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ny THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE PSALTER OR PSALMS OF
DAVID IN ENGLISH VERSE. Price y. 6ii.
BETWEEN WHILES, OR WAYSIDE
AMUSEMENTS OF A WORKING LIFE. Price 6s.
OCCASIONAL SERMONS
PKKACHKn REroRK THK
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGK
AND eusewherf:,
WITir AN
APPENDIX OF HYMNS.
BENJAMIN HALL KENNEDY, D.D.,
RRnitis PKorsssoK or gbkkk, camrbidob. and canom or klv.
GEORGE BELL AND SONS.
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO.
1877
PRINTKD BV C. J. CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVKKSITV PRESS.
6X5133
1877
TO HIS GRACE
WILLIAM DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE, K.G.,
eHANCELU^R OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE,
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED
WITH THE GRATITUDE FELT BY THE WRITER
AND THE RESPECT FELT BY ALL.
i 027
CONTENTS
fAom
SERMON 1.
I hi: Mauian Visit
SERMON II.
1 HK Mural Exckllenx* of Jesus .... 15
SERMON III.
Jesus thk King of his People 33
SERMON IV.
The Interpretation of the Bible -49
SERMON V.
biiNFUL Party-Spirit exemplified in the Jewish
Sanhedrim 68
SERMON VI.
The Fear of the World exemplified in Pontius
Pil.\te • . . . 8j
SERMON VII.
Socialism and Christianity 98
SERMON VIII.
The B.\lance of Duties in Education . 113
SERMON IX.
The DEr.vRTfRE of the aged Christian . . - '33
VI CONTENTS.
PAGE
SERMON X.
Ordinatiow 145
SERMON XI.
Fhe Doctrine of the Holy Tkinity , . .155
SERMON XII.
Christian Missions 167
SERMON XIII.
The Safeguards of Christian Boyhood . .178
SERMON XIV.
The Commemoration of Benefactors , .189
SERMON XV.
On the Death of the Prince Consort . . 104
SERMON XVI.
Papal Supremacy «'5
On the Judgment in the Gorham Case . .223
SERMON XVII.
The Christ of Prophecy 23'
APPENDIX.
Psalms and Hymns 247
Appendix to Sermons 288
SERMON I.
THE MAGIAN VISIT.
BKFORE THE UNIVERSITY OP CAMBRIDGE, JAN. 6. 1861.
St Luke ii. 32.
A Light to lighten iJu GentiUs.
Among the titles given by the early Church to the Feast
we this day celebrate, two are more especially prominent :
— Theophany, or manifestation of God ; and Epiphany,
dawn of light, or, sudden appearance. Both titles are
well adapted to every Manifestation of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ. For God was in Christ, recon-
ciling the world unto Himsell Christ is called Em-
manuel, God with us; and in Him dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily. Again : Christ was
foretold as the Sun of Righteousness, who should arise
with healing in his wings. He reveals Himself as the
bright and morning star. He is declared by his own
l^eloved Apostle to be the Light of men. Once more :
Christ appeared indeed in the fulness of the time
K. I
2 SERMON I.
determined and foretold : yet was He born suddenly into
the world which was made by Him and knew Him
not. Angel visits and dreams were required to prepare
a few chosen persons for Messiah's birth. Angel songs
drew a few poor shepherds, firstfruits and types of
Jewish faith, to the manger in the city of David, where
Christ the Lord was cradled, a new-born babe. Suddenly,
as Malachi had said aforetime, did the Lord come to his
temple on the day of his Presentation : and none knew
Him save one aged Rabbi, just and devout, waiting for
the consolation of Israel, and one widow of about four-
score and four years, who served God with fastings and
prayers night and day. The former of these holy per-
sons, Simeon, came by the Spirit into the temple, and
took up the child Jesus in his arms, and blessed God, and
said, ' Lord, now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy
salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of
all people : a Light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory
of thy people Israel.' But not to these circumstances
only, nor to these chiefly, did the early Church apply
the term Epiphany. It was applied principally to the
Baptism of Jesus in the river Jordan, when the dove-like
Spirit and the heavenly Voice manifested Him to all the
people there assembled, as the beloved Son, in whom
the Father was well pleased. It was applied also to
the beginning of miracles which Jesus did in Cana of
Galilee, whereby ' He manifested forth his glory, and
the disciples believed on Him.' But when, in the fourth
century, the Nativity of our Lord had been determined to
THE MAG I AN VISIT. 3
the 2Sth day of December, twelve following days were in
process of time set apart for the festivities of Christmas,
ending with the Feast of the Epiphany on this day, which
has since been held in the Church to commemorate the
Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, that is, to the
Wise-men, or Magians, who came from the East to
worship the new-bom King of the Jews. Thus we have
two Epiphanies of the infant Saviour, one to the Jews, the
shepherds of Bethlehem, the other to the Gentiles, the
Eastern Magians : and two Epiphanies of the adult Sa-
viour, when He began his prophetic work: one, in his
Baptism, to the Jews, the other, in his first Miracle, to
his disciples. It has indeed been well said that every
one of his miracles was an Epiphany : and if we look
beyond the time when, having wrought the work of re-
demption on earth, He was received up into glory, wc
find two Epiphanies of the Lord to Paul and Peter,
whereby it was made manifest that the partition-wall was
now throMm down, and the Church of Christ opyened to Gen-
tile as well as Jew. And are not all who name his Name
sincerely, looking for a final Epiphany, even that blessed
hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our
SaN-iour Jesus Christ? O my brethren, how can that
glorious appearing be a blessed hope to any of the
sinful children of men, unless they have received into
their own hearts, through faith, the spiritual Epiphany of
that true Light, which alone gives us power to become
the sons of God?
The subject matter of the present Festival — the jour-
ney of the Magians, as recorded in the Gospel for the
I — 2
4 SERMON I.
day— opens a large field for thought and enquiry. May
it be blest to our edification.
Vague tradition, resting, it would seem, on no stronger
basis than the threefold offering of gold, frankincense, and
myrrh, has pronounced these Magians to be three in
number : and the same tradition, finding in their pilgrimage
the fulfilment of those old predictions, that the kings of
Arabia and Saba should bring gifts, and that kings
should come to the brightness of Messiah's rising, has
exalted them to the rank of emirs or petty kings. We
know how large a place they hold in mediaeval legend :
how often Christian Art has clothed them with the forms
and colours of painting : how Christian Architecture has
enshrined them in one of its most splendid works, the
Choir at Cologne. But in the sterner divinity of the
Reformed Church, which interprets Scripture chiefly by
its own light, admitting tradition only as corroborative
evidence, and that with great caution, the number of the
Magian visitors remains undefined, and it is left an open
question, whether, from their title, we conclude them to
have been astrologers from Chaldea, or priests of the
Mazdean faith from Persia.
Difficulties there are belonging to this Magian visit
and its immediate results (as stated in the 2nd Chapter of
St Matthew), the flight into Egypt, the murder of the
Infants, the return of the holy Family, and their settle-
ment at Nazareth: difficulties perhaps more numerous
and various than are found in any scriptural passage of
the same length. The source to which the Magians seem
to ascribe their information— 'we have seen his star in
THE MAC I AN VISIT. 5
the East^; — the star itself, and the motions assigned to it ;
the perplexing order of events in St Nfatthew as com-
pared with those of the same period in St Luke's Gospel :
the silence of Josephus respecting the nuissacre of the
Infants: the questions raised by the ciutions from the
Old Testament which are said to be fulfilled : these are
die principal objections arrayed against the Gospel narra-
tive by the atheist, the pantheist, the deist, and the ration-
alist, who, differ as they may on other points, ag^ree in
discrediting the supernatural facts of Scripture, and in
denying its supreme authority as an inspired book. But
the thoughtful Christian is dismayed by no difficulties in
Holy Writ, which do not involve a contradiction of some
recognized truth. Such as merely imply that a question
is dark or doubtful, because some knowledge requisite for
its elucidation is withheld from us, may employ his mind,
but they cannot distress it. He regards these difficulties
as occasions for the exercise of humility and faith ; and
he is well content to wait and pray till more light be
given, or to remain ignorant, if it must be so, on this side
the grave. Nay more : with Bishop Butler, he views the
hard problems of the Bible as among the indications of
its coming from Him who has given hard problems in the
book of nature, to exercise the higher faculties of men,
while what is really needful to life — to corporeal life in
nature, to spiritual life in revelation — He has placed
within the reach of all who desire to eat and be satisfied.
The cavils of a Strauss and a Bruno Bauer on this
passage, and the answers they have received from Chris-
tian learning, we may leave, for the most part, to be more
6 SERMON L
fitly considered in the study and the lecture-room than in
the pulpit of God's house. But one objection there is,
so nearly affecting the honour of God and our own edifi-
cation, that we may not pursue our subject without some
endeavour to remove it St Matthew tells us that the
Magians at Jerusalem spoke in this wise : * Where is he
that is born King of the Jews ? for we have seen his star
in the East, and are come to worship him.' Was then
this star, whatever its precise nature, the real and sole
medium through which God apprized them of Christ's
birth? They might have had — we believe they had —
previous expectation of such an event. But this does not
get rid of the objection. Did the star alone make known
the fact? If so, it could only be by virtue of some sup-
posed principle of astrology. But judicial astrology, divi-
nation by means of the heavenly bodies, to a Christian
mind implies nothing better than delusion or imposture.
Can we for a moment suppose that God, the God of
truth, He who hateth a lie, gave a true voice in this in-
stance to astrology, and made its calculations to be tokens
of his truth, yea, of his greatest truth, the central
world-truth, the appearance of his Son in the flesh? We
dare not think it. As reasonably, as reverently might we
suppose that God would speak by the mouth of the
Delphian priestess, and accredit her oracles. But if we
refuse to believe this, do we then admit that the Magians
spoke deceitfully, when they ascribed their knowledge to
the star ? that they, called and guided, as they must have
been, by the grace of God, to be the first fruits of heathen
faith in Christ, came to Jerusalem with a lie in their
THE MAGIAN VISIT, 7
mouths? Once more, impossible. How then, it is
further asked, do we untie the knot? We do not untie:
we cut it We say that this difficulty implies no more
than that we do not know enough of the foregoing cir-
cumstances to explain how far the Magians meant to
represent the sight of the star as their medium of infor-
mation, and as the moving cause of their journey. That
the birth of a mighty Jewish prince was looked for about
this time in the East, is a well attested and acknowledged
fact. That Daniel's great prediction was known to the
learned of Persia and Chaldea, is not improbable. Jeru-
salem, its history, its politics and prospects, must have
been deeply interesting to a people who had once held
the Jews captive, among whom many Jews were still
dispersed, and who regularly traded with Judea. The
Magians then, we may well believe, were in a waiting
frame of mind. It has been surmised (assuming that
the Presentation in the Temple must certainly be dated
some months before the Magians appeared at Jerusalem)
that the reports of Simeon and Anna concerning Mes-
siah's birth may have been conveyed to the East by some
devout Jewish merchant. No such surmise is necessary.
They may, as afterwards, have been warned and called of
God in a dream, and waking to the sight of a new and
bright star in the heavens, destined by God for their en-
couragement and guidance, they may, without any de-
ceitful intention, have used those words at Jerusalem :
* We have seen '— or rather * we saw his star in the East
and came to worship him.' We put this solution as a bare
possibility, without presuming to know more than God is
8 SERMON I.
pleased to tell us of the means by which He brings to
bear his eternal purposes. Enough to have shown
that our opponents fail to place the honour of God and
the credit of his revelation on the horns of a moral
dilemma.
The way should now be clear for a practical view of
the subject before us.
And note : how bright a constellation of excellent
virtues shines forth in the conduct of these Eastern pil-
grims ! In commencing the journey, what faith is theirs,
what hope, what unhesitating obedience, what trust in
God ! In pursuing it, what perseverance and patience !
At Jerusalem, what guilelessness yet what prudence, what
reverent submission to God's written Word ! When they
draw near to Christ, what holy joy ! In the house at
Bethlehem, what humble devotion, what ample liberality,
what readiness to pour forth the best of all they have for
the service of their Saviour and their God ! These great
and truly Christian qualities shine with so clear a lustre
in the story of these Magians, brief as it is, that we need
not enlarge upon them severally, content with praying for
grace to imitate as well as admire them.
But we would pause for a brief space, and observe the
blessing which God gives to sincere faith, even when ac-
companied with imperfect knowledge. The Magians were
called by the free grace of God: for 'no man,' saith our
Lord, * can come unto me, unless the Father, who hath
sent me, draw him.' The warning of God and the sight
of his star turned their eyes and their feet at once
towards Jerusalem. Yet the new-born Infant, whom they
THE MAGI AS VJ^ir. 9
went to worship, they knew not as the Son of God, as the
Incarnate Word, who was in the beginning, and was
with God, and was God, by whom the worlds were
made. They knew him only as King of the Jews. Some
great blessing they certainly hoped from Him, we know
not exactly what: some victory, perhaps, of good over
evil, some triumph of Ormuzd over Ahrinuin : or some
universal reign of righteousness and peace. They believed
with a vague faith, yet they obeyed with a clear and sted>
(ast purpose. * Lord, we believe,' was their virtual prayer,
' help Thou our unbelief.' And verily they were helped.
Willing to do the will of the Father, they gained the know-
ledge of the true doctrine of his blessed Son. They were
led from faith to faith ; from faith in God's call and God's
star during the journey, to faith in God's written Word at
Jerusalem. They were led to higher and better things still ;
from faith to sight, from hope to fruition, from doubt and
trial to assurance and joy. Travailing and heavy-laden
they came to Jesus, and He, babe and suckling as He was,
gave them rest. The enemy and avenger, the wily Herod,
was baffled in his plots against them and against the
Lord's Anointed. Being warned of God in a dream, the
Magians departed into their own country another way.
That way may have been longer and harder than the
former : but now more than ever would the Lord be with
them ; his rod and his staff would comfort them : surely
goodness and mercy followed them all the days of their
life, and they dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
May we meet them there in the resurrection of the just.
But if we are to stand with the Magians in the con-
lo SERMON I.
gregation of the righteous hereafter, ours too must be a
faith like theirs-in this our earthly pilgrimage : a faith that
can turn its back on all things else to seek and find
Christ : a faith that can overcome the world, and avoid
the snares it lays to entrap the feet of those who are
bound to a better country : a faith that can look on pomps
and vanities with indifference, or rather with pity, and
discern the great and the good, the beautiful and the
divine, in things which to unpurged eyes are least and
poorest : a faith which values human lore only so far as it
points to Christ and may be made the means of showing
Him to the world ; which prizes human wealth only so far
as it can be used to extend the kingdom of God, and
make his creatures happier and better: a faith which
prays ever to be sustained and increased by the power of
the Holy Spirit in the heart, yet ever looks abroad for
occasions of strengthening itself by action for God's
honour and the good of men : a humble, a thankful, a
hopeful, a self-denying faith, a faith that works by love ;
in short, the justifying faith of Scripture. If this faith be
ours, then, in the season now ended, we shall have shared
the Christmas gladness of the Jewish Shepherds, prais-
ing and glorifying God for the birth of Him, through
whom we, personally, have peace with God. The New
Year will have found us looking behind and before us
with Christian eyes, humbled and penitent for past sins,
grateful for mercies received, rejoicing in hope, patient
in tribulation, resolved, through the grace of God, to work
with and for our divine Master in this present year,
watching unto prayer, that if we be called to Him, or He
THE MA GIA N * u^ii. 1 1
come to us, in the course of it, we may be found ready.
The Day of our Lord's Circamdsion, foreshadowing
Good Friday, will have tanght us its proper lessons ; that
we have a Saviour, a Jesus, who, sinless Himself, lived
and died to save us, not im our sins, but from our sins ;
that we serve One whose example binds us to fulfil all
righteousness, and to deny worldly lusts; for that we
must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of
God. And so should we now be fit to keep the Festival
of this day in the sense which the Church gives to it, as
the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, as the great
Mission-feast of the Church.
When holy Simeon spoke the words of my text, there
was no veil upon his heart, as upon the hearts of other
Jews. The whole stream of prophetic light flowed in rich
abundance through his inspired souL He read aright the
promise of God to Abraham and Isaac, that in their seed
all the nations of the earth should be blessed. He saw
the dawning of the day, when Ishmael should come
home again, and Esau be hated no more. The dark
speech uttered upon David's harp was not dark to him.
He knew to whom the heathen should be given for
an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for
a possession. That dim prediction of Zion's future
glories, the eighty-seventh Psalm, he could read by the
clearer splendours which later prophecy sheds from the
sixtieth and following chapters of the Book of Isaiah :
'Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of
the Lord is risen upon thee.' And he would remember
that, when the prophetic spirit of Israel breathed its
12 SERMON I.
last on the lips of Malachi, the Lord thus spake through
his latest interpreter : * From the rising of the sun even
to the going down of the same my Name shall be great
among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be
offered unto my Name, and a peace-offering.'
Of these prophecies, my brethren, are not we our-
selves a living fulfilment, we, sprung from heathen an-
cestors, in a once heathen land ? Upon us hath not the
true light shined, even the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, the Saviour of the world? Have we not
all been received by Him in holy baptism? Has He
not, by his ministers, taken us into his arms, and
signed us with the sign of his cross and blessed us,
and given to us power to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his Name? When we have
wandered from Him, the true Shepherd, has not his
loving voice restored us, and led us in the paths of
righteousness? And, when we return to Him with sighs
and tears of repentance, does He not forgive our sins,
and prepare a table for us in the wilderness of this
world, and feed us with the cup of salvation and the
bread of life ? ' O that men would therefore praise the
Lord for his goodness, and declare the wonders that
He doeth for the children of men ! '
Or when we lift up our eyes to the world around us,
through the gross darkness which covers large populations
of the earth see we not light after light flashing up,
and in many a moral desert a pathway made for Him,
who is alone the way, the truth, and the life to all
mankind? And although that East, from which the
THE MAGIAN VISIT. 13
Magians travelled to adore the Infant Light, is now the
darkest home of heathendom, although many a genera-
tion may pass, ere He, to whom a thousand years are
as one day, shall make the false stars of Buddha and
Brahma and Mohammed to vanish from the human
horizon, yet year by year their light pales before the
advancing beams of the Sun of righteousness. Mean>
while Ethiopia stretches out her hands unto God : on
every Atlantic coast the mariner hears the sound of
Sabbath bells: over the breadth of the vast Pacific —
well-omened name — the Lord reigneth, let the earth
rejoice ; yea, the multitude of the isles may be glad
thereof. 'O that men would therefore praise the Lord
for his goodness, and declare the wonders that He
doeth for the children of men !'
Enough is here to rejoice in : yet our joy should be
mingled with fear. Let us look well to our own candle>
stick, that it be not removed from its place. Let us
tremble lest the light, which is lightening the Gentiles
in other lands, be burning but too dimly in our own.
Within these British Isles, nominally Christian, there is
enough of virtual heathenism to employ all the mis-
sionaries of all Christendom : heathenism of many a
Lazarus whom the Church cannot reach, heathenism,
alas, of many a Dives, who will not hear the Chnrch.
And all this time, — O shame and sorrow ! — Christian* —
yea. Christian Churchmen — are at war among them-
selves, when they should be standing side by side against
their common foes, vice and ignorance and infidelity.
May the time past suffice to have wrought such mad-
14 SERMON I.
ncss ! May we, each and all, pray and strive for more
Christian love. Christian brotherhood, Christian zeal !
Yes, may each strive in love, that all may strive in
union ! Society is but an aggregate of individuals : and
all individuals have the same moral and religious wants.
The faith which can change your heart and mine, has
the power to transform society itself. The truth which
sanctifies the man, sanctifies human nature. The light
which illuminates one soul, dispels the moral darkness
of the world. O Christians in name, be Christians in
deed and in truth, in heart and in life. All things are
possible to him that believeth. The Light that now
lightens the Gentiles from Oregon to China shone first
in a stable at Bethlehem and in a carpenter's shop at
Nazareth. Received in the power of faith by a few
lowly and despised Galileans, it became the vital prin-
ciple of human civilization. Let us walk as children of
that light : so shall we realize our Lord's promise, and
like Himself, like his Apostles, we too in our sphere
and in our degree shall be the light of the world.
' For Zion's sake we shall not hold our peace, and for
Jerusalem's sake we shall not rest, until the righteous-
ness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation
thereof as a lamp that burneth.'
SERMON II.
THE MORAL EXCELLENCE OF JESUS.
BEFORE THE UNrVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. JAN. i^ i86(.
St John xiv. i.
Ye Mieve in Cod; btlieve also in Me.
* No man hath seen God at any time,' says the Evan-
gelist St John in his first chapter : and so far religion
and irreligion hold the same langiiage.
' No man hath seen God at any time,' says the
Materialist : therefore, for aught we know, the things
which are seen may have existed for ever, and may go
on to exist for ever, in form manifold and mutable, but
in substance always the same.
'No man hath seen God at any time,* says the
Pantheist: for God is the One in All, and the All in
One, absolute, infinite, incomprehensible; and things
which are seen, whether we call them good or evil,
yea, we ourselves, are but so many phases of the one
divine essence, bubbles, as it were, that rise and float
1 6 SERMON II.
for awhile on the ocean of Godhead, and then sink
into its bosom for ever.
*No man hath seen God at any time,' says the
philosophic Theist : but I believe in a personal God ;
and, if you ask me for the arguments on which I rest
my belief, I reply: They are many and various, some
drawn from my own consciousness, others from out-
ward experience. If you further ask : Do any or all
of these arguments amount to a demonstration of the
existence of God? I reply : No ; for demonstration im-
plies definition, and the Infinite defined is a contradic-
tion in terms : demonstration involves the assumption of
a first principle ; but God Himself is prior to any prin-
ciple, and therefore, by the nature of the case, indemon-
strable. Believing that I have in my own consciousness,
as guiding instincts, the ideas of existence, of freedom,
and of duty or morality, I further believe that I have
the idea of the perfection of each of these ideas, that
is, the idea of the Absolute and Infinite, that is, the
idea of God. This idea of perfection is necessarily
vague and incomplete, because my nature is relative
and finite, and the relative has no measure for the abso-
lute, nor the finite for the infinite. But as I believe in
a perfectly moral Being, on whom all things depend,
I must believe that all things are directed to serve a
perfectly moral purpose. I do then believe that this
idea of perfection is given for the purpose of lifting my
eyes to the distant hills, behind which absolute Truth
hides its awful beauty ; for the purpose of pricking me
on towards that far distant but ever desired and alone
/3
THE MORAL EXCELLENCE OF JESUS. 17
desirable goal: for the purpose of raising me ever
hi^licr and higher in the scale of being, of drawing mc
ever nearer and nearer to God. Furthermore, from that
restlesa quest of the Better which I find inherent in my
naturc, from my thirsting desire of intimate and abiding
communion with the true and the beautiful, as aUo
from comparing the notions of justice and love, which
ire implied in the divine perfection, with the wrongs
md inequalities and sufTerings of human life, I am irrc-
--istibly led to believe in the immortal existence of man,
ind in a future state of retribution.
* No man hath seen God at any time,' says the
Christian ; this is an admitted, and to me a revealed,
truth. I accept and approve all that has been said by
the philosophic Theist ; but I cannot rest where he rests.
I feel a strong and ardent desire to know more of the
true and living God, more of my relations with Him,
more of my duties to Him, more of my hopes from
Him, than reason and experience are able to teach me.
As He has given me this desire, and as the things de-
sired are good in themselves, I may hope that He,
the All-just and All-wise, will in some just and wise
nanner and measure deign to satisfy it. I may pray for
a divine revelation of things divine ; and the more so
AS I find that the profoundest and purest of heathen
philosophers, a Socrates and a Plato, acknowledged the
same desire, and authorized the same prayer. But there
is yet a keener thought goading me on, and allowing me
no rest. I owe to God duties, which I never have fully
paid, which I never can fully pay. I find in myself,
1 8 SERMON II.
and see everywhere around me, not only pain and sor-
row, but also moral evil, rooted in human nature, bear-
ing poisonous fruit, and propagating itself in all direc-
tions. O God, what remedy? what dare I hope from
thy justice, which I have violated, from thy love, which
I have slighted ? I want the hope of pardon and recon-
ciliation with God. I want help from Him to fight
against the power of evil in and around me. I want
to see my brother-men helped to fight the same battle.
I want to be assured that I shall not carry this evil
with me beyond the grave, that it will not pursue me
and my brothers into our future state, and cleave to
us there, an incurable leprosy, for ever. This it is that
forbids me to be satisfied with the natural religion of
the philosophic Theist. This it is that drives me to
prayer. This obliges me to cry with an exceeding bit-
ter cry : O my Father, who hast deigned to make
me as I am, and to give me the desire of being with
Thee for ever, deign also to be my Saviour from the
evil, and my Guide unto Thyself, who art the fountain
of all good. And I believe that this cry, the cry of
suffering humanity, has been heard. Nay, rather I be-
lieve that it was anticipated in God's everlasting pur-
pose. I do not pretend to explain creation. I do not
pretend to explain the existence of evil. They are be-
yond the reach of my finite understanding. But I know
they do exist : and I find in books claiming to speak
in God's name an account of God's dispensations in
regard to them, which, taken as a whole, meets and
satisfies the cravings of my spirit. I see the world
THE MORAL EXCELLENCE OF JESUS. 19
created, and man in the image of God, pure and happy,
but free. I see man tempted, and yielding to tempta>
tion ; sin entering into the world, and death by sin.
But, as soon as the disease breaks out, I see the
ranedy proclaimed, even the restoration of man to the
favour of God and to the capacity of holiness, by means
of a Redeemer, the seed of the woman, to be bom in
the fulness of time. I see a peculiar people, a peculiar
ritual, a peculiar history, arran|^ and directed by God
to prepare those great events of redemption, the birth,
life, death and resurrection of this Saviour. At the
Name time 1 observe the traditions of heathen mythology
teeming with hints of this great story, and the currents
of profane history converging towards a central point
and a great world-era. The hour at length strikes : the
Word is made flesh, and dwells among men ; and,
although no man hath seen God at any time, the
only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath revealed Him. And not only does He reveal
God, not only docs He bring life and immortality to
light, but He willingly underwent death and the grave,
to take away the sins of the world, that all who believe
in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life.
Finally, having risen again, and having been received
up into glory, He sent forth his Holy Spirit to com-
fort his followers, and bear witness with their spirits
that they are the sons of God. Therefore am I a
Christian. Therefore, when my Saviour says to his
disciples in the words of the text, ' Ye believe in God,
2 - 2
20 SERMON II.
believe also in Me,' I hasten to reply with humble rap-
ture : ' Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief.'
Why the believer in God should also believe in Christ
appears from the words, already cited, of St John, that
He who revealed God to men is the only-begotten Son,
who is in the bosom of the Father; words figuratively
denoting the intimate and essential union of Christ and
God. The same doctrine is taught by Jesus Himself, in
the passage which nearly follows my text': 'he that hath
seen me hath seen the Father': and elsewhere, * I and the
Father are One.'
Such being the claims advanced by Jesus to a par-
ticipation in the divine nature, and so exalted the cha-
racter of his doctrine, are we not entitled, nay, morally
compelled, to expect a corresponding character in his
human life, in all that He did, and all that He was,
here on earth? For He, whose thoughts and lessons and
commandments were those of God, must, by strict con-
sequence, have lived a divine life, even while dwelling
as a man with men. He who in his ethical system set
before mankind a standard of holiness, must have real-
ized this ideal in Himself, must Himself have been holy
in all his walk and conversation. And the facts do
indeed answer so truly to this expectation, that the tran-
scendant moral excellence of Jesus has from the first
been used as an argument for his divine mission.
Nay, we find that He himself appeals to this proof. And
a proof it is not less obvious than forcible. For the
earthly life of Jesus is the very counterpart and ful-
filment of his doctrine. It displays a pattern of holi-
THE MORAL EXCELLENCE OF JESUS. 21
ness, such as human history cannot parallel, such as
cannot be explained by any human attributes, but only
by the supposition of a divine nature dwelling and
\vorking in Him. This proof has the further advantage
of being both gjenerally intelligible and powerfully con-
vincing, since it exhibits the thing which is to be proved
not in abstract notions, but in a living reality, plainly
showing that no excellence of heart or mind, no human
virtue, can be named, of which we do not find in Christ
the most perfect type and example. And those types
and examples extend to every state and relation of
human life ; since the Son of Man, that He might be
the perfect pattern of humanity, was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin.
The evangelical narratives, which acquaint us with
the life of Jesus, are the more trustworthy, as they are
evidently not written for the express purpose of drawing
a portrait of moral perfection, or executing an elabo-
rate panegyric. With artless simplicity, and in few
words, the writers produce the acts and sayings of
Jesus, usually without any comment of their own.
In this season of Epiphany, the Church directs our
special attention to the active life of the Incarnate Son of
God, as the great Prophet of the Church. Far be from
us the vain and presumptuous thought of sounding that
deep mystery of godliness, which angels desire to look
into, the moral nature of Him who was very God and
very Man. But, as none are Christians who do not
abide in Him, and 'he that saith he abideth in Him
ought himself also to walk even as He walked,' we may
22 SERMON 11.
without presumption, if humbly and reverently and with
inward prayer for the guidance of his Holy Spirit,
review some of those features in the life and character
of Jesus, which display Him first, as a model of human
virtue, secondly, as something more than human, as, in
that sense, divine.
As the first excellence in our Lord's human character,
let us note his entire devotion to the will and work
of the Father who sent Him. The Apostle to the He-
brews aptly puts in his mouth the prophetic words
of his forefather David : ' I delight to do thy will, O
ray God.' And indeed our Lord so spake in his own
person : ' My meat is to do the will of Him who sent
me, and to finish his work.' To the will of the Father
He had consecrated his earthly life, and accordingly
that life became one series of uninterrupted exertion in
the discharge of the task committed to Him, the re-
demption of fallen man. He went about, unwearied,
from place to place, teaching men to know the one
true God, and Jesus Christ whom He had sent. When
the day had been spent in addressing and instructing
men, the night was often given to prayer and com-
munion with God. The same spirit of faithful devo-
tion was shown in the resolute confidence which led
Him to commence so vast an enterprise with means
which seemed so slight and inadequate. Without name,
without riches, without friends or followers. He appeared
in public life. Soon afterwards, He had the pain of
learning that his own townsmen, nay, his very rela-
tives, had no faith in Him ; that even honest and well-
THE MORAL EXCELLENCE OF JESUS. 33
ntentioned though erring men could say: 'Can any
;ood come out of Nazareth?' But this dreary loneli-
ness, this discouraging withdrawal of human support
had no power to shake the stediast resolution of Him,
who was urged by more than human motives to under-
ake God's work, and could therefore count on more
than human support in achieving it. And so He still
pursued the even tenour of his way, choosing his
fust disciples from the fishermen of the lake, and preach-
ing his Gospel chiefly to the poor, though not re-
fusing his advice and assistance, when sought by the
rich and great
If desertion had no power to discourage Jesus, nei-
ther did hindrance avail to restrain his activity. The
leaders of the Jewish sects and schools, having more
or less influence with the people, threw themselves in
his way : — the scribes and teachers of the Law from
envy, because He discarded their captious subtleties and
unprofitable jargon, teaching as one, to whom autho-
rity was given from above : — the Pharisees from hatred
and revenge, because He exposed their hypocrisy and
ostentation, censured their immoral principles, and ex-
acted a far nobler and truer holiness than theirs : — the
Sadducees from contempt, because He did not, like them,
recommend sensual enjoyment as the aim of human
existence, but rather purity and holiness and endless
life with God. Even the people, who expected a tem-
poral Messiah, seeing no preparation made by Jesus
to restore the throne of David, and hearing no exhor-
tations from his mouth but those which called them
24 SERMON II.
to repentance, self-denial, purity, peace, and a kingdom
of God in the heart, gradually forsook Him and his
cause. Yet, in the face of all these impediments, so
firm was his stedfastness, so calm his temper, so as-
sured his trust, that in one of those trying seasons
of desertion He offered to the few who still remained
by his side the option of departing with the rest.
If the life and character of Jesus present the
highest example of faithful devotion to the will and work
of God, our admiration is also due to his principles
and conduct in dealing with men. His tender love
towards oiir race appears indeed from the facts already
mentioned ; for all his great achievements and suffer-
ings were for the good of mankind. If the will of God
was the motive, the salvation of man was the end. But,
besides what He did and suffered for men, we have
also to consider how He lived among them : we have to
regard Him as a model of the social virtues. Though
on every side He met with misunderstanding and con-
tradiction, yet so constantly did He practise as well as
teach peaceableness, forbearance, and forgiveness, that
his best disciples were unable to comprehend and imitate
Him. He, the strictest teacher of purity and truth, was
yet so mild to the erring, so gentle to sinners, that his
enemies imputed to Him laxity of principle. That loving
compassion for the spiritual sicknesses of men, which
moved Him to become their Redeemer and the Physician
of their souls, was extended also to their bodily wants
and ailments; and most of his great miracles were
wrought to remove or palliate human suffering. From
THE MORAL EXCELLENCE OF JESUS. 25
these good works He was diverted by no malice or
ingratitude of wicked men. Slander and caluntny were
cast on Him, and his only reply was, to labour for the
benefit of the slanderers and calunmiators. Reviled
and hated, He neither reviled nor hated in return : He
repaid his enemies with love, and prayed for those who
had nailed Him to the bitter cross. And although the
great purpose of his mission reached to the whole
human race, yet in every narrower circle of relative duty
He was not the less a pattern of excellence. As a son,
He remained in dutiful subjection to his human parents
for a time much exceeding the usual years of tutelage :
and almost his last words on the cross commended his
mother to the care of his most beloved disciple.
Christianity has sometimes, but unjustly, been reproached
with omitting from its code of virtues friendship and
patriotism. Yet the only tears which we know to have
been shed by Jesus flowed beside the tomb of his friend
Lazanis, and in view of the doomed metropolis of his
native land. So loyally was He the friend of his country-
men, that to their welfare his public labours were almost
wholly devoted : and, had they been capable of knowing
the things which belonged to their peace, He would have
saved them politically as well as morally.
But the grandeur of his character, in all that He
undertook and carried on and achieved for the glory of
God and the good of men, is not seen in its full light,
until we take in the purity of his motives, his noble
unselfishness, his high-minded indifference not to re-
ward only, but even to recognition. The stimulants and
26 SERMON IT.
attractions, which commonly prompt men to active
exertion, He knew not, or, if He knew, heeded not. A
man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, often not
having where to lay his head. He had bidden a long
farewell to the enjoyments of earth and sense. Riches,
the chief good of ordinary men, had no charm for Him.
Honour and renown, the idols of a somewhat higher
order of minds, were beneath his regard. Command
and leadership, which so many seek and so few attain,
and yet fewer rightly use, he put away from Him, and
withdrew Himself from the multitude, when they were
eager to march under his banner and proclaim Him
their king. And why was this? even because the honour
of his heavenly Father, the salvation of men, and the
reign of truth and righteousness, were to Him all in all.
These purposes, the best and the highest, occupied his
entire soul. His single motive, the noblest and the
purest, was to serve and advance these. For these alone
He lived, and for these He died.
So far we have viewed the life and character of the
man Christ Jesus as arriving at the summit of human
perfection. Never man, we say, lived and spake as
this man. Let us now, with reverent humility, consider
those features in his character, which display to us a
moral being superior to the highest human excellence,
a being supernatural, and so what we deem divine : God
stooping to the senses, and speaking to the heart of
man.
And first, behold the sinlessness of our blessed Lord.
This quality, though negative in form, has in this case
THE MORAL EXCELLENCE OF JESUS. 27
a positive force, for, as it denies a property inherent
in human nature, it marks the moral character of Jesus
as a thing which transcends humanity, as invested
with the purity which we ascribe to the divine essence
He was tempted as other men are tempted, yet He sinned
not He was tried, as few others have been tried, in
every stage of his earthly calling, yet He sinned not.
He had to bear the unteachableness of his disciples,
the unstcdfastness of his friends, the calumnies and
persecution of his foes, the ingratitude of his nation,
the treason of a trusted follower, the agonies of his
closing life, the shame and torture of his cruel death ; yet
He sirmed not He endured all with a serenity of temper
and a loftiness of soul, which after ages have regarded
with admiring wonder, as placing Him above the nature
of man, and attributable only to a divine element within
Him. He could Himself venture to appeal to the
testimony of his contemporaries, and before the face of
his enemies He could say: 'Which of you convinceth
me of sin?' And when those enemies had condemned
Him to death for words of truth, which they represented
as blasphemous, and demanded from the heathen ruler
the confirmation of their sentence, the impartial verdict
of that ruler declared: 'I find no fault in Him.'
Another and positive mark of superhuman excellence
is the equal perfection of Jesus in every department of
morals. Absolute holiness is indeed a thing we believe
in without assuming that our imperfect faculties can
actually comprehend it. But it is competent to us to
form some judgment of that which indefinitely surpasses
28 SERMON II.
in gfreatness and goodness all our conceptions of our own
powers, and all our experience of the powers of other
men. And thus we say of the equal and universal
holiness of our blessed Lord, that, human in kind (for,
if not such, we could not estimate it at all), it is super- .
human in degree. The finite individual mind rises in
this life to relative perfection only, whether of knowledge
or of virtue; and the very best minds have their own
spheres of excellence; the best characters in history
have their special vices or defects. But from what-
ever side we view the character of Jesus, in whatever
direction we follow the tenour of his life and action,
we everywhere find Him equally great, equally perfect.
In his devotion to his calling, in his relations with
God and with men, in social and public circles, in
what. He did and what He suffered, in struggle and in
victory, in life and in death, from first to last, we have
before us the same beautiful yet awful ideal, which every
good man would fain reach, which every best man feels
and owns his utter inability to approach.
A third feature, in which is seen the more than
human excellence of our Lord's nature, is the moral
equilibrium, which holds in just and harmonious pro-
portion virtues seemingly contradictory to one another.
The peculiarity of man's condition debars him from
ever attaining this perfect equipoise. In reasoning (as
notable instances at the present time remind us), he is
continually baffled by the inability of his dialectic facul-
ties to measure and define the vast conceptions of his
inquiring mind. In his moral being, and in the con-
THE MORAL EXCELLENCE OF JESUS. 29
duct of life, he finds it so hard to reconcile conflicting
duties, that, while in those, whom history ranks as
Krc.ii men, we often find the gravest faults, so is many
^ man of worth held back from greatness and even
trom usefulness by the very fear of going too far in
this or that moral direction ; and in corrupt times the
;>opular ideal of excellence is the ability to make things
easy and pleasant without allowing to moral and reli-
gious principle any power or right to become a dis-
turbing force in the social system. In Cod alone, the
absolute Being, free from all contradictions of the finite,
moral virtues arc combined in essential perfection and
mutual harmony. Refracted and tinted in the world,
in Him they shine with colourless and pure light He
is, in equable weight and measure, Lord and Father,
just and merciful, chastening- and forgiving, patient and
prompt to interpose in due time. How strikingly does
Christ exhibit Himself to us in this respect as the true
Son of God, as indeed one with the Father! In His
whole walk and conduct on earth we find this sublime
union of the most opposite virtues ; majesty with hu-
mility ; zeal with gentleness ; strength with tenderness ;
energy with composure ; the wisdom and prudence of
the sage with the simplicity of the dove and the can-
dour of the child ; all that is best and fairest in human
nature raised and refined to all that can most be ima-
gined of the divine.
Alas, in attempting to photograph, as it were, the
character of the Saviour from the representation of in-
spired limners, how do our hands tremble, our lights
JO SERMON II.
err, our distances deceive, our results fall short of the
perfect loveliness of the great original : so that what is
said of the King of kings and Lord of lords, we are
almost constrained to say of the man Christ Jesus, that
He dwelleth in light whereunto no man can approach.
Yet not so. Let not the humble and faithful Christian
be thus discouraged. Let him not fear, in pursuance
of the apostolic exhortation, to run with patience the
race that is set before him, looking unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of his faith. Let him not despair
of gaining the mind of Christ, for this indeed is the
prize of his high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And
if he need yet greater encouragement, let him remem-
ber that our Lord on more than one occasion proposed
to his disciples no less a model than his heavenly Fa-
ther Himself. Let him bear in his heart of hearts with
holy meditation and prayer those words of divine com-
fort, so solemnly uttered in prayer by Jesus himself :
' All things are delivered unto Me of my Father ; and
no man knoweth the Son, but the Father, neither know-
eth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whom-
soever the Son will reveal Him:' and those other sweet
words of precept and promise : ' Take 'my yoke upon
you, and learn of Me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart :
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.'
Yea verily, brethren, these are they, the meek and
lowly in heart, who learn, to the saving of their souls,
of Him who was meek and lowly in heart. These are
they, who joyfully respond to the Lord's appeal ; ' Ye
believe in God, believe also in Me. Were the mate-
THE MORAL EXCELLENCE OF JESUS. 31
rialist or the pantheist before me, I should not venture
to debate with them the metaphysics of the finite and
the intinitc, the relative and the absolute, the many and
the one, matter and spirit I should bear in mind what
Uavid and St Paul have said of such as deny God.
1 should simply appeal to my own conscience, and hum-
bly pray that in them too the inward voice might awake,
by the grace of God, and make itself heard.
And what shall we say of those, who, having been
taught the love of God in sending his only-begotten
Sun into the world, that we might live by Him, refuse
to believe in Christ, while they profess to believe in
God and immortality? Fain would we speak with the
charity that hopeth all things of men who, unlike some
of their precursors, bend reverently before the ideal
beauty of our Lord's life and character, without ac-
knowledging his divine nature and mission. But it is
the tenderest and most loving of the Apostles who said :
• Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Fa-
ther.' And why do they deny the Son? Because, for-
sooth, the dignity of reason and philosophy forbids them
to believe in mysteries and miracles. As if the temple
of science were not thronged with chambers of mystery,
which mortal eye cannot penetrate. As if any of the
Gospel wonders were more truly miraculous than the
life and character of Jesus of Nazareth, than the pre-
paration for his advent, and its mighty consequences
in the world.
But let us thank Him, who over-rules all things for
good, that in the unbelief of such men we have a new
32 SERMON II.
argument for the profound insight of Christ, and for
the truth of his written Word. We still see the know-
ledge of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, hidden from
the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes. We
still see the foolishness of God wiser than men ; that
no flesh may glory in his presence, but that, if any
man glory, he may glory in the Lord, even in Christ
Jesus, who unto them that believe is made wisdom and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
[Note. — In p. 38, 1. 26 of this sermon, allusion is made to
the metaphysical controversy (respecting the limits of human
reason in religion) which arose in i860 between two eminent
divines now gone to their rest, Dean Mansel and Mr Maurice.]*
SERMON III.
7ESC/S THE KING OF HIS PEOPLE.
BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY, Jam. m, i86i.
St Matthew iv. 17,
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, ' Re-
Pent: /or the Kingdom of heaven is at hand^
Through a simple and docile childhood, a submissive
and studious boyhood, having a heart even then intent
upon his Father's work, Jesus had increased in wisdom
and stature, and in favour with God and man. In
holy silence lie the eighteen years of his youth and
ripening manhood. Yet doubt we not that during those
> ears He was guarding with prayer and meditation the
temple of his soul and body, and fashioning and proving
his armour against the day of trial. At length that day
dawned. John, the son of Zacharias, forerunner of Him
that should come, was baptizing and preaching repent-
ance, for the Kingdom of heaven was at hand. Jesus,
made under the law, had fulfilled all legal righteousness.
K. 3
3+ SERMON III.
He must now fulfil the righteousness of the new covenant.
He must submit to John's baptism, and therein be
miraculously shown as the beloved Son of the Father.
