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THE CHKISTIAN GRACES, 
 
' , 
 
 ^A.UcJ^^ 
 
 THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 A SERIES OF LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 2 Peter i. 5-12. 
 
 BY JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE CHURCH. 
 
 New York : 
 Sheldon & Company, 115 Nassau St. 
 
 Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 
 1859. 
 

 S^¥f3 
 
 Entered according to Act ol' Congress, in the year 1859, by 
 
 SHELDON & COMPANY, 
 
 fa the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District 
 of New York. 
 
 W. H. TiKsoN, Stereotypes Pudnbt & Russkll, Printers. 
 
TO THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE CHURCH. 
 
 Dear Brethren in Christ : 
 
 It is at your suggestion that I now commit 
 to the Press a course of Lectures prepared with 
 sole reference to your spiritual improvement. In so 
 doing, I am influenced by two considerations : the 
 time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, 
 which we have recently enjoyed, has brought into 
 the church many new converts, who require to be 
 instructed and encouraged in the particular graces 
 of the Christian character ; and the same work of 
 grace should manifest its fruits in a higher Christian 
 culture attained by every member of the church. 
 If these specific and famihar counsels which gained 
 your attention when spoken from the pulpit, can con- 
 tribute at all to such a culture among you, I shall 
 be thankful for the privilege of thus repeatmg them 
 in your family circles, and in the nearer intercourse 
 
VI PEEFACE. 
 
 of the closet ; " endeavoring that ye may be able 
 after my decease to have these things always in 
 remembrance." 
 
 Moreover, these Lectures may serve as a memento . 
 of the delightful Sabbath services in our chapel,, 
 where a compact and sympathetic assembly has 
 encouraged the most direct and earnest utterances 
 of the pulpit. Yet I am sure, that separated from 
 the circumstances in which they were prepared and 
 delivered, these Lectures will quite disappoint you. 
 The mind crowded with present labors does not 
 easily recall thoughts and expressions uttered in the 
 fervor of moments which are passed ; and, therefore, 
 the unwritten illustrations and exhortations which 
 belonged to these Lectures in their oral delivery, may 
 not reappear upon the printed page. I have endea- 
 vored, however, to reproduce with all fidehty, that 
 which your too. favorable judgment has in the main 
 approved. 
 
 The date of this letter reminds me that I have 
 entered upon the fifteenth year of my ministry among 
 you. Of all the 'years of this pastorate — ^blessed as 
 many of these have been with tokens of divine 
 mercy — ^there has been none more pleasant or more 
 fruitful than that just closed, in which we have met 
 
PEEFACE. Vll 
 
 as one family for the devout and practical study of 
 the Word of God. But the years that are before 
 us, will bring upon us as a church wider labors and 
 Mgher responsibilities. Wherefore, beloved, " build- 
 uig up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying 
 in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of 
 God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 unto eternal life." That He who hath called you to 
 his kingdom of glory, may "make you perfect in 
 every good work to do His will," is the prayer of 
 
 Your grateful and 
 
 Affectionate Pastor. 
 April 15th, 1859. 
 
 ftfBriVBESITT! 
 
CONTEJN^TS 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 Virtue, 13 
 
 The Terra defined as Energy, Manhood, . .13 
 
 The Constituents of this Manhood, . . .22 
 Its Place in a Complete Character — ^Washington, 
 
 Savonarola, 34 
 
 How to cultivate this Virtue 39 
 
 LECTURE IL 
 
 Knowledge, 
 
 "Gnosis" defined. 
 Analysis of Christian Knowledge, 
 How Knowledge is attained, . 
 The Results of this Knowledge, 
 
 45 
 
 45 
 51 
 60 
 67 
 
 LECTURE IIL 
 
 Temperance, 78 
 
 Defined as Self-Control, 73 
 
 What this Implies, 76 
 
 How to Attain Self-Government, . . . .88 
 
 Motives to this End, 96 
 
 ix 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 
 
 pAaa 
 
 Patience, 
 
 . 102 
 
 The Elements of Patience, .... 
 
 . 105 
 
 Christ and Prometheus, .... 
 
 . 106 
 
 Washington at Yalley Forge, 
 
 . 121 
 
 The Faithful Monica, . .... 
 
 . 125 
 
 The Value of Patience, .... 
 
 . 121 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 
 Godliness, 
 
 . 132 
 
 God-ioard-ness, or Reverence toward Gorl, . 
 
 . 133 
 
 Characteristics of Godliness, 
 
 . 139 
 
 Modes of Manifestation, .... 
 
 . 145 
 
 Counterfeits of Godliness, .... 
 
 . 151 
 
 Motives to Godliness, . . . . 
 
 . 158 
 
 LECTURE VL 
 
 Brotherly Kindness, 
 
 Characteristics of Brotherly Love, 
 Grounds of this Affection, . 
 The True Fraternity, . 
 The Hindoo Convert, . 
 How to Cherish this Love, . 
 
 162 
 165 
 1*73 
 185 
 191 
 193 
 
 LECTURE Vn. 
 
 Charity, .... 
 Agape — A New Word, 
 Its Essential Elements, 
 Its Practical Sphere, . 
 Hindrances to this Love, 
 Methods of developing it, 
 
 199 
 203 
 206 
 214 
 222 
 225 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 xi 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Choir of Graces, 
 
 . 232 
 
 The Chorus-Manager, . 
 
 
 
 
 . 232 
 
 The Perfect Scale, 
 
 
 
 
 . 235 
 
 A Fatal Deficiency, 
 
 
 
 
 . 237 
 
 Defective Christians, . 
 
 
 
 
 . 239 
 
 Symmetry of Character, 
 
 
 
 
 . 245 
 
 Abounding Graces, 
 
 
 
 
 . 253 
 
 Religious Enjoyment, . 
 
 
 
 
 . 254 
 
 Growth of a Church, . 
 
 
 
 
 . 255 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 From Grace to Glory, 258 
 
 The Two Covenants, . 
 
 
 
 . 259 
 
 God's Calling, .... 
 
 
 
 . 261 
 
 The Student and Missionary, 
 
 
 
 . 265 
 
 Full Development, 
 
 
 
 . 269 
 
 Peter's Experience, 
 
 
 
 . 271 
 
 True Evidence and Assurance, 
 
 
 • . 
 
 .. 273 
 
 Triumph in Death, 
 
 
 
 
 . 277 
 
LECTURE 1/ 
 
 VIETUE. 
 
 Giving all diligence, add to your faith, Virtue. — 2 Pet. i. 5. 
 
 ]^ common speech everj moral excel- 
 lence is called a virtue. We also give 
 the name " virtue " to that outward 
 
 f conformity to the law of God which 
 constitutes a good moral character. 
 Thus Honesty is a virtue; Yeracity is a 
 virtue ; Chastity is a virtue ; Temperance 
 is a virtue ; and he who- lives in con- 
 formity to the moral law, performing all 
 moral duties and refraining from vice, is a 
 virtuous man. It is evident, however, that 
 the text does not use the word in either of 
 these significations. It cannot intend by Yir- 
 tue moral excellence in general, since it goes 
 on to enumerate several particular moral ex- 
 cellencies, such as Temperance, Patience, 
 Godliness, and Charity, which must be added 
 2 18 
 
14 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 to Yirtiie in order to complete the Christian 
 character. It cannot intend any one in par- 
 ticular of those moral traits which we some- 
 times call virtues, since in addition to Virtue, 
 it specifies most of these by name. For the 
 meaning of the apostle we must go back to 
 the primary idea of Virtue — which is, man- 
 liood^ manly vigor ^ a courageous tone of mind. 
 The old martial Romans from whom our 
 word Virtue is directly inherited, used this 
 term to denote primarily the sum of all cor- 
 poreal or mental excellencies in their ideal of 
 a MAN. Corporeal strength or vigor, and 
 hence that quality of mind called courage, 
 bravery, made a wr-tuous, manly Eoman. In 
 this primary sense the highest virtue was valor 
 in war. Transferring this literal meaning of 
 Virtue to a figurative use, it denotes moral 
 courage and force of character ; that tone of 
 mind which gives firmness, boldness, decision, 
 energy, in whatever truth and duty may de- 
 mand. 
 
 The use of Virtue in the sense of power or 
 energy is common in old English ; and there 
 are some traces of this elsewhere in our ver- 
 
VIETUE AS POWER. 15 
 
 sion of tlie Scriptures, which help to deter- 
 mine the meaning of Virtue in the text. The 
 Greek word here translated Yirtue, occurs but 
 four times in the "New Testament. As used 
 by Paul in Philippians, iv. 8, it has the sense 
 of moral excellence. " If there be any virtue, 
 and if there be any praise" — whatever is vir- 
 tuous and praiseworthy — meditate upon this. 
 But as used by Peter with respect both to 
 God and to man, the word clearly denotes 
 force, energy, power. There is another word, 
 (dvvafiLc — dunamis, whence dynamic,) whose 
 primary meaning is poiveT^, which our transla- 
 tors, following Widif, sometimes render by 
 Yirtue ; thus showing that they attached to 
 Yirtue the old Latin sense of energy or force. 
 " Jesus said, somebody hath touched me ; for 
 I perceive that virtue is gone out of me." 
 (Luke viii. 46.) " And the whole multitude 
 sought to touch him ; for there went virtue 
 out of him, and healed them all." (Luke vi. 
 19). Here Yirtue denotes not moral goodness, 
 but miraculous healing power. Wiclif uses 
 virtues as the equivalent of miracles. Where 
 our version speiiks of the " mighty works " 
 
16 THE CrmiSTIAN GRACES. 
 
 done in Cliorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, 
 Wiclif styles these " virtues ;" " Wo to tliee, 
 Chorazin, wo to tliee, Bethsaida, for if the 
 virtues done in you had been done in Tyre 
 and Sidon." (IMatt. xi. 20, 24; Luke x. 13). 
 Again : " He could there do no mighty work ;" 
 Wiclif reads,* " He must not do there any 
 Virtue^ (Mark vi. 5.) So of " the powers 
 of heaven -."—where our version reads, "The 
 stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that 
 are in heaven shall be shaken," Wiclif reads 
 " The virtues that ben (are) in heaven shall be 
 moved." (Mark xiii. 25). Milton applies the 
 phrase "celestial virtues^^ to the fallen "pow- 
 ers and dominions " of heaven, rising 
 
 " More glorious and more dread than from no fall." f 
 
 Here the word " Yirtues" conveys no idea of 
 
 * In his translation of the Apocrypha, Wiclif uses Virtue 
 for physical power. Thus he says of Alexander the Great, 
 " that he gathered virtue and strong host." King James's 
 version reads, " a mighty strong host." (1 Mac. i. 4.) Again 
 he describes John, Simon's son, as " Duke of all virtues^'''' 
 using the word with reference not to his personal qualities, 
 but to the warriors under his command. The common ver- 
 sion reads " Captain of all the hosts." (1 Mac. xiii. 57.) 
 Thus Wiclif everywhere uses Virtue in the sense of power. 
 
 \ Paradise Lost, B. 2. 
 
VIRTUE AS rOWEK. 17 
 
 moral excellencies, but is the equivalent of 
 Potentates. The Miltonic poetess of our own 
 time uses " virtues " with the same significa- 
 tion. Describing the descent of the heavenly- 
 host to view the crucifixion, she sajs : 
 
 " Beneath us sinks the pomp angelical, 
 Cherub and seraph, powers and virtues all." * 
 
 Here again the term Virtues is a poetic syn- 
 onym for Powers. It is obvious then, that in 
 old English and in the first English version of 
 the Bible, the word Virtue had its priniitive 
 Latin sense of manliness, a vigorous or ener- 
 getic spirit ; and that it sometimes retains 
 this meaning in our version and also in good 
 poetry. This is the meaning which most fitly 
 renders the original term in the text ; and I 
 have been thus careful to trace and define it, 
 because so much of the force and beauty of 
 the Apostle's exhortation depends upon that 
 "philosophical justness of classification" 
 which marks his " catalogue of virtues." 
 
 It is almost impossible to express this idea 
 of Virtue by any one English synonym. Isaac 
 
 * "The Seraphim." — Mrs. E. Barrett Browning. 
 
 2* 
 
18 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 Taylor paraphrases it as " manly energy, or 
 the constancy and courage of manly vigor." * 
 The one word which conies nearest to it, while 
 
 * A more minute analysis of the terra Virtue is here sub- 
 joined for the benefit of the critical reader. 
 
 The term uperTj (arete) translated Virtue in the text, de- 
 notes strictly manhood, prowess, manly qualities. Stephanus 
 defines it by "?;iWws, sed proprie virtus hellica ;'''' martial 
 courage or valor. He cites a gloss on Thucydides i. 33 ; 
 where Arete is expressed by Industria, Navities, Virtus^ 
 Fortitudo ; Activity, Zeal, Manliness, Fortitude. Suidas de- 
 fines Arete to be " Constantia et animi vigor ;" firmness and 
 strength of mind. Homer applies it to his heroes to denote 
 valor in battle, and other manly qualities. The Mycenaean 
 Periphetes is said to have been " superior in all kinds of 
 virtues (aperaf), whether in the race or in the combat.^^ (H. 
 XV. 642.) Here Virtue. denotes physical qualities, such as 
 speed, strength, prowess. So the " god-like Polydorus" in 
 the agility and valor which he displayed in fight, is said to 
 have exhibited "virtue of feet" or limbs (ttoSCjv aper^v. 
 n. XX. 411.) The same term is applied to the valor of Me- 
 riones; (II. xiii. 277), and to the bodily vigor of Menelaus. 
 (n. xxiii. 578.) This primary sense of upen/ is strictly- ex- 
 pressed by the Latin virttis, from which Virtue is derived. 
 This, in its literal sense, is manhood, valor ; and is applied to 
 physical courage and to energy of character — vigor of mind 
 in dangers and labors. Cicero speaks of something akin to 
 virtue in animals, as in lions, dogs and horses ; but insists 
 "that virtue of the mind" (animi virtus) being the offspring 
 of reason, is to be preferred to " physical virtue" (corporis 
 virtuti anteponatur. De Finibus, v. 13, 38). He also speake 
 
VIRTUE AS POWER. 19 
 
 it lias the abundant sanction of good Englisli 
 writers, is hardly domesticated in tlie pulpit ; 
 yet both the word and the thing were strik- 
 
 of "the divine force and virtue of the orator." Here virtus 
 is a pleonasm, reiterating the idea of vis. 
 
 The Vulgate translates dvvafitc by virhis^ in the sense of 
 power or energy ; and Wiclif, as shown above, uses Virtue 
 for miraculous power. In old English statutes, houses of 
 industry are described as "houses of virtues;''^ Virtue denot- 
 ing qualities that produce thrift. 
 
 Of the four instances in which uper^ occurs in the Xew 
 Testament, only one (Phil, iv, 8,) is a clear example of the 
 use of the word in its metaphorical sense of moral excellence. 
 The remaining three are as follows : 
 
 1 Pet. ii. 9. "That ye should show forth the praises 
 (apETctg) of Him who hath called you." For praises the 
 margin reads virtites ; Vulgate virtutes ; Wiclif, " tell the 
 virtues." The reference is to divine power and glory in 
 conversion, rather than to the moral excellence of the 
 Deity. 
 
 2 Pet. i. 3. " Him that hath called us to glory and virtue." 
 Here 6la do^rjg koI upeTyc, clearly means " through [His] 
 glory and power.''^ Tischendorf reads i^ca do^y Koi dperri^ 
 hy his own glory and power. So the Vulgate, propria gloria 
 etvirtute. DeWette reads " durch HerrlichKeit und ^ra/if," 
 through glory and power. 
 
 2 Pet. i. 5. The general sense of moral excellence is 
 inappropriate here ; and we must adopt the primitive mean- 
 ing of virtus, applied to moral courage. Virtus shows itself 
 in energetic action, and acts on the offensive. Fortitudo 
 shows itself in energetic resistance, and acts on the defen- 
 sive. Vide Doderlein's Synonyms. 
 
 rfB 
 
20 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 ingly expressed by an honored foreign mis- 
 sionary, when nrging upon tlie American 
 Board the immediate and thorough occupa- 
 tion of Turkey, with men and means for the 
 service of Christ. Said Dr. Schauffler, " after 
 all the discouragements and disasters of the 
 Crimean campaign, official mismanagement, 
 army jealousies, camp sickness,* and the dis- 
 comforts of winter, the soldiers held on and 
 took SevastojDol, not by science but by phick" 
 — and what we need is Christian plucJc to take 
 possession of Turkey in tlie name of Christ.* 
 
 * General Havelock, in one of his general orders, referred 
 the victory which had been gained, to the pluck of the Bri- 
 tish soldiers. Richardson, Halliwell, and other standard 
 lexicographers, give this term in the sense of courage. The 
 Appendix to the American Dictionary compiled by Prof. C. 
 A. Goodrich, D.D., gives pluck in the same sense, on the 
 authority of the most popular English writers ; and adds 
 plucMness^ pluckili/, plucky, on the authority of Thackeray. 
 "To pluck up one's heart," is to be bold or manly. Sir 
 Walter Scott says that " what is. least forgiven in a man of 
 any mark or likeHhood, is want of pluck" ; and, surely the 
 want of this sturdy Virtue can least be forgiven in a soldier 
 of the cross. 
 
 " Couldst thou not \Yatch one hour ? then, sleep enough— 
 That sleep may hasten manhood, and sustain 
 The faint pale spirit with some muscMar stuf." 
 
 This "manhood," this " muscular stuff," is the Virtue of 
 the text. 
 
CHRISTIANS" COUEAGE. 21 
 
 And surely we do need not only Faith to 
 pray in confidence for the overthrow of Mo- 
 hammedanism and the false Christianity of the 
 East — but added to this faith, Virtue — a mind 
 toned up with vigor and courage for the as- 
 sault, with firmness and bravery, in the con- 
 flict. Such was the Yirtue which that mis- 
 sionary brother himself showed, when in 
 papal and bigoted Austria he braved the 
 threats of the police, and preached the gospel 
 in his own house, with a guard set over him at 
 the door. This is the Yirtue which all Christ- 
 ians are expected at all times to cultivate. 
 " Giving all diligence, add to your faith Yir- 
 tueP The apostle speaks to those whom he 
 fully recognizes as one with himself in Christ. 
 " Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus 
 Christ, to them that have obtained like pre- 
 cious faith with us through the righteousness 
 of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." The 
 faith that bringeth salvation is already theirs ; 
 — ^faith that invests the soul with the right- 
 eousness which Christ has provided through 
 his blood ; faith in the atonement for the for- 
 giveness of sin ; faith by which they have 
 
22 THE CimiSTIAN GKACES. 
 
 " escaped the corruption that is in tlie world 
 throngli hist." But they are not to rest in 
 that faith as the whole of the Christian char- 
 acter and life ; — ^but in and of that faith as a 
 root, they are to cultivate the manifold graces 
 of that character as j)ortrayed in the ISTew 
 Testament. Add to your faith, Yirtue ; as 
 followers of Christ cultivate a true Christian 
 manhood. 
 
 In setting forth this exhortation I propose 
 to consider : 
 
 I. In what this Manhood consists. 
 II. Its place in a complete chaeactek. 
 TIT . How it may be attained and culti- 
 vated. 
 
 1. The Yirtue of which the apostle speaks 
 — ^boldness, vigor, courage, manhood — is not 
 to be confounded with rashness. In his earlier 
 experience as a disciple, Peter w^as sadly defi- 
 cient in the very Yirtue w^hich he here recom- 
 mends, though he w^as by no means wanting 
 in a rough physical vigor, and the courage 
 which that inspires. He was rash but not 
 
BOLDNESS NOT RASHNESS. 23 
 
 bold ; he liad a vaporing bravery but not 
 true manliness. " Thongli I should die with 
 thee," he said to the Master whom he loved 
 with all the strength of an impulsive nature 
 — " though I ■ should die with thee, yet will I 
 not deny thee." 
 
 And when the multitude came to seize 
 Jesus in the garden, Peter did not hesi- 
 tate to rush upon them alone, and with 
 his sword to smite a servant of the high 
 priest. Yet a few moments after, we see him 
 following Jesus " afar off," and then standing 
 aloof in the judgment-hall and denying his 
 Master, to save the very life he had just vol- 
 unteered to sacrifice in the garden. Peter 
 thought himself bold and brave, when he was 
 only impulsive and rash. Doubtless his faith 
 in Jesus was as full and sincere, and his love 
 for the Master as genuine and fervent as that 
 of any other disciple ; but he had not then 
 added Virtue to his Faith. He could cling to 
 Christ while He was manifesting his divine 
 power in miracles or teaching lessons of hea- 
 venly wisdom ; at the word of Christ he would 
 forsake his earthly all to follow Hirti ; at His 
 
24: THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 command he would go anywhere to testify of 
 the Messiah ; he would even go beyond the 
 other disciples in expressing his faith in Jesus 
 — as when he attempted to walk upon the 
 sea ; — he was ready for any sacrifice which a 
 generous nature could prompt ; but how sadly 
 wanting in dignity and manliness when he 
 stands trembling before the servant-maid in 
 the palace-hall, and denies that he, is a disci- 
 ple of Jesus, and adds cursing to denial ! All 
 his boasted bravery, all his belligerent demon- 
 stration in the garden, did not contain one 
 element of real courage and manhood. Those 
 whom Paul describes as "heady" or head- 
 long, precipitate in temper and in action, 
 ready to do anything upon the impulse of 
 the moment — ^liowever daring they may be 
 upon impulse — are wanting in that cool and 
 fixed purpose in the right, which marks true 
 manliness of character. 
 
 2. This manly virtue should not be con- 
 founded with willfulness. Stubbornness of 
 will is not strength of character. It is dog- 
 gedness or mulishness, not manliness. If will- 
 fulness were a virtue, then Pharaoh was the 
 
BOLDNESS NOT WILLFULNESS. 25 
 
 most virtuous of men, for lie could stiffen his 
 neck in liis own way, regardless of warnings 
 and cliastisements that filled his palace and 
 his land with woe. Even when for a time he 
 seemed to relax and repented of his tyranny, 
 the moment the pressure of God's hand was 
 removed, his will, which had only bent under 
 that pressure, would spring back and say, " I 
 will not let the people go." 
 
 The apostle Paul classes the "high-minded" 
 with the heady, the head-strong with the 
 head-long. These .high-minded persons are 
 literally those who are so wrapped up in the 
 fog of their own conceit, that they can see 
 nothing but themselves, and think of nothing 
 but tlieir own will. They do not take a wide 
 survey of things as the basis of a practical 
 judgment, but make up their own will, and 
 keep to that because it is their will, which 
 they regard as the final and sufiicient cause 
 of all things. A resolute, unfaltering purpose 
 to do right, a will to honor God and to stand 
 by truth and duty, a will which cannot be 
 broken upon the wheel, nor relaxed by the 
 fires of martyrdom, but like steel grows more 
 
26 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. » 
 
 firm and inflexible under pressure and heat — 
 such a will is, indeed, a manly Yirtue. But 
 " will-worship," the magnifying of self-w^ill, 
 adherence to a position or course, not be- 
 cause it is known and felt to be right, but be- 
 cause it has been taken, and ]3ride forbids to 
 change — this willfulness is as far from Christ- 
 ian manliness as a spoiled child is from an 
 angel. 
 
 3. But the Yirtue of which we speak, while 
 it is neither rash nor willful, is ahvays bold, 
 firm, and determined in maintaining truth 
 and performing duty ; it is « manly and ener- 
 getic tone of mind — a resolute and enduring 
 efficiency — all which the same apostle intends 
 when he says, " Gird up the loins of your 
 mind," invest yourselves with the spirit of 
 courage and firmness for the defence of the 
 truth. 
 
 (1.) An obvious constituent of this state of 
 mind is an intelligent conviction of truth and 
 duty. "A double-minded man is unstable in 
 all his ways." Steadfastness in purpose is im- 
 possible where the mind is doubtful as to the 
 object in view. " If the trumpet give an un-- 
 
CONFIDENCE IN TRUTH. . 27 
 
 certain sound, who shall prepare himself to 
 the battle ?" Tliough the trumpet is of the 
 finest quality, and in the hands of the most 
 skillful player, if the summons is uncertain, it 
 will cause excitement and agitation in the 
 camp, but will not rally the army to battle or 
 inspire them with courage for the fight. But 
 if the trumpet gives forth the unfaltering 
 notes of faith and courage and anticipated 
 triumph, though the instrument is but a 
 ram's horn, the people will rally with a shout, '. 
 and the walls ,of Jericho will fall flat before 
 them. If the summons from within, the voice 
 of conscience, the inward conviction of duty 
 and right be clear and strong, the outward 
 purpose will be bold and steady. There may 
 be uncertainty as to the result, there may be 
 a certainty of conflict and trial ; the imme- 
 diate prospect in obeying conscience may be 
 the fiery furnace and the lion's d^n ; but the 
 voice within is stronger than all outward ter- 
 rors, and the simple conviction of truth and 
 right nerves the soul with manly Yirtue. But 
 if the mind is not sure of its own position as 
 to the issue or principle involved, if it hesi- 
 
28 THE CIIEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 tales in its conviction, of right and duty in the 
 case, it will have no strength or persistence 
 of purpose in action. It may move promptly, 
 boldly, earnestly, under an impulse of feeling 
 or a sudden sense of duty, but it will not hold 
 on under opposition. It will be ready to draw 
 swords with Peter against the mob, but it 
 wiU lie with Peter to a servant maid : — 
 
 " As God had called thee to a serapKs part, 
 With a man's quailing heart." 
 
 A purpose springing from mere feeling is apt 
 to prove unstable, since feeling is a variable 
 quantity. JSTeuralgia, dyspepsia, or the head- 
 ache, may change a mere nervous courage 
 into a nervous timidity. Manly resolve rests 
 upon intelligent conviction. When the mind 
 which has received Christ as the object of its 
 faith and the hope of its salvation, perceives 
 clearly what Christ requires of it, and resolves 
 to carry out its conviction of truth and duty 
 with an earnest purpose to the end, then it 
 adds to its faith, Yirtue. Strength of convic- 
 tion gives courage to resolution. 
 
 (2.) But in order to this manly Yirtue, the 
 
OBEDIENCE TO GOD. 29 
 
 prmcijple of obedience to God must he estdb- 
 Lished in the soul as finals above all personal 
 interests, above all earthly good, above all 
 merely human custom or law, above whatever 
 would obtrude itself between the personal 
 soul and a personal God, its Creator, Ruler, 
 and Judge. There is no motive of action 
 which can give to the soul such energy and 
 fortitude, such lofty and determined purpose, 
 as this of obedience to God — for this alone 
 is unmixed with the earthly, the temporal, 
 the perishing. This lifts the soul out of the 
 sphere of the body into that world of spirits 
 where it walks with patriarchs and prophets, 
 with psalmists and apostles, with confessors 
 and martyrs, with Christ and with God. You 
 cannot cower down a soul that rests implicitly 
 on God. Threaten it with torture and cruel 
 death, show it the .dungeon, the rack, the 
 stake, it calmly replies: "We know that if 
 our earthly house of this tabernacle were dis- 
 solved, we have a building of God, a house 
 not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ; 
 and in this confidence we are willing rather 
 to be absent from the body, and to be present 
 3* 
 
30 THE CHKISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 with the Lord. Whei-efore we labor, that, 
 whether present or absent, we may be accept- 
 ed of KimP With this in view, with the 
 thought of God overmastering all other 
 thoughts, with the presence of God felt in the 
 soul as seeing Him who is invisible, there 
 comes a conscious strength to do every duty, 
 to meet every trial, a strength which is not vio- 
 lent or impetuous, but calm and invincible. 
 
 When Luther stood before that court of 
 the German empire which held his life in its 
 hands, it is said that he was the only person 
 in the assembly who was perfectly undisturb- 
 ed. When called upon to retract the heresies 
 of his writings, " he made answer in a low 
 and humble tone, without any vehemence or 
 violence, but with gentleness and mildness, 
 and in a manner full of respect and diffidence, 
 yet with much joy and Christian firmness." 
 He said that if in anything he had used severe 
 and bitter language to men, he was wrong ; 
 but as to doctrine, said he, " I cannot submit 
 my faith either to pope or councils. If I am 
 not convinced by Holy Scripture, and if my 
 judgment is not thus brought into subjection 
 
LUTHER AT WORMS. 31 
 
 to God's "Word, I neitlier will nor can re- 
 tract anything, for it cannot be right for a 
 Christian to speak against his conscience." 
 
 " If you do not retract," said the papal 
 chancellor, "the emperor and the diet must 
 proceed to deal with you as a heretic." 
 
 That meant the prison and the stake, and 
 Luther's friends trembled and wept. He 
 looked up calmly and said, "Then God be 
 my helper, for I can retract nothing." 
 
 On the way to Worms, Luther had been 
 shown a portrait of the Italian monk Savona- 
 rola, who had been burnt for denouncing the 
 pope. After gazing long and earnestly upon 
 it, he exclaimed, " Out of the fire into glory 
 — ^I take no fear but comfort from this pic- 
 ture." Such was the lofty courage of a soul 
 whose principle it was in all things to obey 
 God. Luther was ready to die for the doc- 
 trine of justification by faith, since he himself 
 had added to faith — ^Virtue, a manly cour- 
 age, a holy energy of soul — ^proceeding from 
 an intelligent and principled obedience to 
 God. 
 
 (3.) One other constituent enters into this 
 
32 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 manlj virtue — that is, franhiess or sincerity 
 in avowing one's convictions of truth and 
 duty. One cannot be manly unless he is 
 frank. Even those who practise concealment 
 and duplicity, at heart despise it. The most 
 adroit politician will denounce such arts when 
 turned against himself. Meanness and man- 
 liness cannot exist together, much less can du- 
 plicity and Christian manliness abide in the 
 same heart. He who w^ould be manly must 
 be open. Frankness is not forwardness; it 
 does not require that one should be alw^ays 
 thinking aloud and talking aloud about his 
 own affairs ; neither is it bluntness and rough- 
 ness of manner ; its plainness of speech is al- 
 ways kind in tone and spirit ; but it does for- 
 bid one from a selfish motive, to conceal his 
 convictions when truth and duty are in ques- 
 tion ; it does require that one shall always 
 avow his adherence to the truth when truth 
 is in jeopardy; that he shall let it be known 
 where he stands upon any question of right 
 in the great controversy between God and 
 men. 
 
 He who has an intelligent conviction of 
 
PETEE AND JOHN. ' 33 
 
 truth and duty, and with whom the principle 
 of obedience to God is the highest law of ac- 
 tion, must be ready always to give a reason 
 for the faith that is in him, to avow it, and to 
 stand by it. "When the Jewish Sanhedrim 
 threatened Peter and John, and forbade them 
 to speak or teach in the name of Jesus, the 
 apostles fell back upon conscience and the 
 law of Christian obedience, and said, 
 " "Whether it be right in the sight of God, 
 to hearken to you more than to God, judge 
 ye ; for we cannot but speak the things which 
 we have seen and heard." That was Christ- 
 ian manliness, the avowed determination in 
 the very face of a threatening power, to stand 
 by their convictions of truth and duty, and to 
 carry out those convictions under a sense of 
 direct responsibility to God. Peter had now 
 learned to add to his faith, Virtue. With 
 none of the rashness and bluster of the garden, 
 with none of the timidity and concealment of 
 the palace hall, his faith enlightened and invig- 
 orated, his convictions strengthened, his reso- 
 lution fixed in principle, instead of trying to 
 hide his connection with Christ, he openly pro- 
 
34 THE CHBISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 claims it, instead of following afar off, lie de- 
 clares his purpose to preacli Christ everywhere. 
 Simon Peter has now become a rock. 
 
 Is there any other requisite for such Yirtne ? 
 It seems to me that this analysis exhausts it : 
 An intelligent and thorough conviction of 
 truth and duty; the fixed principle of obe- 
 dience to God ; entire frankness in all suitable 
 times and places, in avowing that conviction, 
 in standing by that principle ; — these give to 
 the mind that lofty, firm, independent, invinci- 
 ble tone, which is Virtue, courage, manliness. 
 
 n. The importance of this Virtue to com- 
 pleteness of character is evident without argu- 
 ment. There can be no sterling character 
 without tliis. " Unstable as water," said Jacob 
 to Eeuben, " thou shalt not excel." Eeuben 
 had many excellent qualities. When his 
 brethren were resolved upon killing Joseph, 
 Eeuben persuaded them to spare his life, and 
 cast liim into a pit, intending afterward to de- 
 liver him, and restore him to his father ; and 
 when in his absence the boy was sold, " he 
 rent his clothes, saying the child is not, and I, 
 
WASHINGTON. 35 
 
 whitlier shall I go ?" But with all his ami- 
 able and gentle traits, and with his position 
 as the first-born, at the head of the family, 
 Reuben could not become the leader of the 
 tribes, because he lacked this very virtue of 
 firmness and courage. Unstable as water, he 
 could not excel. The apostle Paul exhorts 
 believers to be so established in Christ, that 
 they shall " be no more children, tossed to and 
 fro, and carried about with every wind of 
 doctrine ;" and again, that they " stand fast in 
 one spirit, in nothing terrified by their adver- 
 saries." This standing fast in manly Yirtue, 
 this girding up the loins of the mind to .do all 
 duty and to brave all trial, this calm rich tone 
 of vigor and endurance in all that conscience 
 and the truth demand, this Yirtue interming- 
 ling with and sustaining all the gentler graces, 
 like the swell notes of an organ opening upon 
 its softer stops, this gives us the sense of com- 
 pleteness and of abiding strength in char- 
 acter. 
 
 In the character of Washington we feel 
 this majestic undertone. !Never rash nor re- 
 vengeful ; never timid nor despairing ; mild 
 
36 THE CHKISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 witliout weakness ; stern without cruelty ; 
 cautious to retreat when retreat was the only 
 j)ossible deliverance, but bold to cross a 
 bridge of ice at midnight that he might con- 
 quer the enemy at break of day ; always self- 
 poised amid the fears and losses, the cares and 
 perils, the doubts and struggles of a wasting 
 war ; — his manly bravery resting in his calm 
 confidence in the right and his disinterested 
 devotion to the right — this gives to the charac- 
 ter of "Washington a lofty and imperishable 
 greatness. 
 
 The annals of Christian martyrdom often 
 exhibit this manly Virtue grafted upon child- 
 like faith. Long before Luther braved the 
 pope in Germany, Savonarola had braved 
 him in Italy. The head of this Italian re- 
 former in the pictures which have come down 
 to us, reminds one of the ideal head of Christ 
 in the prevailing type of the great masters.* 
 It has the same " halo of sanctity." Tlie fair 
 complexion, the " calm blue eye," the grace- 
 ful outline, indicate a soul of rare delicacy of 
 
 * The original by Fra Bartolomeo is in the gallery of St. 
 Mark at Florence. 
 
SAVONAKOLA. 37 
 
 feeling and beauty of perception. But " tlie 
 fall, firm lips," and the " steady bearing" of 
 the fi^re, mark also a character of high 
 decision, of unflinching purpose to do or to 
 suffer. And such he was: a gentle, loving 
 child, nursed in the bosom of affluence, and 
 educated in the best manner, he yet tore him- 
 self from the heart of his famil}^, from the 
 enticements of wealth and ambition, that he 
 might satisfy the hunger of his soul in a con- 
 vent — the best place of religious retirement 
 and instruction that the age afforded. Like 
 Jerome, also, whose name he bore, he devoted 
 his convent life in part to literary labors. But 
 finding vice and corruption within the con- 
 vent, he for a while mourned in silence, till 
 he found comfort and strength in the " sweet 
 love of Jesus." At length he came forth a 
 bold and earnest preacher against tlie corrup- 
 tions of the church itself. With the fidelity 
 of John the Baptist he reproved the sins of 
 the court, an*wamed the people of coming 
 judgments. He even assumed the functions 
 of a prophet, and sometimes weakened his 
 denunciations by his enthusiasm. The Duke* 
 4 
 
38 THE GHEISTIAIT GRACES. 
 
 of Florence, of the rich and noble family of 
 the Medici, sought to bribe him with costly 
 gifts ; but Savonarola answered, " Tie good 
 dog barks to defend his master's house, and 
 if a robber offers him a bone, he pushes it 
 aside and barks still ;" and he continued to 
 denounce the luxury and vice of the Floren- 
 tine capital and the papal court. His manly 
 courage exasperated the pope, who, finding 
 that he could not silence the fearless monk, 
 pronounced against him the sentence of ex- 
 communication. 
 
 *' From the pope" said Savonarola, " I ap- 
 peal to the heavenly Pope, Christ Jesus." 
 
