 pire still belongs predominantly to the English 
 Church ; but no one who is not totally ignorant 
 of history and politics supposes that it is possible 
 in the government of the Empire simply to carry 
 out our own religious prepossessions, and to take 
 no account of the faiths of our fellow-subjects. 
 We are compelled to remember — even if every 
 just and sensible man did not willingly remem- 
 ber — that the natives of India are Hindoos and 
 Mussulmans, that the Scotch are Presbyterians, 
 that the Maltese are Roman Catholics. It is no 
 easy matter — this every one will allow— to govern 
 wisely and well such a complex Empire as ours. 
 It is impossible to enforce one system of organiza- 
 tion through the whole. But we or our ancestors 
 have chosen to have such an Empire ; so far as we 
 ourselves at this moment are concerned, Divine 
 Providence assigns it to us, with the responsibility 
 of doine our best for it. The more troublesome 
 and perplexing the government of it is, the more 
 evidently is it necessary not to impose the same 
 constitution, civil or ecclesiastical, upon every part 
 of it, but to consider anxiously and with docility 
 what justice and good policy in each particular 
 case may prescribe. There may easily be differences 
 of opinion as to what is just or politic; there can 
 be but one opinion that we ought to try to find out 
 and to do what is just and politic with reference to 
 the circumstances of each part of the Empire. 
 
 In any new case, we are able to see tolerably 
 alike. I have alluded to Malta. That is a small
 
 218 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. [SERM. 
 
 island, of which England has become possessed, 
 containing a bigoted, and not, I believe, particularly 
 well-affected, Roman Catholic population. We 
 occupy Malta with a strong garrison, civil as well 
 as military. We carry our own religion with us. We 
 have there churches and clergymen, and occasion- 
 ally a Bishop. But no one proposes that the whole 
 island should be cut up into parishes, and that an 
 Anglican ecclesiastical establishment sufficient to 
 supply the native population, if they would use it, 
 should be planted there. Every one feels that the 
 religion of the natives must be respected, and that 
 it would be both unjust and impolitic for the British 
 Government to ignore it. 
 
 Now in Ireland — so it is urged by those who 
 are promoting a change of policy in that country — ■ 
 the native population is in the main Roman Ca- 
 tholic. If English and Scotch settlers, and their 
 descendants, were excepted, there would be few 
 Protestants in Ireland. The adherents of the 
 Church of England form a small minority — fewer, 
 I think, than one in seven — of the population. 
 But the Anglican Establishment is arranged on a 
 scale which assumes that the whole country comes 
 under its care. There are twelve Bishops for a 
 population less than that of one of our larger 
 English dioceses. There are parishes in which 
 there are hardly any Protestants except the clergy- 
 man and his family. The State provides religious 
 instruction and the means of worship for the Irish 
 people; but they are of a kind which the Irish peo-
 
 XVI.] THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. 219 
 
 pie — that is to say, both the immense numerical 
 majority and those who are most properly Irish — ■ 
 reject with deep-rooted aversion. It happens also 
 that those who accept the State provision are the 
 wealthier portion of the community, those who 
 reject it the poorer. The rich and partly alien 
 minority are endowed by State bounty, the poor 
 native population have to support their own religion 
 out of their private resources. 
 
 These are undisputed statements, and the state 
 of things which they describe is so admittedly 
 unsatisfactory that the most enthusiastic defenders 
 of the Irish Establishment generally allow that if 
 we were beginning with Ireland now it would not 
 be reasonable to institute the existing Church sys- 
 tem there. It is a different thing, they say, to cause 
 a great social disturbance for the sake of remedying 
 a disproportion. This plea is sure to have consider- 
 able weight in this country. We are so used to 
 disproportions and we so often find incidental ad- 
 vantages attached to them, that we almost take a 
 national pride in anomalies. But in Ireland the 
 Church Establishment is not merely a statistical 
 anomaly. There is an antipathy of the strongest 
 kind between Irish Protestantism and Irish Popery. 
 The Establishment is associated in the minds of 
 the people with an ascendancy against which they 
 had formerly good reason to cherish resentment. 
 The oppression exercised by the English Govern- 
 ment towards the native Irish, and often in main- 
 taining the claims of the Anglican Church, was for
 
 220 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. [SERM, 
 
 many generations so steady and relentless, that it 
 might well awaken a desire in the children of the 
 oppressors to make some reparation to the children 
 of the oppressed. Happily, positive oppression has 
 now ceased, and no one wishes to see it renewed. 
 Happily also, there is a general testimony to the 
 respectability and kindly feeling and social useful- 
 ness of the Protestant clergy. But there remains 
 this Establishment, built upon the assumption that 
 Ireland was and should be made to be a Protestant 
 country — an assumption to which facts offer as 
 obstinate a denial as ever. Would it not be the 
 next natural step in the policy of equal justice and 
 conciliation, to withdraw the unsupported preten- 
 sions of our English religion, and to pay the 
 homage of public and respectful recognition to 
 the religion which the Irish themselves love? 
 
 Suppose that we, any of us, were acting on 
 behalf of the legislature of this country, and were 
 dealing face to face with representatives of Irish 
 Roman Catholics: suppose that, in the better spirit 
 of modern government, we wished to make friends 
 with them, and to justify our policy in their eyes; 
 suppose that we expostulated with them, and said: 
 "Why do you continue to be disaffected to the Im- 
 perial rule, and to regard your connexion with 
 England as a misfortune? We wish to act justly 
 by you, and we have the power to confer great 
 benefits upon you; the union between England and 
 Ireland is not to be kept up for the sake of England 
 only; why should you not join yourselves to us as
 
 XVI.] THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTIOX. 221 
 
 heartily as the inhabitants of Scotland have done?" 
 — and suppose that they replied: "It is not very 
 easy to get over our old grudge ; there are some 
 things in your policy still which do not suit us; for 
 example, we feel aggrieved by the fact that a 
 Church Establishment is kept up for the benefit of 
 the few and the strong, and that the State delibe- 
 rately shuts its eyes to our religion." How should 
 we feel? Could we give them an answer which we 
 are sure in our consciences ought to satisfy them? 
 I do not say that any obligation lies upon us to 
 give to the Irish what they would like to have. 
 That is not the point. The question is whether we 
 could give them such an account of the Protestant 
 Establishment, — not as would satisfy them, — but 
 as we think, if they were reasonable men, ought to 
 satisfy them. 
 
 Nor do I assert that such an account could not 
 be given them. But I do urge that this is a 
 responsibility which we are bound to recognize; 
 the responsibility of dealing in a fair and reasonable 
 and conciliatory spirit with the Roman Catholics 
 who constitute the bulk of the Irish population. 
 Whatever conclusion we may arrive at, no one is 
 warranted in putting out of his thoughts this consi- 
 deration — What does justice to our Roman Catho- 
 lic fellow-subjects require at our hands? 
 
 There is always a danger that the claims of 
 religion may be set against the claims of justice. In 
 the present case, sympathy with members of the 
 same Church may seem to make our duty and
 
 222 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. [SERM. 
 
 honour consist in coming to their aid, and guarding 
 them from any humiliation and injury with which 
 they may be threatened. And on the other hand, 
 some may feel that if they could forget that they 
 are members of the reformed Church of England 
 and Ireland, and remember only that they are 
 citizens of the British Empire, a sense of equity 
 might induce them to be tender towards the self- 
 respect of their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects. 
 Now when religion and justice seem to come into 
 competition, what is our duty? I answer ear- 
 nestly and without hesitation : We ought always to 
 lean to the side of justice. There are two simple 
 reasons for thus deciding. One is, that it is a 
 constant and deadly temptation to religious persons 
 to be indifferent to mere secular justice. Another 
 is, that according to all Bible teaching we please 
 God better by being righteous or equitable, and 
 respectful to the consciences of our fellow-men, than 
 by any strictly religious services. The prophets 
 are full of testimonies to this effect. Men thought 
 to please God by sacrifices, by fastings, by obser- 
 vance of days — in a word, by religion. They were 
 told that these -things, offered by men who did not 
 seek to be righteous, were actually an abomination 
 to the Lord. The voice of the prophets is summed 
 up in these words: "Wherewith shall I come before 
 the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? 
 Shall I come before him with burnt-offerin<js, with 
 calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased 
 with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of
 
 XVI.] THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. 223 
 
 rivers of oil?... He hath shewed thee, man, what 
 is good : and what doth the Lord require of thee, 
 but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk 
 humbly with thy God?" In the New Testament, 
 the whole life of Christ teaches the same truth even 
 more powerfully than his words. He took the 
 side of the irreligious, because they were poor and 
 scorned and oppressed, against the religious, be- 
 cause they were hard and haughty. If we follow 
 Christ, we must confess that to be just and merciful 
 and humble is a better thing than to be scrupulous 
 in our creed and in our acts of worship. First the 
 former, and then the latter; first righteousness, then 
 religion. "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and 
 there rememberest that thy brother hath ought 
 against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, 
 and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, 
 and then come and offer thy gift." 
 
 This sacred duty, of earnestly seeking to do 
 justly, is what I principally desire, dear brethren, 
 to commend to you this morning. This is the 
 lesson which more than any other seems to belong 
 to the subject which we have been considering. 
 My own opinion on the political question, as you 
 would infer it to some extent from what I have 
 said, it may be convenient to state explicitly. If 
 I give it frankly, I hope it is with sincere respect 
 for those who may differ from me, and without any 
 desire to take an advantage of them. To me it 
 does not seem compatible with an equitable and 
 considerate policy towards Ireland, that the Esta-
 
 224 THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. [SERM. 
 
 blished Church should retain its present ascendancy- 
 there. If we sympathise, as we ought to do, with 
 our Irish fellow-Churchmen, it must indeed be 
 painful to us to take away their privileges, and to 
 inflict on them what must look like a humiliation 
 before their opponents and before the world. But 
 our sympathies are not due to our co-religionists 
 alone. And to perform an act of reparation is 
 never really a humiliation. It will be good for 
 our religion in the long run that we should endea- 
 vour at any sacrifice "to do justly, and to love 
 mercy, and to walk humbly with God." 
 
 There are more ways than one in which we 
 might attempt to carry out a fair and conciliatory 
 policy towards the native Irish. The plan which 
 has for the present gained the support of the 
 House of Commons is that of disestablishing- the 
 Anglican Church, and disendowing religion gene- 
 rally in Ireland. I should much prefer that a differ- 
 ent plan should be tried. I differ entirely from 
 those who think it is a good thing in itself that all 
 bonds between the State and religion should as far 
 as possible be severed. I am convinced on the 
 contrary that it is good for the State and for 
 religion that the Government and the religion of a 
 country should be united by as many ties as pos- 
 sible. Personally, therefore, I go with those who 
 would have endeavoured to arrange that, instead 
 of ^establishment, there should be more esta- 
 blishment, and that the Imperial Government should 
 enter into just and reasonable relations with Reman
 
 XVI.] THE IRISH CHURCH QUESTION. 225 
 
 Catholics as well as Protestants, with Presbyterians 
 as well as Anglicans. 
 
 But I repeat once more, in conclusion, that my 
 purpose this morning is not to advocate an opinion. 
 It is to set before you the great divine principle of 
 righteousness or equity. In private and in public 
 dealings, let us labour earnestly to be just towards 
 all men. Perhaps in this matter our private is a 
 little in advance of our public morality. We 
 should all feel it to be a shame to take advantage 
 of position to be hard upon a weaker person. Let 
 us remember that a strong class ought equally to 
 "be ashamed of being hard upon a weaker class or 
 a weaker race. We count it a credit to acknow- 
 ledge a wrong and to make reparation if we have 
 injured an individual. Let us remember that a 
 nation may seek and may gain honour by the same 
 magnanimity. If we love our country, if we love 
 our Church, let us do our part that both may have 
 the greatness of acting in the generous self-denying 
 spirit of Christ ; let us exercise ourselves that both 
 in Church and in State we may " do justly, and 
 love mercy, and walk humbly with our God." 
 