He must be publicly owned by the Baptist, and pointed
out to a few chosen hearts as the Lamb of God, that
taketh away the sins of the world. He is next summoned
to that mysterious conflict in the wilderness, where the
chief temptations of his earthly life were foreshown, that
He might prove his spiritual strength, and, by anticipa-
tion, overcome them all. A few disciples then gather
round Jesus, attracted by the power of his doctrine, and
believing the Baptist's testimony concerning Him. Their
faith is confirmed by his first miracle at Cana, where,
by changing water into wine at the marriage-feast, He
manifested forth his glory, as Lord of creation and as
sanctifier of human joy, while his Gospel is symbolized
as that which gives dignity to the mean, strength to the
weak, and power to the spiritless. With these disciples
He will attend the Passover at Jerusalem, and there
become known by new signs and miracles. Returning
through Samaria, He will reveal Himself to a woman of
the land at Jacob's well, and prepare the hearts of that
outcast race to receive in due time the fuller gospel of
his salvation. He is once more in Galilee at a gloomy
moment. The Baptist lies in prison, thrown there by
the weak and dissolute tetrarch, Herod Antipas. The
preacher of repentance is silenced. The stronger than
he, the baptizer with spirit and with fire, will step into
his place. From that time Jesus began to preach and
to say, 'Repent: for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.'
y£SO'S THE KhSG OF HIS PEOPLE. 35
If, when John preached in the wilderness, there went
at to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region
>und about Jordan, and were Ixiptized of him in Jordan,
onfesaing their sins, what concourse would there be,
when Jesus Himself preached? If the herald was so
welcomed, what greeting would the King receive?
lo this question the sacred text affords no direct
.iiiswer. But much may be inferred from the context,
.md something from the history of the times. The Jews
in general were eagerly desiring a liberator. Swollen
with national pride, they abhorred the Edomite rulers
imposed on them by Rome, even as they detested the
iolatrous empire of Rome itself. To them a Herod and
A Tiberius were alike odious and unclean. Since the
death of their first Idumean sovereign, sedition after
[ sedition had convulsed the land, and when the mutineers
found a leader to their liking, Josephus says they pro-
claimed him king. If a son of David offered himself
to their notice, what would such a populace hope to
tind in him? They would look for one moSt mighty,
I one who should gird his sword upon his thigh, and ride
on in majesty and glory, and whose right hand should
teach him terrible things. How striking, how marvellous
are the parallels of history! What the Italians felt
I some years ago, the Jews were feeling then ! Rome was
their Austria, the Herods their Ferdinand and Francis,
and they looked for a military saviour, for one who
should imite dismembered Palestine, reclaim Canaan for
the children of Israel, the Holy Land for the people of
God.
3—2
36 SEEMON IIT.
But He who harangued them was Jesus of Nazareth,
a man of peace : and his rallying-cry was no other than
that of John: 'Repent: for the Kingdom of heaven is
at hand.' He sees them writhing under a foreign yoke,
and eager to shake it off; but with this He meddles not.
He exhorts them to repent. He knows that their necks
are bowed down and their knees enfeebled by another
and a far worse yoke, the yoke of sin. The selfish and
the sensual are slaves by their own compulsion. This
yoke He would help them to throw off, and to that end '
He calls upon them to repent; to change their minds,
their hearts, their hopes, their desires ; to put off the old
man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,
and to put on the new man, which after God is created
in righteousness and true holiness; to come unto the
truth, and the truth shall make them free. For this
purpose the Kingdom of heaven is at hand : and in
Him who speaks (though He does not tell them so)
they behold its King. 'Blessed are the poor in spirit;
blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness'
sake : for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.' How would
such a proclamation be received by the Jews of that
time ? What impression would such a preacher make on
the congregations of Galilee? The answer is but too
obvious. A few tender and thoughtful hearts would
open to his loving voice, as flowers to the sun; an
Andrew prompt to trust, a Simon full of zeal, a Philip,
searcher of the scriptures, a John rich in love. But
from how many more would lessons such as these pro-
voke nothing better than the idler's jest, or the drunkard's
JESUS THE KING OF HIS PEOPLE. 37
mg, or the rude disdain of the reckless partizan! On
;liis account we may see that miracles were needed to
\» in for Jesus the popular ear, and even the confidence
t his disciples. Except they see signs and wonders,
t;u\ will not believe in a Prince of peace. But, in these
t!.i\ > of ours, brethren, the person and doctrine, the life
md death of Jesus, and the plan of redemption wrought
by Him, should be far more powerful instruments of
l.iith than all the special signs which were needed then :
and if wt believe not Moses and the Prophets, the Evan-
^ and Apostles, when they tell us of those great
^.-, neither should we be persuaded, though the blind
^ iw, the lame walked, and men rose from the dead before
our eyes.
The more carefully we trace in the sacred narrative
'ur Lord's wisdom and prudence in dealing with his
claims to the kingly title and office, the more clearly
shall we see the grandeur of his character, the more
deeply shall we feel the truth of his revelation. Prophet
and priest had been anointed to their functions as well
us king ; and we are therefore wont to say, that the name
Christ applies to Jesus in each character. This is true
for us; but when we observe that Messiah, that is,
Christ, was then the special and proper name of that
deliverer whom the Jews expected, and that in this Christ
they looked for a son of David, who should restore the
kingdom to Israel, it is evident that to claim the title
of Christ was in effect to claim that very title which had
terrified the first Herod, when the Magians appeared
in Jerusalem to worship the new-bom King of the Jews.
38 SERMON ITT.
This is the reason why our Lord abstained with as much
caution from declaring Himself the Christ, as from pro-
claiming Himself, or letting others proclaim Him, King.
And yet He was the very Christ, the Holy One of God :
and yet He was and is a King, the spiritual King of his
faithful people. He never repudiates either title as more
than his due. But He looks to times, places, persons,
circumstances. What He will say or admit here. He
will forbid to be reported elsewhere. And the key to this
conduct is, that He will not lend his person or his name,
as pretending to the earthly throne of David. Let us note
this principle of our Lord in a few instances.
To the multitude He never plainly declared Himself
Christ the King. If ever He was believed and accepted
in this character. He owed it to the influence of his
great miracles and authoritative teaching. He might
have led an insurgent host in Galilee. But when they
sought to make Him a king by force, he withdrew Him-
self into a mountain apart. True, He entered Jerusalem
on the day of palms, riding upon the ass of which the
prophet had spoken. True, his entry bore some resem-
blance to a royal procession. The people owned Him
with shouts of 'Hosanna to the Son of David.' And He
did not disclaim their homage. Ay ! but He knew what
was coming. He knew that within a few days the
Hosannas would be changed for another cry, that of
'Crucify Him, crucify Him.' He knew that He was
mounting not to the throne of David on Zion, but to
the cross of the malefactor on Calvary.
Need I say how He dealt with the Scribes and
JESUS THE KING OF HIS PEOPLE. 39
riuu-isccs, the Sadducees and Hcrodians? Such men
were the last to whom He would have owned Himself
the Messiah. It was the very confession into which they
sought to entrap him ; the very claim they would have
infierred from some of his words or deeds, in order to
tax Him with blasphemy or treason. With what ex-
quisite skill and sagacity does he baffle their craft I He
will not arbitrate in a quesdoo of property. His shall
not be the tongue to sentence the adulteress. He will
give them no sign but that of Jonas the prophet. C<esar
shall not be refused the dross on which his image is
stamped : but to God shall be reserved the dues of God.
Occasions indeed there were, when our Lord plainly
declared Himself the Messiah. But to whom? But
when? To a poor Samaritan woman and her neigh-
bours, with whom the proud contemptuous Jews had no
dealings. To the High Priest and his council, when
the avowal insured instant condemnation. To Pilate,
the heathen judge, through whom Jesus, on the verge
of death, was speaking, not to one infiatuated nation, but
to all nations and all times.
And what of his disciples, those little ones, who
were to see and hear Him whilst He walked on earth,
and to witness and work for Him when He was gone
to glor)'? They too, zealous and attached as they
generally were, shared the national prejudice. They had
much to learn and unlearn. They longed for a princely
conqueror who should restore the kingdom to Israel.
The doctrine of a suffering Messiah was to them a hard
saying. Many a grave rebuke must they receive on thiL
40 SERMON III.
score. When the sons of Zebedee desire place and pre-
cedence in his kingdom, Jesus asks if they can drink of
his cup ; and when love and zeal prompt the affirmative
answer, they are told, the boon is not his to give ; and
He goes on to speak, not of crowns to be worn and
homage to be received, but of humiliation to be borne
by those who would be g^eat, and of his own life to be
given as a ransom for many.
And yet Jesus came to be the founder of a kingdom
on earth, not of a mere school or sect: of a kingdom
with subjects, with ministers, with laws, with rewards
and punishments, a kingdom claiming for its lawful em-
pire nothing less than the whole world, a kingdom faintly
shadowed by that of David and Solomon, having do-
minion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the
ends of the earth. Yes ; but the kingdom of Jesus is a
spiritual kingdom ; its subjects are the repentant and
regenerate ; its blessings are in the heart, its rewards are
in heaven. These great truths were, as they still are,
hidden from the wise in their own conceit, as well as
from the selfish and sensual. The Jews at large could
not receive them in faith. Even to the disciples they
were a stumbling-block till the day when the Holy Spirit
enlightened and enlarged their hearts. Ever and anon
they are urgent with their Master to show Himself as
the Christ, the Son of David, the king of Israel. Un-
wittingly they do the tempter's work, and become Satans
to Him they love, savouring not the things of God, but
the things that be of men. So were the temptations of
the wilderness daily renewed in the Saviour's earthly life :
JESUS THE KING OF HIS PEOPLE. 41
•!ie temptalion of sense to Him who was often without
i.Kxi or shelter: the temptation of rashness to Him
who bore all the contradictions of earth, while all the
hosts of heaven were at his beck: the temptation of
ambition to Him who was despised as the Nazarene and
the carpenter's son, when He might have led against
the Roman eagles all the forces of that East which looked
for a champion; of that East which under a Mithridates
had so long defied the Roman armies ; of that East which
had blanched the desert with the bones of Crassus and
his legions; of that East which, some centuries later,
>ubdued Asia and Africa, invaded Europe, and shook
Christendom to its centre, under the flag of the false
prophet of Mecca. Against such temptations, separate and
combined, any one of which, faintly exhibited, is strong
enough to corrupt us weak sinful creatures, unless we
seek divine grace and watch unto prayer, our Saviour
waged a daily warfare, and won daily victories, while
He dwelt on earth, that He might be to us a High Priest
touched with a sense of our infirmities. During this time,
his lessons of truth and his miracles of love showed Him
forth as a King of righteousness. But his throne must not
be set up till a peculiar people, zealous of good works, is
prepared to receive Him. The flame of zeal, which He feeds
■with one hand, He must damp with the other. He must be
known to some as the Lord's Anointed; but He must
not be proclaimed with the sound of the trumpet. He
must be hidden while He is being revealed. Ejected
devils must not announce Him ; the sick whom He cures,
the maimed whom He restores, must not, in general,
42 SERMON HI.
spread the tidings of their benefactor. Yet his person must
be known and revered; his kingdom must be preached,
by the twelve and the seventy; the multitudes must be
moved to say, 'Is not this the Son of David?' but, when
they would make Him a king, He must be found nowhere.
He will satisfy no longing of the carnal heart. He will
perform no royal function before the time; He will take
no part in human c6ntroversies ; but He is ever ready to
decide for God against the scorner, for truth against
falsehood, for spirituality against formalism and super-
stition, for holiness against sin. Truly could He say to
Pilate, 'My Kingdom is not of this world.'
The title chosen by Himself to veil his royal dig-
nity was 'Son of Man': a Messianic title, it is true,
and used as such by David and by Daniel : but one
of humble phrase, not openly appropriating the splen-
dour of the kingly rank. No bold questioner, — came
he with honest or insidiovs object, — ^^should be told by
Jesus that he was Christ the King. When the Baptist,
from his painful dungeon, would learn for his comfort
if Jesus were indeed He that should come, the answer
is not given in words. Our Lord bids the messengers
report to John the mighty works they had seen. These
would tell their tale to the imprisoned Baptist, and
fall like dew on that holy martyr's thirsting soul.
At a later time, indeed, when the last Passover drew
nigh, our Lord Himself tested the faith of his dis-
ciples, first asking them as to the various opinions of
men respecting his person, and then plainly adding :
'but whom say ye that I am?' And when Peter, in
JESUS THE KING OF HIS PEOPLE. 43
the name of all, confesses that He is the Christ, the
Son of the living God, He rewards the faithful speaker
with a signal blessing.
The faith of the disciples in their Lord's dignity
as Messiah had thus been educated, and thus tried :
and now it seemed to be matured and settled. But
another lesson they had yet to learn, the doctrine
of a suffering Messiah. A fiery trial was yet before
them, to bear up against the shame and discomfiture
of the cross. No sooner have they learnt to know Christ,
than their wise and loving Master will prepare them
to know Him crucified. This is the next step in that
apprenticeship, which is training them to become mi-
nisters of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
So hard is this step, that Peter's faith shrinks from it,
and he began to rebuke Jesus, saying, 'Mercy guard
Thee, Lord, this shall not be unto Thee.' His hasty
love denies his Master's sufferings beforehand, as his
hasty fear denies his Master afterwards while He suf-
fered. So little indeed was this lesson learnt even by
those who had witnessed the mystery of the Transfigu-
ration, that, when Jesus was taken, all his disciples for-
sook Him and fled. Even St John, we may deem, was
led to the foot of the cross by the force of love rather
than of faith. Not till Jesus, by his resurrection, tri-
umphed over death and the grave, did He triumph
also in the hearts of his disciples : nor was it till after
Pentecost that the scheme of man's redemption through
faith in Christ crucified was fully disclosed to them.
Thus, Uke the Magians, they were led by grace from
44 SERMON III.
faith to faith, until they reached the measure of the
full stature of Christ, Thus, becoming not subjects
only, but also ministers of the Kingdom of God, they
received and handed down the high and blessed func-
tion of discipling all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost.
My brethren, let us behold our King. In many
aspects may we behold the Christ of God, the King
of his people, while He dwelt with men. We may be-
hold Him in the exercise of royal power, as ruler of
creation, commanding winds and waves to be still, devils
to come forth, the grave to give up its dead. We
may behold Him as a royal legislator, setting aside
a worn-out constitution, and promulgating the code of
a new kingdom. We may behold Him choosing his
ministers, distributing their functions, and describing
their duties. We may behold Him asserting the purity
of his court, when He drives the traders out of the
temple. We may behold Him a royal dispenser of
reward and promotion, when He promised the twelve
that they should sit on twelve thrones, judging the
twelve tribes of Israel. We may behold Him as a
royal dispenser of punishment ; symbolically, when He
withered the fig-tree; allegorically, as in the parables
of the pounds and the wicked husbandman ; propheti-
cally, when He denounced woes against the Pharisees
and the Jewish nation. We may behold Him in the
exercise of royal mercy, forgiving the sins of the para-
lytic and the Magdalene. We may behold a shadow
yESCrS THE KING OF HIS PEOPLE. 45
of his royal glory on the mount of Transfiguration.
In all these acts and functions, we may behold our
divine King, while He tabernacled with men. But in
the present discourse we have tried to behold Him,
with reverent attention to the sacred histories, as the
wise and politic Founder of a ne>* Kingdom, in the
(ace of a gainsaying and perverse generation.
Here we may suppose an objection to arise. Does
not this politic conduct of Jesus savour a little too much
of carnal shrewdness and tact, of what worldly people
are pleased to call 'knowledge of the world'? The reply
is clear and decisive. No, certainly not. Our Lord's
conduct affords, in the first place, the highest and purest
example of that great virtue, which, from Him, we call
Christian prudence. Had He proclaimed Himself, or
allowed others to proclaim Him the Christ, the King of
Israel, of two risks He would have incurred one: the
risk of falling a martyr before the due time, or that of
being made, perforce, the leader of a popular insurrection.
In the one case He would have been rashly challenging
God's protection; in the other. He would have been
taking from the creature's hand the glory which God
alone has the right to confer. And so we see that this
voluntary humiliation, this veiling of His majesty for
awhile, was essential to the sinless character of our
blessed Lord. It gives us, in the second place, the
highest example of Christian obedience ; for, in so acting,
our Lord was obeying Law, the unerring law of God, and
even the laws of erring men. And Law, as a wise
and good ser\ant of Christ teUs us, is 'the clearest, and
46 SERMON III.
for man, in almost all cases, the safest exponent and
form of Duty;' so that the true hero should realize
Milton's grand description of a king : ^disciplined in the
precepts and practice of temperance and sobriety, with-
out the strong drink of injurious and excessive desires,
he should grow up to a noble strength and perfection,
with those his illustrious and sunny locks, the laws,
waving and curling about his godlike shoulders.'
But see, moreover, to what earthly bourne this policy
was leading the sinless Jesus.
History tells us of a swineherd's boy, one Felix Peretti,
who by dint of genius, industry and learning, rose to the
rank of Cardinal in the Church of Rome. Genius,
industry and learning could give him nothing more ; but
more he craved, and he is said to have obtained it by
other means. He began to play a part. Rebuke and
censure were discarded from his lips. All his words
were softer than butter, smoother than oil. He drove
no traders from the temple. Profitable abuses had no
dread of him. He walked before no disciples to the
holy City, With feeble steps and faltering voice, head
and back bent, propped upon a crutch, he seemed to be
in the last stage of human decrepitude. He was not
thought likely to stand long in any man's way. For
these remarkable merits, as the compromise of a dis-
cordant conclave. Cardinal Montalto-^ (such was then
1 I am not unaware that the details of Cardinal Montalto's
politic conduct before he became Pope have been subject to
much dispute. But the general facts seem to be established
sufficiently to justify the use here made of them for the purpose
of illustration.
JESUS THE KING OF HIS PEOPLE. 47
his title) was elected Pope. Whereupon, amidst universal
astonishment, he flung away his crutch, struck seven
years from his supposed age, and with head erect and
firm step he marched to the high altar in St Peter's
Basilica : nor was any reign in papal annals more vigorous,
more stem, more self-sustained, nore able, than that of
Sixtus the Fifth.
With this story of one who called himself Christ's
Ticar on earth compare the conduct of Christ Himself.
Sixtus is said to have achieved his purpose by a sinful
course of simulation and dissimulation. Christ wrought
his w<Mrk by g[uarding Himself from all sin. The idea of
Sixtus was temporary self-sacrifice and self-abasement,
against duty, without love, tending to self-exalution : the
idea of Christ was duty itself, animated by love, enduring
self-abasement, kindling into self-sacrifice. Sixtus bad in
view the triple cro»-n and the Vatican palace : Christ
the crown of thorns and the cross of Calvary.
For again, behold your King. Behold Him who refused
a crown from the Galilean populace ; Him, who trained
his disciples to consider him, first as the Christ, then
as the Crucified ; Him, who a few days before rode into
the holy Cit)', saluted and adored. Behold Him led
forth by Pilate, bound, bleeding, pale, calm, silent, before
another multitude, fiercely yelling, 'Crucify him, crucify
him.' This was the foreknown fate for which our divine
King gave Himself to be bom as man in the stable at
Bethlehem, to be educated in the cottage at Nazareth,
to be disciplined by those years of toil and trial and
suffering on earth. And why? To take away the sins
48 SERMON III.
of the world, to bear the iniquities of us all, your iniquities
and mine, brethren, that, repenting, we might become
subjects of his kingdom, sons of God, heirs of eternal
life. O the dull, the hard-hearted ingratitude of men,
who can behold this King, and refuse to believe and
love, to worship and obey Him!
Brethren, may we repent daily, in the season now
recurring and all our lives through ; knowing indeed that
to every one of us, for bliss or bane, the Kingdom of
heaven is indeed at hand. May the holy prayer our King
taught bring Him ever to our mind, evening and
morning and at noonday. May we hallow the Father's
name in his, and his in the Father's. May his kingdom
come in our hearts by faith, that we may do his will on
earth, as it is done by his angels in heaven. While our
bodies eat the daily bread He gives, may our souls by
faith feed on Him, the true Bread of Life. May our sins
through his sacrifice be forgiven, and may we forgive
for his sake. May we flee temptation after his example,
and by his good Spirit be delivered from the evil here,
that we may hereafter reign with Him in his kingdom of
power and glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
SERMON IV.
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE.
BEFORE THE UNIVERSFTY. Jamvakt n, ia6i.
I Corinthians ii. 15.
The spiritual man judgetk all things.
The special subject to which I would humbly apply this
maxim of the Apostle, is the interpretation of the Bible.
Hut a? the principle which governs Interpretation governs
many things else in religion, let us observe that principle
itself in some of its most important phases.
If we regard man as a free moral agent, and religion
as the method ordained by God to restore him to his
Maker's image, lost by sin, it is evident that in every
religious transaction there are two factors operating,
the divine and the human. The mutual and the joint
operation of these factors we cannot measure, because
the divine nature and its workings lie beyond the reach
of human definition. We know only what is revealed
to us of them in the Word of God, and what we are
K. 4
50 SERMON IV.
allowed to see of their results in the lives and characters
of men. The highest phase of this truth — the sun, as it
were, from which all its exhibitions radiate — is the great
doctrine of the Incarnation, very God and very man
united in one Christ. The man Christ Jesus was thereby
constituted the one mediator between God and man.
The possibility of man's reunion with God was objectively
declared, and the means of realizing it subjectively were
brought within man's reach. In all these means the
concurrence of the divine and human factors are again
supposed. If we are saved by grace on the part of God,
it is through faith on our own part. If the Spirit beareth
witness, it is with our spirits. If we work out our own
salvation, it is while God worketh in us both to will and
to do. If we pray, it is because prayer is the voice of
faith, appointed to receive the answering grace of God.
And the Sacraments were ordained by Christ, partly
indeed to knit his servants together by common pledges
of Christian brotherhood, but partly too, as solemn acts,
wherein divine grace and human faith should meet and
cooperate with mysterious power and effect.
When we review the various heresies which from time
to time have distracted the Christian Church, and those
which yet distract it, we perceive that most of them
arise from the exaggeration of one of these elements of
religious truth and action, to the consequent depreciation
of the other element.
Thus, in regard to the first and cardinal doctrine —
the nature of our blessed Saviour — the Ebionite heresy,: -j.j
since called Socinian, utterly denied his divine nature;
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE. 51
while the Arian, Semi-Arian, and Nestorian heresies
disparaged it in various degrees. On the other hand, the
Dokctic heresy annihilated our Lord's human nature;
and the Apollinarian, Eutychian and Monotheletic he-
resies, severally, mutilated that human nature in some
essential function. It stands to re^tsoh that all erroneous
teaching in regard to the nature of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, becomes, in its place and proportion, er-
roneous teaching in regard to that work of human re-
demption, which was wrought indeed, objectively as t«
each of us, by Him alone, but wrought by Him as very
Cod and ver>' Man, united in one Christ.
If we next look to the work of individual salvation,
in which the divine and the human concur and cooperate,
it will again appear, on the face of history, that error
has arisen, generally, from the exaggeration of the
one element to the disparagement of the other. Thus
Pelagius overrated man's natural powers as a moral agent,
and so detracted from the converting and regenerating
grace of the Holy Spirit On the other side the element
of human freedom has been ignored by Calvinistic excess ;
and though it were improper to say that divine pre-
science and power have been overrated, we may say
it has been forgotten that the finite mind has no measure
for qualities infinitely residing in God, and no faculty
of comprehending, what nevertheless it should believe,
their harmonious co-existence and perfect reconciliation
in Him.
The same kind of error meets us again in the opinions
which have been held concerning the Sacraments. The
4-2
52
SERMON IV.
Romanist, on the one hand, infers grace from the
outward work alone, to the neglect of human faith :
the Zwinglian, on the other, treats them as mere acts of
human obedience, having no promise of special grace.
What then, it vill naturally be asked, is our test of
truth in these questions, and what our rule of duty?
Surely it is our wisdom to believe that each of these
doctrines is a great and holy mystery, which we can see
only in part, and concerning which we can prophesy only
in part, while we are yet clothed with this body of decay
and death. Surely it is our duty to accept fully, and
fully, as far as we are enabled, to act upon, both those
elements which Holy Scripture shows to us as coexisting
and cooperating ; and not to beat our wings against
the cage, wasting our moral and intellectual strength
in controversies, of which we 'find no end, in wandering
mazes lost.' Such controversies, alas, are often worse
than unpractical ; they have proved, and in some cases
still prove to be 'logomachies, of which cometh envy,
strife, railings, evil surmisings.' Let us escape from them
by use of the clue which our Church has wisely and kindly
given in her 17th Article, receiving God's promises in
such wise as they be generally set forth to us in Holy
Scripture, and, in our doings, following that will of God,
which we have expressly declared unto us in the word
of God.
There are two other important and mutually related
questions of religion, in which again we have to recognize
the presence of the divine and human factors, without
venturing to determine the precise mode and degree in
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE. 53
which they se%'crally operate. These questions are the
In> ■• ' >n and the Interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.
I'.Miio Inspiration is a property, expressly ascribed
by St Paul to the writings of the Old Testament, and
ju-.tly inferred of those of the New, froni our Saviour's
])riuniscs, and from the character of the writers. Attempt
has often been made, and still is made, to define the man-
ner and extent of this Inspiration. No such attempt
has been established as a norm in the Church, and we
verily believe that, as elsewhere, so here, the nature of the
case precludes accurate definition. The nearest approach
to a rule will probably be that which shall most distinctly
recognise the constant presence of the Holy Spirit with
the sacred writers, without denying the free development
of their human faculties in the work of authorship.
*■ It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us,' said the
Apostles in their first Council ; thus claiming the sanction
of the Holy Ghost for the collective decision of their
inspired minds, and yet expressing their individual judg-
ments as persons who had exercised free thought and
discussion.
The broad principles of Biblical Interpretation are
analogous to those of Inspiration. The Bible is to be
interpreted by the employment of the human faculties
under divine assistance and direction. We place no
limit to the use of man's learning, acuteness, and in-
dustry', as means to an end, in determining the text of
the Bible, and in ascertaining its sense, grammatically,
logically, historically ; but after all — confronting the charge
of mysticism, which we expect from the worshippers of
54 SERMON IV.
human reason — we say that spiritual things can be fully
explained by the Spirit alone: and that, consequently,
none but spiritual men are qualified to form an accurate
judgment of the great truths of salvation.
Let us turn our attention now to the very important
passage in which my text occurs.
In his First Epistle to the Corinthians, St Paul,
after reproving the Christians of Corinth for their
sectarian divisions, reminds them that he himself had
preached to them the plain vital doctrine of Christ and
Him crucified, a stumblingblock to the Jews, who desired
a sign, that is, a striking manifestation of power ; and
foolishness to the Greeks, who loved philosophic specula-
tion. At Corinth St Paul had chiefly to dread the Greek
error. He therefore goes on to say, that, in setting forth
the doctrine of Christ and Him crucified, he had pur-
posely abstained from the rhetorical display of mere
human learning, that he might more distinctly exhibit the
power of the Holy Spirit. Yet (he says) I preach a true
wisdom, hidden from the great ones of this world, but
revealed to Christians by the Spirit of God ; for the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
The passage, which all but follows, extending from
the 12th verse of the second, to the 4th verse of the
third chapter, I will now venture to read, with that
amount of paraphrase, and those variations from the
authorized version, which are required to exhibit the
view I have been led to take of its meaning.
' Now we apostles of Christ received not that inspi-
ration which men of the world receive, making them
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE. 55
subtle disputants, eloquent speakers and fine writers,
but the inspiration which is from God ; that we may
know the blessings bestowed upon us by the grace of
God. And these things we speak in words not taught
of human «'isdom, but taught of divine inspiration, ex-
plaining spiritual things to spiritual men. For the
natural, that is, the merely intellectual man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are fool-
ishness unto him : neither can he know them, because
they are to be judged in a spiritual manner. But the
spiritual man is able to form a judgment on all these
points, while the natural man has no power to judge
him. For who, as Isaiah says, knoweth the mind or
spirit of the Lord, so that he shall instruct Him? And
we who are true Christians have that mind or spirit
of the Lord Christ. So that no natural man can cor>
rect us. And yet, brethren, I could not speak to you
as to spiritual men, but I had to speak to you as
carnal men, as to infant Christians. I fed you with
milk, not with meat, for hitherto ye could not bear it.
Nor can ye now : for ye are yet carnal. For whereas
there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not
carnal, and walking in the steps of unrenewed man ."
St Paul, in short, says that the power which the
Spirit gives to a Christian is something different from
mere human power : that it makes him able to under-
stand, and, if a preacher, to explain spiritual things :
but that his hearers cannot understand him, unless
they too are spiritual : and, in so far as they are still
carnal, they must be reared and trained in elementary
56 SERMON IV.
doctrines like infants, till the mind of Christ be deve-
loped within them.
By the psychic or natural man St Paul means the
unconverted possessor of mere human learning and
science, having specially in view the Greek philosopher.
He does not intend to say that the Christian can ac-
quire no useful knowledge from an infidel (for indeed
we may learn Hebrew from the Jew or Arabic from
the Mahometan), but he implies that the infidel, to
whom the faith and hope and love of the Christian
are known only by name, can form no just notion of
the Christian character, and contribute nothing to its
instruction, edification and completion. In respect to
Biblical interpretation, the infidel may, perchance, as-
sist us to explain the letter, but he can throw no light
on the spirit of the Bible.
Again, we find Christians themselves cited by the
Apostle in this place under three several heads or
classes. First, we have spiritual men who, like St Paul
and his fellow-labourers, speak and explain spiritual
things : next we have spiritual men to whom such
things are explained, and who are competent to form
a right judgment thereof: and lastly, we have infant
Christians, babes in Christ, whom the Apostle could
not address as spiritual, but as carnal ; yet Christians
still, and included among those whom, in his preface,
St Paul had termed 'the church of God, called to be
saints.'
Now (to speak of the last class in the first place)
does not the language of St Paul in dealing with such
THE INTERPRETA TION OF THE BIBLE. 57
men teach the same doctrine which we learn in our
Lord's parables of the tares, the net, and the vine :
the same which we deduce also from the presence of
a traitor among his disciples : namely, that those who
have been received into the Church, though they be
carnal, are not on that account to be dealt with as
heathens, but to be corrected, strengthened and re-
stored, if so it may be, by wise and kind discipline.
We should further observe, that all professing Chris*
tians are in charity to be considered and dealt with
as spiritual men, except so far as they give by their
walk and conduct unquestionable evidence of being
camaL St Paul does not speak to these Corinthians as
being carnal and not spiritual, without stating his
grounds for so speaking : ' there is jealousy and strife
among you.' Never, never let us lay a snare for the
conscience of a Christian brother by requiring of him
any other test of spirituality than that of Christian
conduct, which our Saviour has sanctioned: 'by their
fhiits ye shall know them.' When plain proof of car-
nality is absent, let us hope all things of their spiritual
state, judging not, that we be not judged.
For let us not extend too widely the meaning and
application of our text- A Roman Pop>e, Boniface VIII.,
had the hardihood to claim for the Roman See su-
preme jurisdiction in all causes, civil as well as eccle-
siastical, by virtue of the maxim that 'the spiritual
man judgeth all things.' His successor in these days
may perhaps found upon the same maxim the right
of promulgating a new dogma of Christian faith with-
58 SERMON IV.
out the sanction of a general Council *. We mention
such extravagancies only to show to what extent the
Bible has been, and may be, misinterpreted by erring
men. Here the term 'all things', whether it have the
Greek article or not, evidently implies all those things,
mentioned above, which God has freely given to them
that love Him. These are the things explained by the
spiritual preacher ; these are the things of which the
spiritual hearer can form a judgment ; not the mind
and the heart of a Christian brother : for God alone
knoweth the hearts of men. With respect to those
spiritual men, whose office it is in these times to fol-
low St Paul and the other Apostles in explaining spi-
ritual things to the spiritual, earnestly must we desire,
earnestly should we pray, that they may be spiritual
indeed, preserved by the Holy Spirit from all error
and evil, guided into all truth, and enabled to preach
the word with power. Yet we are not entitled to rank
the very best among them — they certainly would not
rank themselves — with a Paul, an Apollos and a Ce-
phas ; even as a Paul, an Apollos and a Cephas would
not rank themselves with Christ. We dare not class
the words of any fallible men at any time since the
Apostolic age — be the speakers ever so good and wise
1 The allusion here is to the dogma of 'the Immaculate Con-
ception of the Virgin,' sanctioned by Pope Pius IX. This claim
he subsequently carried to its fatal extreme, by obtaining, in
1869, the sanction of what he was pleased to call a General
Council, to the doctrine (heretofore repudiated by all but the
Jesuits) of Papal Infallibility.
THE ISTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE. 59
and learned and weighty — with the inspired oracles of
God. When such men speak, let us hear with reve-
rent attention, but, if doubt arise, we must search the
Scriptures, as did the Beneans, to see whether these
things be sa We must search the Scriptures with dili-
gent and thoughtful study, yet with deep humility
and with constant prayer. For in this work the divine
and human must go together. The spiritual man alone
is competent to form a correct judgment of spiritual
things. By the sanctified soul the saving truths of the
Gospel will be more distinctly and fully seen than by
the larger learning of the merely intellectual student.
Yet the admission of this principle, rightly viewed, has
no tendency to discourage or disparage the value of
human learning and talent and industry in the study
of the Bible. For the truly spiritual man is a hum-
ble, a zealous, a conscientious man : and in each cha-
racter he will neglect no means which God has placed
within his reach of acquainting both himself and others
with the truth as it is in Jesus.
What the means of interpretation are, and how they
should be used, is a topic far too large and discursive
to be fully treated here. It has, in some of its depart-
ments, been elaborately discussed by a very able con-
tributor to a well-known volume^ I wish, for obvious
reasons, that the treatise I speak of had appeared in a
separate form. For, though it contains some things I
do not agree with, and others to which I can only
yield a modified assent, though, above all, it does not
1 Essays and Re\news.
6o SERMON IV.
bring out, as distinctly as I could wish, the necessity
of the divine clement in the work of Biblical inter-
pretation ; yet it opens rich veins of truth ; and many
of its rules for the study, explanation, and use of the
Bible are of golden excellence. Nevertheless I could
not venture to recommend it in its present form as a
handbook for the young student of the Bible. But
for the instructor and the more advanced student it
is a mine from which materials may be drawn for a
fuller and more systematic manual of interpretation.
As regards the textual constitution, the gramma-
tical and logical explanation, of the New Testament (on
which points alone I should have the slightest claim,
and that a very slight one, to be heard here), we must
admit that new results are from time to time achieved ,
by improved learning and enlarged research. And,
as lovers of truth (for, if not sUch, we are very un-
worthy servants of Him who is the truth as well as
the life), we ought to lament that these results are so
long restricted to the use of the professed divine, instead
of being made, as soon as possible, the common property
of Christians. Do we not still see the spurious verse
of St John's first Epistle (i John v. 7) cited as genuine
by writers of slender learning, it is true, but for that
very reason, perhaps, the more popular in an age of
shallow reading? Is not St Paul's evidence still quoted
in terms which he did not use : ' God was manifest
in the flesh'.'' And are not the great divine truths
themselves liable to be injured by this abuse, when
the student discovers that texts which he has been wont
THE INTERPRET A TION OF THE BIBLE. 6 1
to hear cited as normal are not Biblical texts at all ? Yet
supcriicial or bigoted minds may still claim the right
of quoting these texts, as long as the Church sets them
before her children as genuine portions of the sacred
volume.
The writer to whom I have alloded very justly
cautions his readers agairist the idle or fallacious use
of Scriptural language. One such instance I have given
in the misapplication of the words of my text by Pope
Boniface. But indeed of such misapplications the name
is legion. What text is oftcner cited and preached
upon than the words * Search the Scriptures ' ? yet
the logic of the context requires us to read: 'Ye
search the Scriptures :' and we fear the translators were
dazzled by the apparent value of the imperative sense
as a weapon against Romanism. 'Comparing spiritual
things with spiritual' — were the words prefixed to the
Sermons on Scripture coincidences by one whose me-
mory we all revere and love. My view of the context
has obliged me to render the Greek otherwise : ' ex-
plaining spiritual things to spiritual men :' as in the
first verse of the I3th chapter the context again induces
me to read 'spiritual persons' rather than 'spiritual
things.' The value of Professor Blunt's sermons was
altogether independent of his text : but his high sanc-
tion seemed to be given to an erroneous translation.
Far more momentous was the error of the great Au-
gustine, when, being ignorant of Greek, and following
the Latin Vulgate, he argued the imputation of Adam's
sin to his descendants from a mistranslation of the i2th
62 SERMON IV.
verse of the 5th chapter of Romans : rendering ' in whom
all sinned' instead of 'inasmuch as all sinned.' — Take
another instance. The very words of St Paul in this
Epistle to the Corinthians, — 'we preach Christ cruci-
fied,' and again, * I determined not to know anything
among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,'— in
how many Sermons have they been made a ground-
work for the doctrine of the Atonement, as the great
cardinal work of Christ ! Yet these texts afford no
basis either for that doctrine itself, or for its claim to
supreme importance in Christ's redeeming work. St
Paul means to aver that he has preached the truth
as it is in Jesus fully and honestly, not hiding or sophis-
ticating it to flatter human prejudice. Had his gain-
sayers been Sadducees, he would perhaps have said,
*we preach Christ, and him risen from the dead.' As
they are proud Pharisaic Jews, and proud intellectual
Greeks, he says, we preach Christ, and Him crucified,
however offensive to some, and foolish to others, this
doctrine of a crucified King and Saviour may appear.
The great lesson which St Paul so teaches these proud
men is — that of self-humiliation in face of the true
power and wisdom of God : even as in his second
chapter to the Philippians the lesson he teaches is
that of self-sacrifice, in view of the great example of
Christ. ' Let this mind, this unselfish sympathetic mind,
be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, sub-
sisting in the form of God, deemed not the being like
God a miser's treasure, a thing not to be parted with ;
but put off his dignity by taking a servant's form.
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE. 63
being born in hunian semblance : and when he was so
found as a man in outward guise, He humbled himself
yet further, and became submissive even unto death, and
that death the shameful and bitter death of the cross.'
If we turn to the Epistle to the Romans, ch. viii.
vv. 33, 34, we shall see (I venture to think) that the
clauses rendered in our Version : ' It is God that justi-
fieth,' 'it is Christ that died,' should have the interro*
gative form, 'Will God that justifieih' (accuse them?)
*will Christ that died' (condemn them?).
Proceeding to Philipp. iii. 16, 1 cannot but believe that
this verse ought to be taken as a preamble to the 1 7th :
'Nevertheless seeing we have thus far attained (in our
lessons of Christian duty)— to walk by the same rule — be
ye with one consent imitators of me,' &c.
It must be admitted that some translations in our
English Bible have a purely ecclesiastical character: that
is, they have been accommodated to some doctrine which
hearers and readers in later times would recognise,
but which was certainly not recognized by those to
whom the words were first spoken. Such are the pas-
sages Matth. i. 18, Luke L 35, where the phrase ' Pneuma
hagion' (holy Spirit) is rendereld 'the Holy Ghost.'
Whether this rendering, in the absence of the article,
is ungrammatical or not, I shall not pretend to deter-
mine. Middleton condemns it. But we must surely
allow it to be unhistorical. The doctrine of the Holy
Trinity, and of the Holy Ghost as the Third Person
in the Godhead, was not known to Joseph and Mary,
who are severally addressed by the angel in these pas-
64 SERMON IV.
sages. By 'holy Spirit' they would naturally under-
stand 'a divine inspiration or influence,' that 'power
of the Highest,' by which the angel virtually interprets
the phrase in the passage of Luke.
In Romans ix. 3 — 5 we read in our Bibles the fol-
lowing words : ' For I could wish that myself were ac-
cursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen ac-
cording to the flesh : who are Israelites ; to whom
pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the cove-
nants, and the giving of the law, and the service of
God, and the promises ; whose are the fathers, and of
whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is
over all, God blessed for ever.' If this version be
correct, then we have here the only place ^n which
St Paul has said of our Lord Jesus Christ, in express
predication, that 'He is God,' and "with the strong
addition and ascription, 'over all, blessed for ever.'
It seems quite incredible that the Apostle would choose,
for such a momentous isolated declaration, a place hke
this, where he is consoling the Jews by an enumera-
tion of the special privileges which belonged to them
as Jews, the last of these being that from among
them should arise the Christ, the Messiah. For to
suppose that the final words describe this Christ
as God would then necessarily imply that the Jews
expected their Messiah to be ' God over all, blessed
for ever ;' an expectation which they certainly did
not entertain, for it would seem to them then (as
it seems now) at variance with their fundamental
doctrine : ' Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is
>
I
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE. 65
One God' And the modification of this doctrine in
the Christian Creed Paul would surely not introduce
here without some previous preparation, without some
fuller explanation. This rendering we must therefore
regard as one of an ecclesiastical character, adopted
with too much eagerness, in order to obtain for an im-
portant doctrine of the Creed another positive sanc-
tion. But I can entertain little doubt that the words
'Christ came,' should be followed by a full stop; the
next clause, an ascription of glory, being rendered,
* He who is over all is God, blessed for ever. Amen.'
Biblical criticism, my brethren, is among the most
sacred duties of the Christian scholar : a duty to be
discharged frankly and faithfully, as under the eye of
God. Faithless criticism may be learned, may be sa-
gacious, may often be overruled by God to expose
falsehood or to suggest and illustrate truth ; but as it
is without the divine element, it sees and knows nothing
of divine things. The blind cannot lead the blind.
Faithless criticism is of the earth, earthy : it seems to
flourish and flaunt for awhile, but its fashion soon
passeth away. The cold and per\'erse rationalism of
Semler and his school, the ingenious dreams of Strauss
and the Hegelians — where are they now? They are
gone like the chaff which the wind scattereth : and
the truth as it is in Jesus is a glad sound once more
in the fatherland of Luther and Melanchthon.
The spiritual man judgeth all things. Brethren of
the laity, it is your privilege and your duty to study
in the Bible, to hear from the pu'pit, the blessings
K. 5
66 SERMON IV.
bestowed upon you by the grace of God. Be spiritual
men. So shall ye be able to judge spiritually what ye
read and hear, taking heed how ye read and how ye
hear. Brethren of the clergy, and ye who are looking
forward to the sacred office, it is, or it may be, your
high privilege and duty to explain spiritual things. Be
spiritual men. So alone will ye be able to divide
rightly the word of truth, and to minister grace unto
your hearers.
Be spiritual men. But how? In part by humbly
believing and remembering that the answer to this
question is a mystery. ' The wind bloweth where it
listeth, and ye hear the sound thereof, but ye cannot
tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth : even so
is every man that is born of the spirit.' In part by
neglecting none of the means of grace prepared for
Christians in the Church of Christ — prayer, worship,
and the communion of the body and blood of Christ.
In part by being willing — willing in heart, willing in
body, soul and mind, to do the will of the Father,— and
to work out your own salvation with fear and trem-
bling, yea with the deepest humility, because it is
God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His
good pleasure. In part also by remembering that spiri-
tual grace is not given at once in its full proportion ;
that, to be maintained, it must be improved ; that we
must not stand still, if we would not go backward ;
that the Christian life, as described in the Epistle for
this day's Service, is a race for the prize of an imperish-
able crown, and they who run it must be temperate
THE INTERPRETA TION OF THE BIBLE. 67
in all things. Most of all must those be temperate,
whose high and hard and most responsible function
it is to explain spiritual things, lest that by any means,
when they have preached unto others, they themselves
should be cast away.
May the Holy Spirit breathe upon our distracted
Church, and create in it spiritual ministers and spiri-
tual congregations, that carnal jealousies and strifes
may die away, and all things belonging to the Spirit
may live and grow amongst us : that each Christian
may be one with Christ, and all Christians one in
Christ; and that Christ Himself, our Incarnate Medi-
ator, our crucified Redeemer, our risen Head, our
>;lorified and reigning King, may be All in all, to the
glory of God the Father. Amen.
5-2
SERMON V.
SINFUL PARTY-SPIRIT EXEMPLIFIED
IN THE JEWISH SANHEDRIM.
BEFORE HER MAJESTY'S JUDGES OF THE SALOP SPRING
ASSIZE, 1849.
St Mark xiv. 55.
And the chief priests and all Die council sought for witness
against Jesus to put him to death; and found none.
Wisely and well has the Church appointed special
seasons for the commemoration of special events in the
history of the Incarnate Lord : wisely and well in each
commemoration is that Lord set forth to us, not only as
our Divine Redeemer, to be thankfully adored, as our
Supreme Teacher, to be implicitly obeyed; but also as
our great Example, that we should follow his steps.
Happy we, were we not too busy, or too idle, or too
proud, or too faithless, to use these instructions aright ;
to pursue in our religious studies and exercises the path
which the Church points out ; to regulate our thoughts
and actions by the pattern which Christ has set.