 He was brought to the stake. They stripped 
 him of his priestly robes, the bishop using the 
 form of excommunication against heretics, " I 
 separate thee from the church triumphant." 
 
 " N^ay," replied the martyr, with a calm, 
 firm tone — " from the church militant — ^from 
 the church triumjphant thou canst not sepa- 
 rate me." 
 
 Meekly bearing the taunts of his enemies, 
 
 , he prayed with his companions — and " while 
 
 the flames were circling around his arm, he 
 
BIBLE IIEEOES. 39 
 
 raised his hand and made the sign of benedic-. 
 tion upon the multitude who were exulting in 
 his death." Call him a Mystic, an Enthusiast, 
 if you will ; — yet does nbt such a soul stand 
 before you in kingly majesty ? And do you 
 not feel that this Yirtue which you are ex- 
 horted to add to your faith, is the very essence 
 and glory of all Christian heroism ? 
 
 m. How SHALL THIS YiETUE BE ATTAINTED ? 
 
 How may you be endowed with this high and 
 holy resolve for duty and for Christ? The 
 text teaches that you must cultivate Yirtue 
 with all diligence. Set your mind upon it as 
 within your reach, to be attained, necessary 
 to a complete Christian character ; and seek it 
 with wakeful desire, with determined study. 
 
 (1.) Study the examples of those who ham 
 Tnanifested Virtue. Look at J^oah, standing 
 up against the cavils of an apostate world to 
 do the command of God — a preacher of right- 
 eousness. Look at Abraham, with fiirm tread 
 walking trackless wastes to unknown lands, 
 his courage rooted in faith. Look at Moses 
 confronting the stubborn will of Pharaoh, and 
 
40 THE CKRISTIAIT GRACES. 
 
 •leading forth the people of God — not fearing 
 the wrath of the king. Look at Paul, ready 
 to face a Jewish mob, or the prejudiced San- 
 hedrim, or pagan governors and Eoman cap- 
 tains, or the wild beasts at Ephesns, or the 
 dungeon at Eome, and to stand in Caesar's 
 palace as a witness for Christ. Look at the 
 long line of martyrs whose manly virtue is the 
 sublimest heroism of history. Tlie study of 
 such characters is a tonic for the soul when 
 depressed with fears. Look at those ancient 
 worthies, " who through faith subdued king- 
 doms, wrought righteousness, obtained pro- 
 mises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched 
 the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the 
 sword, out of weakness were made strong, 
 waxed valiant in fight, turned to fiight the 
 armies of the aliens ;" or who, with a j)assive 
 courage no less sublime, " were tortured, 
 not accepting deliverance, and had trial of 
 cruel mockings and scourgings, of bonds and 
 imprisonment ; who were stoned, sawn asun- 
 der, slain with the sword." When our courage 
 falters, let us reassure ourselves by looking up 
 from the dust and strife of the arena to that 
 
OPPORTUNiriKS FOR VIRTUE. 41 
 
 great cloud of witnesses compassing us about 
 like a crowded ampliitlieatre. Above all, let 
 us reassure ourselves by standing as ever in the 
 great Task-Master's eye ; " looking unto Jesus, 
 tlie author and finisher of our faith. For con- 
 sider him that endured such contradiction of 
 sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and 
 faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted 
 unto llood^ striving against sin.^^ 
 
 (2.) To attain the full vigor of Christian 
 manliness, you must exercise this virtue when- 
 ever you have Ojpportunity. Yirtues will not 
 come to serve us upon great occasions, unless 
 they are trained and developed day by day. 
 One who allows himself habitually to be Iqd 
 oy others in little things, will have no manly 
 independence when tested with some great 
 responsibility. He who suffers timidity to 
 prevail against duty in the least thing, will 
 sacrifice the greatest interests to his personal 
 fears. Are you moved to speak to another 
 upon the state of his soul — and yet do you 
 shrink from the possibility of a rebuff ? Re- 
 solve that you will perform this duty ; pray 
 that you may conquer your weakness ; go and 
 4* 
 
42 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 do it, and you will add to your faith, Yirtue. 
 Are you moved to admonisb. an erring bro- 
 ther ? ISTo matter how painful the task, take 
 up that duty and perform it. Go in meekness, 
 in the spirit of love, but with the Master's 
 strength, and you will add to faith, Yirtue. 
 Are you called upon, in the providence of 
 God, to take some untried responsibility for 
 the cause of Christ ? Do not shrink from it, 
 but stand in your lot ; it may be just the 
 discipline you need to add to your faith, 
 Yirtue. John Knox wept for very weakness 
 when his brethren called him to be their 
 leader ; but with faith in Christ he put on 
 manly resolve, and then the wayward and 
 willful Queen trembled and wept under his 
 bold rebukes. 
 
 Tlie young Christian should begin early to 
 cultivate this holy courage ; — ^learn to say ITO 
 to every solicitation of evil ; learn to say YES 
 to every call of duty. He that is faithful in 
 that which is least, is faithful also in that 
 which is greatest. The gunner who held his 
 finger on the touch-hole till it burnt to the 
 joint, that he might save the life of the ram- 
 
THE POWER OF FAITH. 43 
 
 mer, from a premature discharge, would have 
 saved the Austria by that cool courage which 
 conquers fire and flood. 
 
 (3.) Since Yirtue rests upon faith, you can 
 strengthen and develop it ly increasing faith 
 as a living power in the soul. Much as we 
 may discipline ourselves to Yirtue, our strength 
 must lie not in ourselves, and our purposes, 
 but in God our Saviour. " He giveth power 
 to the faint, and to them that have no might 
 he increaseth strength." " My grace is suffi- 
 cient for thee ; for my strength is made perfect 
 in w^eakness." And Paul proved this when 
 he stood before Kero. "At my first answer 
 no man stood with me, but all men forsook 
 me. Notwithstanding the Loed stood with 
 me and strengthened me." In Christ we can 
 stand alone. A living faith secures a manly 
 piety. A faith that rises above a mere con- 
 ventional belief, and becomes a vital presence 
 of Christ in the soul, will lift the man in 
 thought and action above the dictation and 
 opposition of the world. 
 
 " May the God of all grace, who hath called 
 us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, make 
 
44 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 you perfect, stdblish^ strengthen^ settle you. 
 To him be glory and dominion, forever and 
 ever. Amen." 
 
LECTURE II. 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Add to virtue Knowledge. —2 Peter i. 5. 
 
 )IETIJE we have defined to be Christian 
 valor or Manliness ; that tone or quality 
 of mind which gives it firmness for duty, 
 courage in danger. JS'ot rashness, nor 
 willfulness, but an intelligent conviction 
 of truth and duty, an uncompromising prin- 
 ciple of obedience to God, a frank and hearty 
 commitment of oneself to the right — these com- 
 bining to produce in the mind a tone of decision, 
 of quiet but unflinching resolve, in whatever God 
 in his providence may require us to do for his 
 glory and for the cause of Christ. This Christian 
 valor is finely personated by Mr. Greatheart, 
 in the Pilgrim's Progress. Mr. Greatheart, 
 a strong man, who was not afraid of a lion, 
 gave his services as guide to Christiana and 
 her children, defending their faith by his 
 
 45 
 
46 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 vigorous arm. He was of a most gentle dis- 
 position, so til at little children would cling to 
 him ; lie was devout in feeling and could con- 
 verse to edification upon tlie doctrines of faith ; 
 but his valor was grounded in faith, and there- 
 fore partook of the strength of Christ himself. 
 When challenged by giant Maul and com- 
 manded to turn back from the heavenly way, 
 Greatheart replied : " I am a servant of the 
 God of heaven. I am commanded to do my 
 endeavors to turn men, women, and children 
 from darkness to light, and from the power of 
 Satan unto God." And when the giant fell 
 upon him with his club, and they fought till 
 both were exhausted; while the enemy was 
 refreshing himself for a new attack, Greatheart 
 betook himself to prayer, and thus prevailed. 
 This Greatheart was Christian courage im- 
 planted in a poor, weak woman, and giving 
 her the victory of faith. Tlie Christian pil- 
 grim should promptly enlist Greatheart as his 
 champion and guidfe; adding to his faith 
 Virtue, a manly vigor in the Truth, a holy 
 courage for the Eight. 
 
 But tliis is only one item in the catalogue 
 
KNOWLEDGE. - 47 
 
 of graces which Christians are exhorted to 
 cultivate ; perhaps that which was first needed 
 under the persecutions of those days — ^boldness 
 and firmness in the faith — ^but by no means 
 completing the Christian character. It is not 
 enough that we have faith ; but faith and firm- 
 ness must be attended by I{jiow^*dge as a 
 counsellor, must be inspired also by the liigher 
 communications of divine wisdom; — add to 
 your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge. 
 
 The meaning of the term Knowledge must 
 be ascertained by a comparison of the text 
 with other passages in which this word occurs. 
 It is of course knowledge with respect to 
 spiritual things and religious duties, of which 
 the apostle here speaks. Tliis word is used in 
 the Kew Testament some thirty times, and 
 with various shades of signification. Some- 
 times it denotes a supernatural gift, know- 
 ledge by immediate inspiration. Perhaps it is 
 in this sense that the " word of knowledge" is 
 classed with the gifts of healing and of tongues, 
 and with other miraculous powers. But since 
 all Christians are exhorted to add Knowledge 
 
 o 
 
 to their faith, the apostle cannot intend a 
 
48 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 miraculous gift wliich God only could bestow. 
 And for the same reason, he cannot here intend 
 the power or faculty of knowing, in which 
 sense the word is used when it is said that 
 " the love of Christ passeth knowledge" i. e. 
 is beyond the natural comprehension of men. 
 We catonot add a new sense or faculty to our/ 
 natural endowments. 
 
 Again, the word knowledge is used for the 
 ohject of knowledge, and especially the system 
 of truth made known in the Gosjiel. But this 
 must be known, in a measure, before we can 
 have faith ; and the Knowledge spoken of in 
 the text comes after faith. Knowledge is used 
 also to denote a general apprehension of reli- 
 gious truth ; but, as this is essential to the act 
 of faith in Christ, it could hardly be referred 
 to as a something to be added to faith. Isaac 
 Taylor says, this Knowledge is " neither human 
 erudition nor general intelligence, but that 
 specific knowledge of which the Gospel is the 
 subject." His negative statement is of course 
 .correct; but "the specific knowledge of the 
 Gospel muBt ^precede faith as its basis ; and the 
 apostle bids. us add Knowledge to Faith. 
 
SPIRITUAL INSIGHT. 49 
 
 There is another use of the word which applies 
 it to the deejp^ clear^ and cordial ajpjperGejption 
 of truth^ followed hy the discriminating adajp- 
 tation of truth to practical ends. Thus the 
 apostle Paul speaks of the Christians at Rome 
 as " full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, 
 able to admonish one another ;"* i. e. they pos- 
 sessed that discriminating insight into truth 
 which would shed light upon questions of 
 practical duty. 
 
 Again, in writing to the Corinthians upon 
 the question of eating sacrificial meat, Paul 
 speaks of Knowledge, the clear discernment of 
 things in their spiritual relations, as enabling 
 t]ie Christian to discriminate between the act 
 of eating for food meat which some pagan had 
 offered in sacrifice to idols, and the act of 
 sacrificing to idols or of partaking of meat as 
 sacred by reason of such sacrifice. The true 
 spiritual recognition of "one God, of whom 
 are all things," leads to a wise practical use of 
 all things as from Him. Such a discriminating 
 insight enlightening the judgment, is Christian 
 Knowledge.f Where the same apostle dis- 
 
 * Rom. XV. 14. f 1 Cor. viii. 6-11. 
 
50 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 tinguislies Knowledge from " wisdom" on the 
 one hand, and from " revelation" on the other, 
 he seems to characterize KnoAvledge as a cer- 
 tain insight into spiritual things, which differs 
 from mere mental sagacity, and which though 
 not of the nature of inspiration, is attained and 
 exercised through the enlightening power of 
 the Holy Spirit.* In the same sense the word 
 is used by Peter in the text. Knowledge is a 
 spiritual ajpjperc&ption of divine things^ form- 
 ing and controlling the practical judgment. 
 A soul informed by such Knowledge discerns 
 the way of truth and duty. This Knowledge 
 is not the mere perception of the truths of the 
 Gospel in their objective form, not only a sub- 
 stance of doctrine assured to the intellectual 
 assent, but an apperception of Gospel truths in 
 their inward spiritual relations, the mind illu- 
 mined by the Spirit, revolving things divine, 
 till objective truth is transformed into experi- 
 mental knowledge, which guides the life. 
 
 ♦ " Celestial Light 
 
 Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers 
 Irradiate ; — there plont eyes^ 
 
 * 1 Cor. xii. 8 and xiv. 6. 
 
THE TKUE "gnosis." 61 
 
 From tMs general definition of the term,* 
 we pass to consider more specifically 
 
 I. What this knowledge is. 
 
 n. How it may be cultivated. 
 
 III. The excellence of this k^towledge in 
 
 its effects. 
 1. This inward experimental Knowledge of 
 
 * Classical usage helps us little as to the meaning of 
 ♦ yvuaiq (gnosis) in the New Testament. Plato uses it com- 
 monly of " understanding," though sometimes of a deeper 
 philosophical insight. But with the iVeo-Platonists, gnosis 
 came to be almost a technical term for higher insight, 
 deeper wisdom, a certain mysterious knowledge reserved to 
 the initiated. In this sense of deep spiritual insight, but 
 without the associations of mysticism or mystery, the word 
 gnosis is often used in the New Testament, It is a term 
 pecuHarly liable to abuse by enthusiastic minds, and before 
 the close of the apostolic age there began to appear a sect 
 of Gnostics, who claimed to have " an extraordinary insight 
 into divine things beyond the system of faith, which the peo- 
 ple commonly received on authority." This insight they 
 professed to have gained through certain secret traditions 
 handed down from Christ, the higher light. Their gnosis 
 corresponded to the esoteric doctrines of the old Greek 
 philosophers, mysteries to be communicated only to the 
 initiated. The Epistles of John seem to have been aimed 
 in part at this Gnostic tendency. The true Christian know- 
 ledge is as far as possible both from the obscureness of Mys- 
 ticism and from the pretensions of Clairvoyance. The gnosis 
 of the New Testament is the privilege of all Christians alike. 
 
52 THE CHEISTIAK GEACES. 
 
 Christ and his truth differs from the intellectual 
 perception of truth, just' as the feeling that we 
 know the mind and heart of another differs 
 from the knowledge of his person which we 
 gain through the eye ; it is the difference be- 
 tween heart knowledge and knowledge hierelj 
 by perception or intellection. You are asked, 
 " Do you Tcnow such a person ?" " Yes," you 
 reply, "I know him, but not intimately." 
 This may mean simply that you know his 
 figure, his countenance, his manner, and are 
 upon speaking terms with him; — you have 
 not merely a knowledge of his existence from 
 the testimony of others, but a personal ac- 
 quaintance. Or your general knowledge of 
 this person may go farther. You may know 
 somewhat minutely his mental characteristics, 
 his peculiarities of disposition, and his moral 
 habits. But if you know these only as ob- 
 jects of thought, while these characteristics 
 make up your estimate of the man, you do 
 not yet feel that you know the man himself; 
 you have not come heart to heart with him. 
 "Want of intercourse, or a degree of reserve, 
 has kept you from becoming intimate, so that 
 
TENNYSON AND ILAXLAM, 53 
 
 while in one sense you know liim, in another, 
 and tliis tlie most important sense, you do not 
 know him. You have an outward, superficial 
 eye and ear knowledge, but nothing of that 
 knowledge which links soul to soul with indis- 
 soluble ties. You do not know him as the 
 poet Tennyson knew his friend Ilallam, over 
 whose early death he poured his sad, wild 
 requiem in Memoriam. 
 
 " Whatever way my days decline, 
 I felt and feel, though left alone, 
 His being ivorking in mine own ; 
 The footsteps of his life in miney 
 
 Kow we may know Christ, and yet not 
 know him ; may know him as to his person 
 revealed as divine, the glory of the Father, 
 the fullness of the Godhead ; we may know 
 him as to his character recorded in the four 
 gospels, holy, perfect, full of grace and truth ; 
 ^we may know him as to his doctrine and his 
 work, and may accept these as the highest 
 expression of divine truth and love to man; 
 and still we may come far short of really hnow- 
 ing Christ. Such knowledge is objective ; i. e. 
 it exists in our thought as cm object^ and does 
 
64 THE CHEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 not bring us into personal sympathy with 
 Christ as our Saviour and. friend. It is in the 
 brain but not in the heart. 
 
 We may be convinced of the truth of the 
 'New Testament ; may take its representation 
 of the character of Christ and the work of 
 redemption, and rest upon tliis as a reality; 
 but still we may not have that inward Know- 
 ledge of Christ, in which the soul takes Jlim 
 to itself, feels that he is its fi-iend, lays itself 
 open to his love, with all its sins, and wants 
 and cares, and realizes that he is with it in the 
 closest confidence of friendship. Chiist cha- 
 racterizes this heart knowledge when, in his 
 last confidential interview with his disciples he 
 sa^^s : " Henceforth I call you not servants ; 
 but I have called you friends." 
 
 2. And here again, this Knowledge differs 
 from faith. Faith is that belief in Christ 
 upon the evidence of the Gospels, which leads 
 the soul to rely upon him as its Saviour, and 
 to commit itself to his service. This faith 
 rests upon a degree of knowledge as its war- 
 rant. It has good and sufiicient evidence, and 
 therefore is not credulity or superstition. 
 
HEART KNOWLEDGE. 55 
 
 Thus in the context we read, " Grace and peace 
 be multiplied to you through the knowledge 
 of God, and of Jesus our Lord ; according as 
 his divine power hath given us all things 
 that pertain to life and godliness through the 
 Icnowledge of him ;" the knowledge of God in 
 Christ, of the incarnation and the atoning 
 death of Jesus as reconciling us to God and 
 making life and godliness possible for us — this 
 is the very foundation of a saving faith. But 
 having gained this faith, and rested ourselves in 
 it, we are exhorted to add to it Knowledge ; not 
 the mere knowledge of the doctrine of Christ 
 as a Saviour — for that we have already — ^but 
 Knowledge of Christ himself, which comes 
 through the heart, proving his doctrine, his pro- 
 mises, his love, in its own blessed experience. 
 When the Samaritan woman returned from 
 Jacob's well to the city, telling what Jesug 
 had said, many believed upon her testimony 
 that he was the Messiah. But after Jesus had 
 spent two days in their town, going from 
 house to house, "many more believed, and 
 said to the woman, ]N"ow we believe, not be- 
 cause of thy saying, for we have heard him 
 
56 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 ourselves, and Tcnow that this is indeed the 
 Christ, the Saviour of the world." We should 
 take Christ into the house and into the heart, 
 ^ill we know Him. Paul attained to such 
 fellowship with Christ that in the hour of his 
 extremity, upon the verge of martyrdom, he 
 could calmly say, " I Ttnow whom I have be- 
 lieved, and am persuaded that he is able to 
 keep that which I have committed to him 
 against that day." Such Knowledge is the 
 seizing upon Christ with the heart till we know 
 that his love and grace are ours, and all his 
 promises are ours. 
 
 3. But this inward Knowledge of Christ 
 has its outward expression in a judgment 
 wisely exercised upon i/ruth and duty. Faith 
 and valor alone do not make the complete 
 Christian. "We may believe with all the heart 
 that which we regard as true ; we may stand 
 by it firmly because we believe it to be true ; 
 we may be open in declaring our convictions, 
 and ready to take the consequences of adhering 
 to the right ; but as men of fallible judgment 
 we are liable to err in our views of truth, to 
 mistake our duty, and to expend our courage 
 
THE CHAEGE OF BALAKLAVA. 57 
 
 and fortitude in defending an error, or in 
 maintaining a point of secondary moment. 
 We need therefore to cultivate the judgment 
 as well as to fortify the spirit, to attain to a 
 sound discernment of duty as well as to firm- 
 ness in duty. 
 
 It is a proverb that discretion is the better 
 part of valor; a critical judgment as to the 
 time and manner of acting is important to the 
 success of the boldest and bravest action. 
 I^ever was there a bolder, braver deed upon 
 the field of battle, than the charge of six hun- 
 dred English cavalry upon the Russian battery 
 at Balaklava. But through lack of judgment 
 in the commander as to the point of assault, it 
 proved to be a wholesale sacrifice of heroism 
 and life for no adequate or even possible 
 object. 
 
 " Stormed at with shot and shell, 
 Boldly they rode and well 
 Into the jaws of death, 
 Into the mouth of hell." 
 
 "Grand, terrific, magnificent!" exclaimed 
 the French general, as the six hundred rode 
 right up to that flaming rampart of 'death ; 
 
68 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 '' but this is not the art of war." It was not 
 the boldness that was in fault, for the courage 
 for such deeds is a strong element of success 
 in war, but it was the misapplication of bold- 
 ness through want of discrimination in the 
 orders. 
 
 In his description of the.good man, the Psalm- 
 ist happily combines a sound judgment with 
 boldness and firmness as essential qualities of 
 his character. " He will guide his afiPairs with 
 discretion y surely he shall not le moved for- 
 ever. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. 
 His heart is established, he shall not be 
 afraid." A sound judgment, and a firm and 
 courageous heart, are here joined to give com- 
 pleteness and permanence to the good man's 
 character. And it is this union or combina- 
 tion of qualities which supplement and regulate 
 each other, that the apostle intends when he 
 says, " Giving all diligence, add to your Faith 
 Virtue, and to Yirtue Knowledge." 
 
 This practical bearing of such Knowledge 
 is difficult to express by any one word as a 
 synonym. Our experimental Knowledge of 
 Christ, and our habitual intercourse of thought 
 
PRUDENCE NOT KNOWLEDGE. 59 
 
 and feeling with Christ, should lead to a 
 practical discrimination on questions of duty. 
 Such Knowledge is not what men of the world 
 call prudence^ which is exercised more in the 
 cautious avoidance of evil to oneself, than in 
 devising and executing that which is good. 
 Mere prudence as distinguished from know- 
 ledge and wisdom, is hardly to be classed wdth 
 the moral virtues ; never rising higher than a 
 certain intellectual keenness, it often sinks into 
 timidity, or runs into craft and cunning. But 
 this Knowledge is a sound practical wisdom 
 growing out of that inward critical discern- 
 ment of truth and duty which comes by know- 
 ing Christ. 
 
 Tliere are two or three words which some- 
 what approach to this meaning — discernment, 
 discretion, discrimination ; these all in their 
 radical idea mean "to separate," "to distin- 
 guish," to "make a difference," especially 
 between the true and the false, the right and 
 the wrong, in theory and in practice. This dis- 
 crimination as to truths and motives duly 
 exercised by the mind itself, and faithfully 
 applied to our outward conduct, constitutes 
 
60 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 Knowledge as a practical thing. In addition 
 to faitli and firmness, cultivate the faculty of 
 discerning what is truth, and the skill to use 
 this in action. Add to your Faith Yirtue, and 
 to Yirtue Knowledge. So live in Christ, so 
 know Christ by an inWiard experience, that 
 you will act in outward things, as Christ would 
 have you act. 
 
 II. How SHALL THIS KNOWLEDGE BE ATTAINED? 
 
 How shall we gain that experimental acquaint- 
 ance with Christ which shall guide the life in 
 practical duty ?^ 
 
 1. By the prayerful study of Christ as 
 he is set hefore us in the Gospel. We must 
 learn Christ from the Scriptures ; for there is 
 his character transcribed in every feature, not 
 merely as it appeared to men, but just as it 
 was, and as the divine artist, inspiring human 
 pens, has caused it to be traced. But its 
 beauties do not all come out to the unassisted 
 eye ; they are spiritually discerned. As in a 
 true work of art, especially if it be an old pic- 
 ture, the determining qualities of tone, manner, 
 finish, are not superficial, but require study 
 
THE AETIST MONK. 61 
 
 and a practised eye, so in this one model cha- 
 racter for the world, this portrait of a life so 
 far beyond all human conception or deline- 
 ation, while from any point the impression is 
 that which perfection alone can give, yet not 
 the whole of that perfection comes in any one 
 impression. The mere tonrist sauntering 
 through a gallery of art recognizes in one 
 painting' a work superior to the rest ; but the 
 artist lingers before that picture and scans its 
 every point, till without the help of catalogue 
 or cicerone, he discovers it to be a Titian, a 
 Tintoretto, a Murillo, and feasts his soul upon 
 those diviner touches that reveal the Master's 
 hand. You must not look only, or read by 
 catalogue and note-book, but must study ; 
 like that artist monk who studied his head of 
 Christ with prayers and vigils and spiritual 
 agonies, till the canvas caught his unearthly 
 inspiration, and the pictured Christ was the 
 Christ within his soul. " An inch deeper and 
 you find the Emperor," said a wounded guards- 
 man of ITapoleon to the surgeon who was 
 probing a wound just above his heart. The 
 Christian should have the image of Christ 
 6 
 
bZ THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 transfixed upon liis heart. Once introduced 
 to Christ b J Faith, jou nrnst follow on to know 
 the Lord. Prayer is the life element of such 
 a study. When we enter into the closet to con- 
 template Christ, the Holy Spirit takes of the 
 things of Christ, and shows them to us. 
 
 2. We gain this Knowledge hj a diligent and 
 teachahle seeking after the will of Christ. The 
 spirit of obedience helps to the knowledge of 
 duty. It is wonderful what light arises upon 
 practical questions which seemed doubtful and 
 complicated, the moment the mind resolves 
 that it will do the right whenever found ; that 
 it will do the right, and take the consequences. 
 Then it discovers that many of the prudential 
 and intellectual perplexities supposed to exist 
 in the question itself, were really the contro- 
 versy of its own selfish interests and passions. 
 Tliis determination to do the will of Christ, is 
 like a signal rocket piercing the gloom of 
 night from a ship on an unknown shore. ]^ot 
 only does it mark a pathway through the dark- 
 ness, but answering signals come from ofiP the 
 shore, beacons are kindled, and a line of light 
 guides her into harbor. Yea, in the storm of 
 
CLOSET STUDY. 63 
 
 doubt the Master comes walking on the sea, 
 saying to the obedient and trusting soul, " It 
 is I, be not afraid." " He that hath my com- 
 mandments and keepeth them, he it is that 
 loveth me ; and he that lovetli me, shall be 
 loved of my Father, and I will love him, and 
 will manifest myself to him. If a man love 
 me, he will keep my words ; and my Father 
 will love him, and we will come to him, and 
 make our abode with him." 
 
 3. We gain this Knowledge by studying 
 questions of right and duty in the closet. 
 Most of our practical mistakes arise from 
 impulse, or from excessive confidence in our 
 own judgment, or from a susceptibility to 
 mere outward impressions. How seldom do 
 we take a question of practical religion or of 
 personal duty, and study it as we study a 
 business venture, a political campaign, a ques- 
 tion of science. We glance at it and go for- 
 ward upon impulse, or, upon first thought or 
 feeling, we pronounce a mechanical stereo- 
 typed judgment, or we talk about it and do as 
 others say, taking their impulses and perhaps 
 their prejudices for our guide. But instead 
 
64: THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 of talk, talk, talk, upon questions of any per- 
 plexity, we need to think, think, think, and 
 to pray, pray, pray. The place for calm, 
 mature judgment is the place of secret prayer. 
 That judgment which is the practical equiva- 
 lent of spiritual Knowledge, that all-penetrating 
 sagacity which compasses and fathoms its sub- 
 ject in one view, is gained only when every 
 earthly passion is hushed, when the noise of 
 the camp is stilled, and the soul goes up alone 
 into the mount with God. How little would 
 there be of error and of diversity among 
 Christians, if before controverting a question 
 they would severally study it in the light of 
 prayer. At the base of the mount they may 
 differ as to the way ; but when by different 
 routes they reach the summit, they take in 
 the same wide survey. 
 
 4. "We may gain this Knowledge lyteing will- 
 ing to learn^ and to correct mistakes. The key of 
 Knowledge is humility. Were we to name 
 the two men in the drcle of the Apostles, who 
 gained the most thorough insight into the life 
 and power of Christianity, and at the same 
 time had the most practical discernment in 
 
KNOWLEDGE BY HUMILITY. 65 
 
 its application, we slioiild name Jolm and 
 Paul. I do not speak of their inspired writings, 
 but of tlie characteristics of the men. 'Now 
 these both were as remarkable for their hu- 
 mility as for their wisdom ; John always sup- 
 pressing his own name in the Gospel narrative, 
 and keeping himself in the background ; Paul 
 not counting himself to have apprehended, nor 
 as already perfect, but pressing towards the 
 mark, and seeking the full knowledge of God 
 in Christ. Bacon testifies that if he had 
 accomplished anything for the advancement 
 of knowledge, " what led to it was a true and 
 genuine humiliation of mind." The oppressive 
 sense of the height, depth, length, and breadth 
 of Knowledge in Christ, kept Paul always 
 humble as to his attainment, always aspiring 
 as to his aims. And this same sense of imper- 
 fection, of littleness, of almost nothingness in 
 our actual Knowledge, and of fullness, vast- 
 ness, infinity itself in Christ, would keep us 
 ever willing, yes, eager to learn ; so that we 
 should profit even by our own errors and mis- 
 takes, making these a help through grace to 
 a higher wisdom. 
 
 6* 
 
6Q THE CHKTSTIAN GRACES. 
 
 5. We may cultivate this Knowledge hy often 
 testing ourselves hy our jprincijples. If we were 
 careful to keep a daily balance-sheet of our 
 actions and principles, we should be more quick 
 to detect errors of judgment, and. to increase our 
 stock of practical wisdom. K we were careful 
 always to test our motives by our principles, 
 we should gain more of that heart-knowledge 
 which prepares us for the fuller Knowledge 
 of Christ. The heart that would know Christ 
 must know itself; must know its weakness to 
 estimate his strength; must know its sin to 
 value his grace ; must know its ignorance to 
 desire his light ; must know by repeated fail- 
 ures and disappointments its own folly, in 
 order to appreciate his wisdom. . If we would 
 grow in that inward Knowledge which gives 
 practical wisdom, we should not only pre- 
 examine questions of duty by the test of 
 prayer, but should re-examine actions by the 
 test of principle. 
 
 True principle is a fixed quantity. It rests 
 upon the eternal base of truth and justice, and 
 is firm as the pillars of heaven. As the old 
 Egyptians took their astronomical bearings 
 
THE DIGNITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 67 
 
 from tlie sun-line npon the pyramid, so should 
 we take our moral bearings by the light of 
 Christ's teaching and life, giving the meridian 
 line of principle and duty. 
 
 in. The excellency of this knowledge in 
 
 ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 1. This Knowledge combined with, firmness 
 infaith^ gives heauty and dignity to character. 
 Tlie apostle enumerates virtues and graces 
 which in their combination make the complete 
 Christian. And while discussing each in its 
 order, with a view to come at its precise signi- 
 ficance, we must not overlook their relations 
 to each other as one family of virtues, or in 
 the figure of the text, as one choir of graces 
 marshalled around Faith as their leader. We 
 have seen that Virtue gives energy, strength, 
 resolve; but a character in which force and 
 earnestness predominate, is one-sided; may 
 easily run into extremes. Knowledge pre- 
 siding over the purposes amd feelings of the 
 soul, that Knowledge of Christ which intro- 
 duces him as our counsellor and guide, imparts 
 to the mind a calm dignity, which, when 
 
DO THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 added to Yirtue, increases strength. "We feel 
 instinctively the weight and dignity of one, 
 who, while firm in his convictions, and reso- 
 lute in his purposes, shows a wide and candid 
 comprehension of the sphere in which he is 
 called to act, and forms his purposes in the 
 serenity of unimpassioned judgment. ~ How 
 much of the majesty of Jesus lay in the fact 
 that he knew all things, and needed not that 
 that any should tell him what was in man. 
 
 2. This Knowledge gives us jpower over our- 
 selves. Man was created a Power, and not a 
 Thing. A thing moves and acts only under a 
 necessary law of cause and effect; a powei 
 acts by will through choice, and is " able to 
 originate new trains of effects."* But man's 
 power over things, his power over nature, lies 
 not in superior force, but in that Ivnowledg'e 
 which gives him command of natural princi- 
 ples and laws for his own advantage. Till he 
 gains this Knowledge, he is himself but the 
 slave of material forces, the dependent and 
 drudge of nature. But with all his knowledge 
 
 * See this distinction finely wrought out in Dr. Bushnell's 
 "Nature and the Supernatural," pp. 85-90. 
 
TIIE MEN OF ISSACHAB. 69 
 
 of nature and power over her, man may still 
 be the slave of lusts and passions and whims 
 if he does not know the truth, if he does not 
 know Christ. The Truth makes free; and 
 Christ entering the soul as a regenerating 
 power, gives it dominion over the body, 
 dominion over self. In proportion as the soul 
 gains a true spiritual power over its inferior 
 desires, does it become a power over the 
 world 
 
 3. This Knowledge gives usjpowerfor good 
 <md even great achievements. It is no modern 
 discovery that " knowledge is power." That is 
 a noteworthy saying concerning the men of 
 Issachar; — ^when the armies of David were 
 gathered at Hebron, after the warriors of other 
 tribes had been spoken of as expert in war, 
 mighty men of valor, it is said that " the child- 
 ren of Issachar were men that had under- 
 standing of the times, to know what Israel 
 ought to do, and all their brethren were at 
 their commandment." The army with all its 
 strength and numbers and valor, required a 
 head, and that head was with the men who 
 "had understanding of the times, to Jcnow 
 
70 THE CHEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 what to do." Bravery and sagacity. Virtue 
 and Knowledge must go together. Know- 
 ledge, so far from repressing courage, animates 
 it. Sometimes one seems rash in the very 
 boldness of his strokes ; when in reality he is 
 far-sighted, and perceives that the crisis de- 
 mands sudden and decisive movements. 'Na- 
 poleon's campaigns, conceived with such 
 daring, and executed with such startling 
 rapidity, were not ventures of fortune, but were 
 planned in midnight studies over maps and 
 charts ; and every road, stream, valley, hamlet, 
 wood, was in his mind before he set foot upon 
 the battle-ground. He failed at Waterloo, not 
 for lack of foresight, but because his plans 
 and orders were not executed by others as 
 conceived and mapped in his brain. In the 
 great conflict waging for truth 'and right, 
 those whose innermost Knowledge of Christ 
 makes them as quick to perceive, as they are 
 resolute to act, will take the lead and win the 
 day. 
 
 4. This Knowledge of Christ gives usjpower 
 over evil and over death. ^ It is half the bat- 
 tle to know the enemy, his ground, his re- 
 
POWER OVER DEATH. 71 
 
 sources, and liis tactics. "What we fear in the 
 dark, we may laugh at when daylight comes. 
 So long as death could wrap himself in gloom 
 and silence, he kept the world in bondage 
 through fear. But since Christ hath burst the 
 bars of death and opened wide the* grave, and 
 showed it to be the camping-ground of angels, 
 and brought life and immortality to light, 
 death hath no more power over souls that 
 know the Lord. They go down into the grave 
 singing, " I know that my Kedeemer liveth." 
 
 " With a glad and fearless mien, 
 Should a Christian man be seen, 
 
 Wheresoe'er be cast his lot. 
 Yea, though death seem close at hand, 
 Calm and quiet let him stand, 
 
 And his spirit tremble not. 
 
 "Fount of joy, my Lord divine, 
 Thine I am, and Thou art mine. 
 
 Naught can tear Thee from my heart ; 
 Bring me, bring me to that place. 
 Where enclasped in Thine embrace, 
 I shall know Thee as Thou arV 
 
 Say not, brethren, " such knowledge of Christ 
 is too wonderful for me ; it is high, I cannot 
 attain to it." High it is above all earthly 
 wisdom — above all the philosophy of man ; — 
 
72 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 but that whicli none of the princes of this 
 world knew, Christ will give to the least of 
 his disciples. It is the Knowledge of Himself, 
 and this He gives alWajs to prayerful seeking. 
 Give all diligence to gain it. Add to Yirtue 
 Knowledge. Seek to know Christ. Study to 
 know Christ; to know Him by ptayer; to 
 know Him in the written word; to know 
 Him by a daily trust ; to know Him by that 
 inward experience of his grace and truth and 
 love, which is eternal life. "Beware, lest 
 being led away with the error of the wicked, 
 ye fall from your own steadfastness. But grow 
 in grace, and in the Knowledge of our Lord 
 and Saviour, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory, 
 both now and forever. Amen." 
 