 D. s. 15
 
 THE MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 THE EUCHARIST.* 
 
 In a recent volume of Essays, written to illus- 
 trate the political doctrines of the French philo- 
 sopher M. Comte, one of the writers expresses his 
 anticipation of the approaching downfall of Chris- 
 tianity in the following words : " Whatever a clergy 
 may think, no religious organization can long hold 
 its ground in popular esteem when confronted by a 
 loftier morality than its ownt." It is the Christian 
 morality that is the less lofty. If it were only 
 urged that the morality which it is the business of 
 the clergy to teach is in some points defective or 
 eccentric, such an opinion would not be unprece- 
 dented. But it is a new thing that the Christian 
 Faith should be condemned on account of the 
 lower tone of its morality,— that the advocates of 
 a system which claims to be absolutely universal, 
 and which absolutely excludes and suppresses all 
 belief in anything more Divine than the human 
 race, should disdain to use the common language 
 of unbelief, and instead of saying, " The Christian 
 
 # 
 
 This and the two following Sermons were preached before 
 the University of Cambridge. 
 
 t Essays on International Policy, pp. 220, 221.
 
 DISC. I.] THE EUCHARIST. 227 
 
 morality is beautiful and will live, but the Christian 
 dogmas are contrary to reason and must perish," 
 should confront Christianity with the boast, " The 
 higher morality must prevail, and therefore the 
 Christian Church is doomed." It is superfluous to 
 repudiate in the name of the clergy the imputation 
 that they are conscious of the inferiority of the 
 Christian morality, and are depending upon some 
 other force for the support of their creed. But it is 
 awakening and useful to know that taunts like 
 these have been addressed to us, and that Chris- 
 tians are challenged to let their faith be tried by 
 the excellence of its proper morality. 
 
 It is a more familiar and less startling assertion, 
 that the Christian morality is not so vitally at- 
 tached to the Christian creed that, if the creed is 
 abandoned, the morality must wither. We may 
 often see it earnestly and scientifically maintained, 
 that an ethical system practically identical with the 
 Christian law of duty may be based upon the 
 experience of what promotes the happiness of man- 
 kind, and that the sense of what is good for man- 
 kind will be found an adequate motive without any 
 other for the observance of this system. 
 
 At the same time that systems of morality are 
 thus offered to us, which own no allegiance what- 
 ever to a belief in Christ or in God, and which 
 profess to be either loftier in tone or in more exact 
 accordance with facts than Christian morality, 
 there is a well-known tendency now prevailing to 
 cultivate in the Church a religion more mystical, 
 
 15—2
 
 228 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [disc. 
 
 making its appeal more exclusively to the peculiar 
 religious and devotional instincts, and in this sense 
 less moral, less rational, than our English religion 
 has commonly professed to be. 
 
 To all who feel the gravity of the divorce so 
 threatened from both sides between devotional 
 religion and every-day morality, — to those especi- 
 ally who retain the old Christian and English 
 persuasion, that our faith in Christ is still the 
 deepest and surest basis of a universal morality, 
 and that a religion which does not willingly accept 
 the moral life of men in general as its proper 
 sphere and criterion is likely to become a supersti- 
 tion, with all the baneful influences which supersti- 
 tion has proved itself powerful to exert, — I venture 
 to commend the subject on which I am about to 
 enter in these discourses. I ask you to reflect upon 
 the moral aspects of the Sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper. In that Sacrament we have a rite which 
 contains by universal agreement the very heart of 
 our ritual religion. It is our most honoured ordi- 
 nance ; it holds the key of all our secrets. It is 
 the crowning act of our worship throughout Chris- 
 tendom, everywhere performed with most reverence, 
 looked forward to with most awe, wearing to the 
 common mind the most sacred investiture of asso- 
 ciations. Those who are now seeking to revive 
 amongst us a disused policy of working upon the 
 relieious affections make it their chief aim to 
 heighten the mystery and solemnity of this rite. 
 Let us inquire then what natural connexions there
 
 I.] THE EUCHARIST. 229 
 
 arc between this the most religious act of our 
 religion and the principles of universal human life. 
 And let us be guided in our inquiry by three 
 names applied to this Sacrament, Eucharist, Sacri- 
 fice, and Communion. 
 
 The first of these names, the Eucharist, a name 
 scarcely familiar to the childhood of the present 
 generation, has been brought into use of late years 
 by those who have desired that this Sacrament 
 should be regarded with a deeper awe. It is a 
 venerable ecclesiastical name ; but, if its signifi- 
 cance be considered, it is one which might be 
 accepted without distaste by the most ultra-Pro- 
 testant. What Christian is there, even amongst 
 Puritans or Rationalists, who would not gladly 
 call the celebration of the Lord's Supper an act 
 of Thanksgiving ? In its most unmystical cha- 
 racter as a bare commemoration, this Sacrament 
 cannot be anything less than our great Thanks- 
 eivine Service. But those to whom the Sacra- 
 ment is mystical and awful are not inconsistent in 
 bearing witness that the highest possible act of 
 human worship is well designated a Thanksgiving. 
 They are not betraying their principle when they 
 delight to call our participation in the Body and 
 Blood of Christ the Holy Thanksgiving. They 
 may be understood to affirm in this way that in 
 Christian thankfulness there is a mystery which 
 passes all understanding. And assuredly, whether 
 the most sacred language of the Communion 
 Office be considered, or the doctrine of the Apo-
 
 230 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 sties as to the inner nature of the Christian life, 
 the name of the Eucharist will commend itself as 
 one of peculiar dignity and significance. 
 
 Can any one who thinks what words mean read 
 without wonder that saying of St Paul's, " Giving 
 thanks always for all things unto God and the 
 Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ"? 
 He has been speaking of the high privileges of 
 Christians, bidding his readers think of themselves 
 as God's beloved children and as enlightened with 
 the Divine light of Christ, and he claims that their 
 life should be a life of joy, of inspiration, of thank- 
 fulness. " Be filled with the Spirit ; speaking to 
 yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual 
 songs, singing and making melody in your heart 
 to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things 
 unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." Other and various affections will be 
 excited by varying circumstances; but throughout 
 all circumstances alike the basis of the Christian 
 life should be eucharistical. To what a depth in the 
 human heart must the spirit of thankfulness reach, 
 to make such a condition possible ! The writings 
 of St Paul are everywhere full of evidences that 
 he, for one, recognized the law of abiding thank- 
 fulness as practically binding upon himself and his 
 fellow-Christians. Thus he says to the Thessa- 
 lonians, " Rejoice evermore : pray without ceasing : 
 in cvcrytJiing give thanks ; for this is the will of 
 God in Christ Jesus concerning you." And there 
 is a remarkable passage (2 Cor. viii. ix.) in which
 
 I.] THE EUCHARIST. 231 
 
 St Paul lingers over the double subject of grace 
 and gratitude, ringing changes in his characteristic 
 manner upon the word %«pt? in its various senses 
 of favour, bounty, and thankfulness, and winds up 
 with what may possibly be a primitive liturgical 
 formula, " Thanks be to God for his unspeakable 
 gift!" — an utterance not the less impressive as a 
 testimony to the law of thankfulness, because it is 
 uncertain whether by that gift we are to under- 
 stand God's grace, or the Gospel, or the Saviour 
 himself, the Son whom the Father gave for the 
 redemption of mankind. 
 
 In the Holy Eucharist this principle of thank- 
 fulness has had from the first its peculiar witness 
 and expression. The Jewish Passover to which it 
 succeeded was itself a Eucharist. When Jesus kept 
 it for the last time with his disciples, he gave 
 thanks, or blessed, before the distribution of the 
 bread, and again before the giving of the cup. In 
 so doing he was observing the common custom, 
 according to which the Paschal feast was celebrated 
 with the chanting of the special Eucharistic Psalms, 
 and every act of it accompanied by some formula 
 of thanksgiving. The thankfulness of the Paschal 
 feast was handed on to the Lord's Supper of the 
 Christian Church, only gaining depth and intensity 
 from the new occasions of thankfulness which were 
 found in the broken Body and the poured-out 
 Blood. The Christians delighted to call their most 
 solemn rite the ^v-^apiaria or the KvXoyia, the 
 Thanksgiving, or the Blessing. These titles were
 
 232 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [disc. 
 
 \ . i 
 
 not regarded as accidental names, but as giving 
 welcome expression to the true significance and 
 spirit of the ordinance. Thus St Chrysostom, 
 whilst he speaks of the sacramental celebrations as 
 "awful mysteries, fraught with much salvation," 
 explains that the service is called " the Thanks- 
 giving, because it is a remembrance of many bene- 
 fits, and shews forth the crowning act of God's 
 regard, and prepares us to be perpetually thank- 
 ful*." In exact harmony with these words is the 
 Exhortation addressed by the Priest in our English 
 office to those who are about to communicate. 
 yi Above all things" he is bidden to say, "ye must 
 give most humble and hearty thanks to God." 
 " To the end that we should alway remember the 
 exceeding great love of our Master and only 
 Saviour Jesus Christ thus dying for us, and the 
 innumerable benefits which by his precious blood- 
 shedding he hath obtained to us ; he hath instituted 
 and ordained holy mysteries, as pledges of his love, 
 and for a continual remembrance of his death, to 
 our great and endless comfort. To him therefore, 
 with the Father and the Holy Ghost, let us give, as 
 we are most bounden, continual thanks." And, as 
 the service proceeds, it is evidently the chief aim of 
 the forms of this office to animate to the very ut- 
 most the Eucharistical spirit. The redeeming love 
 of the Father, the tenderness of Christ, the assured 
 forgiveness of God, are declared in comfortable 
 words ; the duty and reasonableness of being 
 
 * Chrysostom, Horn, in Matth. XXV. (Matth. vii. 28).
 
 I-] THE EUCHARIST. 233 
 
 thankful are urged; and the worshippers are drawn 
 on by the inspiring contagion of example and voice, 
 and as it were compelled to give thanks. The Priest 
 says " Lift up your hearts," and the people answer 
 "We lift them up unto the Lord;" again he calls 
 on them, " Let us give thanks unto our Lord God," 
 and again they assent, "It is meet and right so to 
 do;" and then he turns to the Lord's table, and 
 speaking to God in the name of the people con- 
 fesses, "It is very meet, right, and our bounden 
 duty, that we should at all times and in all places 
 give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father, 
 Almighty, Everlasting God ;" and so begins to 
 lead that greatest choral thanksgiving of the Uni- 
 versal Church, " Therefore with angels and arch- 
 angels, and with all the company of heaven, we 
 laud and magnify thy glorious name ; evermore 
 praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord 
 God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy 
 glory : Glory be to thee, O Lord most high." 
 When the Bread is given, and again when the Cup 
 is given, the communicant is bidden to be thankful; 
 the Prayer which follows the reception, in either of 
 its alternative forms, begins with thanksgiving, and 
 the office concludes with the Gloria in cxcclsis, in 
 which the Eucharistical spirit seems to strive with 
 the inadequacy of human words in the utterance of 
 gratitude and praise. 
 
 Whilst we observe so manifest a desire to make 
 the Holy Eucharist really a Eucharist, we see also 
 that the office itself repeatedly declares that the
 
 234 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUFFER. [DISC. 
 
 thankfulness of the Christian cannot be limited to 
 a service, but must be diffused through the whole 
 life. At all times and in all places it is our duty 
 to give thanks. The Eucharist bears witness to 
 this duty in its fulness. The benefits for which we 
 give thanks are not temporary or local. He whom 
 we thank is one to whom we may have access 
 whenever and wherever we will. Our gratitude to 
 God rests upon a sense of his goodness to us, join- 
 ed with the consciousness of our own unworthiness. 
 God is good to us: but how good is he ? The Holy 
 Eucharist replies, that God so loved us as to give 
 his Son in our flesh and blood to die for us, and 
 this, whilst we were yet sinners. No other account 
 of God's love can equal this measure of it ; and the 
 Sacrament of the Eucharist helps us against our 
 own carelessness and forgetfulness to realize it. 
 But if we ask, WJien is God good to us ? — the 
 Eucharistic answer is, Always. He to whom we 
 give thanks for the gift of his Son is the Eternal 
 Maker, the Ruler of the world and of our destinies. 
 We are his creatures ; we can assert no indepen- 
 dence in his sight. " What hast thou which thou 
 didst not receive?" The relation between God 
 and men revealed to us in Christ, — that spiritual 
 sonship to which we cannot be conformed without 
 spiritual discipline, — enables us to understand how 
 God, the giver of all pleasant things, may be still 
 good in withholding or taking away pleasant 
 things. And thus the true disciple of the Eucha- 
 rist learns a thankfulness which confesses God's
 
 I.] THE EUCHARIST. 235 
 
 greatest benefit only that it may recognize all 
 things as benefits. Contemplating the glory of the 
 Cross, he beholds a glory of which heaven and earth 
 are full. Thankfulness for Christ is as a reservoir 
 from which all the fields of human life are watered. 
 