SINFUL PARTY-SPIRIT. 69
In this season of Lent we are taught to commemorate
our Saviour's voluntary sufferings and humiliation, from
the tirst scene of his Temptation in the wilderness to the
last crowning act of his Death and Passion. And herein,
while we bless and adore his atoning love, the Church
would have us humble ourselves with prayer and fasting
for sin, even as He, who was without sin, humbled him-
self for our sakes, to the end that we, like Him, and
through Him, may overcome the enemies of our souls.
At this present time, my brethren, let us consider one
single scene of our Lord's humiliation, and therein one
particular sin, as exhibited in the temper and conduct of
his foes. And may the Holy Spirit bless this con-
sideration to ourselves, and make it profitable for reproof,
for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
Betrayed in the garden, and arrested there by the
emissaries of the Jewish priests, Jesus had been led
away in the dead of night, first to the house of Annas;
thence, after a short delay (required, no doubt, for pre-
paration) to the palace of Caiaphas, the High Priest.
Here, says St Mark, were assembled all the chief priests
and the eWers and the scribes: in other words, the
seventy and one members of the Sanhedrim, or Supreme
Council of the Jews.
These men at length had Jesus in their power. The
Reformer who had detected and exposed the prevailing
abuses of Jehovah's law ; the Prophet, who had sternly
rebuked the inconsistencies, hypocrisies and vices of the
degenerate men who sat in Moses' seat; the Son of
David, who appeared as a mean carpenter's son of
70 SERMON V.
despised Nazareth ; the King of the Jews, who came only
as a Prince of Peace, whose servants would not fight
against Roman dominion; the Messiali who had not
been anointed with oil of their choosing; this Jesus was
now in their power.
Had they studied their own sacred Scriptures apart
from the glosses of false tradition and the prejudices of
selfish pride, they might have discovered that He stood
before them *of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets,
did write.' That Jesus was of Judah's tribe and of David's
lineage they could not deny. Had they been willing to
enquire, they might have learnt that his birthplace was
not indeed Nazareth of Galilee, but that Bethlehem of
Judea, 'where Christ should be born.' They might have
learnt, moreover, that out of Egypt the Son had been
called. They knew, too well, that the sceptre had de-
parted from Judah, and the lawgiver from between his
feet. Was it not time that Shiloh should come? And,
ere they scorned his lack of royal state and power, they
should have recollected that it was told to the daughter of
Zion: 'Behold thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and
sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.' No
such thoughts crossed their minds. Many prophecies
and types had already been fulfilled in Jesus, but more
were yet to be fulfilled: and it pleased God to use the
blind rage of these priests as an instrument in the ex-
ecution of his everlasting purposes, to their shame and
confusion. The serpent's head had been bruised, but it
was not crushed: the Son of Man was yet to be lifted up ;
the vinegar to be drank ; the garments to be parted :
SINFUL PARTY-SPIRIT. 71
his grave was to be made with the wicked : he was to lie
with the rich in his death : but his soul was not to be
left in hell, neither was the Holy One to see corruption :
He was to ascend up on high, to lead captivity captive,
and to receive gifts for men.
The transactions of the Sanhedrim thus assembled
in the palace of Caiaphas we learn from St Mark, whose
narrative agrees essentially with that of the other
Evangelists.
'And the chief priests and all the council sought for
witness against Jesus to put him to death ; and found
none. For many bare false witness against him, but
their witness agreed not together. And there arose
certain^ and bare false witness against him, saying, We
heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made
with hands, and within three days I will build another
made without hands. But neither so did their witness
agree together. And the high priest stood up in the
midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing?
what is it which these witness against thee ? But he
held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high
priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ,
the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye
shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the
high priest rent his clothes, and said, What need we
any further witnesses ? Ye have heard the blasphemy :
what think ye? And they all condemned him to be
guilty of death.'
As the supreme court of judicature in Israel, the
72 SERMON V.
Sanhedrim thus sat in judgment upon Jesus. Bat the
men who were here assembled as his judges had already
conspired against him as his foes, and had resolved to
arraign him before the Roman governor as his prose-
cutors. This was enough to stamp their proceedings
with injustice. But, in order to the complete justification
of truth, and for the warning of future ages, their guilt
must become more heinous and more evident. As such
it is seen in the simple and unimpassioned narrative we
have read.
The members of the Sanhedrim could not justify to
their own people the arraignment of a Jew before a
Roman tribunal, unless that Jew should first have been
condemned and excommunicated by themselves, as a
breaker of the Mosaic law. Hence the necessity for this
pretended trial. Trial indeed it was not : it was a judicial
murder, conceived and arranged beforehand. It was
hurried on with indecent haste ; conducted in the dead of
night, with the omission of many legal forms : false evi-
dence had been prepared by the judges themselves. But,
as truth is always consistent, falsehood seldom or never,
it pleased God to confute these perjured witnesses by
their own words. At length the High Priest, disconcerted
by the palpable failure of his plot, and impatient to
arrive at his foregone conclusion, resorts to the unusual
and unjust expedient of convicting the accused out of his
own mouth. He asked Jesus, in the form of adjuration,
as St Matthew tells us, ' Art thou the Christ, the Son of
the Blessed?' And Jesus said (the answer to such an
adjuration being a legal oath), ' I am: and ye shall see the
SI.\FUL PARTY-SPIRIT. 73
Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and
coming in the clouds of heaven.' Then the High Priest
rent his clothes (by that act testifying that he had heard
l>l.»sphemy) and said, 'What need we any further wit-
nesses? Yc have heard the blasphemy: what think ye?
And they all condemned him to be guilty of death.' And
then the Lord of all power and might is given over to
the insulting cruelty of common soldiers and menials.
When we study the proceedings of these Jewish
Councillors from first to last by the concurrent light of
history and experieqce, we are at no loss to discover the
evil principle which moN-ed them. Their sin was no other
than Party- spirit.
The Sanhedrim had lost the power of life and death ;
its ancient privileges, curtailed under the Asmonean and
Edomite dynasties, had been further diminished by the
Roman emperors; and, with power and privilege, the
dignity and influence of its members was all but gone.
For the recovery of this influence, that is to say, for
their own selfish aggrandisement, and not for the honour
of God and the good of their country, these councillors
caballed, combined, conspired ; formed a party, and acted
together as a party.
At one time they had looked with hope to Jesus of
Na2areth. His fame as a teacher of wisdom and a
worker of miracles had reached their ears. They were
aware of his popularity in Galilee, and even among the
humbler classes of Judea and Jerusalem. Doubtless
they would have been glad to use Him as an instrument
against the hated Romans, and, when He had served their
74 SERMON V.
turn, to fling away the lowly Nazarene as a broken tool,
according to the approved practice of worldly parties.
But Jesus would not join himself to them. Nay more, He
unveiled their abuses, unmasked their hypocrisies, con-
futed their pretexts, baffled their devices, rebuked their
sins. Thenceforth they regarded Him as an enemy, who
would strip them of popularity, as the Romans had taken
away their power. They agreed together to destroy Him.
The opposition of their more honest colleagues, a Nico-
demus, a Joseph of Arimathea, was silenced by the wicked
High Priest, who declared (in one sense how truly, in his
sense how falsely) that ' it was expedient that one man
should die for the people, and that the whole nation
perish not.' Then was waged the warfare of an unscru-
pulous and infuriated party against one obnoxious indi-
vidual. Spies were employed to entangle Him in his talk;
snares were set ; calumnies were circulated ; all the
approved tools and engines of an age which had
not yet acquired the printing-press were set in mo-
tion to harass, discredit, and destroy the Saviour of
the world. But from his armour of proof all their shafts
fell harmless. Amidst the Hosannas of rejoicing multi-
tudes He entered the gates of Jerusalem. Then the rage
of the priests and scribes knew no bounds. Jesus must die,
though by the sentence and by the hands of the detested
Romans. But first He must be condemned by themselves.
And this was their difficulty. To arrest Him in open day
was perilous both on account of the people, and because
the interference of the Roman authorities might prevent
their own contemplated judgment. By night therefore
S/XFl/L PARTY-SPIRIT, 75
He must be taken; by night tried and condemned of
them, and accused on the next morning before the Roman
Procurator. The unexpected sight of means to do their
ill deed hastened its execution. The traitor Judas pre-
sents himself: the bribe is offered and accepted: hasty
preparations are made : witnesses suborned : the arrest
effected ; the trial scene performed under cover of night,
not indeed with that successful hypocrisy which they
designed, but at all events with that cruel issue which had
been predetermined and concerted.
Have we not ground of thankfulness to that gracious
Providence which has often watched over our country,
when we compare a British Court of Law with the Jewish
Sanhedrim of the Christian era, and our judges with the
scribes and priests of degenerate Israel ? The Judge of
Great Britain, when he has been once invested with his
high and awful functions, knows no motives but those of
duty, hears no voice but that of conscience, looks to no
ends but truth and right. He knows himself the repre-
sentative of his sovereign's justice, and he knows more-
over, as he is a Christian man, that the justice of an
earthly prince is but the image of that justice, with which
the King of kings rules the world. He knows himself
the mouthpiece and expounder of that law, ' of which,'
in Hooker's words, ' no less can be said than that her
seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the
world ; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the
very least as feeling her care, the greatest as not exempted
from her power ; both angels and men, and creatures of
what condition soever, though each in different sort and
76 SERAWN V.
manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the
mother of their peace and joy.'
These things the judge knows : and these principles
guide his conduct. As the best and wisest men are falli-
ble, and as many doubtful cases both of law and of fact
arise, the judge may sometimes err : the bias of character
or the tendency of opinion may possibly determine his
mind to one or the other side of a dubious question :
such things must be in a world where the clearest eyes
sec through a glass darkly ; but God be thanked for this,
the justice of our judges now abides in a region far above
the atmosphere of intemperate passion or foul corruption.
And with not less thankfulness we may add that of British
juries the desire and endeavour is to perform faithfully
the solemn promise they make to God and their country,
that they will ' well and truly try and a true verdict give
according to the evidence.' Scope enough there is in their
functions for blameless error, and err they occasionally
must and do; but we gladly believe that their decisions
are usually right, and that, if ever they deflect from strict
justice, their deflection generally leans to the side of mercy.
But, while we are thankful for these things, brethren,
let our thankfulness be mingled with fear. Let us re-
member that the judges of these days not only present a
bright contrast to the Jewish Sanhedrim, but that they
shine not less when compared with men who filled their
seats in other periods of our national history. If the
names of a Jefferies and a Scroggs survive to shew their
successors all that a judge should not be, let us dread the
sin which made those unhappy men what they were :
SINFUL PARTY-SPIRIT. 77
their own unrighteous party-spirit, and the unrighteous
party-spirit of their times. And if it be to a more settled
constitution, to wiser laws, to enlarged education, and,
above all, to the fuller diflfusion of Christian doctrine,
that we owe the merit of our present judicature, let us
think with awe, that the high-priest of Israel had once the
Urim and the Thummim ; that as Israel sank and fell, so
may Britain sink and fall ; that a corrupt people never
did, never can, possess an incorrupt judicial system : that
upon the maintenance of our own moral and religious
character depends the maintenance of the moral and
religious tone of our courts of justice.
Yes, we thank God for it, the ermine of our judges is
pure ; the stream of British justice flows untainted in its
channels. Yet we may not deny that party-spirit, though
less coarse and turbulent than in olden days, is still so
rife among us as to constitute a national sin.
What shall we say then } Is zeal forbidden ? Not so :
for *it is good to be zealously affected in a good thing.'
Is lukewarmness commended? God forbid : 'them that
are neither hot nor cold will the Lord spew out of his
mouth.' Let us therefore obser\-e that, as there is
I. An unrighteous party-spirit, which, as Christians,
we are bound to eschew ;
so there is .
II. A righteous party-spirit, which, as Christians, we
are bound to entertain.
I. What are the marks of an unrighteous party-
spirit ?
To a Christian congregation no argument need be
78 SERMON V.
addressed to prove that all party-spirit is, by the nature
of the case, unrighteous, which espouses the cause of evil
and falsehood : all which is enlisted against the honour
of God, against his eternal attributes, truth and justice
and holiness ; against the Gospel or the Church of his
blessed Son.
But, furthermore, party-spirit in a doubtful, or even in
a good cause, is unrighteous, when it proceeds from wrong
motives, is exhibited in a wrong spirit, or served by wrong
means. Whenever we are induced to espouse a cause,
though it be the best, not by our zeal for God's glory and
for the promotion of truth, justice, or holiness, but by the
promptings of selfish interest or not less selfish passion :
whenever we ally ourselves to a party, not because its mem-
bers are the friends of righteousness, but because they are
our friends, from whom, in some shape or other, we have
something to hope or fear : whenever, having adopted a
cause, however right, we support it without candour,
without forbearance, without courtesy, without charity, or
without humility ; whenever, for party purposes, we em-
ploy the weapons of evil, suggestion of falsehood and
suppression of truth, slander and flattery, menace and
bribery, subornation and intrigue, violence and circum-
vention — in every and any such case we contract, in a
greater or less degree according to circumstances, the
guilt of unrighteous and unchristian party-spirit. And in
the train of this dominant sin what crowds of ministering
sins follow, we have seen in the case of the Jewish San-
hedrim. In such party-spirit indeed are involved all the
darling sins of him who is said to have first raised a party
SINFUL PARTY-SPIRIT. 79
in heaven against his Maker ; envy, hatred, malice, and
all uncharitableness. Such a party-spirit is the bane of
communities : as it precipitates rash innovations, so it
obstructs wise reforms and perpetuates convenient
abuses ; as it discourages and depresses good, so does it
encourage and advance evil : and as it drives or deters
pious, gentle, moderate, and humble-minded persons
from interference in public business, it tends to throw the
management of affairs into the hands of men whose skil-
ful and daring genius is less subject to the controul of
religious principle.
Nor is party-spirit less the bane of the Church of
Christ, which it divides and subdivides into sects ; and of
national Churches, which it divides and subdivides into
factions. This it is which teaches men to cry, * I am of
Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas ;' this it is which
has chiefly fulfilled the Saviour's mournful oracle, ' I am
not come to send peace on earth, but a sword ;' this it is
which, as we have seen that it drives religion from secu-
lar life, has also, more than any other sin, breathed a
secular spirit into the Church.
The sin of which we treat belongs peculiarly, though
not exclusively, to the stronger sex and to mature life.
Which of us, my brethren, who stand in these categories,
when he reviews his past life, will find a conscience clear
and undefiled by this great offence? Alas, few, I fear,
very few, if any, stand free from all defilement of un-
christian party-spirit in deed and in word. Great need is
there that for this, as for our other sins, we humble our-
selves before God with contrite and repentant hearts.
8o SERMON V,
And when we consider the insidious nature of this sin, its
many and unregarded approaches, its pervading influence
in society, and the perils into which it leads our souls,
our meditation and our prayer should be those of the
Psalmist: 'Who can tell how oft he offendeth? O cleanse
thou me from my secret faults, and keep back thy servant
also from presumptuous sins.'
II. My brethren, if we would be most effectually
secured, by the grace of God, against the influence of
unchristian party-spirit, it must be by the possession of
that party-spirit, which is according to righteousness and
true holiness.
We are born into a world of warfare, and we bring
into the world a warfare to be waged in our own souls
between the Kingdom of Christ and the powers of dark-
ness, between holiness and sin, between the spirit and
the flesh, between life and death. In this warfare we
have no choice but to take a part. We cannot serve two
Masters. The friendship of the world is enmity against
God. He that is not with Christ is against Him : he
that gathereth not with Him scattereth. The seal of his
baptism is on our brow ; the oath of his service hath
passed our lips. We are enrolled in his Church as sol-
diers and servants : in this contest we must be partizans.
Neutrality, were it possible, would be despite to the Holy
Spirit and treason against the Most High.
So then, let us follow the party of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ : let his name be our war-cry, his
cross inscribed upon our banner. Let his holy Ark be
erected in our hearts, and he Uagon of worldly party-
SINFUL PARTY-SPIRIT. 8i
spirit will bow down before it, and be broken. With our
fellow-servants in Christ let our only rivalry be, which
servant shall most richly improve the talent entrusted to
his use ; which shall win most souls from ignorance and
irreligion to light and holiness ; which shall do most to
fill our schools, and empty our gaols and workhouses ; to
cherish and enlarge the Church in our colonies, and to
gather the heathen into the true fold ; which, in a word,
shall have most faith and most love. And when our path
is crossed, as crossed it will be in this life, by the ser-
vants of evil and the world, never let us fight them with
their own weapjons ; this were to assure our own defeat,
to give occasion to the enemies of religion to blaspheme
it on our account, to be faithless to the Captain of our
salvation. Never let us deem that the success of Christ's
cause is bound up with our own success ; but let us be
always prepared to take up our cross and follow Him
whithersoever He shall lead, though it be to agony, to
trials, to persecutions, to scorns, to smitings, to scourg-
ings, to death.
Be this our Christian party-spirit, that we love one
another; that in our warfare with the world, thi flesh
and the devil, we be not overcome of evil, but that we
overcome evil with good. Let Christ be the strength of
our hearts : so will He be our portion for ever.
SERMON VI.
THE FEAR OF THE WORLD EXEMPLIFIED
IN PONTIUS PILATE.
BEFORE HER MAJESTY'S JUDGES OF THE SALOP
SUMMER ASSIZE, 1849.
St Luke xxiii. 24.
And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they
required.
The enemies of the Prince of Peace had achieved half
their cruel work. By arresting Jesus in the dead of night,
they had prevented Roman interference as well as
popular uproar. By trying, or seeming to try, Him before
their National Court, they had contrived to retain the
form of j'ustice while setting at nought its power. By
dooming Him to be guilty of death under the law of
Moses, they had placed Him out of the pale of Jewish
privilege and sympathy. But the doom thus passed
they could not execute. Had they dared, they would have
stoned Jesus to death as a blasphemer. But the power
of life and death had ceased to be theirs : it belonged
only to the Roman governor. If Jesus was to die as a
THE FEAR OF THE WORLD. 83
malefactor, He must die by sentence of a Gentile tribunal
and by the forms of Gentile execution.
The Roman Procurator who then governed Judea
IS Pontius, sumamed Pilatus. Of this man we know
little more than the Bible tells us. The name is not that
of an ancient Roman house: it seems to indicate a
Samnite origin. Whether he was rich or poor, whether
of scnatorian or of knightly parentage, whether he had
risen by birth, by favour, by merit, or by their united
influence, no record informs us. We know that his lot
was cast in an age of fallen freedom and decayed virtue ;
that the religion of his country was then a mere complex
of pompous rites and ceremonies without living power,
that the fashionable philosophy was that Vvhich placed
the chief good in worldly ease and enjoyment. We
know that Pilate was a servant and dependent of the
reigning Cxsar, and that this Caesar was the jealous and
gloomy Tiberius.
We may form a surer judgment of Pilate's intellectual
character. The Scripture narratives show him to have
possessed a large and sagacious understanding: nor can
we suppose that any person of mean endowments would
have been entrusted with the government of Judea, a
frontier province, newly acquired, inhabited by a peculiar
neople, restless, turbulent, and impatient of the Gentile
ke.
The moral character of Pilate is the subject which I
desire, by God's blessing, to employ for our present
edification ; with which view let us observe his conduct
as it appears in the Gospel narratives.
6—2
84 SERMON VI.
As soon as morning dawned on that eventful Friday,
the members of the Sanhedrim again met, and having
again, with a view, probably, to the more public justi-
fication of their conduct, tempted Jesus to avow himself
the Son of God, they once more pronounced Him a
blasphemer, worthy of death. Then they led Him from
the palace of Caiaphas to the Prastorium of Pilate, stand-
ing themselves without, from fear of ceremonial defile-
ment during the Paschal feast. Within the Pra^torium
Jesus was examined by the governor, and between them
occurred that memorable conversation, partly recorded
by St John, which left on Pilate's mind the strong
impression of his prisoner's innocence. He went out
again unto the Jews and saith unto them, 'I find in
Him no fault at all' But they renewed their calumnies,
saying, 'he stirreth up the people, teaching throughout
all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.' The
mention of Galilee suggests to Pilate's mind the hope of
relieving himself from an unwelcome responsibility. He
asked whether the man were a Galilean, and being
answered in the affirmative, he places Jesus at the
disposal of Herod Antipas, who was then at Jerusalem,
and whose friendship Pilate sought to recover. Herod,
displeased by the Saviour's silent resignation, scorned
and derided and clothed Him in mock splendour, yet he
was not induced to embrue his hands for the second
time in guiltless blood. He sent Jesus back to Pilate.
Again Pilate convoked the chief priests and the rulers
and the people, and having his own opinion fortified by
that of Herod, he proposed to chastise Jesus and then
THE FEAR OF THE WORLD. 85
M ' ISC Him. He was also prompted to take this course
1) she remonstrance which at this time he received from
his wife, who sent unto him, saying, 'have thou nothing
to do with that just man ; for I have suffered many things
this day in a dream because of Hirru' It was the custom
of the Roman govt^mors at the Paschal feast to release
any prisoner whom the people named, and to grant him
a full [tardon. Pilate therefore hoped that the populace
would demand the release of Him whom they had ere-
whiic loved and revered as their king. Vain expectation.
There lay in prison one Barabbas, probably a tool of the
Jewish oligarchs, awaiting the punishment of sedition
and murder. The priests instigated the f>eople to de-
mand this criminal's release and the crucifixion of Jesus.
An infuriated mob surrounds the Praetorium. To their
reason, to their equity, to their feelings the governor
appeals in vain. *Away with this man, and release unto
us Barabbas ;' 'crucify Him, crucify Him ;' such were the
cries which thundered in his ears. Pilate yielded ; but
not until he had taken water and washed his hands
before the multitude, saying, ' I am innocent of the blood
of this just person: see ye to it;' not until the people
had answered, 'his blood be on us and on our chil-
dren.' And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they
required. He released Barabbas, and delivered Jesus
to be scourged in the first instance, and then crucified,
thus unconsciously fulfilling Isaiah's prophetic description
of Messiah's sufferings: — He was wounded for our trans-
gressions ; He was bruised for our iniquities ; by his
stripes we are healed. Still was Pilate's heart pricked
86 SERMON Vl.
by a sense of his injustice. Even now, when the Saviour
had given his back to the smiter, and endured the scorns
and mockeries of the Roman soldiers, he brings Him
forth bleeding and crowned with thorns to those whose
compassion he wished to move ; and again he encounters
the ferocious yell, 'crucify Him, crucify Him.' Pilate saith
unto them, 'take ye Him and crucify Him ; for I find no
fault in Him.' And now the priests for the first time
disclosed to Pilate the grounds upon which they had
condemned Jesus. 'We have a law,' they said, 'and by
that law He ought to die, because He made himself the
Son of God.' The effect of this avowal was not accord-
ing to their expectation. In order that Pilate's example
might be the more memorable, his soul was thrilled for the
moment with pious awe. He withdrew his prisoner and
questioned Him once more. Once more his interrogations
resulted in a persuasion of the Saviour's innocence, and
in an earnest desire to spare his life ; but his manifestation
of this desire was met by the Jews with a terrible and
telling menace: 'if thou let this man go, thou art not
Caesar's friend; whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh
against Caesar.' The governor's half-formed resolution
died within his trembling bosom. He brought Jesus
forth, and sat down on the tribunal at noon, and, for the
last time appeahng to the people, he said, ' shall I
crucify your king?' The chief priests answered, 'we
have no king but Caesar.' Then delivered he Him there-
fore unto them to be crucified.
Full of interest and instruction are the scenes and
characters thus brought before us. On one side we see
THE FEAR OF THE WORLD. 87
the spotless Lamb of God, about to take away the sins
uf the world ; on the other, that world itself, personified
ia its sinful children, about to shed its Saviour's blood.
The sin of party-spirit, as exhibited in the trial of out'
Lord before the Jewish Sanhedrim, formed the subject-
matter of the sermon which it was my duty to deliver
before her Majesty's Judges of the last Spring Assize.
The heinous nature of this sin is seen not less clearly and
->trikingly in the narrative we have now read. The wicked
counsellors of Israel would fain have employed Jesus as
an instrument to deliver them from the Romans. Jesus
had shunned their temptations, disappointed their hopes,
exposed their vices, lacerated their pride. He must be
extirpated, and that instantly. The struggle agavpst
Rome must be adjourned to a more convenient season.
The Roman governor must first be used as an instrument
to rid them of Jesus. With that odious hypocrisy which
reckless partisans are never ashamed to adopt, they
affect loyal feelings towards a prince whom in their hearts
they detest; they charge Jesus with making himself a
king, with forbidding to give tribute to Caesar ; they say
to Pilate, ' if thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's
friend' ; they cry with lying lips, 'we have no king but
Cjesar.' In the end designed by these bad men we see
the cruelty of party-spirit : in the means employed, its
baseness. And the nature of sin is ever the same. What
party-spirit was then, it is still. It is the sin of a great
portion of mankind ; it is the sin of the world at large :
not indulged alone, but avowed and justified. Ne-
cessity is the plea not of tjrants only, but of parties
88 SERMON VI.
also. Who wills the end, it is said, wills the means. If
good means will avail, well : if not, evil must be found.
If .good men will help, well : if not, evil instruments must
be employed, encouraged, recompensed. Is this the
language of Christian men ; or of those who call them-
selves Christ's, because Christian is for the present a
fashionable name, but who are in deed and in truth enemies
of Christ? Such as do evil that evil may come are the
open and avowed servants of Satan. What shall we say of
them who do evil that good may come? Nay, it is not we
who say — an Apostle says — their condemnation is just.
But the character of the Roman Procurator is the
subject chosen for our present contemplation; may it
edi|y our souls, through God's Holy Spirit.
In Pilate, as I have already said, we discern no ordi-
nary person.
He was not a cruel man. He would gladly have saved
Jesus from the cross ; and, if he scourged him severely,
this seems to have been done with the hope of substituting
a milder punishment for that of death. He was a hus-
band : he could bear a wife's remonstrance. Probably he
was a father. No stranger he to the gentler sympathies
of the heart.
He was not a careless or indolent person. He had
put do%vn insurrection with a prompt and strong hand.
He examines the cause of Jesus with care and diligence.
Sceptical indeed he was, and weak in moral faith, yet
he was not an unconscientious man. His leaning was to
the side of justice. Again and again he apprized the
Jews that he found no fault in Jesus. Again and again he
THE FEAR OF THE WORLD. 89
apf>ealed to them in his favour. He urged them to accept
the release of Jesus and to leave the blood-stained
Barabbas in his dungeon. And when their cruel violence
prevailed against his better judgment, he washed his
hands before them, declaring by that vain symbol, and in
words equally vain, that he was innocent of blood ; that on
them and theirs Liy the guilt of that day's crime.
Neither was Pilate's in every respect a mean spirit.
The calm dignity of Jesus, his plainness of speech, when,
instead of flattering this arbiter of life and death, he
said: 'thou couldest have no power at all against me,
except it were given thee from above : ' — these things did
not irritate and prejudice Pilate against his prisoner, as
they would have irritated and prejudiced a baser temper.
How it was that Pilate acquired so intimate a convic-
tion of the Saviour's innocence we are left to guess. As
a Roman, he had been accustomed to despise the laws
and institutions of Moses. The priests and councillors of
Jerusalem were known to him by official experience. Per-
haps he had heard of Christ's benevolent miracles and pure
life. Perhaps he knew that he had rebuked and baffled the
ostentatious and designing Pharisees. Perhaps he saw in
Jesus the foe of a degrading superstition and the cham-
pion of a better faith ; and the impressions so received
would be strengthened in the mind of an enlightened
Roman by the simple grandeur of the Saviour's personal
bearing. It may also be easily believed that in the very
nature of the charges alleged by the priests, Pilate dis-
cerned the marks of falsehood. Who were these men that
with loud profession of loyalty thus impeached Jesus as a
90 SERMON VT.
traitor? The very men who most abhorred the power of
Rome and designed its overthrow. Who were they that
would have no king but Caesar? Those who were ever
fomenting sedition in town and country, and employing
tools like Barabbas to menace and perplex the Procu-
rator's government. Who were these that accused Jesus
of perverting the people and forbidding to give tribute to
Caesar? Men who cursed the Roman impost as the
symbol of their own degradation, who classed tax-gatherers
with sinners, and avoided their company as a ceremonial
defilement. Such accusations from such accusers were
incredible on the face of them.
But, whatever the facts and reasons by which Pilate's
mind acquired conviction, certain it is that he was fully
convinced of our Lord's innocence. He knew that for
envy the Jews had delivered him. While constrained to
gratify the accusers, he cannot hide his contemptuous indig-
nation. ' Am I a Jew?' he says : ' take ye Him and crucify
Him.' And overruled by God to speak the truth in his
bitter irony, he persists in styling the lowly Nazarene
* King of the Jews.' He inscribes his cross with this title ;
and when the priests would have the form altered, he
curtly answers, ' what I have written, I have written.'
After this review of Pilate's character and conduct,
we are led to ask — how came such a man to commit so
great a crime ? He was not cruel: why did he shed blood?
He was not careless: where was now his energy? He
had a conscience : why did he violate it? He valued
justice: why did he pervert judgment? He could be
magnanimous : why did he condescend to baseness? He
THE FEAR OF THE WORLD. 9»
knew Jesus to be without fault : why did he condemn the
innocent? He knew his enemies to be false maligncrs :
why did he lend himself to be the tool of their malice?
The reply to these questions is obvious ; but dull and
cold and unreflecting must be the mind which can hear it
without anxiety and alarm. Pilate crucified Jesus for the
sake of his own temporal and material interests. Worldly
selfishness stifled the voice of conscience. The love of
the world prevailed in his heart over honour, duty, jus-
tice, and mercy. As a Roman governor he desired the
good will of the provincial population. Pilate was willing
to gratify the Jews. Yet the desire of popularity, the love
of the world, might not, it seems, have been sufficient to
determine his mind to wrong. The fear of the world came
in and Struck the balance. ' If thou let this man go, thou
art not Caesar's friend.' Before that threat he quailed, he
wavered, he yielded. He ser\-ed a master whose ear was
ever open to insinuation, whose soul was ever prone to
suspicion ; whose suspicion was the certain harbinger of
disgrace, if not of death. Yes, it must be. Jesus must
die. Pilate's fortune, Pilate's safety demanded this sacri-
fice. The dignity of a Roman noble must not be perilled
for the life of an obscure Galilean.
Brethren, these things are written for our instruction.
In God's name, in Christ's stead, I, his unworthy minis-
ter, beseech you to profit by them.
In order to make the most of this memorable history
for our owTi spiritual improvement, we must, I think, put
one searching question to our own hearts. Should we, in
Pilate's place, have done otherwise than Pilate did?
92 SERMON VI.
Accustomed as we are to link Pilate's name with the
infamy of a crime, which darkened heaven and made
earth tremble, many of us, I doubt not, would answer
without hesitation, as Hazael to Elisha : Is thy servant
a dog, that he should do this great thing ? Hazael's heart
deceived him : and many a self-confident Christian may
first learn the deceitfulness of his own heart when the hour
of temptation arrives. In Pilate we see an unjust judge : a
judge made unjust not by party-spirit, as the Sanhedrim,
but by worldliness, by fear of the world. England has
seen evil days, when of her judges some were furious
partizans, others time-serving prevaricators. Those days
are gone, we trust, for ever. In these times we have no
Caiaphas to violate justice, no Pilate to connive at the
violation. English judges are as independent as they are
impartial, not less courageous than dispassionate. We
thank the Providence, which has watched over the politi-
cal improvement of our country, for this, among other
signal blessings, that our judges, though nominated by
the executive government, are irremoveable by the same
power. Assailed no longer by the temptations to which
Pilate yielded, they have no Sejanus to court, as they
have no Tiberius to dread.
Yet all of us, high and low, rich and poor, laity and
clergy, may profit by the self-examination which my
question requires. Should we, in Pilate's place, have done
otherwise than Pilate did ?
Pilate was a heathen in religion, devoid of Christian
hope : a sceptic in philosophy, doubting the very exist-
ence of truth : a Roman soldier, prodigal of human life :
THE FEAR OF THE W UkLD. 93
a governor, responsible for the peace of a province : a
rising man of the world, over whose fortunes the sword
of a dangerous calumny was suspended : a husband, in
whose ruin the dearest objects of his affection would be
involved.
We say this not to excuse Pilate. Pilate was in a
position of moral trial ; and he felL It matters not
whether he had studied the principles of justice and duty
in those heathen moralists, whose works are still text-
books, or knew them only by instinct and habit. Enough
that he did know them : enough that his conscience bore
witness to them. By the law written on his heart he
will be tried in the last day.
We speak to accuse ourselves. Let him who is free
from worldliness cast the first stone at Pilate's fame. We
are Christians by education and profession at least, if not
in faith and hope. W'e have a law greater and more
inspiring and more consoling than the coldly correct
systems of an Aristotle or a Cicero. We have a code of
morals embodied and exemplified in the life and doctrine
of a sinless human being, and that humaii being our
Creator, our Redeemer, our God. His life and doctrine
teach us certain truths implying certain duties. One of
these truths is, that the friendship of the wqrld is enmity
against God. And the duty is that we love not the
world, neither the things that are in the world. Another
truth is, that blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed they
that mourn, blessed they that are reviled and persecuted
for Christ's sake. And the duty is, that we fear not them
that are able to kill the body, but are unable to kill the
94 SE/iJfON VL
soul : that we rejoice when we are persecuted ; that we
deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Christ.
If we believe God's word, brethren, we believe these
truths. Are our lives conformed to these duties ? Or is
it otherwise with us ? Do we belong to the great multi-
tude of men-pleasers, mammon-worshippers, seekers of
worldly treasure and worldly honour, living to the world
alone and not unto God, teaching our children the same
lore, and training them in the same paths? Is it our
practice to side with strong injustice, or to connive when
we do not side, and to tread down or turn our back upon
the weak, even when the poor and needy hath right ?
Are we of those who put up with Christianity, because
they find it established, so long as it is tame and cold
and supple and servile, while in earnest religion of what-
ever form they see only an offence and a sign to be
spoken against? Is it our wont to put evil for good and
good for evil, to call faction principle, independence im-
practicability, honesty ill-temper ; to commend craft and
dissimulation as tact and knowledge of the world ; to
ridicule simplicity and sincerity as ignorance of the world
and want of tact ?
If such we are, brethren, assuredly we should have
done, in Pilate's place, as Pilate did : but we should have
done it more promptly and with less reluctance. For if
we are such, we are worse, far worse than Pilate. Bap-
tized into the name of Christ, instructed in his holy and
life-giving doctrine, having before us his high example,
enjoying the gift of his Holy Spirit, we swinishly trample
on all these precious advantages. As faithless soldiers and
THE FEAR OF THE WORLD. 95
servants, we forsake our Captain and our Lord ; we deny
Him before men ; nay, by our sins we crucify the Son of
God afresh and put Him to an open shame.
And if worse than Pilate, far more foolish than he.
Pilate had no glimpses of the future, temporal or eternal.
He knew not that he was sending his own name down
the stream of time labelled with infamy. He knew not
that he should one day stand a trembling culprit before
the bar of Him whom he was then consigning to an
unmerited and cruel death. We know that our Redeemer
livcth, and that He shall stand in the latter day upon the
earth ; that in that day the wicked shall be cast into hell,
and all the people who have loved or feared the world
and forgotten God: while the righteous, who through much
earthly tribulation have believed and loved and followed
their Saviour, shall enter into the joy of his kingdom.
In serving the world we serve an ungrateful master
We see what Pilate did to win the world's favour. What
were his gains ? Deposition, disgrace, banishment, self-
slaughter. For one person, whom the world crowns with
the garland of success, it disapi>oints and disgusts thou-
sands. Happier they, if the discipline of adversity brings
them back to that Saviour, who will not cast out any who
truly turn to Him, even at the eleventh hour. Happier
they, though their portion were that of Lazarus, than the
men of the world, who clothe themselves in purple and
fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day, and at length
fall asleep to wake in torments.
Brethren, if such thoughts are ever in season, most
seasonable are they now. When God's judgments are in
96 SERMON VI.
the earth, men learn wisdom. Who shall deny that at
this time earth is shaken by the judgments of heaven, and
reels like a drunken man and is at its wits' end ? Who
shall deny that it seems verily to be the almighty will of
God that old things shall pass away and all things become
new?
Meanwhile, that mysterious disease, herald of divine
wrath or mercy, which walks the round of earth like an
invisible comet, shaking pestilence and death from its
horrid hair, again alarms our towns and villages, again
hangs over our bed and about our paths. Unsparing,
undiscriminating, it strikes down the wife with the hus-
band, the child with the parent, the infant with the man
of grey hairs, the peer with the peasant, the judge with
the criminal^
What these things portend to the planet on which we
live I know not. I am not a prophet : I can flash little
light on the dim pages of unfulfilled prophecy. But this
I know: that to me, to you, to all they say. Prepare.
Prepare to meet your God. Set your houses in order ;
for it may be that ye shall die and not live. It may be
that this night your souls shall be required of you.
They say : put away from you all malice and hatred
and uncharitableness with all evil-speaking: be reconciled
to your enemies, that ye may eat the Lord's Sacrament
and be fit to die.
^ The Asiatic Cholera reappeared in England during the |
summer of 1849; and among those whose lives it carried off 1
was Mr Justice Coltman, one of the Judges of the Spring Assize
on the Oxford Circuit.
THE FEAR OF THE WORLD. 97
They say : Cease to do evil, learn to do well ; live not
in scltish luxury: turn not your face from the beggar that
lieth at your gate, full of sores ; for it may be that he is
accepted and you will be cast out.
They say: Loosen the bands which knit you to earth;
strengthen the wings of your soul for its heavenward
flight.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the
Father, but of the world. And the world passeth away,
and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God
abideth for ever.
SERMON VII.
SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIAI^ITY.
BEFORE THE PRESIDENT, TRUSTEES, AND FRIENDS OF
THE SALOP INFIRMARY, NOVEMBER, 1850.
St John xv. 5.
For withotit me ye can do nothing.
The sickness of the world is sin. This truth the Bible
teaches ; and the Bible al6ne has prescribed the sovereign
universal remedy : ' In Christ shall all be made alive.'
The existence of the disease has never been denied ;
or, if ever, not now. Should we venture, in despite of
conscience, to deny it, the bones of our battlefields, the
walls of our prisons and poorhouses, yea, the very pave-
ments of our cities and towns would cry out and con-
tradict us.
Not so general is the acceptance of the remedy. Its
searching properties are distasteful to the natural man.
To him 'Abana and Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, are
SOCIALISM AMP CHRISTIANITY. 99
better than all the waters of Israel.' He forsakes the
fountain of living waters, and hews him out 'cisterns,
broken cisterns, that can hold no water.'
Among such ' broken cisterns ' arc the theories known
by the general name of Socialism- Theories I say ; for
under this title many shades of opinion are comprised.
We would not employ the Christian pulpit to confute
doctrines which lay the axe to the deepest foundations
of society, and crush the loveliest feelings of the heart,
whilst from the indulgence of self they dare to promise
the increase of charity, from the emancipation of the
passions, harmony and peace ; good, in short, from the
boundless expansion of evil.
In the name of Reason we reject such doctrines : in
the name of Religion we abhor them. We say to their
missionaries in our Lord's words, and in the faith and
power of Him : ' Get thee behind me, Satan.'
But there are other and milder forms of Socialism,
which, allowing the ties of family, and preserving, in
some degree, the rights of proi>erty, propose to heal
society by new executive powers, new codes of law, new
modes of organizing labour and distributing wealth.
It is not within my present design to classify these
forms of Socialism. I shall include in that term, for
my present purpose, all parties who hope to regenerate
the world by mere social organism.
These parties, so far as their writings are known to
me, do not profess to regard the religion of Christ with
actual disfavour : but they ignore its claim to be the
divine method of universal regeneration. To them it is
7-2
loo SERMON VII.
a venerable human system, which has done some good
in its time, but being now worn out, and behind the age,
must retire and make room for schemes of social im-
provement more wide, searching, and effectual.
In what light, on the other hand, are secular means
of improvement considered by the Christian? In their
right place, in just measure, in subordination to the
grand principles of religion, he does not reject them.
All prudent legislation, all safe association, which may
smooth the march of Christianity by diminishing the
evils of vice, ignorance, and destitution, the Christian
will hail with gladness. and support with zeal. But these
are not the ground of his hope. He leans not on the
arm of flesh. He knows that laws without morals are
little else than a dead letter : that morals have a firm
foundation in religion alone : that no rehgion is true,
none possible, but the Gospel of Christ. He avers there-
fore that the words of my text were not designed for the
apostles alone, not for their times only and their country;
but that to priests and philosophers, princes and legis-
lators, public men and private of all ages and all lands,
the Son of God proclaims : ' Without Me ye can do no-
thing.'
May He who spake these words bless them to our
edification.
I. We say that the end of the Socialist is a good —
nay even a Christian — end, so far as he seeks to improve
the condition of the poor, to distribute less unequally
the gifts of Providence, to correct the immoral conven-
tions of Society, and to smooth its harsh distinctions^
SOC/AUSM AND CHRISTIANITY. loi
For these things the Christian also prays and labours.
Is it not written that his blessed Master was anointed
by the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel to the poor ;
that He was sent to heal the broken-hearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the
tilind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord? Know we not that He
went about doing good ; that He had not where to lay
his head ; that He ate with publicans and sinners ; that
He healed and blessed and fed the destitute ; that He
chose the weak things of the world to confound the
mighty, and the poor of this world rich in faith, and
heirs of the kingdom which He hath promised to them
that love Him?
How shall the Christian not love those whom his
divine Master so dearly loved ? How shall he not watch
and work for their good in all things, temporal as well
as spiritual ?
But if the ends of the Socialist are, to this extent,
such as the Christian must approve, it is nevertheless
certain that, in regard to means, Socialism and Christi-
anity are at vital issue.
Socialism adopts material and outward agencies;
Christianity moral and inward remedies. Socialism pro-
claims rights. Christianity inculcates duties. Socialism
w^ould improve men by reorganizing society. Christi-
anity would reform society by converting its individual
members. Socialism aims to abolish poverty. Christi-
anity declares that the poor shall never cease out of the
land. Socialism would divide the wealth of Dives.
I02 SERMON VII.
Christianity glorifies the rags of Lazarus. The Socialist's
hopes are of the earth, earthy. The Christian's treasure
is laid up in heaven.
The Socialist, we say, relies on outward and material
measures. By such methods he would resolve the grand
problem of human happiness. With what prospect of
success "i
Granting, as we have before granted, that wise laws,
institutions, and associations are essential as coefficient
means, we deny that in themselves they are strong
enough to secure the order, progress, and happiness of
mankind. Call them, if you will, the wheels of the social
engine. Say that they ease and lighten its motion.
Still they are not the motive power. The motive power
is the spirit of the people. Communities of men, like
individual men, have as it were a body and a soul.
When the soul is inert and cold, the body is a sluggish
lump. When the soul is heady and passionate, the body
is an instrument of disorder and confusion. When the
soul is selfish and vicious, the body is a mass of cor-
ruption. When the soul glows with enlightened love,
the body is an orb of light and loveliness. And where
are we to seek the soul of a community ? Where but in
its recognition of high and eternal truth .'' Where but in
its sentiment of duty? Where but in its fear of God.''
Where but in its strong enlightened religious faith ?
Again. Social happiness is but the result of indi-
vidual happiness. And is not individual happiness more
of the mind than of the body, complex and indescribable
as the mind itself? Does it not depend less on outward
SOCIALISM AXD CHRISTIANITY. 103
catlses than on inward constitution and condition ? How
many hopes and fears and wishes, how many memories
and longings and regrets, an undistingiushable throng,
inhabit that mysterious circle of the human heart, and
determine it to bliss or woe more powerfully than any
mere out«*ard circumstances or relations! *Man does
not live by bread alone.'
How often do we see the rich and mighty of the
earth pine amidst sumptuous fare and purple and fine
linen, and tremble like reeds shaken by the wind, and
fly to death as a refuge from themselves! How often,
on the other hand, do we see a contented mind minis-
tering to the poor and needy a continual feast! The
Pharaoh of Egypt dreams a dream upon his couch of
down, and in the morning his spirit b troubled. Holy
Joseph sleeps soundly on his dungeon pallet, and awakes
with a light heart, for the Lord is with him.
Why is this, my brethren? It is because we belong
to two worlds, the one temporal, the other eternal.