LECTURE III. 
 TEMPERAJSTCE. 
 
 And to Knowledge, tempkrance. — 2 Peter i. 6. 
 
 HIS is the third figure in tliat sum in 
 compound addition, the footing up of 
 which makes the complete Christian 
 character. Though the virtues and 
 graces here enumerated are of difibrent 
 denominations and values, everj one of them 
 is not only important, but indispensable to a 
 correct result. The distinction between some 
 of these traits may seem merely verbal ; but 
 upon analysis, we find that each word conveys 
 a separate and important thought, a distinc- 
 tion which the mind should dwell upon till it 
 has become fixed' as a trait to be studied and 
 cultivated in ourselves. 
 
 If we could but carry on this addition in 
 our hearts as rapidly aS we can make it in our 
 thought and speech, we should soon grow to 
 
 Y 73 
 
74 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 be substantial and complete Christians. And 
 surely while studying this text as to its mean- 
 ing, we ought to be making these virtues our 
 own — strengthening and improving what we 
 already possess, and seeking to develop what 
 we have hitherto neglected. Every virtue in 
 the list should be cultivated by every Christ- 
 ian ; and so cultivated that each shall have its 
 due place and proportion in the character. 
 Have you, then, renewed your diligence in 
 cultivating a manly regard for truth and duty ? 
 Are you adding to your Faith the firm deter- 
 mination to obey God, to do always and 
 without shrinking that which a conscience 
 enlightened by his w^ord requires ? And with 
 this Yirtuous persistence in truth and duty, 
 and in order that this may never become a 
 misguided and excessive zeal, are you at the 
 same time seeking that inward personal Know- 
 ledge of Christ which shall guide you by his 
 Spirit in doing his will? — that Knowledge, 
 which by elevating the soul into the calm, 
 pure regions of spiritual light, quickens its 
 discernment of practical duty, and leads it 
 whither Christ would have it go? While 
 
SELF-CONTEOK 75 
 
 Virtue makes us active, open, strenuous, bold, 
 firm, whenever truth requires this manifesta- 
 tion at our hands. Knowledge makes us clear, 
 calm, considerate, discerning as to what should 
 be done or avoided for the glory of God, and 
 the best good of our fellow-men. 
 
 To these virtues, the apostle bids us add 
 TEMPEEAi^^CE. Our modcm use of this word 
 restricts it mainly to abstinence from strong 
 drink, making temperance the opposite of 
 drunkenness, or of any excess in the use of 
 intoxicating drinks or drugs. In the old 
 English, however, this word had special refer- 
 ence to chastity or continence ; and the original 
 term has a still wider meaning, denoting the 
 control of all the appetites and passions. 
 Abstinence alone does not fully express the 
 idea, since this presents rather its negative 
 side. The word means strictly " ruling with 
 a strong hand," having the mastery ; and 
 when applied to a person, the temperate man 
 is he who governs himself firmly, who has the 
 mastery especially over the passions and appe- 
 tites of his lower nature. Tem]3erance is Self- 
 control, "an entire command over our passions 
 
76 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 and desires, so that tliey receive no further 
 allowance than the law of God admits," and 
 reason and conscience, enlightened by that 
 law, approve.* Let ns now inquire — 
 
 I. What this self-contkol involves or 
 
 IMPLIES. 
 
 * ^EyKpuTeta [engkrateia) is used by Plato aud Aristotle ^o 
 express self -discipline, self-mastery. Xenophoii uses it to 
 express the government of all the passions and appetites ; 
 such a mastery of the natural desires for food, drink, and 
 sensual gratification, and such a power to endure cpld, heat, 
 fatigue, and want of sleep, as ^)econie a good general in 
 time of war. (Mem. 1. 2, 1 ; 1. 6, 1 ; 2. 1, 1.) So Paul used 
 the word when addressing Felix, who lived in open adultery 
 with Drusilla, and who indulged every selfish and sensual 
 passion ; *' he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and 
 judgment," till the wretch trembled. 
 
 Passow translates eyKpdreia by Selbstbeherrschung, self- 
 government ; and Mdssigung in Sinnengenilssen, moderation 
 in sensual enjoyments. 
 
 The Latin temperaiitia, from which our word temperance 
 is derived, has the same meaning ; moderation, regulation, 
 government, self-restraint. And it is applied not only to 
 sensual appetites, but to the government of the tongue, the 
 eyes, the temper ; to the restraint of the emotions of grief 
 under calamity or of exultation in victory, (Georges). Cicero 
 defines temperantia to be that which teaches us to follow 
 reason, both in what we seek and in what we avoid ; a firm 
 and judicious control of reason over impulse and desire. 
 (De Finibus 1, 14, and 2, 19.) 
 
SINFUL HABITS. 77 
 
 n. By what means it may be attained. 
 
 1. This Christian Temperance or self-con- 
 trol implies and demands the absolute suhjec- 
 tion of all evil appetites, passions^ and desires. 
 Sin, in its radical idea, pertains to a state of 
 the Will, as contrary to or alien from the will 
 of God. But this willful alienation from God, 
 this voluntary self-seeking, this supreme love 
 of self or of the world — by whatever name 
 we characterize it as a principle — acts in 
 every individual, mainly through some par- 
 ticular form or forms of carnal or worldly de- 
 sire which become prominent as specific sins 
 or sinful habits ; and like certain venomous 
 creatures whose parts continue to move and 
 to give out poison even after the head is cut 
 off, these habits, impregnated with the virus of 
 the sinning will, retain their vitality and their 
 power of evil long after the will itself is 
 changed in its supreme and permanent direc- 
 tion. Hence, while in urging men to repent, 
 the Bible' lays stress upon the change of 
 heart, mind, will, purpose — a change of the 
 voluntary state of the man — as the radical, 
 essential, and comprehensive thing; it also 
 
78 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 exhorts those who have made this radical 
 change of purpose and life, to subdue specific 
 sins which have acquired in them the force of 
 habit. The epistles of Paul addressed for .the 
 most part to persons, who, before conversion, 
 had lived in all the vices and corruptions of 
 heathen society, abound in exhortations and 
 warnings against specific sins. Tlius he writes 
 to the Ephesians : "Be not drunk with wine, 
 wherein is excess;" "fornication, uncleanness, 
 or covetousness, let it not be once named 
 among you, as becometh saints ;" and to the 
 Corinthians he says, " I bewail many which 
 have sinned already, and have not repented 
 of the lasciviousness which they have com- 
 mitted." 
 
 Those grosser social vices with which the 
 pagan society of the old world was tho- 
 roughly infected, and w^hich the old pagan 
 religion encouraged — vices which destroyed 
 home, corrupted literature, debased art, and 
 defiled the altars of the gods — were so little 
 thought of as evils, were so fully sanctioned 
 by custom, were so gilded over by the exam- 
 ple of public men, the toleration of law, and 
 
SENSUAL INDULGENCE. Y9 
 
 the flattering arts of genius, were so protected 
 by the priests, who made them a means of 
 revenue, that it was an easy thing for a Christ- 
 ian at Corinth, at Ephesus, at Antioch, or 
 any like luxurious capital, to slide into sins 
 the bare suggestion of which we should re- 
 sent with abhorrence. Paul recognizes as 
 Christians, the children of God, the followers 
 of Christ, those whom he warns so earnestly 
 against specific and grievous sins. As he 
 writes to the Romans, — " "When we were in 
 the flesh" — ^living for mere self-gratification, 
 " the motions of sin did work in our members," 
 incitements to sin wrought upon us through 
 the natural appetites; wherefore, he says, 
 " Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that 
 ye should obey it in the lusts thereof ; neither 
 j-ield ye your members as instruments [or 
 agents] of unrighteousness unto sin." In the 
 same tone he says again, " if ye live after the 
 flesh ye shall die ;" if you make the gratifica- 
 tion of natural appetites and tastes, and car- 
 nal desires, your aim in life, you shall lose 
 the life of your soul ; " but if ye through the 
 spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye 
 
80 THE CHEI8TUN GRACES. 
 
 shall live. Mortify, therefore, your mem- 
 bers which are upon the earth. They that 
 are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the 
 aflfections and lusts." Such language ad- 
 dressed to Christians, shows that over and 
 above that surrendering of the will to God, 
 which is conversion ; that yielding uj) the soul 
 to Christ in trustful obedience, w^hicli is faith ; — 
 over and beyond this there is a work of self- 
 subjection, with regard to specific passions, 
 habits, and desires, which every Christian 
 must labor to achieve in himself. Tlie apos- 
 tle describes this by such words as " mortify," 
 " crucify," which show that this work of con- 
 quering particular passions or habits of evil 
 requires severe and painful effort. Precisely 
 this conquest, even to the destruction of every 
 evil habit, is required in that Temperance 
 which the text enjoins. It is ruling such pas- 
 sions with a strong hand^ subduing and keep- 
 ing them under effectually, w^hich makes the 
 self-control of the Christian. Tliat self-con- 
 trol is not complete till every passion or ten- 
 dency in its nature to evil, is not barely re- 
 strained, or brought within bounds, but is 
 
ANGEB. 81 
 
 put down and i mastered, so as to rise no 
 more. 
 
 Anger, in the common use of the word, is 
 an evil passion. While there is such a thing 
 as a virtuous indignation against outrage and 
 wrong, a holy indignation at sin, yet by anger 
 we mean a violent passion or excitement of 
 mind on account of injury, real or supposed, 
 attended wdth a feeling of resentment, a desire 
 to retaliate upon the offender. I^ow such' a 
 passion is evil, and only evil ; and self-control 
 requires its absolute subjection. An excitable 
 temperament, or a passionate habit of mind, 
 allowed in youth, may palliate in the Christ- 
 ian occasional freaks or outbreaks of passion, 
 so long f s he is conscientiously and earnestly 
 endeavoring to conquer his propensity to 
 anger ; but this cannot serve him as a stand- 
 ing pretext for the indulgence of this passion. 
 It is his duty to subdue it ; to govern his tem- 
 per. It is not enough that he should be sorry 
 after anger, and willing to humble himself by 
 confession; it is not enough that he should 
 deprecate this as an infirmity ; it is not enough 
 that he should learn to bite his lips and curb 
 
82 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 his tongue while he is choking with rage 
 within ; he must so master temper and tem- 
 perament that he shall hold the passion of 
 anger in complete subjection, never suffering 
 it to rise. A passionate man cannot exercise 
 self-control till he has gained that conquest. 
 Some ancient philosophers used the word 
 Temperance as the specific opposite of irrita- 
 bility.* 
 
 Self-indulgence in ajppetite, whether under 
 the form of drunkenness or of gluttony, is a 
 sin. It is a sin against the body, whose 
 beautiful mechanism we strain and impair by 
 any excess. It is an offence against the mind, 
 whose faculties we clog and stupefy, by excess 
 of food or drink, or derange by an uiinatural 
 stimulus, and whose lawful dominion over 
 the body is usurped and dishonored whenever 
 an appetite gains the ascendency over reason. 
 It is a sin against God, the gifts of whose 
 bounty are perverted, when used as if appe- 
 tite were the chief thing to be consulted. 
 "Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask 
 
 * See in Passow — Mdsslgung ; comp. in Fliigel. 
 
C0VET0ITSNES8. 83 
 
 amiss, tliat ye may consume it upon your 
 lusts." 
 
 GovetousnesSj is specified again and again in 
 tlie word of God as one of the worst forms of 
 carnal passion ; and the subjection of this is 
 indispensable to self-government. Hardly 
 any passion so blinds its victims, so insinuates 
 itself into every thought and plan of life, so 
 paves the way for all that is unlovely in spirit 
 and evil in practice. Hence the Bible always 
 puts the covetous man in the worst possible 
 company. "Mortify your members which 
 are upon the earth ; fornication, uncleanli- 
 ness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, 
 and Govetousness which is idolai/ryP Our 
 blessed Lord has taught us that "out of an evil 
 heart proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, forni- 
 cations, murders, thefts, covetousness^ wicked- 
 ness, deceit ;" and with solemn emphasis he 
 warns us, " Take heed, and beware of covetr 
 ousnessP The greed of gain must be subdued, 
 or it will choke the life of Godliness in the 
 soul. The Christian must learn to moderate 
 his views and desires of worldly possessions. 
 If he finds the least disposition to count upon 
 
84: THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 tliese as his portion, if he finds himself han- 
 kering after more and more of this world's 
 good, he must give himself no rest till he con- 
 quer that passion, or it will conquer, and- 
 degrade, and destroy his soul. 
 
 The tendency to a self-satisfied and even 
 luxuriates enjoyment of the worlds is perhaps 
 the strongest antagonist in our times to a sim- 
 ple scriptural piety. The grosser vices which 
 were tolerated and even sanctioned in the best 
 society of Greece and Eome, and which are 
 constantly referred to in the apostolic letters, 
 have been so thoroughly branded by Christ- 
 ianity, that they are outlawed by the code of 
 our civilization. Yet the propensity to self- 
 indulgence in the world, is not subdued ; but 
 rather whetted by the refinements of modern 
 luxury. The world is still a tempter and a 
 snare to whatever soul may incline towards it 
 for its satisfaction. " 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 is of the world." Sensual appetite, 
 pleasure-seeking for its own sake, and frivo- 
 lity in the methods of enjoyment, a vain love 
 
LOVE OF THE WOELD. 85 
 
 of pomp and show, these proceed from a pro- 
 pensity wliich cannot be reconciled with the 
 love of God — these must be conquered if the 
 soul would give itself unconditionally to the 
 love of the Father. Here lies the test of piety 
 in our times. Clothed in better raiment than 
 adorned the court of Queen Elizabeth, living 
 in more sumptuous abodes than were the 
 palaces of England three centuries ago, living 
 in a society which makes the pomp of furni- 
 ture and the richness of entertainments the 
 test of social worth, and which even uses reli- 
 gion as an auxiliary to fashion, we are called 
 upon to preserve the unaffected simplicity of 
 the Gospel, and to keep ourselves " unspotted 
 from the world." Here it is that the Christian 
 of to-day has most need of Temperance ; Yir- 
 tue to assert his faith ; knowledge to discern 
 his duty; and a rigid and watchful Control 
 over those propensities toward pleasure and 
 pride which would bring him under the domi- 
 nion of the god of this world. 
 
 2. Besides this absolute subjection of all 
 evil passions and propensities, the law of 
 Temperance requires that those natural dcr 
 8 
 
86 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 sires which are in themselves innocent and law- 
 ful^ should^ hoth as to the tnanner and the mea- 
 sure of their indulgence^ he regulated hy a re- 
 ga/rdfor the highest good of the soul. Appetites 
 and tastes we have, which were never designed 
 to be our tempters and tormentors — ^making 
 the body a mere battle-field of the soul — but 
 were meant to minister to a pure and healthy 
 enjoyment. But the peculiarity of these 
 native appetites and tastes in man, is, that 
 they do not, like the instincts of animals, regu- 
 late themselves, but require the mild restraint 
 of reason. Hence the Christian law of Mode- 
 ration, an enlightened regard for the soul's 
 highest welfare, must control , the measure 
 and the method of all lower gratifications. A 
 person who, on medical advice, had begun 
 the daily use of wine, being accidentally de- 
 prived of it, felt such a hankering for its 
 exhilaration, that he took the alarm, and at 
 once abandoned it, choosing rather to sufier a 
 physical infirmity than to endanger his self- 
 control. That is a nice point — a hair-line — 
 where Desire instead of ministering to rational 
 enjoyment, oversteps the bounds of reason, 
 
NO CONDITIONAL LOVE. 87 
 
 and becomes an ungovernable passion. Keep 
 well within tbat line. 
 
 3. It has been assumed in this discussion, 
 that since all sin concentrates in a selfish Will, 
 this of course must be subdued in order to a 
 sound and perfect self-control. But I wish to 
 insist, for a moment, upon the idea that self- 
 ishness is not merely to be restrained, mode- 
 rated, held in check bj compromises, but to 
 be conquered, if ever the soul would gain the 
 mastery of itself for God. Our love of God, 
 to be complete, must be unconditional. The 
 moment we attempt to condition it upon what 
 He may be willing to do for us, it ceases to be 
 love, and becomes a mere mercenary passion. 
 "What should we think of a child who should 
 make his love for his father for the day, de- 
 pend upon his father's giving him this or that 
 which his fancy might covet, or his appetite 
 crave ; and should withhold his kiss of affec- 
 tion, until he should see what gain the day 
 would bring to him ? The existence of this 
 calculating, selfish spirit is incompatible with 
 the vpry idea of love. Till we have put down 
 all self-seeking, so as to say to-day, ana to-mor- 
 
88 
 
 THE CHEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 row, and always, and nnflinchinglj, — "Thy 
 will not mine be done," — we have not con- 
 quered ourselves for God. 
 
 II. Tliis virtue of Temperance, or self-con- 
 trol, we are commanded to cultivate, with all 
 diligence. Let us now inquire, therefore, 
 
 HOW SHALL rr BE ATTALNED ? 
 
 1. Not ly mere force of will, determining 
 to override, and if possible to annihilate the 
 sensibilities and propensities of our nature, 
 whether fpr good or evil. The cold impas- 
 siveness of marble is not self-control ; nor can 
 the Christian perfect his moral nature by cut- 
 ting away all natural emotions and sympa- 
 thies, and carving his soul into a statue, to be 
 mounted upon an iron pedestal, and to look 
 always in one direction. If Washington him- 
 self had been a statue, we should never have 
 erected a statue of "Washington. If his soul 
 had been of brass, his self-control would never 
 have impressed us, as it now does, with the 
 magisterial dignity of his character. The 
 stern, cold, iron discipline of the ancient stoic 
 and of the modern Buddhist, hardening the 
 
STOICISM NOT TEMPERANCE. 89 
 
 mind to an unnatural insensibility to pleasure 
 or pain from without, has nothing in common 
 with Christian self-control. One may conquer 
 many an appetite and passion by mere force of 
 will, and in so doing may strengthen the will 
 itself in resistance to God, and may stiffen that 
 will with the pride of self-righteousness. 
 
 The philosophy of this stoical indifference to 
 natural desire, is as far from^he philosophy of 
 Christian self-government, as is the crank that 
 moves the springs and wires of an automaton, 
 from the soul that moves the nerves and mus- 
 cles of the man. One who refused to govern his 
 appetites by the moral law, may be rendered 
 very temperate by a fit of the gout ; but we do 
 not feel that his coerced abstinence by mere 
 force of will, under pressure of danger, is 
 Christian self-control ; for when the twinge of 
 pain is over, the will relaxes, and appetite 
 again has sway. Not abstinence alone, through 
 some stern, intellectual or medical philoso- 
 phy, but the control of self by the love of 
 God, is the true Temperance. 
 
 2. Neither is self-control to be attained by the 
 a/rbiira/ry moTtification of the hody, ly means 
 8* 
 
90 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 of denials and penances. Christianity was 
 not made for the desert and the convent, "but 
 for the living and hostile world ; and we are 
 not to become saints by secluding ourselves 
 from the outer world, but are to he saints in 
 it, by the power of a new life. Tlie experi- 
 ment of monkery, of celibacy under a vow, of 
 hermit life, away from the haunts of men, as 
 a means of proi*)ting personal holiness, has 
 resulted either in a morbid Pietism, a bigoted 
 Fanaticism, or a gross Sensuality of life. 
 The monk and the hermit subsisting on 
 scanty fare, and mortifying the body by hard 
 usage and voluntary tortures, kave not con- 
 quered pride and self-will, have not thus sub- 
 dued Satan within them — ^have even made 
 new devils out of phantoms — ^have not always 
 even conquered the lusts of the flesh. The 
 gross and monstrous " chambers of imagery " 
 still to be seen in old Egyptian temples — as at 
 Dendera — were transcripts of the pent ima- 
 ginations and passions of priests who devised 
 them, and of later monks who inherited them. 
 A vivid writer who has reproduced the era of 
 Christian monkery in Egypt, rightly combines 
 
THE OUTER AND THE INNER. 91 
 
 a fanatical outward abstemiousness with the 
 cravings of morbid desires.* You cannot con- 
 quer the world by running awaj from it, much 
 less can you conquer yourself by hiding away 
 from the world. The avoidance of temptation, 
 always a duty, is not to be accomplished, by 
 putting locks and bolts upon the doors of our 
 houses, but by watching at the door of our 
 hearts. The spirit of Christian Temperance is 
 not the spirit of monkish penance — making a 
 virtue of some forced outward abstinence. The 
 control which the text enjoins is a matter not 
 of outward' regulation, but of inward power 
 . over self. It does not consist in checks imposed 
 upon the outward action of the desire or will, 
 but in reducing the inner man to a state of 
 harmony with reason and the law of God. 
 
 " We need not bid for cloistered cell, 
 Our neighbor and our work farewell, 
 Nor strive to wind ourselves too high, 
 For sinful man, beneath the sky. 
 
 " The trivial round, the common task, 
 * Would furnish all we ought to ask ; 
 Koom to deny ourselves ; a road 
 To bring us daily nearer God."f 
 
 ♦ Kingsley's "Hypatia." f Keble's " Christian Tear." 
 
ya THE CHRISTIAIT GEACES. 
 
 3. But in order to gain Self-control, we must 
 study ourselves^ especially as to our weak 
 points of character, and aim to conquer specific 
 modes or habits of evil to which we are prone. 
 The apostle speaks of " the sin which doth so 
 easily beset us ;" and every one who is accus- 
 tomed to study his heart, finds some point at 
 which Satan works with special facility. If 
 one is repeatedly affected with heart-burn, with 
 headache, with nervousness, with nightmare, 
 he begins to scrutinize his diet, and when he 
 ascertains what it is that deranges his system, 
 he refrains from that as if it were poison. 
 If we were half so careful in the dietetics of 
 the soiil, we should keep up a far more healthy 
 and vigorous tone of Yirtue. Whenever any- 
 thing goes amiss in our outward conduct, or 
 when we find an indifference or languor of 
 heart towards spiritual things, if we search 
 into the springs of our spiritual life we shall 
 discover that at some point an evil propen- 
 sity, an old unconquered habit, has gained a 
 temporary ascendency over us, and has 
 betrayed us into sin ; and we must set om-- 
 selves resolutely by the grace of God to con- 
 
ROBERT HALL. 93 
 
 quer that evil. I have instanced the case of 
 one who found himself insensibly contract- 
 ing an appetite for spirituous drinks, which 
 he had begun to use as a medicine. The dis- 
 covery of the danger gave him resolution for 
 the remedy. I have learned also of one who 
 finding the spirit of covetousness growing 
 with the increase of his wealth, fought it down 
 by signing checks in blank for benevolent- 
 societies, and keeping these ready to be filled 
 up on every application. He conquered him- 
 self by writing his name. Robert Hall, so 
 weighty and eloquent in the pulpit, was apt 
 to b*e impetuous and overbearing in uttering 
 his opinions in private. But he watched and 
 prayed against this infirmity, till he percepti- 
 bly gained in modesty and sweetness of tem- 
 per. Once when he so far lost his self-com- 
 mand as to become heated in a debate, he 
 abruptly closed the discussion and left the 
 room. The company supposed that he had 
 gone away in anger; but he was overheard to 
 ejaculate with deep feeling, '' Larrib of God; 
 Lamb of God, calm my excited spirit." He 
 went away not to show angqr, but to conquer 
 
94: THE CHRISTIAN OEACES. 
 
 it by prayer ; — ^willing to lose Ms accustomed 
 triumph in an argument, if lie could win the 
 greater victory over himself. 
 
 4. Again ; the power of Self-control will be 
 strengthened, if we cherish habitually the 
 sense of GocPs presence and of his watchful 
 eye. When David has portrayed the omni- 
 presence and omniscience of God, in that 
 Psalm which is as the fire of Sinai kindled 
 within the soul, when he has realized God in his 
 spiritual Personality as knowing e^ry word 
 of the tongue and every unuttered thought, 
 compassing the earth and the sea, outflying 
 the wrings of the morning, and piercing dark- 
 ness with the blaze of noon — he prostrates 
 himself before the omnipresent and omni- 
 scient Jehovah, and cries, " Search me, O 
 God, and know my heart ; try me and know 
 my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked 
 way in me, and lead me in the way everlast- 
 ing." * Could we form worldly and selfish 
 plans — ^if we felt the presence of God about 
 us, felt his eye upon us ? Should we debase 
 ourselves by any evil appetite or passion, if 
 
 * Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24. 
 
THE PEESENCE OF GOD. 95 
 
 we saw the Lord continually before ns ? Could 
 we allow ourselves in anger or in vain and 
 foolish talking, if we remembered that there 
 is not a word on our tongues but the Lord 
 knoweth it altogether ? Do we not first put 
 God out of mindj and theru abandon our- 
 selves to sin ? There is no government over 
 our evil propensities, like the simple thought, 
 " Thou God see'st me." 
 
 " Oh ! may this thought possess my breast, 
 Where'er I roam, where'er I rest ; 
 Nor let my weaker passions dare 
 Consent to sin, for God is there." 
 
 And not only the thought of God as ever 
 nigh to us, but the presence of God hy his 
 Spirit within us, must be cherished, if we 
 would govern ourselves by His law. The 
 Apostle enumerates Temperance, self-govern- 
 ment, among the fruits of the Spirit. And 
 surely when the Holy Spirit is so honored 
 and cherished in our hearts, that He consents 
 to abide there as in a temple, when his blessed 
 influence, sought by prayer, steals over us like 
 the fragrance of heaven, like the music of 
 
96 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 angels, every noisj passion, every nnwortliy 
 motive, every selfish wish, every carnal desire, 
 must lie vanquished before Him. As the 
 notes of a wind instrument attuned to softest 
 music, breathing sweeter and sweeter chords, 
 floating into the upper heaven, almost vanish- 
 ing from the outer ear, but whispering still to 
 the ear of the spirit — ^hush the idle conversa- 
 tion, the restless wandering, the fashionable 
 coquetry of a vast and mixed assembly, sub- 
 duing every soul by a gentle, invisible power 
 — BO the voice of this celestial dove, the. still 
 small voice, the inbreathing of heaven, so 
 pure, so gentle, yet so controlling, stills all 
 that is earthly within us, and holds us captive 
 to divine love. " If ye through the Spirit do 
 mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live ; 
 for as many as are led ly the Spirit of God^ 
 they are the sons of God." 
 
 And now, in conclusion, let me urge you 
 to give all diligence to add this grace to your 
 character; — io perfect yourself inthegoverrir 
 ment of your own heart. 
 
 1. I urge you to this diligence, hy the great- 
 
COLEEIDGE. 97 
 
 ness of the object to he obtained. Consider 
 wliat it is to gain tlie mastery over a single 
 passion. And tliink, also, what it is for the 
 mind to be ruled by an appetite ! Look at 
 Coleridge — a poet who might have sung for 
 all time, a philosopher capable of teaching 
 and moulding generations, skulking away 
 from the eye of friends and of servants to 
 drink his bottle of laudanum, and then 
 bewailing his weakness and sin with an agony 
 the bare recital of which makes our hearts 
 bleed for pity. Think of the poets, the states- 
 men, the warriors, who have sunk under the . 
 inebriating cup, and have left a dishonored 
 name. And as you mourn over the melan- 
 choly ruin of greatness by appetite and pas- 
 sion, think how great it is to master these ; to 
 subject all passions and desires to the wise 
 and sound control of Reason acting for Love. 
 It is not only to subdue a serpent, to tame a 
 lion, — there is a whole menagerie of evil pas- 
 sions to be kept in subjection. "Every kind 
 of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and 
 of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been 
 tamed of mankind* but the tongue can no 
 
y» THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 man tame ; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly 
 poison." The grace tliat can subdue tongue 
 and thouglit and heart to the mild constraint 
 of love, is the very power of God. 
 
 2. I exhort you to be diligent in this Self- 
 conquest because it is made practicahle hy 
 timely diligence. Passions indulged have a 
 rapid and fearful growth. Give them sway, 
 and they become like very fiends within you. 
 But as the crocodile of the Nile, which 
 devours a man at a meal, and snaps a boat 
 asunder with its jaws, can be crushed within 
 your hand when in the Qgg^ so the passions 
 that devour human souls could be extermi- 
 nated by one timely and decisive blow. " Ile- 
 sist the Devil and he will flee from you." 
 
 3. 1 exhort you to this Self-con trol,/b7'y(9^^7' 
 own peace of mind. In a sense all our unhap- 
 piness proceeds from the want of self-regula- 
 tion. I use unhapjpiness in distinction from 
 that sorrow which afflictions bring. Tlie per- 
 sonal experience of David at various times, as 
 recorded in the Psalms, points this contrast 
 between the man made unhappy by his own 
 sins, and the saint, afflicted by God's Provi- 
 
DAVID S EXPEEIENCE. 
 
 99 
 
 dence. The contrast is most effective when 
 you throw these experiences into parallel 
 columns, and compare them side by side. 
 
 The Unhappy Man. 
 
 " When I kept silence " — 
 harboring sin in my heart, 
 and unwilling to confess it 
 — " my bones waxed old 
 through my roaring all the 
 day long " — I was tormented 
 with inward pains of con- 
 science. — " For day and night 
 thy hand was heavy upon 
 me ; my moisture is turned 
 into the drought of summer." 
 — (Ps. xxxii. 3,. 4.) 
 
 " My sin is ever before 
 me. Against thee, thee only, 
 have I sinned, and done evil 
 
 in thy sight Make 
 
 me to hear joy and gladness, 
 that the bones which thou 
 hast broken may rejoice. . 
 Restore unto me the joy of 
 thy salvation. . . . Deliver me 
 from blood-guiltiness, God, 
 thou God of my salvation." 
 — (Ps. U. 
 
 The Afflicted Man. 
 
 " Lord, how are they in- 
 creased that trouble me! 
 many are they that rise up 
 against me ; many which say 
 of my soul. There is no help 
 for 'him in God. But thou, 
 Lord, art a shield for me ; my 
 glory, and the lifter up of mine 
 head." Driven out from Je- 
 rusalem by a rebellious son, 
 dethroned and forsaken of 
 men — " I laid me down and 
 slept; I awaked; for the 
 Lord sustained me. — (Ps. iii.) 
 
 In the midst of enemies, 
 surrounded by bloody men, 
 he sings, " The Lord is my 
 light and my salvation ; whom 
 shall I fear ? the Lord is the 
 strength of my life, of whom 
 shall I be afraid ? Though a 
 host should encamp against 
 me, my heart shall not fear. 
 . . For in the time of trou- 
 ble, he shall hide me in his 
 pavilion." — (_J?s. xxvii.) 
 
100 THE CKRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 Unliappiness is quite anotlier tiling from 
 that sacred and chastened sorrow wMch the 
 heart may lawfully indulge under afflictive 
 dispensations of Providence. "Whenever we 
 are unhappy it is because of some ground of 
 perturbation within ourselves. But the due 
 control of our desires removes all those in- 
 ward occasions of perturbed feeling, which 
 produce an unhappy spirit. " Let your mo- 
 deration be known to all men. ... Be care- 
 ful for nothing." Allow yourself in no ex- 
 cess; indulge no solicitude for, worldly good ; 
 " and the peace of Grod, which passeth all un- 
 derstanding, shall keep your hearts and minds 
 through Christ Jesus." 
 
 When Mr. Webster stood before the eager 
 thousands at Bunl^er Hill, on an occasion 
 which must have agitated any common man, 
 his wife, regarding him from a distance, ob- 
 served to a friend, " I do not care to remain ; 
 for I see that he is calm^ and I know that 
 he will succeed." A conscious Self-control 
 gives that assured calmness which is the re- 
 pository of strength. 
 
 4. Yov/r duty to Christy and your jprofessed 
 ho^e in Hirr^ require that you shall govern your 
 
101 
 
 Jiearts in his sjpirit. " He died for all, that tliey 
 whicli live should not henceforth live to them- 
 selves, but to Him which died for them, and 
 rose again." And if Jesus was nailed to the 
 cross to deliver you from sin, shall not you 
 nail to his cross every darling lust? You 
 owe it to your professed hope in Christ that 
 you shall be an example of holy living. 
 " Every one that hath this hope in Him, puri- 
 fieth himself even as He is pure." Let us 
 keep ever in mind that saying of Paul, who, 
 having endured all earthly loss and shame for 
 Christ, still enjoined upon his own heart the 
 most vigilant self-control. " Every man that 
 striveth for the mastery is temperate in all 
 things. Now, they do it to obtain a corrupti- 
 ble crown ; but we an incorruptible. I there- 
 fore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, 
 not as one that beateth the air. But / Jceej) 
 under my lody^ and bring it into .subjection ^ 
 lest that by any means, when I preach to 
 others, I myself should be a castaway." 
 
 9* 
 
LECTURE lY. 
 PATIEI^CE. 
 
 And to Temperance Patience. — 2 Peter i. 6." 
 
 EHOLD we count them liappy which 
 endure. " He that endureth to the end 
 shall be saved." This uncomplaining 
 and inflexible endurance is Patience ; 
 literally " a remaining under," or 
 abiding in the place and circumstances of 
 duty to which we are called; bearing up 
 under labors, and difficulties, and trials, and 
 conflicts, and sorrows, calmly and resolutely 
 awaiting the end, in God's own time and way. 
 '' If we hope for that we see not, then do ,we 
 with Patience wait for it." " We desire that 
 every one of you do show the same diligence 
 to the full assurance of hope unto the end ; 
 that ye be not slothful but followers of them 
 who through faith and Patience inherit the 
 promises." Here continuance in faith and 
 
 102 
 
A CALM ENDUEANCE. 103 
 
 endurance under trial constitute the Patience 
 of the saints. "Warning the Hebrews against 
 drawing back or wavering in their profession 
 because of trials, the apostle says, " cast not 
 away your confidence ;" forsake not that trust 
 in Christ which you have thus far maintained ; 
 cast not away that sheet-anchor of hope which 
 has held you through so many storms ; "for 
 ye have need of Patience, that, after ye have 
 done the will of God, ye might receive the pro- 
 mise." " Behold," saith James, " the husband- 
 man waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, 
 and hath long Patience for it, until he receive 
 the early and latter rain. Be ye also Patient ; 
 establish your hearts ; for the coming of the 
 Lord draweth nigh." Abraham after he had 
 patiently endured wandering, affliction, exile 
 — "had patiently endured, obtained the 
 promise." " Rest in the Lord and wait 
 patiently for Him." The prophet Jeremiah, 
 in his lamentations, while bewailing his own 
 sins and the sins and calamities of his peo- 
 ple, yet exhibits the virtue of Patience when 
 he says, " the Lord is my portion, saith my 
 soul ; therefore will I hope in him ; it is good 
 
104: THE CHEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 that a man should both hope and quietly wait 
 for the salvation of the Lord." And David, 
 when compassed about with evil doers, and 
 threatened by the pride and prosperity of the 
 wicked, thus exhorts the righteous to. Patience. 
 " Commit thy way to the Lord ; trust also in 
 him. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently 
 for him." 
 
 These examples will serve to bring out the 
 general signification of the term Patience as 
 used in the Scriptures.* We pass to consider. 
 
 I. The elements of a teue Cheistian Pa- 
 tience. 
 
 * The literal •meaning of vKOfiovf/ (Jiupdmone) is remain- 
 ing behind^ or remaining in the house ; i. e. abiding, — das 
 zuriickbleiben, zuhausebleiben (Passow). Hence constancy, 
 stability, steadiness. " Our days on the earth are as a sha- 
 dow, and there is none abiding^ (1 Chron. xxix. 15.) The 
 Septuagint here uses vno/iovT} to denote stability, the oppo- 
 site of that which is transitory and fleeting. In the text 
 De Wette renders vnofiovT] by Standhaftigkeit, steadfastness. 
 It is something more than suhmissiveness, by which Isaac 
 Taylor defines it. Patientia denotes the quality of bearing or 
 enduring. Cicero applies it to the endurance of hunger and 
 cold. 
 
NOT INSENSIBILITY. 105 
 
 II. The place and value of patience in 
 THE Christian charactek. 
 
 1. In analyzing Patience into its elements, we 
 must view it both upon the negative and the 
 positive side. Patience does not invply a want 
 of sensibility to suffering^ sorrow^ or wrong. 
 A E^orth American Indian would think it 
 unmanly or cowardly to betray a conscious- 
 ness of pain ; to utter a cry or shed a tear for 
 any physical suffering. There is possible 
 such a schooling of muscle and nerve, and 
 such a stiffening of the will through pride or 
 self-determination, that there shall be no winc- 
 ing under the severest torture. Or where 
 this impassiveness of the animal nature does 
 not exist, a desperate course of life may have 
 so deadened the sensibilities that there is no 
 apparent yielding under pain. The criminal 
 who has hardened himself to deeds of blood 
 may seem as insensible to his fate as the stone 
 he hammers in the jail-yard, and may even 
 tread the scaffold with an air of bravado. 
 But though no cry of pain escape him, no 
 murmuring at his fate, though he wear out 
 uncomplaining years in the penitentiary, or 
 
106 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 bend his neck to tlie gallows' noose as if it 
 were a common neck-tie, it would be absurd 
 to speak of Mm as patient under suffering. 
 