 Has thankfulness to God, supposing that it 
 thus belongs to the atmosphere of the Lord's 
 Supper, any moral value in human life ? 
 
 I do not ask the question merely for the pur- 
 poses of controversy. At the same time let it be 
 remembered that those who frame any complete 
 scheme of duty or morality without taking account 
 of God have no place for this thankfulness in their 
 estimate of moral forces. But those who affirm 
 most strongly our dependence upon God may find 
 benefit, I hope, from a recollection of some of the 
 salutary influences which human life owes to the 
 spirit of thankfulness. 
 
 1. Let me name first the power of thankful- 
 ness to make the thankful person liappy. Thank- 
 fulness is inseparably associated with joy ; all the 
 terms of gladness and delight lend themselves 
 naturally to thanksgiving. "O praise the Lord; 
 for it is a good thing to sing praises unto our God, 
 yea, a joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thank- 
 ful." This is a truth of nature, capable of infinite 
 illustration, but so certainly commending itself as 
 to need none. What I would especially ask you 
 to think of is the immense power which belongs to 
 thankfulness, as the true "spirit of delight," if only 
 it become deep and earnest enough, to diffuse and
 
 236 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 secure happiness amongst men. Make all men 
 thankful, and you have made the world a happy- 
 world. The gratitude which is occasional and 
 temporary will easily evaporate indeed in superfi- 
 cial emotions. But imagine such thankfulness as 
 St Paul believed in, and such as the Eucharist 
 hallows, to be lodged in a man's heart ; who can 
 doubt the power of it ? The only question must be 
 whether to a man with open eyes such a thankful- 
 ness is possible ; and I do not speak without 
 remembering how much there is to persuade us 
 that it is only a dream. No doubt the perfect 
 Christian thankfulness is ideal, and has never been 
 more than imperfectly realized ; but it has surely 
 proved itself in the experience of the truest and 
 best of men, and daily proves itself, to be no mere 
 fiction of an excited brain. Men have given God 
 thanks with a sincere inward joy out of fires and 
 dungeons of tribulation. We cannot doubt "that 
 some have striven Achieving calm, to whom was 
 given The joy that mixes man with heaven :" and 
 we may claim to be reasonable and practical, when 
 we recognize in thankfulness, according to its 
 depth and intensity, a power to make men happy 
 with a happiness which has no drawback. Who 
 can point to a higher or sweeter or more enviable 
 bliss than that which may be seen to radiate from 
 the face of a sufferer, who has learnt to trust in 
 God's love with an unreserved faith and to give 
 thanks even for afflictions ? 
 
 2. Thankfulness to God is also a genial,
 
 I.] THE EUCHARIST. 237 
 
 kindly, social feeling. There is indeed a bastard 
 thankfulness which tends to isolation and selfish- 
 ness, that of the Pharisee who said with himself, 
 "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are." 
 But the fault of this is simply that it is not thank- 
 fulness. It is self-complacency, borrowing the mere 
 form and phrase of thanksgiving. True thank- 
 fulness is sure to postpone and depreciate self; and 
 it therefore tends proportionably to promote good 
 feeling and kindly intercourse amongst men. For 
 that which mars fellowship is the assertion of self; 
 it is vanity, jealousy, covetousness, or some other 
 form of self-love. You see a man with whom you 
 cannot hope to get on pleasantly; he may seem 
 hard, or exacting, or irritable, or absorbed in his 
 own schemes, or brooding over his own feelings; 
 but he will certainly not be one in whom the 
 Eucharistic disposition predominates. If vulgarity 
 repels, there is nothing more essentially opposed to 
 vulgarity that a pure and deep thankfulness. We 
 call the benevolent instincts social ; but there are 
 many to whom the companionship of a simply 
 thankful person would be more attractive than that 
 of one endowed with an obvious and patent benevo- 
 lence. We have but to name the synonymous 
 forms of grace, gracious, graciousness, and we read 
 in the common language of mankind a testimony 
 to the power of thankfulness to make men agree- 
 able to one another and to render their mutual 
 intercourse delightful. 
 
 3. Again, the thankful spirit guides and en- 
 courages///;'//;'.
 
 238 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 It does so, because it takes everything as a gift 
 from God. It grasps at nothing ; it respects with 
 a natural submission the ordinances of the Creator. 
 Whenever "this is forbidden" is marked upon any 
 indulgence within a man's reach, the thankful spirit 
 willingly renounces it, knowing no such thing as a 
 sense of injury in matters between God and the 
 soul, believing that God in commanding us to 
 abstain is doing us no less a benefit than if he 
 bade us receive, and turning with simplicity and 
 contentment to the enjoyment of what he gives. 
 
 St Paul shews incidently, in more than one 
 place, with what confidence he was accustomed to 
 depend on the principle of thankfulness to God as 
 a moral safeguard. "The earth is the Lord's," he 
 says, "and the fulness thereof." Nothing, therefore, 
 is to be shunned or dreaded as in itself evil ; the 
 Christian is free to take or not as it may be advan- 
 tageous for himself and his brethren. "For," argues 
 St Paul, "if I partake with thankfulness, why am 
 I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks?" 
 He seems to assume that a man cannot well be 
 doing wrong if in eating or in not eating he is 
 thankful to God and keeps his glory in view. 
 And again he warns Timothy against those who 
 forbid to marry and command to abstain from 
 meats, "which God hath created to be received with 
 thanksgiving by them who believe and know the 
 truth. Tor every creature of God is good, and no- 
 thing to be refused, if it be received with thanks- 
 giving." St Paul did not mean, of course, that laws
 
 I.] THE EUCHARIST. 239 
 
 and ordinances were abolished for the Christian, 
 and that he could make any indulgence lawful by- 
 adding to it an act of thanksgiving. He assumed 
 that the spirit of thankfulness would dispose a man 
 to study and inquire what the will of the Lord is, 
 and compel him to obey that will cheerfully when he 
 knows it. And might he not make that assumption 
 safely? Let a man try to be thankful for some- 
 thing which he knows in his conscience to be illegi- 
 timate, for dissipation which wastes his time and 
 weakens his moral if not his bodily strength, for 
 an advantage won unfairly at the expense of a 
 neighbour, for increase of wealth to which he is 
 selling his soul, even for a thing which is innocent 
 except that he cares too much about it, — and he 
 will learn by the contradiction which will rise 
 within him what a spear of Ithuriel he possesses in 
 thankfulness, and how impossible it is for the 
 thankful heart to be other than temperate and 
 pure. 
 
 4. And whilst we might be guarded from evil 
 as that which is displeasing to God, so we might be 
 made more receptive and appreciative towards all 
 good, by the same temper of thankfulness to the 
 gracious and bountiful Father. Much is lost, — who 
 can say how much? — especially of the finest and 
 most spiritual influences which move in the atmo- 
 sphere of the world, through the indifference and 
 insensibility of selfish natures. It is one of the 
 happy effects of a continual thankfulness, that it 
 opens the character, like a warm and genial climate,
 
 240 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 and makes it tenderer and more susceptible to such 
 influences. If we are daily thanking God for the 
 gift, above all, of his Son, and of the Spirit of his 
 Son, we shall be so turned to what is most Divine, 
 that all that is God-like, all that is loving and health- 
 ful and pure, will be welcome to us and give us plea- 
 sure. Our sympathies will be refined, and we shall 
 be the richer, and the world will be the richer, 
 through our thankfulness. 
 
 5. Again, it is worth while to observe briefly 
 the power which thankfulness has to sustain and 
 adjust other virtues. Let us take two instances. 
 
 Humility and a just self-esteem have some 
 appearance of being contradictory the one to the 
 other. It is a Christian excellence to be humble: 
 "in lowliness of mind," says the Apostle, "let each 
 esteem other better than themselves." But truth 
 would have a man think of himself as neither bet- 
 ter nor worse than he is ; and we know how advan- 
 tageous a noble pride is in preserving men from 
 what is mean and unworthy. Now the thankful 
 Christian says, "By the grace of God I am what I 
 am;" but he can also add, " By my own fault I am 
 what I am." It will be his continual desire to 
 refer all that is good in him to God, and therefore 
 on fitting occasions to do justice to it, and to refer 
 all that is unworthy in him to himself, and therefore 
 always to humble himself on account of it. Thus 
 it is quite possible for a man to think both highly 
 and lowly concerning himself: pride and humility 
 are both justified by thankfulness.
 
 L] THE EUCHARIST. 241 
 
 Liberality in the use of money finds a great 
 help in thankfulness. The lines of our childhood 
 "Not more than others I deserve, But God has 
 given me more," express a conviction which can 
 hardly fail to make and keep a man liberal. Can 
 I thank God, as one whom God has blessed beyond 
 any deservings of his own, for what he has given 
 me, and not be ready — more ready than those 
 whose only view of their possessions is that they 
 have acquired or inherited them — to do whatever 
 may be best with my money for the good of my 
 neighbours and my brethren ? And there will be a 
 grace (the word is again a testimony) in the liberal- 
 ity of a thankful person, which is less likely to 
 adorn and sweeten that of a calculating benevo- 
 lence. 
 
 6. Lastly, the principle of thankfulness has a 
 marked value in the sphere of the political relations 
 of human societies. 
 
 It is a familiar practice of rulers and statesmen 
 to appoint Days of Thanksgiving for events which 
 the people recognize as good for the land. This is 
 done in countries which have not the convenience 
 of a single State Church, as well as in our own and 
 in the old Roman Catholic countries. There are 
 cases in which, as in Switzerland, the existing 
 settlement of the constitution is commemorated by 
 a yearly Thanksgiving-Sunday. No doubt the 
 religious feelings of the population have demanded 
 this kind of observance ; but statesmen from their 
 point of view have seen its utility. It is impossible 
 
 D. S. 16
 
 242 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER, [disc. 
 
 to imagine a more valuable political sentiment in 
 a country than that of a reverent thankfulness to 
 God for all that is good in its history and constitu- 
 tion. To cling to what has come down from the 
 past with a blind superstition ; to treat with a 
 careless levity historical institutions, as if any 
 generation could unmake and make at will its 
 own political system : — each of these habits is 
 feared and deprecated by all wise citizens. We 
 are armed against both, when we thank God under 
 whose good Providence our fathers lived and 
 wrought, and to whose present help and guidance 
 we ourselves may equally appeal. But the most 
 immediate and valued effect of national thanks- 
 givings is to bind the population together in one 
 brotherly feeling. By the joy of common thank- 
 fulness families and classes are spiritually welded 
 together ; a love for the common inheritance, fel- 
 low-feeling amongst all who share it, are naturally 
 fostered. The words of the Hebrew patriot can 
 yet find an echo in all loyal hearts, "Jerusalem is 
 built as a city that is at unity in itself. For 
 thither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the 
 Lord, to testify unto Israel, to give thanks unto 
 the name of the Lord." 
 