The one cannot satisfy the longings of the souL The
other must be ours in faith and hope now, not only
that we may have joy hereafter, but that we may have
peace even here. No ways are pleasantness indeed
but those of religion, no other paths are truly peace.
Or to speak of things more palpable to sense. Make
institutions as perfect as you will ; can you put an end
to physical suffering ? Can you alter the course of the
world, and the organization of the body? Can you
abolish disease and pain? Can you control the powers
of nature, conjure the elements, and fetter the winds of
104 SERMON VI T.
heaven? Will the sea forbear to swell, the cyclone and
tornado to burst, or the lightning to strike at your be-
hest? Can you forbid the blight to lay waste our fields
and the murrain our stalls, or arrest the pestilence in
its depopulating march? Can you shield those you love
from the destroying angel? Shall there be no more
death in your new world, neither sorrow nor crying?
no more widows? no more orphans? no more desti-
tution? Can you thus seal up the. fountains of human
woe? You cannot. Well then; how do you propose
to heal their waters? What charm have you against
despondency, melancholy, despair? What lore of yours
will teach us to bear the ills of life with constancy and
resignation, and to rise from them with new energy
and dauntless resolution? It is not you who will tell us
that these things are salutary trials of our patience, or
chastisements from a kind and loving Father, drawing
us nearer unto Him. Such are the lessons of faith and
hope and love. And faith, hope, love, are the gifts and
graces of Christianity.
If we extend our view, and examine all the resources
of Socialism, we shall find them, severally and collec-
tively, unequal to the task of maintaining order, peace
and happiness in the world. Particular constitutions
will endure for a time, longer or shorter according to
the habits of their communities. But policy the most
sagacious, laws the most just, the best fiscal arrange-
ments, the nicest adjustment of the claims of capital
and labour, will collapse under the pressure of mighty
exigencies, or wear out by the attrition of human self-
SOCIAUSAf AND CHRISTIANITY. 105
ishness. The restraints of Law alone, without some
other force, material or moral, are not strong enough
to bind human passions. Material force, e»cn when
adequate, when durable, when trustworthy (points ever
questionable), is an evil in itself, and symptomatic of
evil in the social system. We come back therefore to
our axiom, that laws without morals (in the words of
a wise heathen) are vain and profitless.
True, the Socialist will perhaps say. We cannot do
without morals. But why must we go to another world
for our morality? May we not find it within the con-
fines of this.' Has man no conscience? Has he no
natural sentiments of equity and bene\'olence ? no seeds
of good, which may ripen under a wise and vigorous
system of public education? no natural rights, round
which all will rally from a sense of common interest ?
Yes, we reply. Man has a conscience. He does
retain a sense of good and evil He does know that
the one is approved of his Creator, the other con-
demned. But there is a force in man stronger than his
conscience, even the flesh, which is corrupt according
to the deceitful lusts: and this force, curbed as it may
be in particular minds by various restraints, will, never-
theless, upon the whole, determine mankind at large to
evil rather than to good. Neither will that intellectual
culture, which a merely secular education aflfords, suffice
to alter the direction of this force. If knowledge is
power, it is not virtue, it is not happiness. It may in-
deed be the pioneer of both. It may, when rightly
conveyed, prepare the mind for the great moral tranc-
ic6 SERMON VII.
formation we desire. But such a transformation it has
no power, of itself, to work: a truth which we doubt
not our Saviour designed to teach when He chose ' the
foolish things of the world to confound the wise.'
And what say we to the vaunted morality of natural
rights? Woe, we say, to the people who have no bet-
ter morality : for they have built their rights as well as
their morals on the sand. Examine the morality of
rights, and you will find it to be only a sounding name
for the morality of self-interest, which is, in very truth,
the negation of morality itself. The morality of duties,
on the contrary (without which rights have no security),
is another name for the morality of self-denial, of self-
renunciation: the only true morality: the morality of
the Bible : the morality of Christ.
Again, therefore, we are brought to our conclusion.
Laws without morals are a lifeless form. Morals take
root and flourish in religion alone.
II. No: my brethren. Socialism is not destined to
restore the world. It may abolish old forms: it may
establish new: but it cannot endow them with a new
spirit : it cannot change the heart. The old man will be
left as he was. And what are new forms worth, if it be the
old sin that works in them still? What avail new gar-
ments, when they cover only filth and leprosy ? What
virtue have new bottles, if they hold only bad wine?
The reform we need, then, is that of the heart.
Achieve this, and other reforms will follow, in necessary
consequence and due order. But how ?
Hear once more the words of my text.
SOCIAUSM AND CflRISTIANITY. 107
' Without Mc ye can do nothing.'
Without Christ we can do nothing. No, surely: but
with Christ, brethren, with Christ, not less surely, we can
do ever>thing.
And where do we find Christ? In the Bible.
Not by mere chance, we deem, is Christ called the
Word of God, and the Bible also the Word of God.
God speaks to man through Christ his Word. Christ
speaks to man through his Word, the Bible. Christ
is in the Bible from beginning to end. Christ, we might
almost fay, fills the Bible. From the first words in the
Mosaic narrative, to the final benediction of St John the
beloved Divine, Christ is all in all. In the beginning ' all
things were made by Him.' He was the consolation of
fallen, dying, despairing man. He was with the Patriarch
in his far pilgrimage, with Moses in the burning bush.
In hope of Him the Hebrew mother rejoiced amidst
her throes. Of Him psalmists sang, of Him prophets
spake. Him the whole Mosaic ritual, all Jewish history,
foreshadowed. Tabernacle and temple, ark and altar,
victim and incense, patriarch, lawgiver and priest, warrior,
judge and king, all were types of Him, He came at
length in the fullness of time. Having emptied himself
of the glory which He had with the Father, He was made
in the likeness of men : and being found in fashion as a
man, He humbled himself, and became obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also
hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and
io8 SERMON VII.
things under the earth ; and that every tongue should
confess that Jesus is the Christ, to the glory of God the
Father. Having thus atoned for our sins and taken his
seat in Heaven, where He ever liveth to make interces-
sion for us, the one Mediator, through whom alone our
prayers have access to the Father, He sent the promised
Comforter, the Holy Spirit of grace, to enlighten and
strengthen his apostles and primitive disciples for the
great work before them.
Forth they went in this strength, these few poor fish-
ermen and publicans of Galilee, to impose a new faith
upon the world. And the purple of the Palatine — the
stole of the Capitol — the eagles of the Praetorium — the
rods of the Tribunal — the old jurisprudence of the
Forum — the hoarded wisdom of Athens and Alexandria —
the powers and arts and arms of world-wide empire — how
did they greet those lowly missionaries? At first they
took no notice, or noticed with smiles and sneers ; then
they persecuted, and persecuted again, and yet more
hotly persecuted ; at last they knelt down and worshipped
by their side. And ere long, when the wild North burst
its icy barriers, the barbarian swarms came forth to
conquer and to be conquered ; to tread on Christian
necks, and to bow before the Christian's God.
And these miracles, my brethren, for miracles we may
truly call them, how came they to pass ? For the reason
that, in spite of early corruptions, contracted first from
Judaism, then from Paganism, then from superstition,
priestcraft, and a faithless worldly spirit, Christ was,
upon the whole, with his Church, and made that Church a
SOCIAUSM AND CHRISTIANITY. 109
fount of healing to the nations. For, in truth, if we
ine the matter carefully and impartially, we shall
hat to Christianity we owe all the great and peculiar
blessings of modem civilization. By proclaiming the
.,'reat facts and principles, that God, our common Father,
IS no respecter of persons; that Christ, our Redeemer,
died and rose again in order that all men might be saved
ind come to the knowledge of the truth ; that by one
Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be
Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; that they
who come to the truth are free : that this liberty may not
be used as a cloak of licentiousness, for that Christians
are purified to be a people zealous of good works : by
proclaiming these facts and principles, Christianity has
taught mankind that the only true liberty is the glorious
liberty of the sons of God ; that the only true equality is
not that of wealth and station, but that of Christian hopes
and privileges. It has placed these and all other rights
under the only sure guardianship of duties : it has shewn
man the just dignity of man ; it has written the death-
warrant of slavery ; it has given woman her high sphere
and mission ; it has chartered a seventh day of rest for
the weary and heavy-laden ; it has mitigated the distinc-
tions of race, nation, and class ; and, setting all to work,
as brethren, for that Kingdom of heaven in which all have
an equal share, to the end that all may be perfect in their
kind as their Father which is in Heaven is perfect, it has
raised the standard of our common nature to an immea-
surable height, and opened a glorious and boundless
career of individual and social progress.
no SERMON VIL
And what draws us to this House of God to-day,
Christian brethren? What but the golden chain of
Christianity? For Christianity, we say, has explained the
true fraternal relations which connect man and man. All
men, high and low, rich and poor, are brethren, bound to
work together for one Master, and to help each other in
that work: all to help all : but the strong more especially
to help the weak, and the rich, for the same reason, to help
the poor. 'Bear one another's burdens.' This golden
rule of love is the very patent and scroll of Christianity.
Whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother
have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion
from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? And
this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth
God love his brother also.
Ye, to whom I speak, are chiefly of that class to whom
Providence has given more abundantly the good things of
this life. ' Freely ye have received ; freely give.'
{Here is omitted a passage of mere local interest, treating of the
past services and present needs of the Salop Infirmary^
What Christianity wrought for the olden times, we
have traced in faint and feeble lines. What will it do for
the future ?
We see the terminus of that future in the vague dis-
tance before us, bright and beautiful as the Polestar ;
but the depths of space between are vast, unfathomable,
mvsterious.
SOUAUSM AND CHRISTIANITY. iii
We see the Spirit poiired out upon all flesh ; we see
the gathering of the nations : we see the kingdoms of the
world melting into the One Kingdom of the Lord and of
his Christ. But when ? But how ?
This we neither see nor surmise.
It is not for us to know the times and the seasons
which the Lord hath determined by his own power. One
day is with God as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day.
Shall we be in the number of Christ's elect, we and
those we love? Will our beloved country be to the end
of time a chosen vessel for carrying the unadulterated
seed of the word, or shall it be more tolerable for Sodom
and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for England?
We cannot say.
The next question is to our own hearts.
Have we peace with God through Christ? Are we
working out our owm salvation with fear and trembling,
the Spirit of God working in us both to will and to do
of his good pleasure? If not, we are doing no good to
society either as citizens or as men : for with hearts
unrenewed and void of Christ we can do nothing to
reform our country or our kind; rather we do all that
in us lies to keep them in the bondage of ignorance
and sin.
Look we to it then, that we be true servants of that
Christ without whom we can do nothing.
Our country and our times are menaced by a false phi-
losophy, which denies Christ, and a false Christianity,
which dethrones and degrades Him-
112 SERMON VII.
From the false philosophy, with deep humility be it
said, we dread less than from the spurious Christianity.
Philosophies rise upon the breakers of time, and
foam and sparkle for a moment, and then dash upon the
shore. Nor do we see reason to believe that a Hegel, a
Strauss, or a Feuerbach will exercise more lasting in-
fluence on the human mind than many others, whose
names and books survive, but whose power is of the
past.
But a degenerate Christianity, nicely adapted to the
corrupt tastes of the carnal man, is the very masterpiece
of evil, to destroy souls and to thwart Christ : and against
all such error there is great need to warn and strive, to
watch and pray.
Yet, — let me say it freely, brethren ; there is still more
to be feared from our own fleshly lusts and habits : from
the mammon- spirit which makes everything a money-
question ; from the Pilate-spirit which waits upon and
worships the world ; from the party-spirit which dwarfs
all to its own low standard; from shallow sciolism,
from distempered literature, from sneering, heartless, and
mendacious journalism ; from everything around us and
within us that loveth and maketh a lie.
Against these things therefore, and against all evil, let
us warn and strive and watch and pray. We are able to
do all things through Christ that strengtheneth us.
Without Christ nothing. With Christ all things.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us
all, now and ever. Amen.
SERMON VI I r.
THE BALANCE OF DUTIES IN EDUCATION.
IN THE ABBEY CHURCH, BATH. ON THE OCCASION OF
THE TERCENTENARY COMMEMORATION OF KING
EDWARD'S SCHOOL, HELD ON THE sSth Dk. iSj}.
St Matthew xxiil 23.
These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the
other undone.
The proofs of Revelation are given in rich variety
by its gracious Author, who will have all men to be
saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
Hut there are none which appeal more powerfully to
an awakened conscience than the morality of the Gos-
pel, awful in its very loveliness, and written in cha-
racters of light, which represent to us One whose
thoughts are not as our thoughts, and who is ' of
purer eyes than to behold iniquity.' Man, fallen crea-
ture as he is, has not lost all of his Creator's image.
A moral sense belongs to him stiU ; and, when this
K. 8
114 SERMON VIII.
talent has been wisely used, the human mind has
worked out many deep and precious truths without the
help of revelation ; as in our own time it has been
able to calculate the elements of a planet, which tele-
scope had never discerned. But these same truths ap-
pear in the Bible with higher sanction, larger scope,
and more practical application ; and they appear there
in relation to other sublime truths, which, apart from
rtvelation, could not have been even guessed. And
He who has surpassed the highest heathen rule of cha-
rity, in requiring us to love our enemies, to bless
them that curse us, and to do good to them that
hate us ; He who applied the pregnant maxim of the
Stagirite ^ — ' What we would learn to do, we must do
to learn,' to the solution of the difficult problem of
faith and works, when He said to the Jews, * If any
man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine
whether it be of God ; ' He who confirmed the Pla-
tonic conjecture ^ of human perfectibihty, in requiring
^ Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. ii. r. *We acquire virtues by first
practising them, as in the case of the other arts ; for what we
would learn and then do, we do and so learn : as by house-build-
ing men become builders, and by harp-playing harpers; so, also,
by acting justly we become just, and by acting discreetly discreet,
and by acting valiantly valiant.' So Pascal: 'Do you complain
of your want of faith ? Act as if you had it. ' This is one side
of the truth; the need of God's preventing and assisting grace is
the other side. See Philipp. ii. \^, 13.
2 Plato, Theaetetus, 176. 'If you could bring home what
you say to all men, O Socrates, as you do to me, there would be
more peace and less evil in the world. — Nay, Theodorus, evil
cannot on the one hand perish altogether ; for something oppo-
BALAXCE OF DUTIES IN EDUCATION. 115
us to be perfect, even as our Father which is in Hea-
ven is perfect, while He showed, what Plato could
not show, how this perfection must be sought, even
by abiding in Him, who is one with the Father, and
by receiving from Him the Holy Spirit, who procecdeth
from the Father, and guideth into all truth — who is
He? Not the subtile and eloquent dialectician, hold-
ing high converse in grove, or porch, or garden ; not
the philosophic student, spinning his fine brain by the
nightly lamp ; a greater is here than Socrates or Plato,
than Aristotle or Epictetus ; one of fruitful and power-
ful discourse, but of activity more fruitful and powerful
still : not a teacher of truth only, but its living ex-
ample and guide ; Himself the way, the truth, and the
life : not a Redeemer only, but a ransom ; Himself, if
we do but trust Him, our strength and our salvation;
Himself, if we will but lo\"e Him, our present joy and
our final reward.
He who, as at this season, was bom in a stable
and cradled in a manger, He who grew up as a car-
penter's son in a despised town of a despised province,
in the midst of men who scorned Gentile learning as
they abhorred Gentile customs and communion — how
came Jesus of Nazareth to combine, complete, explain,
site to good there must ever be ; nor, on the other, can it find a
seat in heaven ; but our mortal nature and this lower region it
haunts perforce. Wherefore, we must endeavour to fly from this
world to the other as soon as we can. Now that flight consists
in likening ourselves to God as much as possible ; and the way to
be like God is to become just, and holy, and wise.'
ii6 SERMON VIII.
transcend all that is wisest and best in the philoso-
phies of the Western commonwealths ? This single
consideration would go far to assure us that He who,
having never learned letters (if the saying of the Jews
were true), nevertheless spake wisely, as never man
spake, was an inspired interpreter of God. And when
we further consider the power of Him who wrought
so many miracles and mighty works ; the benevolence
of Him who went about doing good, yet had not
where to lay his head ; the dignity of Him who sent
forth a few unlettered fishermen to win a wealthy,
powerful, and reluctant world with a message of love
and peace ; the grandeur of Him who could purchase
a kingdom of glory by obedience to a death of shame ;
we acknowledge in this Jesus nothing less than the
immediate ambassador of God. But when He, who
so spake and acted, declares that He is one with the
Father ; that He has power to send the Holy Spirit,
to take up his life and to lay it down, to forgive sins,
and to read the thoughts of men, we recognize the
manifestation of incarnate Deity, and bow our knees
and lift up our hearts to One who is ' the true God
and eternal life.'
The sacred historians have particularly noticed our
Lord's dignified presence and address. Whatever the
topic or the occasion, Jesus spake as one having au-
thority, and not as the Scribes. What, indeed, but the
authority of the Son over his Father's house could
entitle Him to drive the traffickers out of the temple ;
and what but a miraculous awe could oblige them to
/>--i LA - * L. zi i//" JjL' I it. o /4V h.i)LK. A J iu.\. 117
submit to that indignity? And, in the chapter from
which my text is taken, with what authoritative so>
lemnity does He fuUninate the sentence of woe against
the hypocrites who sat in Moses's seat ; against the
leaders and dignitaries of the high Jewish party, who
strained at gnats and swallowed camels, striving with
iatolcrant zeal for outward forms and traditional cere<
monies, whilst they habitually neglected or evaded the
weightier matters of the moral law. Eight times, in
his inaugural sermon on the Mount, had our Lord
opened his mouth to bless the humble, the meek, the
merciful, the pure, the persecuted ; eight times, in the
close of his ministry, does He open the vials of his
wrath on impenitent sinners ; and, as the proclama-
tion of blessing .is wound up with a promise of glad>
ness and reward to the persecuted children of faithful
Israel, so does the array of curses conclude with a
retributive sentence against the persecuting metropolis
of rebellious Israel. ' O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thy house
is left unto thee desolate.' And the woes and the
blessings thus solemnly pronounced by that unerring
Judge, have they not been fulfilled, and are they not
in course of fulfilment unto the end of time?
Having so far spoken of the moral teaching of
Christ in general, and of the light which it throws on
his Divine nature, I proceed to consider the particular
doctrine of my text.
' Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites !
for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and
have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judg-
ii8 SERMON VIII.
ment, mercy, and faith ; these ought ye to have done,
and not to leave the other undone.'
It is here laid to the charge of the Scribes and
Pharisees, that, whilst they remember one truth, they
forget another ; which is one-sidedness ; and, in par-
ticular, that, whilst they perform the lighter duty, they
neglect the weightier ; which is formalism in any case,
and, in theirs, hypocrisy.
Our Lord would not have held them excused had
they performed the greater duty and omitted the smaller.
The Gospel has no license for little sins, ' Sin is the
transgression of the law:' and 'the wages of sin is
death.' ' Whosoever therefore shall break one of these
least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall
be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.' * Every
idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account
thereof in the day of judgment.'
We adopt, then, no fanciful or forced interpretation
of holy writ, we give it no more than its just breadth
and scope, when we apply our Lord's reproof, in due
measure, to all one-sidedness of opinion, as well as of
action ; to all disparagement of truth, as well as of
duty. And here we touch a vast and pregnant sub-
ject. The great heathen, whose ethical works are still
our ordinary text-books, described virtue as a certain
middleness, or mean between extremes. After guard-
ing his definition from abuse, he goes on to illus-
trate it by many particulars, and shows how in some
cases an extreme, in others, the mean, has no cor-
responding term in the Greek language. By an ex-
BALANCE OF DUTIES IN EDUCATION. 119
tension of this principle, equally to be guarded from
abuse, we may say, that all moral truth, of doctrines
as well as duties, lies between two extremes of error,
and thus all crroneousness of opinion or conduct may
be described as moral one-sidedness. We need not
dwell upon the case of wilful sinners, whose obliquity
lies in putting evil for good, and good for eviL Their
condemnation is manifestly jusL We speak of those
errors which (however distantly related to sin) are not
adopted against the clear warnings of an instructed
conscience. Holy Scripture is a rule of doctrine and
duty, but it is not a system of ethics. Its truths are
sown broadcast among mankind, not drilled into the
human heart ; and they will be well and fruitfully re-
ceived by those alone who are rich in the principles
of faith and love. He that doeth the will shall know
of the doctrine ; shall know of it all that he need
know in this imperfect state, namely, that it is of
God, and, being of Him, demands to be received and
obeyed implicitly. In the revelation of Scripture, as
in that of nature, God, the allperfect, prophesies in
part, and we, his imperfect creatures, know in part.
But we know enough for the probationary purpose of
God concerning us. If we know with the heart what
the eye and the ear report to us, we know enough to
believe, to feel, to act, to live, to improve, to grow in
knowledge and in grace, until we come unto the per-
fect man, unto the measure of the stature of the full-
ness of Christ. It lies in the nature of the case that
a Divine revelation should embrace truths which tran-
I20 SERMON VIII.
scend our finite understanding, and that some of these
truths, as well as the correspondent duties, should seem
to be in conflict with each other. The attributes of
the Most High, and their employment in relation to
us, involve problems insoluble by the pure intellect,
but in practice usefully exercising the faithful and lov-
ing Christian. In regard to such truths and duties, we
should be guided by the admirable rule of my text.
We ought to acknowledge and fulfil one class, and not
to leave another unacknowledged and unfulfilled. To
take a few instances from many. We ought to know
and to act as knowing, that God is just, and yet that
He is the justifier of them that believe in Jesus. We
ought to know that by grace we are saved, through
faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God ;
and yet ought we to be careful to maintain good works,
as knowing that without holiness no man shall see the
Lord. We ought to work out our own salvation with
fear and trembling, as dihgently as if all depended on
our work, but also to be instant in prayer, as con-
vinced that our best diligence is of no avail without
the help of God, who worketh in us both to will and
to do of his good pleasure.
Well had it been for the Church of Christ if this
principle had been duly recognized in ages past. Well
were it, if now, even at the eleventh hour, the vital ac-
knowledgment of this truth could reconcile our jarring
sects and parties. How many vexed questions, unpro-
fitable and vain, would then find their termination.
Controversies indeed there are, earnest contentions
BAUXNCE OF DUTIES IN EDUCATION. 121
for the faith, of which the end is not yet ; knowing
no compromise, saddening and perplexing, yet very
meet, right, and our bounden duty. Our struggle with
sin and wickedness, with worldliness and infidelity —
whether of such as know not God, or of such as deny
the Lord that bought them — must be waged without
truce, till 'the devil shall be cast into the lake of fire
and brimstone.' And alas, what peace have we with
Rome? What peace will Rome have with England
while England upholds the Bible, the unadulterated
Bible, and the Bible alone, as the standard of faith
and the rule of life? Fain would we turn away our
wearied and sorrowing eyes from the sight of wars
and fightings within the pale of Christ's Church. 'O
that I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee
away and be at rest' A natural longing this, but vain,
and worse than vain ; unscriptural even, and not void
of sin. Our profession, is spoken of in Scripture as
a warfare ; we are bidden to put on the whole armour
of God, and quit ourselves as good soldiers of Him
who is the captain of our salvation — of Him whose
candid prophecy warned us that offences must needs
come, and that He, the Prince of Peace, was ' not
come to send peace on earth, but a sword.* But * woe
unto him by whom the offence cometh.' Yea, woe to
England, if by her fault England has disunited the
body of Christ without a cause. But if at the door of
Papal Rome lie the guilt and shame of this disunion,
woe to Papal Rome.
We may not pursue this controversy now. Ample
122 SERMON VI 11.
as are the materials for the illustration of my text,
which the sins and errors of the mediaeval Church pre-
sent, we have space for a single instance only. One
thing there was for which the Roman priesthood la-
boured from the earliest times, and labours still ; unity
of doctrine, discipline, and worship. So far well. Within
the limits sanctioned by our Saviour and his Apostles,
this ought they to have done. But there was another
thing which they ought not to have left undone. I
mean the preservation and diffusion of the knowledge
of the holy Scriptures of God, which are able to make
men wise unto salvation through faith which is in
Christ Jesus. In the world of bliss we look for per-
fect unity, even the communion of glorified saints ;
here we must be content with the nearest approach to
it, which can be gained without the sacrifice of vital
truth. Unity is indeed a goodly thing, but in this world
of trial the Word of God is goodlier still. Unity with-
out the Bible may sink to a dead level of vicious
error ; the Bible, without unity, uplifts a standard of
truth in the world, to which all from every side may
press nearer and nearer, till it shall please their com-
mon Master to gather them together in one people for
his honour and glory.
The sin of the Roman priesthood brought its punish-
ment. Rome had depressed the Bible ; the Bible re-
coiled from the depression, and smote Rome. It is
idle to measure the English Reformation by the merits
and demerits of the persons who promoted it. We
may admit in their fullest extent the sins of Henry,
liAI.AXCE OF DUTIES IN EDUCATION. 123
the rapacity of his courtiers, and even the faults of
Cranmer ; we may allow, on the other side, the virtues
of More and Fisher, without disparaging the blessed-
ness of that revolution in the visible Church which we
regard as a dispensation of Him who brings good out
of evil, and bends the purposes of the wicked to ex-
ecute His righteous will At the time when the beau*
tiful edifice in which we are worshipping was first
built, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, the
corruptions of the clergy, and the knowledge' of the
Holy Scriptures, diffused by Wicliflfe's translation, had
mined the ground beneath the feet of Papal autho-
rity, and the day of reform and retribution had more
than dax^-ned.
In an age of many crimes and faults, in a court
rife with guilty intrigues, the good young King, whose
wise munificence we this day celebrate, and his cousin,
the murdered Jane, shone like fair stars through a
murky sky. It seems as though Providence had willed
to bless the world with the sight of two pure models
from the school of sound learning and religion, and
then mercifully to withdraw them from a common-
wealth which was yet to be tried in the furnace of
affliction, and a church whose harvest could not be
reaped till the blood of its martyrs had been amply
SOWTl.
While we recall with indignant sorrow the spolia-
tion of Church property, which disgraced the reign of
Henry and the earlier years of Edward, we thank
Him who put it into the hearts of the young King and
124 SERMON VIII.
his Council to apply the residue, poor as it was, to
the foundation of schools. The schools of the middle
ages, generally speaking, had been part and parcel of
the religious houses ; and in the reckless destruction
of those houses their schools perished with them. Thus
were the streams of learning, which had watered the
realm, cut ofif at the fountain-head, and new wells
must now be opened for a thirsting Church and Com-
monwealth. Such wells were the schools of Edward.
These schools are called in their charters ' Free
Grammar Schools,' that is, 'Public Schools of Literature.'
When we ask what ends they were meant to answer,
we shall find it convenient to state, in the first in-
stance, what they were not designed for.
They were not professional training-schools. Theo-
logy, law, medicine, were taught in Universities or Inns
of Court by professors and readers of the several facul-
ties. They were not commercial training-schools. The
apprentice learnt his craft in the workshop or the
counting-house, not in the grammar-school.
For what, then, was the grammar-school designed?
To educate for a common humanity and a common
country : to train up boys to be good and useful men,
good and useful citizens ; to qualify them to adorn any
station and any calling in which it might please God
to place them ; to make them fit to instruct, advise,
assist, and guide their fellow-men, and, especially, their
countrymen.
This ideal culture the Athenians called by a name
signifying the combination of beauty and goodness ;
BALANCE OF DUTIES IN EDUCATION. 125
the Romans termed it humanity, and the studies tend-
ing to it, humane studies ; and these latter terms passed
into our own language.
What then were the humane studies received into
the schools of the Reformation? Chiefly the languages
and literatures of Greece and Rome. It could not be
otherwise. In the first place, there existed no other
models for instruction in the principles of taste and
beauty. Of European nations Italy alone had then a
highly-advanced language and literature ; and the Italian
itself was but a peculiar modification of the old Italian
or Latin. Europe, again, was just emerging from the
influence of the Middle Ages, and those ages had trea-
sured almost all the learning of the West in the Latin
language. Latin, therefore, was not less indispensable
to good education then, than it had been in any age
since the Christian era. Greek was a novel study.
Since the separation of the Eastern and Western em-
pires, it had ceased to interest the statesmen of the
West; since the disruption of the Greek and Latin
Churches, it had ceased to occupy the divines of the
Roman communion. The Scriptures were read in the
Latin Vulgate; the works of Aristotle were studied in
Latin translations; and these, in course of time, were
superseded by the summaries of the schoolmen. But
a new light of learning broke upon the Western world
in the middle of the fifteenth century. The Greeks,
flying before the Moslem sword, carried their literature
and their manuscripts to the towns and universities of
Italy, where they found kindred minds, fresh from the
126 SERMON VIII.
lore of Petrarch and Dante, prepared to welcome them,
and a newly-discovered art ready to propagate their
literary treasures to the utmost parts of the earth.
Greek, the language of Homer, of Demosthenes, above
all, of the New Testament, incorporated with the studies
of Italy, soon reached Paris, Basle, Leyden, and thence,
not without great resistance, it arrived in Oxford and
Cambridge. At the date of Edward's charters its value,
as an instrument of learning, was not fully understood ;
but when these charters first came into operation under
Elizabeth, Greek took its place by the side of Latin as
an essential portion of grammar.
The other two elements of the mediaeval Trivium —
rhetoric and logic — belonged to the University course,
for which the mathematical and physical sciences, such
as they were in those days, were also reserved.
Happily then, for England, its scholastic studies were
thus determined to the languages of Rome and Greece.
To these studies we are largely indebted for the growth
of our owTi language and literature.
From that time forth the same studies, modified by
experience and improved by advancing knowledge, have
continued to form the staple of a liberal education.
Whether wisely and profitably, was a question soon
raised, and much debated in this and other countries,
from the days of Milton and Locke to our own time.
In Germany, towards the close of the eighteenth cen-
tury, the question seemed likely to obtain a practical
issue ; but the efforts, earnest as they were, of Campe,
Basedow, and others, to establish schools of general
BALANCE OF DUTIES IN EDUCATION, irj
knowledge, entitled philanthropic or real, struggled for
awhile against public distaste or indifference, and finally
died away. The later plans of Pestalozzi and Fellen-
berg can hardly claim more general and permanent
influence.
But the discussion is resumed at present in this
country on economic grounds by able and earnest men,
under the auspices of a powerful Society, and with the
favour of persons of great public authority. All things,
they say, have changed, or are changing. England,
France, Germany, have each their polished language
and wealthy literature. Science has conquered large
domains in every direction, by research, experiment,
and a wonderfully refined analysis ; and there are no
visible bounds to its progress. • Commerce, agriculture,
the arts and manufactures, have applied scientific dis-
coveries, with other happy inventions of experience, to
their own immense development The great transat-
lantic continent, newly discovered, but not explored, at
the date of the Reformation, is now the home and pro-
perty of Europeans, occupied over half its extent by
our own kinsmen, who speak our tongue, and stride
with gigantic pace to the van of nations. The rich
farm-lands of South Africa are ours; the vast and va-
ried resources of the Indian peninsula are at our dis-
posal; our flag rules from the Indus to the Irrawaddy;
along every coast our ships find shelter in British har-
bours. Our territories in the southern hemisphere, peo-
pled within living memory by the savage alone, are
being forced to premature manhood by the detection of
128 SERMON VIII.
vast mineral wealth. We move from place to place
with the four-fold speed of steam-power; we have taken
for our messengers the wings of the lightning.
Amidst new facts, principles, powers, customs, thoughts
— all things else being new — why, it is said, should the
form and matter of education remain old and behind
the time? With so Ihuch to be seen, done, learnt, re-
membered, and applied, in the short space of human
existence, why should anybody spend his first twenty
years in learning languages (if he does at last learn
them) which are no longer spoken or written anywhere,
and a literature belonging to the past? Above all, why
should they do so who have to fight for their bread in
the battle of life?
We have not stated this arduous question for the
purpose of answering it now; it is complicated with
too many other questions to be shortly and simply an-
swered. A few passing remarks may, perhaps, conduce
to its solution,
1. The very statement of the case implies one fact
of no trifling importance. It is, that English education,
to say the least, has not prevented us from taking a
foremost place among the nations of the world in learn-
ing and science, in arts and arms, in wealth and power.
2. The defects of industrial instruction in this
country, and the necessity of remedying them, may be
broadly admitted, without allowing that it is necessary
for this reason to change the existing basis of our
liberal education.
3. Much as the sources of knowledge have been
BALANCE OF DUTIES IN EDUCATION. 129
multiplied and the social relations altered since the era
of the Reformation, the ends of education, general and
particular, may be stated as they were then : the gene-
ral end, Humanity; the particular ends, Professional
and Industrial training.
4- And this general end, Humanity, is it not one
which the education of all classes should principally
keep in view ; but especially the education of those
classes who have most leisure to prepare their minds
for the instruction, guidance, and government of their
fellow-men? And are they not in the right who con-
sider it more conducive to this end to strengthen and
discipline the mental powers in boyhood, than to load
the mind with long lists of facts and names?
5. And next comes the question, whether any men-
tal discipline be more valuable and effective than the
study of language, combined with that of the laws of
number, quantity, and form.
6. On which follows the further question, whether
the ancient and fixed languages of Greece and Rome,
with their fine forms and glorious literature, lying as
they do at the root of ail our civilization, and entering
so deeply into our et>Tnology, be not, in connection
with our own tongue, the most perfect instruments of
linguistic discipline.
7. And then, as it is admitted that all members of
the community cannot have, and ought not to have,
the same course of humane culture, the relation of
schools and colleges to the community and to each
other becomes a subject of great delicacy and import-
K. 9
I30 SERMON VIII.
ance. And herein, perhaps, it is that improvement is
most urgently required, and hitherto, for the most part,
either unwisely attempted or unduly neglected.
We pray, then, in concluding this discourse, that
those who undertake the arduous work of reforming
English education may do so under an awful sense of
the warning conveyed in my text. May they beware
of one-sidedness ; whilst they do some things that are
needful, may they not leave others undone. May they
remember what is due to the Church as well as to the
Slate, to civilization as well as to commerce, to the
intellectual and moral as well as to the physical and
material wants of men. Whilst they provide for the im-
portant requirements of professional, commercial, and
industrial instruction, may they keep their eyes steadily
tixed upon the highest standard— the true ideal — the
education of the Christian scholar.
Whatsoever tends to lower that lofty standard — to
corrupt that pure ideal^tends to evil unutterable, in-
calculable ; to the debasement of our language and
literature, our faith and morals, our national character,
strength and influence. A wise reformer, then, will
primarily and principally consider how the education
of the Christian scholar may be — not kept as it is (for
we allow it to be very defective) but— improved, ex-
alted, and refined to the uttermost ; and how progres-
sive inprovement may be secured to future generations.
And, having this end in view, he will not only deal
with the matter of English education, but with its go-
vernment and superintendence, with its formal and
BALANCE OF DUTIES IN EDUCATION. 131
regulative discipline. This will lead him to consider
the various stages of the scholar's educational progress ;
the preparatory school, the public school, the Uni-
versity; the condition and efficiency of these severally,
their relations to each other, and their common rela-
tions to Church and State ; the best means of improving
them individually, and of insuring their harmonious co-
operation for the general good. And may .ill be done
in the fe.ir and love of God, without whom nothing is
wise, nothing is just, nothini; is holy!
And us, too, who are appointed to direct the in-
struction of these Royal Seminaries, with our several
colleagues, and all who in other schools have the same
commission— may the principle of my text, by the bless-
ing of Him who uttered it, guide us in the way of all
truth and of all righteousness. May we rightly judge
and honestly fulfil our duties to parents and pupils, to
Church and State, to the general commonwealth, and
the particular communities in which we dwell. In
teaching may we be energetic and diligent, yet patient
and forbearing; in discipline watchful and vigorous, yet
generous and manly; in admonition, earnest and faith-
ful, yet gentle and courteous ; in correction firm and
just, yet kind and tender-hearted. As public men may we
be "zealous, according to knowledge, for every good work,
wiihout partiality and without hypocrisy, detesting party-
spirit, testifying by word and deed against all that is
mean and base, and false, and evil and corrupt, on
the side of all that is true, and honest, and just, and
pure, and lovely, and of good report ; doing all we owe
132 SERMON VI I I.
to all, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but, like
the noble-hearted Arnold, simply, straightforwardly, con-
sistently, unostentatiously, with a view to the sole ser-
vice of our Heavenly Master. So, whatever judgment
be meted to us here, when we rest from our labours,
and our places know us no more, His blessing will
await us in the day of doom, when 'the teachers shall
shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that
turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and
ever.*
SERMON IX.
THE DEPARTURE OF THE AGED
CHRISTIAN.
IN ST MARY'S CHURCH. SHREWSBURY. i8st.
After the Fanenl of the Rev. Wiluam Goksuch Rowlako,
Onliuary and O&cial of that Parish.
Proverbs xvi. 31.
Tlu hoary htad is a crown of glory ^ if it be found in
the way of righteousness.
The Commandments of God teach the Christian not
only to love his God supremely, but also to love his
neighbour as himsel£ And such example the divine
Saviour gave. He came in the flesh to all and for all
that are bom into this life. He bade his Apostles to go
into the whole world and teach all nations. The Jew
despised the Heathen, and held them unclean ; but Christ
taught a wiser and a better doctrine : the faith of the
centurion in Capernaum, the faith of the woman of
Samaria, was not less precious in his sight than that of
a Nathanael or a Nicodemus. The Heathen despised
and ridiculed the Jews : but Christ taught that unto the
134 SERMON IX.
Jew the oracles of God were committed, to the Jew
salvation was first offered, afterwards to the Gentile: the
light which lightened the Heathen world came forth from
Judah. The high looked with scorn upon the low, the
rich upon the poor : but to the poor the Gospel was
preached ; to the poor in spirit was given the Kingdom
of Heaven. The poor envied and hated their wealthy
masters: Christ by his example taught them content-
ment and submission. He had not where to lay his head,
yet was He meek and lowly in his poverty : He bore the
scorns and cruelties of the rulers of his nation even to
the death of shame and tprture which they prepared for
Him. Even so must they who have been baptized into
the Name of Christ regard and love all their fellow-
Christians. To them all are brethren, all children of one
Father, all the redeemed of one Saviour, all sealed by one
Spirit, all heirs of one salvation. No truly Christian
man will despise a Lazarus for being destitute or a Peter
for having fallen. In the beggar full of sores, in the
abased sinner, in the heathen savage, the Christian sees
the image — defaced and darkened it may be, but still the
image — of his God.
If every human being be thus entitled to respect,
much more do our aged brethren claim reverence, on
account of their infirmities, their experience, and the near
fulfilment of their Christian hopes.
The old are entitled to our careful regard on account
of their infirmities. As they have less power to protect
themselves, they are more entitled to the forbearance and
protection of their younger brethren. The mind of the
DEPARTURE OF THE AGED CHRISTIAN. 135
old man is sensitive ; bodily weakness and the sense of
growing inlirmity will account for this. Every unpleasant
word, every little slight, every invasion of his rights,
afflicts the old man twice as much as the young and
active. He views it as an attack the more boldly made
on account of his presumed weakness. Youth has its
pleasures ; manhood its business to engage its thoughts.
Withdrawn from both these, the old man ponders on
every offence more deeply. He is sometimes, it may be,
capricious and ill-humoured, for age acts upon him with
the power of distemper : he is suspicious, for they whom
he trusted have deceived him: he is less easy to per-
suade, for time has made him obstinate. We f>erhaps
complain of these things : do we know that we shall be
exempt from them when old.' It imports us all to treat
old age with respectful indulgence: the days may come
when this rule shall operate in our own favour. Happy
we if our weakness then shall not be our own fault, if it
shall not have arisen from causes which tend to diminish
the respect entertained for us. Let us then, even for our
own sakes, if not for Christ's, shew this forbearing regard
to every aged person ; as well to an Eli, who dreamt away
his days in sloth and idleness, as to a Simeon, who, in
piety and heavenly knowledge, was the pattern of a good
old age.
But there is a second and a more powerful motive for
this respect. The old man has long since seen what we
have yet to see; he has measured out the way which
we have yet to travel. W'hat the youth knows from the
teacher's mouth or from books, the old has learnt more
136 SERMON IX.
deeply from the experience of his own life. He has long
known and observed mankind. He fancied them good,
and found them evil, and often worse than he thought
them in the dreams of happier hours. He deemed them
evil, and he found many kind and good persons; more
than Elijah found when he thought all Israel corrupt,
and was told that seven thousand righteous yet remained.
Thus are the old man's judgments made more grave and
mild, more cautious and more certain than the unripe
decisions of youth. In the business of busy life he has
made many experiments, and found out what is practicable,
what otherwise. He has seen wars ; he has weathered
tempests ; he has burled brethren, parents, and it may be
children; and when the young man prophecies, wisely
or unwisely, of that which shall be, the old man shakes
his head, and speaks with more discretion of that which
has been.
Youth is strong when it rests on the experience which
age has often dearly purchased. Is not Solomon guided
by the Holy Ghost when he tells us in my text that the
hoary head is a crown of glory .? Who would esteem its
experience lightly? How far must we go before we can
attain to it.-* How much might we learn from it? Should
we not listen reverently, when the hoary-headed man
tells us how God has led him with a father's care from his
youth up; how a saving hand was stretched forth to him in
the hour of peril and temptation ; how he has seen the
end of the wicked and the good, the fall of the high and
the raising up of the low. Will one, who has a perilous
journey to make, not gladly listen to him who has already
DEPARTURE OF THE AGED CHRISTIAN. 137
performed that journey? Will he not gladly learn of
him, what to do and what to avoid, in order to reach his
end in safety ?
True, some hasty youth will say, if all the old were
vrise and good, if all were found in the way of righteous-
ness. 'Judge not that thou be not judged.* The old man
may have done much good in his day, unseen and un-
noticed by your censorious eyes. His faults may seem
large, yet the tears of true contrition may have blotted
them from the Judge's book; a Saviour's blood may have
washed the sinner's soul to the whiteness of wooL Yet
true it is, and well for us to remember, that if we would
receive in our old age the respect and reverence of our
younger brethren, we must now in the years of our
strength seek to deserve well of those around us, to do
good in our generation on Chrisftian principles, to serve
our families, our friends, our country, and the Church of
our God. So will the hoary head be a crown of glory to
us, being found in the way of righteousness.
We should honour old age when we regard it as ap-
proaching the fulfilment of our great common hope. In
every Christian man we behold an heir of glory ; in the
old Christian one who will soon become a glorified saint.
He who to-day stands before us with grey head and palsy-
shaken hands, to-morrow may have finished his course.
Already he stoops towards that earth, which in a few short
hours may open to receive him. To receive him / no : earth
will receive the outward framework which decays : but
the blessed self, the Christian's undecaying, ever-growing
soul, returns to God who gave it. How then ought we
138 SERMON IX.
to honour and respect the fellow-creature, who will soon be
the denizen of a better world, a dweller by thq fountain
of light, a just man made perfect !
You know, my brethren, whither these thoughts tend.
The venerable minister of this parish is gone to his long
rest. His hoary head is laid in the grave, whither all of
us, old and middle-aged and young, must soon follow
him. Having lived on earth more than fourscore years-
years, I may almost venture to say, the most wonderful
and momentous since the Apostolic age— having reached
that term of human life when, as the Psalmist assures us,
man's strength is but labour and sorrow, he hath passed
away and is gone.
Endeared to me by a friendship of more than fifteen
years, during which no breath of discord ruffled the
smooth current of our intercourse, I had learnt to regard
him with all but filial affection. Not that we were agreed
in all matters of opinion. Agreement so perfect is hardly
possible between any two men ; neither is it essential to
friendship between those who know what is due to others
as well as what is due to themselves. If any variance of
opinion ever rose to the surface of our conversation, it
passed away in a playful taunt or a dissentient smile.
To the members of this congregation, who will long
have fresh in their mind's eye the well-known form and
face— that form so reverend in dress and deportment,
that face so full of kindly wisdom and mild dignity — it were
needless to describe Mr Rowland. None that saw him
but must have deemed him a notable man. Those who
had known him longest and best knew him to be memo-
DEPARTURE OF THE AGED CHRISTIAN. 139
rable for many of the noblest qualities which enrich
human nature.