 So intense were the sufferings of Jesus 
 upon the cross, that bis physical frame sank 
 beneath them in less than half the time 
 allotted for the cross to do its work ; such 
 too w^as his inward agony that his cry pierced 
 the heavens ; " My God, my God, why hast 
 thou forsaken me !" Yet one of the thieves at 
 his side, enduring the same physical torture, 
 could even join in the derisions of the crowd 
 below, and rail at him, saying, " K thou be 
 Christ, save thyself and us." But we feel that 
 this unflinching criminal was a hardened 
 wretch, and that the sensitive, quivering, 
 moaning sufferer at his side was the Lamb of 
 God, the dignity of whose Patience is not 
 impaired in our thought by his visible 
 anguish. We cannot associate with Jesus 
 upon the cross the idea of weakness or of 
 faltering. He suffers keenly, and his pure 
 and sensitive soul manifests his suffering; 
 indeed, had he gone through the closing tra- 
 gedy of his life in a mere mechanical way, 
 
CHRIST A SUFFERER. 107 
 
 with no apparent feeling or sense of pain, we 
 could not have been drawn to him as our 
 Saviour. We should have felt him to be 
 wanting in the sympathies of our humanity ; 
 and our guilt would still have felt the need of 
 some vicarious suffering for its expiation. 
 
 Christ suffers visibly, keenly, intensely ; he 
 feels the loaded scourge as its iron prongs tear 
 his naked flesh; he feels the thorns as the 
 rough soldiers force them into his bleeding 
 brow ; he feels the insult when they spit on 
 him, and mock him, and buffet him ; he feels 
 the injustice when the judge who has pro- 
 nounced him innocent, surrenders him to the 
 mob ; he feels the weight of the cross upon 
 his mangled frame ; he feels the piercing of 
 the nails, and the strain that makes every fibre 
 of the body a burning dart to his soul ; he 
 feels the pang of thirst and the drear sinking 
 of unsupported nature ; he feels all this and 
 shows that he feels it; and yet we look on 
 him not with pity but with awe, like that 
 which made the Eoman captain, who would 
 himself have met death without flinching, 
 exclaim of this meek sufferer, " Truly he was - 
 
108 THE CHEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 the Son of God ;" whicli made the skeptical 
 Eousseau exclaim, " Socrates died like a hero — - 
 Jesus Christ like a God." 
 
 " "What grace, Lord, and beauty shone 
 Around thy steps below ; 
 "What patient love was seen in all 
 Thy Ufe and death of woe. 
 
 " For ever on thy burdened heart 
 A weight of sorrow hung ; 
 Yet no ungentle, murmuring word 
 Escaped thy silent tongue. 
 
 " Thy foes might hate, despise, revile, 
 Thy friends unfaithful prove ; 
 Unwearied in forgiveness still, 
 Thy heart could only love." 
 
 The sublimest concept! oil of vicarious suf- 
 fering which ancient mythology ever reached, 
 is given in the tragedy of " Prometheus Bound." 
 Prometheus, of a race of giants, and at the 
 same time the intellectual head of the human 
 race, snatches fire from heaven for men, and 
 also imparts a knowledge of sciences and 
 the arts of life — in a word, he is the great 
 benefactor of mankind, averting from them 
 the destruction resolved upon by Jupiter. 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND. 109 
 
 His daring inventions excite tlie jealousy of 
 tlie father of the gods, who causes him to be 
 seized and chained to a rock in a desert, 
 where every day an eagle preys upon his 
 vitals, which are always restored by night, so 
 that each day his anguish may be renewed. 
 It is required of him that lie shall give up his 
 inventions and submit to Jupiter. But Pro- 
 metheus consoles himself with the thought 
 that he has procured such benefits for man, 
 and braces himself to endure his torture as 
 the decree of Fate. 
 
 "And I — oh, miserable! — 
 Who did devise for mortals all these arts, 
 Have no device left now to save myself 
 From the woe I suffer." 
 
 And SO he refuses all terms from Jupiter, and 
 suffers on hopelessly, bravely, sublimely, say- 
 ing ever : 
 
 " And helping mortals, found mine own despair." 
 
 But when you come to analyze his feeling, 
 you find no Patience nor submission, but a 
 hatred of Jupiter, and a tremendous willful- 
 10 
 
110 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 ness in his own determination. Prometlieus 
 is not calm in the greatness of his purpose ; 
 but like Napoleon at St. Helena, he chafes 
 under restraint, and his giant soul heaves and 
 rages like the ocean that surges against his 
 rock-prison. He holds out in defiance, say- 
 ing, " Let outrage and tortures be increased ; 
 let lightnings flame, and thunders rack the 
 universe, I will not bend. E'ever shall I, 
 aifrighted by Jupiter, become womanish, and 
 importune him whom I so much loathe, to 
 release me of my shackles." There is a hea- 
 then's conception of endurance under sufler- 
 ing and wrong. 
 
 Turn now again to Him w^ho brought from 
 heaven to men, not fire, and science, and art, 
 but light, and love, and life ; who did this, 
 not against the ^rill of God, but for that will ; 
 yet in doing it, suffered for the sake of men, 
 the hiding of God's face, and suflPered also 
 indignity and ingratitude, outrage and cru- 
 elty from those he sought to bless. There 
 is no chafing of his soul, no proud, sullen en- 
 durance of fate, no stern defiance of woe; but 
 *■• a. man of sorrows, and acquainted with 
 
CHRIST ON THE CROSS, 111 
 
 grief," lie meets all, bears all, suffers all, witli 
 tlie nncomplaining meekness and Patience 
 of a lamb led to the slaughter ; — who, " when 
 he was reviled, reviled not again ; when he 
 suffered, he threatened not; but committed 
 himself to him that judgeth righteously," — 
 saying, " not my will but thine be done," and 
 drinking the cup that shrinking nature would 
 have set aside. 
 
 " The- sea of ill, for which the universe 
 With all its piled space, can find no shore, 
 With all its life, no living foot to tread ! 
 But He, accomplished in Jehovah-being, 
 Sustains the gaze adown. 
 Conceives the vast despair, 
 And feels the billowy griefs come up to drown. 
 Nor fears, nor faints, nor fails, till all be finished."* 
 
 "We may not seek for Patience in an insen- 
 sibility to suffering, whether natural or forced ; 
 nor in a sullen disregard of personal conse- 
 quences in carrying out some purposed end, 
 or meeting an imagined fate. 
 
 2. And here we may notC; more particu- 
 
 • The Seraphim. Mrs. Browning. 
 
112 THE CimiSTIAX GRACES. 
 
 larly, that Patience does not argue indiffer- 
 ence to the issue of the trials or labors which 
 a/re ujpon us. We Iiave already marked the 
 distinction between firmness and self-control 
 in the Christian, and the counterfeits of these 
 qualities, produced by the Stoical Philosophy. 
 And here again in this matter of Patience the 
 Christian is no Stoic, but is ever greater than " 
 the Stoic. According to the best interpreta- 
 tion of that philosophy, men should endeavor 
 to attain a feeling of indifference as to the 
 events of life, and should submit without com- 
 plaining, to the unavoidable ^Necessity by 
 which all things are governed. But this, if 
 carried out, goes to destroy what is most vital 
 within us — a personal will, a power of choice, 
 and I had almost said, an instinct to choose 
 good before evil. Could we bring ourselves 
 into a state of stolid indifference to events as 
 fated, and therefore unavoidable, we should 
 take aw«iif the highest stimulus to right 
 action as a means of the best good, both 
 general and personal; we should come as 
 near as possible to self-annihilation. 
 
 But this absolute indifference of the Stoic, 
 
THE TUKK A STOIC. 113 
 
 is in the nature of the human mind a thing im- 
 possible. The mind will forecast its own 
 future ; will have hopes ; will have fears ; will 
 have a choice as to events affecting its own hap- 
 piness ; no logic or philosophy or schooling can 
 destroy these essential qualities of the human 
 soul ; take away these, and man ceases to be 
 a man. The Turk of to-day is the nearest 
 example we have of the Stoical philosophy. 
 The Turk is a Fatalist. He holds that what 
 is must be ; and that each event is to be taken 
 as a decree of God, and however unwelcome 
 in itself, is to be borne as a necessity. He 
 therefore affects a Stoical indifference to the 
 nature of events, whether of pleasure or of 
 pain. But this state of mind is not Patience ; 
 it is sullenness ; it exists along with malignant 
 and revengeful passions, and may be turned 
 into the wildest fanaticism. The Turk may sit 
 sullenly by and see his religion dishonored, his 
 sceptre broken, his empire dismembered, 
 grimly bowing to his Fate ; but the patriot of 
 Italy or Hungary, though often baffled in his 
 plans for the emancipation of his country, his 
 family scattered, his property confiscated, 
 10* 
 
114 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 himself a prisoner or an exile, does not give 
 over at last to a forlorn indifference, but hold- 
 ing his country's freedom still most precious, 
 he waits for that, and suffers for that, and 
 labors for that as his one end, and is patient 
 because he is not indifferent to the result, 
 but realizes that the good he labors for will 
 be worth all that it may cost. He who pro- 
 fesses not to be troubled about events be- 
 cause he does not care what happens, is not 
 an example of the patient man. The true 
 patient man does care what happens ; does 
 have a choice and an end in life ; he does 
 have principles which he values, hopes which 
 he cherishes, and for these he is willing to 
 wait and toil and suffer, through whatever 
 difficulty and opposition, till their time shall 
 come. The care-nothing spirit is not true 
 Christian Patience. 
 
 3. Neither is a do-nothing spirit to he iden- 
 tified with Patience. There are times when 
 Patience counsels to inaction ; when " the 
 strength of Israel is to sit still ;" when Jeho- 
 vah saith to his people, " In returning and 
 rest shall ye be saved ; in quietness and 
 
THE SHIPWRECKED SAILOE. 115 
 
 in confidence shall be your strength ;" — 
 when like the children of Israel with the sea 
 before them and the foe behind, thej have 
 nothing to do but " to stand still and see the 
 salvation of God." But this patience of wait- 
 ing is not the inaction of sluggishness nor of 
 despondency. It is a watchful inaction, like 
 that of men sleeping upon their arms, with 
 their camp-fires always lighted and the senti- 
 nels at their posts. He who gives over an 
 undertaking as too arduous or unpromising, 
 and then waits to see what will come to pass, 
 is not patiently waiting upon the Lord. He has 
 neither the patience of Faith nor the patience 
 of Hope. A true Patience disposes one either 
 to labor or to wait, to do or to suffer, as God's 
 wise Providence and the end in view may 
 require. But a Christian Patience can never 
 imply a voluntary acquiescence in wrong. 
 
 The shipwrecked mariner in an open boat 
 without oar or sail, has nothing to do but wait 
 for the appearance of relief. But if he has 
 a compass and a paddle, and knows himself to 
 be within a hundred miles of land, then Pa- 
 tience will be shown not in idle waiting or in 
 
116 THE CimiSTIAX GRACES. 
 
 praying for some chance relief, but in working 
 on without murmuring and without despair, 
 though the hand is w^eary and the head is 
 faint, and neither sun nor star appears over 
 the waste of waters. Patience is neither insen- 
 sibility, indiiference, nor inaction ; but that 
 state of mind, in which evils and wTongs are 
 endured without murmuring, and justice and 
 redress are waited for without discontent, and 
 in w^hich duty is steadily performed against 
 all oj)position and discouragement. It exists 
 with the most delicate perception of injury, 
 the keenest sense of wrong, the liveliest aver- 
 sion to evil. 
 
 Viewed then positively. Patience requires, 
 1. The Consciousness of a Bight Intent. 
 This removes from within all disturbing causes 
 which might irritate and unsettle the mind, 
 and enables us to commit our way to the Lord 
 in confidence. "We may have the most deep and 
 painful consciousness of sin and ill-desei-t in 
 the very matter concerning wdiich we are now 
 called to exercise Patience ; we may feel that 
 the affliction we suffer has come upon us 
 through our own sin or folly ; but in the 
 
A. EIGHT INTENT. .117 
 
 affliction and with regard to that, if onr 
 intent is to use it rightly, to profit by God's 
 dealing, we shall be not restive and fretful, 
 but submissive ' and patient. We shall grow 
 patient under trials in proportion as we grow 
 unselfish. 
 
 And so too of labors ; if we enter upon 
 these with a pure intent, if we rise above all 
 selfish feeling to the grandeur of working for 
 mankind and for God, then shall we hold on 
 by the attraction of the work itself, never 
 ruffled by opposition, nor disheartened by 
 difficulty. Hence the exercise of a true 
 Christian Patience demands a conscience 
 void of offence towards man and God. " For 
 what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for 
 your faults, ye take it patiently ; but if, when 
 ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it 
 patiently, this is acceptable with God." A 
 true Patience demands an unselfish heart — a 
 heart accepting with meekness all divine 
 chastisements as deserved, and therefore seek- 
 ing to profit by these ; a heart intent upon 
 good towards others, and therefore patient of 
 misconstruction, outrage, and wrong. 
 
118' THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 2. The exercise of Cliristian Patience de- 
 mands imjplicit confidence in God^ and in our 
 cause as ajpjproved ly Him. . Patience "and 
 faith go hand in hand. It is said of Moses 
 that, " by faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing 
 the wrath of the king, for he endured as see- 
 ing him who is invisible." He knew the 
 character of Pharaoh — ^prond, daring, stub- 
 born, revengeful ; he saw his pride and rage 
 excited against Israel ; but above and behind- 
 the throne of Pharaoh, Moses saw the king 
 Eternal, Immortal, Invisible — the King of 
 kings, and lord of Lords; and he took his 
 orders from that throne ; — the sense of God's 
 presence, faith in God's power, gave him 
 that heroic Patience which endured the slights 
 of his brethren, which endnred forty years of 
 exile in the desert, and forty years more of 
 wanderings with a murmuring people. The 
 main element in Patience is Christian sub- 
 mission to the will of God. This rests upon 
 confidence as its basis — confidence in the wis- 
 dom, the power, and the love of God. To be 
 patient, we must believe that God always 
 intends some good in the evil which he 
 
PATIENCE IN HOPE. 119 
 
 brings or suffers to come upon us. We must 
 not only believe that God reigns — but that 
 He loves^ and reigns in love. We must have 
 confidence aUo in the wisdom of God, as to 
 the time and manner of the issue of any event 
 affecting our welfare, and the prosperity of 
 his cause. Remembering how "the hus- 
 bandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the 
 earth, and hath long patience for it, until he 
 receive the early and the latter rain," we 
 must not be weary in well-doing, knowing 
 that in due season we also shall reap, if we 
 faint not. 
 
 3. Patience must have in it the element of 
 hojpe, " If we hope for that we see not, then 
 do we with Patience wait for it." Patience 
 is incompatible with despair. Tlie depression 
 and gloom, the melancholy inaction which 
 fastens upon the mind when hope is gone, is 
 no part of Christian patience. This is the 
 sinking of the soul, not its bearing up. But 
 where there is the faintest ray of hope, then 
 Pa^tience may come in to soothe the mind and 
 keep it steadfast. Patience in sickness may 
 not depend upon the specific hope of recov- 
 
120 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 erj, but it does involve the hope of relief and 
 deliverance in God's own time and way. 
 Patience under trial exj)ects God's appearing. 
 Patience in labor awaits God's help. 
 
 The virtue of Patience, bj reason of its 
 quiet and retiracj, commands but little 
 notice and admiration from men. Men do 
 not lay the stress of greatness upon the pas- 
 sive virtues. Indeed they rather take these 
 as marks of weakness and the lack of spirit. 
 Some bold action, some brilliant achievement, 
 some exhibition of energy, daring, and active 
 courage, more impresses the masses with the 
 idea of greatness, than does mere patient 
 doing and suffering in an unseen work or 
 way. And yet when we come to analyze 
 this Patience, we find in it the sublimest 
 heroism. There is in it no taint of pusillani- 
 mity. The apostle prays that believers " might 
 be strengthened with all mighty according to 
 his glorious power, unto all Patience and 
 long-suffering with joyfulness." 
 
 Were we to single out one incident of the 
 life of "Washington to show the greatness of 
 
WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FOEGE. 121 
 
 Ms character, it would be his conduct at Yal- 
 ley Forge, in the second dreary winter of the 
 war. The enthusiasm of the first rush to 
 arms is over, and war has become an earnest 
 matter for the undisciplined yeomanry whose 
 families and farms are suffering at home, 
 while they have only an inglorious winter 
 of hardship before them. The people have 
 lost the first glow of independence, and shrink 
 from the burdens of a confiict which has yet 
 given no brilliant successes to the republican 
 army. Congress is divided by jealousies and 
 factions. Tlie supplies needed for the army 
 are liot granted, or are long delayed. It is 
 midwinter, and yet the huts are not built, and 
 men who have marched for miles with naked 
 and bleeding feet, are shivering in their tents. 
 Three thousand men are disabled for want of 
 food and clothing. There are signs of mutiasr 
 in the camp. There are intrigues also against 
 "Washington, both in the army and in Con- 
 gress; and complaints of his inactivity are 
 made in Legislatures, and by the press. 
 "Without funds, without provisions, without 
 helpers, without the prestige of success, Wash- 
 11 
 
122 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 ington maintains the steadfastness of his own 
 heart, and keeps up the spirit of Patience and 
 perseverance in the army. "It is much 
 easier," he writes to Congress, " and a less 
 distressing thing, to draw remonstrances in a 
 comfortable room, by a good fire-side, than to 
 occupy a cold, bleak hill, and" sleep under 
 frost and snow without clothes or blankets. I 
 feel abundantly for the naked and distressed 
 soldiers, and from my soul I pity those 
 miseries which it is neither in my power to 
 relieve nor prevent. ... It adds not a little 
 to my other difficulties and distress, that on 
 the ground of safety I am obliged to cotceal 
 the true state of the army from public view, 
 and thereby expose myself to detraction and 
 calumny." ITever was the hero of a great 
 cause placed in circumstances so unfavorable 
 to all common traits and impulses of heroism. 
 Yet he struggled on, and kept the life and 
 soul of the army together. Well does Irving 
 say that, " in no part of the war did he more 
 thoroughly evince that magnanimity which 
 was his grand characteristic, than when he 
 thus rose above the tauntings of the press, the 
 
KANE m THE AECTIC. 123 
 
 sneerings of the cabal, the murmurs of the 
 public, the suggestions of some of his friends, 
 and the throbbing impulses of his own cou- 
 rageous heart, and adhered to that policy 
 which he considered essential to the safety of 
 the cailse. To dare is often the impulse of 
 selfish ambition, or hare-brained valor ; to for- 
 bear is at times the proof of real greatness." 
 
 How sublime was the patience of Kane in 
 that long, dreary, second winter in the Arctic ; 
 the object of his search unaccomplished ; his 
 plans baffled, his supplies wasted, his men 
 crippled, his own frame broken by disease ; 
 yet his spirit never fails, and that noble, 
 patient heart, maintains sunshine and sum- 
 mer through all the polar night. 
 
 But it is preeminently in. woman that this 
 virtue of Patience is exemplified, as indeed 
 her sphere gives more occasion for the pas- 
 sive virtues than for active and noisy hero- 
 ism. Often it is given to her to suifer, where 
 it is given to man to toil ; and too often does 
 woman suffer without due sympathy from 
 that sterner nature whose very toil she 
 sweetens with her gentle assiduities. The 
 
124 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 noblest pages of heroism and of martyrdom 
 are unwritten, save in God's book of remem- 
 brance ; for who could write the Patience of 
 a wife's devotion, of a mother's love, in seek- 
 ing salvation for her house ? "Where there is 
 one Miriam to lead the song of the exultant 
 host, there are a thousand Marys living in 
 obscurity, pondering in their hearts the pro- 
 mised redemption, and through ignominy, 
 and disappointment, and delay, and sorrow 
 piercing like a sword, still magnifying the 
 Lord, and waiting for his salvation, beside 
 the cross and at the door of the sepulchre. 
 Where there is one Deborah to arouse the 
 tribes to battle with her war-chants, there are 
 a thousand Hannahs, who, with silent but 
 agonizing prayer, wait upon God, and who 
 bring their Samuels to his altar as the sacri- 
 fice of love, and faith, and hope. The mo- 
 ther of the great Augustine, who for fifteen 
 hundred years has so largely moulded the 
 creed of the church, the devout Monica, had 
 in her own household the most bitter trials. 
 Her husband, a proud and sensual Pagan, 
 hating the cross, and hating her for having 
 
THE FAITHFUL MONICA. 125 
 
 embraced the cross, would not only annoy 
 her by all manner of heathen orgies in the 
 house, but being a man of most violent tem- 
 per, would turn upon her the fury of his pas- 
 sion. Especially did he seek to thwart her 
 religious influence over their son. He brought 
 up Augustine in pagan schools, and even 
 allowed him in the vices of the times. But 
 through all this Monica was so gentle, so 
 kind, so meek, so patient, so faithful, that at 
 length she softened the tiger to a lamb, and 
 her husband before he died accepted the faith 
 of Christ. But his evil example outlived him 
 in his son ; and Augustine, at twenty, beau- 
 tiful in person, brilliant in intellect, had all 
 the ungodly impulses of his father's fiery na- 
 ture, strengthened by indulgence, and now 
 left without restraint. But Monica had given 
 him to God ; she had scattered divine truth 
 along his path from infancy upward ; and 
 clinging to the unfailing promises of grace, she 
 followed him still with her patient love. 
 One day she stood before her pastor, "the 
 tears streaming down her careworn cheek," 
 and besought him to use his influence to 
 11* 
 
126 THE CKRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 reclaim her son. " Wait,^^ said the man of 
 God, " wccit patiently/ the son of these tears 
 cannot perish J^ 
 
 l^ow a popular teacher of rhetoric — Augus- 
 tine leaves Carthagej which he had found a 
 " caldron of unholy loves," to seek his fortune 
 at Milan, the court of the empire. Tliere, while 
 winning applause as a rhetorician, he pursues 
 the same godless and dissolute life amid the 
 gaieties and dissipations of the capital. But 
 his mother followed him, across the sea and 
 into strange lands ; and for thirteen years of 
 his manhood, she carries this great sorrow of 
 an apostate son, waiting upon him in love, 
 waiting upon God in faith, saying, " I will 
 see him a Christian yet before I die." At 
 length Patience has its perfect work. Before 
 she dies, Augustine lives. And as her star 
 of hope, which, had been the only light of 
 his stormy seas, sinks to its peaceful rest, his 
 sun arises to illumine the church of God from 
 age to age. 
 
 From this analysis of the elements of Pa- 
 tience, and these general illustrations of its 
 power, we pass to consider 
 
PATIENCE OF CUEIST. 127 
 
 II. The place and value of Patience in 
 THE Christian charactek. 
 
 1. This virtue of Patience we need in all 
 our labors for the cause of Christ and the good 
 of men. In working against evil we are 
 prone either to irritation or to despondency. 
 Our weak natures are annoyed by the oppo- 
 sition we encounter in a good cause. Pe- 
 formers grow impatient, unamiable, violent, 
 denunciatory, because others will not unite 
 with them against a palpable and grievous 
 wrong; or they grow weary in well-doing, 
 and give over the world to its fate. Alas, 
 where had we been, had Jesus grown impa- 
 tient in his work and abandoned it because of 
 opposition or ill-success. " "When men have 
 great works on hand their very enthusiasm 
 runs to impatience. "When thwarted or unrea- 
 sonably hindered, their soul strikes fire against 
 the obstacles they meet, they worry themselves 
 at every hindrance, every disappointment, and 
 break out in strong and fanatical violence. 
 But Jesus is just as even, just as serene, in all 
 his petty vexations and hindrances, as if he had 
 nothing on hand to do. He is poor and hungry, 
 
128 THE CHEISTIAIT GEACE8. 
 
 and weary and despised, insulted by his enemies, 
 deserted by liis friends, but never disheartened, 
 never fretted or ruffled." * A sacred Patience 
 invests him everywhere. " Consider him that 
 endured such contradiction of sinners against 
 himself; lest ye be weary and faint in your 
 mind. 
 
 2. We need this Patience under the affldc- 
 t/lons and wrongs which we personally suffer / 
 afflictions at the hand of God, persecution, 
 calumny, wrong from our fellow-men. The 
 apostle James bids nseven rejoice in the trials 
 that afflict us, " knowing that the trying of 
 our faith worketh Patience. Ye have heard 
 of the Patience of Job and have seen the end 
 of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and 
 of tender mercy." How sweet is Patience 
 under the hand of God. It is like sunlight 
 and flowers in the chamber of sickness — where 
 some poor invalid, bereft of fortune, of friends, 
 of beauty, of health, of all earthly good, pos- 
 sesses still that " meek and quiet spirit which 
 in the sight of God is of great price." But 
 
 * Dr. Bushnell, " Nature and the Supernatural," p. 294. 
 
NEWTOK AND CAELO. 129 
 
 it is easier to bear great and prolonged afflic- 
 tions which come directly and visibly from the 
 hand of God, than the petty vexations and 
 wrongs which arise from untoward circumstan- 
 ces and evil men. How few can rise to the 
 self-control of Newton, who when he entered • 
 his study and saw that his dog had thrown 
 into the fire the calculations of months, said 
 only, "you have done me great mischief, 
 Carlo," and sat down to reproduce his work. 
 
 " Kyou will put a character to the severest ol 
 all tests, see whether it can bear without fal- 
 tering, the little common ills and hindrances 
 of life. Many a man will gO to his martyr- 
 dom with a spirit of firmness and heroic com- 
 posure, whom a little weariness or nervous 
 exliaustion, some silly prejudice or capricious 
 opposition, w^ould for the moment throw into a 
 fit of vexation or ill-nature. Great occasions 
 rally great principles, and brace the mind to 
 a lofty bearing, a bearing that is even above 
 itself. But trials that make no occasion at all, 
 leave it to show the goodness and beauty it 
 has in its own disposition." * 
 
 » Dr. Bushnell, Nat.' and Super, p. 293. 
 
130 THE CHEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 This grace of Patience, tliis truest Cliris- 
 tian heroism, does not require for its devel- 
 opment the rough blasts of persecution, or 
 some high field of labor and of conflict; 
 jour own home with the little incidents 
 of every hour, your daily life with its vexa- 
 tions,, disappointments, and ills ; your business 
 with its temptations, its cares and its losses ; 
 is the sphere where Patience is most required, 
 is best exemplified. It diffuses over the daily 
 life a quietude which is neither slackness nor 
 sluggishness, but the blissful serenity of hea- 
 ven. 
 
 . 3. "We need Patience with respect to the 
 fulfilling of God's ^lans of mercy for the 
 world. God's promises are like century 
 plants. They grow silently, almost impercep- 
 tibly, through simsliine and shade, through 
 wind and storm, by day and night, and year 
 by year ; and when the generation that saw 
 them planted, and the generation that watched 
 their early growth, have passed away, they 
 are living and growing still; but when the 
 great dial of the heavens has marked a hun- 
 . dred years, of a suddeti there opens a flower 
 
TErST IN GOD. 131 
 
 of matchless beauty and perfection. But the 
 ages must wait for it. Many a promise is yet 
 to flower ; many a hope is yet to expand in 
 joy. "He is faithful that promised ; be ye fol- 
 lowers of them who through Faith and Pa- 
 tience inherit the promises." In the conflict 
 of principles and the chaos of systems ; in the 
 defeat of well-ordered plans, and the seeming 
 overthrow of truth and virtue ; — 
 
 " We will trust God. The blank interstices 
 Men take for ruins, He will build into 
 With pillared marbles rare, or knit across 
 With generous arches, till the fane's complete." 
 
 " The Lord direct your hearts into the love 
 of God, and into the j^atient waiting for 
 Christy 
 
 ^ 
 
LECTURE V 
 
 
 GODLINESS. 
 
 And to Patience Godliness. — 2 Pete% i. 6. 
 
 HIS term, Godliness, cannot be taken 
 in the general sense of religion, since 
 it is a certain something to be added 
 to that personal and practical faith in 
 Christ, which makes one truly a reli- 
 gions man. The beginning of religiousness, 
 or the religions life in the soul, in the Christian 
 sense, is that faith in Christ which brings the 
 soul to God with confession for its sins, and 
 with the consecration of its powers to His 
 service. A religious man is he who practi- 
 pallj makes his accountability to God the law 
 f his life ; — who is hound to God with the 
 sense of personal obligation for all that he 
 receives, in all that he does. But he who has 
 attained to that precious faith in Christ which 
 delivers him from the corruption of the world, 
 
'€}OD-WAKD-NESS. 133 
 
 and introduces him to tlie righteousness of 
 God — this renewed, and therefore religious 
 man, is still exhorted to add to his faith vir- 
 tue, and to virtue knowledge, and to know- 
 ledge temperance, and to temperance patience, 
 and to patience Godliness. There must be, 
 therefore, in this term Godliness, a something 
 definite which we are to cultivate as an ele- 
 ment of the religious life. < 
 
 "Wliat then, is that Godliness which is capa- ^^^ 
 ble of being nurtured as an addition to saving 
 faith in Christ, and to the several virtues be- 
 fore enumerated ? Some understand the term 
 in the old English sense of god-^^'^e-ness ; a 
 moral resemblance to God — an assimilation 
 to him in character. But this does not ex- 
 press the objective sense conveyed in the 
 original word. Godi-ward-nQ^?>^ if we might 
 make such a term, would be nearer this than 
 God-like-ness ; — a state of mind which is 
 towa/rd God, as the sole object of its adora- 
 tion and religious reverence, the central, 
 supreme object of its trust and love, the final 
 source of moral obligation and authority. 
 The word is compounded of two — one signi- 
 12 
 
 V 
 
134 THE CflKISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 fjing to fear or reverence, the other riglitlj, 
 or well — a due reverence toward God. The 
 more devout and discriminating of the old 
 Greek philosophers used this word to denote 
 that wise and happy mean in religion, which 
 lies between the two extremes of atheism and 
 superstition. Atheism is Godlessness ; the un- 
 godly are without God ; they have no fear of 
 God before theil- eyes ; no awe of the divine 
 presence; no reverence for the Supreme 
 Being ; no acknowledgmejit of obligation 
 toward Ilim ; no regard for his law. Super- 
 stition regards as divine powers and agencies, 
 things which really lie within the course of 
 nature, and the powers of man ; it carries to ex- 
 cess and absurdity the spirit of religious vene- 
 ration, applying to mere natural objects and 
 events, or human persons, or imaginary things, 
 the sentiment of reverence which God alone 
 should command. Between atheism — the ab- 
 sence of all recognition of God and all reve- 
 rence for a higher power — and superstition^ a 
 weak and credulous belief in supernatural 
 powers and agencies, which causes the mind 
 to fear and venerate creatures of sense or of 
 
EEVERENCE TOWARD GOD. 135 
 
 imagination as if these were God — ^between 
 tliose opposite poles lies true Godliness^ or 
 Godwardness — a just reverence toward God, 
 whicli controls our moral conduct by the love 
 and the fear of God. This I take to be the 
 meaning of Godliness in the text.* And this 
 
 * The term evailSeta {eusehia) here translated Godliness, is 
 used in the New Testament to denote that reverence toward 
 God, which is a spontaneous feeling of the heart in view of 
 his character. (See in Robinson.) Cornelius was " a devout 
 man, {evaef^rjg) and feared Gody The prevailing use of 
 evcslSeia by classic writers gives to it this same objective 
 sense. Plato, Thucydides, Demosthenes, use it to express 
 veneration toward the Deity { irpbg Qeovg). See in Stepha- 
 nus, Suidas, and Passow ed. Rost und Palm. In the " De- 
 finitions" sometimes ascribed to Plato, evaelSeca is defined 
 to be AiKacoGvvT] Trept'Oeovc, that which is just, fitting, 
 meet, as toward the gods. The Stoics defined it to 
 be hTncTTiinj Qeov depaTreiag — the appreciative or becoming 
 service of the gods. Stephanus defines it by religiositas ; 
 thus expressing the same idea of reverence toward God. 
 DeWette, in his note upon 2 Peter, i. 6, says Ehrfurcht und 
 Liehe gegen Gott ; veneration and love toward God. This 
 use of the word precludes the idea of God-^iA;e-ness, and 
 favors the less euphonious, but more expressive term, God- 
 ward-ness. It denotes also, something deeper than a for- 
 mal outward reverence for the commands of God, and refers 
 directly to the reverenc<4 of the soul toward Him. 
 
136 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 you will perceive may be grafted upon faith, 
 along witli otlier virtues and graces, as a dis- 
 tinct element of the Christian character of life. 
 One may have a certain faith in Christ, 
 who is yet wanting in a just and commanding 
 reverence toward God. A mind that believes 
 in Christ as historically revealed in the New 
 Testament, accepts him as a real person and 
 a manifestation of God, accepts him as a 
 divine teacher, and even regards his death as 
 in some way connected with the redemption 
 and reformation of mankind, but which does 
 not recognize a necessity for that death as an 
 atonement between human guilt and divine 
 justice, is wanting in that Godliness of which 
 the apostle speaks. It has not attained to that 
 reverence for God in the holiness of his Being 
 and the purity of his Law, which was felt by 
 Moses, by Isaiah, by David, by Paul, and 
 which when felt makes the atonement at once 
 a moral necessity for the soul itself, and a legal 
 necessity for the divine government. A belief 
 in Christ as teacher, leader, hero, martyr, may 
 exist without Godliness ; but when the soul at- 
 tains to a just reverence for Go'd himself, when 
 
GODLY FEAE. 137 
 
 it stands in awe of that purity before whicli 
 Moses trembled, and Isaiah cried " wo is me, 
 for I am a man of unclean lips," then will it 
 have a view of the enormity of sin, of the 
 majesty of holiness, of the awful purity of love, 
 of the inflexible rectitude of God as the law- 
 giver, which shall compel its faith in Christ as 
 its Redeemer, and in his atoning sacrifice as 
 its only approach to God as a Father. 
 
 A mind that looks to Christ as the author 
 of a universal and indiscriminate salvation 
 for the race, and admits no distinction in the 
 results of probation between those who accept 
 and those who reject the terms of that salva- 
 tion, is surely wanting in this Godliness. A 
 just reverence for God as lawgiver and judge, 
 a just estimate of his truth and love as con- 
 serving the order and beauty of the universe, 
 a just contemplation of his holiness* filling 
 that mind with awe, would cause it to throw 
 aside such vague and eas^^ faith, and to regard 
 the admonition of the apostle, "let us hold 
 fast grace, whereby we may serve God accept- 
 ably, with reverence and Godly fea/r — ^for our 
 God is a consuming fire." 
 12* 
 
138 THE CHEISTIAJN^ GRACES. 
 
 And among tliose wlio hold fast as a form 
 of sound words tlie doctrines of atonement, 
 of justification by faith, of future judgment 
 and retribution — are not many deficient in that 
 •reverence and godly fear by which alone we 
 can serve God acceptably ? Add to your faith 
 this Godliness. " Sanctify the Lord of hosts 
 in your hearts, and let Him be your fear." 
 
 And if even Faith in some sort and degree 
 may exist without genuine Godliness, it is 
 quite obvious that all the other virtues named 
 in the text may be to some extent manifested 
 by a soul yet lacking this. One may have 
 moral courage and persistence in what he 
 regards as right and duty ; may cultivate a 
 knowledge of divine truth Jteay attain to per- 
 fect self-control, and be exemplary in patience 
 under sufi'ering and wrong ; and yet none of 
 these virtues may spring from or descend to 
 the central life of his being ; and he may be 
 wanting in that veneration for God which 
 would enthrone Him in the inner sanctuary 
 of the soul as its divinity and its law. 
 " Wherefore giving all diligence, add to your 
 faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and \o 
 
Ai«^ INWAKD STATE. • 139 
 
 knowledge temperance, and to temperance 
 patience, and to patience Godliness." 
 
 From this general outline of thonglit in the 
 text we pass to consider : 
 
 I. The essential characteristics of God- 
 liness. 
 
 n. The modes of its expression. 
 in. Its various counterfeits. 
 lY. The motives to its exercise. 
 