 These are some of the illustrations which have 
 occurred to me as shewing the moral value of the 
 Eucharistical principle in human life. You may 
 have hardly needed them to deepen your convic- 
 tion that those who banish thankfulness to God by 
 recognizing no God to be thanked, are expelling
 
 I.] THE EUCHARIST. 243 
 
 the very juice and sap from morality, and robbing 
 life of some of its finest bloom. But we all have 
 abundant need to be reminded how much we lose 
 by not conforming ourselves to the spirit of our 
 holiest mysteries. The Eucharist, we have seen, 
 does not separate itself from secular life. It de- 
 mands for its own celebration a feeling which can 
 only be brought to it by those who are habitually 
 thankful ; it seeks to raise that feeling to its highest 
 power, and to send it pulsing again through our 
 daily experience. Our whole worship, rightly 
 understood, is in harmony with the service in 
 which it culminates, and would spread and pre- 
 serve the same influence. All our prayers are to 
 be accompanied with thanksgiving, — nay, must 
 rest on thanksgiving as their basis, for thankful- 
 ness, whilst it can make no claim to be exempt 
 from the logical difficulties which are more usually 
 urged against prayer, is deeper than prayer. Our 
 hope that God will hear us depends on what God 
 has done for us. " He that spared not his own 
 Son, but delivered him up for us all, — how shall he 
 not with him also freely give us all things ?" Day 
 by day, Sunday after Sunday, we utter words of 
 gratitude and praise for all that God has done for 
 us. Are we not unfaithful Christians, untrue to 
 the privileges of our creed and our worship, in 
 that we do not carry about with us hearts more 
 steadfastly thankful ? We are encompassed, — you 
 that are yet living here under the shadow of 
 ancient learning and piety, no less, assuredly, 
 
 16 — 2
 
 244 THE EUCHARIST. [disc. I, 
 
 than those of us whose lot is cast elsewhere, — 
 by blessings old and new. These will become 
 dearer and more helpful to us as we thank God 
 for them all, 
 
 From the gift looking to the Giver, 
 And from the cistern to the River, 
 And from the finite to Infinity, 
 And from man's dust to God's Divinity.
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 SACRIFICE. 
 
 IN speaking of the word Sacrifice as one of the 
 titles of the Lord's Supper, we encounter a diffi- 
 culty which did not present itself to us in consider- 
 ing the significance of the word Eucharist. A 
 large proportion of English Christians are not 
 indeed in the habit of using the former term, the 
 Holy Eucharist, when they have occasion to men- 
 tion this Sacrament. But this is simply a matter 
 of custom. If the meaning of the word is borne in 
 mind, it cannot possibly be regarded by any Chris- 
 tian as objectionable on doctrinal grounds that the 
 Lord's Supper should be designated as our Thanks- 
 giving-Service. The Holy Sacrifice is not a title 
 that would be accepted with equal acquiescence. 
 I am aware that many would repudiate and con- 
 demn it as implying doctrine which our own 
 Church has disclaimed. But it cannot be denied 
 that in using our Communion Office we find a 
 prominent place given to the idea and the name 
 of sacrifice. And, in speaking of the connexion 
 which properly subsists between the most sacred 
 Christian ordinance and common morality, I pre- 
 fer to contemplate this Sacrament from the point
 
 2*6 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER, [disc. 
 
 of view of those to whom it is most awful and 
 furthest removed from the associations and condi- 
 tions of ordinary life : as on the other hand it 
 belongs to my purpose to keep in view the secular 
 systems of morality in which a theory of human 
 virtue is constructed without taking any account 
 of God. And the word Sacrifice seems to me 
 peculiarly valuable and instructive, as linking the 
 deepest faith and highest worship of the Christian 
 with the principle of every-day duty. 
 
 This word may be claimed, no doubt, by 
 Roman Catholics and by those who approximate 
 closely to Roman Catholics as fitly expressing 
 what takes place according to their belief when the 
 Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is celebrated. 
 They have, they would say, at their altar the two 
 essential elements of a sacrifice — the Jiostia or 
 victim, and the sacrificing priest. To the inquiry 
 "Where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?" it is 
 answered that the priest has the power to call 
 down the Lamb of God from heaven, and that 
 after the act of consecration the Lord Jesus Christ 
 is present as a sacrificial victim under the outward 
 form of bread, or of bread and wine. But such a 
 sacrifice is professedly of the nature of a fleshly 
 sacrifice ; this is its boast. And if we were able to 
 accept those assertions, it would still be open to 
 us, and surely incumbent on us as Christians, to 
 inquire what is the essentially spiritual sacrifice of 
 which that in the flesh is the instrument or expo- 
 nent. All sacrifices are acceptable to God just in
 
 II.] SACRIFICE. 247 
 
 proportion as they are spiritual. The spirit is to 
 beware, it is true, of repudiating the flesh as evil 
 or insignificant ; but the spirit is always higher 
 than the flesh, even were it the flesh of the Son of 
 God himself. 
 
 It is worth while, perhaps, to apply this ob- 
 servation at the present time to all theories as 
 to the mode of the Real Presence, or, as it is some- 
 times called, the Real Objective Presence, of Christ 
 in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. I do not 
 wish to advocate or to oppose any definition upon 
 this subject. It is far easier to contend with words 
 about the nature of that Presence, than to be sure 
 that we understand either our own words or those 
 of our opponents. And the line of thought which 
 I have suggested may be followed, I hope, by 
 Christians who are not all willing to use the same 
 language on the controverted question of the Real 
 Presence. But all who hold any opinions what- 
 ever as to the relation between the Body and 
 Blood of Christ and the consecrated elements may- 
 be reminded with advantage of what all must 
 equally admit, — I mean, the natural superiority 
 of that which is spiritual over that which is cor- 
 poreal. 
 
 It is often assumed that in proportion as men 
 approximate in opinion to the doctrine of the 
 Church of Rome, called Transubstantiation, in that 
 proportion the Presence in the Sacrament becomes 
 more truly awful. And this is taken for granted 
 on both sides ; it is conceded as well as claimed.
 
 248 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 " If it were only true," it is said, " that Christ 
 is really present on the altar, no homage could 
 possibly be too profound for that Divine Presence, 
 no dress could be too rich or ornaments too costly 
 for those who approach it, no prostrations before 
 it too humble." The awful effect of the corporeal 
 or quasi-corporeal presence is not the matter com- 
 monly disputed, nor the kind of reverence it would 
 demand ; one side affirms, " Christ is thus present," 
 the other side replies, " He is not, or not in the 
 awful manner you suppose." But take the extreme 
 case, as including all other opinions that in any 
 degree approach it ; suppose all that the most 
 advanced Romanist has ever put forward as to the 
 Bodily Presence of Christ in the Sacrament to be 
 true. Is Christ infinitely more worthy of our reve- 
 rence when presented to us under some bodily form, 
 than when he is not under a form of which our 
 senses can take cognizance ? 
 
 The awfulness and dignity of the Sacramental 
 host can hardly be greater than would belong 
 to the visible human form of Jesus Christ, such 
 as the eyes of the Apostles saw and their hands 
 handled at Jerusalem or in Galilee. If the Lord 
 Jesus were thus to manifest himself amongst us, 
 who would turn from that form to worship with 
 a deeper reverence the bread or the wafer of the 
 Sacrament ? But we do not gather from the New 
 Testament that the Christ visible in the flesh upon 
 the earth was worshipped by his disciples with 
 a more adoring homage than the Christ at the
 
 U.] SACRIFICE. 249 
 
 Father's right hand in heaven. The Apostles did 
 not feel after the day of Pentecost that their God 
 was lost to them. It is undeniable, on the contrary, 
 that they then worshipped Christ with a more 
 assured faith, that they rejoiced in him with a 
 deeper joy, than when he had been going in and 
 out amongst them. Their Master had prepared 
 them for this advance in Spiritual apprehension. 
 He told them that he must depart in order that 
 the Spirit might come to them, and that when the 
 Spirit came he would be with them again in a far 
 more satisfying manner. " I will not leave you 
 bereaved, I will come to you. Yet a little while, 
 and the world seeth me no more ; but ye see me : 
 because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye 
 shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, 
 and I in you." The Apostles undoubtedly believed 
 that these promises were fulfilled ; it was their 
 settled conviction that the Spirit had infinitely 
 more power in enabling them to have fellowship 
 with Christ than any bodily presence. 
 
 It may be said that what makes the Bodily 
 Presence in the Sacrament so much more awful 
 than Christ's spiritual presence is that it is brought 
 to the altar by a miracle. But a miracle is treated 
 by our Lord himself as a condescension to the 
 senses, which it is not creditable to faith to require; 
 and a miracle which, like Transubstantiation, makes 
 no appeal to the senses is without even that lower 
 virtue of a miracle. If the Apostles would have 
 felt that they were descending to a lower spiritual
 
 250 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 level in craving for the renewed presence of Jesus 
 as he had been before his death, it is hardly 
 likely that their deepest reverence would have 
 been stirred by seeing him in bodily presence 
 under the form of a wafer. 
 
 Whether therefore the Bread and the Wine 
 are miraculously changed in any manner or degree 
 into the Body and Blood of Christ, or are made 
 to represent the Body and the Blood without any 
 alteration of their substance, it is equally important 
 that the worshippers should not make more of the 
 flesh than of the spirit, and that they should strive 
 to realize above all in the Spirit the spiritual pre- 
 sence of God. Christ local upon the altar or in 
 the priest's hand is not so awful, not so essentially 
 Divine, as Christ in us. If our spirits are to ac- 
 knowledge their true Lord and deliverer, they must 
 look, not into the priest's hand, but upwards to the 
 eternal throne. If they are to be penetrated by 
 the deepest and most sanctifying awe, they must 
 learn something of the meaning of those words, 
 "At that day ye shall know that I am in my 
 Father, and ye in me, and I in you." 
 
 This truth should especially be borne in mind 
 when we are considering the moral aspect of the 
 Lord's Supper in the light of the idea of Sacrifice. 
 For Sacrifice, as I have said, can only be acceptable 
 to God in so far as it is spiritual. It makes no 
 difference whether the oblation be of an animal's 
 life, or of devotion and good works; what God 
 regards is always the spirit that offers it. The
 
 II.] SACRIFICE. 251 
 
 Sacrifice of the Son of God was infinitely precious 
 because he offered himself through the Eternal 
 Spirit to the Father. 
 
 I have referred to the repugnance felt by many 
 in our own Church to the use of the word Sacrifice 
 as a title of the Lord's Supper. This repugnance 
 has much to justify it, but we find less reason for 
 cherishing it when we perceive how customary it 
 was amongst the early Fathers of the Church to 
 call the Lord's Supper a Sacrifice, before the doc- 
 trine of Transubstantiation was received, and with- 
 out implying anything like that doctrine. There 
 are two words continually associated with sacrifice 
 in their writings; one of them is "remembrance," the 
 other is " rational," the former taken from our Lord's 
 saying, "Do this in remembrance of me," the latter 
 from St Paul's expression (Romans xii. I), "Which is 
 your reasonable or rational service." Thus the 
 Lord's Supper is called "the remembrance of the 
 sacrifice once offered;" it is said that Christ "hand- 
 ed down to us a memory to offer by way of a 
 sacrifice continually to God*;" and St Chrysostom 
 thus corrects himself, "Our sacrifice is one; we do 
 not vary it, but always offer the same, or rather, we 
 celebrate a remembrance of a sacrifice -f." And that 
 epithet of St Paul's, rational, Xoyt/aj, is very 
 commonly joined with sacrifice, implying that the 
 sacrifice or worship is an act of the mind or under- 
 standing. And the same idea is conveyed by 
 
 * Eusebius, Demonst. Evang. I. 10. 
 
 t Chrysostom, Horn, in Heb. XVII. (Heb. ix. 25)
 
 252 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 similar terms, which describe the Christian sacrifice 
 as not corporeal but belonging to the region of the 
 thoughts and the affections. Let me quote two 
 sentences in which this idea is expressed : "We 
 offer our own souls in sacrifice, and present them to 
 God, by dying to the world and to a fleshly mind*." 
 "Our victim is above, our priest above, our sacrifice 
 above. Therefore let us offer such sacrifices as can 
 be presented on that altar -f\" 
 
 In accordance with this venerable language, we 
 observe that the idea of sacrifice enters in a two- 
 fold manner into the celebration of the Lord's 
 Supper, (i) We remember and plead and as it 
 were present anew the Sacrifice of Christ once 
 made for men, (2) and we come to offer sacrifices of 
 our own. 
 