He was antiquarian in his studies, his tastes, his
habits ; and some of his strongest sympathies were with
the olden time. All his attachments were stanch and
sacred. His parents, his brethren, the friends and com-
panions of his youth, his town, his school, his native
parish, the quaint old house in which he was born and
dwelt and died — dying, as he had often wished, in the
very room which saw his birth— all were objects of his
warm and faithful regard. No waverer he. Where
once he had garnered up his heart, there he kept it
still, if no rude shock dislodged it No parasite he. He
paid due courtesy to all : he was the firm friend of those
he esteemed, in every rank of life : but his mind was too
pure and too self-respectful to court the favour of the
great, or bow down in the temple of Mammon.
As an unworthy minister of Him who came to seek
and save the lost, as a sinner speaking to sinners, it
would ill become me to exaggerate human merit, to
flatter my friend even in his grave. He would have
been the last to desire such unfaithfulness, the first to
blame it. To say that he had his faults and errors, is
only saying that he was human. His attachment to
old institutions and old customs, as well as his adherence
to methods approved by his own taste or his own ex-
perience, might sometimes take the form of prejudice :
and his disrelish of a novel plan might sometimes be
extended to the planner. When such a feeling did exist,
it appeared in the outer man : for he was not of those
X40 SERMON IX.
who wear * smiles in the eye to hide a frowning heart.'
But he was no man's enemy : no idle rumours was he
wont to propagate : no fair fame did he whisper away ;
against no man's just interests did he cabal or intrigue.
He was modest, unpretending and unostentatious in a
remarkable degree. To this feeling, and to the wish ex-
pressed in accordance with this feeling, is to be assigned
the privacy of his funeral and the absence from this pulpit
and desk of the outward trappings of sorrow usual on so
solemn and sad a day. Extensive literature he did not
affect ; yet in some departments, especially in old English
lore, his knowledge was considerable ; and of many sub-
jects he knew more than he was thought to k"ow. In
architecture, sculpture, painting and decorative art his
judgment was excellent. Bear witness these sacred aisles,
rescued by his skilful hand from long deformities, and
rich with the mellow light from beautifully pictured
windows, which are due, for the most part, to his bounty
and his taste.
Although blest by Providence with ample store, his
habits were simple, his personal wants few, his domestic
expenses small. He valued money not for the sake of
possessing the dross, but for the power of doing good
which it gave. His heart was large, his hand free ; his
bounty flowed in many channels of public and private
good. His kind and delicate manner of conferring pri-
vate benefits enhanced their value tenfold. His public
largess could not be hidden : yet was it ever dispensed
in as quiet and unobtrusive a way as the case allowed.
In improving and decorating two of our principal parish-
DEPARTURE OF THE AGED CHRISTIAN. 141
churches — that of Holy Cross, in which he was curate
for many years, and this church of St Mar>', which he has
filled as incumbent for nearly 24 years — in further pro-
moting the erection and endowment of the district
church of St Michael in this parish, to which he also
gave a parsonage- house and land — his expenditure
during life must have exceeded /^io,ooa I am bold
to say, from my knowledge of the man, that he was
moved to this outlay by the love of doing good, and by
this alone. He has Unked his own name to no public
benefartion. His friends could never induce him to sit
for his portrait or his bust
ht- ". parochial clergyman you knew him welL His
post here was not of his own seeking. It was urged
upon his acceptance by grave and good men whose
authority seemed to him the voice of Providence. That
he performed the duties so acquired in the way which
conscience prompted and ability permitted, those who
knew him intimately do not for an instant doubt His
public bounty has been named already. You know all
that he has done for this sacred edifice : you know what
he has done for our daughter church of St Michael You
know with how large a liberality he supported and im-
proved our parochial schools. Some of you know that
his private charities were not less large and liberaL
Often has his seasonable and ever delicate kindness
dried the orphan's tears, and made the widow's heart
to sing for joy.
His great age and growing infirmities did not inter-
rupt the punctual discharge of his usual duties to the
142 SERMON IX.
very day when he was seized with fatal illness. He had
" for some years retired, generally, from the work of
preaching, on account of the declining powers of a voice
which was never strong. In the reading desk he was
ever assiduous : at the holy Table of the Lord he never
failed to take his proper place.
Some persons, who find a strange pleasure in dis-
paraging goodness, have objected to my venerated
friend's character as a clergyman, that he neglected
the important duty of visiting the poor in their own
dwellings.
To this objection, when I have had the opportunity
of replying, my reply has ever been this : ' It is tru- that
visiting the poor at their houses is among the most im-
portant duties of a parish clergyman. It is true that
Mr Rowland, though neither disparaging this duty nor
altogether avoiding it, did not carry on the daily work
of personal visitation. Two reasons, I believe, combined
to withhold him : first, a sense of that personal infirmity
of deafness, which seriously impeded his familiar con-
verse with his fellow-men ; and next, a very nice, and, if
you will, an over-refined delicacy of sentiment, which
made him shrink from intruding unasked and, it might
be, unwished into the dwellings of the poor, whose feel-
ings and rights he held no less sacred than those of their
rich neighbours. He thought, I doubt not, in regard to
this work of visiting, that zeal untempered by discre-
tion jnay do more harm than good ; and he probably
distrusted his own possession of that great and rare gift —
that union of physical and moral qualities, that harmony
DEPARTURE OF THE AGED CHRISTIAN. 143
of principle and temperament, of habits and manners, —
which alone, by God's grace, can fit a man to perform
well a work so great and so difficult. All he could do,
or all he thought he could do with advantage, he did not
leave undone. The provision he made for the good
of his poor by schools, by private benefactions, and by
engaging two curates to discharge duties to which he
was himself unequal, absorbed all, or nearly all, the
revenues of his benefice. And if it be said that with-
out personal xnsitation he could not tell how to dis-
tribute his alms wisely and justly — allowing much force
to this remark, I yet reply, that, besides the confidence
due to the reports of his curates, he happily possessed in
hi^^restry- clerk and overseer a referee on all matters
concerning the inhabitants of this parish, whose accurate
knowledge could be questioned as little as his integrity
and humanity.' I repeat then that, as a parochial minister,
Mr Rowland did what he could, in no niggard and in no
narrow spirit Of such a man who would not say, with
the kind-hearted erring minstrel,
Be to his faults a little blind ;
be to his virtues very kind ?
Personal religion was too sacred with him to be the
subject oi public profession or everyday conversation.
From profession and proclamation of any kind he was
indeed instinctively, habitually, strongly averse. The
blessed Saviour, whose minister he was and whose be-
neficent kindness he imitated, he could not but have
loved. Being mild and charitable, humble and upright,
I believe that he sanctified the Lord God in his heart.
144 SERMON IX.
Nevertheless we judge nothing before the time, until the
Lord come, who shall bring to light the hidden things
of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the
heart : and then shall every man have praise of God.
One trait more, and I have done. He loved all that
is beautiful in nature and in art : he loved children, he
loved flowers : no slight indications these of a pure and
gentle spirit. His last gift to one whom he honoured
with his regard was a bunch of the flowers he knew she
prized, the myrtles of her native climate.
I know not how it may be with other households ;
but in mine the dear good old man will be long and
sadly missed by all its inmates. Long and sadly will
that feeling haunt us, which our greatest living p >et
describes :
So much the vital spirits sink
to see the vacant chair, and think
how good ! how kind ! and he is gone.
Christian brethren, God's will be done. He is gone,
we follow. If we live to be hoary-headed, may we be
found in the way of righteousness. May we live unto
the Lord and not unto men ; so, whensoever the fatal
hour shall come, we shall die the death of the righteous,
and our last end will be like his.
SERMON X.
AT THE ORDINATION HELD IN HIS CATHEDRAL CHURCH
BY THE RIGHT REV. E. HAROLD BROWNE, D.D. LORD
BISHOP OF ELY, ON TRINITY SUNDAY, 1867.
St John xv. 26, 27.
But v/i^H tht Comforter is come, whom I will send unto
you from the Father y even the Spirit of Truth, which
proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me.
And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been
with me from the beginning.
On this passage, more perhaps than on any one other
place of Holy Writ, rests our recognition of that great
mystery of godliness which the Church this day com-
memorates, and from which the remaining Sundays of
the Christian year are named — the Doctrine of a Trinity
of Persons in the Unity of the Divine Nature. The
Eastern Church indeed has confined its exposition of
that Doctrine to the formula here given. The Holy
Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, proceeds from the Father.
But the Western Church, having regard to the inti-
K. 10
146 SERMON X.
mate union of the Father and the Son, as set forth by
our Lord himself in this Paschal discourse, and to the
further fact that the Holy Spirit is called indifferently by
St Paul the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ and the
Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead, de-
clares the procession of the Holy Ghost to be from the
Father and the Son. And this decision is supported by
the consideration that, as the Spirit is here said to pro-
ceed only from the Father, so He is said to be sent only
by the Son : yet the sending of the Spirit is by all ad-
mitted to.be the co-equal act of the Father and the Son,
even as our Lord had before said (xiv. 26), * But the
Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father
will send in my name. He shall teach you all things.'
In my text, therefore, his design was to repeat a con-
soling truth to his disciples, not to formulate a dogma :
and, as the Holy Spirit is sent alike by the Father and
the Son, so may He be justly said to proceed alike from
the Father and the Son.
It is far from my mind, brethren, to disparage the
accurate formulation of dogma. On the contrary, I hold
that wherever definition is needful, accuracy of definition
is needful : and I grant that definite dogma is often needed
to secure sound doctrine. With the mouth confession
is made unto salvation, and the difference of a single
word, nay of a single syllable, possibly of a single letter,
may constitute the distinction between God's saving
truth and the devil's ruinous lie. When ^ye say, Christiis
Jiomo verus est, Christ is very man, we recite an es-
sential article of faith. But were we to say, Christus
ORDINATION SERMON. 147
homo menu esty Christ is mere man, wc should deny
the faith of the Son of God, who loved us and ga\-c
himself for us.
But, while we say that accuracy is always necessar)*
to definition, wc would not also say that definition itself
is necessary on every point of religious doctrine. While
we accept the propositions of our own three Creeds as
consonant with the language of Scripture, none of us,
I trust, will affirm that the absence of the words Fi-
lioque — 'and the Son' — from the Eastern text of the
Nicene Creed brands the Eastern Church and all its
members with damnable error. And some, perhaps, may
think that negative propositions, such as 'the Father
uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost un-
create,' were sufficient to guard from error our concep-
tion of the triune mode of being in the divine essence,
without using, as formal dogmas, the positive terms
'begotten' and 'proceeding,' which add nothing to the
reality of our conception, while in Scripture they stand
as isolated expressions, employed to illustrate rather
than to define.
The time is not yet come, it is probably far distant,
in which our divine Head will enable his Church to
revise and digest its formal standards of dogmatic truth :
but to pray for the coming of that time, and with that
prayer to combine the careful study of our formularies
in the light of divine revelation and in the spirit of divine
love, this, surely, is an edifying work for every Minister
of Christ, and one which will strengthen him for the
edification of Christ's flock.
J 48 SERMON X.
But to return to my text.
He who is the Third Person in the Divine Trinity,
the Holy Ghost, here called the Paraclete or Comforter,
the Spirit of truth. He, (Christ himself says,) shall bear
witness of Christ ; and Christ's Apostles shall bear wit-
ness. The Holy Ghost, descending on the day of Pen-
tecost, shall testify to the Apostles themselves, teaching
them all things, and bringing all things to their re
UKmbrance. And in this power the Apostles shall tc
tify. Who so fit to be Christ's witnesses to the world,
as they who have been with Christ from the beginning
of his ministr)*? Though Jesus paused here, wc, brethren,
are privileged to carry forward his promise, comparing
Scripture with Scripture, reason with fact. This com-
mission was not to end with the Apostles : how could
it be so, if the mustard-seed was to become a tree, and
to overshadow all nations? They were to ordain others
to the same commission ; conveying to them the power
they themselves possessed to baptize, convert, teach and
ordain, according to the differences of administrations
approved in the Church by their authority. And the
Holy Ghost who first testified to them of Christ would
continue that testimony to their successors, shedding
abroad indeed in the hearts of all faithful men, but
peculiarly in the hearts of faithful ministers, that love of
Christ which alone is the testimony and the power and
the light and the life of God in the human souL
Who then were to be thus commissioned? \\"ho
were to be — who are — the lawfully ordained ministers
of Christ? God, says St Paul to the Corinthians,
ORDINATION SERMON. 149
hath tet some in the Church; first apostles, secondly
prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts
of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
Apostles died out : prophets and diversities of tongues
canae to an end : mifades and gifts of healings were
withdrawn: hut gorenuaents, teachers, and helps re-
mained in the Church and yet remain as the three
ministerial orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.
Well may we rejoice and be thankful, brethren, that
we possess a ministry thus divinely founded, thus apos-
tolically descended, thus scriptiu^ly certified, thus com-
missioned and continued through eighteen centuries to
the present day : a ministry whose line is gone out
through all the earth, and their words to the end of
the world. But our rejoicing is tempered with sorrow
and shame and humiliation when, looking back through
those centuries, we find that a Church so gloriously
endowed did not keep itself free from the taints of
workiliness and error: that the faithful city became an
harlot : that, when at length flagrant corruption called
aloud for reformation, reformation could not be wrought
without schism, of which the guilt be theirs who call false-
hood truth and truth falsehood, who put darkness for light
and light for darkness. But we have yet nearer and
more urgent cause of sorrow. For the divisions of our
own reformed Church we have great searchings of heart.
They grow out of questions in which truth and error
lie so near each other, theory and practice so wide
apart, that to clergymen of every grade, from the bishop
to the curate, the exact path of duty is hard to find.
150 SERMON X.
though they seek it with conscientious aim ; hard to keep,
though they strive with earnest prayer. Two'schools of
religious thought exist amongst us from the Reforma-
tion to the present hour : two chief schools, I mean,
since many there are, especially in these latter days,
who take their standpoint of theory and practice be-
tween the two. The wise policy of our Reformers de-
signed to include both schools in one common form of
worship ; and bitter experience has shown that every
departure from that policy brings some disastrous con-
sequences ; first, rebellion, then revolution, then angry
and oppressive reaction, resulting in settled and spread-
ing schism. Where, on each of these occasions, was
that tempering of the wisdom of the serpent with the
harmlessness of the dove, which our blessed Lord re-
commended to his disciples? Where was wise modera-
tion, where charitable forbearance, where reasonable
concession ? Forgotten all ; nay rather, spurned all and
set aside by the violence of party zeal. And is it in
the doom of our fallen race that the plain warnings of
experience shall never teach, never restrain, never guide
us ? Do we suppose that an enterprize, which wrecked
the altar and the throne in the 17th century, can be
renewed with any chance of success in days which, if
less fanatical, are surely not more submissive to autho-
rity? Do we suppose that the laity in general will
accept, as the established form of worship, a ritual ex-
pressly designed to symbolize the power and dignity
of the priestly office as mediative between God and
man in conferring the highest gifts of grace? I think
ORDINA TION SERAfOX. \ 3 1
not ; my sense of honesty compels me to add, I hope
not But I refrain from pursuing a subject which our
gracious Sovereign has committed to the joint con-
sideration of many able and eminent men, lay as well
AS clerical May their thoughtful investigation and de-
liberate advice be blest to the peace of the Giurch and
the welfare of this nation.
Have I then any sympathy with the sour and narrow
principles of those who would forbid us to beautify the
sanctuary and service of God? None whatever. True
it is, in the language of Heber's fine hj-mn, that the heart's
adoration, the prayers of the poor in spirit, are richer in
themselves and dearer to God than all the wealth of earth
and ocean. True it is that God may be as acceptably
worshipped by holy hearts and simple voices on the hill-
side beneath the canopy of heaven as in this grand
temple,
^^'here through the long-drawn wde and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the notes of praise.
But it is not less true that, as man has received from
God, in whose image he was created, a sense of the beau-
tiful, and skill to represent the beautiful to the eye and
ear in works of art and strains of music, so is he pri-
\ileged, so has he ever been accustomed, as Scripture
shews, to declare his g^titude for these good gifts by
dedicating their noblest fruits to the honour and glory
and public ser\-ice of the Giver.
Am I justly chargeable with detracting from the true
dignity of the ministerial office? God forbid. Have I
not already said that we derive our line of orders from the
152 SERMON X.
apostles? If so, we are, with St Paul, ministers of Christ
and stewards of the mysteries of God. But then, look at
St Paul's first and immediate inference. ' It is required
in stewards, that a man be found faithful.' Brethren, let
us be faithful. Let us prove our apostolic descent by
doing apostolic work ; by testifying of Christ in the power
of the Holy Ghost. We need not be for ever talking of
our apostolic descent. One of our bishops has wisely
said that this is a weapon better kept in the scab-
bard for the season of defence than brandished with fre-
quent demonstration before the public eye. And what
power of godliness, what use of edification resides in
those many-named, many-shaped, many-coloured, and
ever-varying distinctions of clerical attire, which, if they
attract some worshippers to prayer and communion, repel,
alas, a far larger number of sincere Christian people ?
At a great and momentous congress of the European
states in the early part of this century, the ambassador of
England was distinguished by the total absence of ex-
ternal decoration amidst the general glare of stars and
ribands. Did the simplicity of his style make him less
respected or less influential ? did he less effectually per-
form the work he was sent to do? Assuredly not. He
represented a great power: he had a great mission to
execute : herein lay his dignity and his influence. And
we, brethren, we are ambassadors for Christ. Let us
with all godly simplicity fulfil our great and glorious — our
arduous and responsible — embassy; not magnifying our
own office, yet speaking to God's erring children, as
though God did beseech them by us to return and repent :
ORDINATION SERMON. 153
praying all miserable sinners in Christ's stead, *bc ye
reconciled to God.'
For this purpose is the Holy Spirit given in larger
measure to them that minister in holy things in the
Church, that, growing in grace themselves and in the
knowletlge of the truth, they may teach others and stab-
lish them in all goodness : that, being in Christ themselves,
they may bring others to Christ, and instruct them to
abide in his fellowship, by a faithful, earnest and intelli-
gent use of all the appointed means of grace, the study of
God's word, private and public prayer, and the frequent
communion of their Saviour's body and blood. If the
ministers of Christ thus lay a sure foundation in the
hearts of their flock, they may humbly but firmly trust
that the Lord himself will build thereupon the fabric
of holiness in all its beauty.
Our lot is indeed cast in strange and troublous times.
That pure and apostolic branch of the Church Catholic to
which we belong will have duties more than ever difficult,
more than ever momentous to this nation and to Christ-
endom. She will have to contend for the truth as it is in
Jesus against various and subtle forms of error. May she
do so in the strength of the Lord and in the power of his
might May she take her stand on great principles; on
the sufficiency of Holy Scripture as set forth in her sixth
Article, on the just authority of the Church, as a witness
and keeper of Holy Writ, on the true understanding and
right administration of the Sacraments, as outward signs
to all of inward grace to the faithful, on justification
through the sole merits of Jesus Christ by faith in his
15+ SERMON X.
blood, on the duty of adding to faith virtue, and to virtue
charity.
Yes, Christian brethren, let us contend earnestly for the
faith once delivered to the saints, but let us ever remem-
ber that all our doings without charity are nothing
worth. * God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwell-
eth in God, and God in him.'
Such be your happy experience, my ministerial
brethren. May ye ever know that ye dwell in Him and
He in you, because He hath given you of His Spirit:
and in that knowledge and in that power may ye testify
the truth of truths, that the Father sent the Son to be the
Saviour of the world. To that blessed Trinity, Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, let us ascribe all glory and power.
SERMON XI.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY.
BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, IN GREAT
ST MARrS CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE, ON TRINITY SUNDAY,
1872.
I COR. XIII. 9, 10.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but
when that which is perfect is come, that which is in
part shall be done away.
The chapter cited is one which dwells in every Chris-
tian mind, and draws an echo from every loving heart.
In that before it St Paul has taught his Corinthian
converts to distinguish spiritual men by their several
gifts of grace and their functions in the Church. At
the close he says : ' seek emulously the greater gifts :
and I shew you a still more excellent way.' And then,
rapt with the fire of a true Christian poet, he pours
forth that psalm of holy love, which fills this 13th
chapter.
156 SERMON XL
Love is the grace of graces. Vain, without love,
is the gift of tongues, that which, in after ages, be-
came the faculty of the Christian scholar. Vain, with-
out love, the gift of knowledge, the faculty of the
profound theologian. Vain, without love, the gift of
prophecy, the faculty of the powerful preacher. 'For
we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when
that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall
be done away.'
These words, if they need elucidation, are inter-
preted by what follows. As the human mind, when it
comes to a well-instructed maturity, leaves behind and
all but forgets the words, lessons, and thoughts of child-
hood, even so will the saint in glory forget the partial
views of truth, the vague glimpses of things divine,
which were a lantern to his feet while he trod the dim
path of his earthly pilgrimage. 'When I was a child,
I spake as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as
a child : but since I am become a man, I have done
with childish things.' Next follows in our Bible : ' Now
we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face :
now ' I know in part, but then shall I know even as
also I am known.' Words which may be thus para-
phrased : ' Now, in the present life, where God himself
is seen of no man, we see an image of God reflected
in a faulty mirror ; an image, which, being indistinct
to the mind's eye, is a riddle to the understanding. But
then, in the future life, turned as it were towards Him,
we shall see God face to face : as is the heavenly, so
will they be that are heavenly : the spiritual eye will
DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY. 157
discern the Father of Spirits, in whose likeness it is
born anew : will discern Him, even as itself is discerned
by Him.*
Here we may ascribe to the Apostle a mental
pause of awful adoration ; after which, turning to his
Corinthian converts again, he shows them the rank of
love as highest in the triad of Christian graces. 'And
now abideth faith, hope, love, these three : but the
greatest of these is love.* And why.' The reason lies
in all that has gone before. When sight is come, faith
must cease : when {xissession begins, hope will vanish
away : but love never faileth : it goes on to infinite
perfection : the foretaste of heaven here, it will be the
life of heaven hereafter.
But the glory which shall be revealed is not our
present theme. The text calls on us to inquire what
truths and duties are suggested by St Paul, when he
says to Christians generally, that they know in part,
and to pastors and teachers especially, that they pro-
phesy in part.
First then, what is it, according to St Paul, that
Christian people know in part and ministers preach in
part ? The answer might perhaps be : all religious
truth. But the 12th verse shows that what is here
principally meant is the knowledge of God, of his
nature and attributes ; that great subject, which, in her
Festival of this day, the Church authorizes and invites
us to contemplate.
Standing in this place, I need scarcely say that
I speak as a Churchman to Churchmen, as a believer
158 SERMON XI.
in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity to believers in
that doctrine. We believe it as a necessary deduction
from the facts and statements of Scripture, and, al-
though not formulated in a Creed during the first
five or six centuries of the Church, yet virtually
contained in every place where, as in the Nicene
Creed and in the Te Deum laudamus, the Son and
the Holy Spirit are affirmed to be co-equal with God
the Father. All those amongst us, who have subscribed
the confessions of the Church of England, have given
our consent to this doctrine in her First Article ex-
pressly, and in her Eighth Article by imphcation.
And if I, in all humility, rank myself with those
Churchmen who would thankfully forego the liturgical
use of the so-called Athanasian Creed, and in any case
relieve it from its minatory clauses, this is not because
I would, by the smallest tittle, weaken the recognition
of the doctrine contained in it ; but for two reasons :
first, because that doctrine is fully recognized in the
.prayers and songs of our service; and prayer and song
are, more properly than symbol, the constituents of
common worship : secondly, because while I willingly
guard the doctrine itself by the carefully drawn deduc-
tions of human reason, I am unwilling to guard any
such deductions by sanction so tremendous as that
expressed in the Creed ' Quicunque vult.'
Here let me ask : do we not feel that the doctrine
of the Holy Trinity does in fact divide itself into two
doctrines, one the oeconomic, as divines have termed
it, the other the metaphysical doctrine ? The first of
DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY. 159
these, which our Church teaches in her Catechism, sets
forth that God, the Father of creation, is in the world,
reconciling the world to Himself through Him who is
God the Son, even Jesus Christ our Lord : and that
God the Holy Spirit dwelleth in the hearts of the
faithful, sanctifying and preparing them in his kingdom
• here, the Church militant, for his kingdom hereafter,
the Church triumphant. This doctrine is indeed the
sum and substance of Christianity. And if to be a
Christian implies, as it must imply, the belief that in
the name of Christ alone is salvation given, then in no
other name can the Christian hop>e salvation for him-
self, or proclaim the hope of salvation to his fellow-men.
Rightly therefore may he say 'Whosoever will be saved'
'must thus think of the Trinity:' yea, and to that
thought he must conform his prayers, his actions, his
whole life, his very self. When the marriage-feast is
ready, and the servants call the guests, they that will
not come, exclude themselves by their o\vn evil choice :
and they that come without the wedding garment of a
pure and lively faith, shew themselves unfit to partake :
they will be cast into outer darkness, and * without doubt
perish everlastingly' from the presence of the Lord.
These are scriptural truths, from the loving lips of
Jesus himself; and to publish them to mankind is not
harsh denunciation, but needful and charitable warning.
The metaphysical doctrine of the Holy Trinity is
situated otherwise. By this doctrine I mean the pro-
positions framed, and by the Church received, in order
to guard the correlation of Father, Son, and Holy
i6o SERMON XL
Spirit in the One Godhead from erroneous conception.
In wording these propositions, the language of Scrip-
ture has been wisely followed as far as possible. As
in the Bible, so in the Creed, the terms 'generation'
and 'procession' are used in accordance with natural
analogy : Filius generatur : Spiritus procedit. But
where Scripture was silent, human reason stepped in to
frame the terms required for definition. That in which
the Divine Unity resides was called 'Substance;' bet-
ter had it been * Essence.' The term * Person ' was
given to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, correlated in
the one essence ; and these are further called ' a Trinity.'
The essence is not to be divided, lest any say, there be
three Gods : the persons are not to be confounded, lest
the Church lose the historical Christ ; nor are they to be
subordinated, lest the Son and the Spirit be robbed of
their eternal majesty and glory. Such is the meta-
physical or abstract doctrine, by which, we may shortly
say, Tripersonality is confessed to be an attribute of the
Divine Unity \ As the old dispensation said to its
worshippers, ' Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is One
God ;' so does the new dispensation say to its disciples :
' Hear, O Christian Israel, your One God and Lord is
a Triune God.' The propositions which constitute this
doctrine deal with subjects lying out of the domain of
man's understanding : nay, some of them seem to con-
tradict other conclusions, which the human intellect is
1 That is, the Divine Unity comprises within itself Three
Correlates, which theologians have, not happily, called
'Persons.'
DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY. iBr
erapowered to form. We need not be startled by this
admission. The reason is obvious. The conclusions
of the understanding are on matter subject to the
conditions of time and space. The propositions of the
Creed are transcendental ; they deal with the eternal,
the infinite, the absolute, of which we can know no
more than is expressed by logical negation. ' Canst
thou,' says the oldest extant writing, 'canst thou find
out the Almighty to perfection ? * Surely not Any
revelation of the infinite to the finite must needs be
partial : in other words, the doctrine of God's nature
must be «xp<cUd to be, must be, while man remains
in his present state, a mystery, yea, the greatest of all
mysteries.
'It was given,' says Augustine, 'not that it might
be spoken, but that it should not remain unspoken.
And what says our own Hooker? 'Although to know
God be life, and joy to make mention of his name ; yet
our soundest knowledge is to know that we know Him
not as indeed He is, neither can know Him : and our
safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence, when
we confess, without confession, that his glory is in-
explicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach.
He is above, and we upon earth ; therefore it behoveth
our words to be wary and few.'
By comparing the history of the doctrine itself with
that of the Creed which contains it, we arrive at signal
facts, suggesting important inferences. The Apostles of
our blessed Lord were acquainted with the wondrous
scene at his Baptism (one of them records it), with his
K. II
i62 SERMON XL
missionary charge, with his promises as to the sending
of the Holy Spirit from the Father and Himself, and
with the fulfilment of those promises in their own
case on the day of Pentecost : from which places, I
suppose, above all others, we infer the doctrine of
the Holy Trinity. And yet the nature of the God-
head seems to have been known to the Apostles in
part only. So St Paul in my text avows. Cer-
tainly they prophesied in part That * each Person by
himself is God and Lord ' they have indeed amply
attested ; but in no genuine passage of their writings
is the doctrine of the Three in One distinctly formu-
lated. The Pauline benediction, venerable, valuable,
important to the argument as it is, does not reach
this character. The Church of the first three centuries,
harassed by disputes on the divine nature, threatened
by the errors of a Praxeas, a Noetus, a Sabellius, a Paul
of Samosata, was yet enabled to defeat all these heresies
without any Creed more specific than our Lord's bap-
tismal formula. The two great Councils of the fourth
century, while they condemned the false teaching of
Arius and others, and established in their immortal
Creed the co-eternal divinity and consubstantiality of
the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Father, stopt
short of the full Trinitarian definition, introducing
neither the term Person, nor the word Trinity itself.
The bishops at Ephesus and Chalcedon in the fifth
century, occupied with disputes on the twofold nature of
Christ, did not undertake to settle the larger question of
the Trinity. But at some later date, we know not exactly
DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY. 163
when, we know not certainly where, we know not from
whose hand, the Creed or exposition ' Quicunque viilt '
appeared in the Church under the manifestly spurious
name of Athanasius, formulating the doctrines of the
Trinity and the Incarnation in terms agreeable to the
teaching of Athanasius on the former question, to the
decrees of Ephesus and Chalcedon on the latter. By
its keen logic this exposition obtained wide circula-
tion as a manual of doctrine, and by its rhythmic
structure it became popular as a psnlm for choral use.
But it is certain, I believe, (though I desire to speak
under correction), that in no other community than
the Church of England has it ever been said by the
minister and congregation in divine service as a formal
confession of faith. And yet the faith of the Holy
Trinity is professed and firmly held by all the bodies
which' name the name of Christ in every land, with the
exception of two or three sects, numerically small and
not proselytising. It is, therefore, not true in fact,
that Trinitarian doctrine has been maintained hitherto
by public recital of this Creed ; and it is against reason
to assert that the maintenance of that doctrine in the
future depends on the retention of this Creed in the
ritual of the Church of England. But whether it be
retained in our Liturgy-, or removed thence, it may
always be subjoined to our Eighth Article among the
symbols of the Church : it may stand among the for-
tresses which defend our Zion from the assaults of
Sabellian and Socinian error.
If the great God has been pleased to grant that,
II — 2
i64 SERMON XT.
by using his gift of reason to interpret his other
gift of revelation, we gain some distant and partial
views of his transcendental being, let us adore with
humble faith what we confess to be removed from our
finite comprehension. But in the Bible, God is shewn
as related to man ; as our Creator, our Redeemer,
our Sanctifier ; and of this threefold relation there
is nothing set forth, to which we may not profitably
apply all the powers of the understanding, to which
we may not joyfully open all the affections of the
heart. St Paul indeed, in his First Chapter to the
Romans, implies that even natural religion is compe-
tent to furnish that knowledge of God, which may
guard men from heinous sins, if they follow its guid-
ance heedfully. But this cannot satisfy the Christian.
He looks beyond the grave. What finds he there? A
moral Governor? Alas, he knows himself a sinner,
having the doom of sin to dread. A bounteous Creator ?
That open hand sustains the race : but to the cry of the
individual soul no voice replies. The Christian's hope
is in the revelation of holy Scripture, and in that
alone. There he finds a pardoning Father, who has
given his only-begotten Son to be our Saviour ; to
take our flesh upon Him, to dwell amongst us, to feel
and suffer with us, to die for our sins, to rise again
for our justification, and to plead for us by his medi-
ation and intercession. There he finds a life-giving
Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who helpeth our infirmi-
ties, enabling us to repent, believe and love, and as
regenerate and restored children to cry, Abba, Father.
DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY TRINITY. 165
Here the central figiire on which the eyes of faith
and hope and love repose, is the Lord Jesus Christ,
* very God and very man ;' very Cod, who can do for us
far more abundantly above all that we arc able to ask or
Uiink ; very man, who can speak to us with a human
voice from a human heart : and with whose glorified
humanity his faithful members are incorporate even here
by the holy Communion of his Body and Blood. Hence
It is that St Paul in all his writings sets the knowledge
of Christ above all other knowledge ; the knowledge of
Christ, and Him crucified ; the knowledge of the love of
Christ which passeth knowledge. Yes, it does indeed
pass knowledge. We know it only in part, we can
prophesy of it only in part : but, when that which is
perfect is come, if we are privileged to enter that
blessed Kingdom, the fellowship of his saints in glory,
we shall see our Saviour as He is, and know Him even
as we are known.
In conclusion, let us lay to heart three great truths
on the Divine Nature taught in the New Testament,
with the practical duties they suggest.
God is a Spirit Let us worship Him in spirit and
in truth.
God is Light. Let us ever keep in mind that in
his light only can we see light-
God is Love. Let us love Him even as He first
loved us ; and, by his gracious ordinance, our love will
hereafter be its own immense reward, if we prove it
here by the test which the Apostle of love insists on :
1 66 SERMON XL
' Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love
one another.'
Note. — It has been always assumed that the Creed ' Quicun-
(jue vult ' is of western authorship, because it first appeared in
Spain, and in the Latin language. Is this a conclusive reason ?
Its manifest character of controversial subtlety seems to indicate
a Greek origin. May it not have been composed in Alexandria
at the close of the sixth, or beginning of the seventh century,
for the settlement of the Tritheistic controversy there ; and,
after the Moslem conquest of Africa, have been conveyed by
Christian fugitives into Spain, and translated in that country?
This, it must be owned, is mere conjecture, but surely not
unworthy of consideration.
SERMON XII.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.
PREACHED TO COUNTRY CONGREGATIONS IN THE ARCH-
DEACONRY OF SALOP (LICHFIELD DIOCESE) ON
BEHALF OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION
OF THE GOSPEL, 1858— iSCol
St Luke xi. 2.
Thy kingdom come.
These words, my brethren, are familiar to our ears, and
often in our mouths. They have been repeated four
times in our present service, and I trust they have made
a part of our more private prayers this morning. But
let me ask you, or rather, ask your own selves, this
question : When you utter these words in prayer to God,
do you feel their full force ? Do you pray not with the
lips only, but with the understanding also.'' not with the
understanding only, but with the heart.-'
If you do, you must know, in the first place, that these
i6S SERMON XII.
are very solemn words, for they are the second petition in
the Lord's Prayer — that prayer which Christ himself
graciously put in the mouths of his apostles, when they
begged that He would teach them to pray. And the
Holy Spirit has written them in the Bible for the use of
Christ's people in all times; for your use and mine.
Must we not then be very sure that this is one of the
best petitions we can offer to our Father in heaven?
that the things which it seeks must be among the best
and most precious? that we ought to know and feel all
that we ask for in these words ? that we ought to ask for
them with a fervent desire to obtain ? above all, that we
ought to leave nothing undone which God requires us to
do on our part, in order that they may be obtained ?
Let us then, in the first place, beseech God to open
the eyes of our minds, that we may see what it is we ask
of Him when we say 'Thy kingdom come.'
The expressions, 'kingdom of God,' and 'kingdom of
heaven,' which are really one and the same, occur, as
you know, very often in Holy Scripture. They may
always be explained to mean either the Gospel of Christ,
that is, the good tidings of salvation through Christ — the
truth as it is in Jesus — or, the Church of Christ, that is,
the society by which the truth as it is in Jesus is preserved,
taught, and spread in the world. Now these two meanings
are only various ways of saying the same thing. Just as
it makes no difference whether we say, the laws require
this, or, the government (if a lawful government) requires
this ; so it makes no difference whether we say, the
Gospel requires^ or, the Church (supposing it to be a
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 169
iiiiv .••id pure Church) requires. Both the Gospel and
the Church are called a kingdom, because all who em-
brace the Gospel and abide in the Church owe reverence
and obedience to that King, who has received authority
from the Father, even Christ the Lord. His subjects
and scr>'ants and soldiers we are by our Christian
profession. Him we are bound to worship and obey,
and under his banner to fight all the days of our life.
The kingdom of God, then, is the Gospel or the
Church of Christ. Now what is meant when we pray for
the coming of that kingdom?
A kingdom is said to come when it establishes its
power in any part of the world. Thus, when William
the Norman conqueror came over with his army from
France, his kingdom came, and established itself in
this island. But no kingdom is established until it is
generally obeyed. It must reign in the hearts of its
subjects ; they must receive and keep its laws individually,
before it can be said to come in so effectual a way as to
be firmly and finally established in the nation. When we
pray, therefore, that God's kingdom may come, the things
we really pray for are these : that the truth, as it is in
Jesus, may be fully received and firmly established in
our o>vn hearts ; that we may yield a willing and perfect
obedience to its holy laws and precepts ; in short, that
Christ may reign in our hearts by faith. And not in our
hearts only: we pray that He may reign also in the
hearts of those who are near and dear to us, and of all
for whom we are bound to pray ; yea, in every human
heart. And yet further, we desire of God in this prayer,
170 SERMON XII.
that the Gospel and the Church of Christ may come into
every corner of the earth, that it may reign every day
mere and more widely, more and more powerfully, more
and more effectually, until all the kingdoms of the world
become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ ;
until the will of God be done by men in earth, even as it
is done by the holy angels in heaven.
These are the things we pray for when we say, Thy
kingdom come.
Next consider that, what Christ has taught us to pray
for, He means that we should also strive for, work for, live
for. An idle talking faith is no true faith at all. An idle
useless Christian is no true Christian at all. Such an one
is indeed in worse case than if he had never known
Christ. Having the means of salvation within his know-
ledge and within his reach, and wilfully neglecting them,
he does but increase his own condemnation. His portion
will be the outer darkness of the unprofitable servant, who
hid his lord's talent in a napkin, instead of putting it out
to use and repaying it with interest. We must trust in
God, it is true. If a farmer in our neighbourhood were
to boast that his large harvests and his thriving seasons
were the work of his own skill and strength alone, and
were to give God none of the glory and no thanks, we
should be shocked at his impiety and ingratitude ; and if
his fields were afterwards blighted, or his cattle smitten,
we might be tempted to say, this is a judgment from
heaven against him. But we must not only trust in God,
we must work also. If another farmer were to stay at
home all day and make long prayers, and neglect the
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS, n\
usual work of his farm, telling us that God will give the
increase of his land and stock in answer to his earnest
prayers, we should say such a man was out of his mind ;
we should pronounce him, I fear, much more foolish than
the former. And why? Because it needs great faith to
feel sure that God, whom we never see, does hear and
receive the prayers of his people ; while we know from
hard experience what is also told us in the very opening
lessons of our Bible, that in the sweat of his brow man
must eat his bread. It was quaintly said by the Puritan
general to his troopers, 'put your trust in God, my lads,
and keep your powder dry;' words which, strangely as
they sound, were really the language of rational piety,
as fit for the good Christian soldier who lately went to
his rest, as for him who died two centuries ago ; as fit for
Henry Havelock as for Oliver CromwclL
Yes, God requires us both to pray and to act, to
trust and to strive: and if we do both these duties
earnestly, perseveringly, faithfully, let us not doubt that
all things will be made by Him to work together for
our fioal good, though we may not always see in this
life how He is bringing it to pass.
Well then : how are we to act and to strive that
God's kingdom may come? How, first, that it may
come in our own hearts?
'Work out your own salvation with fear and trem-
bling,' says the Apostle, 'for it is God that worketh
in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.'
How are we to work out our own salvation, God
helping us by his Holy Spirit, in answer to prayer?
172 SERMON XII.
This is a great and fruitful, but not an easy question :
and to answer it with any fulness would take a whole
sermon — nay, several sermons. I must content myself
now with a few heads of duty. St Paul tells you to
work with fear and trembling, that is to say, with the
deepest humility, knowing the weakness and sinfulness
of your own hearts, and the cunning and malice of
your enemy, who is ever on the watch to surprize and
deceive you, ever manoeuvring to make you disobey
and disown Christ, and grieve the Holy Spirit, who
worketh in you for good. Watchfulness therefore must
go along with prayer. You must be on the alert,
like good sentinels, against every surprize, and not
sleep upon your post. Again, you must examine your-
selves, and call your lives to a strict account day by
day, and if you find any root of bitterness within, you
must pluck it up, and without delay. To self-exami-
nation you must add self-denial, stedfastly refusing
yourselves not only all indulgence which you know to
be contrary to God's laws, but everything which seems
likely to weaken your love of God, your faith in Christ,
and the power of the Spirit in your soul. You must
strive withal carefully and lovingly to obey God's holy
will and commandments in every particular, not as re-
lying for salvation on any works of your own, or on
anything else than the sole merits of Him who died
to save you, but as remembering that practice is one
appointed way of strengthening and promoting faith :
for he who doeth Christ's will shall know of his doc-
trine. Finally, you must make diligent use of all the
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 173
means of grace given in the Church of Christ— the
study of the holy Scriptures, which nuke men wise
unto salvation ; private prayer ; devout attendance in
God's house, and the Communion of your Saviour's
Body and Blood. *If ye do these things' in spirit
and in truth, ' )'e shall never fall : for so an entrance
shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the ever-
lasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.'
His kingdom of grace will have come to you now:
and you will come to his kingdom of glory hereafter.
Next, how are we to work in order that God's
kingdom may come to the world at large? Every
good Christian does this in some degree, as far as his
family and his neighbours are concerned, by the power
of a holy example; by letting his light so shine before
men, that they may see his good works, and glorify
their Father which is in heaven. But this is not all
that God requires of the Christian — not all He has put
it in the Christian's power to do for the coming of his
Master's kingdom in the world. God it is who gives
you all the goods you enjoy in this life, be they large
or small : you hold them from his hand, and during his
pleasure ; and, after providing for the wants of your
families. He expects you to devote some portion of
what remains to the uses of his kingdom here on earth.
If thus you pray and strive that God's kingdom may
come in your own hearts ; if thus ye spend and be
spent that God's kingdom may come in the hearts of
others and in the world at large, then are you loyal
subjects and servants of Christ your King, and when
174 SERMON XII.
He Cometh the second time in his glory to judge the
world, to you will be spoken those words of gladness,
'Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou
into the joy of thy Lord.'
Such an opportunity is afforded you now. As your
friend in Christ, I beseech you in his name not to
neglect it. I ask you to contribute to the funds of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts. This Society has been established more than
two centuries : for the last century and a half it has
been the chief instrument in God's hand to uphold the
ministration of his holy Word and Sacraments in the
Colonies of the British empire : and for many years
past it has taken a great share in the further, and not
less momentous, work of carrying the light of Gospel
truth to the heathen nations which lie in darkness and
the shadow of death.. The cares and labours of this
noble Society extend to almost every part of our globe.
Africa, India, North America, Australia, the many isles
of the two great Oceans, possess Christian ministra-
tions by its means in great measure: its praise is in
all their churches. What can I say more than this : —
that while, at the beginning of this century, there were
only two Bishops' Sees in all the colonies of Great
Britain, there are now established as many as forty.
Yes, my brethren, no fewer than forty colonial dio-
ceses enjoy the ministry of our Church in all its fulness
and beauty. This great and good work is, I repeat,
mainly due to the efforts of that Society for which I
now ask your liberal aid. And whence have the means
CJiKlSTJA^' JJ/SS/OXS. 175
to accomplish it been chiefly derived? From the vo-
luntary gifts of the faithful ; from such gifts as you may
this day make. For do not, no — I intreat you — do not
suppose that this work is being yet done as largely
and as well as it might be done, if there were more
faith and more love among those who are called
Christians.