 As a characteristic of this grace it should 
 be noted, 
 
 1. That it is most inward in its seat and 
 power. It is a sentiment or feeling of the soul 
 toward God — of one intelligent personal mind 
 toward another to which it owes its venera- 
 tion and homage. The apostle Paul has in 
 view this internal spiritual quality of true 
 Godliness, when, writing to Timothy, he says 
 " follow after righteousness. Godliness, faith, 
 love, patience, meekness." Here Godliness is 
 distinguished from righteousness — God-fearing 
 in the soul, from right-doing in the outward 
 conduct. Righteousness^ 2i^ it stands in this 
 catalogue of Christian qualities, denotes rec- 
 
140 THE CHKISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 titude of action ; Godliness points to the 
 inward spring of that action, and the ground 
 of its righteousness, in a just sentiment of 
 veneration toward God. True Godliness has 
 the soul for its seat and God for its object. All 
 dependence upon foiTQS of worship as suffi- 
 cient, all substitution of outward religious 
 services for an inward God-fearing spirit, is 
 but "the form of Godliness" without its 
 power. All religious homage paid to crea- 
 tures of whatever grade is a superstition 
 which dishonors God. Godliness makes God 
 himself, in his being, his character, and his 
 law, the one sole object of religious homage ; 
 and it consists not primarily in acts of wor- 
 ship or forms of service — ^though these may 
 give it expression — ^but it is the sentiment 
 itself of the soul, its humble, reverent, devout 
 recognition of God as the all in all. " Sanctify 
 the Lord God in your hearts. 
 
 2. This sentiment is equally compounded of 
 love and fear."^ That veneration or reverence 
 toward God which is trae piety, is grounded 
 
 * " Ehrfurcht und Liebe gegen Gott."— Db Wette in loc. 
 
SUPEESTITIOrS FEAE. 141 
 
 in a love of his holiness. There is a vene- 
 ration whose chief element is awe ; a rever- 
 ence for dignity, station, greatness, power, 
 which is cold and formal and distant — com- 
 pelled by an overpowering sense of the 
 superiority of its object, but not kindled by 
 love for that object. Such is the veneration 
 which barbarian tribes manifest for the mys- 
 terious powers of Nature — a vague dread of 
 the invisible, an awe of that power which 
 utters its voice in the thunder and the earth- 
 quake — a superstitious fear, like that which 
 steals over the coolest and bravest when night 
 comes on in the lonely forest or in the wild- 
 ness and solitude of unknown mountains. 
 Such was the reverence of our pagan ances- 
 tors for those mysterious powers which th*ey 
 worshipped with dark and bloody rites amid 
 the swamps and forests of ancient Britain. 
 Such is the reverence of the native tribes of 
 Africa for the spirits of their ancestors, and 
 for demons which are supposed to produce 
 disease and death. 
 
 But the veneration of the Christian mind 
 for God, is not a dim awe of invisible power, 
 
142 THE CHRISTIAN GKACE8. 
 
 a dread of that Almighty force which heaped 
 up the Kioiintains and gave the sea it^ 
 bounds, which utters its voice in the heavens, 
 and shakes terribly the earth ; — ^the venera- 
 tion of the Christian for his God is a reve- 
 rence for that which is greater than physical 
 force, however sublime and terrible, even the 
 greatness of a good, and just, and holy char- 
 acter ; a reverence which does not arise from 
 nervous tremor, or some terror of the ima^i- 
 nation, but is seated in the intellect and in 
 the heart ; a reverence which is proportioned, 
 not to ignorance, but to intelligence ; which 
 does not feed itself upon mystery, but in- 
 creases with the right knowledge of God. 
 Compared with such a reverence as this, the 
 sentimental adoration of poets for the divinity 
 they see in mountains and waterfalls, in 
 clouds and forests, in tempests and the sea, is 
 as empty of Godliness as is the rudest super- 
 stition of pagan minds. Godliness springs 
 from an appreciation of the character of God, 
 especially in that feature of it which least 
 impresses the senses or the natural mind — its 
 perfect, infinite, and unchanging holiness. It 
 
MASSA BELLAMY. 143 
 
 is an appreciative regard' for this as the 
 highest grandeur of the universe ; it is an in- 
 telligent love of this, as the glory of the 
 divine nature, which lies at the root of all 
 ti-ue Godliness. 
 
 The poet Shellej disowned a personal God ; 
 yet what one has aptly styled " the atheistic 
 hunger of his soul" caused him to fill the 
 universe with invisible powers to which he 
 paid that credulous homage which atheism 
 always pays to mystery. Compare the most 
 sublime and terrible imaginations of this 
 gifted but godless poet, with that homage to 
 God paid by the pious old negro who sat 
 under the preaching of Dr. Bellamy, and after 
 hearing his grand discourses on the divine 
 character and government — discourses whose 
 metaphysical acumen far transcended his 
 feeble intellect, but whose moral sublimity 
 stirred his sensitive and emotional nature — 
 exclaimed, "Oh, Massa Bellamy, he make 
 God so lig^ so big ;" — and tell me if there is 
 not more of poetry and pathos in the godly 
 adoration of that simple mind, than in all that 
 Shelley, and Byron, and Goethe and Emerson 
 
144 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 have said and sung of a universe without 
 God. 
 
 But with this love and adoration of the 
 character of God, should mingle always a 
 salutary awe of his majesty. "Perfect love 
 casteth out fear ; — ^it dispossesses the mind of 
 that slavish fear of God which Superstition 
 nurtures, and which Atheism cannot wholly 
 set aside; — ^love casts out the terror of the 
 slave ; but a true love for God cherishes that 
 awe of his holiness and justice and power, 
 which the Bible always attributes to the 
 righteous man as the fear of the Lord. " By 
 the fear of the Lord men depart from evil." 
 We serve God acceptably, when we walk be- 
 fore him with reverence and godly fear. 
 When Isaiah had a vision of the Lord upon his 
 throne, that which filled his soul with awe 
 was not the splendor of the throne itself, nor 
 the glory of the seraphim, nor the quaking of 
 the temple, nor the fire and smoke that filled 
 the house — ^but that ceaseless cry of cherubim 
 and seraphim, Holy^ holt, HOLY. " Woe is 
 me," cried the prophet, " I am undone ; for 
 I am a man of unclean lips." But when 
 
REVERENCE IN PRAYER. 145 
 
 tlio^e lips were touched with a live coal from 
 the altar, and his iniquity was taken away, 
 the prophet could offer himself to the Lord as 
 a willing and grateltl servant. This is true 
 Godliness ; — the Jiomage of the soul towa/rd 
 God in reverence cmd love for his character. 
 And while we cherish every virtue and grace 
 that has reference to the right government of 
 our inferior propensities, and the right regula- 
 tion of our outward conduct, Ave must give all 
 diligence to cherish in our inmost souls this 
 sentiment offilial reverence toward God. 
 
 n. What are the modes of its expres- 
 sion ? 
 
 1. We should cherish this reverence for 
 the heing of God^ when we approach Rim in 
 prayer. The prayers of godly men recorded 
 in the Old Testament are always marked with 
 a deep sentiment of reverence. Abraham 
 and Moses, and Samuel and David, with all 
 their importunity in supplication, were filled 
 with reverence and godly fear when they 
 drew nigh to God in prayer. Some seem to 
 imagine that such reverence belonged 'to the 
 13 
 
146 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 dimness and mystery of the earlier Revelation, 
 and that tlirougli Christ we have more free and 
 familiar converse with God. Blessed be 
 God, we have the freest access to his mercy- 
 seat, and may come even with boldness — with 
 unfaltering confidence, to the throne of grace. 
 " God hath sent forth his Spirit into our hearts, 
 crying Abba, Father." But has not filial 
 piety the element of reverence as well as of 
 love ? With what reverence did Christ him- 
 self approach the Father in prayer. "Holy 
 Father, keep through thine own name those 
 whom thou hast given me. . . O righteous 
 Father, the world hath not known thee. . . 
 Father, if thou wilt remove this cup from me, 
 nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." 
 "What reverence, what submission, what God- 
 liness is here! "In the days of his flesh 
 when he had ofifered up prayers and suppli- 
 cations with strong crying and tears, to him 
 that was able to save him from death, he was 
 heard in that he feared," or as the margin 
 reads, was heard for hi^ piety. Tliis last is 
 evidently the true meaning ; as Tyndale and 
 Luther both gix^e it in their versions, he was 
 
THE NAME OF GOD. 147 
 
 lieard "because he liad God in reverence." 
 His filial veneration and submission brought 
 to him succoring angels from the presence of 
 his Father. And if Christ so prayed, surely 
 reverence becomes us sinners before God. 
 The godly man will be always reverential in 
 prayer. 
 
 2. We should cherish reverence for the 
 name of God. A promised sign of the return 
 of Israel to God's favor was this : " they shall 
 sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One 
 of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel." 
 So in the time of Ezekiel when the people 
 were in captivity, Jehovah said, "I have 
 pity for my holy name ;. and I will sanctify 
 my great name which was profaned among 
 the heathen, which ye have profaned in the 
 midst of them ; and the heathen shall know 
 that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when 
 I shall be sanctified in you before their eyesi" 
 " Thou shalt not take the name of the J^ord 
 thy God in vain." This reverence for the 
 name of God was not peculiar to his guardian- 
 ship over Israel as a nation. Has not the 
 Saviour taught us to pray, " Our Father 
 
148 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy 
 name ?" 
 
 Tlie ancient Jews had a superstitious rever- 
 ence for the proper name of Jehovah which 
 forbade them to pronounce or even to write it. 
 Indeed, some critics are of opinion that by 
 reason of this superstition we have lost the 
 true spelling and pronunciation of the name 
 of the great I AM, as given to Moses. My 
 own Jewish teacher in the Hebrew tongue, on 
 coming to the name Jehovah in the Old Tes- 
 tament, would invariably pause and pass it in 
 reverential silence. A Mohammedan who 
 cannot read will carefully preserve every 
 scrap of writing which he may find, lest it 
 should contain the name of God, which it 
 would be blasphemy to mutilate. While we 
 disavow such superstition, let us cherish a true 
 reverence for the name of God. Those who 
 have once been profane, when truly converted, 
 show the genuineness of their change by the 
 deep reverence of their minds for the name of 
 the Lord. ITow much of this appears in the 
 writings of John ITewton and John Bunyan, 
 who were once accustomed to profane the 
 
REVERENCE EOF. LAW. 149 
 
 name of tlie Lord. The godly man will never 
 use lightly the name of Jehovah, to enliven 
 an anecdote or point a joke. 
 
 3. True Godliness implies a reverence/bT* 
 tlie law of God^ as the siijpreme and final rule 
 of moral action. " Tliy word have I hid in 
 my heart, that I might not sin against thee." 
 It is one thing to be in terror of the law of 
 God as the symbol of his government over us, 
 and of its penalties as threatened upon the 
 disobedient, and quite another to revere 
 that law in our hearts for its intrinsic holi- 
 ness and purity, and as a written expression 
 of the character of God. The Israelites had 
 8U0I1 a terror of the concomitants of the law 
 at Sinai, the thunder, and lightning, and 
 smoke, and earthquake, and the voice of the 
 trumpet, that they cried to Moses, " Let not 
 God speak with us, lest we die." Buf when 
 these outward demonstrations at the giving of 
 the law suljsided, and Sinai smiled in peace, 
 under the cloudless sun, and its own resplen- 
 dent cloud, now silent, grew familiar, so ut- 
 terly wanting were they in reverence for the 
 law of God that they violated its first com- 
 13* 
 
150 THE CIIKI8TIAN GRACES. 
 
 mandment, and made a molten calf in the 
 very face of Him wlio had said, " Thou shalt 
 not make unto thee any graven image." It 
 is one thing to fear law, as law with penalty, 
 and another to reverence God in his law. 
 
 4. We should cherish also a profound reve- 
 rence /b/' the will of God as manifested in his 
 providence. If that will calls to suffering, the 
 godly heart will say, " Let the Lord do that 
 which is goo^ in his sight ;" '' I opened not 
 my mouth, because thou didst it." Tlie godly 
 mind rises above all secondary causes in nature, 
 and all intermediate human agencies, to per- 
 ceive and acknowledge the hand of God in its 
 afflictions, and with deepest humility and reve- 
 rence to say, " Father, thy w^ill be done." This 
 submissiveness is not a passive bending of the 
 mind to the necessity of its condition ; it is a 
 calm and even blissful acquiescence in the 
 will of God, as the highest manifestation of 
 good. 
 
 If the will of God calls us to action, our- 
 devout inquiry will be, " Lord what wilt thou 
 have us to do?" The mind which has en- 
 throned God in its thoughts, affections, pur- 
 
GAIN NOT GODLINESS. 151 
 
 poses, as the one object of its reverence, the 
 centre and source of authority, can have no 
 desire or plan for itself but to know the will 
 of God. Such a one has " meat to eat " that 
 the world knows not of. The will of the 
 Father becomes incorporated with his very 
 being — his life, his strength, his abiding joy. 
 
 Having now set forth the nature of true 
 Godliness and the modes of its manifestation, 
 it is important that we should, 
 
 III. GUAED AGAINST ITS COUNTERFEITS. 
 
 The Scriptures caution us against two coun- 
 terfeits of Godliness — the one having refer- 
 ence chiefly to the inward conception of piety, 
 the other to its outward expression. 
 
 1. We are cautioned not to confound gain 
 with 'Godliness. The apostle Paul warns 
 Timothy against " men of corrupt minds and 
 destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is 
 Godliness." At first view this seems a strange 
 and almost incredible form of heresy. But 
 call to mind the fact that under the Old Test- 
 ament dispensation temporal prosperity was 
 promised to godly living, and you will readily 
 
152 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 see how tlie idea miglit arise, as it did, that 
 outward, prosperity was always a mark of in- 
 ward piety. ThiiB the friends of Job reasoned 
 that his afflictions were a consequence and a 
 proof of sin. Perverse men would both use 
 religion as a means of gain, and would tlien 
 make their pecuniary success an evidence of 
 their Godliness. The heresy is not so strange 
 as at first it appears. 
 
 If we turn to the Epistle of James, wo shall 
 find evidence that this tendency to reckon gain 
 as Godliness had so far crept into the churches 
 as to call for special rebuke — ^' If there come 
 into your assembly, a man with a gold ring, 
 in goodly apparel, and there come in also a 
 poor man in cheap clothing ; and ye have re- 
 spect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and 
 say to him sit thou here in a good place ; and 
 say to the poor, stand thou there, or sit thou 
 here under my footstool ; do ye not judge with 
 evil thoughts ?" The early Christians in their 
 weakness and poverty were in great danger 
 of counting gain as Godliness, and of regard- 
 ing a man with a gold ring and gay aj^parel 
 as a greater acquisition to their numbers 
 
POETIC GODLINESS. 163 
 
 than one meanly dressed, however pious. 
 It is to be feared that this heresy, though 
 strongly condemned by Paul and James, is not 
 entirely rooted out of the churches ; that there 
 are still those who measure the worth of 
 Christians by their standing on the assessor's 
 list, and who estimate the strength of churches 
 by the bank accounts of their members. 
 This substitution of gain for Godliness is one 
 of the most subtile and depraving devices of 
 the enemy of souls. It is making a calf of 
 gold under the very brow of Sinai, and setting 
 aside the Holy One of Israel for an image of 
 Mammon. 
 
 2. The other error is thus characterized by 
 Paul. He speaks of men who are " lovers of 
 their own selves ; lovers of pleasures more 
 than lovfeft of God " — who yet have a form of 
 Godliness hut deny the ^ower thereof. Mani- 
 fold are the forms under which such Godli- 
 ness appears. There is d^jgoetic form of Godli- 
 ness ; a sentiment which takes the air of rever- 
 ence and breathes the name of the divinity, 
 when singing of the grander fo;rms of N'ature, 
 or the more sublime and terrible of her phe- 
 
154 THE CIIEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 nomena. The old Greek and Latin poetiy 
 peopled the invisible witli gods, whose pre- 
 sence and agency it represented in all the mys- 
 teries of nature, and in all leading events of 
 human experience. Tlie machinery of Homer's 
 great epic lies within the supernatural ; the 
 gods played their part in every Greek tragedy. 
 Indeed we know the religion of Greece and 
 Rome mainly through their literature. Modern 
 poets and novelists who would scorn the epi- 
 thet , religious or godly as applied to them- 
 selves, yet indulge largely in veneration for 
 unseen powers and the mysteries of being. 
 But w^liile true Godliness is due venef-ation 
 for God, not all veneration is Godliness. A 
 phrenological organ of veneration, however 
 largely developed, is not a sure indication of 
 Godliness in the heart. To feel melancholy at 
 sight of falling leaf, to be stirred with admira- 
 tion at a gorgeous sunset, to feel the majesty 
 of mountains and the sea, and the dim grandeur 
 of the forest — this is not Godliness. It may 
 lead the soul to God, or it may not lie deeper 
 than the sentient and the imaginative. 
 
 There is an artistic or esthetic form of God- 
 
RITUALISTIC GODLINESS. 155 
 
 liness. The Greek mind, wliicli under the 
 fairest clime and the most liberal government 
 was stimulated to the highest culture in taste 
 and art, expressed its devotion through artis- 
 tic forms, especially in sculpture. Hence 
 Paul speaks of the carefulness of the Athe- 
 nians in matters of religion as exhibited in the 
 number of their objects of devotion. The 
 Gothic mind, trained amid the grandeur of 
 forests and under the law of feudalism, 
 embodied its devout sentiment in the majes- 
 tic and aspiring yet sombre beauty of its 
 type of architecture. But taste and art, how* 
 ever subsidiary to the expression of devo; 
 tion, can never be of the essence of Godliness. 
 When made an end in themselves or dis- 
 proportionately regarded, instead of assisting 
 devotion they displace all true reverence of 
 thought and feeling from the soul. 
 
 There is a ritualistic form of. Godliness, 
 Avhich substitutes a form of praying for heart- 
 felt prayer ; an ordinance or ceremony for the 
 fact or truth it was designed to illustrate and 
 convey ; a type or symbol for the reality 
 which it should only express to the eye. It is 
 
156 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 to sucli an abuse and excess of forms indeed, 
 that the term formalism is distinctively ap- 
 plied. The Hindoo devotee, the Moslem saint, 
 the monastic of the Papal and Oriental 
 churches, are common illustrations of this 
 form of Godliness. But the exhibition is not 
 confined to those who make their ritual con- 
 spicuous, and pray by rote or routine. Where 
 no audible form of prayer or of worship is 
 used, there may be a mere pantomime as 
 empty of spiritual life as are the whir and 
 jingle of a Japanese prayer- wheel. Whoever 
 uses his form of worship, be this simple or 
 elaborate, as worship itself, while yet there is 
 no power of true religion in the soul, denies 
 the power . of Godliness, however zealous for 
 its form. 
 
 There is a dogmatio form of Godliness, a 
 creed-worship, a veneration for dogmas and 
 authorities in religion. This may take quite 
 the opposite direction from the former ten- 
 dencies ; and denouncing alike the sentimen- 
 tal, the artistic, and the ritualistic, as wanting 
 in true Godliness, may insist upon a form of 
 sound words as the one essential in true piety. 
 
WOEK. GODLINESS. 167 
 
 Where true piety exists, tlie form of sound 
 words may do mucli for its conservation, as 
 the apostle writes to Timothy, " Hold fast the 
 form of sound words, which thou hast heard of 
 me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." 
 But if faith and love are wanting, the form ol 
 sound words, an orthodox confession, can 
 neither produce them nor supply their place. 
 Wherever the creed is put before the life as 
 evidence of piety, the profession of .the lips 
 before the confession of the heart, there the 
 form of Godliness is substituted for its power. 
 There is a mechanical worh-^ovm. of Godli- 
 ness. This puts all the religious energy of 
 the soul into such outward visible acts as seem 
 to be deeds of piety, but which may be only 
 deeds of self-righteousness. The Jews of 
 Paul's time had a zeal of God which was far 
 from true Godliness. " Being ignorant of 
 God's righteousness, and going about to esta- 
 blish their own righteousness, they did not 
 submit to the righteousness of God." It is 
 quite -possible under our Protestant system to 
 use a routine of religious and charitable acti- 
 vities as the most superstitious Papist uses a 
 14 
 
158 THE CHEISTIAlir GEACES. 
 
 round of ceremonies. The methodical and 
 laborious Southey was once describing to a 
 friend his minute allotment of time for his 
 diversified labors in reading and writing ; such 
 an hour being given to French, the next to 
 Spanish, the next to a. Review, the next to 
 classics, the next to history, etc. ; " but pray 
 Mr. Southey," interrupted the friend, " at 
 what time do you think ?" Might it not be 
 asked of some who abound in the drill-work 
 of religion, " at what time do you pray ?" 
 
 lY. The motives foe cultivating a teue*" 
 Godliness. 
 
 1. That God is as lie is. Could we but 
 form a conception of God as revealed in the 
 Scriptures, sturdy we must bow reverently and 
 walk softly before Him. Great as is this 
 material universe whose orbs are yet uncounted 
 by the telescope, whose distances are yet 
 unmeasured by the calculus, it is but the 
 Avord of the Almighty. Great as is the uni- 
 verse of mind, from man up through angel 
 and archangel to the incomprehensible sera- 
 phim, this is but the breath of the Almighty. 
 
BLESSING OF GODLINESS. 159 
 
 But In liis Holiness we behold a grandeur 
 greater tlian in liis Essence, and before that 
 all heaven adores. Cherubim and seraphim 
 bow with reverence, not before the mere pre- 
 sence of Jehovah — 
 
 " Where the shadow from the throne, 
 rormless with infinity, 
 Hovers o'er the crystal sea ;" — 
 
 but before HIM whose Holiness shames even 
 the purity of their natures, and awes souls 
 untouched by sin. 
 
 2. The Uessedness of Godliness loth here 
 and in the hereafter. '' Godliness is profit- 
 able unto all things, having promise of the life 
 that now is, and of that which is to come." 
 " Godliness with contentment is great gain." 
 " What man is he that feareth the Lord ? him 
 shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. 
 His soul shall dwell at ease, and his seed shall 
 inherit the earth. . The secret of the Lord is 
 with them that fear Him, and he will show 
 them his covenant." Such Scriptuies do not 
 promise material riches and earthly honors as 
 the absolute and uniform possession of those 
 
160 THE CKRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 who fear God ; but tliey do insure God's 
 blessing upon those virtues of industry and 
 temperance and frugality which Godliness 
 enjoins; they do insure the protecting love 
 and the favoring providence of Jehovah. 
 The fear of the Lord in the heart brings the 
 favor of the Lord upon the life. Godliness is 
 peace ; Godliness is stability ; Godliness is 
 fellowship with the infinite, and it brings to 
 the soul the resources of Jehovah's love as 
 its present and available possession. " All this 
 is mine," said the nobleman to the peasant, 
 pointing proudly to castle and park, and mea- 
 dows and well-tilled acres. "And Heaven^ 
 too?" meekly asked the peasant whose por- 
 tion was in the skies. Without God, Dives 
 is in want of all things. 
 
 3. ^The fact that we shall soon meet God 
 face to face. This same apostle brings Jeho- 
 vah before us in the grandeur and the terror 
 of that Day, when at his coming the heavens 
 shall pass away and the elements shall melt ; 
 and with that picture in view, he asks, "what 
 manner of persons ought ye tq be in all holy 
 conversation and Godliness?" The early 
 
SEEING GOD. 161 
 
 Cliristians* lived mucli in the fear of God 
 because they regarded the advent of Christ 
 and the day of judgment as always impend- 
 ing. And surely for every one of us those 
 scenes which mark bijt moments on the dial 
 of the heavens, are ever more impending. So 
 let us live, that we shall not be amazed oi 
 ashamed at His Appeaeing. 
 
 U* 
 
LECTURE YI. 
 
 BROTHERLY laiSTDNESS. 
 
 V 
 
 And to godliness, Bkotheelt Kindness. — 2 Peter i. 7. 
 
 OME former terms in this series of 
 graces have called for minute analysis 
 and definition. This was true especial- 
 ly of Yirtue, Temperance, and Godli- 
 ness ; neither of which in its every day 
 use, conveys the meaning of the apostle as a 
 distinctive grace in the Christian character. 
 The term Brotherly-Love hardly calls for expla- 
 nation ; but alas for the manifestation of the 
 thing ! It is the heart rather than the head 
 that needs instruction in this grace. Yet this, 
 more than any other single grace, is made the 
 characteristic mark of a Christian. " By this 
 shall all men know that ye are my disciples, 
 if ye have love one to another." " We know 
 that we have passed from death to life, because 
 we love the brethren." Our Lord himself 
 
THE NEW COMMANDMENT. 163 
 
 made this a test commandment in the code o£ 
 Christianity. In that tender hour of parting, 
 when after the last supper — thenceforth exalt- 
 ed into a sacrament of love — Jesus washed ^ 
 the disciples' feet and discoursed to them of 
 humility and affection, he said, "A new com- 
 mandment I give to you, that ye love one 
 another ; as I have loved you, that ye also 
 love one another." Three times in that sacred 
 discourse, when speaking of his own love for 
 them and tlie love of the Father for himself, 
 which they should share, he repeats with em- 
 phasis this one command : *' This is my com- \^ 
 mandment, that ye love one another, as I have ^' 
 loved you. Greater love hath no man than 
 this, that a man lay down his life for his 
 friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatso- 
 ever I command you. These things I com- 
 mand you, that ye love one another." 
 
 A new ^ commandment, said Christ; but 
 "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," 
 was as old as the law at Sinai. All natural, 
 domestic, and patriotic affections were enjoined 
 by the Jewish code ; and the all-embracing 
 love of the human race was required as second 
 
164 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 only to the love of God. How tlien was this 
 a new commandment? It was tlie old law of 
 love proceeding from God, wliicL. had almost 
 decayed among men, revived, renewed by 
 Him who was the embodiment of love — that 
 law of general good-will from man to man 
 renewed, and made spiritual in its application 
 to a type of character, and as the bond of a 
 community, and enriched also with the ele- 
 ment of self-sacrifice after the example of 
 Christ. Hence the apostle John, the beloved 
 disciple, who drank most deeply of this spirit, 
 calls this same commandment both old and new ; 
 " I write no new commandment unto you, but 
 an old commandment which ye had from the 
 beginning; again a new commandment I 
 write unto you, which thing islirue in him and 
 in you," — ^new in the experience of their 
 renewed minds ; new in the specific applica- 
 tion which Christ made of it to a renewed 
 character and life, as the basis of fellowship ; 
 new in its type of self-sacrificing devotion as 
 set forth by Him who "having loved his own, 
 loved them to the end." 
 
 This love is distinguished from all other 
 
A CHEISTLY CHAEACTEE. 165 
 
 love iii that it is based upon the evidence of a 
 Christly character, is prompted by love to 
 Christ liimself, and goes to that extent of self- 
 sacrificing devotion which -marks the love of 
 Christ for ns. "This is lAj commandment, 
 that ye love one another, as I have loved you , 
 greater love hath no man than this, that a 
 man lay down his life for his friends." " Here- 
 by perceive we the love of God," or of God in 
 Christ, " because he laid down his life for ns ; 
 and we ought to lay down our lives for the 
 brethren." 
 The topics suggested by the text are : 
 
 I. The chaeacteeistics of Beotheely- 
 LovE. 
 
 II. TriEGEOUNDS OF THIS PECULIAE AFFEC- 
 TION. 
 
 III. The MEANS BY WHICH IT MAY BE CHEE- 
 EISHED. 
 
 1. This Love is "based upon the evidence of 
 a Christly character^ and is jpromjpted hy love 
 to Christ himself. It is not the doctrine of a 
 universal fraternity which the text inculcates, 
 but Brotherly-Love between the members of 
 
166 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 the body of Christ * The brotherhood of the 
 human race as the spiritual offspring of one 
 Father and the lineal descendants of one pair, 
 " made of one blood," is a doctrine of the 
 Bible; and the duty of good-will, practical 
 and cordial benevolence toward every man as 
 a neighbor, is shown in the parable of the 
 good Samaritan illustrating and applying the 
 second great commandment. Eut this prac- 
 tical and universal benevolence, which prompts 
 to acts of sympathy and kindness toward the 
 needy and the suffering, and which forbids 
 all jealousy and animosity between man and 
 man, is not founded in the approval of the 
 character of others, but simply in their com- 
 mon humanity^ and in the wants and claims 
 
 * The term Brotherly-Love so literally expresses the meaning 
 of <l>lM6£?,(j)ia (Philadelphia) that the original here calls for 
 no farther elucidation. It is worthy of note, however, that 
 the classic writers of antiquity applied this terra strictly to 
 the affection for brothers or sisters in blood. It was re- 
 served for Christianity, to refine and exalt the term by apply- 
 ing it to the mutual love of those "which were born not of 
 blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
 but of God." In the New Testament the word is applied 
 only to the love of Christians for their fello^v Christians. 
 
PROFESSION TESTED. 167 
 
 arising out of that ; for we are to love even 
 our enemies and to do good to those who hate 
 us. But this Brotherly-Love rests primarily 
 upon a character recognized and approved as 
 the basis of fellowship ; it is the love of a 
 friend of Christ for another in whom also he 
 discerns a friendship for, and a likeness to 
 Christ. 
 
 The profession of love to Clmst is not 
 enough to command this Brotherly -Love. 
 Such a profession invites, indeed obhges us to 
 inquire into the evidences which attest its gen- 
 uineness ; and it should also dispose us to a 
 favorable judgment. The fact that one 
 openly professes to be the friend of Christ 
 should predispose us to give him our frater- 
 nal confidence ; but it is not in itself a sufficient 
 warrant for this peculiar love of the brethren. 
 The apostle John who insists upon Brotherly- 
 Love as vital to the Christian character, says 
 also, "Little children, let no man deceive 
 you;" "beloved, believe not every spirit, but 
 try the spirits whether they are of God, 
 because many false prophets are gone out 
 into the world." And the Saviour himself 
 
168 THE CIIEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 while he made Brotherly-Love the test of true 
 membership in his kingdom, warned the dis- 
 ciples, saying, " Take heed that no man 
 deceive you ; for many shall come in my name 
 saying I am Christ — who if possible shall 
 deceive the very elect." "We do not then bes; 
 tow this brotherly affection indiscriminately 
 upon all who call themselves by the name of 
 Christ. We must have evidence that they are 
 His disciples. 
 
 But on the other hand, we may not withhold 
 this love from any who show truly the spirit 
 of Christ. Wherever we find evidence of a 
 vital union of soul with Christ Himself, evi- 
 dence of a renewed heart, evidence of a godly 
 spirit and life, though this may be accom- 
 panied with minor errors of belief, with prac- 
 tical errors of judgment, with infelicities of 
 manner, with intellectual and social inferi- 
 ority, and though the inward light of grace 
 may be somewhat obscured by outward posi- 
 tion — as where one is converted in tlie midst 
 of superstition- and idolatry, and still retains 
 some of the impressions and customs in which 
 he was educated — jQi if love to Christ appear 
 
LOVE TO CHRIST. 169 
 
 in this feeble, unenliglitened, struggling soul, 
 we must take that soul to us in the full em- 
 brace of Brotherly-Love. " Him that is weak 
 in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful 
 disputations;" not for controversy but for 
 love ; " for we that are strong ought to. bear 
 the infirmities of the weak." The love of 
 Christ will prompt to this. That love is the 
 most potent of moral affinities. IS^ot more 
 surely does the magnet search out and draw 
 to itself particles of steel in a heap of sand, 
 than does the love of Christ in the heart 
 draw to itself, by its sweet and potent mag- 
 netism, whatever has a real affinity for Christ. 
 It is not an external and formal fellowship, 
 not the spirit of sect or party, not alliance in a 
 particular church, which generates and feeds 
 this love ; but an inward affection for Christ 
 himself, which causes us to delight in what- 
 ever is like Christ or is pleasing to Christ. 
 In one word, this love for the brethren is love 
 for them as Christians ; it is a love springing 
 from the belief that they are really in Christ, 
 and from a delight in them upon that account. 
 Where true love to Christ exists, the heart will 
 15 
 
170 THE CHEISTIAi^ GEACES. 
 
 warm toward any one who recalls any feature 
 of Christ, or reflects the spirit of Christ. It 
 does not require that a Christian shall be per- 
 fect, for then this love wonld be impossible 
 until we gain the purity of heaven. But 
 neither is it possible for this love to exist 
 where there is a want of confidence in the 
 evidences of a renewed heart. We are not 
 required* to love as a brother one who calls 
 himself a Christian, but whose life belies his 
 profession ; — we must judge him candidly and 
 charitably as to his faults, — ^but if he does not 
 give satisfactory evidence that he loves Christ, 
 we cannot love him in Christ. Our very 
 love for Christ forbids that we should love as 
 brethren those who do not, above all errors 
 and faults, clearly evince their love for Him. 
 2. Tliis Brotherly-Love ^oes not require 
 in Christians an entire agreement in opinio7i 
 or coincidence in practice. The communion 
 of the saints is broader than the affinities 
 of schools and the boundaries of sects. It 
 is the fellowship of those whose " fears, and 
 hopes, and aims are one ;" the fellowship of 
 •minds made kindred not through a common 
 
DUTY OF .REPEOOF. 171 
 
 intellection or a common organization, but 
 througli the same divine life and love infused 
 into their renewed and sanctified nature. 
 John Calvin, John Bunyan, John Newton, 
 John AYeslej, John Eobinson — ^Presbyterian, 
 Baptist, Episcopalian, Methodist, Congrega- 
 tionalist, — do we not love them all in Christ ? 
 3. This Brotherly-Love does not forbid 
 Christians to controvert the opinions or re- 
 prove the faults one of another. It requires 
 that they do this without malice, or person- 
 ality, or censoriousness, but in the love of the 
 truth and of Christ. " If thy brother trespass 
 against thee, rebuke him ; and if he repent, 
 forgive him." "Them that sin rebuke before 
 all, that others may fear." " Thou shalt not 
 hate thy brother in thy heart ; thou shalt in 
 any wise rebuke thy brother, and not suffer 
 sin upon him." Paul loved Peter with all 
 his heart. But when Peter tried to carry two 
 faces on the question of circumcision, and 
 " practised dissimulation, not walking uprightly 
 according to the truth of the Gospel," Paul 
 says, " I withstood him to the face, because 
 he was to be blamed." 
 
172 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 4. True Brotherly-Love does not require the 
 same marks of outward consideration toward 
 all Christianas, We may love in Christ a 
 brother or a sister whom we would not he 
 willing to marry. We may love as a brother 
 one whom we would not choose as our reli- 
 gious teacher, or to represent us in Congress. 
 This love is neither a vague sentimentalism 
 nor a levelling radicalism. It is love for 
 the best character — even the character of 
 Christ reproduced in his disciples. Wherever 
 that is found we love it because we love Him. 
 This love prompts us to relieve the wants of 
 our brethren ; to give them our counsel ; to 
 share their burdens, with kindly aid and sym- 
 pathy ; to guard their reputation ; to be tender 
 of their feelings; and it should go to the 
 extent of self-sacrifice for them after the exam- 
 ple of Christ. " Walk in love, as Christ also 
 hath loved us, and hath given himself for an 
 offering and a sacrifice to God." Our godli- 
 ness must not be the secluded piety of the 
 convent — a round of fasting and 'prayer; it 
 uiust reproduce toward man the love which 
 it invokes from God. The hermit in his cell, 
 
COMMON EELATIONS. 173 
 
 the anchorite in the desert, cannot represent 
 Christianity as a life-power. Christ contem- 
 plated a living body of believers bound to- 
 gether in love. The exhortation of the text is 
 in keeping with the whole spirit of the l^ew 
 Testament: "Add to godliness Brotherly 
 Kindness." 
 
 From this analysis of the nature of Bro 
 therly-Love we pass to consider 
 
 n. The geounds or reasons of this mu 
 
 TUAL AFFECTION OF THE FOLLOWERS OF ChRIST. 
 
 We have seen that this brotherhood of be- 
 lievei's is founded originally in tJieir common 
 relations to Christ, Once involved in a com- 
 mon ruin and misery, partakers now of a 
 common redemption, having the same su- 
 preme object of affection, the same ennobling 
 aim, the same hope of glory, the same inherit- 
 ance beyond the grave, and owing their sal- 
 vation equally to Christ, they are linked 
 together in those interests and affections of 
 their being which alone are vital and im- 
 perishable. "This family resemblance among 
 Christians, this homogeneity of character, 
 15*. 
 