 The Sacrifice of Christ was consummated in his 
 death, by the breaking of his body and the shedding 
 of his blood. It was precisely this that the Sacra- 
 ment was instituted to set forth. Jesus said "Do this 
 in remembrance of me; in remembrance of me as 
 giving my body and pouring out my blood for you." 
 The whole sacramental ceremony has reference to 
 this death of Christ. When we call Christ's death a 
 Sacrifice, we mean that he offered himself through 
 death to the Father. The Prayer of Consecration in 
 our Office begins by pleading this Sacrifice. It ap- 
 peals to the Father as having himself originated the 
 Sacrifice, and calls upon him by his own tender mercy 
 
 * Cyril. Alex, de A do rat. XI. p. 402. 
 
 i Chrysostom, Horn, in Hcb. XI. (Heb. vi. 13).
 
 II.] SACRIFICE. 253 
 
 shewn in this act. "Almighty God, our heavenly- 
 Father, who of thy tender mercy didst give thine 
 only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the 
 Cross for our redemption; who made there by his 
 one oblation of himself once offered a full, perfect, 
 and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, 
 for the sins of the whole world;... hear us, O merci- 
 ful Father, we most humbly beseech thee." — A very 
 earnest expression of what was taught by our Lord 
 and by his Apostles concerning his Sacrifice. It 
 was the Father who sent the Son to die for us, who 
 purchased to himself a universal Church by the 
 precious blood of his dear Son. The Son surren- 
 dered himself willingly to the Father's will. " Lo, 
 I come," — this was the principle of his sacrifice, — 
 "to do thy will, O God." Flis whole life in the 
 flesh therefore was a part of his self-oblation ; but 
 the offering culminated, when he gave himself up 
 in the agonies of the Passion and the darkness of 
 death and the grave. This offering, the Church 
 rejoices to believe, was perfect. When the Son, in 
 obedience to the Father's will, had offered himself 
 in human flesh through suffering and death to his 
 Father, nothing further was wanted to open the 
 way completely for humanity to the heart of God. 
 The Father was perfectly well pleased in the Son, 
 who was the head of our sinful race. The Son took 
 upon himself the sins of his brethren, and in his 
 Person human sin was brought into contact with the 
 Divine forgiveness, and was swallowed up by it. 
 We remember in our Sacrament the Offering which
 
 254 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 was thus perfect and precious; we re-enact in a 
 manner that Sacrifice ; we present it by the lifting 
 up of our minds and spirits, as the demonstration of 
 his own love and as the response of the Son's love, 
 to our Father in heaven. The Sacrament of the 
 Body and Blood of Christ was instituted and made 
 perpetual, in order that the redeeming Death of 
 Christ might be thus set continually in reconciling 
 power between God and our sinful souls. 
 
 This is, it is plain, an eminently religious rite, 
 full of what it pleases many to call dogma. Has it 
 anything directly to do with the moral activity of 
 human life? — The word Sacrifice has another appli- 
 cation in the Sacrament, as we have seen, besides 
 its reference to the Self-oblation of Christ. If 
 Christ gave himself for us, it belongs to us to give 
 ourselves with him. If he opened a way for us to 
 the Father, it is our part to approach God by it. 
 If Christ made himself a Sacrifice, we ought to 
 make ourselves sacrifices. 
 
 I have reminded you how the Prayer which 
 precedes the partaking of the Bread and the Wine 
 appeals to the Father in the name of the Divine 
 Sacrifice. Let me quote now a part of the Prayer 
 which follows the communicating: "Here we offer 
 and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls 
 and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively 
 sacrifice unto thee And although we be un- 
 worthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto 
 thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept 
 this our bounden duty and service; not weighing
 
 II.] SACRIFICE. 255 
 
 our merits, but pardoning- our offences, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord." It is assumed that we can- 
 not realize the Sacrifice of Christ — that we cannot 
 cry for help to God as the Father who gave his 
 Son and to whom the Son offered himself — that 
 we cannot feed upon his self-oblation — without 
 being drawn to offer ourselves like him to God, in 
 order that his will and nothing else may be done 
 by us. Christ is laid as a foundation, in order that 
 we may build, or be built up, upon it. "To whom 
 coming," says St. Peter, "as unto a living stone, 
 disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and pre- 
 cious, ye also, as living stones, are being built up, a 
 spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiri- 
 tual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." 
 Similarly, St Paul says, "Be ye therefore followers, 
 or imitators, of God, as dear children; and walk in 
 love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given 
 himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for 
 a sweet-smelling savour." And again, "I am 
 crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not 
 I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now 
 live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of 
 God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." 
 But it is needless to multiply passages to prove 
 how natural and necessary it seemed to the Apostles 
 that those who believed that Christ had offered 
 himself in their behalf to the Father's will, should 
 consecrate themselves as sacrifices to the same 
 will. 
 
 What is the meaning for us of our presenting
 
 256 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 ourselves, souls and bodies, as living sacrifices to 
 God ? Sacrifice is sometimes spoken of as equi- 
 valent to self-denial. It involves self-denial, no 
 doubt, but it is more than equivalent to it. It 
 assumes a living Will, at whose disposal we place 
 ourselves: and the reality and the character of that 
 Will become, when Sacrifice is in question, su- 
 premely important. We believe in a God who 
 wills ; we believe that he is perfectly good,— just, 
 merciful, true, and that therefore his will chooses 
 all that is good ; we believe that the living God, 
 who is all-good, governs the universe and adjusts 
 the place of each one of us in an order of which 
 he is the maker ; we believe that God has made 
 his will known in manifesting his Son, and that 
 we may learn its principles in the life of Jesus 
 Christ ; we believe that we are intended to dis- 
 cover what God's will is in particular cases by 
 trying to do what is right, and by studying the 
 effect of our actions. We further believe that God 
 loves us, and has called us to sonship in his Son, 
 and desires us to trust in him as children trust in 
 a Father. In this faith we are exhorted to make 
 ourselves sacrifices to God. We are taught to fix 
 our eyes on a Deliverer who has conquered sin and 
 death for us, and has reappeared out of the dark- 
 ness and mystery of the grave. We have the 
 promise of a Spirit of Sacrifice from above, which 
 is the perfect filial Spirit, the Spirit proceeding 
 from the Father and the Son. 
 
 Thus to give ourselves up in the faith of Chris-
 
 
 II.] SACRIFICE. 257 
 
 tians involves an utter subjection and surrender of 
 our own wills. The law of this subjection is as 
 inexorable as those who speak of the danger of 
 such a belief can represent it to be. To the 
 thorough Christian neither his own will nor the 
 wills or opinions of any number of men can count 
 as anything compared with the will of God. He 
 owns it as his duty not to be conformed to this 
 world, but to be transformed by the renewing of 
 his mind, that he may prove by experience what 
 is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 
 But, if the character in which he knows God is that 
 of the Father of men and the maker and sustainer 
 of the world's order, if he is continually thanking 
 God for having so loved the world as to give His 
 Son that the world might be saved, if his earnest 
 hope is always for a glory of God which is identi- 
 fied with the well-being of the human race, no 
 sacrifice of himself to the will of God is possible 
 which is not also an offering of himself for the real 
 good of mankind. There is a sentence in which 
 St Paul sums up the life of King David, which 
 may be translated in two different ways. St Paul 
 says, that David fell asleep after he had served his 
 own generation by the will of God, or after lie had 
 in his own generation served the will of God. The 
 conduct described by either translation is in the 
 eye of Christian faith identical. It will make no 
 difference to us whether we propose to serve our 
 generation by the will of God, or to serve the will 
 o{ God in our generation. We do the best service 
 D. S. 1 j
 
 ?5 S MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 we can to our fellow-men when we are most obe- 
 dient to God's will ; we please God best when we 
 serve our fellow-men most zealously. 
 
 And again, it follows from our Christian pre- 
 misses that the most unreserved offering up of 
 ourselves to the will of God results not* in our 
 slavery but in our emancipation. The service of 
 God, as we thankfully acknowledge, is perfect 
 freedom. To be ruled by self or by the world, 
 this is slavery. To submit willingly, with the 
 concurrence of our knowledge and judgment, to 
 the will of our Maker and Father, or, in other 
 words, to the source of all the order and beauty 
 and happiness of the universe, is to inherit our 
 proper freedom. And therefore Sacrifice to God 
 is to be looked upon, not with dread as a painful 
 necessity, but with joy and hope and longing. 
 
 Self-denial is recognized without stint in the 
 prevailing non-theistical systems of morality. It 
 is an ignorant slander to reproach the utilitarian 
 ethics of Mr Mill, for example, or the positivist 
 ethics of M. Comte, with pandering to selfishness. 
 In both these systems benevolence and self-sacri- 
 fice are as strongly and sincerely advocated as 
 they can be by Christian moralists. Indeed in 
 both, the rule of duty, as between a man and other 
 men, is hardly distinguishable from the Christian 
 rule. Mr Mill thus protests on behalf of his sys- 
 tem : " Let utilitarians never cease to claim the 
 morality of self-devotion as a possession which 
 belongs by as good a right to them, as either to
 
 II.] SACRIFICE. 259 
 
 the Stoic or to the Transcendentalist. The utilita- 
 rian morality does recognize in human beings the 
 power of sacrificing their own greatest good for the 
 good of others... The happiness which forms the 
 utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is 
 not the agent's own happiness, but that of all con- 
 cerned. As between his own happiness and that 
 of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as 
 strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent 
 spectator. In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, 
 we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. 
 To do as one would be done by, and to love one's 
 neighbour as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection 
 of utilitarian morality."* M. Comte avoids that 
 adoption of " happiness " as an ultimate standard 
 and quantitative measure of right and wrong which 
 seems to excite an instinctive repugnance in minds 
 trained in the Christian school, and treats the 
 inherent superiority of the benevolent sentiments 
 as a principle determined by the necessary condi- 
 tions of human progress. He, as is well known, 
 has sought to give to the serving of humanity ail 
 the characteristics of a religion, and no one can 
 complain of any coldness or want of enthusiasm in 
 M. Comte's own devotion. A third kind of philo- 
 sophy, commonly spoken of as Pantheistic, of which 
 M. Renan may be taken as an exponent, holds 
 that " for simple natures absolute devotion is the 
 most exquisite of enjoyments and a kind of want ;" 
 that " it is a luxury to man to suffer for anything ;"' 
 
 * Utilitarianism, pp. 24, 25. 
 
 17—2
 
 260 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 and that "if humanity were raised to ten times its 
 present height, man would be so completely disen- 
 gaged from selfishness that he would be plunged in 
 a perpetual adoration of the true, the good, and the 
 beautiful, rolling from one ecstasy into another, 
 living and dying in a torrent of pleasure."* 
 
 What have we to say then, when we compare 
 the moral teaching of our Christian Sacrament as 
 to sacrifice with the morality of those to whom this 
 Sacrament is obsolete? — Not, certainly, that we 
 believe in devotion, and they in self-love. But this, 
 I think, — that we believe in a Fatherly Providence, 
 greater than humanity, to which we may offer and 
 entrust ourselves, and in a Divine Head who has 
 gone before us and whom we may follow, and in a 
 Spirit which has a higher and more abiding source 
 than either the clearest conviction or the most 
 exquisite sentiment in ourselves. To us a Gospel 
 has been preached, a Gospel which is enshrined for 
 ever in the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood. 
 According to our experience, humanity is weak, 
 open to the noblest inspirations, capable of heroic 
 actions, but liable to fall, perpetually tempted 
 by selfishness and cowardice, wanting something 
 stronger than itself to cling to and lean upon. It 
 seems hard upon such a nature to say to a man, 
 " You are bound to sacrifice absolutely and for ever 
 your own highest good if such a sacrifice can pro- 
 duce a greater quantity of good elsewhere." We 
 cannot think it an ignoble instinct to shrink from 
 * Lcs Apctrcs, pp. 380, 381, 385.
 
 "•] . SACRIFICE. 261 
 
 loss, ruin, annihilation. We believe that the sacri- 
 fice is not less perfect because faith can say, 
 "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit:" 
 we have no fear of a more refined and disguised 
 form of self-love being encouraged by the exhorta- 
 tion, " Let them that suffer according to the will 
 of God commit the keeping of their souls to him 
 in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator." We 
 rejoice therefore that there is One who knows us 
 and cares for us and will take charge of us, and 
 that he permits us to dedicate ourselves to him, 
 and to pray to him as our Father that his will 
 may be done in us. 
 