We have indeed reason to bless God and to feel
great encouragement on account of the increase of this
Society's income during the past year, and the fact that
within the last ten years its subscriptions have been
nearly doubled: but the labourers are still too few for
the gathering in of the vast harvest of souls yet uncon-
verted to the truth as it is in Jesus. How many millions
of our fellow-creatures have never heard the name of
Christ ! How many more millions— the blinded Hindoos,
for instance, worshippers of devil and monkey-gods, and
the not idolatrous indeed, but equally bigoted Maho-
metans — whose joint treacheries and horrible cruelties to
our poor dear country-people have made our hearts bleed
with pity and thrill with indignation ; these creatures of
the same God with ourselves, whom the same Redeemer
died to save, live in vast numbers within the sound of
Sabbath bells, yet never bow the knee, nor lift up the voice
of thanksgiving to the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Converts indeed there are among them ;
and far be it from us to despise the day of small things :
but 180 millions remain to be converted: and who is
sufficient for the work? Lord, increase our faith; Lord,
enlarge our love ; Lord of the vineyard, send forth more
176 SERMON XII.
labourers into thy vineyard. India is indeed, and seems
long likely to be, the greatest and most arduous field of
Christian missions. Australia, New Zealand, the Cape,
the North American colonies, — all give the fullest and
fairest promise of becoming wholly Christianized by God's
blessing within a moderate time. But in the East Indies
we must go on working in faith and hope, thankful for
the smallest openings and the least encouragements, which
the Almighty goodness shall vouchsafe : comforted by the
rich promise of Holy Writ, that the mountain of the Lord's
house shall be established in the top of the mountains,
shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow
to it ; and humbly acknowledging the truth of our Lord's
admonition, that it is not for us to know the times and
the seasons, which God hath put in his own power. ' My
Father worketh hitherto, and I work,' said our blessed
Saviour. And shall not we, whom He has bought with a
price, even with his own blood, work too with Him in faith
and hope, that his kingdom may soon come, his will be
done in all the earth? Few of you, probably, are rich in
this world's goods ; some of you are poor, having a hard
struggle for the meat that perisheth. Remember the
widow's mite and the blessing which rested upon it, and
ask yourselves whether you could not spare one half-
penny every week for the missionary cause. If five
million British men and women would put aside one poor
halfpenny every week for this noble work, we should have
half a million pounds a year for the propagation of the
Gospel of love. But, if you are indeed too poor to give
your mite (and herein, remember, you have God not man
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 177
for a witness and a judge) any of you can give your
prayers ; and is it not written that the eflicctual fer>cnt
prayer of a righteous man availeth much ?
Hear one consideration more. God will not rest from
this work. God will at last achieve the full coming of his
kingdom. We must all be either willing helpers of this
his everlasting purpose, or its unwilling tools. Choose ye
this day which ye will be. %Vhen that kingdom shall
come in the full blaxe of its glory, when He, who once
appeared as the Saviour of the world, shall appear the
second time as its Judge, the unprofitable serv-ant will be
cast into outer darkness, while they who have turned
many to righteousness will shine as the stars for ever and
ever.
As ye are Christians, then, help this truly Christian
society: as ye are Churchmen, help the Church of Christ
to fulfil its King's command: 'Go and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost:' to whom be glpry now and
evermore. Amen.
SERMON XIII.
THE SAFEGUARDS OF CHRISTIAN
BOYHOOD.
PREACHED AT ST ANDREW'S COLLEGE, BRADFIELD,
BERKS, i860.
Mark xiv. 38.
Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.
You will remember when and where and by whom these
words were spoken. During those dark hours of mysteri-
ous agony, which our Redeemer passed in the garden of
Gethsemane before his arrest, he had ordered his disci-
ples to tarry apart from him and watch, that his lonely
prayer might not be interrupted. After a short interval,
He came again and found them sleeping, and said unto
Peter, ' Simon, sleepest thou? couldest not thou watch
one hour? Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into tempt-
ation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.'
The text, though uttered first in these peculiar cir-
SAFEGUARDS OF CHRISTIAN BOYHOOD. 179
ranees and with special reference to the tempcatten,
.1 would urge Peter and the other apostles to desert
their Lord in the comiag MMon of trial, does however,
most certainly, convey a warning and a command to
Christians of e\'ery age and in every state and condition
of mortal life : for all have the vows of Christ upon them ;
all are exposed to the temptations of the world, the flesh,
and the devil ; all in some unguarded hour may yield to
one or other of these temptations, and refuse to bear their
Master's cross.
Let us, then, now consider what is said to ourselves by
these words of the Lord Jesus Christ : and be it our
present exercise of watchfulness and prayer to hear with
awakened hearts the message of his love, and to pray for
his grace, that we may understand and accept and obey
it thankfully. O Lord Jesu Christ, holy and true. Thou
that openest and no man shutteth, open both the lips of
the preacher, that his mouth may show forth Thy praise :
and the hearts of those who hear, that they may attend
unto the things that are spoken, and be faithful to Thee.
The text brings before us two duties: (i) that we
watch : (2) that we pray : (3) and it likewise suggests a
special motive for watching and praying, an end to be
gained thereby — lest we enter into temptation.
I. And first let us consider the duty of watchful-
ness. Our Lord would have us 'watch.' The word in
this place, and in many others, means, 'to wake up,'
'to be awake.' And as it is addressed to sleeping
men, and as in St Luke we read simply, 'rise and
pray,' we should hardly be justified in using this text
12 — 2
i8o SERMON XI IL
alone to enforce the general duty of wakefulness. Our
Lord might be conceived as saying no more than this,
that the hour of temptation was at hand, and it was
high time to pray for deliverance from it. But we
must look at this passage in connection with many
others, which represent watchfulness itself as an ever
urgent and never to be neglected duty, and for this
reason, because we know neither the day nor the hour
wherein the Son of man cometh. Such are the words
with which our Lord concludes the parable of the ten
Virgins. And again He says to his disciples, three days
before his crucifixion, speaking of the destruction of
Jerusalem, which was a type of the final destruction
of the world : ' Take ye heed, watch and pray : for ye
know not when the time is.' And again : * What I say
unto you, I say unto all. Watch.' So St Paul in general
terms exhorts the Colossians to continue in prayer, and
watch in the same with thanksgiving: while to Timothy
he says, 'Watch thou in all things.' #
Watchfulness, then, is a great Christian duty. How
should it be otherwise? The Christian is in peril of his
spiritual life daily and hourly. He is a stranger and a
pilgrim upon earth, bound to a far country, which he
cannot reach but through much toil and trial and tri-
bulation. He is a soldier on the march through a hos-
tile country, where the enemies of his soul lie in ambush
at every turn to gain the vantage over him. He is a
servant waiting the arrival of his lord : and his loins
must be girt about and his lights burning, that, when
his lord cometh and knocketh, he may open unto him
SAFEGUARDS OF CHRISTIAN BOYHOOD. i8i
inunedutely. In all these dunurters, Indeed in every
character the Christian can bear on this side the grave,
he raust watch. He must be wakeful-hearted, for he
is set in the midst of temptations, some of which our
Lord and his apostles notice as specially opposed to
this very grace of watchfulness itself: — I mean the
temptations of sloth and self-indulgence. The safeguard
of watchfulness is sobriety. The evil servant who said,
*my lord delayeth his coming,' began to eat and drink
with the drunken. The rich man who neglected his
own soul, fared sxmiptuously every day, till at length he
died, and found himself in torments. Our Lord warns
his disciples: 'Take heed to yourselves, lest at any
time your hearts be overcome with surfeiting and drunk-
enness.' ' Let us not sleep, as do others,' says St Paul,
'but let us watch and be sober.' And St Peter: 'The
end of all things is at hand : be ye therefore sober, and
watch unto prayer.'
Thus again and ag^n does the Spirit of God call us
to sobriety and watchfulness. To obey implicitly a com-
mand from God, even when we do not fully understand
it, is at once our plain duty and our best interest.
But oftentimes his love permits us to see clearly that
his service is indeed a reasonable service. And so in
this case. Foremost among the reasons which recom-
mend watchfulness to the Christian are these two: the
deceitfulness of sin and the power of habit. Sin is a
subtle and delusive mischief: and even into the baptized
Christian's heart, which ought to be a temple of the
Holy Ghost, pure and imdefiled, it seeks to enter by a
i82 SERMON XIII.
thousand avenues every day and every hour : and alas !
into many a heart it finds the entrance only too easy.
It is hke the insect, which lays its minute egg in the
bud, carrying blight to the future flower and destruction
to the fruit. Little sins breed great; and by a natural
law, repeated sinning forms the habit of sin : while ha-
bitual sin tends to sear the conscience, and determine
the wretched character of one who is sensual, not having
the Spirit, outcast from God, to whom the mist of dark-
ness is reserved for ever. Therefore to all, but to you
especially, whose young minds are more plastic to the
moulder's hand, we say, be sober, be vigilant. Watch
against all sin. Watch against evil of every kind:
against evil thoughts, which pollute the soul : against
evil words, which disturb the foundations of moral prin-
ciple: against evil acts, which harden the heart against'
good, and gradually make the reckless and the godless
character. Sins may be repented of, but they cannot
be annihilated. God may pardon : the soul may have
faith in Christ its Saviour. But this faith has to be
maintained by harder struggles against stronger foes.
Every inch of ground won for holiness costs greater
efforts, more scalding tears, more heart-devouring ago-
nies. The habitual sinner, if saved he be, will be
saved, as it were, by fire. ' ' Can the Ethiopian change
his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also
do good, that are accustomed to do evil.'
But (2) it is Christ's command, and the will of God
that we pray. There is no duty more familiar to us-
than this of prayer. We acknowledge it by our daily
"AFEGUARDS OF CHRISTIAN BOihu^'O. 183
!• ts of devotion, public and private: we take it not
nly from the precept* of Christ, but from his example ;
>t only has He commanded his followers to pray; He
has Uught them how to pray. Watchfulness, without
prayer, were little better than presumptuous sin. Many
and mighty are the adversaries of our souls, and our
own strength is perfect weakness. Hold thou us up,
O God, and we shall be safe. Watch indeed we must,
))ecause God will have us work out our own salvation
with fear and trembling: but pray we must also, be-
cause it is God that worketh in us both to will and
to do of his good pleasure: and his help is promised
to prayer in his Son's name. 'Whatsoever ye ask in
my name, believing,' said our Lord, 'ye shall receive.'
God can give all that is good : for every good gift
and every perfect gift cometh from above, from the
Father of lights. And to the Christian, God ttnli give
all that is good : for * He who spared not his own
Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things?'
And (3) we are commanded to watch and pray, lest
we enter into temptation. We desire of God in the
Lord's prayer, ' Lead us not into temptation.' Put away
from us all trials which endanger faith and virtue ; for,
willing as we may be in the spirit to resist and stand,
the flesh is weak, and we may falL 'But deliver us
from evil' But if we do come into temptation, as needs
we often must in this frail mortal state, if faith and
virtue are dangerously tried, then do Thou, O Lord,
deliver us. 'Wliat time I am afraid, I will trust in
1 84 SERMON XII I.
thee. In God have I put my trust, I will not fear
what flesh can do unto me.' 'Yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff,
they comfort me.'
The temptations to which the baptized Christian is
exposed are set forth in our Church Catechism under
three well-known heads: those of the world, the flesh,
and the devil. These are what we have all promised
in Baptism, and most of us in Confirmation, to renounce.
Now the temptations of the flesh are those which
enter by way of the senses, inviting to unlawful or
immoderate indulgence ; to all that is impure in thought,
word or deed : to drunkenness, gluttony, sloth : to all
excess of even those pleasures which are wholesome
when moderately enjoyed. The temptations of the devil
(though that fallen spirit is the agent of all temptation)
are more especially those which caused his fall, those
which incite us to sin against truth, justice, reverence,
charity ; those which tend to make us liars, robbers,
blasphemers, slanderers, murderers ; the sins of false-
hood, pride, envy, wrath, revenge. The temptations of
the world are all those which lead us to prefer
the favour or the fear of our fellow-creatures to the
favour and the fear of our Creator : the society of
earthly friends to communion with the Father of Spirits,
a hollow peace with men to the peace of God in the
heart. These temptations are countless, endless. Their
name is legion. And they are of all the subtlest and
the most dangerous : for these are the temptations whose
^>.irr^uL.i/\i'-> c^ c//A/oy/.i.\ nut/iuuD. 185
power for oil is widest and ttrongeft and most domi-
nant in the tone-giving classes of mankind : these are
the temptations, which worked upon a Judas to betray
his Master, upon a Pilate to crucify the guiltless Jesu&
These, young Christians, await your entrance on the stage
of life, to beguile you with their blandishments, or to
appal you with their threats ; these will entice you,
like Peter, to deny the Lord who bought you ; to refuse
the burden and the reproach of the cross ; yea, even to
fall away from your heavenly gift, and, following- the
fashions of a corrupt world, to crucify to yourselves
the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
While you watch and pray against all temptation,
against the temptations of youthful lusts, against the
temputions of devilish passions, guard most carefully,
pray most earnestly against the low standards, the
specious sophistries, the corrupting opinions of a world
that licth in wickedness. The friendship of this world
is enmity against God.
You are placed for a while aloof from these tempta-
tions, that by God's help you may be trained and
strengthened against the time when you will have to
confront them. You are placed aloof from that world
which calls itself the great, so narrow and poor in the
eyes of one who seeks a better country, that is, an
heavenly. Needs must I regard you, students of this
lovely rural Academe, with more than even the Chris-
tian's ordinary sympathy, for I have a personal inter-
est in your well-being ; and over you, watching for
your souls as they that must give account, are men
i86 SERMON XIII.
over whom in past days I also have watched under
the same awful obligation. I pray God and the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ that you may be enabled to
use aright the opportunities of good which are here
within your reach. Though far, as yet, from that wider
world I spoke of, you live in a little schoolboy world,
which has trials and temptations of its own, trials and
temptations against which you have to watch and pray.
With all the good which God vouchsafes, there comes
to us fallen creatures a temptation to neglect or to
abuse it : and good neglected or abused is evil, is sin.
Think of this when you come to your daily devotions
in this house of prayer : remember that God is a
Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him
in spirit and in truth. Languid devotion, lip-worship,
prayers uttered without an uplifted heart, or choked
by idle thoughts, these are sin. Your public worship
needs to be guarded and supported by your private
devotions. Watch and pray against all such tempta-
tions. Pray every morning that you may have grace
and strength to pray. Examine yourselves every even-
ing whether you have prayed with the heart and with
the understanding. And when your conscience con-
demns you, repent of this sin among others, and desire
with earnest prayer God's pardon for the past and God's
help for the future. Watchfulness, self-examination,
prayer, these are the daily exercises of a Christian soldier ;
these, with the careful study of God's word, are a discipline
training him to fight the good fight of faith, that in the end
he may more than conquer through Him that loved him.
s.// Auc .JAv>^ OF CHRISTIAN BOYHOOD. i87
There is yet another temptation to which I can tma-
u;ine that some of you may be expoaed. Perhaps yoa
rc);ret that this training-place of your boyhood, how-
ever beautiful and wcll-a|^inted, is not among the
ancient and long-renowned foundations of your country.
Against this feeling you should watch and pray; for,
although natural, it is neither just nor wise. Every
earthly thing which we now call old, was once new:
and social change and social growth demand the con-
tinual evolution of the new, and the continual renova-
tion of the old. That which decayeth and waxeth old,
says the Apostle to the Hebrews concerning the Mosaic
covenant, is ready to vanish away. I thought of this text
when, some short time since, 1 stood on the palace of
the Senators. I looked eastward over the widespread
ruins of imperial Rome. It decayed, it waxed old (I
said), it was worn out : it has long since vanished away.
1 looked westward to the Vatican— the seat of Papal
rule, and again I said : it decays, it waxes old, it is
wearing out, it is ready to vanish away. No, my young
friends, misjudge not the new: do we not look for
new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwclleth righte-
ousness? Rather let the consideration that you are
members of a new school inspire you to win wreaths
of honour for that school by the fruitfulness of your
studies here ; by your virtuous emulation, by your suc-
cessful industry, by your moral and intellectual worth
as Christian scholars and gentlemen : by the purity of
your conduct, by the usefulness of your lives.
The school to which I belonged had not yet been
i88 SERMON XIII.
open for three years to the youth of the realm, when it
numbered among its scholars two who were destined to
live for ever in the bright roll of England's clerisy and
chivalry, knights and patriots, scholars and poets —
Phihp Sidney, and Fulke Greville. Glad should I be
to think that I now see before me the Sidneys and
the Grevilles of St Andrew's College, those to whom future
inmates of these classic shades may look back through
long years as household names, types of excellence,
patterns for imitation. Yet why do I speak of Sidneys
and of Grevilles, erring men, however great, when you
are privileged to lift up your eyes to the model of
perfection, the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ the righte-
ous, who gave Himself not only to die for your sins,
but also to live as your example ? Him set before your
eyes, a standard ever to be approached, never to be
attained. Watch and pray, study and strive, that the
same mind be in you, which was also in Him. Count
all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of
Christ Jesus your Lord. Press toward the goal for the
prize of the high calling of God in Him. Walk neither
now nor in years to come with the enemies of the
Cross of Christ, who mind earthly things ; but while
yet on earth live as citizens of heaven, looking for your
Lord's second coming, that ye may be found of Him
in peace without spot, blameless.
SERMON XIV.
BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.
THB COMII£MURATION OF BEKKrACTORS, BEING THE
SERMON OF THE LADY MARGARETS PREACHER FOR i$n-
3 Peter in. 8.
But, Ultn'edf if not ignorant of this one thing, that one
day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day.
Were my text adduced in support of some difficult or
disputed doctrine, I should probably refrain from citing
an Epistle of questionable authenticity. But these words
are the vivid expression of a truth apparent in all the
teaching of Holy Writ, a truth implied in our conception
of the Divine nature, as free from the limitation of time
as well as space. They are an evident reminiscence of
that grand Psalm, which Jewish tradition has entitled a
Prayer of Moses the man of God.
" Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all
generations : thou tumest man to dest^ction, and sayest,
' Return, ye children of men.' For a thousand years in
igo SERMON XIV.
thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a
watch in the night."
Not merely as a beautiful speculation does either
Hebrew Psalmist or Christian Apostle set forth this
doctrine of God's unchangeable and illimitable nature.
They make it 'profitable for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness.' The Psalmist, while he
contrasts the timeless Creator with the time-bound crea-
ture, the One who is from everlasting to everlasting with
the many whose years are threescore and ten, yet shews
to us the Eternal as a God who heareth prayer ; who, if
we open our ears to him, will teach us so to number our
days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom ; will
satisfy us with his mercy, when we penitently call upon
him ; and establish the work of our hands upon us, when
it is done according to his holy laws. And it is the yet
happier privilege of the Christian teacher to exhibit the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as a covenanted God,
who is not slack concerning his promise, as some men
count slackness, but is preparing new heavens and a new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, for all who in this
life of trial have faithfully striven to grow in grace, and
in the knowledge of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Thus does my text, read in connexion with its context,
bring before us, on the authority of both covenants, our
individual duty in this life; to apply our hearts unto
godly wisdom by study and meditation and holy living,
with prayer ; that so by the Spirit's aid we may work out
our own salvation, and finally come into God's presence
through the mediation of his blessed Son.
COMMEMORATION OF BEXEFACTORS. 191
But the special service of this moniing carries our
thoughts for a while beyond the iphere of individual
duty.
If time has been rightly defined to be the order of
succession, then we must say that with creation time
came in. The phrase of Moses and St John — ' In the
beginning' — refers us back to the origin of time, when
God made lights to be for signs and for seasons, and for
days and years: 'My Father worketh hitherto, and I
work,' said our Divine-human Pattern; and on his
authority we are entitled to say, that the Creator himself
gave to the creature made in his image the law and the
example of work. Happy they who in this life are
labourers together with God: for they shall enter into his
rest.
Although the Finite may never hope to comprehend
the Infinite, yet as the smallest asteroid in our planetary
system draws its speck of light from the vast solar reser-
voir, even so may the contemplation of God's timeless
nature supply valuable lessons for the improvement of
time.
Passing by that trite theme of poet and moralist, the
rebuke which my text addresses to the boast of heraldry,
the pride of long descent, whether from Saxon thane or
Norman cavalier, let us consider more attentively the
corrective it applies to one of the most potent and natural
feelings of the human mind, the feeling, I mean, which
ascribes to long possession and prescription an indefeasi-
ble right. Surely there is much, very much, to be said
in defence of this principle. And yet upon the historj",
192 SERMON XIV.
rather may we say upon the histories, of that great Arj'an
race, which leads the march of human civilization, there
is written a law of change — change not always from the
worse to the better, but oftentimes from seeming good to
manifest evil — yet shewn upon the whole to be a law of
progress, a law which may be justly ascribed to that
supreme Legislator with whom one day is as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day.
Eighteen years before the Christian era, the great
lyric poet of the Augustan age challenged for his songs
an immortal popularity in words to this eifect :
' I shall not wholly die : still fresh shall bloom
my future praise, while with the silent virgin
the Pontiff shall ascend the Capitol.'
Still fresh, after nineteen centuries, blooms the praise of
Horace. But when just four centuries had elapsed from the
date of that ode, the Pontiff with the silent virgin ceased
to ascend the Capitol. The youthful Gratian, reared in a
purer faith, had scornfully refused those splendours of
the chief Pontificate which a long line of Roman em-
perors had been proud to accept : the Vestal Virgins,
shorn of their dignity, stript of their revenues, were left to
penury, while the virtuous and accomplished Symmachus
in vain deprecated that suppression of the ancient rites,
which, demanded by the voice of Ambrose, was finally
sanctioned by the decrees of Theodosius. Then, like a
lamp easily blown out, expired from the world that bril-
liant ritual of Greece and Rome, which had lasted his-
torically more than ten centuries, traditionally more than
twenty. The hour of its doom had struck at last : for one
COM.\fEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS. 193
day is with the Lord as a thoosand years, and a thousand
years as one day.
When S}-mnuu:hafl would fain have sheltered decaying
polytheism from the stroke of despotic power allied to
Christian intolerance (for to tolerate idob was indeed to
deny Christ), he naturally pleaded the cause of old pre*
scription against innovating change, and asserted the
sanctity of endowments against the threatened violation
of testamentary giOs. Who, it was then urged, would
hereafter be willing to bestow or bequeath for the service
of religion, if his bounty, instead of being preserved to
its destined uses, were even turned against them by the
reckless hand of invading power? His rhetoric did not
convince : his prophecies were not fulfilled. We all know
how largely the treasures of the faithful were poured into
the lap of'the Latin Church, what lands were enfeoffed to
it, what provinces were yielded to its sway; how the
fabulous donation of Constantine was more than realized
by the lavish gratitude of the Carlovingian kings and
emperors.
The limits of this discourse forbid me to dwell on the
many great and good uses to which the increasing wealth
of the Church was applied, or on the numerous abuses by
which, alas, it was too often desecrated. Many of us have
lately celebrated one of the happiest instances, one in
which the devotion of large wealth to religious use has
produced good almost without alloy. I speak of the
foundation of the Abbey of Ely twelve centuries ago by
the pious Saxon princess Etheldreda. Out of that dona-
tion grew in after years the see of Ely, with its splendid
K. 13
194 SERMON XIV.
cathedral : a see filled from age to age by many learned
and excellent prelates, by none more excellent than him,
who, regretted by all the clergy and laity of his diocese,
now leaves it for another sphere of duty, in which we
pray that the God and Saviour, whose faithful servant he
. is, may be with him and bless him still, and prosper his
work upon him. Nor should we in Cambridge omit to
recognise our own special debt of gratitude to Ethel-
dreda's gift, since it enabled two Bishops of Ely to plant
Colleges in this University, one, our oldest collegiate
foundation, dating from the thirteenth century, the other
from the close of the fifteenth.
When we hear to-day the long roll of our benefactors,
Christian men and women, who, in the words of the Son
of Sirach, 'have left a name behind them, that their
praises might be reported,' extending from that East
Anglian prince, who is said to have lit a taper of learning
here in the seventh century, to those honoured worthies
of the northern shires, the Whewells and Sedgwicks, who
have gone to their rest within the last few years, we
perceive how strongly in every age the Christian mind
has grasped that great truth which St Paul ascribed to
our Lord's own lips, ' it is more blessed to give than to
receive:' how cheerfully it has appropriated those lessons
of the Hebrew Preacher (Ecclesiastes, Ch. xi.) which
are indeed a scriptural ' locus classicus ' on the motives
and rules of beneficence. 'Cast thy bread upon the
waters,' thy rice- seed, that is, on the flooded land: 'for
thou shalt find it after many days.' The seed of bounty
which thou sowest in the world shall, by God's blessing.
COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS. 195
be fruitful and bring forth, some thirty, some sixty, some
an huadred-fold. And tbov shall find it after many days:
y«a, tkoo thyself shah find it : for is h not written, 'what*
soever a man soweth, that shall he reap'? if not in this
life, yet in the worid of spirits. ' Give a portion to se^xn
and also to eight' Stint not thy bounty to a few, if thou
inst diffuse it more widely: 'for thou knowest not what
evil shall be upon the earth.' Thou knowest not what
may befall in the changes of human life : what evil may
be averted or alleviated by thy bounty, by its example, if
not by its operation. * If the clouds be full of rain, they
empty themselves on the earth.' God u rich in goodness:
He sendeth his rain upon the just and upon the unjust.
Be thou perfect, even as thy Father which is in heaven is
perfect. ' He that observeth the wind shall not sow, and
he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.' Whoso
scans with too nice distrust the occasions of doing good
is likely to do no good to others, and to lose for himself
the great good of doing good. ' In the morning sow
thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand :
for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either
this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.'
Lose no opportunity of doing good : and leave the issues
of thy bounty to Him, who is the author and giver of
all good.
Such lessons of love and piet>' most of our benefac-
tors had probably learnt. The princely lady, whose
preacher I am this day, had certainly learnt them in the
school of trial and sorrow. Whatever were the miseries
of the times in which the Hebrew Preacher wrote,
13—2
196 SERMON XIV.
miseries which wrung from his heart that eXkivov atkivov,
that sorrowful burden of the vanity of all things human,
they could hardly have been sadder than the scenes wit-
nessed by the Lady Margaret of Richmond during the
years of youth and middle life. Herself the rich heiress
of a Beaufort, akin to the reigning house of Lancaster,
daughter-in-law, by her first marriage, to the royal widow
of the hero of Azincourt, she was so far exceptionally
fortunate, that, although thrice wedded, she lost no hus-
band by the sword or the axe. But as maid and matron
she witnessed the horrors of the bloodiest civil war that
ever desolated this island. She saw battles, like that of
Towton, more wasteful of human life than the Moskwas
and Gravelottes of modem warfare. She saw the no-
bility and gentry of England more than decimated on the
battlefield and the scaffold. Her own numerous kinsmen,
Eeauforts, Staffords, Tudors, died, like their prince, pro-
bably like their king, by a death of violence. Herself at
length attainted, she was saved from further peril by the
victory of her son, the seventh Henry, through whose
entire reign she lived, spared to see the extinction of civil
discord by the accession of her grandson, the undoubted
heir of York, and acknowledged representative of the
Lancastrian claim. We know from sure evidence that
this illustrious lady was one who feared God and did good
to men. These principles had upheld her in trial, and in
her prosperous days she did not depart from them. Her
wise piety was shewn in choosing for her confessor and
executor the learned and upright Fisher, who, preaching
her funeral sermon, summed up his testimony with these
COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS, 197
words : ' She had in a nunner all that is praisable in a
woman, either in soul or body.'
Some will say that, when the Lady Margaret gave
one portion of her wealth to found Readerships in Di*
vinity within both Universities, with a Preachership in
Cambridge, a second portion to found a CoHege here,
dedicated to her Redeemer Christ, a third to endow a
still larger College, bearing the name of his Beloved Disci-
ple, St John, she was a meniber of the Anglican Church
as it then stood, in communion with the Church of Rome,
and obedient to the Pope. They will say, that, had she
lived to witness the severance of that communion, she
would have viewed this event as an evil upon the earth ;
she would have deemed it a deadly sin to promote the
doctrines of the Reformation by founding institutions to
teach them. And such statement they might confirm by
recalling the brave integrity of her counsellor and con-
fessor Bishop Fisher, who refused at the cost of his own
life to abjure the Papal supremacy. Man cannot deter-
mine the persistence of an untried faith. God alone
knows whether the Lady Margaret, like her descendants
the Marys, would have walked still in the old paths, or
like her descendant Elizabeth, would have chosen the
path which we deem to be older still as well as truer.
We may grant that the former is the more probable
alternative : nor need we either disparage the virtue of
those who died honestly for the papal cause, or palliate
the sin of any who promoted change for selfish ends. In
the result we thankfully discern the working of that pro-
vidence which overruled evil for good. And, as regards
198 SERMON XIV.
the Christian bounty of all our benefactors who lived
and died before the Reformation, we say that what they
gave could be given and received only in subordination
to the principles of human progress. The first donors
adapted their gifts to the wants and occasions of their
own age, knowing not what evil should be upon the earth.
Another generation, having experienced much evil, applies
that experience to modify the former benefaction ; and so
on to the end of time. We do not say that all change is
equally wise, just, and happy : and for those who promote
and conduct change, grave indeed and responsible is the
duty of seeing that it be wisely, justly, and happily made.
But from the general law of progress there is no escape :
sometimes with slower, sometimes with swifter motion,
the stream of human history flows onward to its unseen
issue, under the supreme direction of an all-wise and
almighty Will.
The Lady Margaret of Richmond knew no cult but
that of Rome. Therein the pious lady found peace and
hope, and, we doubt not, the salvation of her soul. Free
thought had indeed striven to assert itself here and there
at various times ; but had striven in vain. Abelard had
been condemned, imprisoned, silenced. The Puritans of
Southern France had been extirpated by fire and sword ;
the Vaudois driven, like wild beasts, into their mountain
lairs. The Utraquist of Bohemia, the Lollard of England,
with the bones of his teacher Wicliffe, had been given
to the flames. The structure of the Gregories and the
Innocents seemed to be impregnable. Yet the Lady
Margaret had not lain in her grave ten years, ere free;
COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS, 199
thought attain burst its barrien, and this time to be
trodden out no more, this time to wage a more successful
strugjjle a^'ainst the power and influence of Rome,
against Rome's imperial and royal allies, against the
craft of the Jesuit, the fires of the Inquisition, and the
dagger of the fanatic In the seething whirlpool of reli>
gious wars and persecutions did Europe writhe for two
centuries and a half, until the weary combatants suddenly
found themselves in the presence of common foes, new
and terrible — philosophic infidelity and popular insur-
rection.
And to us, who are drawing nigh to the last quarter of
the nineteenth century, what is the outcome of this
turmoil? Whither is His hand guiding us, with whom
one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand j'ears
as one day?
Do I err in believing that one phase of the coming
future, one step in the divinely-guided progress of the
human race, will be the conmion consent of Christian
nations to establish and maintain liberty of conscience
in religion ?
We, brethren, in this illustrious University, have a
large liberty of studies, established by the wise and pro-
gressive energies of our own academic body. We have a
large liberty, some may think it too large, of using or
neglecting these advantages. W^e are throwing out our
tentacles ever more and more for the advancement
of science and learning. Our local examinations have
been the means of stimulating with good effect the
higher education of both sexes in this land: and our
20O SERMON XIV.
teaching power is now eagerly sought by the great centres
of industry in our northern and midland counties.
Finally, after long discussion and dispute, our rulers have
annexed liberty of conscience to our degrees and to most
of our endowments, academic and collegiate. These
measures of the Legislature I do not cite for the pur-
pose of either praise or blame: 'the wisest witnesses'
says a Greek poet, ' are the days to come.' I cite them
as facts merely ; and I ask you, my brethren, (yet why
need I ask you to do what all alike recognize as a sacred
duty?) to use them, as far as they can be used, for the
glory of God and the promotion of Christian truth.
Be it remembered that, along with liberty of con-
science we have its inseparable adjunct, liberty of asso-
ciation. Hereafter, every lay member of this University
will be a Christless man, if he does not join his personal
unit of example and encouragement to that which he
deems to be the purest and best cult in Christ's Church
now on earth.
Here, we doubt not, as in every large centre of popu-
lation, the choice will be a wide one. Here will be found
(though its worshippers, we are warned, will be few, if
any) the cult of Rome, with which most of us are familiar
from booklore and from continental travel. Here will be
found the cult of those who call themselves Anglo-catho-
lics, leaning to ritual and aesthetic embellishment; and,
though confined by law to the language and order of the
English liturgy, yet emulating the Roman cult in its
endeavour to display symbolically the dignity and power
of the priestly office, the real presence of the Saviour in
COMMEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS, aoi
the Eucharist* and the grace of the Holy Spirit in
Baptism. Here will be found the cult of the simpler
Churchman, who, studious of peace and comprehension
as well as of decent order and cheerful godliness, is
content to commemorate his Lord's death and passion as
the Lord himself ordained, trusting his gracious promise
that, wherever two or three are assembled in his Name,
there is He in the midst of them. Here too will be
found the various cults of nonconformity, with which I
am not familiar, but which agree with our own, I suppose,
in worshipping, generally, one Father, one Redeemer,
one Spirit, three in one God.
Hereupon two questions may arise:
First : will not liberty of conscience bring into our
body those to whom all varieties of cult are alike indif-
ferent, an irreligious class? The answer is given from
personal experience. Tests excluded from our degrees
the religious dissenter ; but they did not in general keep
out unbelievers, who, having joined no other communion,
deemed it morally allowable to profess themselves of the
Church by law established.
A second question naturally presses itself on every
thoughtful mind. If the severance of the English Church
from the State, which so many combined forces are at
work to achieve, should ultimately be accomplished, how
will it then fare with the theological faculties in both Uni-
versities, how with their religious teaching and worship,
academic and collegiate? This question I cannot answer:
and I shall make no attempt to answer it But to those
who may by possibility live to witness an event which
202 SERMON XIV.
will wring from many a woeful heart the cry of avVtVa
Tedmir]v, I would utter in my concluding words an old
man's earnest warning.
Common worship implies common dogma. This I
fully grant. The object and conditions of worship, with
the subject matter of prayer, must be settled by the
common consent of those who would worship in common.
But, this being done, and allowing also that the formal
recital of dogma is essential to articles of faith and to
catechetic instruction, whether it is likewise essential to
public worship is a very questionable point. But, leaving
this topic (for I have no desire to prove that our venerable
Church has practically erred), I speak only of the novel
cult introduced of late years into many parish churches.
Let all that is beautiful in nature, let all that is noble and
dignified in art enhance the public worship of God : this I
gainsay not. Let all due solemnity attend that great act of
worship, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, commemora-
tive as it is of our Saviour's atoning love, and expressive
alike of God's pardon and grace to man, and of man's
lowliest penitence and most fervent gratitude to God. This
too I gainsay not. But, if doctrines are to be forced on the
mind through the eye, which enlightened Churchmen, who
would worship God in spirit and in truth, are neither
bound nor prepared to receive ; if prayers and lessons are
slurred with unseemly haste, and the stress of the service
laid on music and ceremonial and a theurgic rite cele-
brated in imitation of the Roman Mass, and in opposition
to the meaning of the English rubric, — then indeed I
tremble for the future, then I sadly doubt whether the
COMAfEMORATION OF BENEFACTORS, 203
Legislature will long be willing to continue the establish-
ment of a Church so minded.
My heart's desire and prayer for our national Zion is,
that it may endure and flourish and enlarge its borders :
and I look on its removal as the heariest blow which
could be dealt to true religious liberty.
May God avert this evil, or if He see fit to inflict it,
may He (as He surely will) overrule it for greater ulti-
mate good.
In ex'ery case, may this our noble University be
continually sustained and fed, for a beacon of light and
love to the nation, by Him who is Light and Love, with
whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day ! *A/ufi>.*
* I ha%T retained this Greek Amen, because it was appended
by my dear friend, the late Professor Selwyn, when he borrowed
this sermon for repemsal. He also wrote on the outer leaf the
word ' Imprimatur,* thus endorsing the sentiments contained in it.
SERMON XV.
ON THE DEATH OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE
CONSORT, PREACHED IN ST MARY'S CHURCH, SHREWS-
BURY, DECEMBER, 1861.
ISAIAH XXVI. 9.
When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants
of the world will learn righteousness.
Brethren, your coming here to-day is a profession of
faith. It says for you that you profess to beUeve in God,
the Maker, Governor, and Judge of the world — in God,
who speaks to you by the inward voice of conscience, by
the outward acts of his power, by those writings which
you revere as his word, by that Church which you own
for a witness and keeper of the truth. These are not all
the great things which by coming here you profess to
believe ; but they are those things which it concerns me to
mention now, when as a minister of the Church, opening
the Word, appealing to your hearts, in the name of Him
who governs and judges and will judge the world, I ask
you to learn and lay to heart those lessons of righteous-
ness which his startling dispensations, called in my text
DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. «oj
the judgments of God, are fitted, and, we humbly believe,
d«signed, to teach.
When I call tome of God's dispensations startling,
*] speak,' to borrow St Paul's language, 'as a fool ;' I
speak, that is, in condescension to the habitual notions
of erring men. If we thought more of God, if we con-
versed with Him more in prayer and mediation, if He
were ever present to our minds as ordering all events, not
iSba&t alone which recur by known laws, as day and
night, months and years, but those also which surpass
our calculation, as the issues of life and death, and all
that we vaguely and faithlessly term casual ; if, in short,
we were more bdieving, more heavenly-minded, we
should not be startled by any of the divine dispensa>
tions. And why not ? Because we should be ever living
with girded loins and lights burning, ever on the look
out for that last and greatest of all dispensations, which
will come to unprepared souls as a thief in the night —
even the second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ to judge the world.
Btit few, alas, are those happy servants who thus
truly watch for their Lord's coming. Multitudes there
are, on the other hand, who never bow the knee to God,
. nor lift the heart in prayer ; multitudes again who say
in their hearts — my Lord delayeth His coming, let
us eat and drink and be merry ; or, let us lay field to
field. For such as these it is well when the judgments
of God are in the earth, if peradventure they may be
driven to learn righteousness. It is well when loss or
sorrow or sickness awakens individual men from the
2o6 SERMON XV.
sleep of sin to penitence and holiness. It is well when
great calamities or perils arouse nations from self-com-
placent ease, and bring them before the mercy-seat
crying, Lord, save us, we perish : Lord, we believe,
help Thou our unbelief: Lord, we repent; hear Thou
in heaven Thy dwelling-place, and when thou hearest,
forgive.
Within the last few years, how often have public
events appealed to our deepest sympathies, and claimed
our earnest prayers and intercessions ! And how gra-
ciously has God dealt with us through this time ; how
often has He allayed our anxious fears, revived our
hopes, crowned our desires, and given us the oil of joy
for mourning ! The toils and trials and privations of
our brave soldiers in the Crimean war, how painfully
did we feel them ! But they resulted in a splendid vic-
tory and a solid peace. The bloody massacres of the
Indian mutiny — the frightful sufferings and perils of our
dear country-people there — with what anguish and ter-
ror did they thrill us day after day, week after week,
month after month, until the favour of God crowned
our arms with success, and grief and fear were for-
gotten in the reconquest and reconstitution of our
Eastern Empire ! Have we not ample reason ' to praise
the Lord for His goodness, and to declare the wonders
that He doeth for the children of men'.'' It was our
turn then from a neutral watchtower to observe the
struggle of two great European nations in the plains
of Lombardy — to mark the ancient power of the Papacy
crumbling— to see the ideal of an Italian kingdom all but
DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT, aof
ffvaliflcd, and hear the triamphal shout of freedom and
unity pealing around the boofiiea of Etna and Vesuvius.
But the growing military and naval strength of a great
neighbour was not obwfvcd without a shade of fear and
doubt : fear of powible aggression, doubt of our own
means of internal defencei The fear might be ground-
less ; we trust it was so : the doubt was not unfounded ;
and from it sprung that noble movement, whereby one
hundred thousand brave right hands and loyal hearts,
some of which are here present, armed and pledged
themselves to the defence of their country and their
Queen in the hour of need.
That hour— is it drawing aigfa, or >-et far distant?
At this moment, we doubt not, west-winds are speeding
to us across the Atlantic an answer to this question, a
message of peace or war — of peace, for which let us offer
our most fervent praj'ers to the God of peace ; or of war,
in which, if it comes, let us see that our quarrel be just,
and humbly commend our arms to the favour of Him
who has hitherto mercifully given us nctory.*
But, O Father in Heaven, maker and governor of
the world, how truly hast Thou told us that thy judg-
ments are unsearchable, and thy ways past finding out !
While our eyes were bent to a foreign and distant coast,
awaiting thence the tidings of good or evil which thy
Providence should assign, lo, suddenly, where we least
looked for it, where we most felt it, thy chastening
hand was raised to smite us at h(»ne. The husband and
• The just claim of the English Government was, happily,
recc^ized by the President of the United States.
2o8 SERMON XV.
counsellor of our Queen, the father of our princes, the
pattern of every royal virtue, he who had led all our
peaceful improvements, while he wisely shunned the
battle-ground of politics, this great and good man is
carried to the tomb, in the vigour of his manhood, in
the ripeness of his intellect, when England had learned
to understand and value him, when a long career of
glorious usefulness seemed to lie before him. Alas for the
vanity of human hopes and wishes ! ' The race is not
to the swift, nor the battle to the strong ; there is one
event to the righteous and to the wicked ; man goeth
to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets ;
the dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the
spirit shall return unto God who gave it.' Truly saith
the Preacher, * man knoweth not his time.'
Brethren, at this afflicting moment our hearts are in
the house of mourning ; our sympathies are with our
bereaved and beloved Queen ; our prayers ascend for her
and hers to the throne of grace. May He, who dealt
the stroke, assuage the anguish and heal the wound !
May He give her strength of body and mind to rise to
the full height of her arduous duties ! May He nerve
her to perform alone the mighty task which she had
so long shared with a partner worthy of her own highly
gifted nature ! May He ever raise up for her wise and
impartial and disinterested counsellors, fearing God, and
justly entitled to the confidence of their Queen and
country! Above all, may His blessing rest upon the
head of her eldest son, upon that young prince, the
expectancy of the state, who is now treading the thresh-
DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. 209
oU <d numhood awd public life, withoat a Cruher't eye
to watch his proxresa, a ittbci'a hand to guide his
•tepa, a fathcr'« voice of c a pcrienced warning and en<
coorageroent in the teaton when hit choice is to be
xAit between the flowery and the thorny path, a choice
how difficult for him, how momentous to our country ! O
God, our Sa\iour, be Thou the father of the fatherless,
and a husband to the widow.
And now, brethren, recollect my opening words.
Vou believe in a God who governs the world. You
believe in Him as revealed in his holy Word. You
believe, then, what that Word tells you, that his judg-
ments are shown in the earth, and that they are shown
for this purpose, amongst others, that men may learn
righteousness. Do I then err, in regarding the heavy
calamity which has befallen this nation in the death
of the Prince Consort, as a judgment of this importance ?
Surely not. Its suddenness, its afflictiveness, the pre-
ciousness of what we have lost, the irreparable void
left in the ro)'al house and the national counsels, com-
bine to mark this sad event as a signal dispensation
of Providence, from *hich the inhabitants of the world
generally, and the British people in particular, should
leam righteousness.
Bowing our hearts beneath the rod of our heavenly
Teacher, and humbly desiring his grace to help us, let
as try to learn his lessons, and apply them to our own
improvement
The thoughts and the doctrines which link them-
selves with death, with sudden and premature death,
K. 14
210 SERMON XV.
with the death of the mighty of this world, suitable as
they are to this Advent season, I ask you to ponder in
your closets, and interweave with your prayers. I pass
them by for lack of time only, not because I deem them
too familiar to our minds. The disposition to ignore
solemn subjects as trite, and to sneer away great truths
as truisms, is one of the fatallest symptoms of our fallen
and depraved nature. Happy the intellect and the
heart which do not revolt from every-day nourishment.
Happy they who never lose their relish for rising and
setting suns and streams and flowers and birds, and
the Bible and the Prayer book, and thoughts of heaven,
and communion of the soul with God and Christ.
Happy they : for they are fostering in the light and
breath of the Holy Spirit that pure heart, which alone
is privileged to see God. I ask you to consider this
heavy judgment as reading to us a lesson of national
righteousness. Our heavenly Father, we know, has been
very gracious and merciful to us as a people. He has
made us the most widely powerful, the wealthiest, and
the most influential nation — all things considered — upon
his earth. From the horrors of foreign invasion, which
all other countries have had to endure, England has
been exempt from the date of the Norman conquest.
Civil war, for the last two centuries, has been rare
and limited, and of brief duration. And then, brethren,
during the last twenty years we have had a blessing
from God for which it has behoved us to be very
thankful. We have had for our Queen a virtuous wo-
man, whose 'price is far above rubies,' and for our
DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT, sii
Queen's husband a wise and vpright and accomplished
Prince, 'known in the galM iriwn he sat among the
elders of the land.* We have seen a huge and thriving
familx of well-trained children rise up around them
and call them hlcsaed. Have they not been *as the
stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon the
land'? Happy EngUutd, had all its matrons been such
as Queen Victoria, its husbands and fathers emulous
of Prince Albert's virtues, its hearths as pure, its homes
as p e ac e a b le, as the stately halls of Windsor !