174: THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 springs from a common centre ; and there ex- 
 ists as its archetype, an invisible Personage 
 of whose glory all have in a measnre parta- 
 ken."* Tlie brotherhood of Christians is not 
 the result of any policy, compact, convention, 
 concession on their part ; but exists by virtue 
 of their union with Christ, and under his law. 
 
 Descending now from this general survey, 
 we may note more particularly, 
 
 1. That Bi'otherly-Love is the only real 
 hond of union in a Church of Christ. What 
 is a Church ? A body of professed believers 
 in Christ, associated under a covenant for mu- 
 tual watchfulness and help in the Christian 
 life, and for maintaining the ordinances of the 
 Gospel. Its basis is a covenant. Tliis im- 
 plies a common belief, a common religious 
 sentiment, and mutual confidence and good 
 will. Without these a covenant of Christians 
 cannot exist. A covenant difi'ers herein from 
 a constitution. A constitution is a system of 
 rules and principles for the government of 
 persons united under it. It requires of the 
 members of the body nothing more than com- 
 
 * Isaac Taylor ; " Saturday Evening." Med. xix. 
 
A CHURCH COVENANT. 175 
 
 pliance with certain rules, and does not neces- 
 sarily extend to the spirit which they should 
 cherish one toward another. But a covenant, 
 as the term is used in church affairs, is " a 
 solemn agreement between the members of a 
 church, that they will walk together according 
 to the precepts of the Gospel, in brotherly 
 affection." 
 
 Now it is obvious that this covenant cannot 
 stand one moment without love. Love is its 
 essence; its vital element. In the normal 
 structure of our churches, we have nothing to 
 hold us together but the simple bond of love. 
 Til ere are nominal Churches of Christ which, 
 in the countries where they exist, are in alli- 
 ance with the State ; so that social distinction 
 and political preferment may be closely con- 
 nected with membership in the Church. This 
 was once true to some extent in 'New Eng- 
 land. Till within a comparatively recent 
 period in. England, the only avenue to politi- 
 cal life was through the Establishment — mem- 
 bership in that being made a qualification for 
 office ; and at this day, social distinction in that 
 country, depends much upon the same church 
 
176 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 connection. The full privileges and honors 
 of the ancient universities can be enjoyed 
 only by members of the Established Church. 
 Hence there are powerful motives aside from 
 the simple profession of faith in Christ, to 
 hold together the members of that commu- 
 nion. In other cases the possession of a large 
 fund or endowment, or facilities for power 
 and influence, may hold together a commu- 
 nity of professed Christians without any 
 special bond of afi'ection. They stand by 
 their church, just as one stands by a bank or 
 other institution in which he is a stockholder. 
 Again, the notion of a sanctifying grace in 
 a church organization, mere ecclesiasticism, 
 may hold together a body of communicants 
 who have no special affection for each other ; 
 and thus the Church as an organization, with 
 its hierarchy, its ritual, its history, its order, 
 its sacraments, its wealth . and power, — the 
 Ecclesiastical Corporation with its vaguely 
 defined spiritual prerogatives and efficacy — 
 may be regarded with reverence and affec- 
 tion, and clung to with tenacity as the dis- 
 penser of salvation. 
 
THE PERFECT BOND. 177 
 
 But the simple Cliristianity of tlie E"ew 
 Testament provides no such bond of connec- 
 tion among professors of the Christian faith. 
 Its vital and permanent connections are spirit- 
 ual. An Ecclesiastical Society may be held 
 together by church property. Habit, tradi- 
 tion, history, worship, the ministry, the choir, 
 the incidentals of the sanctuary, social re- 
 unions and the like, may keep together those 
 who have little of Christian faith and love. 
 But in such cases, the ecclesiastical society 
 or the church association is a bond of union 
 only as a Masonic order or an Odd-Fellow's 
 Lodge may be such a bond. The church 
 proper, the body spiritual, the body of Christ, 
 is held by no such ties. Not the building, 
 not the forms, not the ministry, not the music, 
 not the associations, not the society, but above 
 all these and even without all these. Love is 
 the one bond of union among the members 
 of the household of faith. If this is wanting 
 the covenant dies, and the church dies ; for 
 the life of both is gone. Hence the apostle 
 speaks of Charity as the hond of perfectness / 
 the one complete bond ; the one basis of affi- 
 
178 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 nity and union among tlie followers of Christ 
 —the one thing — ^the only tiling that holds 
 them together as a church ; and hence be- 
 lievers are exhorted " above all things^^ above 
 prayers and forms, and ordinances, and wor- 
 ship, and even above the outward duties of 
 Christianity toward the world — above all 
 things to " have fervent charity among them- 
 selves." 
 
 Since then, this mutual sympathizing, ap- 
 proving Love is the only possible basis of 
 Christian union, and the only bond of that 
 pure and simple society which we call a church 
 of Christ, the cultivation of this Love is of 
 paramount importance to the existence of a 
 church. Without this a church organization 
 is an empty name. Though having doctrine, 
 ritual, architecture, music, pomp, wealth, 
 numbers, social culture, hierarchical dignity, 
 political influence, whatever may cluster 
 about such an organization, yet without Love 
 it is " in want of all things." 
 
 2. Brotherly-Love is the truest evidence of 
 a regenerated and sanctified heart. The heart 
 of man is by nature selfish and proud. It 
 
THE BRAHMIN. 179 
 
 caretli for its own things- and not for the 
 things of others; it loves preeminence and 
 the factitious distinctions of family, or wealth, 
 or education. IN'atural and providential differ- 
 ences are made the occasion of social dis- 
 tinctions ; birth, condition, color, talent, w^hat- 
 ever constitutes a real or an imaginary- 
 difference among men, is seized upon as the 
 basis of pei'manent distinctions in society ; 
 and thus what should develop only humane and 
 benevolent sympathies and kindly affections 
 between man and mg-n, is made to foster pride 
 and self-conceit, and becomes a barrier to all 
 generous feeling. There is an aristocracy in 
 human nature itself. It is seen in the social 
 and political constitution of tribes of men the 
 lowest in the scale of intelligence and of civil- 
 ization. In some nations it is connected with 
 religion. The Brahmin is of a divine origin — 
 a different order of being from other Hindoos, 
 born upon the same soil, and reared under 
 the same institutions. He springs directly 
 from the gods, and suffers no intercourse 
 upon equal terms, with those of an inferior 
 caste. Tlie nobility of Europe take pride in a 
 
180 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 blood imtainted with labor; and rest their 
 claim to distinction upon the mere accident 
 of birtli. 
 
 In this country, where all such distinctions 
 are professedly discarded, the spirit of aris- 
 tocracy develops itself with so much the 
 greater intensity in the line of wealth ; which 
 however suddenly acquired, however unat- 
 tended with true refinement, intelligence, and 
 worth, and however liable to be dissipated 
 by some sudden whirl of fortune, is made the 
 basis of a distinction as wide as that of birth 
 or of caste in other lands. Sometimes, too, 
 we find in our new society some feeble imita- 
 tion of the aristocracy of family or of talent 
 in older countries, where men wear hereditary 
 titles, succeed to hereditary honors, and are 
 governed by hereditary brains. But the 
 spirit of pride, the feeling of caste, is natural 
 to the heart, even where there is little in the 
 outward to encourage it. If one cannot feel 
 proud because his ancestors died without the 
 assistance of the hangman, or went unwhipt 
 of justice notwithstanding their rapacity and 
 their oppressions of the pooi- ; if he cannot 
 
BOITRCES OF PRIDE. 181 
 
 feel proud because in himself or in his ances- 
 tors he may boast gifts of nature, physical or 
 intellectual, which others have not; if he 
 cannot feel proud because the turn of fortune 
 enables him to " make a fair show in the 
 flesh ;" if one has none of these grand occa- 
 sions of pride, then he is proud because he is 
 white and not black, or because he is de- 
 scended from Saxon brigands and idolaters 
 instead of Celtic buccaneers. 
 
 Or if pride is not thus dominant in the na- 
 tural heart, some other form of selfishness is 
 dominant there ; and each man makes his own 
 interest and advancement, and the interest and 
 advancement of his own family and friends, — 
 whatever interest clusters about himself or 
 has relations more or less personal, — every 
 man naturally makes this superior to the in- 
 terests of others, and even superior to the 
 public good. And thus it -is that covetous- 
 ness, or ambition, or vanity, or family, or pure 
 self-will, so often get the better of the humane 
 and honorable impulses of the soul. 
 
 l!^ow the spirit of the Gospel is directly 
 the reverse of all this. The Gospel does not 
 16 
 
182 THE CHKISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 violently subvert the constitution of society; it 
 does not equalize property and talent ; it does 
 not change the appointments of Providence 
 with respect to color or condition ; but it lays 
 the axe at the root of pride and of selfishness 
 in the heart ; so that if from prudential rea- 
 sons or by the law of social affinity, distinctions 
 of some sort shall yet remain in society, moral 
 considerations and the spirit of love shall so 
 lar overbalance these, that they shall not be 
 cherished in an exclusive pride of selfishness. 
 And this is just the point in human nature 
 most difficult to be reached. Such a feeling- 
 is the fruit only of a renewed and a sanctified 
 heart. Kothing but that radical change in 
 human nature effected through the Gospel, 
 can bring the Jew to renounce his prejudices 
 against the Gentile, can bring the Greek to 
 overcome his contempt for the Jew and to 
 embrace him as a brother ; can bring men of 
 different social rank, of difierent color and 
 condition, to live upon equal terms with bro- 
 therly affection. The Gospel makes the soul 
 and its interests paramount to all temporal dis- 
 tinctions,; it puts the spiritual infinitely above 
 
MASTER AND SERVANT. 183 
 
 the physical ; it honors character above all 
 rank, and station, and wealth, and power ; it 
 honors all men as the offspring of God^; and 
 it looks upon the renewed man in Christ as 
 the image of Christ, to be received and loved 
 for his sake. "One is your Master even 
 Christ, and all ye are brethren." 
 
 3. This law of Christian brotherhoK>d de- 
 clared by our Lord, not only secures to each 
 and every disciple the same rights and privi- 
 leges in his kingdom ; it forbids any relation 
 hetween Christians which is inconsisteyit with 
 their absolute equality before Ilim^ and their 
 fraternal love for each other. Perhaps the 
 most striking illustration of this, is seen in the 
 effect of this doctrine upon the relation of 
 master and servant, in the Apostolic age. The 
 Koman, unlike the Hebrew law, gave the 
 master absolute control over the body of liis 
 servant, to sell, to maim, to put to death. 
 Now, a master and his slave are botli con- 
 verted to Christianity and received into the 
 same church. We know from authentic 
 sources that converted pagans often accom- 
 panied their profession of faith in Christ, 
 
184 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 with the public and solemn mannmission of 
 their slaves. But sometimes legal difficnlties 
 made this impracticable ; yet in that case, 
 the law of Christian brotherhood insured the 
 virtual manumission of the slave. To masters 
 the apostle says, " Give to your servants that 
 which is just and equal; knowing that ye 
 also have a master in heaven ; and there is no 
 respect of persons with Him." And to Christ- 
 ian servants the same apostle says, "they 
 that have believing masters, let them not des- 
 pise them because they are 'brethreii^^ — and 
 therefore only their equals in the Church — 
 " but rather do them service hecause they 
 are believers and beloved, partakers of the 
 benefit." The relation of master and servant 
 is thus transferred from the pale of the civil 
 law into the higher plane of Christian Jove. 
 
 In the churches of Ephesus and Galatia, 
 were both masters and servants, as is evident 
 from the letters of Paul. But the epistles to 
 those churches are addressed equally to every 
 member-: and the apostle says to each' and to 
 all alike, " Submit yourselves one to another 
 in the fear of God;" and "Bear ye one 
 
A TKUE FKATERNITY. 185 
 
 cmotherh burdens ;" with mucli of the sam'e im- 
 port. If we read through any of the epistles 
 ^vith this thought in mind — that in the church 
 to which it was addressed there were rich a^d 
 poor, master and servant, nobleman and ple- 
 beian, and consider that the smne instructions 
 and exhortations are given to all alike, w^e can- 
 not resist the conviction that Koman chattelism 
 found no place in those early churches, and 
 that no relation which was inconsistent with 
 fraternal love was tolerated, simply because 
 it had the sanction of custom and the civil 
 law. 
 
 And this law of Christian Brotherhood also 
 requires that in all lawful relations, and all 
 social intercourse, Christians shall manifest 
 toward each other their peculiar love. While 
 the spirit of Christian fraternity must do 
 away with every relation between Christians 
 which is inconsistent with a genuine, honest, 
 hearty, mutual affection and esteem ; on the 
 other hand it retains and fosters those mutual 
 relations which are founded in nature or pro- 
 priety, even where these involve a degree 
 of superiority on the one hand and of depen- 
 IC* 
 
 I 
 
186 THE CIIKISTIA^ GEACE8. 
 
 dence on the other ; — as the relations of parent 
 an(j^ child ; master and servant, apprentice 
 or ward ; employer and the employed ; 
 rulers and the ruled ; — ^but into all these rela- 
 tions the spirit of Brotherly-Love infuses a 
 new dignity and life — ^making the outward 
 condition a thing of accident, a transitory 
 matter, to be regulated ever by this higher 
 Love. 
 
 "Christianity invests every human being 
 'with immeasm'able importance, and so incalcu- 
 lably enhances whatever affects his welfare or 
 his moral condition. The affections of earth, 
 how vehement soever, are transitory, as itself; 
 but the love which has become combined 
 with the idea of immortality, is firm, profound 
 and indestructible. Atheism, in all its forms, 
 desiccates the affections. . . . It h only in reli- 
 gion that we can find the true philosoj)hy of 
 love, for love apart from the belief of an 
 after state has neither substance nor purity."* 
 
 Where the Gospel possesses the heart, it 
 puts an end to selfishness and pride, and infuses 
 
 * Saturday Evening, xix. 
 
LOVE A PEOOF OF FAITH. 187 
 
 the spirit of liumanity, and courtesy, of 
 kindness, of union, of peace. Hence that 
 Brotherly-Love which goes forth equally 
 toward all thai are in Christ, without respect 
 to physical or social differences, is the highest 
 evidence of a renewed heart. '• "We Icnow that 
 we have passed from death to life, because we 
 love the brethren." Nay, where this is want- 
 ing, there is no valid evidence of regenera- 
 tion. " If a man say I love God, and loveth 
 not his brother, he is a liar. For he that 
 loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
 how can he love God whom he hath not 
 seen ? He that loveth not his brother abideth 
 in death." Yain is profession, vain is doctrine, 
 vain is prayer, vain is alms-giving, vain is zeal, 
 without this Love. 
 
 3. Tlie fraternal love of Christians gives to 
 the world the highest and most convincing 
 'proof of the reality and the jpower of Christ- 
 ian faith^ and is the necessary condition for 
 the advancement of Christianity in the world. 
 
 The relation of Brotherly-Love to the evi- 
 dences of Christianity, and to its proj^agation 
 in the world, is twice announced by our Sa- 
 
 • 
 
I 
 
 188 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 viour in his prayer for his disciples at tlie last 
 supper. " That they all may be one ; as thou 
 Father art in me, and I in thee, that they 
 also may be one in us ; that the world may 
 believe that thou hast sent me. . . . That 
 they may be one, even as we are one : I in 
 them, and thou in me, that they may be made 
 perfect in one ; and that the world may know 
 that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them 
 as thou hast loved me." 
 
 The evidence of Christ's mission, of Christ's 
 divinity, of Christ's union with his church, of 
 Christ's power and grace, the final convincing 
 evidence of this would be given in the union 
 of his disciples, made up from all nations, all 
 classes, all temperaments, all interests, yet one 
 in each other, and one in Christ their head. 
 This was the demonstration of his Gospel 
 before the world, upon which, humanly speak- 
 ing, He chiefly relied for its progress and 
 success. 
 
 In that age stood Judaism, wdth its intense 
 nationality ; its religious pride ; its Pharisaic 
 spirit; Greek philosophy with its mysteries 
 for the initiated and its contempt for the com- 
 
THE FIEST CHRISTIANS. 189 
 
 monalty and the outside world of barbarians ; 
 Roman supremacy, with its claim of descent 
 
 ► from the gods, and its disdain of all whom 
 it had conquered; everywhere there existed 
 the most marked religious and social distinc- 
 tions ; despotism in government, and slavery 
 in private life ; and there was no system of 
 religion, of philosophy, or of government, 
 
 • capable of bringing men ^f different nation- 
 alities and of different social rank upon a com- 
 mon platform of fraternity; there was none 
 that had even shaped to itself such an ideal.* 
 But Christianity began with this ; the Jew 
 and the Gentile must come together ; the Greek 
 and the barbarian must come together; the 
 Roman citizen and the Scythian outcast must 
 come together ; the master and the slave must 
 come together ; the Pharisee and the publican 
 must come together ; the philosopher and the 
 rustic, the centurion and the common soldier, 
 
 * The small communities of Essenes, fraternities of Jew- 
 ish ascetics and communists hardly constitute an exception 
 to this remark. De Quincey, by the way, has revived the 
 notion that the Essenes themselves were " the prodicct of 
 Christianity under its earliest storms." 
 
190 THE CHKISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 the rich and the poor, the officers of Caesar's 
 palace and the tent-makers from Alexandria, 
 the royal eunuch riding in his chariot, and the 
 humble evangelist travelling on foot, all must 
 come together in one body and be known as 
 'brethren. This was the very first step in the 
 progress of the Gospel; and lo the men of 
 that prgud, Pharisaic, philosoiDhic, despotic 
 age, it was the highest evidence that here was 
 a new element in society, a religion not of 
 man but of God ; whicti offering no emolu- 
 ment, claimed only and everywhere lo'oe. 
 The idea of Fraternity, not in the low sense of 
 a political or financial or literary club, a Bro- 
 therhood of mutual confidence, sympathy, 
 affection and esteem, was then first broached, 
 and first realized before the world. 
 
 And this Love of the brethren was an argu- 
 ment ^of great force for Christianity. ^' See," 
 said the heathen, everywhere, " see how these 
 Christians love one another." Origen, Ter- 
 tullian, and other apologists, make much of 
 this Brotherly-Love in their arguments with 
 heathen opponents of the Gospel. This 
 mutual love led the Christians at Jerusalem, 
 
THE HINDOO CONVERT. 191 
 
 in an emergency, to devote tlieir entire property 
 for the common benefit ; and when that spe- 
 cial occasion had passed by, it still prompted 
 to a liberal hospitality and charity. Indeed 
 " so ready, entire and constant was the affec- 
 tion of the early Christians, that the heathen 
 accused them of having private marks upon 
 their bodies, whereby they fell in love with 
 each other at first sight."* Would that the 
 same harmony which the freshness of the 
 life in Christ then induced, and which cir- 
 cumstances of common peril necessitated, 
 might now pervade the whole body of be- 
 lievers, to the admiration and conviction of 
 the world ! 
 
 Sometimes upon heathen ground this early 
 simplicity is renewed. Beautiful is the inci- 
 dent narrated of an accomplished Hindoo, a 
 young man of high caste, delicate, refined, 
 educated in the belief of his native and heredi- 
 tary superiority, who on becoming a convert 
 to Christianity, made a profession of faith side 
 by side with a poor woman of the lowest 
 
 * Neander and Cave. 
 
 I 
 
192 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 caste, whose very sliadow he would have 
 avoided in the days of his iinregenerate pride ; 
 and not content with being baptized from the 
 same water, and assenting to the same cove- 
 nant, turned to her of his own accord, and in 
 sight of the congregation took her by the 
 hand and said, " My sister^ Tliere was the 
 triumph of Christian love over the pride of 
 the natural heart, and the pride of social cus- 
 tom and of false religion ; and there too was 
 the demonstration to the world that this Reli- 
 gion is not of man. 
 
 The conviction of the divine character and 
 mission of the Gospel of Christ will be in pro- 
 portion to the love and the unity of His fol- 
 lowers. And by this Love, also, will Christ- 
 ianity become a reforming power for the 
 complete conquest of evil in the world. Let 
 Brotherly-Love prevail between master and 
 slave, let Philemon receive his Onesimus not 
 as a servant but as a brother beloved, and 
 how soon will the chains fall, and all that is 
 selfish and oppressive in the relation of mas- 
 ter and servant come to an end. Let Bro- 
 therly-Love prevail between ruler and sub- 
 
CHEISTIAN SOCIABILITY. 193 
 
 ject, and oppression will cease on tlie one 
 hand, and rebellion on tlie other. Let Bro- 
 therlj-Love prevail between the employer 
 and the employed, the capitalist and the 
 Laborer, and the jars and conflicts of society 
 will end in a state of perfect equity and satis- 
 faction. 
 
 For the spread of Christianity, therefore, it 
 is not enough that we found schools and col- 
 leges, build churches, establish missions, mul- 
 tiply tracts and Bibles ; all this apparatus is 
 needed for the work; but they wdio would 
 reform and save the world, must above all 
 things ham fervent charity among themselves. 
 
 ni. How SHALL THIS LoVE BE DEVELOPED 
 AND CHERISHED ? 
 
 1. Wherever this is possible. Christians 
 must cultivate a familiar acquaintance with 
 eaxih other. Tliis holds especially of those 
 who are associated in the same church fellow- 
 ship. There can be only the most vague, im- 
 personal regard for one another, upon general 
 grounds, among Christians who hardly know 
 each other's personal identity ; to whom the 
 It 
 
194: THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 names of members wlio have signed the same 
 covenant and are registered in the same cata- 
 logue recall no familiar face, and suggest no 
 traits of personal character. This Love in- 
 cludes a personal esteem, complacency in char- 
 acter, and a cordial sympathy ; but these 
 cannot exist toward an individual whose 
 name is knowp. only as an algebraic sign. 
 The great want of our church fellowship, 
 especially in cities, is social contact ; some pro- 
 vision whereby Christians can see each other 
 face to face, other than the pews of the 
 church, and the half vacant benches of, the 
 lecture room ; some provision for chiirch- 
 society, which, without dispensing with other 
 forms of social intercourse proper and useful 
 in themselves, shall yet make the society of 
 fellow-Christians a positive and peculiar at- 
 traction, and shall knit the whole circle in 
 sacred love. "Without this a church can 
 hardly be expected to prosper. It can have 
 no warmth of Christian love, and no energy 
 of Christian union. How to gain this is a 
 problem. The first Christians accomplished 
 it in Rome, in Antioch, in Alexandria, cities 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIABILITY. 195 
 
 as populous as this. But then Christianity 
 was fresh; all its impulses and experiences 
 were new; Christians were few in number; 
 liemmed in by idolatry ; driven to each other 
 for countenance and sympathy, welded to- 
 getlier by the fires of persecution. Yes, and 
 then too the love of Christ was fresh, and 
 sweet, and powerful, and attractive, and all- 
 absorbing. The Gospel was felt to be a 
 reality, and the Christian profession was a 
 reality. Can any change of outward circum- 
 stances excuse us for the neglect of tliis vital 
 part of Christian culture ? Can we afford to 
 dispense with that which was the life of the 
 early churches ? ISTot unless we would have 
 Christianity degenerate into a lifeless form; 
 not if we would have anything of fellowship 
 except the name. For often a church is 
 rather an aggregation of independent units 
 than the coalescing of congenial fervent 
 liearts. » 
 
 2. We must clierish Brotherly-Love hy 
 dwelling in our thoughts and speech upon the 
 excellencies of hrethren rather than upon their 
 infirmities and defects^ It is a pleasant dis- 
 
196 THE CIIEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 coveiy that one wakes up to now and then, 
 that there is more goodness in the world, and 
 more goodness in individuals, than he had sus- 
 pected to exist. And it is surprising how 
 this discovery grows when the mind of the 
 observer is in a gentle and loving mood. Pre- 
 judice invents faults ; through green glasses 
 the j)urest white is turned to green. But 
 charity covers a multitude of sins ; — not con- 
 niving at sin, not countenancing crime, but 
 overlooking faults in the esteem of virtues. 
 It dwells upon the great outlines of charac- 
 ter, and seeing the likeness of Christ truly 
 stamped upon the soul, it overlooks the minor 
 defects of the image in the joy that the like- 
 ness is really there. 
 
 Our independent American habit of thought 
 and of speech, together with the comparative 
 isolation of city life, betrays Christians into a 
 harsh and censorious judgment of one another, 
 or into a spirit of controversy when some 
 defect of character is brought to light in one 
 whose general character is little known ; and 
 forthwith one who has many sterling excel- 
 lencies, and gives clear evidence of Christian 
 
SELF-IMFROVEMENT. 197 
 
 character, is condemned as reprobate, void of 
 principle, the chief of sinners, because some 
 infirmity for the time is conspicuous, and his 
 excellencies are hid. But should we dwell 
 habitually upon the excellencies of Christian 
 brethren, and overlook their faults, or humbly 
 and kindly seek to correct them, how would 
 our hearts burn towards them with holy love. 
 At this point emphatically we must give all 
 diligence to cultivate this grace. It is not our 
 brethren whom we should seek to cultivate 
 and improve, so mufth as our own hearts. 
 Have you faith in Christ ? But Christ him- 
 self has made the crowning fruit and 
 evidence of that faith to be this very Love of 
 the brethren. "Tliis is his commandment, 
 that we should believe on the name of Jesus 
 Christ, and love one another." Have you 
 Godliness of heart ? But remember that " If 
 a man say I love God, and hateth his brother, 
 he is a liar." " If we love one another, God 
 dwelleth in us." "Put on, therefore as the 
 elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of 
 onercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meek- 
 ness, long-suffering, forbearing one another 
 11* 
 
198 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 and forgiving one another, if any man have a 
 complaint against any, even as Christ forgave 
 you, so also do ye ; and above all these things 
 put on charity, which is the hond of jperfecb- 
 ness^ and let the peace of God rule in your 
 hearts ; to which also ye are called in one 
 body." 
 
LECTURE YII. 
 CHARITY. 
 
 And to Brotherly-Kindness Charity. — 2 Peter, i. 7. 
 
 ND what is Charity ? IN'ot alms-giving 
 merely, nor benefactions to objects of 
 public utility, however frequent and 
 liberal, for " though I bestow all my 
 goods to feed the poor, and have not 
 Charity, it profiteth me nothing." Shall we 
 then take Charity in the broader sense of 
 love? This is warranted by old English 
 usage, and in substituting the word Charity in 
 this verse for the w^ord love found in the 
 older versions, no doubt our translators meant 
 to convey by it the same idea. Charity 
 means primarily clearness^ as denoting the 
 high price or value of an object ;* and hence 
 the word denotes metaphorically a high regard 
 
 * Caritas annonce, dearness of provisions, is a frequent 
 expression in Latin authors. The high price of fruit, grain, 
 wine, oil, etc., is expressed by caritas. 
 
200 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 or esteem for any one — a love produced by a 
 sense of value or a principle of esteem. Mil- 
 ton speaks of tlie natural affections between 
 members of the same family as charities. 
 The idea of kindness to the poor, which com- 
 mon usage has attached to the word, is but a 
 secondary meaning. It stands in the text as 
 the representative of a wider thought ; add to 
 Godliness Brotherly-kindness and to Brotherly- 
 kindness, Love. 
 
 But Love has so many forms and applica- 
 tions that this also needs to be defined in order 
 that we may get at its precise signification as 
 a Christian grace. The Love here enjoined 
 differs from that brotherly-love already ex- 
 pounded, since this must be added to that ; 
 and for the same reason it must differ from 
 that love toward God which Godliness implies, 
 and that love to Christ w^hich Faith implies. 
 It is an affection definite in its nature and spe- 
 cific in its object, to be added to all the rest. 
 Rightly to comprehend it, we must study the 
 Christian interpretation of those duties between 
 man and man which are conprised in the second 
 table of the law. 
 
THE DEBT OF LOVE. 201 
 
 Christ summed up the law in two command- 
 ments ; " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thj heart and with all thy soul, and 
 with all thy mind — this is the first and great 
 commandment. And the second is like unto 
 it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ; 
 on these two commandments hang all the law 
 and the prophets." This summary of the law 
 is set forth by the apostle Paul in the form of 
 a demonstration. " Eender to all their dues ; 
 tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to 
 whom custom ; fear to whom fear ;" all this 
 refers to those in official station, to whom, as 
 good subjects or citizens, Christians should 
 pay that tribute and respect which the law 
 demands. Then from those in authority the 
 apostle passes to survey all men, and says " owe 
 no man anything, but to love one another ;" all 
 all other debts, whether of 'money or of res- 
 pect, should be scrupulously paid — they grow 
 burdensome if not paid — ^but Love is of per- 
 petual obligation ; so that to carry out the 
 figure of the apostle, it may be said of it, 
 " this debt increases the more, the more it is 
 paid, because the practice of Love makes the 
 
202 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 principle of love deeper and more active." 
 All other dues can be cancelled, wiped out by 
 payment ; but tliis debt is renewed as often as 
 it is paid, and every day demands a new install- 
 ment. But though. Love can never cease to be 
 binding as duty, yet where it is both perfect 
 and constant, it meets all the requirements of 
 the law, 60 that " he that loveth another hath 
 fulfilled the law ; for this, Tliou shalt not com- 
 mit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt 
 not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, 
 thou shalt not covet; and if there be any 
 other commandment, it is briefly comprehend- 
 ed in this saying, namely. Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to 
 his neighbor ; therefore Love is the fulfilling of 
 the law." Tliis gives us the key to the meaning 
 of the word. Love worketh no ill to another ; 
 it is the spirit of universal good-will to man. 
 
 So new a thing was this spirit in the world, 
 that the writers of the ISTew Testament were 
 obliged to coin a new word to express it. Li 
 that copious, classic, and courtly Greek from 
 which the evangelists and apostles," though 
 Hebrews, drew the main stock of their words, 
 
A NEW WOED. 203 
 
 there was no term to convey this idea of a 
 universal and equal love toward man as man, 
 because that idea had never entered the mind 
 of even the most liberal and cultivated pagan. 
 Tlie feelings of race, of nationality, of nativity, 
 of religion, all found expression ; but in a 
 period when each nation regarded itself as of 
 distinct and divine origin, and looked upon 
 foreigners with suspicion or jealousy, there 
 was no sentiment of universal brotherhood in 
 man, and therefore no word to express that 
 sentiment. This need not much surprise us. 
 When the great Hungarian orator sought to 
 apply the principles of Christianity to inter- 
 national law, he found that even the English- 
 speaking nations were not far enough ad- 
 vanced in the practice of Christianity to have 
 formed a word for that idea. He wished to 
 express the mutual obligation of nations for 
 each other's welfare : and he had to coin for 
 this a word whicli for a long time sounded 
 strangely in our ears. He took a technical 
 legal term which denotes the strongest form 
 of contract — ^in which all the contracting par- 
 ties are bound together, and each is bound for 
 
204: THE CIIRISTIAX GEACES. 
 
 all — and then to tlie sliame of our defective 
 Christianity and our selfish nationalism, he 
 enlightened us in that solidarity of nations 
 which is so much higher and nobler th^n the 
 spirit of national exclusiveness. 
 
 Even so when the first ex]3ounders of Christ- 
 ianity would express the great idea of good- 
 will toward mankind universally, they could 
 find no. word which would adequately convey 
 that idea. And in their adoj)ted Greek — 
 then the universal language — there was no 
 word to express Love, which had not been so 
 perverted to unworthy uses as to unfit it for 
 the chaste and pure spirit of the Gospel of 
 Christ. As a fine scholar and critic expresses 
 it, " those words by the corrupt use of the 
 world had become so steeped in earthly sen- 
 sual passion, carried such an atmosphere of 
 this about them, that the truth of God ab- 
 stained from the defiling contact witli them ; 
 yea, found out a new word for itself rather 
 than betake itself to one of these : — for the 
 substantive aya-n-Ty — ^here translated charity or 
 Love — ^is purely a Christian word, no example 
 of its use occurring in any heathen writer 
 
THE CHRISTIAN AGAPE. 205 
 
 whatever."* The origin of this word is in a 
 purely Christian idea. It is Love, not as a 
 passion but as an affection / and this refined 
 from all taint of self-interest, and bestowed 
 intelligently, impartially, and from a deep 
 abiding religious principle, upon all men as 
 the children of one Father, partakers of a 
 
 * Dean Trench, " Synonyms of the New Testament," 
 p. 70. Lexicographers confirm what Trench here says. A 
 few examples will suffice. AyaTrrj {agape). " This word 
 occurs only in the Bible and in Christian writers." (Rost und 
 Palm.) The verb dyairuu, frequent in classic writers, differs 
 from ^lIeiv " as implying regard or affection rather than 
 passion^ and is rarely used of sexual love." (Liddell and 
 Scott.) Xenophou in his "Memorabilia" makes Socrates 
 advise Aristarchus upon the treatment of poor relatives : 
 " If you take them under your direction, so that they may 
 be employed, you will love them, when you see that they 
 are serviceable to you, and they will grow attached to you, 
 when they find that you feel satisfaction in their society." 
 (Mem. 2, 7, 9.) When Aristarchus had given to his female 
 relations honorable and becoming employments in his 
 household, Xenophon adds, "they loved Aristarchus as 
 their protector, and he loved them as being of use to him." 
 ( Mem. 2, 12.) This chaste affection or mutual regard as 
 distinguished from a merely amorous or dishonorable at- 
 tachment, was expressed by the verb ayaKau ; but there 
 was no corresponding substantive in classic Greek. 
 
 18 
 
206 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 common nature, and subjects of one redemp- 
 tion through Jesus Christ. Brotherly-Love is 
 the love of complacency toward those who 
 bear the image of Christ — ^binding us to them 
 to the utmost extent of self-sacrifice. Charity 
 is the love of good-will toward all mankind ; 
 — the consequence of love to God and a loA^e 
 from God shed abroad in the hearts of his 
 people. 
 
 A full analysis of this affection requires 
 that we consider, 
 
 I. Its essential elements and conditions. 
 
 II. Its pk actio al sphere and effects. 
 m. The hindrances to its expression. 
 lY. The methods for its development. 
 
 1. As an essential element of this Love 
 there must be the full recognition of a 
 common humanity in all men^ whatever their 
 country, their color, their language, their 
 lirth, or their condition. Whatever the pre- 
 sent types of mankind, however degenerated 
 in physical appearance, rude in dialect, de- 
 graded in manners, however ignorant, brutal, 
 vile, we must be able to look upon each and 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN. 207 
 
 all, and recognize above these accidental dif- 
 ferences the common and permanent type of 
 our humanity. We must be able to sit down 
 with Kane among the Esquimaux, and say, 
 these, stunted creatures, matted over with 
 filth, gorging themselves with oil, dividing 
 life between sleeping and the hunt — these are 
 men like to ourselves ; and then we must go 
 with Livingstone among the kraals of the 
 Hottentots, and overcoming our disgust for 
 their persons and their habits, must say, 
 these, too, are men like ourselves ; and then 
 we must go among the islands of the South 
 Pacific, whose native population shock every 
 taste and habit of civilized life, and say, even 
 these are inen of like passions with our- 
 selves; — such barbarians were those among 
 whom Paul was shipwrecked at Malta, and to 
 whom he preached the Gospel; such barba- 
 rians were our ancestors in Britain— painted 
 savages of the wood, — when the Romans con- 
 quered them and despised them even for 
 slaves ; — such were that Saxon Race from 
 whose loins we more directly spring, when 
 nearly six hundred years after Cliristianity 
 
THE CHRISTIAN GEACES, 
 
 appeared, the great and good Gregory com- 
 passionating the barbarism of those pirate 
 islanders, sent his chosen missionaries to seek 
 their conversion. It was a more brave and 
 desperate thing, twelve hundred years ago, 
 for the monk Augustine to go and plant him- 
 self upon the island of Britain, than it is for 
 our brethren Gulick and Bingham, to take the 
 risk of living alone among tke warlike pagans 
 of Micronesia. And when we look upon "the 
 dark places of the earth filled with the habi- 
 tations of cruelty," we should remember " the 
 rock whence we are hewn, and the hole of 
 the pit whence we are digged," and consider 
 that these are our brethren, like to our very 
 fathers, and that in a huhdred years they 
 of the Pacific islands may become what 
 a thousand years have made of the British 
 isles. 
 