 Sacrifice ought to seem more rational and 
 easier to the Christian than to the non-Christian. 
 Self-denial indeed, in some ordinary degree, is 
 prescribed by plain reasons to every intelligent 
 being. A child soon learns by experience alone 
 that he must repress the desire and deny himself 
 the pleasure of the moment, if he would avoid a 
 greater pain or gain afterwards a higher pleasure. 
 But self-denial practised for the sake of self may 
 only result in a deeper selfishness. And however 
 philosophers may argue, it must be difficult to 
 persuade a man that he ought to give himself to 
 final ruin, that in what concerns the higher part of 
 his being he ought to incur loss, if by doing so he 
 can confer a more than corresponding benefit on 
 others. But to give oneself to God as a child to a 
 Father, this is reasonable and safe, whatever the 
 surrender may cost. And Christ has taught us that
 
 262 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 the most complete surrender of ourselves to God is 
 in the long run our greatest safety. In one of His 
 profound paradoxes He has said, " He that saves 
 himself will lose himself: he that loses himself for 
 my sake will save himself." To believe this, — to 
 believe that a man can do nothing better than 
 yield himself utterly to Christ and to God, — has 
 proved a very powerful support to countless suf- 
 ferers. "Therefore we both labour and suffer re- 
 proach, because we trust in the living God, the 
 Saviour of all men." " If suffering comes to me," 
 the Christian will say, " when I am doing God's 
 will, I will accept the suffering contentedly because 
 it is God's will. Nay more, I will take it as an 
 instrument of God's gracious discipline ; I will 
 rejoice in it as associating me with the sufferings of 
 Christ." But the sense that God desires us to offer 
 ourselves to him and has himself prepared the 
 sacrifice is not only a solid comfort and support 
 when we are trying to give up self; it is also a 
 great inducement and stimulus to make the effort. 
 If we only realize the sacrifice of the Son of God, 
 how simple and necessary a thing it must seem 
 that we should build ourselves upon it! What a 
 contradiction that we should live to ourselves ! 
 We have been bought with a price : surely we 
 must glorify God with the bodies and with the 
 souls which are his. The love of Christ constrains 
 us : for we thus judge, that if one died on behalf of 
 all, then all died ; and that he died for all, that 
 they who live should not henceforth live to them-
 
 II.] SACRIFICE. 263 
 
 selves, but to him who died and rose again for 
 them. 
 
 So we are exhorted to reason with ourselves ; 
 and so, whenever the mystery of the Cross comes 
 home to us, our consciences must speak within us. 
 Christians who have worshipped at the foot of the 
 Cross have learnt all — may we not say?— that the 
 noblest ethics of the world can teach. But I know 
 not what Christian can help being silenced by a 
 kind of reasonable shame when he reflects upon 
 the average tenor of his own life, and of that of his 
 fellow-Christians in general, and compares it with 
 the morality of those who do not acknowledge 
 Christ. I do not mean that our lives are less 
 worthy and unselfish than those of unbelievers, but 
 that they ought to be infinitely more so. We 
 have the Gospel, we have Christ, we have the Holy- 
 Spirit, and we persuade ourselves that if these were 
 taken away, motives and hopes, moral energy, the 
 better life, would wither, and we should fall into a 
 careless selfishness. But we find ourselves already 
 selfish, already careless ; and I think I cannot be 
 departing from the range of common experience 
 when I assume that we have known others, — 
 whether persons who have had the courageous sin- 
 cerity openly to reject the faith of their fathers, or 
 persons who whilst still nominally Christian do not 
 profess to be religious, — whose practical goodness 
 has often put us to shame. It must be that such 
 persons are worshipping the Eternal Truth, the 
 Eternal Righteousness and Love, with a truer wor-
 
 2d\ MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 ship, though not using our names, than many reli- 
 gious Christians, and that they are receiving sup- 
 port and strength for which they give thanks, if 
 not with their lips, yet with their lives. But it is 
 surely our part, learning what we can from such as 
 they and even stimulated by their rivalry, to ask 
 for more of the filial Spirit of Sacrifice. Perhaps 
 we have not resorted enough in humble docility to 
 the Sacrament of Sacrifice ; yet we know that the 
 most frequent Communions have no magical power 
 to compel men to give themselves up to God. We 
 need to be as much delivered from hardness and 
 formalism in religion as from indifference to reli- 
 gion. Our wisdom is to blend religion and life 
 together, and in both equally to look up to heaven. 
 May I venture to add a concluding word, hav- 
 ing reference to the characteristic temper of this 
 University ? It has often been remarked with satis- 
 faction, that the intellectual atmosphere of Cam- 
 bridge has been calmer, less agitated by the excite- 
 ments of new theories of belief or unbelief, than 
 that of other places where young men are living 
 and thinking together, and especially than that of 
 the great sister University. But some have not 
 been able to forget that the advantages of intellec- 
 tual steadiness and moderation, almost invaluable 
 as they are in a place of education, may be pur- 
 chased at a very high cost. We know, — at this 
 particular season it is superfluous to remind a 
 Cambridge audience, — how much the great distinc- 
 tions and almost excessive prizes of academical
 
 II.] SACRIFICE. 26 5 
 
 competition are here thought of, and how eagerly 
 they are pursued. If the most ardent minds of a 
 University, instead of being led by an exception- 
 ally wise and enlightened guidance in the paths of 
 moderation, are rather made indifferent to the 
 thoughts which elsewhere shake mankind by an 
 extreme desire of personal success, this result is 
 not wholly to be rejoiced in. It is better to have 
 some griefs and troubles due to the nobler aspira- 
 tions, than that thousands of young men should be 
 made partakers of a life dulled by a worldly self- 
 regard. May God give us the good and deliver us 
 from the evil ! May he preserve peace and quiet 
 to this University and at the same time inspire its 
 members with a Christian ambition to help his 
 cause forward in the world of their "day! The 
 world on its part will owe its best gratitude to 
 students and teachers who, exalted by the old 
 courageous spirit of self-oblation, give themselves 
 heartily to serve their own generation by the will 
 of God.
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 COMMUNION. 
 
 AMONGST the various titles which have been given 
 to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, that which 
 the Prayer-book of the Church of England offers 
 for our ordinary use is The Holy Communion. 
 When definition is required, as in the Catechism 
 and in the Articles, the strict name of the Sacra- 
 ment is the Lord's Supper. But elsewhere, as 
 especially in the office for the administration of the 
 Sacrament, it is called the Holy Communion. 
 From the, first it has been usual in the Church to 
 apply significant titles, according to preference or 
 custom, to the Lord's Supper. I think that the 
 use of this title in our Prayer-book warrants us in 
 regarding it with a special interest as the chosen 
 Anglican name of the great Sacrament of Chris- 
 tendom. 
 
 Every one will remember the place in the New 
 Testament in which this title has its source. But 
 it is worth while to recall the characteristic argu- 
 ment of St Paul, in which the word rendered 
 "communion" serves as a kind of key. One value 
 of the passage is that it shews us how outward 
 visible things may be treated as instruments and
 
 DISC. III.] COMMUNION. 267 
 
 witnesses of spiritual things, without any confusing 
 of matter and spirit. St Paul warns the Corinth- 
 ians (in 1 Cor. x.) to beware of idolatry. And he 
 be^s their intelligent consideration of a reason 
 which he gives them, why they should not be care- 
 less about joining in the festivities of heathen 
 worship. It is difficult to preserve in an English 
 translation the verbal emphasis of the original; but 
 the connexion of thought may be better indicated 
 by the substitution of some word like participation 
 for communion. "The cup of blessing which we 
 bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? 
 The bread which we break, is it not a participation 
 in the body of Christ? For we, being many, are 
 one bread, one body; for we all partake of the one 
 bread. Behold Israel after the flesh;— are not they 
 who eat the sacrifices partners of the altar? What 
 do I say then? That an idol is anything, or a 
 sacrifice offered to an idol is anything? No, I say 
 that what the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to 
 devils and not to God, and I would not that you 
 should be partners of devils. You cannot drink 
 the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; you 
 cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the 
 table of devils." St Paul insists here upon seeing 
 in a religious rite its proper spiritual significance. 
 Give its due force to the feasting on a sacrifice, 
 whether it be a Christian or a heathen sacrifice, and 
 what must it mean? It brings you into union with 
 the sacrifice and with the being to whom the 
 sacrifice is offered. Every Jewish sacrifice, every
 
 268 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 heathen sacrifice, had equally the aim of bringing 
 the worshippers into close union and partnership 
 with the God worshipped. "How then," St Paul 
 asks, "can you, who enter into union or fellowship 
 with Christ in our Christian feast, allow yourselves 
 to be similarly put into fellowship with false 
 gods?" 
 
 Whenever the term Communion has been 
 applied, in imitation of this example of St Paul, to 
 the Lord's Supper, it has always been understood 
 as having a twofold reference. It speaks first of a 
 partaking of Christ or fellowship with Christ, and 
 then of a mutual fellowship between those who are 
 related in common to Christ. The double meaning 
 flows obviously from the nature of the fact. Those 
 who become respectively members of the same body 
 become fellow-members, or members one of an- 
 other. One bread, one cake, is divided into many 
 parts, and given to many communicants; in partak- 
 ing of the same bread they are associated together. 
 Whatever creates a fellowship between each man 
 and Christ, establishes a secondary bond of fellow- 
 ship between all who have this union with Christ in 
 common. 
 
 The subject of which I wish to speak chiefly 
 under the head of Communion is the fellowship 
 between man and man, confessed and proclaimed 
 by all moralists, regarded by non- Christians as 
 resting on various other grounds, but believed in 
 by Christians, and set forth by the Holy Com- 
 munion, as subsisting in the common relation of
 
 in.] COMMUNION. 269 
 
 each to Christ. But something ought to be said 
 first perhaps upon the question, What is it that 
 constitutes the union of men with Christ? Does 
 it originate in, or depend absolutely upon, a par- 
 taking of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy 
 Communion? 
 
 Possibly some would answer that it does. But 
 no Christian to whom Christian life is more than a 
 name, whatever language he may use in obedience 
 to the logic of a doctrinal theory or when he desires 
 to do all the honour he can to a Divinely ordained 
 Sacrament, has ever forced himself to speak always 
 in consistency with such an answer. The affirmation, 
 however rigorously intended, is always spoilt by 
 exceptions. Christians believe in the Holy Spirit 
 of God, breathing where he lists, a free mysterious 
 subtle Spirit, infinite in grace as well as in power ; 
 and no one really dares to tie down the Divine 
 Spirit absolutely to some visible and local vehicle. 
 Nor is it possible for a Christian, believe as he may 
 in some kind of corporeal feeding upon Christ, to 
 think of a Communion so realized as higher in its 
 nature than a Communion realized in the Spirit. 
 There is not a hymn or prayer or meditation, 
 accepted by Christians of any Church as an utter- 
 ance of the deeper Christian feeling, in which Com- 
 munion with Christ is not assumed to be essentially 
 spiritual, possible at any time and in any place, and 
 dependent ultimately on nothing but the eternal 
 grace of God. The Holy Communion, therefore, 
 with whatever truth its claims may be pressed as
 
 270 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 the legitimate channel of the grace of Communion, 
 is not to be spoken of as the only mode of holding 
 fellowship with Christ, nor even as the only mode 
 of participating in his Body and Blood, so as to 
 derive life from him. It is the obvious witness and 
 pledge of such Communion; it is the appointed 
 means of seeking it : but Christians do not feed on 
 Christ exclusively in the Lord's Supper; — if it were 
 so, the Sacrament would lose its own highest value. 
 The worth of the Sacrament is that it expresses 
 and brings home to us and stimulates that purely 
 spiritual fellowship with Christ to which he him- 
 self invited his disciples, and on which he laid so 
 much stress; it summons our spirits to active faith 
 and love; it assures us of a presence and a support 
 by which we may continually be saved. To attempt 
 to do the Sacrament honour by making more of the 
 flesh than of the Spirit is like insisting on the 
 excellence of the paper of a bank-note and know- 
 ing nothing of its value as the representative of 
 money. 
 