But let us put the <|aestion to owsdves. Has our
gratitude to our heavenly Benefisctor been suitable to
these his signal benefits? Has our growth in faith
and holiness as a nation been in proportion to the ad*
vantages we have enjoyed ? Have we habitually offered
the sacrifices of righteousness, and put our trust in the
Lord? Admitting considerable moral progress in some
departments, as in criminal laws, prison discipline, poor
laws, and popular instruction, admitting the improve-
ments which have taken place in the parochial minis-
trations of our Church, and the larger help given to
us by the laity — admitting frequent mimificence, and
some examples of heroic self-do'otion in our highest
and wealthiest of both sexes — admitting that our sol-
diers and saik>rs of every class and rank are unsur-
passed in courage, endurance^ and loyal ardour — ad-
mitting, as I do, these things, rejoicing to admit them,
and being, I trust, deeply thankful for them — I fear,
nevertheless, that we are far from being as truly great
(by which I mean as truly good) a people as we ought
14—2
212 SERMON XV.
to be. I fear that our standards of excellence, public,
private, and professional, are lamentably low— that we
treat success as the test of merit— wealth or worldly
favour as the measure of success ; that our education
is not as deep as it is wide ; that our popular writing
is not as wise and honest as it is clever and assuming ;
and that public opinion is in a great degree swayed by
those whose rule is not truth and justice, nor their
end the good of society and the glory of God. Hence,
among other consequences, arises our inability to cor-
rect many crying evils, and to effect salutary changes
in various departments which greatly need them. These
are but a small sample of the mischiefs which lie upon
and beneath the surface of society in our native land.
But I would rather understate the case than appear
to aggravate it. Enough for me to lay down the pro-
position that our moral and religious character as a
nation is far from reaching the standard of God's Holy
Word, far from answering duly to the benefits and ad-
vantages for which He has made us responsible.
If we grant this, and surely nothing but the blind-
est self-esteem will refuse to grant it, what should be
our next admission? To believe in God, the judge of
the world, is, as we have seen, to believe that the cala-
mities which befall nations are judgments of God,
adapted and designed to teach righteousness, either to
the nation which suffers them, or in the more terrible
instances — as those of Sodom and Gomorrah — to the
world at large. What other lesson is taught by God's
dealing with the Jews of oldj by His judgments upon
DEATH OF THE PRJSCB CONSORT. 213
Tyre, upoo Babylon, upoa Romc^ bjr the whole tenor
of world-hiMory? What other Iomoq do we read in
tboM chapters of the prophet Itaiah, which the church
opens to lu in these weeks of Advent ? What other
has sounded in our ears this day? 'Woe to the re-
belliotts children,' saith the Lord, 'that take counsel,
but not of me ; and that cover with a covering, but
not of my Spirit, that they majr add sin to sin : which
say to the seers. See not ; and to the prophets, I'rO'
pbesjr not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth
things, prophesy deceits. For thus saith the Lord Cod,
the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest shall
ye be saved ; in quietness and confidence shall be your
strength : and ye would not. Therefore shall ye be left
as a beacon on the top of a mountain, and as an ensign
on a hill.'
Hear then the conclusion of the whole matter. Let
us humbly acknowledge this afBictive dispensation of
Almighty God as a judgment in the earth, and use it,
nationally and individually, as a lesson of righteousness.
Let us think more of God's great mercies, let us thank
Him more heartily ; let us piay more fervently that
He vtiXL continue and multiply them upon us ; let us
strive to deser\'e them better, heartily repenting of all
our sins, and especially of our neglect of the means
of grace so abundantly vouchsafed to us. In the coming
Christmas season, saddened as it will be by the thought
of our Queen's sorrows and the national loss, let us
give glory to God in the highest for the gift of peace
on earth, and good w-ill towards men, in the birth and
214 SERMON XV.
incarnation of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. Let us labour, as far as in us lies, for peace
with all men, abroad and at home. Abroad, if we
are forced to draw the sword, let us wield it in the
strength of the Lord of Hosts, and gladly sheathe it
on the first occasion in the name of the Prince of
Peace. At home let us strive charitably, but earnestly,
that no man may take from our Queen, our country,
and ourselves, that bright crown of a pure Church, preach-
ing Christ in every parish of England, and carrying to
heathen lands the same message of salvation. So for
us, as for Judah of old, will the Lord 'wait that He
may be gracious unto us ; so will He be exalted that
He may have mercy upon us ; for the Lord is a God
of judgment : blessed are all they that wait for Him.
And though the Lord give us the bread of adversity
and the water of affliction, yet shall not our teachers
be removed ; our eyes shall see our teachers, and our
ears shall hear a word behind us, saying, This is the
way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand,
and when ye turn to the left.' 'Trust ye in the Lord
for ever ; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.'
Amen.
SERMON XVr.
PAPAL SUPREAfACV.
OUTLINE or A SERMON PREACHED IN ST CHAD'S CHURCH.
SHREWSBURY. IN THE EVENING OF THURSDAY.
APRIL lo, iSsi.'
EPHES. I. 23-3.
And hath put all things undtr his feety and gave him to
b€ Head <n'er all things to the Churchy which is his
Body.
St Paul sets forth the glorified Christ as given to be
Head of the Church ; the Church as Christ's body. The
Church is a communion of saints, visible and invisible,
and it has one head, both spiritual and corporeal, divine
and himian, one Christ, who dwells in glory, but has
* The Sennon (of which the oatline here given appeared in
a local Journal) was written as part of a course preached in
1851 by clergymen of Shrewsbury on Roman errors. It oc-
cupied two hours and ten minutes in delivery, and was atten-
tively heard by a large congregation.
2i6 SERMON XVI,
promised to be with his Church always, wherever two or
three are gathered together in his name. Therefore it
is blasphemy against Christ to own any other head but
this one: — to say that a visible head is required for a
visible Church, which is the Roman doctrine.
The supremacy of the Bishop of Rome lies at the
foundation of Romanism. If this be overthrown all its
unscriptural tenets perish with it. Roman writers, Bel-
larmine, De Maistre, Perrone, &c., confess as much.
The Pope's supremacy was defined at the Council of
Florence, 1439, ^^ a "full power to feed, regulate, and
govern the Universal Church." In the Canon Law, it
is said that no Councils can be summoned without his
permission, nor are their resolutions valid until confirmed
by him: that the creation and alteration of sees, the
translation, deposition, and confirmation of bishops be-
long only to the Pope: that all greater causes are re-
served to him : that the spiritual power is above the
temporal : that the Pope can dispense against the
Apostles, against positive right: can make unjust things
just : can make something out of nothing : that he holds
the place of the true God on earth. This presumptuous
Canon Law is founded to a great extent on documents
now confessed to be frauds and forgeries. The title of
Pope, or Father, was originally given to all eminent
bishops, and was not confined to the Roman bishops
till the nth century. His other titles, Sovereign Pontiff,
Universal Bishop, &c., were usurpations of no early date.
There have been two parties in the Roman Church, the
moderate and the ultramontane. This latter, which
PAi\iiL Si; y REM AC V. H7
maintains the Pope's infallibility and exa gger a te* his
power to the utmost, is now everywhere dominant, and
likely to become so mote and mora.
Some cautions are necessary in arpiing with Roman*
ists: I. They must not be suffered to quit the ground
of Scripture for that of Church authority. 3. They must
not be allowed to prejudice the a i y i ntent by maintaining
that a visible head is mctssary in the Church as a centre
of unity. 3. They must not be allowed to confound the
terms primacy and supremacy, as they often try to da
We allow a certain primacy (L e. precedency) to St Peter
among apostles, and to Rome among ancient churches :
but we deny the supremacy of both. 4. Testimonies
must be nicely discriminated.
The Roman doctrine may be reduced to four pro-
positions: — I. That St Peter received a divine right to
govern the Church. 2. And to transmit the government
to successors. 3. That Peter became Bishop of Ronje,
and transmitted his right to all future Bishops of Rome.
4. That the Bishops of Rome have always possessed and
exercised this right
I. As to the first proposition, its scriptural evidence
must first be examined. Mr Allies {See 0/ Peter) puts
the Roman case very strongly. It rests mainly on three
texts : — Matthew xvi. 13 — 19 ; Luke xxiL 31 — 2 ; John xxL
15 — 17. But the Roman inference from these texts is
mere assumption, unsupported by the rest of Scripture
and by the Fathers. The texts of Luke and John may
be explained from the personal character and history of
Peter, and so the Fathers generally explain them. In
2i8 SERMON XVI.
the same way that of Matthew is explained. Peter re-
presents the Apostles; confesses for all and receives a
blessing first for himself, which is extended however to
all. For, if he was to be a rock, or chief agent of Christ
in founding the Church, the other Apostles were also to
be rocks or foundations, as appears from Ephes. ii. 20 ;
Rev. xxi. 14- Most of the Fathers understood the rock
to be Peter's faith, not himself, and the keys, or power
of binding and loosing, as given in St Peter to the whole
Church, not as a peculiar gift to him. These interpre-
tations are quite as probable as the Roman, and have
more authority. But the dogma of Peter's supremacy is
invincibly demolished by the following argument: If St
Peter had possessed supreme jurisdiction, it must have
been known to the inspired and to the primitive writers :
if it had been known to them, they would have declared
it: but they have not declared it: therefore St Peter did
not possess any such jurisdiction. As to the Scriptural
writers, they agree in making St Peter first and foremost
among the Apostles, but they give him no sovereignty.
St Mark, his own disciple, is silent as to any blessing
addressed to him. St Luke and St John do not repeat
the blessing in Matthew. The Acts exhibit Peter as
primate of the Apostles before the conversion of St Paul,
but not as sovereign ; he is seiit by the rest, he is called
to account by the Jewish Christians and put on his
defence: at the Council in Jerusalem St James presides.
After St Paul's conversion, Peter almost disappears from
the history. If high privileges give supremacy, Paul
does not yield to Peter. And in the whole of his writings
PAPAL SUPREMACY. 219
he givts no hint of Peter's iapf«nacy. Neither do
St John, St Jaunes» St Jude, or St Pcier himadC Acain,
on examining the Fatlicn of the first six centuries (whose
works might fill 100 folio vohimes) we find only two or
three jMssages which would seem to fiivour this doctrine,
and they not only can he otherwise interpreted, but are
counteracted by other pesiigci ia the same writers
evidently hostile to the doctrine. St Peter, therefore,
had no supremac}*.
2. If he had, there is no proof at all that he had
the power of transmitting it.
3. There is no ceruinty that he ever was Bishop of
Rome, or that the Bishops of Rome were his successors.
The Roman statement has nothing but vague, suspicious,
and inconsistent legends in its favour.
4. The fourth Roman proposition, that the Bishops of
Rome have always possessed and exercised supreme
power is overthrown by proving the following allega*
tions: — (i) That no such supremacy of the Roman
Bishop was recognized by any part of the Church or
exercised by him for at least six centuries after Christ ;
as appears from the writings of the Fathers, the Acts
and Canons of Councils, and other records. (2) That
the authority subsequently acquired by him in the
Western Church appears on the face of it to be a mere
human usurpation, achieved by ambitious and politic
Popes, seizing favourable opportunities. (3) That the
Universal Supremacy of the Roman Bishop never has
been really acknowledged and obeyed by the whole
Catholic Church ; the Greeks having separated from the
220 SERMON XVI.
Latin Church without any such previous acknowledg-
ment, and having always maintained their independence
in spite of concessions wrung from two weak and de-
spairing Emperors in the 13th and 15th centuries. These
allegations being proved, the pretensions of Rome fall
to the ground.
The claim is also to be rejected for many reasons
evincing the unholiness of Papal supremacy : as, the
wicked lives of many Popes : the frauds, forgeries, and
manifold impostures by which their power has been
advanced and maintained : the disparagement of the
Holy Scriptures : the introduction of false doctrines and
corrupt worship : the cruel, persecuting, and immoral
spirit, laws, and dealings of the Papacy : the proceedings
of the Dominicans, the Jesuits, and the Inquisition : the
revival of the Jesuits after their formal suppression r the
evident tendency of Papal influence to bring nations to
decay, decrepitude, and ruin. And herein we find a
sufficient answer to the modern theory of Development,
as advanced by Mohler and Newman. For the growth
of Papal power is evidently not the ripening of good seed
to good fruit, but the development of an evil germ to
maturity of evil, the gradual expansion of a baleful Upas-
tree.
The accession of converts to Rome arises chiefly from
the specious prejudice, that a visible head is necessary as
a centre of unity and judge of controversy in the Church.
This is only a plausible sophism: for, (i) it is mere carnal
presumption to seize the sceptre from God's hand, and
determine for ourselves how He otight to have arranged
PA^AL SUPREMACY. 221
the government of tbt Church, instead of humbly inquir*
ing what He kmt been pleaicd to intimate on the subject.
May it not with as much probability be supposed that
the absence of a central human tribunal of faith is de-
signed to prove the hearts and tempers of men ? (3) We
may fairly say, in reply to the Romanist, that if God had
judged a visible Head so necessary, He would have given
to mankind an earlier and more distinct revelation of
this doctrine. (3) Roman unity is merely negative and
external, for it cannot with truth be said that all members
of that Church are really of one heart and one mind, as
the ftrst Christians were. (4) Roman unity does not
savour of the simplicity and spirituality of the GospeL
Rather it is an artificial organism, like that of Free-
masons, lUuminati, or the Fchmic brotherhood, a con-
spiracy to hold mankind in bondage, not a dispensa-
tion of God's free spirit It is held together by the
machinery of Clerical Celibacy, Monastic Institutions,
and Auricular Confession ; the two former supplj-ing the
Pope with a devoted, widespread, and not too scrupulous
militia, the last enabling that militia to rule the consciences
of the laity, and hold them in vassalajje to the Pope.
Roman unity, in short, is but the unity of a cleverly
organized Priestcraft. (5^ And this external unity, such
as it is, has not been maintained in the Roman Church.
We read of heretic Popes, Popes deposed, Popes and
Councils quarrelling, Popes contradicting Popes : var>-ing
Papal editions of the Bible : Gallican and Ultramontane
factions, Jesuits and Jansenists, Jesuits and Dominicans,
in frequent and violent collision: Febronian, Hermesian,
222 SERMON XVI,
Rongian disputes: and the all important question of
infallibility unsettled for more than i8 centuries. What
is the practical value of such a unity as this?
If men were not carnal, they might Tie satisfied with
the unity which brought peace to holy men of olden time,
to St Basil, for instance, and Cyril of Alexandria. Basil
explains unity to consist in the members being joined to
each other in one sole Head, which is Christ. Cyril, in
his discourses on St John (ch. xiv. — xvii.), gives no hint
of a mere outward unity, but speaks only of a spiritual
union. And yet Cyril was President of the third General
Council at Ephesus, in the 5th century after Christ. Let
us choose, therefore, the Holy Ghost guiding us, which
we will henceforth serve: a carnal imity or a spiritual
one: the Pope or Christ ; Rome or the Bible — Which?
REASONS FOR ACQUIESCENCE IN THE JUDG-
MENT DELIVERED BY THE JUDICIAL
COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL, IN
THE CASE OF GORHAM r. THE BISHOP
OF EXETER.
*' For we know b put, and wc pf op h ay in put. Bat when
that which is pcifcct is oonc, then that which is in part shall be
(lone away. And now abideth fiuth, hope, charity, these
three ; but the greatest of these is charity." — i Corinth, xiii.
"Summa nostrae religionis pax est et onxmimitas. Ea vix
constare potent, nisi de qnam panmnimi^ dcfiniamus, et in
multis relLnqaamas suum caique judiciom." — Erasmus, p. ii6t,
Ed. Bas.
TJk^se Reasons were printed in order to explain why
I declined to sign a Declaration which received the
signatures of a large number of Clergy : and they were
introduced by the Preface which follows.
[The Bishop of Exeter (Philpotts) says, in one of his published
letters to Mr Maskell, that a time is come for individual con-
fessions of faith. This confession of mine, however, is not
224 ON THE JUDGMENT
elicited by his Lordship's suggestion, but by a Declaration here-
inafter quoted. Not that I have viewed with careless eye the
throes of our Church for many years now past — or ceased to
deplore the faults of parties, — or neglected to pray for the peace
of our Zion. But, except having occasionally given my silent
name to whatever cause, under whatever superscription, ap-
peared to be the cause of Christian liberty, candour, and charity,
I have held aloof from controversies in which I had not perfect
sympathy with either contending party, and no vocation to be a
mediator.
But I find myself now in a new position. I cannot, for the
reasons hereinafter stated, unite in this address to our Diocesan.
Yet, if I simply withhold my name, I leave it to be supposed
either that I belong to an extreme antagonistic School of
Divinity, which is not the fact : or that, being a Presbyter of the
Church, honoured with a seat in tlic Cathedral Church of this
Diocese, commissioned to teach in theology, and specially to
instruct youth, I either have no opinion, or fear to express that
opinion, on a question of momentous concern to the Church of
Christ : both which suppositions would, again, be untrue.
Thus I feel myself constrained to speak, and I have only to
hope that my reasons for doing so will be satisfactory to those
whose good opinion I value, whether they agree with me other-
wise or not.
The sentiments herein put forth have long been mine ; they
have grown with my growth and strengthened with my strength ;
and have been confirmed by all the aids I could employ for the
correction of my own judgment. Nevertheless, I commit them
to publication with fear and trembling, concerning, as they do, a
question of so awful a character, and opposed, as I fear they
are, to the feelings of so many good and learned men. And if
AV THE GORHAM CASE. 225
lodecd tbcy be Mch as juady to oAad a^y of Chmt't lUtlc
oMS, I btcBch our Divine Head to ooaviaoe me of ny tin* «iul
to give me grace to retract my error.
Bat, if theM oftiBioM oiighMte i« tntth, and tend to truth,
then I pray for grace and Micngth to walntaiii and defend then ;
and 1 desire to unite' in prayer and mutual help with all Churdi-
men, (tome there mast be, I trust there are many), whose earnest
expectation waits for a Church of the foture, in which sym-
bolism* shall retire within the narrowest limits consistent with
cooimon worship, and the B a p t i a e d shall eat the flesh of the Son
of Man and drink his bkwd with amtfiaiag foith, and learn todc
is will, that so, by the witness of the Spirit, they ipay know
f his doctrine, that it is indeed from that Father, wfaoae name
. Love.]
I, the undersigned, being a Clergyman residing within
the Archdeaconry of Salop, in the Diocese of Lichfield,
do profess that I cannot in my conscience subscribe the
foregoing Declaration for the following reasons : —
I. Because the Judgment of the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Coimcil in the case of Gorham v. the Bishop
of Elxeter, appears to import no more than this :— that the
said Committee, not sitting as a Tribunal of Faith, but
being legally constituted by the Queen's Majesty to Xvj.
on appeal, a Question of Ecclesiastical Right involving a
Question of Doctrine, applied itself to the careful consi-
' By the word ' Symbolism ' I mean the establishment c^i
Dogmatic Articles as Terms of Communioo.
226 ON THE JUDGMENT
deration of the documentary and historical facts of the
case ; and having found, as matter of fact, that, from
the publication of Articles of Religion to the present
day. Divines of the Church of England, Bishops as
well as Presbyters, have, without molestation, professed
opinions differing from each other in various degrees
respecting the effects of Infant Baptism, as also respect-
ing the mode of interpreting the language of the Articles,
Liturgy, and Catechism of the Church relating to that
question, the said Judicial Committee did simply declare
that the doctrine 6f the Appellant concerning Infant
Baptism is not so plainly and certainly opposed to the
teaching of the Church, as that he ought, by reason
thereof, to be refused Institution to a Cure of Souls.
2. Because it appears that the Judicial Committee
could not have pronounced judgment against the Appel-
lant without attainting, by a retrospective sentence, the
soundness and honesty of many Divines, who in times
past have been regarded as burning and shining lights in
the Church of England.
3. Because the principIe«of charitable presumption,
which is used to interpret the language of the Baptismal
service by those who deny the unconditional Regeneration
of all Infants in and by their Baptism, is not unsanc-
tioned by the example of our Saviour and his Apostles,
and does indeed appear to be an essential condition of
Common Prayer and Christian fellowship on earth : and,
whereas the Thanksgiving in the Service for the Baptism
of Persons of Riper Years is avowedly founded on
charitable presumption, there would appear to be no
AV THE CORHAM CASE. 3:7
dUkoonty in applying the tame principle to the Thanks-
gi%-ing of the other Service, wUew it covkl be shown that
the Church has positively declared the Rcfeneratioo oi
Infants in and by their Baptism to be unconditional and
abeokite.
Because, furthermore, the Church Catediism itself,
lagmatic as it is and not liturgical, appears to require
the application of the same principle, seeing that all
Baptised persons must needs be dealt with by the Church
as possessing the privileges of Christian membership,
^'hile it is admitted that the Baptism of some Adults is
nullitied by their want of Repentance and Faith '.
4. Because it does not appear that from that Article
of the Creed called Niccne, which acknowledges one
Baptism for the remission of sins, and which St Cyril, in
his Cate<;hesis thereupon, scripturally cites as one Baptism
of Repentance for the Remission of Sins, we are necessi-
tated to infer the unconditional Remission of Original
Sin to all Infants, in and by their Baptism ^
5. Because our Church, in accordance with Holy
Scripture, confines sacramental grace, in general, to sucli
as worthily receive the same; and, whereas the condi-
tions of Baptismal grace, in general, are declared to be
Repentance and Faith, which Infants carmot perform, yet
it does not seem to follow, as a necessary consequence,
that no personal conditions are required in Infants,
although none are defined by Scripture and the Church.
6. Because, while it is fully admitted that the Chris-
> Se,', however, the concluding Head of this Declaration.
15 — 2
228 ON THE JUDGMENT
tian Fathers of the first four centuries unanimously
represent Baptism as the divinely appointed means of
obtaining Remission of Sins and spiritual Regeneration,
insomuch that Baptism and Regeneration are with them
convertible terms ; and although Clement of Alexandria,
and, after him, the Fathers of the fourth century, exhaust
the riches of their imagination in describing the blessings
of the Baptized, yet all these Fathers evidently write with
particular regard to Adults, and to such Adults as bring
to Baptism the conditions of sincere Repentance and
lively Faith.
7. Because, although the practice of baptizing Infants
is referred by Origen to apostolical tradition, and is shoAvn
by certain testimony to have existed from an early period,
yet the Church of the first four centuries appears not to
have ranked the Baptism of Infants as of equal import-
ance with that of Adults ; seeing that its blessings are
nowhere described in the same glowing language; that
TertuUian, in the beginning of the third century, while he
magnifies highly the gifts of Baptism, does not hesitate to
argue against that of Infants ; and the Fathers of the
fourth century, while they remonstrate earnestly and fre-
quently with Adults against the prevalent custom of
delaying their Baptism, do not appear, in general, to have
warned Parents of peril incurred by deferring the Baptism
of their Infants.
8. Because, if the denial of absolute Infant Regener-
ation be not exempt from the peril of Zuinglian or of
Calvinistic error, its assertion cannot easily be distin-
guished, even upon the Lutheran hypothesis of Faith
IN THE GORHAM CASE. 129
infused in and by Baptism, from the Scholastic theory of
grace conferred ex ^trt t^enUt; which theory, if it be
once received into any one part of Christian Theology,
tends to leaven and determine the whole system.
9. Because the dogma of the uncooditioaal Regenera-
tion of aH Infants in and by their Baptism appears to
have been shaped during the third and fourth centuries
after Christ in one dirision of the Church Catholic— that
of (Western) Africa, and to have become current in the
Afth century by means of one extraordinary man, Au-
gustine, whose writings have exercised more important
influence in some departments of later Theology, than
those of inspired Apostles and E\'angelists.
la Because it is a wise and just ecclesiastical rule,
which prescribes Unity in things necessary, Liberty in
things doubtful, and Charity in all things ; and because
all Churches appear to have erred more or less from
this rule by multiplying Articles of Necessity, to the
^reat detriment of Liberty and Charity. And because it
seems that a time must arrive for the Church to consider
whether Terms of Common Worship which might be
necessary in the fifth century, or again in the peculiar
circiunstances of the English Reformation, will be equally
desirable in the third Millennium of the Christian re-
ligion ; pending which consideration, the reasonable and
just liberties of Churchmen ought to be protected by
the State, in whatsoever person or partiailar they may
be endangered.
Nevertheless, although the personal conditions of
Infant Salvation appear to me to be among those 'deep
230 JUDGMENT IN THE CORN AM CASE.
things of God,' which, as the Spirit has not revealed
them, a Church, not infallible, may leave undefined
without deserting its office as a Witness of Truth, and
Judge of Controversy ; although, therefore, a fortiori,
1 acquiesce in the modest Judgment pronounced by the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, I do gladly
believe, and would teach all Christian parents to believe,
with the Rubric of our Church, that Baptized Infants,
dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly
saved; and I thankfully accept the authority which our
Church gives me in her Catechism to deal practically
with Baptized persons as being, in point of privilege and
capacity, 'members of Christ, children of God, and
inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven,' and charitably to
address even the worldly and wicked among them, not
as unregenerate, alien, and uncovenanted persons, but
as prodigal sons, unfaithful servants and backsliders,
who need repentance, turning to God, and renewing of
the Holv Ghost.
SERMON XVII.
THE CHRIST OF PROPHECY.
PREACHED BEFORE THE UNnmSITT OF CAMBRIDGE.
ON PALM SUNDAY. MARCH as, \%n.
Luke xxiv. 35, 26.
TkfH said hi wmtfi tktm : O foots and slow 0/ ktart
to hetuve alt that tht propluls have spoken ! Ought
not the Christ to have suffered tktu things^ and to
enter into his glory f
WHATE\*ER grave faults of doctrine, discipline or con-
duct may be noted in the Christian Church during its
progress through eighteen centuries, yet has it preserved
to us, under a mercifully guiding Providence, two bless-
ings of priceless worth. In the Bible it has kept for us
God's revealed Word to man ; that Word which proclaims
our moral nature and its meaning ; that Word which
tells us that we are distinct from the beasts that perish,
tells us why and wherein we are so, and how we may
continue to be so more and more for ever. And in the
ser\-ices of its Holy Year the Church brings constantly
before our view the historical Christ, Him in whom
232 SERMON XVII.
and by whom alone our sin-stained and sin-laden souls
have a sure and certain hope of restoration and release,
of peace and joy.
The march of the Christian year has brought us to
the first day of that which we justly call Holy Week,
the Week of our accomplished Redemption. What a
vast weight of matter lies within the compass of this
Week ! What store of meditation for the prayerful
Christian student ! What wealth of sermons for the
faithful Christian preacher !
The ftiiracle of miracles had been wrought under the
walls of Jerusalem. The dead had been brought to life :
Lazarus had risen from the tomb. All Jewish eyes were
now turned with hope or hatred on Jesus of Nazareth :
with hope on the expected Deliverer ; with hatred on
the dreaded Reformer. And this was known to Jesus,
and known to his disciples. The Passover was at hand.
The twelve intreat their Master to refrain from attending
that feast. Their dissuasion is vain. He stedfastly set
his face to go from Pergea to Jerusalem. He knew that
He was going to die there ; and this He foretold to his
disciples. Yet did He press on before, while they fol-
lowed in terror and dismay.
And now, on the Jewish sabbath, He has reached
Bethany, the scene of his far-famed miracle. Yet one
manifestation of his Messianic character, one hour of
kingly glory shall be his, before the day of his deep
humiliation. Often with a few friends had He descended
the Mount of Olives and entered Jerusalem as the son
of the Nazarene carpenter. Now, as on this day, shall
THE CHRIST OF PROPHECY.
He enter the sinful city and weep over its impcnJiii^
doom, as the Son of David, the expected Christ, escorted,
saluted, amidst crowds strewing emblematic palm-
branches. He shall enter, but in what guise? Not on
caparisoned steed, as a warrior prepared for battle.
Not in four-horse chariot, as a conqueror celebrating
his triumph. Rut even such as we see Him in the pic-
ture of the prophet Zechariah: 'Rejoice greatly, O
daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem :
behold, thy King cometh unto thee ; he is just and
having salvation; lowly and riding upon an ass, and
upon a colt the foal of an ass.'
But not solely for the purpose of fulfilling prophecy
do we deem that Jesus thus publicly entered Jerusalem
on the day of Palms. Other lessons also He may then
have been teaching, more in number perhaps, and some
of deeper import, than our poor thought is able to
exhaust. Among them we can hardly err if we in-
clude the light which the narrative throws upon the
vanity of popular applause, and upon the frequent
blindness and shallowness of what is boastfully called
public opinion. Five days later the same Jesus was
led forth before the multitude, a prisoner condemned
by the Sanhedrim and in custody of the Roman Pro-
curator, Amidst the vast crowd of Jews, who, replying
to Pilate's question, * Shall I crucify your King?' yelled
fiercely, 'Crucify him,' can we doubt that many were
present who on the day of Palms had swelled the shout
' Hosanna to the Son of David'.' Some indeed might be
suborned agents of the Scribes and Pharisees ; but more.
234 SERMON XVII.
we suspect, were dupes of their own disappointment,
who having sought in Jesus an insurrectionary chief,
now repudiated Him as a broken reed, a defeated and
useless charlatan.
The events and characters of Holy Week teach
lessons for all times and all places: for us and for our
times as much as for any other. From the Sanhedrim
we learn the wickedness of party spirit ; from Pilate
the wickedness induced by fear of the world ; from the
multitude we receive the warning now stated.
The mammon-worshippers in the world around us
have a current and vicious proverb : ' Nothing succeeds
like success,' which necessarily implies its converse,
' Nothing fails like failure.' To the Jewish malcontents
who thronged Pilate's prastorium on the Friday, Jesus
of Nazareth seemed indeed to have failed utterly ; to be
crushed by the shame and ruin of the impending cross.
Therefore they yelled fiercely against Him ; therefore,
when asked by Pilate, 'Whom shall I release unto you?'
they spat their venom against Jesus, crying, *Not this
man, but Barabbas.'
Brethren, ere we pass on, let us ask ourselves,
whether from the Cross of that Redeemer, whose name
we bear, we have learnt the contrary lesson, even the
dignity, the grandeur, the victory, the triumph of godly
suffering ? Do we, from principle and habit, take up our
cross, and follow Him whithersoever He points the
way, to whatsoever earthly fate ?
But leaving for other preachers the throng of events
in this week, until on Holy Thursday the Christian
THE CHRIST OF PROPHECY .15
Church was first founded by the institution of the per-
petual Conusttnioa of the Founder's Body and Blood (a
foundation completed after his resurrection by the ntis*
sion of his apostles to teach and baptixe in every nation)
—leaving the scenes of that awiul drama which ensued,
from the Agony in the garden and the Redemption
finished on Calvary, even to the hour when the mysterious
daricness of the Saviour's tomb was scattered by the
glorious sun of Easter, and Death and Hell resigned
their mightier prey- w e pass on to the scene from which
my text is taken. That scene occurs on the afternoon
of Easter Sunday : and the words were spoken by our
Lord after his resurrection to the two disciples whom
He joined as they were walking to Emmaus.
These disciples had seen the wonderful miracles
which Jesus wrought during his lifetime, and, like
Nicodcmus, they knew that he was a Teacher come
from God ; seeing that no man could do the miracles
which He did except God were with him. This know-
ledge and persuasioQ doubtless they still retained. But
their hopes and their belief respecting the person of
Jesus had gone much farther than this. To use their
own words, they trusted it had been He which should
have redeemed Israel; they had thought that Jesus was
the Christ or Messiah, the great subject of prophecy,
the promised Seed of the woman, the desire of all
nations. This trust had now failed them, and the reason
was, that they had not rightly understood the prophecies
and types of Messiah. They had not been prepared
by these, as they might have been, to expect that the
236 SERMON XVI I.
Christ would undergo the sufferings which they had
recently witnessed in the case of Jesus of Nazareth.
Nor even after the event did they recognize, as they
ought to have done, the fulfilment of what the Prophets
had spoken. Accordingly, while they still knew, from
his miracles, that Jesus had been a teacher come from
God, they had ceased to regard Him as the Christ of
prophecy. This drew from our blessed Lord, who was
as yet unknown to them, the reproving words of the
text, ' O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets have spoken ! ought not the Christ to have
suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?'
A slight paraphrase may avail to place in clearer
and stronger light these momentous words of our Lord,
to which our current version hardly does justice. He
says : ' O ye whose understandings are not yet opened,
whose hearts are not yet quickened enough, to have faith
in all the sayings which the prophets spake : was it
not necessary to the fulfilment of those sayings that
the Messiah should suffer these things, which Jesus of
Nazareth has now suffered, and then, not till then,
should enter into his glory?'
After this appeal (the Evangelist goes on to say),
'beginning at Moses and all the prophets' (that is,
from the writings of all the prophets from Moses down-
wards) He expounded unto them in all the scriptures
the things concerning Himself.'
The things which our Lord taught to his disciples
He would have his ministers preach to their congrega-
tions in all time to come. And although from a pulpit
THE CHRIST OF PROPHECY
like this his minister is addressing mmny whose under-
standings have been opened to know, and whose hearts
are quick to feci, the things cooceming Hun, yet it is
good for the wisest and the best to review their know-
Iodide from time to time, and to revive their Christian
tcclings continually.
Let us then now with humble and uplifted thoughts
pray that our divine Redeemer win be pleased to open
our understandings wider still, and quicken our hearts
yet more vividly by his Holy Spirit, while we strive to
recall some of the testimonies which God has given
to us in all his Scriptures by the inspired voices of his
prophets, by the ordinances of his law, and by t>pical
prefigurations, that the Christ was to suffer and die;
and that the very kind of his sufferings, and the very
manner of his death, were not unannounced, but, as
they were certainly foreknown by Him who knoweth
the end from the beginning, so were they also foretold
in the writings of the first covenant.
I. The prophecies which represent Messiah under
the general character of a sufferer are too numerous
for citation, and most of them too well known to render
citation necessary.
How it was declared seven hundred years before
Jesus was bom, that Messias should be 'a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief,' that He should be
' stricken, smitten of God and afflicted,' all will recol-
lect- And to add one t)-pical person as predictive of
the same sufferings, thus verbally foretold, you know
how many are the afflictions of which David complains,
238 SERMON XVII.
in words far more closely applicable to the lot of Christ
than to his own ; how he speaks of himself as ' grieved
because of the transgressors, because they kept not
God's law ;' how as the type of Christ he said, ' The
zeal of thine house hath eaten me up;' and again,
' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? '
But further, that the sufferings of the Christ were not
to fall short of death, is a fact everywhere recognised
in the Old Testament, more especially in the whole
series of Levitical sacrifices, which in various ways pre-
figured the offices of Christ and the benefits which we
receive thereby : everywhere with this one circumstance
strongly marked, that those his offices were to be ful-
filled at the expense of his life, and that these our
benefits were to be purchased by his blood.
But in order that the purpose and end of prophecy
might be answered, God did not declare, in such terms
as might be clearly understood before the event, how
Messiah should be cut off. And we can hardly doubt
that the Priests would have allowed Jesus to live, or
would have contrived for Him another manner of death,
rather than have afforded such full evidence of the truth
of his claim, by the very indignities with which they
loaded Him and in the accursed death which they pre-
pared for Him.
It was necessary therefore that the prophecies respect-
ing Christ's death should be equally obscure before, and
plain after, the event ; that they should be such as could
be explained afterwards of no other manner of execution,
and of no other person who suffered the same sentence,
THE CHRIST OF PROPHECY . v)
except the Christ, yet that beforehand they should be
so announced as not to shew themselves evidently de-
scriptive oiir sudi a manner of execution. And in accord-
ance with these requirements, while nothing can be more
remote in the form of description, nothing can more
truly describe or more fiiUy distinguish the manner of
Christ's death— both in its great features and in its minor
incidents, both where it resembled and where it differed
from the death of others condemned to the some suffer-
ings — than those t)'pes and predictions which we now refer
with full assurance to the Crucifixion of Jesus the Son of
the Virgin Mary.
II. If it was prophesied by Isaiah that the Christ
should 'be taken from prison and from judgment,' we
know that Jesus was apprehended like a thief and suf-
fered by a judicial sentence.
If it was said by a type of Messiah 'False witnesses
did rise up, they laid to my charge things that I knew
not' — so also 'many bare false witness against Jesus, but
their witness agreed not together.'
If it was foretold of the Christ, that 'as a sheep before
her shearers is dimib, so he opened not his mouth,' — we
know that ' when Jesus was accused of the Chief Priests
and Elders he answered nothing,' and again before Pilate
'he answered him to never a word, insomuch that the
Governor marvelled greatly.'
Had it been declared that Messiah was 'just' and
•had done no violence'? His very judge said of Jesus,
'What evil hath he done?' *I find no fault in him.'
Moreover, to one only kind of death, out of all those
240 SERMON XVII.
that had been judicially inflicted in any nation, could the
predictive allusions of Christ's death refer ; they all point
to crucifixion, and by crucifixion Jesus suffered.
Scourging was a part of the punishment which those
underwent who were condemned to the cross ; and ac-
cordingly it had been said in the prophets, 'with his
stripes we are healed,' 'I gave my back to the smiters,'
and again, 'the ploughers ploughed upon my back and
made long furrows;' and we read that 'Pilate took Jesus
and scourged him.'
It was customary that he, who was to be suspended on
the tree, himself carried the instrument of his execution ;
and Isaac, that well-known type of Christ, 'bare the wood
for his sacrifice,' thus pointing to crucifixion. And Jesus,
though He did not bear it all the way, yet, as St John
writeth, 'went forth bearing his cross.'
If the cruelty of this method of execution moved com-
passion so general that a cup of bitter anodyne was
usually presented to the sufferer, we find David alluding
to crucifixion, when he says, 'They gave me gall for my
meat, and when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to
drink.' And so in the fulfilment by Jesus, 'they gave him
vinegar to drink mingled with gall.'
If the hands and feet of a crucified person were pierced,
the Psalmist had already said 'They pierced my hands
and my feet.' And Thomas actually thrust his fingers
into the prints of the nails on the body of Jesus.
And once more, as the body thus fastened upon the
tree was lifted up and presented to the gaze of men, so
was the brazen serpent in the wilderness. ^' Moses put it
THE CHRIST OF PROFHEC
upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had
bitten any inan, when he beheld the serpent of brass he
lived.' And in full accordance with this was Jesus lifted
up, to save and ciire us from the deadly poison infused into
us by the bite of the Old Serpent, as He prophesied of
Himself: *As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
rven so must the Son of Man he lifted up, that whosoever
bclieveth in Him should not perish, but ha\-e eternal life.'
III. Thus surely did the ancient types and prophe-
cies point to the crucifixion of Messiah, by mentioning or
.illuding to the circumstances which usuaUy accompany
that punishment ; and as surely were they all made yea
-ind amen in the person of Jesus of Nazareth-
And yet that the Messiah, He whom David called
Lord, should be crucified, and that too in pursuance of a
judicial sentence — how opposite to all preconceived ex-
pectations I For when we look upon Messiah as the Son
of God, and remember the malediction, 'Cursed is ever>-
one that hangeth on a tree,' there seems something in
the sanctity of that person and office incompatible with
such a death, the death of a criminal slave.
And again, that Jesus was thus crucified, and that as
1 convict of juctice, how passing strange! For, when wc
remember the innocency of Jesus, and the oflTcncc laid
to his charge, to which stoning, not crucifixion, was the
punishment awarded by his own nation, and by the very
law which his accusers cited against Him, when they said,
' We have a law, and by that law he ought to die ; ' when
we bear these things in mind, it seems alike improbable,
that Jesus, the innocent and holy, should suffer as a cri-
K. i6
242 SERMON XVIL
minal, and that sentenced as a blasphemer He should be
crucified as a malefactor. To make this possible, a long
course of events had preceded, not indeed in their own
nature what we call miraculous, but which we may cer-
tainly affirm that Omniscience alone could have foreseen.
The sceptre had departed from Judah, and the power of
life and death had been taken from the Jewish tribunals ;
and therefore, as the Jews dared not put in execution their
own sentence against Him for blasphemy, they were
obliged to denounce Jesus to the Roman Procurator as a
rebel; and thus was the Christ, born a Jew after the
flesh, condemned by a Roman law and executed with a
Roman death. How unsearchable are the judgments of
God, and his ways past finding out ! Yet, had not the
understandings of the Jews been blinded by the malice
of their hearts, their own actions and their own words
might have taught them that Jesus was indeed the Christ.
They found themselves forced to have recourse to foreign
legislation ; and they cried out, ' We have no king but
Caesar;' thus bearing witness, by their own deeds and
with their own tongues, to the presence of Messiah. For
had not their own Moses left them this prophetic record,
'The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver
from between his feet, till Shiloh come'?
But thus it ever is, O Lord, that even the wrath of
man is made to praise Thee !
'The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were
gathered together against the Lord, and against his
Christ; for of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom
Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with
THE CHRIST OF PROPHECY. =43
the Gcntilea and the people of Israel, were gathered to-
gether, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel
determined before to be done.*
IV. If time allowed, I might go on to shew that e\'en
those which might be deemed the accidental circum-
stances of the death of Jesus were not so left to the malice
or carelessness oi his executioners, as no longer to be found
strangely obedient to a voice of put ages. Whether his
enemies act before a public tribunal, or in a secret cabal,
whether they use the solemnity of an appointed judge, or
the unseemly violence of a mob, equally do the)' fulfil all
that the prophets have spoken, equally do they give efTect
to the re\-ealed counsel of J ehovah. WTierc they hold thei r
hand, and where they strike, equally are they obedient
in rebellion, equally servants in their licentious freedom.
Whether they observe or whether they forego a custom ;
whether they neglect or whether they insult their victim -.
in all that the Prophets have spoken we find that the
Christ ought to have suffered — was to suffer — these very
things.
Call to mind these particulars, my brethren : the wicked
bargain of the traitor Judas; the thirty pieces o£ silver;
the shame and spitting ; the suffering without the gate ; the
time of death, even that when the Paschal Lamb was
slain; the crucifixion between two thieves; their taunts
and the taunts of the crowd ; the withdrawal of disciples
and friends ; the casting of lots for the raiment of Jesus ;
the piercing of his side, while his legs remained unbroken :
— all these things (you will remember) were foretold in the
prophetic wTitings of the Old Testament Well might
i6 — 2
244 SERMON XVI I.
our blessed Lord reprove the two disciples and say: 'O
ye whose minds and hearts are not yet quickened to be-
lieve all that the Prophets have spoken, ought not the
Christ to have suffered these things?'
V. Such a review of the fulfilment of prophecy in the
sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ is calculated
to impress many great truths on our minds and hearts.
But there are two deductions especially which the writers
of the New Testament delight to draw from it: and
with these let us now content ourselves.
They repeatedly deduce evidences of our holy religion,
and also proofs of the sovereign Providence of God and
the subservience of all human devices to his good will
and pleasure.
They deduce evidences of Christianity. And even such
a concise view of this wide subject as we have now taken
should suffice to constrain us who see the fulfilled prophe-
cies, to exclaim, like the people who saw the miracles
which Jesus did: 'This is of a truth that Prophet that
should come into the world.' But while we imitate them
in making this good confession, let us see to it that we do
not imitate their instability. We must hold fast the pro-
fession of our faith without wavering, being grounded and
settled in the truth. And in order to this we must search
the Scriptures, to see whether these things be so, and to
be able to give a reason to ourselves and others of the
hope that is in us. And above all we must remember
that more is necessary than mere intellectual research ;
though that also is required of us in due proportion and
according to our measure. For in matters of religion the
THE CHRIST OF PROPHECY. 24S
h«an is even more co ao m ed than the underttanding :
moral aptitude is even more ewential than intelkctual
perception. It is with the heart that man bdieveth unto
ii;hteoatness, and spiritual thii^ must be spiritually
discerned. Accordingly it is only the pure in heart to
whom God reveals— we might almost say can reveal—
Himsel£ The secret of the Lord is with them that fear
Him, and He will shew them his coveiuuiL It is he
that doeth the will, to whom it is promised that he shall
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.
And lastly, we may learn finom this subject how important
It is that we should submit oursdves wholly to God's most
holy will and pleasure, both actively and passively. God
not only works ever by means, but turns evcr>- thing and
every person to account in the course of his Providence.