 When Paul stood up in the midst of Mars 
 Hill, and declared that " God had made of 
 one blood all nations of men to dwell on all 
 the face of the earth," he conquered his own 
 prejudices as a Jew, and faced the deepest pre- 
 judices of the Greek. He, a Hebrew of the 
 
209 
 
 Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, trained 
 in that peculiar pride which the Jew kept up 
 through all the changes of political fortune to 
 his race — whether amid the glories of Solo- 
 mon, or in exile by the rivers of Babylon, 
 whether in the brief independence won by 
 the patriotism and heroism of the Maccabees, 
 or under the galling yoke of the Poman con- 
 querer — that pride of birth and nation as the 
 elect of God which was the inextinguishable 
 possession of the Jew ; Paul, nursed in this upon 
 his mother's knee, confirmed in this in the school 
 of Gamaliel, now casts it all away and sees in 
 every man a brother, saying, " I am debtor 
 both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both 
 to the w^se and the unwise." And to the artis- 
 tic and cultivated Greek, proud of his soil, his 
 ancestry, his arts, his civilization, and looking 
 upon other men as barbarians, this Jew 
 declares that God " hath made of one blood 
 all nations of men." There is the starting- 
 point in this Christian doctrine of Love. 
 
 2. But the doctrine goes farthej* ; and recog- 
 nizes in all mankind not only the brotherhood 
 of a common physical descent and of like phy- 
 18* 
 
210 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 sical characteristics, but a higher relationship 
 as the common offspring of God. Almost 
 every pagan nation of antiquity believed itself 
 to be descended from the gods. In all early his- 
 tory you find a mythical period, during which 
 gods and demigods appearing upon the favor- 
 ed soil, of Egypt, of Greece, of Assyria, of 
 Rome, prepared the germ of a great nation, 
 to be fostered and protected by these divini- 
 ties. But this doctrine of man's descent from 
 the gods fostered the feeling of national pride 
 and exclusiveness. The pagan religions had 
 gods many, and of different ranks and powers, 
 and hence each nation conceived of its own 
 gods as the highest, and made its heaven- 
 sprung ancestry a special boast as against 
 other nations. But Paul's doctrine, the doc- 
 trine of the New Testament is, that the one 
 true and living God has made all men ; and 
 that in their spiritual constitution as living 
 souls, they are all alike the offsj)ring of God, 
 and in this respect are as truly made in his 
 image as was Adam «in the beginning. Thus 
 the earthly tie of brotherhood, the tie of 
 blood and of descent, is made sublime and 
 
ALL OF ONE BLOOD. 211 
 
 spiritual through our equal relations to one 
 Father.* • 
 
 3. And hence again, this Love for man 
 which the Gospel enjoins, must flow primar- 
 ily from love to God. N^ot the mere feeling 
 
 * The expression "made of one blood" used by Paul in 
 his discourse at Athens (Acts xvii. 26), has given rise to 
 much critical discussion. Some manuscripts and some of the 
 fathers read for " one blood," of " one nation," others *' of 
 one man," etc. Tischendorf, in his seventh critical edition 
 of the Greek Testament (Leipsic, 1859) retains aiiiaroq^ 
 " blood,"' in the text. Alford regards the verb " made " as 
 directly governing the infinitive " to dwell," and thus derives 
 from the passage a still stronger affirmation. The unity of 
 the race being already taught in the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 Paul assumes or postulates this, and then affirms that the 
 geographical distribution of mankind, originally of one stock, 
 was also of divine appointment. "He hath caused every 
 nation of men (sprung) of one blood to dwell on all the face 
 of the earth." In opposition to the polytheistic doctrine of 
 the distinct origin of different nationalities, under the tute- 
 lage of diflferent divinities, Paul affirms that all nations 
 being of one origin, the offspring of one God, He ordered 
 their several habitations — their migrations and their abodes, 
 according to his own plan. Prof. Agassiz himself, while aim- 
 ing at a new scientific classification of species, would not be 
 understo"od to deny the brotherhood of the whole human 
 family. 
 
212 THE CHEISTIAN GEACE8. 
 
 of commTinity of origin, not a general family 
 resemblance in features and in cliaracter, not 
 the experience of common wants, and perils, 
 and griefs, not the burdens, the fears and the 
 hopes of a common destiny, none of all these 
 will suffice to produce and maintain this uni- 
 versal love of man ; but the love of God as 
 our Father will produce this love as its fruit. 
 " Every one that loveth him that begat, loveth 
 him also that is begotten of him." Tlie two 
 great commandments require but one and the 
 same thing, viz. Love ; love to God is the root 
 of true holiness, love to man its outward man- 
 ifestation. Loving God as the Father of all, 
 we must feel something of his love toward 
 all. Loving Christ, God in human flesh, we 
 must love also the whole race whose nature 
 he took, whose sins he bore. Wherefore this 
 Love is added to Faith and Godliness. 
 
 4. The Scriptures always trace this Love to 
 a renovated heart. There are charitable asso- 
 ciations whose members pledge themselves 
 together for mutual offices of kindness ; they 
 agree to assist one another in business,^ and so 
 far as possible, in political relations; they 
 
AN UNSELFISH LOVE. 213 
 
 watch with one another in sickness, or provide 
 nurses at the expense of the order ; they make 
 a weekly allowance to the sick and the iineni- 
 ployed, and in the event of death they defi-ay 
 the funeral expenses, and assist the bereaved 
 family. Such associations may engender good 
 will and promote kindly offices in society; 
 but after all they are but a kind of insurance 
 company upon the mutual basis, and may rest 
 at bottom upon self-interest in each individual 
 member, and not upon a spontaneous and 
 cherished good- will in each for all. Though 
 bearing the name of charitable, and often 
 dispensing funds in charity, they are not 
 guided by the spirit of impartial love, but 
 are managed as financial institutions, for the 
 exclusive benefit of their own subscribers. 
 But this Love inculcated by the Gospel does 
 not originate in ^ny compact between indivi- 
 duals or classes ; it is not a thing prescribed 
 by a constitution, which men set out to learn 
 and to practise ; it flows from the heart, out- 
 ward. " The end of the commandment," the 
 grand result at which the law of God aims, 
 " is Charity out of a jpure heart," i. e. a heart 
 
214 THE CHRISTIAN GEACE8. 
 
 pure from all selfish views and leanings, " and 
 a good conscience," a conscience honest 
 toward God and man, " and faitli unfeigned," 
 sincere belief in Christ and his Gospel. Tliis 
 state of the heart and conscience toward God 
 and Christ w^ill issue in true love to man. 
 As the apostle writes to Timothy, "Follow 
 righteousness, faith. Charity, peace, with 
 them that call on the Lord out of a pure 
 heart." Those whose hearts are sincerely 
 turned to God — who know what it is to give 
 themselves to Him in prayer and love, will 
 follow Charity in their intercourse with men. 
 From this analysis of Charity we pass to 
 consider, 
 
 n. Its peactical sphere akd effects. 
 
 1. We may trace the practical working of 
 this spirit, in Charity for the (ypinioiis of 
 others in matters of religion. The religious 
 opinions of men are often the result of early 
 education, of the circumstances which sur- 
 round them, or of some bias or prejudice 
 taken up without due reflection. Sometimes 
 they are the result of severe thought and pro- 
 
CARE FOK THE TEUTH. 216 
 
 longed mental struggles without proper helps 
 to truth. In the whole sphere of mind there 
 is hardly a spectacle so thrilling as that of a 
 great intellect honestly intent upon the dis- 
 covery of truth, groping blindly among the 
 pillars of her temple, and at last like Samson, 
 mocked and baffled, pulling them down upon 
 itself. Could we give sight to those eyes, 
 could we guide those faltering steps and plant 
 them upon the rock of truth, what joy should 
 we bring to that soul, and what honor to the 
 truth ! Did we know more of the early edu- 
 cation of others, of their mental habits, of 
 their inward struggles, we should be more 
 charitable toward them in their errors; re- 
 membering the counsel of Paul to Timothy : 
 "Be gentle ta all men, apt. to teach, patient; 
 in meekness instructing those that oppose 
 themselves, if God peradventure will give 
 them repentance to the acknowledging of the 
 truth." 
 
 But w^hile I thus plead for Charity to- 
 ward those in error, I do not plead for that 
 false liberality which is indifferent to truth. 
 The distinction between the two is finely 
 
216 THE CHKISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 drawn by a recent writer.* " Charity liolds 
 fast tlie minutest atoms of truth, as being 
 precious and divine, offended by even so 
 much as a thought of laxity. Liberality 
 loosens the terms of truth ; permitting easily 
 and with careless magnanimity variations 
 from it; consenting, as it were, in its own 
 sovereignty, to overlook or allow them ; and 
 subsiding: thus ere lon^ into a licentious in- 
 difference to all truth, and a general defect of 
 responsibility in regard to it. Charity ex- 
 tends allowance to men ; liberality to falsities 
 themselves. Charity takes the truth to be 
 sacred and immovable ; liberality allows it to 
 be niarred and maimed at pleasure." While 
 therefore our Charity should lead us to be 
 kind and gentle toward those in error, we 
 should remember with Paul, that as the 
 friends of Christ, " we can do nothing against 
 the truth, but for the truth." 
 
 2. Another application of this law of Love 
 is to the faults of others. " Charity shall 
 cover the multitude of sins," not however, in 
 the Papal sense, that alms-giving pays for 
 
 * Dr. H. Bushnell. 
 
CHARITY TOWARD FAULTS. 217 
 
 indulgences — that one can buy license to sin 
 against God by doing some petty favor to man. 
 Tlie Charity here spoken of is not alms to 
 men, but the spirit of Love in the heart ; and 
 the sins which it covers are not those of him 
 who loves, but those of the object of that love. 
 Charity does not ignore sins, nor connive at 
 them, nor make light of them as against God, 
 but it passes by offences against itself, and does 
 not suffer these to deter it from doing ano- 
 ther good. Though the raving inebriate should 
 mock and curse you, yet should you cover his 
 nakedness, and minister to his wants. The 
 rule of Christian forbearance and good-will 
 has a wider sphere than the Church of Christ. 
 " If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which 
 are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit 
 of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou 
 also be tempted." " Charity sutfereth long 
 and is kind ;" Love is not hindered in its work 
 by opposition, injury, ingratitude ; " Charity 
 envieth not," but rejoices in the prosperity of 
 others, though less favored itself ; " Love 
 seeketh not her own " — what an absolute nega- 
 tion of selfishness ! — " is not easily provoked ;" 
 19 
 
218 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 but instead of hastily cliarging a fault, or har- 
 boring a suspicion, puts the most favorable 
 construction upon the conduct of others ; and 
 " thinketh no evil ;" " Charity rejoiceth not 
 in iniquity," is never pleased that even an 
 enemy has fallen into sin ; never delights to 
 publish a fault ; " beareth all things, believeth 
 all things, hopeth all things, endureth all 
 things." 
 
 3. Tliis spirit of Love should be viewed in 
 its application to the necessities of our fellow- 
 men. Tliis is the more common use of the 
 term Charity ; and surely this form of the 
 grace is most abundantly emphasized in the 
 Gospel. To the Pharisees, who sought to 
 purify themselves by ceremonies, Jesus said, 
 " Rather give alms of such things as ye have; 
 and behold, all things are clean unto you." 
 And to his own, disciples in their poverty he 
 said, " Sell that ye have, and give alms ; pro- 
 vide yourselves bags which wax not old, a 
 treasure in the heavens that faileth not." 
 
 The apostle John makes this form of Char- 
 ity a test of love to God. Whoso hath this 
 world's good, and seeth his brother have need, 
 
SYMPATHY IN LOVSi 219 
 
 and shiittetli up Lis bowels of compassion from 
 him, liow dwelletli the love of God in liim." 
 The actual necessity of another brought to our 
 notice, and our present ability to relieve that 
 necessity, these two facts concurring, create an 
 obligation to Charity which is a test of our love, 
 to God. Love to God abiding in us would 
 cause us to imitate the perfection of his love, 
 which is that " He doeth good even to the 
 evil and the unthankful." But there is a 
 charity in sympathy as well as in alms-giving. 
 "When James with his strong practical mode 
 of speech would present the whole Gospel 
 before us in a living activity, he says, " Pure 
 religion and undefiled before God and the 
 Father is this : To visit the fatherless and 
 widows in their affliction, and to keep himself 
 unspotted from the world." Many a one who 
 has little to bestow in the way of alms, has a 
 wealth of affection sufficient to enrich the 
 world. Many a tract visitor with little earthly 
 comxfort to bestow, carries to the hearts of the 
 poor the rare joy of sympathy ♦ Jesus had no 
 money to give; — ^but how he blessed men 
 with his words. x\nd when he wrought mira- 
 
220 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 cles of healing, he enriched them with the sym- 
 pathies of his heart. He had compassion on 
 the suifering. He wept at the grave of Lazarus, 
 and the Jews said, "Behold how he loved 
 him." ' 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney^ the Christian gentleman, 
 secretary of Queen Elizabeth and a knight 
 champion of the Protestant cause, was a 
 model of every form of this heavenly Charity. 
 But its crowning beauty was evinced in his 
 death. Wounded in battle, " as he was borne 
 from the field of action, faint, pallid, and 
 parched with the thirst that attends excessive 
 loss of blood, Sidney asked for water. It was 
 obtained with difficulty and in scant supply. 
 With trembling hand he raised the cup to his 
 lips, when his eye was arrested by the gaze of 
 a dying soldier, longingly fixed upon the pre- 
 cious draught. Without tasting, he instantly 
 handed it to the sufferer, saying. Thy necessity 
 is greater than mine.^^ We do not wonder 
 that when, soon after, he found himself dying, 
 this man of faith an^l prayer and charity, lifted 
 up his eyes to heaven and said " All things 
 in my life have been vain, vain, vain, but 
 
THE WISDOM OF LOVE. 221 
 
 I would not give the joy I have in Christ for 
 the empire of the world." 
 
 4. This spirit of Love will promjpt also to 
 all wise and heneficent measures of jpjiilan- 
 throjpy and reform. It is of purpose tliat I 
 use these qualifying words ; for even when a 
 reform itself is needed, and promises most 
 beneficent results to man, not all the measures 
 used for that reform are wise and beneficent. 
 But the spirit of Love does not oppose itself 
 to the reform, because certain measures of 
 reform are evil. If a Fourierite, or a disciple 
 of Robert Owen, insists that the poor ought 
 to have better homes, an enlightened Charity 
 may not approve of their plan of Association, 
 but it will not content itself with crying 
 " infidelity," " Fourierism," and leaving the 
 poor to die in crowded garrets and noisome 
 cellars. If the infidel and the disunionist 
 declare that men ought not to be held as 
 chattels in a Christian land. Charity does 
 not lift up her hands in holy horror and 
 cry " infidelity," " treason," and leave the 
 evil untouched ; but while disapproving and 
 disavowing a fiery and denunciatory fanati- 
 19* 
 
222 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 cism, Love remembers tliem that are in 
 bonds, "as bound with them." "Charity 
 vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not 
 behave itself unseemly ^ The spirit of Charity 
 in society is an infusion of the leaven of 
 Christianity. What led f loward to visit pri- 
 sons and hospitals, braving their filth and 
 infection ? What led Brainard to exhale his 
 rare intellect and piety among the Indians ? 
 This heavenly Charity will live in every 
 clime, where it can do good to man. The ice 
 of the Arctic cannot freeze it, the heat of 
 the desert cannot wither it. But this spirit 
 of Love, which would fain reform and bless 
 the world, finds 
 
 ni. Hindrances to its expression. 
 
 1. Tliese hindrances lie in the want of con- 
 sideration. We judge harshly of the motives 
 •of others because we do not well consider 
 all the reasons of their action ; we speak un- 
 kindly, because we do not consider what is 
 due to the sensibilities of others ; we are cen- 
 sorious in our judgment of faults, because we 
 do not consider well the circumstances of our 
 
KEYS TO HEARTS. ^223 
 
 neighbors ; we are severe upon opinions, be- 
 cause we do not inquire into tbeir origin and 
 grounds. A candid allowance for the circum- 
 stances of others would almost always mitigate 
 that severity of judgment which fastens upon 
 the outward act, or makes one an offender 
 for a word. 
 
 2. In the want of intercourse. If travel 
 enlarges the mind, it expands the heart also 
 to a kindlier judgment of men, and sympathy 
 toward them. The monk in his convent 
 seems to you but a lazy hireling of the 
 church ; the Arab in his tent seems but a 
 roving plunderer, an Ishmaelite with his hand 
 against every man ; but when you partake of 
 their humble lot you find them men of a com- 
 mon nature. There is a key to every man's 
 heart — though some have combination locks, 
 and it requires both skill and patience to 
 open them. Yet in every man's heart — as in 
 that tiny mechanism of Swiss invention — 
 there sleeps a little bird of song, which, can 
 you but learn how to wind it aright, will start 
 up at your call and imitate the notes of love 
 that you have been taught of God. It is worth 
 
224: THE CnillSTIAN GRACES. 
 
 years of toil to teacli tliat l)ird tlie song of 
 heavenly love. 
 
 8. In some lurking selfishness^ which in- 
 vents excuses for not loving others. " All the 
 little mean work of our nature," says a lady 
 novelist,* applying to the heart a figure from 
 housekeeping, " all the little mean work of our 
 nature is generally done in a small, dark closet 
 just a little back " of the' subject in which we 
 profess to .be interested. We do not sufler om* 
 meanness to come to the light even of our 
 own consciousness — ^if we can help that. But 
 when we find ourselves parrying off some 
 appeal for kindness, giving way to borne pre- 
 judice against others, inventing excuses for 
 disregarding them — ^however plausible all this 
 may seem to us — it is a most unhappy 'frame 
 of mind ; this is not love at work, — but some 
 lurking selfishness, in the dark closet, is pull- 
 ing the wires, confounding moral distinctions 
 and perverting all good and generous affec- 
 tions. 
 
 To guard against and overcome these hin- 
 
 • Mrs. H. B. Stowe, " The Minister's Wooing." 
 
THE POWER OF LOVE. 225 
 
 drances to the expression of Love, we should 
 study 
 
 lY. The methods of developing this affec- 
 tion. 
 
 1. By rightly estimating itsjpower. Pcmoer 
 does not lie in noisy demonstration or in 
 visible force. The puffing of the steam- 
 engine, the screech of the locomotive, are not 
 the motive power ; the steam that moves the 
 engine steals quietly into the cylinder 
 through a yielding valve, and works by pres- 
 sure, not by noise. The power that locks up 
 the streams and converts the rolling waves 
 into a pavement of solid crystal — ^you cannot 
 hear it any more than you can hear the 
 motion of the planets. Tlie power that again 
 melts down these barriers and unlocks the 
 frozen earth, can you hear that, though it 
 makes the trees clap their hands and wakes 
 all the birds to song? And can you hear 
 Love y or weigh it, or measure it? But in 
 that little word lies a power greater than 
 philosophy, diplomacy, or arms, to rule and 
 mold the world. When ]S"apoleon on 
 
226 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 St. Helena contemplated the wreck of his 
 own empire, he was filled with awe of this 
 mysterious power of Christ. " With all my 
 power," said he, " I have only made men fear 
 me ; but this carpenter, without an army, has 
 made men love him for eighteen hundred years. 
 "I have so inspired multitudes that they 
 would die for me. God forbid that I should 
 form any comparison between the enthu- 
 siasm of the soldier and Christian charity, 
 which are as unlike as their cause. But 
 after all, my presence was necessary ; the 
 lightning of my eye, my voice, a word from 
 me, then the sacred fire was kindled in their 
 heartsu I do, indeed, possess the secret of 
 this magical power, which lifts the soul, but I 
 could never imj)art it to any one. None of 
 my generals ever learned it from me; nor 
 have I the means of perpetuating my name, 
 and love for me, in the hearts of men, and to 
 effect these things without physical means, 
 l^ow that I am at St. Helena, now that I am 
 alone, chained upon this rock, w^ho fights and 
 wins empires for me? who are the courtiers 
 of my misfortune? who thinks of me? who 
 
THE POWER OF LOVE. 227 
 
 makes efforts for me in Europe ? Where are 
 my friends ? 
 
 " Christ speaks, and at once generations be- 
 come his by stricter, closer ties than those of 
 blood — ^by the most sacred, the most indissolu- 
 ble of all unions. He lights up the flame of 
 a love which consumes self-love, which pre- 
 vails over every other love. The founders of 
 other religions never conceived of this mys- 
 tical love, which is the essence of Christianity, 
 and is beautifully called Charity. In every 
 attempt to effect this thing, namely, to make 
 himself leloved^ man deeply feels his Qwn 
 impotence. So that Christ's greatest miracle 
 undoubtedly is the reign of Charity." 
 
 Only a few shepherds heard the heavenly 
 voices breaking on the still night — ^but that 
 sweet refrain, " Peace on earth, good will to 
 men," chimes on through the ages and rolls 
 round with the world. Wherever that spirit 
 enters, darkness and guilt and sighing flee 
 away, the night becomes radiant with angelic 
 presence, 
 
 " And Heaven as at some festival, 
 
 Doth open wide the gates of her high pnlace-hall." 
 
228 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 2. By the constant and studious 'practice 
 of Love, We must give diligence to cultivate 
 this grace ; — ^improve every opportunity for 
 tlie exercise of love and even for the ex- 
 pression of it. If this does no good to others, 
 it will bless our own hearts. 
 
 This applies especially to giving of our sub- 
 stance. l)r. Shepard, in his sermon before 
 the American Board, at Detroit, has set this 
 out with great truth and power. He describes 
 the giving of many men as compared with 
 their means, as " but shelling off some of the 
 loose outer scales of a leviathan of wealth^ 
 In. contrast with this, he presents the man 
 who really believes that it is more blessed to 
 give than to receive. "He welcomes every 
 authentic application ; even searches for the 
 opportunity, and blesses the man who furnishes 
 him with one." Then to all who have the 
 habit of giving leanly and grudgingly, he 
 says, " Arise and give — give bountifully — 
 give heartily — give willfully — -just because 
 something within resists and says ' 1 won't ' — 
 give the more and still more, from the very 
 teeth and grip of the old retaining passion — 
 
LOVE FLOWS FEOM GOD. 229 
 
 give with tlie measure and intent to crucify 
 avarice — that hundred the nail, that thousand 
 the spike, that ten thousand the spear, and so 
 proceed and persist till the base and slimy 
 thing is wholly dead." "No mere tithing 
 borrowed from the state religion of the Jews 
 can meet the requiremenis of Christian Love. 
 "The Lord loveth a cheerful giver." — But 
 more than all, this spirit is to be cherished, 
 
 3, By elevated communion loith God. "God 
 is Love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwell- 
 eth in God, and God in him." If our souls 
 are filled with the love of God, that love will 
 outflow toward all mankind. The higher we 
 rise in fellowship with him who is the foun- 
 tain of all Lore, the more rich and full and 
 free will be the streams of Love issuing from 
 our hearts to cheer and bless the world. 
 Love to God implies the negation of all 
 selfishness ; and the perfection of divine Love 
 which we are called to imitate, is that it doth 
 good to all, even to the evil and the un- 
 thankful. 
 
 And so we are urged to cultivate this Love, 
 
 4, By its own dignity and Hessedness, 
 
 20 
 
230 THE CHKISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 The Scriptures place Love before all things, 
 in the enumeration of Christian graces. " Cha- 
 rity never faileth. Whether there be pro- 
 phecies, they shall fail; whether there be 
 tongues, they shall cease ; whether there be 
 knowledge, it shall vanish away. But now 
 abide th faith, hope,. charity — these three — ^but 
 the greatest of these is charity." Love never 
 wearies by its own exercise, never exhausts 
 its own power. He who shall possess this 
 diyine charity shall rise to the dignity of 
 angels, and shall carry in his own soul the 
 peace and blessedness of heaven. Tlien let 
 me dwell in Love,. that I may dwell in God. 
 
 " And when within that lovely Paradise 
 At last I safely dwell, 
 From out my blissful soul what songs shall rise, 
 What joy my lips shall tell. 
 
 " While holy saints are singing 
 
 Hosannas o'er and o'er, 
 ' Pure Hallelujahs ringing • 
 
 Around me evermore. 
 
 " Innumerous choirs before the shining throne 
 Their joyful anthems raise, 
 Till Heaven's glad walls are echoing with the tone 
 Of that great hymn of praise. ' 
 
THE HEAVENLY SONG. 
 
 "And all its host rejoices, 
 And all its blessed throng 
 Unite their myriad voices 
 In one eternal song." 
 
 231 
 
LECTURE YIII. 
 THE CHOIR OF GRACES. 
 
 For if these things be in you, and abound, they will make 
 you that ye shall neither bq barren nor unfruitful in the 
 knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh 
 these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath for- 
 gotten that he was purged from his old sins. — 2 Peter, i. 
 8, 9. 
 
 )HE graces enumerated in the preceding 
 verses, and wliich we have now con- 
 sidered in their individuality, should be 
 viewed also in their harmonious con- 
 nection — a connection indispensable to 
 completeness of Christian character. ]^ot to 
 be over nice in the criticism of words, let me 
 remind. you of the figure which I have before 
 spoken of as concealed behind the little word 
 addy in our English version, and which gives 
 a peculiar beauty to the exhortation. 
 
 In ancient Athens there was a class of 
 officers called chorus-leaders, who repre- 
 
TIIE CHOEUS LEADEE. 55d«> 
 
 sented the various tribes, and at public fes- 
 tivals or religious rejoicings for a victory, 
 brought out a chorus to lead the songs of 
 the people. These leaders were not always 
 singers or practical musicians, but they 
 equipped the chorus and paid the cost of 
 marshalling it upon public occasions.* Hence 
 the term which denoted their office came to 
 mean in general, "one who provides sup- 
 plies ;" and therefore, as in the text, add to, 
 or sujpjply to faith, virtue, and the whole train 
 of graces. 
 
 * The x^P'^y^^ {Choregos) procured the chorus, and at his 
 own expense provided it with instruction and equipments. 
 He was the Musical 'Manager for public occasions (See in 
 Schneider ; also Bockh, Sub. CEcon. of Athens, 1,487. Also 
 ia Host und Palm.) Demosthenes and ^schines speak of 
 chorus-managers as appointed by each tribe, for festive 
 ceremonies. Socrates, in extolling the executive ability of 
 Antisthenes, whom the Athenians had chosen general, says 
 that as chorus-manager, " though neither skilled in music 
 nor in teaching a chorus, he was able to find out the best 
 
 masters in those departments and it is likely that 
 
 he will be more willing to spend money for a victory in war 
 on behalf of the whole state, than for a victory with a cho- 
 rus in behalf of his single tribe." This statement clearly 
 defines the nature and functions of the office. 
 20* 
 
234: THE CHKISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 Faitli is the leader of tins choir; Yirtue, 
 Knowledge, Temperance, Patience, Godliness, 
 Brotherly-Love and Charity, are marshalled 
 under Faitli as their leader, to swell the 
 praises of Christ, from an obedient and loving 
 sonl. Faith is the clef ^hich. gives the key 
 in which these seven notes of the perfect scale 
 are sonnded. Faith organizes and sustains 
 the chorus, and has a place for each in its 
 w^ell-trained band. Wheli all are assembled, 
 Faith drills them into harmony. But if any 
 one be wanting, Faith itself appears defective, 
 and the soul is out of tune. It is as if the 
 first violin were wanting at a Philharmonic 
 Concert, or the trumpet obligato should fail 
 to sound in the resurrection scene of Handel's 
 Messiah. Therefore these virtues are gra- 
 duated to each other, and linked together 
 as one. As an old writer* observes, '' Each 
 several degree induces and facilitates that 
 which immediately follows it ; each following 
 one, attempers and perfects that which has 
 preceded it." Upon this hint we may run over 
 
 * Bengel in loc. 
 
THE PERFECT SCALE. 236 
 
 the scale thus : Yii'tue a strenuous, vigorous 
 tone of ]iiind for the defence of truth, is the 
 offspring of Faith; this Yirtue makes us 
 active, watchful, circumspect, and so leads us 
 to cultivate Knowledge — that discerning spirit 
 which comes from communion with Christ; 
 this Knowledge, by distinguishing evil from 
 good, at their very source, leads to Tew^jje- 
 ranceov self-control; he who governs himself 
 gains the strength of Patienee or endurance ; 
 he who cultivates Patience will feel as the 
 highest motive and strength for this, his need 
 of that reverential regard for his Maker 
 which is true Godliness ^' he whose heart is 
 sanctified toward God, will love his Brethren y* 
 and he who has right Brotherly Affection 
 will feel his Charity overflowing toward all 
 men — even to his enemies; and this Love 
 completing the circle, brings him back again 
 to Faith in the redeeming and renovating 
 love of Christ as its own source and strength. 
 Reversing the scale and playing it down- 
 ward, we find the notes equally perfect and 
 harmonious. "He who has true Charity will 
 exercise Brotherly-Love without particularity ; 
 
THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 he wIlo has Broiherly-Love will perceive 
 clearly that Godliness is necessary ; the godly 
 will not alloy his Patience with a stoical 
 apathy ; to the patient man, Temperance^ or 
 self-moderation is easy; the temperate^ self- 
 regulated mind weighs all things with calm- 
 ness and clearness, and thus gathers Know- 
 ledge • and Knowledge keeping the mind in 
 sympathy with the will of God, and discrimi- 
 nating as to times and seasons, guards the 
 Christian energy of the mind, which is its 
 Virtue^ from being hurried by impulse into 
 a headlong zeal."^ And when we have thus 
 sounded each separate note, and tested the 
 chords of the scale, the Spirit of inspiration 
 breathes upon this seven-stringed harp, and 
 utters this symphony of the perfect Christian 
 character : — " if these things be in you, and 
 abound, ye shall be neither slothful nor un- 
 fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 To have and to give satisfactory evidence 
 of union with Christ by a living faith, we 
 
 * Bengel. 
 
A FATAL DEFICIENCY. 237 
 
 must have these several graces in a high and 
 proportionate state of cultivation : thej must 
 be in us and abound. 
 
 Tlie proper development of these graces 
 will cause us to be neither idle nor unfruitful 
 in the knowledge of Christ ; but the want of 
 these graces will prove us to be blind as to 
 the nature and design of the Gospel, and 
 indifferent to that grace which would purge 
 away our sins. 
 
 Such is a fair paraphrase of the text. But 
 to analyze it more particularly with a view to 
 our own profit, we should take note, 
 
 1. That one who is wanting in these graces, 
 and tahes no j^ains to cultivate them, has no 
 warrant to helieve himself a Christian. 
 Though he may call himself a follower of 
 Christ, and be a member of a church of 
 Christ, he does not rightly apprehend the 
 Gospel, and is unmindful alike of its grace 
 and his own covenant. That he who lacks 
 every one of these graces cannot be a 
 Christian, need not be argued with those 
 who regard Christianity as anything more 
 than a system of doctrine and a form of wor- 
 
238 THE CHEISTIAN aEACES. 
 
 ship. We have seen that every one of these 
 virtues to be genuine, must have its seat in 
 the soul, must constitute a state of the mind 
 itself, and proceed from within outwards in 
 its effect upon the conduct. Virtue is a 
 manly vigor and earnestness for truth and 
 duty, which only a firm belief and ardent 
 love of truth can inspire. Knowledge is that 
 heart-acquaintance with Christ which forms 
 the judgment and guides the mil according 
 to Christ's spirit and law. Temperance is not 
 mere abstinence from outward forms of evil, 
 "but the regulation of the desires of the mind 
 through religious principle. Patience is for- 
 titude under suffering, submission under 
 calamity and injury, forbearance under 
 wrong, grounded upon confidence in the 
 government of God. Godliness is the inward 
 reverence of the mind toward God, and its 
 controlling consecration to .his service. Bro- 
 therly-Love and Charity are affections of the 
 soul, and can sj)ring only from a mind 23uri- 
 fied from selfishness, and renovated by grace. 
 Every one of these virtues being thus inward 
 and spiritual, and having an intimate and 
 
THE BULBOUS ROOT. 239 
 
 necessary relation to faith in Clirist, where 
 these are wanting there can be no living 
 germinating faith. " Faith, if it hath not 
 works, is dead, being by itself." Even in 
 Abraham the Father of the faithful, "faith 
 wrought with his works, and by works was 
 faith made perfect," or complete in its devel- 
 opment. 
 
 The heart in which the renewing spirit of 
 God has begun to operate, is like a bulbous 
 root, in which, beneath the dead leaves and 
 scales of its old selfish and formal life is now 
 deposited a new life and nutrition as its 
 most central force. This centre develops up- 
 ward the stalk, leaves and flowers, and at the 
 same time emits roots downward ; and the 
 growth of the roots always keeps pace with, 
 and insures the development of the leaves 
 and flowers; for the moisture which is ex- 
 haled by the evaporation of the leaves or con- 
 sumed in growth, must be continually sup- 
 plied through the tender absorbing tips and 
 cells of the' root, which are renewed and 
 increased by the growth of root fibres. Faith 
 quickened by the gracious Spirit which has 
 
240 THE CIIKISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 taken possession of the heart, shoots its fibres 
 downward, and by a thousand rootlets fastens 
 the heart to every truth and promise of God's 
 word; and absorbing the water of life, con- 
 veys this upward to feed and stimulate the 
 leaves and flowers that expand in the open 
 air ; so every visible growth in the graces of 
 the Christian character marks an inward 
 growth of faith, and every flower that 
 breathes its fragrance on the outer world 
 only exhales something of that spirit of life 
 and love which faith has absorbed from the 
 living spring. Could you hold your heart in 
 a glass you would see that for every virtue 
 and grace which it makes manifest. Faith has 
 roots in the w^aters. If no leaves and flowers 
 are put forth, be " assured there are no roots 
 beneath. If there are no visible graces, there 
 is no living faith. If the heart does not open 
 and expand with virtue, godliness and charity, 
 it is not rooted in Christ, it does not drink Jn 
 the spirit of Christ. It is nothing but a close, 
 hard, thick mass of dry dead scales and 
 leaves, without form or comeliness, without 
 life or root. " Faith without w^orks is dead," 
 
THE cheistian's covenaot:'. 241 
 
 even as the body without the spirit. He who 
 lacks all these vital graces of the Christian* 
 character, cannot be a Christian. 
 
 The text, using another figure, represents 
 him as Hind, blear-eyed, dim-sighted, n^t dis- 
 cerning the truth and glory of the Gospel in 
 Christ ; accepting Christianity j ust as a Greek 
 would accept a new system of philosophy, as 
 a mere speculative faith; or as the Jew re- 
 garded his forms, as a machinery of religious 
 duty to work his passage to Heaven ; thus 
 making Christianity a thing external to him- 
 self instead of a power within himself, he is 
 blind to the saving knowledge of the Gospel 
 of Christ. He has forgotten that he was 
 purged from his old sins. The ordinance of 
 baptism, which as a new rite in its Christian 
 significance had been administered to every 
 convert, was a symbol of purification from 
 sin — " by the washing of regeneration and re- 
 newing of the Holy Ghost." The. covenant 
 with Christ was a covenant to renounce the 
 lusts of the flesh and all ungodliness ; the very 
 object of the redemption by Christ was to de- 
 liver .from sin, not only as a curse under the 
 21 
 
242 THE CimiSTIAN GRACES. 
 
 law, but as a power of evil, working deatli in 
 the soul. He therefore who calls himself a 
 Christian, and has made this sacred covenant 
 of faith, if he does not grow in grace, and 
 bring ♦forth the fruits of holiness in his life, 
 shows clearly that he has departed from the 
 whole design of the Gospel as a system of re- 
 generation, sanctification, and spiritual life, 
 and has forsaken his own vow to follow Christ 
 and to become like him. There can be no 
 such thing as a true experience of Christianity, 
 a living faith in Christ, a genuine hearty con- 
 secration to Him, where these seven essential 
 virtues of a Christian character do not appear 
 in the life. 
 
 But must we not go further, and admit as 
 the true teaching of the text, that if a person 
 is entirely deficient as to any one of these 
 graces, neither having it, nor seeking to culti- 
 vate it, he cannot be regarded as a Christian ? 
 I do not understand the apostle to teach that 
 completeness in each of these virtues, and the 
 exact proportion and harmony of the whole, 
 are essential to a Christian character ; but are 
 not these graces themselves, each and all of 
 
PETteE AND CEANMEE. 243 
 
 them, so essential to that character that if any 
 one of them is wholly -vfanting, neither pos- 
 sessed nor sought after, he who is thus defi- 
 cient is blind and destitute as to the Christian 
 character and life? A true Christian may 
 betray a lack of moral courage in certain 
 emergencies, as did Peter after the arrest of 
 Jesus. Tlie repentance and subsequent devo- 
 tion of Peter prove that he had a true love for 
 Christ in his heart. But suppose Peter had 
 continued to deny Christ at every approach 
 of danger, should we not have classed him 
 with the apostate Judas? Can a man be a 
 Christian w^ho never stands up for Jesus ? 
 