 Let it be observed that St Taul, in the passage 
 quoted, treats the communion or partnership of 
 idolaters with their false gods, and of members of 
 Christ with one another, as of the same kind as the 
 participating in the Body and Blood of Christ. 
 All are examples of spiritual communion, — of a 
 fellowship realized by the will, the affections, and 
 the conscience. It would be well to bear in mind 
 that, according to St Paul, the feeding together on 
 the one Bread has the same kind of power to effect
 
 in.] COMMUNION. 2 7 1 
 
 a mutual fellowship amongst ourselves, which it 
 has to make us partakers of Christ. No one is in 
 danger of saying that it is impossible for a man to 
 hold .communion with his fellow-Christians except 
 in and through the Holy Communion ; and it can- 
 not be too strongly urged that it is the office of the 
 Sacrament to bear witness to true human fellow- 
 ship, and to pledge and help us to the fulfilment 
 of it. 
 
 But when human fellowship is spoken of, the 
 question is sure to arise in many minds, whether 
 the communion of Christians with one another does 
 not profess to be something essentially different 
 from the bond which unites men as men together. 
 This is a question upon which it is as easy to fall 
 into mistakes as it is important to avoid them. 
 Christian communion has undoubtedly some ap- 
 pearance of being exclusive ; it has constantly been 
 made exclusive in practice by Christians ; excom- 
 munication, which is a term of the Christian Church, 
 speaks of shutting out from a society. One of the 
 most prominent features of Christian belief to many 
 minds has been the doctrine, that the Church and 
 the world, — or the society of believers and the rest 
 of mankind, — are so entirely distinguished and 
 separated from one another as to have almost 
 nothing in ccmmon. Yet we habitually believe in 
 a common humanity, as well as in the communion 
 of the saints. Do these two kinds of fellowship 
 belong to different spheres, or are they identical, 
 or in what relation does each stand to the other ?
 
 272 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 The Catholic doctrine on this subject may, I 
 think, be thus stated, — that Christian Communion 
 is natural human fellowship brought into the Divine 
 light and quickened by the Divine Spirit. What- 
 ever binds men together is justified and raised to a 
 higher power by the common union of men to a 
 Divine Head. Let me offer some brief illustrations 
 in support of this statement. 
 
 And, first, it is natural that we should look to 
 Christ himself, and see what we may read in his 
 life and words. The voice with which he speaks 
 is too clear and emphatic to be misunderstood. 
 It is equally recognized by believers and un- 
 believers. What is the title which he chooses 
 for himself? That of The Sou of Man. To us 
 who behold in him the Son of God, it is a title 
 glorious in its condescension and love, lifting up the 
 whole human race, giving comfort and hope to 
 every member of it. To others, it must surely 
 seem a surprising pretension, in one who evidently 
 knew so well the meaning of it ; but they find in 
 the actual truth of the pretension an explanation 
 of the success of Jesus. The Son of Man ! What- 
 ever was human touched him, as it has touched 
 no other; we are all less human than Christ. 
 He loved and rejoiced and grieved, as one to 
 whom every man was a dear brother. It was 
 his peculiar witness and teaching, that even the 
 evil were not to be shut out from the circle of 
 kindly fellowship. " Be the children of your 
 Father in heaven ; for he maketh his sun to rise
 
 III.] COMMUNION. 273 
 
 on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on 
 the just and on the unjust." It was an accepted 
 law amongst his countrymen, Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself: but narrow-minded Jews 
 could fit it to their less human dispositions by ask- 
 ing, But who is my neighbour? Jesus replied by 
 appealing to the simple instincts of humanity, and 
 shewing how a Samaritan heretic might perfectly 
 keep the law through natural kindness. The spirit 
 in which he himself sympathized with sufferers 
 made his followers see in him the fulfilment of 
 the prophet's saying, "Himself took our infirmities 
 and bare our sicknesses." He was capable indeed 
 of terrible anger against men, but it was against 
 men who in the name of God committed outrages 
 on humanity. Those whom he repelled were the 
 exclusive. When his denunciations were the hot- 
 test, his reproaches were such as these, "Ye lade 
 men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye 
 yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your 
 fingers." " Ye have taken away the key of know- 
 ledge : ye enter not in yourselves, and them that 
 were entering in ye hindered." To Jesus Christ 
 men as men were the children of his Father. To 
 be humane was to be in sympathy with him ; to 
 be inhuman was to offend him and his Father. 
 
 Assuredly, if Christianity is to be studied first 
 of all in Christ, it will be a difficult problem for 
 either friend or enemy to draw a circle of Christian 
 Communion leaving anything of humanity outside. 
 The records of the life of Christ vindicate to the 
 D. S. 18
 
 274 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 full his title of the Son of Man. When a thinker 
 who is in perfect accord with modern ideas con- 
 cerning humanity comes freshly to the examination 
 of those records, he finds in Christ not the narrower 
 affections of a less advanced civilization, but a rich- 
 ness and a warmth of human sympathy which 
 place his life still before the largest-hearted man 
 as a power and an example. The Son of Man, 
 who healed in Galilee and thundered at Jerusalem, 
 still claims the allegiance of Christendom. 
 
 But let us glance rapidly at the most ordinary 
 causes by which human society is built up, and let 
 us see how these are related to the principles of 
 Christian fellowship. 
 
 Men are so made as to be dependent on one 
 another. One wants what it is in the power of 
 another to supply. The more completely men 
 agree to help each other, the better off they all find 
 themselves. So the operation of need and help 
 tends perpetually to bind men together. But 
 when we look to St Paul, for example, to see how 
 he describes Christian fellowship, we observe that 
 this relation is explicitly recognized and insisted 
 upon. Christian society is a body, the members 
 of which all have need of one another. The eye 
 cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee : 
 nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of 
 you. God has tempered the body together, com- 
 pelling the more honourable parts to have due 
 regard to the less honourable, so that the members 
 should have the same care one for another. And
 
 III.] COMMUNION. 2 
 
 O 
 
 whether one member suffer, all the members suffer 
 with it ; or one member be honoured, all the 
 members rejoice with it. What theories of secular 
 socialism can do anything more than imitate this 
 ideal of St Paul's ? 
 
 Again, there are social or sympathetic instincts 
 in human nature which, apart from conscious 
 wants, move men towards one another. The 
 mutual love of husband and wife, of parents and 
 children, the fraternal affections, the kindness of 
 friends and neighbours, form the spiritual cement 
 of every social system. What does Christian 
 doctrine say to these natural bonds ? I need hardly 
 remind you how in the Christian system these 
 sympathies are exalted and consecrated. They 
 are the ligaments connecting the parts in the 
 Divinely organized body, and enabling each to 
 work in its place. The family, the city, the com- 
 munity, is a Divine creation. Such an aspect as 
 that in which St Paul presents the duties of hus- 
 band and wife may be mystical, may be called 
 fanciful, but it undeniably tends to make those 
 natural duties more sacred and binding. Husband 
 and wife will not love each other less if they are 
 true Christians, but more. If any Christian school 
 has persuaded people that they ought, as heirs of 
 heaven, to sit loose to natural affections, and has 
 made the fulfilment of common relative obligations 
 a mere condescension to the exigencies of a cor- 
 rupt world, that is not Apostolical Christianity. In 
 the days of the New Testament Christians were 
 
 18—2
 
 2-jb MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [disc. 
 
 taught not to look clown upon, but to reverence as 
 Divine, the elementary bonds of human society. 
 
 Similarly, if we were to consider the common 
 interests, common inheritances, common prospects, 
 by which the citizens of a country are bound to- 
 gether, we should find that these, so far as they are 
 worthy, are not only accepted, but lifted into a 
 higher atmosphere, by the faith of the Christian. 
 As we look back on history we say, " O God, we 
 have heard with our ears, and our fathers have 
 declared unto us, the noble works that thou didst 
 in their days, and in the old time before them." 
 That our country should be disgraced by crime 
 and ignorance and social disorder causes in us a 
 deeper grief and shame in proportion as we honour 
 the Gospel and give God thanks for his grace. 
 And when we are cherishing hope, what aim can 
 Ave possibly have in the interest of society, which is 
 not also an object of Christian prayer and Christian 
 effort ? Christianity indeed is far from sanctioning 
 all that men do and seek ; it has to condemn 
 much of what goes on in the world: but, if any 
 pursuit is really condemned by Christian doctrine, 
 — by such doctrine, I mean, as that which we are 
 reading in our Sacrament of Holy Communion, — 
 we may be sure that such a pursuit is not thoroughly 
 social, is not tending to build up society, but to 
 dissolve and destroy it. 
 
 Let us look for a moment in this light at the 
 causes which notoriously weaken and injure human 
 fellowship. Is there one of these which Christianity
 
 III.] COMMUNIO. V. 277 
 
 encourages, which it does not expressly condemn ? 
 Dishonesty, for example, is always at its mischiev- 
 ous work, producing distrust between man and 
 man. A man is tempted to suppress the truth, to 
 utter a falsehood, to gain secretly some unfair 
 advantage ; whenever he yields to the temptation, 
 society suffers. Dishonesty or falsehood is mani- 
 festly anti-social. But on that very account it is 
 condemned by the Christian law. " Wherefore 
 putting away lying," says St Paul, "speak every 
 man truth with his neighbour ; for tec are members 
 one of another." How can fellow-members of the 
 body of Christ do a thing so unnatural as to deceive 
 one another ? The mutual jealousy, again, which 
 springs from irritated self-regard, is one of the 
 great poisons of society. Beginning secretly, like 
 a fatal gas, it broods and grows till some accident 
 causes it to explode, with breaches and rents which 
 can never be healed. But no one can come under 
 the teaching of the Gospel without being distinctly 
 warned, in the name of the Gospel, against the 
 cherishing of resentment. The Gospel is the offer 
 of forgiveness from God to men ; but God's for- 
 giveness, we are assured, cannot reach the unfor^ 
 giving. " Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." "If 
 ye do not forgive, neither will your Father who is 
 in heaven forgive you." " Be kind one to another, 
 tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God 
 in Christ has forgiven you." "Be angry and sin 
 not ; let not the sun go down upon your wrath, 
 neither give place to the devil." " Give not room,"
 
 278 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 that is, " for the dividing spirit, the spirit of miscon- 
 struction, of falsehood, of ill-will, to enter in and to 
 set brother against brother." Another destroyer 
 of the unity of society is insolence, the insolence of 
 wealth and prosperity, the insolence of caste. What 
 can strike more directly at the root of insolence 
 than the law of Christ ? " My brethren," says the 
 Apostle, with grave remonstrance, " have not the 
 faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, 
 with respect of persons." " Who maketh thee to 
 differ from another ? and what hast thou that thou 
 didst not receive ? Now, if thou didst receive it, 
 why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received 
 it ?" It is not to the New Testament that the rich 
 man or the cultivated can go to find excuses for 
 looking down upon the multitude. There, on the 
 contrary, he will find incessant warnings as to his 
 special dangers, and as to the retribution which will 
 attend on his special sins. He will find the grace 
 of God exalted above all worldly distinctions, and 
 will be told that the poor have a better chance than 
 he of receiving that grace... Or, take two opposite 
 causes which introduce mischief into the economi- 
 cal system of society, greed of money, and idleness. 
 A train of destructive influences proceed from both: 
 from the eager love of money, — excessive specu- 
 lation, hardness in driving bargains, overwork, a 
 spirit of competition which looks on competitors as 
 necessary enemies ; from idleness, — a loose self- 
 indulgence, neglect of relative obligations, a habit 
 of fault-finding, poverty, pauperism. The law
 
 III.] COMMUNION. 279 
 
 of Christ makes both covetousness and idleness 
 offences against God. " Ye cannot serve God and 
 Mammon." " Charge them that are rich in this 
 world, that they be not high-minded nor trust in 
 uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth 
 us richly all things to enjoy ; that they do good, 
 that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, 
 willing to communicate." " As touching brotherly 
 love, ye need not that I write unto you, for ye 
 yourselves are taught of God to love one another. 
 And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which 
 are in all Macedonia ; but we beseech you, brethren, 
 that ye increase more and more ; and that ye study 
 to be quiet and to do your own business, and to 
 work with your own hands as we commanded you ; 
 that ye may walk honestly toward them that are 
 without, and that ye may have lack of nothing." 
 " Let a man labour, working with his hands the 
 thing that is good, that he may have to give to him 
 that needeth." 
 