But then, though all are alike subservient, so far as his
purpose and glory are concerned, how unlike their subser-
vience in respect of their own will and their own happiness I
How different in their subordination to the divine plan for
the salvation of a lost world, were the traitor Judas, the
cowardly Pilate, the malicious Priests, the violent and
inconstant Jews, on the one hand — and on the other the
little band of disciples, going about through evil report
and through good, unfurling everywhere the banner of
the Cross.
The wonderful arrangement and stability of Jehovah's
purposes, with the perfect subordination of every thing,
rational and irrational, good and bad, designedly and unde-
signedly obedient, are thus exemplified most marvellously
in the death of Jesus. But they are not less really, though
246 SERMON XVII.
less visibly true, in every passing event. What a noble
foundation is this for implicit reliance on the governing
and protecting care of the Almighty ! Men of all kinds,
good and bad, are busily engaged upon the surface of the
tide of affairs, moving about like barks that skim the
bosom of the deep : but the Providence of God is below,
like those mighty undercurrents of the ocean which perform
his behests in the physical world with an energy, noiseless
indeed and to us obscure, but constant as the course of
ages, and more stable than the solid bars of the earth
through which they sweep. All we have to do is, to love
God, and surrender ourselves unreservedly to his will,
and then all things shall work together for our good, and
shall ultimately perform even our own pleasure.
If our heart be right with God ; if we continue in
the faith, and constantly endeavour, in matters of prac-
tice as well as of belief, to learn the will of God, and
to do it; then have we as sure a confidence that no
machinations of men or of spirits can prevail against us,
as we have that God's purpose shall stand in any the most
important matter. We know that heaven and earth, and
the powers of darkness themselves, shall finally achieve
that, and that alone, which is agreeable to the counsels
and designs of an all-powerful, all-gracious, and all-wise
God.
APPENDIX I.
PSALMS AND HYMNS
TRANSLATED AND ORIGINAL.
PSALMS AND HYMNS.
C^ he mern/mt mnto us. P< Kvii
O GRANT US, God of ImT,
the blessings of thy grace ;
reveal to us firom heaven above
the brightness of thy face ;
so shall thy way on earth be known,
thy mercy to the nations shown.
Thee let the people praise ;
all people unto Thee
sing praise, o God ; the kingdoms raise '
a shout of holy glee :
for Thou shalt judge mankind aright,
a ruling and a guiding Light
Thee for thy bounteous hand
let all the people bless,
o God, who givest to the land
its teeming fruitfiilness.
still may thy favour on us rest,
and earth in fearing God be blest.
Love is the fulfilling of the Law. Rom. xiii.
Worship God, and Him alone,
to his Name be reverence shown :
pious hearts •will soar above ;
piety is bom of Love,
piety without a flaw ;
Love it is fulfils the Law.
2SO PSALMS AND HYMNS
unto parents honour show,
and be good to all below :
kindly hearts are dear above ;
kindliness is born of Love,
kindliness without a flaw :
Love it is fulfils the Law.
keep thy hands from bloodshed free,
let thy tongue from slander flee :
gentle hearts repose above;
gentleness is born of Love,
gentleness without a flaw :
Love it is fulfils the Law.
covet not thy neighbour's wife,
dearest treasure of his life :
pure hearts see their God above ;
purity is bom of Love,
purity without a flaw :
Love it is fulfils the Law.
covet not thy neighbour's wealth ;
meek content is joy and health:
lowly hearts shall reign above ;
lowliness is bom of Love,
lowliness without a flaw :
Love it is fulfils the Law.
God is Love : and He hath given
Faith and Hope as guides to heaven :
Faith and Hope shall cease above ;
life itself will then be Love,
endless life without a flaw,
Love the one eternal Law.
TRANSLATED AND ORIGIN AL.
TkiU yt may mhtmmd in hop*. Rom. xv.
Hope, Christian soul; in every stafe
of this thine earthly pilgrimage
let heavenly joy thy thoughts engage :
abound in hope.
hopet though thy lot be want and woe,
though hate's rude storms against thee blow;
thy Saviour's lot was such below :
abound in hope.
hope, for to them that meekly bear
his cross, he gives his crown to wear;
abasement here is glory there:
abound in hope.
hope ; though thy dear ones round thee die,
behold, with faith's illumined eye,
their blissful home be>-ond the sky :
abound in hope.
hope ; for upon that happy shore
sorrow and sighing will be o'er,
and saints shall meet to part no more :
abound in hope.
hope through the watches of the night ;
hope till the morrow bring thee light ;
hope till thy faith be lost in sight :
abound in hope-
252 PSALMS AND HYMNS
Behold, I come quickly. Rev. xxii.
Saviour of the nations, come ;
leave for us thy glorious home :
glad hosannas we will sing,
greeting Thee, our heavenly King.
come, Lord Jesu, take thy rest
in the convert sinner's breast ;
make the quickened heart thy throne.
Son of God, the Virgin's Son.
welcome to this vale of tears,
ripeness of the perfect years,
born as man with men to dwell,
come, our true Immanuel.
God in man, incarnate God,
sinless Child of flesh and blood,
man in God, thy brethren we,
raise us up to God in Thee.
Behold, thy King cometh unto thee. Zech. ix.
ZiON, at thy shining gates,
lo, the King of Glory waits :
haste thy Monarch's pomp to greet,
strew thy palms before his feet.
Christ, for Thee their triple light
faith and hope and love unite :
this the beacon we display
to proclaim thine Advent-day.
TRANSLATED AND ORIGINAL.
come, and give vs peace within ;
loose us from the bands of sin :
give us grace thy yoke to wear,
give us strength thy cross to bear.
make us thine in deed and word,
thine in heart and life, o Lord:
plant in us thy lowly mind,
keep us faithful, loving, kind.
so, when Thou shalt come again,
judge of angels and of noen,
we with all thy saints shall sing
hallelujahs to our King.
AMJt vitk MSf ftfr it is tcmnLfd evening. Luke kxiv
Ah Jesu Christ, with us abide,
for now, behold, 'tis e\entide :
and bring, to cheer us through the night,
thy Word, our true and only light
in tiir.es of trial and distress
preserve our truth and stedfastness,
and pure unto the end, o Lord,
vouchsafe thy Sacraments and Word.
o Jesu Christ, thy Church sustain ;
our hearts are wavering, cold, and vain ;
then let thy Word be strong and clear
to silence doubt and banish fear.
the days are evil : all around
strife, errors, blasphemies abound,
and secret slander's withering eye,
and soft-tongued, sleek hypocrisy.
254 PSALMS AND HYMNS
from these and all of God abhorr'd,
o Christ, protect us by thy Word ;
increase our faith and hope and love,
and bring us to thy fold above.
Watch ye therefore. Matt. xxv. .
While the careless world is sleeping,
blest the servants who are keeping
watch, according to his Word,
for the coming of their Lord.
at his table He will place them,
with his royal banquet grace them,
banquet that shall never cloy,
bread of life and wine of joy.
heard ye not your Master's warning?
He will come before the morning,
unexpected, undescried ;
watch ye for Him open-eyed.
teach us so to watch, Lord Jesus ;
from the sleep of sin release us ;
swift to hear Thee let us be,
meet to enter in with Thee.
In Hitn was Life, and the Life was the Light of men.
I John i.
O JESU, Light of heavenly day,
the shades of darkness chase away ;
lead back the feet, that wildered roam,
to thy true fold, their happy home.
JA\L\SJL4r£D AA'D ORIGLXAL. 255
«> let the deaf thy trumpet hear,
the dumb proclaim thy coming near ;
to icy breasts thy warmth impart,
and melt the sinner's flinty heart
o Lordf give sight unto the blind ;
inform the rude and thoughtless mind ;
the scattered tribes recall to Thee ;
the H-avering souls from doubt set free.
to all the hope of glory seal,
that all, as one, thy truths may feel,
all keep one heaven-directed road,
one faith, one Saviour, amd one God.
so they who sing thy praise above
shall knit with us the bands of love,
and Thee for all thy grace adore
in heaven and earth for evermore.
Give the King thy Judgments^ o God. Ps. Ixxii.
O Cod, whose gifts alone can bless,
thy judgments let the King possess ;
give the King's Son thy righteousness.
his word shall judge thy people well,
his doom the sorrows shall dispel
of such as mourn in IsraeL
rest for the people shall be shed
from ever>' mountain's shining head,
and o'er the hills by truth be spread.
for He shall end the poor man's woes,
win for the sons of want repose,
and crush the malice of their foes.
2S6 PSALMS AND HYMNS
He shall come down upon the plain,
as on the mown grass drops the rain,
as showers that water herb and grain.
the just shall flourish in his day,
and peace shall rule with ample sway,
even till the moon shall fade away.
before his everlasting throne
praise God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Spirit, Three in One.
Of such is the kingdom of Cod. Mark x.
O HIGHEST Love, in lowliest guise
to this our fallen world displayed,
may I discern with cleansed eyes
the Godhead in our 'flesh arrayed!
o Love, the very Word of God,
content an infant shape to wear,
and in a stable's mean abode
to shield Thee from the wintry air ;
o Babe divine, before thy face
be mine to bow the thankful knee,
and by thy soul-converting grace
become myself a child in Thee !
no more a servant, may I feel
my heart thy Spirit's blest abode,
and crying 'Abba, Father,' kneel
a son through Thee, an heir of God.
77f.<4iV.> La 1 1. iJ A .\ I > L'KiLii.\ A L. 357
/ krimg ypu tidings tf gremt joy^ which shtUl be to all
Pt«pU. Luke it.
All my heart with joy is springing,
while in air ever)'wherc
angel choirs are singing,
hark, I hear their joyful ditty :
'Christ,' they say, 'cante to-day,
bom in David's city.*
to this lower world descendeth
from above He whose love
all our sorrows endeth:
He, who breath and being gave us,
quits the skies, lives and dies
in our flesh to save us :
Christ, our Lamb so meek and loving,
dries our tears, calms our fears,
all our sins removing:
Christ our Lamb, who suffers for us.
He can quell death and hell,
and to peace restore us.
hope He brings and consolation,
from all woes sweet repose,
strength against temptation :
for the ills that men inherit
Christ can feel, Christ will heal
every wQunded spirit,
dear Redeemer, knit Thee to us ;
quelling sin, reign within ;
with thy grace renew us :
let us here, on Thee depending,
in Thee die, with Thee fly
to the bliss imending.
17
PSALMS AND HYMNS
Ami she brought forth her first-born Son, and 7u rap-
ped Hint in swaddling-clothes, and laid Him in a
manger. Luke ii.
O MIRACLE of mighty love !
the Lord of countless hosts above
a naked infant lieth :
for us his birth,
for us on earth
He- dwelleth, suffereth, dieth.
o Christ, thy glorious poverty
makes all thy people rich in Thee :
to wealth untold it leads them :
with heavenly wine
and bread divine
thy thirst and hunger feeds them.
ye saints on earth, no more be sad :
this holy Babe will make you glad
with joy that knows no measure :
his life above
is peace and love,
and pure unfading pleasure.
then let your hearts be bold and strong
to echo forth the a:ngel song :— *•
'glory to God be given ;
on earth be peace,
nor ever cease
goodwill to men from heaven.'
Th'.i,\.^j,A//.JJ ASD OR/G/yAL. 259
Tk* fftvermmtmt skmil ki »/»« his tk0mltlrr I<
To us this day is born % Child
of a \'irgin mother mild :
to us this day a Son is given,
our Redeemer sent from heaven.
the government of all things made
on his shoulder shall be laid :
He shall be called the Wonderful,
Lord of boundless endless rule.
the name of Counsellor He bears,
who the Father's counsel shares.
He is the mighty God indeed,
strong to help in all our need.
an everlasting Father, He
loves us truly, tenderly ;
the Prince of peace, by whom is given
peace of mind and peace with heaven.
then praise we, with the heav'nly host,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
abiding through eternity,
Three in One and One in Three.
As for thy years, they endure throughout all generations.
Ps. ciL
By Thee, o God, arose the earth,
its deep foundations Thou hast laid ;
from Thee the heavens derived their birth,
thy skilj their mighty fabric made.
17-2
26o PSALMS AND HYMNS
they wane, they perish ; Thou at rest
abidest ever underanged ;
they fade hke raiment ; as a vest
Thou changest them, and they are changed;
but Thou, the unchanging, Thou art He
whose years run on their endless race :
thy faithful seed shall dwell with Thee,
thy saints shall stand before thy face.
Thee God supreme, the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, we revere ;
the One in Three, the Three in One,
Creator, Saviour, Comforter.
As for man, his days arc as grass. Ps. ciii.
The life of man is like the grass ;
his blooming days, as field-flowers, pass :
the north wind blows ; their pride is o'er ;
the place that knew them knows no more.
but still the Lord from age to age
sustains his holy heritage :
his happy saints behold his grace,
his truth their children's latest race,
who keep his righteous judgments still,
and live obedient to his will.
the Lord in heaven hath set his throne ;
He rules o'er all, supreme, alone.
o ye his angels, praise the Lord,
ye warriors strong, who do his word :
all ye who listen to his voice,
and in his glorious works rejoice.
TRANSLATED AND ORIGINAL. 26t
praise ye the Lord, his hosts of lit;ht,
who serve Him in the heavenly height:
praise ye the Lord, where'er ye roll,
bright wanderers, praise the Lord, my souL
fj/rdy maJtf mu U kntm mine end, Ps. xxxix.
Lord, let me know mine end,
teach mc the measure of my days :
the life on earth I spend,
how soon its little light decays.
a cypher arc my times with Thee,
for man is nought but vanity.
man is a shade, no more ;
he is disquieted in vain ;
he heaps his wealthy store,
nor knoweth whose shall be the gain,
what trust I then ? — thy gracious Word,
release me from my sins, o Lord.
lest fools deride, I stand
silent and calm beneath thy blow :
yet hold thy smiting hand :
for, when Thou chastenest sin with woe,
our joyless life is worn away,
and men, as by the moth, decay.
Lord, hearken to my prayer,
give ear unto my weeping cry;
even as my fathers were,
a pilgrim in the world am L
then frown no more, but cheer and bless
my parting from this wilderness.
262 rSALMS AND HYMNS
The smoke asccndeth for ever and ever. Rev. xiv.
Ah, dying sinner, think on death,
that last dark hour of failing breath ;
repent, amend, and ready be
to face the great eternity.
though all the world were now thine own.
its amplest wealth, its brightest crown,
crown, wealth, and life must quickly flee :
what then remains? eternity.
hark, the last trumpet smites thine car :
'awake, arise: the Judge is near:'
o tremble, sinner ; for to thee
his doom will stamp eternity.
be timely wise : in Christ's true faith
abide, and shun the second death ;
so shall thy soul from guilt be free,
and live throughout eternity.
what eye can tell the starry train,
the drops that fill the watery main ?
yet these have tale, the stars, the sea :
thy years have none, eternity.
bethink thee, sinner, o'er and o'er,
how dread a word is 'evermore':
time hath an end ; but who shall see
the ending of eternity?
TRAXSLATED AND ORIGLSAL.
AriUt shinty far tky liglU is (cmt. Isai. Ix.
Awake ; new H){ht upon thee dawns ;
delay, nay soul, no more:
the star of morning bkU thee rise
amd opt the lingering door.
it calls thee to another land,
to joys untold, unpriced ;
it leads thee to a Babe divine,
thy Saviour, Jesus Christ.
He is the branch of Jesse's stem,
the rose of Sharon's mead;
He is the very Lamb of God,
and David's royal seed.
when thou hast found that holy Babe,
in faith before Him fall ;
to Him thy treasures yield, to Him
thy love, thy life, thy alL
for He will speed thee on, fulfill'd
with his refreshing grace,
to find a better fatherland,
a happier dwelling-place.
He points to seats beyond the skies,
the mansions of the blest,
where tyrants persecute no more,
and holy pilgrims resL
264 PSALMS AND HYMNS
They presented unto Him gifts, gold, and frankincense,
and myrrh. Matt, ii,
O BLESSED Babe divine,
Avhat offerings shall we give Thee?
the gold of faith be thine :
for we will still believe Thee,
o fill our eager hearts
with thy refreshing grace,
and make them fit to be
thy chosen dwelling- place.
let frankincense be there,
pure sighs of contrite sadness,
that rise to God in prayer
for pardon, peace, and gladness,
o make them purer yet,
and send thy Spirit down
the altar of our hearts
with holy fire to crown.
and myrrh too we prepare,
our bitter tribulation,
such grief as Thou didst bear
for us and our salvation,
be strength and courage ours
in toil and tears and pain
with Thee to wear the yoke,
the cross with Thee sustain.
lo, all of ours is thine,
each hope and thought and feeling :
come, blessed Babe divine,
Thyself in us revealing.
to Thee, mnd God in Thcc,
our dearest wishes tend :
o make ua thine and his
through ages without end.
Iff tnt MMV tJkdm C0i$ftter»n tkrongk Christ that
itroigtktnttk ms. Rom. viii.
Labour ever, late and early,
thou that strivest for the crown:
hard the Christian battle, dearly
wins the warrior his renown,
none but he, the faithful-hearted,
victor from the (icid hath parted ;
none but he whose love is strong
sings at last the triumph-song.
thus, o Christ, thy martyrs holy
fought the fight in ancient time:
dire and dark and melancholy
went those years of blood and crime :
from the rage of pagan error,
from the trial and the terror
Thou hast freed us : and no more
reeks the soil with Christian gore.
Thou hast conquered. Lord of glory :
evil powers were foiled by Thee ;
Calvarj', with its awful story,
tells thy crowning victory-,
death by dying was defeated,
life in losing life completed,
when the Sufferer bowed his head,
saying, ' It is finished.'
266 PSALMS AND HYMNS
o mysterious scene ! o wonder
high above our mortal ken !
lost in love and awe we ponder
Him — the Man who died for men,
Him who drained the cup of anguish
not in rocky tomb to languish,
but on angel wings to rise
to his triumph in the skies.
what are human toil and sadness
to that hour of deadly strife?
what to that eternal gladness
fleeting joys of earthly life ?
live with Him, thyself denying,
die with Him, the cross defying,
rise with Him, and throned on high
swell the song of victory.
W/io shall separate us from the love of Christ ?
Rom. viii.
A FAITHFUL friend awaits in heaven
his people friendless and forlorn,
who with a sinful world have striven,
and bear, like Him, its cruel scorn.
on Jesus all their hopes depend ;
for Jesus is a faithful friend.
like to a reed the world is shaken,
our rock abides for ever fast :
forgotten here, opprest, mistaken,
we find Him stedfast to the last,
to Jesus all our longings tend,
for Jesus is a faithful friend.
rn. I y SLATED and oriuj.w.u
like to a vane, the world ttiU follows
the shifting gales of wealth and power ;
and worldly friends, as sumnoer swallows,
forsake us in our darkest hour.
but Jesus loves us to the end,
for Jesus is a iaithful friend.
for us He bore reproach and anguish,
for us He died upon the tree:
He left us not in bonds to languish,
but paid our debt and set us free.
in Jesus truth and mercy blend,
for Jesus is a faithful friend.
then keep thy pomp and idle pleasure,
thy friends, a light and fickle brood :
in thee, false world, is not our treasure;
we change thee for a nobler good :
to God in Jesus we ascend,
our faithful, our eternal friend.
Tkey ceased, and tJure was a calm. Luke viii.
In sorrow's darkest, dreadest hour,
when conscience speaks ^^nth thrilling power,
when earthly counsel profits nought,
and human aid is vainly sought,
what comfort else can life afford,
but, with the saints who love the Lord,
to fall before our Saviour's face,
and humbly seek his pardoning grace;
to lift the tearful, trembling eye
to God's great mercy-seat on high,
in hope that whispered words of peace
may come and bid our terrors cease :
j68 PSALMS AND HYMNS
that He, by whose o'ermastering will
waves sank to sleep, and winds were still,
may soothe the conflict of the breast,
and lull tempestuous woes to rest?
o Lord, amid the roaring sea
our only trust we place in Thee :
from out the depths to Thee we call ;
our fears are great, our strength is small,
thy constant love, thy tender care,
alone can save us from despair :
o let us hear through storm and shade
thy voice : * 'Tis I ; be not afraid.'
/ will put a new spirit within you. Ezek. xi.
Sin-laden, weary, lost, I flee.
Saviour of sinners, unto Thee,
whose death upon the dismal tree
won life for dying men :
guilt half-repented and abhorr'd,
self half-subdued I bring, o Lord,
a half-roused heart : — speak Thou the word,
and I shall live again.
o, by thy warning Spirit show
the pains and terrors here below,
and all the pangs of future woe,
that wait the unforgiven ;
so shall I kneel, and weep, and pray,
and use salvation's fleeting day
to find by Thee, the living Way,
forgiveness, peace, and heaven.
TAfT* is no other God that can dttiver after this sort,
Dan. iii.
Who trusts in God a strong abode
in heaven and earth possesses ;
who looks in love to Christ above,
no fear his heart oppresses,
in only Thee, dear Lord, we see
sweet hope and consolation,
our shield from foes, our balm for woes,
our great and sure salvation.
though Satan's wrath beset our path,
and worldly scorn assail us,
while Thou art near we shall not fear,
our faith will never fail us.
thy rod and staff shall keep us safe
and guide our steps for ever;
nor shade of death nor hell beneath
our souls from Thee shall sever.
in all the strife of mortal life
our feet shall stand securely ;
temptation's hour shall lose its power,
for Thou wilt guard us surely,
o God, renew with heavenly dew
our body, soul and spirit,
until we stand at thy right hand
by Jesu's saving merit.
So run that ye may obtain, i Cor. ix.
Onward, holy champion,
run the Christian race ;
leave the world behind thee,
heavenward set thy face;
270 PSALMS AND HYMNS
fresh from cleansing water,
bright with grace divine,
trained with wholesome nurture,
heavenly bread and wine.
onward, holy champion,
throw all weight aside,
all distracting pleasure,
all encumbering pride :
shun the subtle pitfalls
of the tempter's spite;
let not smiles allure thee,
- let not frowns affright.
onward, holy champion ;
angels gazing down
watch thy brave endeavour,
guard thy future crown.
Christ, thy gracious Saviour,
cheers thy striving soul,
and thy prize awaits thee
at the heavenly goal.
My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death.
Mark xiv.
In all temptation let us turn,
dear Saviour, unto Thee,
and by the light of faith discern
thy sad Gethsemane.
the big cold drops upon thy brow,
thine agony, thy prayer,
o keep them in our hearts, that Thou
may'st reign for ever there.
TRANSLATED AND ORIGIN AU ii\
the sweet remembrance of that lo\'e
in every tryiiif hour
send, like an angel from above,
to quell the tempter's power.
so, Saviour, shall our hearts be true
in life and death to Thee,
enabled by thy grace to view
thy sad Gethsemane:
// is JiHuk(d, Joh. xix.
TlS finishM: o glorious word
last uttered by the dying Lord!
remember to thy final hour,
my ransomed soul, that word of power :
the Man who died to save thee said
upon his Cross, "tis finished.'
'tis finish6d: upon that Tree
the Law, the Prophecies we see
in Jesu's bleeding form fulfilled,
e'en as of old Jehovah willed:
for this the Lord of glory bled,
that all might know 'tis finishM.
'tis finish&d : the creature owed
a debt he ne'er could pay to God :
our sins had eam'd the wrath of heaven :
that debt is paid, those sins forgiven ;
the Son hath suffered in our stead,
and we are freed: 'tis finished.
PSALMS AND HYMNS
'tis finished: remains there aught
for us to finish? idle thought!
He did that work alone, yet He
bestows on all its blessings free,
who with their Lord to sin are dead
and live to God: 'tis finishM.
'tis finished: the mighty Son
o'er death and hell the conquest won;
'for me the anguish,' man may cry,
* for me the shame of Calvary :
for me that precious blood was shed,
and, come what will, 'tis finished.'
'tis finished: but ne'er forget
thou owest, o my soul, a debt
of faith and love to Him who gave
his life to teach, his death to save:
abide in Him, whose fainting Head
breathed that great word, ''tis finished.'
Jesus Christ, and Him criicijied. i Cor. ii.
Ask ye what great thing I know
that delights and stirs me so?
what the high reward I win,
whose the Name I glory in?
Jesus Christ the crucified.
what is faith's foundation strong?
what awakes my heart to song?
He who bore my sinful load,
purchased for me peace with God,
Jesus Christ the crucified.
TRAySLATED 4 V/> nk^r.:/\'U.. 273
who is He that maKcs mc wise
to discern where duly lies?
who is He that makes me true
duty, when disccrn'd, to do?
jesus Christ the crucified.
who defeats my fiercest foes?
who consoles my saddest woes?
who revives my fainting heart,
healing all its hidden smart?
Jesus Christ the crucified.
who is life in life to me?
who the death of death will be?
who will place me on his right
with the countless hosts of light?
Jesus Christ the crucified.
this is that great thing I know:
this delights and stirs me so:
faith in Him who died to save,
Him who triumphed o'er the grave,
Jesus Christ the crucified.
He endured the cross. Heb. xii.
We bless Thee, Jesus Christ our Lord ;
for ever be thy name adored:
for Thou, the sinless One, hast died,
that sinners might be justified.
o very Man, and very God,
redeem us with thy precious blood ;
from death eternal set us free,
and make us one with God in Thee.
18
274 PSALMS AND HYMNS
from sin and shame defend us still,
and work in us thy stedfast will,
the cross with patience to sustain
and bravely bear its utmost pain.
in Thee we trust, in Thee alone;
for Thou forsakest not thine own :
to all the meek thy strength is given,
who by thy Cross ascend to heaven.
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
Phil. ii.
Lord, let the love in us abound,
which in Christ Jesus once was found :
create in us our Saviour's mind,
unselfish, sympathetic, kind.
He in the form of God abode,
yet that bright fellowship of God
He held not with a miser's heart,
but laid his glorious state apart.
He stooped to wear a servant's mien,
and, as a man in fashion seen,
Himself He showed amidst mankind
the pattern of a lowly mind :
obedient to his Father's will,
He meekly bore all human iU,
a life in sad privation past,
and death, that death the cross, at last.
for this by God exalted high,
He reigns with power beyond the sky;
for this the Father bids Him claim
a Name surpassing every name,
TRANSLATED AND ORIGINAL.
that at the Name of Jesus now
all knees in heaven and earth should bow,
all tongues in God the Father bless
the Christy the Lord of righteousness.
Im my fltsk shall I sa Gpd, Job xix.
I KNOW that my Redeemer lives,
in this my faith is fast;
and whatsoe'er against Him strives
will surely fall at last.
He lives, the mighty One, I know,
whose arm o'ercomes the strongest foe,
who death and hell has vanquished.
He lives, He lives; though dust shall lie
upon my mouldering head,
yet He will call me, by and by,
to quit my earthy bed ;
and 1 shall waken at his voice,
rise re-embodied, and rejoice
to look on my Redeemer.
His promise, who hath ne'er deceived,
in life and death 1 trust ;
the Lord in whom I have believed
will raise my sleeping dust:
in this my very flesh that dies
I shall revive, and with these eyes
shall see the God who made me.
myself shall see Him in my flesh,
with all his glory bright ;
his presence shall my heart refresh,
and flU my soul with light.
i8-
276 PSALMS AND HYMNS
myself shall ever on Him gaze,
myself shall ever sound his praise,
myself, and not another.
rise then, my soul, e'en now, and live
in hope's divine abode :
let earth and hell united strive
to tear thee from thy God:
the bier, the coffin let them show,
the grave, the gloom, the worm; — 'I know
that my Redeemer livetb.'
Our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep.
Heb. xiii.
One alone hath power to give
strength upon our earthly way:
One alone can bid us live
in the light of endless day ;
He who, worlds and hearts o'erseeing,
all we do and bear decreeing,
speeds us on our heavenward road, —
Christ our Saviour, Christ our God.
Christ alone, his people's hope,
vanquisher of death and sin,
lends them power with foes to cope,
foes without them and within.
Christ, the shepherd of the weary,
through this life-waste dim and dreary
guides his own with gentle hand
to their long-lost Fatherland,
they, the sheep He tends so well,
drink the fountains of his love,
trusting evermore to dwell
in his peace and joy above.
TRANSLATED AND ORIGINAL, 277
if his blessing here is sweetaeai,
what will be the rich completeness,
when in ne%'er-ending bliss
He is theirs, and they are his?
soldiers, for your Captain fight ;
servants, work your Master's will:
feau* not eviPs hostile might,
He who conquered, conquers stilL
forth to every heathen nation
bear his banner of salvation ;
spread his name, his truth abroad —
Christ your Saviour, Christ your God.
Behold^ his reaoard is with Him. Isai. xl.
Soon will the heavenly Bridegroom come;
ye wedding-guests, draw near,
and slumber not in sin when He,
the Son of God, is here,
with lamps alight and oil in store
let every guest advance,
nor shrink ashamed in trembling awe
from his bright countenance.
come, let us haste to meet our Lord,
and hail Him with delight,
who saved us by his precious blood
and sorrows infinite :
beside Him all the Patriarchs old
and holy Prophets stand,
the glorious Apostolic choir,
the noble Martyr-band.
278 PSALMS AND HYMNS
as brethren dear they welcome us,
and lead us to the throne,
where angels bow their veiled heads
before the Three in One,
where we, with all the saints of Christ,
a white-robed multitude,
shall praise the ascended Lord, who deigns
to wear our flesh and blood.
his gracious hand will ope for us
the gates of Paradise,
and spread the glories of his heaven
before our dazzled eyes:
our lot will be for aye to share
his reign of peace above,
and drink with unexhausted joy
the river of his love.
The earnest of the Spirit. 2 Cor. v.
We pray not. Lord, for worldly good ;
thy Spirit we desire,
whom Thou hast promised to thy Church
to be its Sanctifier.
the light of truth, the peace of God,
our happy portion be,
the wisdom that inspires the heart
with holy trust in Thee,
to love Thee, Lord, is blessedness,
and in thy faith to live
brings sweet repose and truer jay
than aught the world can give.
o Christ, — through thine atoning blood
to feel our sins forgiven,
TRANSLATED AND ORIGIN AI^ 279
to call ourselves the sons of God,
and ransomed heirs of heaven;
to know, while we are pilgrinu here,
our Father reigns on high,
whose love protects us while we live,
and cheers us when we die,
then frees us from our earthly toil
to share his endless rest,
and sing with angels round his throne
the anthem of the blest : —
these are thy Spirit's gifts: o send
that Spirit from above,
to bless us on our heavenward path
with faith and hope and love.
Renrofing of tk* Holy Ghost. Tit iiL
When, o Saviour, shall we be
perfectly renewed in Thee,
poor and vile in our own eyes,
only in thy wisdom wise;
only Thee content to know,
dead to other things below;
only guided by thy light,
only mighty in thy might?
so may we thy Spirit know:
as He listeth let Him blow;
hidden let his pathway be,
so He make us one with Thee;
so He bid our lives express
all thy heights of holiness ;
and our souls as sweetly prove
all thy depths of humble love.
28o PSALMS AND HYMNS .
God over all, blessed for ever. Rom. ix.
Eternal Source of life and light,
all-wise, all-ruling, infinite,
Thee, Father, Son, and Spirit, Thee
we worship, holy Trinity.
ere yet creation peopled space,
ere time began its measured race,
thy uncreated glory shone,
mysterious Essence, Three in One.
the angel hosts were made by Thee,
the heavens and earth by thy decree:
thy conquering might on rebels trod,
and hell receives the foes of God.
the Son to nature's formless night
spake God's strong word, and there was light
the Spirit moved upon the deep,
and worlds their ordered courses keep.
for man thy creature, sinful man,
thy love decreed salvation's plan :
the Father gave the Son to die,
the Holy Ghost to sanctify,
when Christ incarnate deigned to lave
his spotless flesh in Jordan's wave,
the Spirit, as a dove, was shown,
the Father's voice approved his Son.
o Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
thy heralds speed from coast to coast,
all nations telling of thy fame,
baptizing in thy glorious Name.
Christ Jesu's grace, the love of God,
a heart the Spirit's pure abode,
such blessing holy Paul implored :
vouchsafe to us that blessing. Lord.
TRANSLATED AND ORIGINAL. 281
o Son of God, o Soc^ of man,
whose love removed the Father's ban,
the Spirit send, that love to crown,
and seal us evermore thine own.
eternal Source of life and light,
all-wise, all-ruling, infinite.
Thee, Father, Son, and Spirit, Thee
we worship, holy Trinity.
Who is lite unto tkt Lord our Godt Ps. cxiii.
O YE who on his service wait,
praise ye the Lord, for He is great:
praise to his Name be given :
from this time forth for e\'crmore,
from east to west his Name adore,
the Lord of earth and heaven.
above all nations rules on high
our God ; beyond the starry sky
his glory far extendeth :
whom with the Lord will ye compare?
seated in highest heaven, his care
to earthly scenes descendeth.
He hears the needy when they cry:
He lifts the poor from misery
to sit in princely places:
to all who want his mercies come,
and oft He fills the childless home
with children's pleasant faces.
ye desolate, his aid implore :
ye saints of God, his grace adore :
praise to his Name be given :
let earth, let heaven's angelic host
praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
the God of earth and heaven.
282 PSALMS AND HYMNS
His work is worthy to be praised. Ps. cxi.
Praise the Lord: with exultation
shall my heart his praise proclaim,
in the holy congregation
sing thanksgivings to his Name,
great are all his works, and sought
by the saints who love his glory,
musing in their secret thought
how to spread the wondrous story.
God is good: to them that fear Him
tender mercy showing still ;
all the righteous, who revere Him,
feeding with a constant will.
to his saints redemption came,
as his faithful word had spoken ;
holy and revered his Name,
and his covenant stands unbroken.
in the fear of God is grounded
all the wisdom of the wise :
on this rock securely founded
faith believes and hope relies.
Holy Father, praise be thine;
praise, O Son, for thy salvation:
Holy Spirit, Light divine,
sanctify our adoration.
Do all in the name of the Lord yesus. Col. iii.
Hail, thou glorious, thou victorious
heart-enlivening Christmas morn!
angels are singing, heaven is ringing,
'earth be glad, for the Christ is bom.'
TRANSLATED AND ORIGINAL. 283
hail, thou glorious, thou victorious
heart-cnlivcning Easter mom!
Grave, from thy prison Jesus hath risen,
tyrant Death of his sting is shorn.
hail, thou glorious, thou victorious
heart-enlivening Whitsun mom !
'Spirit, be near us, strengthen and cheer us,
leave, o leave not the Church forlorn.
hail, thou glorious, thou victorious
heart -enlivening Sunday mom!
from toil and sadness rising to gladness.
Christians, bless we the Sabbath dawn.
hail, thou glorious, tbou victorious
heart-awakening Judgment mem!
Lamb of God, wake us, to thy joj' take us ;
let our names on thy breast be borne.
Tht Light skitutk in darkness. John i.
Da\'SPRING of eternity,
light of uncreated light,
let us all this morning see
thy pure effluence, full and bright,
scattering with its holy ray
night away.
to our thirsting souls impart
thy sweet matin-dews of love,
breathing into ever)- heart
gentlest influence from above;
and with grace our lives defend
to the end.
284 PSALMS AND HYMNS
shrivel in thy fervid blaze
our cold works of unconcern ;
that with morn's reviving rays
our enkindled hearts may bum,
and, ere death and doom shall be,
live to Thee.
orient splendour of the skies,
grant that on the judgment morn
from the dust our flesh may rise,
and, to nobler being born,
in a higher happier place
run its race.
through these dim and dangerous years
guide us with thy lamp of love ;
lead us from this vale of tears
to thy peaceful realm above,
where in light our souls shall rest
ever blest.
Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. Ps. iv.
For life and light and wants supplied
I thank my God at eventide.
Father of mercies, lend thine ear ;
o shed upon my parents dear
thy choicest blessings from above,
and make me worthy of their love.
on all my friends bestow thy grace,
on all who want, on all our race,
the Church and those who teach therein,
direct and strengthen, souls to win;
and Queen and people ever bless
with health and peace and holiness.
TRANSLATED AND ORIGINAL, 385
may thy good Spirit condescend
to be my comforter and friend :
and still, o Lord^ to me impart
a contrite, pure, and loving heart,
that 1 may lay me down to rest
by Thee protected, pardoned, blest ;
that after my last sleep I may
awake to thine eternal day,
through Jesus Christ, who died to save,
and rose to glory from the grave,
that sinful men might be forgiven,
and reign with Him redeemed in heaven.
Amen.
Mine eyes prevent the night watches. Ps. cxix.
Lord, in whom I live and move,
to thy ever-present love
I commend my weary head :
let thine angels guard my bed;
save me from ensnaring foes:
seal my eyes in sweet repose:
in the morning let me rise
stronger, better, and more wise,
thanks and praise and glory be,
Father, Spirit, Son, to Thee. Amen.
As it began to dawn toward the first day of the week.
MatL xxviiL
Another week is past, and I
am nearer to eternity,
with contrite spirit I confess,
o God, my daily sinfulness,
286 PSALMS AND HYMNS
forgotten duties, wavering will,
unhallowed acts, and thoughts of ill.
in the dear Name of Him who died
for guilty sinners crucified.
Father, thine erring child forgive,
and to thy glory let me live,
prepare my soul, o God, I pray,
to profit by thy sacred day;
calm may I rest and cheerful rise
to seek thy courts with sacrifice.
Amen.
The law of the Lord is an undefiled law, converting the
soul. Ps. xix.
Sweet is thy soul-restoring word,
thy law which makes the simple wise;
heart-soothing are thy statutes, Lord;
thy truth is light unto the eyes;
thy fear abides for ever pure,
thy judgments, true and right, endure.
more precious to the soul they are
than gold that from the furnace gleams;
than honey's sweetness sweeter far,
when newly from the comb it streams.
they duly warn thy servant. Lord;
in keeping them is rich reward.
his errors who can understand?
o cleanse me from my secret sin :
from daring guilt restrain my hand,
nor let presumption reign within,
that, harmless from the great offence,
my feet may walk in innocence.
TKA.\SLATED AMJ UKJ(JL\AL. i^l
o grant that evcr>' spoken word,
and every thought that stirs my mind,
may reach thy mercy- seat, o Lord,
and in thy sight acceptance find^
<) Kock of strength, on whom I rest,
o my Redeemer, ever blest.
S^rve the Lord with gladtuss, ami comt before his
preseHie with a umg. Ps. c
Sing unto the Lord with mirth,
all ye nations of the earth :
serN'C the Lord with holy glee,
shout before Him joyfully.
know, the Lord is God alone;
his hand made us, not our own ;
we, the people of his love,
sheep that in his pasture rove.
in his gates thanksgiving raise,
come into his courts with praise;
own his kindness, tell his fame;
laud and bless his glorious Name.
bless the Lord: for good is He,
merciful eternally;
and his faithfulness secure
shall from age to age endure.
APPENDIX II.
(i). Sermon III. p. 33- ("Childhood.")
' He was constantly to be seen in the many rich art-
galleries of Dresden. Raphael's divine Madonna di San
Sisto was his especial favourite ; he has written some
lines on it that wonderfully characterize the strange,
startled, rapt expression in the eye of the child Jesus.
Sie tragt zur Welt ihn, und er schaut entsetzt
In ihrer Grau'l chaotische Verwirrung,
In ihres Tobens wilde Raserei,
In ihres Treibens nie geheilte Thorheit,
In ihrer Qualen nie gestillten Schmerz;
Entsetzt: doch strahlet Ruh' und Zuversicht
Und Siegesglanz sein Aug', verkiindigend
Schon der Erlosung ewige Gewissheit.'
Schopetihaiier's Life and Philosophy,
by Helen Zimmern.
The foregoing lines may be (inadequately) rendered :
She brings him to the world, and shuddering He
Looks on its blind chaotic wickedness,
The wild infuriation of its rage,
The never-changing folly of its course,
The never-slumbering anguish of its pains : —
APPENDIX. 289
Shuddering — yet repose and confidence
And triumph beaming from his eye proclaim
Already the eternally decreed
Assurance of Redemption.
In the same volume (p. 134) occurs the following passage :
"The Catholic religion is an order to obtain heaven
by begging, because it would be too troublesome to
earn it.'
By 'the Catholic' Schopenhauer meant 'the Roman
Catholic' religion. But his caustic remark deserves the
careful consideration of many who are not within the
pale of the Roman Church.
(2). Sermon VII. p. 103, 1. i.
C* Christianity glorifies the rags of Lazarus.'O
This, I must own, is too rhetorically stated : but, in-
terpreted by what is said before (I.), it ought not to be
misunderstood. The glorj' does not lie in the rags, but
in the faith, hope, and love of the heart beneath them,
and in the future reward of these : — all which the parable
indirectly cited implies.
{3). After preaching in December, 1853, the Sermon
marked VIII. in this volume, the preacher, being in-
vited by the Mayor of Bath at a public dinner to
propose 'The pious Memory of King Edward VI.,'
obeyed in the following words :
'Although from this enlightened company, or from
the Masters of King Edward's Schools, many better
K. 19
390 APPENDIX.
representatives of this toast might have been found,
there are none perhaps who owe a deeper debt of grati-
tude to Edward's memory than myself, connected as I
have been from my birth to the present hour, as boy and
man, scholar and master, with the foundations, of that
saintly prince. If, Sir, a pious and wise sovereign were
a gift capable of being perpetually secured to every
generation of subjects, I might be as firm an absolutist as
Hobbes or Filmer, as Polignac or Metternich. I quite
agree with the old poet that true liberty, good as it is
always, is nowhere better than under a pious king ; and
therefore we must deeply regret that in the firmament of
history pious kings emerge too few and far between,
'fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky.'
Among such stars we justly place our royal benefactor,
the Sixth Edward. After the admirable portraiture of
this good prince, drawn by your head-master in the Town
Hall this morning, it would be a work of supererogation
in the worst taste, were I to follow in the same track ; it
would be an attempt to gild refined gold and paint the
lily. I will therefore only say that the enlightened love
of learning, above all of the godly learning then justly
•described, impelled Edward, by God's grace, to rescue
from the harpies of courtly corruption the yet unappropri-
ated spoils of a pillaged Church, and to devote them to
the sacred uses of education. We are not entitled to
lament the short term of Edward's earthly career : for if
that alone is true hfe which we live well, the youth who
in three short years had founded thirty seats of learning,
APPENDIX. 29«
had in those years lived a long life of eminent usefulness.
This name of Edward is associated in English annals
with scenes of guilt and anguish, as well as of virtue and
renown. From such scenes our royal benefactor stood
far aloof. If happier in his life and death than the
princes whose fate has left a dark stain of blood upon the
castles of Corfc and Berkeley, upon the field of Tewkes-
bury, and the Tower of London, we also deem him
happier than the mighty victors and mighty lords whose
knightly prowess and warlike skill are blazoned in the
scrolls of fame. Two centuries before him, another
princely Edward, in youthful bloom, the flower of chi-
valry and pink of courtesy, bore England's banner to
victory in the plains of Picardy and Poitou ; but neither
Crecy red nor fell Poitiers, brilliant as they are with all
the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, deserve so
well the grateful memory of the good as the scholastic
foundations of our Edward. The blood that was shed
in those fatal fields of glory sank beneath the earth, and
bore no harvest of abiding usefulness. The ink that
wrote these charters has been an ever welling fount of
learning and piety to countless generations of our coun-
trymen. Therefore we say, with all our heart — Cedant
arma togce, concedat laurea laudi. But, while we give so
much to memory, let us give something to hope. Let us
remember that we possess a living Edward, the expect-
ancy and rose of the fair state — Albert Edward, Prince
of Wales — a boy rich in hopeful promise, and having
every advantage which enlightened parents and able
292 APPENDIX.
tutors can confer upon him. Let us humbly hope that
Providence may be pleased to endow him richly with all
blessings. Long may it be ere he is called to his ances-
tral throne. But when that time shall at last come, may
he unite the policy of the first and the glory of the third
Edward, with the chivalrous and courtly graces of the
Black Prince ; above all with the learning, the gentleness,
the piety, and the public spirit of our benefactor. May
he leave a large posterity, like the son of Alfred, but
happier far in their character and lives ; may he descend
to the grave full of years, like the aged Confessor ; may
the blessings of grateful millions attend him thither;
and may future generations of Englishmen unite with
their festal commemorations the name of Albert Edward,
as I now propose that we recall " The pious memory of
Edward the Sixth." '
1
CAMBRIDGE : PRINTEB BV C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
U C BERKELEY LlBBAWtS
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