 These are but examples of the way in which 
 the true Christian faith meets every vice which 
 threatens society, marks it with the more awful 
 name of a sin against God, and charges men by 
 their gratitude to God for his mercies and by their 
 fear of his displeasure to avoid it and to war 
 against it. Let a man be a true Christian, and he 
 cannot do anything which he knows to be unsocial. 
 To be in communion with Christ is to love God and 
 man, and love, which works no ill to a neighbour, 
 unconsciously fulfils the whole social law. "This
 
 280 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 is the message," says St John, "which we have 
 heard from the Son of God and declare unto 
 you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness 
 at all. If we say that we have fellowship with 
 him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not 
 the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is 
 in the light, we have fellowship one with another." 
 There is no room for doubt as to what St John 
 meant by darkness and light. Light was love 
 and righteousness; darkness was hatred and un- 
 righteousness. The blessed revelation made by 
 the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, was 
 that God was. perfectly righteous, perfectly loving, 
 with a love and truth which could be known by 
 humanity and reproduced by humanity. The eter- 
 nal grounds of fellowship are righteousness and 
 love. "We who were friends of the Lord Jesus,'' 
 says St John, "declare to you what we have seen 
 and heard, in' order that you may have fellowship 
 with us, — and our fellowship is with the Father and 
 his Son Jesus Christ." 
 
 Certainly, these words themselves speak of a 
 communion which is to be enjoyed by those who 
 know and believe in Jesus Christ. Nothing that 
 was said by any Apostle, — nothing, I hope, of what 
 I have been saying, — can be rightly understood as 
 implying that there is no such thing as a peculiar 
 Christian fellowship. But the fellowship is of those 
 who have learnt together that there is a hope for 
 mankind which others have despaired of, or at 
 which they have wistfully guessed; of those who have
 
 HI.] COMMUNION. 281 
 
 seen heaven opened and the Son of man standing 
 on the right hand of God. This common faith 
 cannot but make those who share it rejoice together 
 and grieve together and labour together, till a 
 fellow-feeling, a spiritual sympathy, of unbounded 
 closeness and tenderness grows up between them. 
 But the utmost growth of it does not separate them 
 from their fellow-men, whatever belief and hopes 
 these others may be entertaining; they love not 
 the man the less, because they love the fellow- 
 Christian the more. The exclusiveness which has 
 been charged upon Christians has a twofold expla- 
 nation. It may be the name for the fact that the 
 strongest believers in Christ have set the highest 
 value on the Gospel, and have desired most ear- 
 nestly that all men should receive it, and have 
 taken pains to guard their own faith and love from 
 growing cold, and have assumed that not to be a 
 Christian was to be suffering a loss beyond calcula- 
 tion. I have been quoting St John; and it is 
 probable that no one, after reading his Epistles, 
 would be inclined to claim St John as a Liberal. 
 But there is another kind of exclusiveness, belong- 
 ing to Christians but not to Christianity; due to the 
 forgetting of St John's great lesson, that the 
 Revelation we have received is a manifestation of 
 God in his Son as infinitely righteous and good. 
 Christians who fence themselves off from their 
 fellow-men are offenders against the law of human- 
 ity; but they are first of all disloyal to the law of 
 Christ. There is no danger of Christians clinging
 
 282 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 to one another too closely, so long as they are bound 
 together in the common love of the Son of man. 
 
 When at first the new fervour of humanity was 
 stirring in the Christian body, it had two principal 
 triumphs: it brought rich and poor into sincere fel- 
 lowship; and it constrained Jews to acknowledge 
 men of other races as brethren. If a more lively 
 spirit of communion, derived from fellowship with 
 Christ, were to be aroused amongst ourselves, it 
 would assuredly find work of both kinds to do. On 
 the binding of rich and poor together, though modern 
 circumstances might suggest much to say, I will 
 only say this : that the power of Christian principle 
 to adjust classes together, making them helpful and 
 not hostile to each other, must come from the re- 
 cognition of men, both rich and poor, as brethren in 
 God's family; not from the exaggerated estimate 
 of the value of riches and power, and of the rights 
 of the poor to attain a share in them, but from a 
 confession that all are cared for by God, all are 
 responsible to him, and that it is an infinitely more 
 important question whether a man is just and 
 merciful, a true man, honouring all men, than 
 whether he is rich or poor, great or small. On the 
 Catholic influence of Christian communion or its 
 power to obliterate the isolation of races, I am 
 tempted to dwell a little longer, because we in 
 England have been charged with making patriotic 
 isolation a virtue, and high-minded men, like the 
 authors of the Essays on International Policy, have 
 set themselves to rebuke our pride of race, and to
 
 III.] COMMUNION. 283 
 
 urge upon Englishmen their obligations as members 
 of the great human family. It has been represented 
 by our most eloquent statesman and repeated by 
 others*, that those who have laboured most zeal- 
 ously to promote freedom of trade, did not so 
 earnestly desire to increase wealth at home, as to 
 bring about what they held to be a far higher end, 
 a more cordial international fellowship. Now par- 
 ticular accusations of unjust and selfish and insolent 
 disregard of human rights should be tested by 
 facts: but if we have to plead guilty, we surely have 
 in our New Testament, in our Creeds and Prayers, 
 a more direct and forcible condemnation than can 
 light on us from any other quarter. If the obliga- 
 tions of humanity between different races of men 
 have indeed to be brought before us as a discovery 
 of our age, why have we been for so many genera- 
 tions professing to be Catholic Christians? Let us 
 be thankful for modern lessons, modern reproofs: 
 but let us take to ourselves the deeper shame, when 
 we remember to what sacred teaching we must have 
 made ourselves deaf. We belong to the Church of 
 St Peter, to whom God shewed that he should not 
 call any man common or unclean ; of St Paul, who 
 saw that membership in Christ transcended all dis- 
 tinctions of Jew and Greek, barbarian, Scythian, 
 bond and free; of St John, who had visions of a 
 great multitude, of all nations and kindreds and 
 people and tongues, standing before the throne and 
 
 * Richard Cobden's aims have been thus described by Mr Glad- 
 stone, Lord Hobart, and others.
 
 284 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 before the Lamb, and of a New Jerusalem into 
 which the glory and honour of the nations were to 
 be brought. We read perhaps many times in the 
 year that broadest of statements, made by a Chris- 
 tian Apostle pleading with a heathen audience: 
 "God hath made of one blood all nations of men, 
 for to dwell on all the face of the earth ; and hath 
 determined the times before appointed and the 
 bounds of their habitation; that they should seek 
 the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and 
 find him, though he be not far from every one of 
 us: for in him we live and move and have our 
 being; as certain also of your own poets have said, 
 For we are also his offspring." This is the creed 
 of Christians as to Englishmen and Frenchmen, as 
 to Indians and Negroes. 
 
 With reference to the relations of commerce to 
 the cordial human intercourse of different nations, 
 we might challenge any modern politician to state 
 those relations more thoroughly or more beauti- 
 fully than they were stated 300 years ago in the 
 simple language of Catholic Christianity by one 
 of our English rulers. I quote from a letter sent 
 by Edward Vlth with an expedition of discovery, 
 and addressed to the rulers of any country at 
 which the expedition might arrive : " Forasmuch as 
 the great and Almighty God hath given unto man- 
 kind, above all other living creatures, such an heart 
 and desire, that every man desireth to join friend- 
 ship with other, to love and be loved, also to give 
 and receive mutual benefits: it is therefore the duty
 
 III.] COMMUNION. 285 
 
 of all men according to their power to maintain and 
 increase this desire in every man, with well deserving 
 to all men, and especially to shew this good affec- 
 tion to such as being moved with this desire come 
 to them from far countries... .For the God of heaven 
 and earth, greatly providing for mankind, would 
 not that all things should be found in one region, 
 to the end that one should have need of another, 
 that by this means friendship might be established 
 among all men, and every one seek to gratify all. 
 For the furtherance of which universal amity, cer- 
 tain men of our realm, moved hereunto by the said 
 desire, have instituted and taken upon them a 
 voyage into far countries, desiring us to further 
 their enterprise. Who, assenting to their petition, 
 have licensed the right valiant and worthy Sir 
 Hugh Willoughby, Kt. and others our trusty and 
 faithful servants, to go to countries to them hereto- 
 fore unknown, as well to seek such things as we 
 lack, as also to carry unto them from our regions 
 such things as they lack. So that hereby not only 
 commodity may ensue both to them and us, but 
 also an indissoluble and perpetual league of friend- 
 ship be established between us both. We there- 
 fore desire you kings and princes and all other to 
 whom there is any power on the earth, to permit 
 unto these our servants free passage by your 
 regions and dominions ; for they shall not touch 
 anything of yours unwilling unto you. Consider 
 you that they also are men. If therefore they shall 
 stand in need of anything, we desire you of all 
 humanity and for the nobility which is in you, to
 
 286 MORALITY OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. [DISC. 
 
 aid and help them with such things as they lack, 
 receiving again of them such things as they shall 
 be able to give you in recompense. Shew your- 
 selves so towards them, as you would that we and 
 our subjects should shew ourselves towards your 
 servants, if at any time they shall pass by our 
 regions* " — That, I repeat, is the theory of trade 
 according to Catholic Christianity. It may be a 
 reproach to us if we have to learn a poor imitation 
 of it from some other teachers, but the reproach 
 ought not to fall on the Gospel to which through 
 our narrowness we have been unfaithful. 
 
 To sum up in a few concluding words what I 
 have been endeavouring to set before you. — Our 
 Holy Communion preaches that through fellowship 
 with Christ our Divine Head we have fellowship 
 with one another. There are two ways in which 
 this preaching may be set at nought. We may 
 exalt the Sacrament, but by making it magical 
 instead of spiritual, we may forfeit its moral in- 
 fluence. Or, we may fix our thoughts respect- 
 fully on human fellowship, but resolve to shut out 
 the idea of any Divine bond of it. In the con- 
 templation of the former of these tendencies I 
 would urge, Consider the Sacrament which you 
 honour : let it teach you, as it will, the sacredness 
 of common humanity. With those who may be 
 affected by the latter I would plead, Is not human 
 fellowship illustrated and consecrated and bound 
 home upon the consciences of men, by the acknow- 
 ledgment of the Son of Man, who is the Head of 
 
 • The Letter is in Hakluyf.s Voyages.
 
 III.] COMMUNION. 287 
 
 every man ? Without Christ, you either lose the 
 immense help of an ideal in which even corrupt 
 and offensive humanity has an admitted claim 
 upon you ; or you set up an ideal which you know 
 to be your own invention. How can the best and 
 highest be persuaded, — not to patronize humanity, 
 but to serve it in all humility, unless they see 
 behind the foolish and perishing races of mankind 
 the abiding Figure of the Divine Man ? 
 
 It would not be right, indeed, to take up a faith 
 in Christ merely because the acknowledgment of 
 him would be good for human fellowship. But we 
 may rightly use the contemplation of this fact, if it 
 be one, to support and vitalize our faith. Is there 
 not a region, an atmosphere, into which both our 
 religion and our ordinary conceptions of life need 
 equally to rise ? We are brought up to believe in a 
 spiritual world, in which God and Christ and the 
 living spirits of men who toil and who endure 
 are the realities. Is it possible that well-meaning 
 persons should be tempted in our generation to 
 decline from that faith, to seek life and comfort 
 either in the weak and beggarly rudiments of cere- 
 monial observance, or in the laws and interests of a 
 world without Christ ? Let us listen rather to the 
 high-toned appeal, " Stand fast in the liberty with 
 which Christ has made us free." Having begun in 
 the Spirit, are we now to be made perfect by the 
 flesh ?— God forbid ! 
 
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