 Cranmer signed six successive recantations, 
 through nervous apprehension of the stake ; 
 but we forgive them all when we see him 
 bound to the stake at last, holding his right 
 hand in the midst of the flame and saying, 
 "This hand ofiended, this hand shall sufi'er, 
 this unworthy hand." But what if he had 
 vacillated imto the end, and had died recant- 
 ing? 
 
 One may be a true Christian wliose know- 
 ledge of Christian doctrine is meagre, and 
 
24:4 THE CflEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 who makes frequent mistakes in practice. 
 But if after five, ten, twenty years, one knows 
 no more of the Bible, and has no more heart- 
 knowledge of Christ, shall we, continue to 
 regard his experience of conversion as 
 genuine ? 
 
 A good man like Noah, may drink too 
 much of the fruit of his vineyard, and may lie 
 exposed to the shame even of his own child- 
 ren. But if Koah had omitted to profit by 
 this warning, and had yielded to the love of 
 wine, could we revere him as a godly man ? 
 If David, instead of repenting of his crime, 
 had repeated it, could we have any more hope 
 of him than we have of Solomon ? 
 
 A true Christian may sometimes be impa- 
 tient, fretful, peevish, angry ; but if one is 
 always complaining of God, and always irri- 
 table toward men, and is not studying to be 
 patient, can we continue to regard him as a 
 Christian, because he comes to the Lord's 
 table, and prays in his family ? 
 
 A true Christian may sometimes forget the 
 presence of God, and may even turn away 
 from God : but if one always disregards the 
 
SYMMETRY OF CHARACTER. 245 
 
 eje of God, and exhibits no godliness in heart 
 and life, can he be a true child of God? 
 
 A true Christian may sometimes be angry 
 with a brother ; uncharitable, censorious ; but 
 if when shown his faults he does not make 
 amends, and seek to cultivate and manifest 
 brotherly love, can he belong to the family of 
 Christ ? 
 
 A Christian may sometimes neglect a call 
 of charity, or set aside a real claim upon his 
 love. But if he never heeds such a call, 
 never seeks to do good, locks up his heart in 
 selfish exclusiveness, can he be a child of our 
 Father in heaven ? 
 
 Moreover, since all these graces may be 
 imitated, the positive and entire lack of one 
 proves the rest to be counterfeit or super- 
 ficial. 
 
 2. A full and symmetrical developm^ent of 
 these graces is the most satisfactory evidence 
 and the most heautiful exhibition of Christian 
 faith. The mind delights in symmetry. The 
 symmetrical development of the human form, 
 in which each member and feature, perfect in 
 21* 
 
246 THE CHKISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 itself, is well proportioned to every other — ^so 
 that the impression you receive is not that of 
 a fine eye, a well-turned lip, a noble brow, a 
 good figure, but of a comjplete man — this is 
 our ideal of beauty. This symmetry of form 
 and feature, extending to every line of the 
 countenance and every muscle of the ana- 
 tomy, is the life-like perfection of the statue ; 
 proportion is indispensable to beauty in archi- 
 tecture ; symmetry and perspective to the 
 harmony of colors, to the efi'ect of painting ; 
 chord and harmonies, preserved even in the 
 most difiicult combinations of sound, are the 
 highest charm of music ; rhythm, the mea- 
 sured and regular succession of sounds, is 
 essential to good poetry; the proportion of 
 numbers and of mathematical laws enters into 
 every science which aims at completeness ; and 
 the soul of man has even transferred its own 
 feeling of harmony to the inaudible move- 
 ments of the planets, under the poetic fiction 
 of " the music of the spheres." 
 
 Hus Milton, in his rapturous hymn for 
 the birth of Christ, invokes this celestial 
 music : 
 
MUSIC OF TIIE SPHERES. 247 
 
 " Ring out, ye crystal spheres, 
 Once bless our human ears 
 (If ye have power to touch our senses so) ; 
 And let your silver chime 
 Move in melodious time ; 
 And let the base of Heaven's deep organ blow ; 
 And with your ninefold harmony, 
 Make up full concert to th' angelic symphony." 
 
 Sliakspeare had anticipated this sentiment : * 
 
 " There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim." 
 
 And Tennyson represents tne poor crazed 
 lover of Maud as finding his heart tuned with 
 the " noiseless mnsic of the night." 
 
 " Beat, happy stars, timing with things below. 
 Beat with my heart more ble.st than heart can tell." 
 
 But in nothing is this symmetry so stren- 
 uously insisted upon as in moral character. 
 The sharp and sometimes carping criticism of 
 men of the world upon the faults and even 
 the peccadilloes of professed Christians, shows 
 the demand of conscience for convpleteness of 
 character, and does homage to Christianity 
 
248 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 itself as a complete system of morality ; for, 
 to charge tlie least fault upon a Christian as 
 an inconsistency^ is to admit that Christianity 
 requires, and is fitted to produce moral perfec- 
 tion ; and the quickness of a non-professor to 
 expose the deficiencies of a professor, shows 
 that his own moral sense demands complete- 
 ness of moral character as truly as his eye 
 demands the beauty of proportion. ]^o 
 declaration of a personal faith in Christ, 
 no theological knowledge, no experimental 
 frames, no charitable deeds, can give so 
 strong and satisfactory evidence of Christian 
 character as does the full and symmetrical 
 development of these graces. These are the 
 fruits of the Spirit, the outgrowth of faith; 
 and in proportion to the completeness of their 
 development, is the evidence of a living faith 
 and the living energy of the Spirit within the 
 soul. 
 
 Hence the E'ew Testament lays much stress 
 upon completeness of Christian character ; for 
 the word " perfection " signifies not so much 
 the absolute sinlessness of a sanctified nature, 
 as the completeness, the full symmetrical 
 
THE TRUE PERFECTION. 249 
 
 development of the renewed man in all the 
 graces of the Christian life. "This also we 
 wish, even your perfection; — ^night and day 
 praying exceedingly that we might see your 
 face, and might perfect — i. e. complete — that 
 which is lacking in your faith. . . . laboring 
 fervently for you in prayers, that ye may 
 stand perfect and complete in all the will of 
 God." " The God of peace make you perfect 
 in every good work to do his will, working in 
 you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, 
 through Jesus Christ." " Let patience have her 
 perfect work, that ye may be perfect and 
 entire, wanting nothing.''^ The "perfect" 
 man is one who with respect to moral prin- 
 ciple has reached his completed growth ; in 
 whom the graces of the Christian character 
 are no longer in the feebleness of infancy, but 
 have attained to order, strength and ma- 
 turity. 
 
 This conscious, steady, visible growth in all 
 the graces is the best evidence of a renewed 
 heart. He who does not find his interest in 
 and his courage for the truth strengthening 
 with new demands upon his faith ; who does 
 
250 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 not gain a clearer knoAvledge of the Scriptures 
 and a fuller heart-knowledge of Christ ; who 
 does not increase in his power of self-control 
 and of endurance under trial ; who does not 
 grow in the spirit of reverence and obedience 
 toward God ; who does not feel more and more 
 the spirit of love ; — can the faith which such 
 a one professes, unattested by these fruits, 
 save him ? But where such fruits exist there 
 is the constant evidence of* saving faith. 
 Therefore should we give all diligence not 
 only that these things shall be in us, each 
 and all of them, but also that they shall 
 abound^ be more and more developed and 
 exemplified. This is the summing up of the 
 apostle's exhortation. The apostles did not 
 think it enough to get one within the pale of 
 the Church of Christ. Tliey did not rest upon 
 the simple fact of conversion as sealing one 
 infallibly for heaven; but regarded this as 
 only the beginning of a new life to be assidu- 
 ously cultivated. The epistles of the ]^ew 
 Testament are almost exclusively a doctrhial 
 and practical manual for the improvement of 
 ChrisUcms. 
 
COMPLETENESS OF THE BIBLE. 251 
 
 This full and symmetrical development of 
 the Christian graces makes to the world a 
 most beantifiil and convincing exhibition of 
 the Christian faith. The completeness of the 
 moral system propounded by Christ is an ele- 
 ment of its perfection, and a mark of its 
 divinity. A profound thinker has well said, 
 " Almost every excellence in the science of 
 morals has been attained by sages, except 
 completeness and consistency; the complete- 
 ness and consistency of its morality is the 
 peculiar praise of the ethics which the Bible 
 has taught. Often, if we might so speak, the 
 strength of the materials of six parts of moral- 
 ity have been brought together, wherewith 
 to construct a seventh part ; and so much of 
 magnificence and elevation has by this means 
 been obtained for the single virtue, whether 
 it were fortitude, courage, patriotism, or bene- 
 ficence, that mankind, in their admiration, 
 have forgotten the cost at which it has been 
 produced."* The same writer regards this 
 passage in Peter as a condensed but compre- 
 hensive caution against each of the prominent 
 
 * Isaac Taylor. 
 
252 THE CHRISTIAN GEACES. * 
 
 corruptions that have developed themselves 
 in the church. In some periods of her history 
 the church has been marked by a " pusillani- 
 mous or inert faith ;" again, in other periods 
 by " the licentious abuse of the Gospel ; a fan- 
 atical subjugation of animal desires ; monkish 
 pietism; sectarian and factious sociality." 
 Our degenerate Christianity is always one- 
 sided, or vibrating from one extreme to an- 
 other. 
 
 A perfect Christian character is one in 
 enumerating whose graces you can always 
 say and^ and never interpose a lut. The 
 average Christian character is sadly marred 
 by that little disjunctive conjunction ; — He is 
 a very good man— 5i^^ / He is kind and cha- 
 ritable at heart — lut rough and irritable in 
 manner ; He is temperate and patient — lut 
 lacking charity; He is reverent and devout — 
 lut lacks moral courage. But the apostle 
 bids us grow by additions — to Faith Virtue, 
 and Knowledge, and Temperance, and Pa- 
 tience, and Godliness, and Brotherly-Kind- 
 ness, and Charity. 
 
 3. The abounding of these graces i i the soul 
 
GOOD HOETICTJLTUEE. 253 
 
 will make %t fridtful in the hiowledge of 
 Christ — will insiore for it a jprogressive and 
 rewarding piety. He who makes a profession 
 of liis faith, and then looks to that act or to 
 his church covenant to give him the fruit and 
 the jo J of the Christian, he who thus relies 
 upon a naked system of doctrine, or a mere 
 form of worship, will surely fail ; for he takes 
 an empty husk of religion and gets nothing of 
 the meat of the word. Thje relation of heart- 
 culture to the enjoyment of religion, is like 
 that of good agriculture to a good crop. 
 
 You cannot have a garden by merely pur- 
 chasing a place. The soil may be of excellent 
 quality, and the situation most favorable ; the 
 title may be well secured, and the party of 
 whom you buy may make most abundant 
 promises as to the fertility and beauty of the 
 ground ; but unless you give all diligence to 
 mahe and stock the garden, imless you dig 
 and plant, and weed and trim, your title, 
 deed, and promises will not give you a single 
 shrub or flower. If you would know the 
 fruitfulness of your estate, and thus become 
 yourself fruitful iu the knowledge of its quali- 
 22 
 
254: THE CHEISTIAN GEACES. 
 
 ties and the enjoyment of its products, you 
 must not sit in your library and study the 
 plan and deeds of your grounds, and read 
 books of horticulture and hear lectures on gar- 
 dening, but you must take pains to bring 
 forth each fruit and plant in its season, and 
 the ordered-beauty of the whole. If well se- 
 lected fruits and flowers are in your garden 
 and abound, they will make you fruitful in the 
 knowledge of its capacities and in the enjoy- 
 ment of its pleasures. Thus and thus only 
 can the heart delight in the service of God — 
 when all Christian graces are in it and abound. 
 Two reflections are obvious here : 
 1. If Christians find no enjoyment in re- 
 ligion^ it is hecause they ham failed to culti- 
 vate its ^particular and combined graces. The 
 comforts and pleasures of religion do not come 
 to us when made the specific objects of our 
 seeking. He who hunts after a hope seldom 
 finds it. It is like trying to catch the rain- 
 bow. But the moment he comes to Christ in 
 the spirit of trust and love and obedience, the 
 grace of Jesus smiling upon his tears of peni- 
 tence, makes a rainbow in his soul. He who 
 
GROWTH OF A CHUECH. 255 
 
 limits after tlie comforts and joys wMcli the 
 Gospel promises, may not find tliem for all his 
 seeking ; but if he will follow the Gospel with 
 his whole heart, seeking to form his character 
 to it, not as by square and rule, but in the 
 spirit of love, he is entitled to comfort and 
 joy, and should make all the promises his 
 own. The dyspeptic who sits in the house 
 watching the effect of his diet, and noting 
 every symptom, will find little improvement 
 in health. Persuade him into the garden, 
 get him at work among the flowers, and he 
 •will breathe another air, and feel a strange 
 vigor and joy tingling in his veins. Unhappy 
 Christians are for the most part graceless 
 Christians. 
 
 2. The highest fruitfulness of a church is 
 to 1)6 secured hy the ^perfecting of personal 
 character in its iiurribers. It has become a 
 chronic error with Christians to look to or- 
 ganic arrangements and demonstrative mea- 
 sures for increasing the power of " the 
 Church," whereas the one thing needed is the 
 vital power of godliness in individual Christ- 
 ians. When you hear a symphony of Bee- 
 
256 THE CHRISTIAN GEACE8. 
 
 thoven, or a concerto or overture of Mendels- 
 solin fitly rendered, you do not care to see the 
 meclianism of the performance ; and it would 
 mar the effect if the conductor should grow 
 boisterous, or if any one performer, by his man- 
 ners, should make himself conspicuous. You 
 would rather close your eyes and drink in the 
 sweet and grand concord of sound — as violin 
 and violoncello, trumpet and bassoon, flute 
 and oboe, cymbal and trombone, all fulfill their 
 parts, merging in faultless harmony. But in 
 order to this perfection, each separate player 
 and instrument must be drilled in time, ac- 
 cent, and style ; if the horn has but one bar 
 in an entire overture, that must be pl^ed just 
 at the noted instant; if the drum is to beat 
 but once, it must beat that once and upon the 
 instant. As the musical conductor arranges 
 his orchestra, by first stationing his violins, 
 and adding to these his basses, and adding to 
 these his wind instruments, all nicely balanced, 
 and adding to these his cymbals and drums ; 
 so should a church marshal its strength by 
 bringing out the quality of each individual 
 member and effectually combining the whole. 
 
LIVING GRACES. 257 
 
 Ko gaudy decorations of the concert hall, no 
 flaming advertisements, no skill of the con- 
 ductor, can be a substitute for the full-toned 
 symphony. A Church of Christ can live only 
 by the living graces of its members. Where- 
 fore, "let these things he in you and dboundP 
 
 I7> 
 
 22* 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 FEOM GEACE TO GLORY. 
 
 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make 
 your calling and election sure : for if ye do these things ye 
 shall never fall : for so an entrance shall be ministered to 
 you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord 
 and Saviour Jesus Christ. — 2 Peter, i. 10, 11. 
 
 UT do not our calling and election pro- 
 ceed from God? Are tliey not his 
 spontaneous act, resting in and re- 
 sulting from his original, independent, 
 and eternal purpose of grace ? How 
 then can these be made sure by any action of 
 ours ? . Can we add anything to the original 
 gi'ound of certainty touching any event in the 
 mind and plan of God ? Can we confirm Je- 
 hovah himself in his purpose, or bring con- 
 firmation to any of his promises ? ISTay, "He 
 is in one mind and who can turn Him?" "He 
 doeth according to his will in the army of 
 heaven, and among the inhabitants of the 
 
THE COVENANT OF GEACE. 259 
 
 cartL." " The foundation of God standeth sure, 
 having this seal : The Lord knoweth them 
 that are His." And can we make that more 
 sure ? Can anj diligence of ours strengthen 
 and establish the foundation of God's eternal 
 knowledge and electing love ? And yet the 
 apostle Peter, who addresses his fellow-dis- 
 ciples as " elect according to the foreknowledge 
 of God the Father," exhorts them "to give 
 diligence to make their calling and election 
 sure." 
 
 The sureness to be attained is the sureness 
 of evidence concerning a fact which God does 
 not reveal to individuals, or make known by 
 miraculous signs, but which is certified to 
 exist by evidences which men themselves can 
 bring out, take note of, and increase beyond 
 the possibility of a question. Christ, in that 
 I^ew Testament which he sealed with his 
 blood, left for us exceeding great and precious 
 promises. But do not presume upon your ex- 
 pectations, — ^like some graceless heir upon an 
 estate which he counts as already his own, and 
 mortgages and squanders before it comes into 
 his hands, — do not rest in carnal ease and se- 
 
260 THE CimiSTIAN GRACES. 
 
 curity, as if you had only to await a summons 
 from tlie Court of Heaven to enter into the 
 enjoyment of your inheritance. Go early and 
 earnestly to the Court of Probate, and make 
 sure that your name is found in the will, com- 
 ply with every technicality, fulfill every con- 
 dition, and thus make sure your part in the 
 inheritance. 
 
 God the Father has a covenant of redemp- 
 tion with his Son, which the Saviour thus 
 refers to in his prayer before the crucifixion. 
 "Glorify thy Son that thy Son may also glo- 
 rify thee, as thou hast given him power over 
 all flesh that he should give eternal life to as 
 many as thou hast given him. Holy Father, 
 keep through thine own name those whom 
 thou hast given me." But while this cove- 
 nant of the Father with the Son — designed not 
 as against men, to shut them out from the 
 benefits of Christ's death ; but for men, to 
 insure the acceptance of Christ by so many 
 that he shall not have died in vain ; — while 
 this covenant of the Father with the Son does 
 make sure a godly seed, the Son also has a 
 covenant with men declaring that "he that 
 
MOTIVES TO DILIGENCE. 261 
 
 believetli sliall be saved," and the names of all 
 true believers are registered in bis book — the 
 Lamb's Book of Life — as tbe heirs of that re- 
 demption promised by the Father ; so that it 
 stands thus: the Father hath covenanted to 
 give to his Son a godly seed ; who these are 
 appears, as the names of believers are success- 
 ively registered in the Lamb's Book of Life, 
 to wit : Panl, Pete*r, James, John, Matthew, 
 Mark, Luke, Jude, Barnabas, Apollos, Mar- 
 tha, Mary, Elizabeth, Phoebe, Priscilla, Lydia, 
 Eunice, and " all that are sanctified in Christ 
 Jesus, called to be saints," ''all that in every 
 place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our 
 Lord."' Make sure that your name is on that 
 register, and you vrill have made "your call- 
 ing and election sure " — ^liave become certified 
 of it, as if a voice from heaven had said, 
 " This is my beloved Son." 
 
 I. The text presents God's calling and 
 
 ELECTION OF HIS PEOPLE AS A MOTIVE TO DILI- 
 GENCE ON THEIE PART IN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 n. The Virtijes and graces of the Christian 
 
 CHARACTER IN FULL AND SYMMETRICAL DEVELOP- 
 
262 THE CHEISTIAN GKACES. 
 
 MENT, GIVE TO THEIK POSSESSOR THE ASSUEANCE 
 OF HIS PERSONAL CALL AND ELECTION. 
 
 in. This complete Christian character 
 
 ATTAINED IN LIFEy ASSURES PEACE AND TRIUMPH 
 IN DEATH, AND A JOYFUL ENTRANCE INTO ETER- 
 NAL LIFE. 
 
 " Wherefore, brethren, give diligence to 
 make your calling and election sure ; for if ye 
 do these things ye shall ne-ver fall ; for so an 
 entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly 
 into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ." 
 
 1. The tex\ presents God^s calling and elec- 
 tion of his people as a motive to diligence on 
 their part in the Christian life, Th^ Bible 
 never represents the fact that all believers are 
 called of God by his Spirit as superseding in 
 the least the necessity of personal effort for 
 the attainment of holiness ; but makes this 
 fact a ground of exhortation to diligence and 
 perseverance. Let it be fixed in our minds as 
 the Bible doctrine upon this subject, that God's 
 purposes of grace hinder the salvation of no 
 man, but are the crowning help and encour- 
 agement of every earnest seeker of salvation. 
 
THE DIVINl PURPOSES. 263 
 
 The reason why many regard the purposes 
 of God, even in the application of his grace, as 
 in some way a barrier to their own eifort, is 
 that they conceive of all God's purposes as 
 being executed .by physical and irresistible 
 force. But aJittle reflection will show that 
 this objection does not lie, and in fact that it 
 is contradicted by our own consciousness. K 
 the purpose of God's grace in our salvation is 
 a barrier to our eifort for salvatio«, it must be 
 so not merely because of its existence as a pur- 
 pose in the mind of God, but because of the 
 mode of its execution. If God at any point 
 comes in conflict with our free agency, it 
 must be in carrying out his purpose, and not 
 simply in having a purpose. For example : 
 You have purposed to send your son to col- 
 lege, and to educate him for the ministry; 
 and with a view to this you have already 
 placed him at a preparatory school. He is 
 well enough pleased with his school, but does 
 not care for a liberal and professional educa- 
 tion ; and therefore has not set his own mind 
 upon a student-life. Kow your mere purjpose 
 to send him to college, while it lies in your 
 
264: THE CHRISTIAN GKACES. 
 
 own mind simply as a purpose, does not affect 
 Lis clioice. He may know notliing of your 
 purpose in the matter, and of course he cannot 
 be in the least disabled by it in his own pre- 
 ferences. Besides, your purpose does not 
 include the intention to coerc^ him to go to 
 college against his will, but only in due time 
 to use such rational and moral influences as 
 shall secure that result. Now, since the pur- 
 pose in action is not to be enforced by physi- 
 cal coercion, the bare existence of the purpose 
 in your mind cannot coerce your child, 
 though it should lie in your mind for ten 
 years, and all that time unconsciously to him, 
 should shape the course of his studies with a 
 view to your object. By and by, when 
 through this quiet ordering of things accord- 
 ing to your purpose, he has acquired a taste 
 for study, and has gained some maturity of 
 judgment, you broach to him the cherished 
 purpose of your heart. But as you do not 
 attempt to coerce him into your way of think- 
 ing, the fact that you have had siicli a purpose 
 for ten years, no more impairs his liberty 
 of action than if it were with you a sudden 
 
THE COLLEGE STUDENT. 265 
 
 tliouglit. Yet this purpose of yours, while 
 not coercive, and therefore not a hindrance 
 to his freedom, may prove persuasive, and be 
 the crowning argument and influence that 
 leads to its own accomplishment. You set be- 
 fore him the advantages of the course of life 
 you have marked out for him.; and you say to 
 him, " My son, this has been the cherished 
 purpose of my heart for ten years ; and with 
 a view to it I have given you a preparatory 
 education, and have yearly laid by a sum of 
 money at interest for your support in college." 
 Might not the evidence of such a purpose on 
 your part determine him to do your choice, 
 and spur him on to give all diligence to make 
 his education sure. "Where there is no force 
 in the execution of a purpose, the existence 
 of the purpose can no more impair or restrain 
 liberty than the atmosphere of the earth can 
 hinder the rising of the sun. 
 
 A young man in college was addressed by 
 a brother-student with reference to his per- 
 sonal salvation. Yielding to argument and 
 entreaty, he gave up his heart to Christ to be 
 his servant, and at once resolved that he 
 23 
 
266 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. ' 
 
 would become a missionary. Just at this 
 time lie received from his mother, two hun- 
 dred miles away, a letter urging him anew to 
 give himself to Christ, and reminding him 
 that in his infancy she had dedicated him to 
 God to be a missionary, Now, did that 
 mother's purpose at all restrain the freedom 
 of her son ? On the contrary, was it not an 
 incentive and encouragement to him to carry 
 out the choice to which he found his heart 
 inclined ? 
 
 "Well, if God also had purposed that he 
 should be a missionary, did this either super- 
 sede, hinder, or coerce his action in becoming 
 a Christian ? On the contrary, the evidence 
 of the divine will in this regard became at 
 length effective in making sure his calling and 
 election to that work. For when after a time 
 the zeal and warmth of his first purpose had 
 somewhat abated, the fact that a missionary 
 then in this country who chanced to hear him 
 preach, singled him out as the man he needed 
 as a helper, and other providential circum- 
 stances, shut him up to his original decision, 
 made him feel that this was the will of God, 
 
EFFECTUAL CALLING. 267 
 
 and led liira to give all diligence to cany it 
 into eifect. 
 
 Every true Christian traces his present 
 evidences of regeneration and his hope of 
 final salvation to the grace of God working in 
 hiin through the trutk "JSTot by works of 
 righteousness which we have done, but ac- 
 cording to his mercy he saved us, by the 
 • washing of regeneration and renewing of the 
 Holy Ghost." " Of his own will begat he us 
 through the word of truth." But while every 
 Christian thus traces his hope of renewal and 
 salvation to the grace of God, no one will 
 affirm that he was made a Christian against 
 his will I and therefore, as before said, there 
 being no coercion in the execution of the pur- 
 pose, there can be no hindrance or restraint 
 upon human freedom in that special calling 
 and election of God which bring his truth 
 and spirit to operate effectually upon the 
 mind, l^ay, this is rather an encouragement 
 to diligent and earnest working. " Work out 
 your own salvation with fear and trembling, 
 for it is God which worketh in you both to 
 will and to do of his good pleasure." 
 
268 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 When Paul was about to be sliipwrecked, 
 an angel appeared to him and assured him 
 that the vessel should be lost, but no life on 
 board of her ; soon after, the vessel struck, 
 and the crew attempted to desert her; but 
 Paul, perceiving theii* intention, called upon 
 the soldiers to stop them, crying, " Except 
 these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." 
 Each declaration was absolute. Paul said to 
 the captain, "there shall be no loss of any 
 man's life among yoii, but of the ship. For 
 there stood by me this night the angel of God, 
 whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, ' Fear 
 not, Paul; thou must be brought before 
 Caesar ; and lo, God hath given thee all them 
 that sail with thee.' Wherefore, sirs, be of 
 good cheer — ^for I believe God, that it shall be 
 even as it was told me." 
 
 Paul was a firm believer in divine sover- 
 eignty. Before this he had written his Epistle 
 to the Pomans, in which he insists upon that 
 doctrine with the highest eloquence and earn- 
 estness. Why then did not Paul sit down at 
 ease and say, "God will take care of us — I 
 know his purpose is to save us ?" Instead of 
 
THE TKUE ASSURANCE. 269 
 
 this, when he saw the sailors letting down the 
 boat under pretence of fixing the anchor, bnt 
 really to make their own escape, he called out, 
 "Except these abide in the ship ye cannot be 
 saved." God's purpose was to be made sure by 
 the agency of men accustomed to manage a ship. 
 2. The virtites and graces of the Christian 
 character in a full and symmetrical develop- 
 ment^ give to their possessor the assurance of 
 his personal call and election. It is possible 
 for, the Christian, it is a privilege accorded to 
 every Christian if he will but attain to it, to 
 enjoy the full assurance of his personal accept- 
 ance in the Redeemer, and his heirship in the 
 inheritance of the saints. " Being justified by 
 faith we have ^eace with God, through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have 
 access by faith into this grace wherein we 
 stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of 
 God." ""We have received the Spirit of adop- 
 tion, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Tlie 
 Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, 
 that we are the children of God ; and if child- 
 ren, then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs 
 with Christ." " Let us not love in word, neither 
 23* 
 
270 THE CHKISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And here- 
 by we know that we are of the truth, and shall 
 assure our hearts before him." And this same 
 apostle Peter, speaking of the love of Christ- 
 ians to the Saviour, says : " "Whom having not 
 seen, ye love ; in whom though now ye see 
 him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy un- 
 speakable and full of glory ; receiving the end 
 of your faith, even the salvation of your 
 souls." This end of faith, this object of hope, 
 is already appropriated and made sure to the 
 believing, loving soul. 
 
 Now this peace, this joy, this strength, this 
 confidence, are brought within the reach of 
 every believer; and setting aside mere ner- 
 vous and morbid frames which require healing 
 rather than grace — ^by so much as any believer 
 lacks of this peace and joy and inward confi- 
 dence, is he wanting in evidence of his good 
 estate. Tliese are the blessings promised to a 
 genuine faith and a Christian walk ; and we 
 can appropriate every one of them by a whole- 
 hearted consecration to God, by an honest and 
 consistent Christian life. 
 
 No amount of technical Tinowledge of re- 
 
271 
 
 ligion can certify our personal interest in 
 Christ. Judas, in common witli the other 
 apostles, heard every discourse uttered by our 
 Lord ; and no doubt when he went forth on 
 tnissionary tours with his brother disciples, he 
 proclaimed the truth just as he had heard it 
 from Chri-st. Evidently, he was never sus- 
 pected by his brethren. Yet all the while 
 Judas carried not Christ but Satan in his soul. 
 " He hath a deviV 
 
 ]^o rapture of occasional experience can cer- 
 tify our calling and election. Peter was with 
 Christ upon the mount of transfiguration, and 
 beheld the inexpressible glory of the divine ' 
 Word enveloping the human teacher, and in 
 the rapture of that vision he cried, " Lord it is 
 good to be- here," and would fain have built 
 tabernacles for the heavenly visitants, and 
 have lived always in that Elysium ; but when 
 the Master said. Come down from these illu- 
 minated clouds and enter the shadow of Geth- 
 semane and the gloom of the judgment-hall, 
 and tell that maid what thou knowest of me, 
 what thou carest for me, he trembles like an 
 aspen leaf, and says, "I know not the man." 
 
272 THE CIIEISTLVN GRACES. 
 
 There stands the Master whom he had seen 
 transformed into the glory of the celestial, 
 whom Moses and Elias liad worshipped on the 
 Mount, when the voice of the Father parting 
 the silver-cloud, had said, "This is my beloved 
 Son, hear him ;" there stands the same Jesus 
 with whom he had desired to abide in his 
 glory ; but the brow, then radiant with hea- 
 venly light, is overshadowed with grief, and 
 the shining raiment is exchanged for the garb 
 of a criminal, and Peter declares, "I never 
 saw the man." Ah ! of what worth are rap- 
 turous visions of Christ upon the mountain- 
 top when there is no spirit to confess Christ in 
 the common walks of men ? It is easy while 
 with Moses, and Elias, and a choir of angels, 
 to say, " How delightful, how glorious ;" but 
 what is it to stand amid buifetings and curses, 
 when the rabble cry " Crucify ?" 
 
 Peter, chastened, humbled, reproved, re- 
 stored, now looks for other evidences of love 
 to Christ. "Give diligence to make your 
 calling and election sure — for if ye do these 
 things, ye shall never fall." What bitter 
 memories did that word fall awaken in his 
 
THE TRUE EVIDENCE. 273 
 
 own soul — a fall from such heights of rapture, 
 from such boasting professions, to such depths 
 of ignominy and sin. He would fain save his 
 brethren from such sad experience ; "if ye do 
 these things ye shall never faliy Do what 
 things ? Cultivate the graces which we have 
 now discussed. Rest not in faith alone ; rely 
 not upon doctrine merely ; seek not for visions 
 and revelations, and vivid, rapturous expe- 
 riences ; if these come, appropriate them with 
 humility, but gain the assurance of your call- 
 ing by your own growth in grace; ''add to 
 your faith. Virtue ; - and to virtue. Knowledge ; 
 and to knowledge. Temperance ; and to tem- 
 perance. Patience; and to patience. Godli- 
 ness ; and to godliness, Brotherly-kindness ; 
 and to brotherly-kindness. Charity — ^for if ye 
 do these things, ye shall never fall." " Do 
 these," not as the foundation upon which you 
 stand, not as the meritorious ground of salva- 
 tion ; but in doing them^ by having these 
 graces in lively growth and exercise, you have 
 the evidence of God's calling and election 
 which is your assurance of final perseverance 
 and salvation. 
 
274 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 Your hope of salvation rests in God's sover- 
 eign grace. Your evidence of a personal in- 
 terest in that grace arises from the possession 
 and development of these virtues; therefore 
 give diligence to get your calling certified by 
 the fruits of the Spirit in your life. With that 
 certified check you can never fail. Every 
 other security may prove worthless, but this 
 never. With that certificate of Christ's work 
 in you, you shall pass the scrutiny of the 
 cherubim with flaming sword at the gate of 
 heaven ; the recording angel shall open the 
 Lamb's Book of Life and find your name 
 there registered ; and the Master shall own it 
 before his Father, saying, "This is my seal 
 and promise ; this is the fruit of my grace ; 
 this is my disciple ;" and ■ " so an entrance 
 shall be ministered to you abundantly into the 
 everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 That which we are to seek after is not tech- 
 nically assurance, but virtues, graces, in the 
 heart and life — these warrant the assurance, 
 these certify the election. Assurance is not a 
 something for which we are to watch, and 
 
THE TRUE ASSUEAJSTCE. 275 
 
 when we tliink we have it, to fold it to our 
 hearts and rest content — that is enthusiasm, 
 that is presumption. Assurance grows with 
 the fruits of grace, is inseparable from these, 
 is a dry branch without these. As an old 
 divine expresses it, "Assurance makes us ac- 
 tive and lively in God's service ; as diligence 
 begets assurance, so assurance begets dili- 
 gence. Assurance will not breed security in 
 the soul, but industry. Assurance makes us 
 mount up to heaven, as eagles, in holy duties ; 
 it is like the Spirit in Ezekiel's wheels, that 
 moved them, and lifted them up. Faith 
 makes us walk, but assurance makes us run. 
 Assurance is as wings to the bird : as weights 
 to the clock, to set all the wheels of obedience 
 a-running." * 
 
 You cannot have the assurance of grace 
 imless you have the grace itself, and this you 
 can test and know by its fruits. What you 
 want is not more hope, more vision, but more 
 practical virtue ; more self-training. 
 
 3. This complete Christiam^ character at- 
 
 * Leighton. 
 
276 THE CHEISllAN GRACES. 
 
 tained in life assures jpeace and triuiTvph in 
 deaths a7id a joyful entrance into eternal life. 
 As good Dr. Doddridge interprets the text, 
 carrying ont the figure of a choir of graces 
 before referred* to, " if you will lead on the 
 virtues and graces here enumerated in their 
 beautiful order, those graces will attend you 
 in a radiant train to the mansions of immortal 
 glory and blessedness." An entrance into the 
 everlasting kingdom, the IN^ew Jerusalem, the 
 inheritance of the saints, the presence and 
 glory of Christ and of the Father — this shall 
 be ministered unto you — ^furnished by grace ; 
 and furnished richly, amply, with a free hand, 
 with abundant measure. 
 
 At the convent of Mt. Sinai, the monks, 
 ever watchful against their enemies, admit 
 guests one by one, hoisting them by a basket 
 into a lofty window through the wall; but 
 when a visitor arrives with a special letter 
 from the head of their order at Cairo, the 
 huge gates of the convent are unbarred, and 
 the cavalcade ride through the ample portal, 
 and up the paved court where the monks 
 are drawn up in order to welcome the guest. 
 
TRIUMPH IN DEATH. 277 
 
 who is conducted to tlie principal cliamber, 
 and attended with every mark of respect. So 
 there are Christians, doubtless true believers, 
 who are saved so as bj .fire; who are 
 dragged as it were into the gate of heaven as 
 Christina and Mercy were dragged in at the 
 wicket-gate ; who never cast off the fear of 
 death till they have crossed the river ; and 
 who exhibit almost nothing of peace and 
 hope, much less of triumph ; but if we give 
 diligence to make all virtues ours, this will 
 give assurance, and assurance will give joy 
 and triumph, for we are confident^ saith Paul, 
 " and willing rather to be absent from tlie 
 body, and to be present with the Lord." 
 
 He who matures these graces in life shall 
 have victory over death. He shall not enter 
 heaven by the postern gate ; but the angels 
 that minister around his dying bed shall 
 attend his exultant soul, singing, "Lift up 
 your heads, O ye gates, and receive this 
 trophy of the Saviour's love." To live well is 
 to die happily. To have all graces in life is 
 to insure all comforts in death. If for me to 
 live is Christ, to die is gain. 
 24 
 
278 THE CHEISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 And now, brethren, does not this exhorta- 
 tion of the apostle search ns like a candle, 
 pierce lis like a sword ; does it not shame ns 
 at the meanness of our attainments, the empti- 
 ness of onr joys ? Are you suj'e of your call- 
 ing and election? Let us see your certificate. 
 " I met with a change ten, twenty years ago — 
 and had very peculiar feelings ?" We do not 
 wish to hear of that ; — show us your present 
 certificate. "Ah — my certificate — ^I. joined 
 the church in such a year." That is not to 
 the point. Here are the items ; Faith, Yirtue, 
 Knowledge, Temperance, Patience, Godli- 
 ness, Brotherly-kindness, Charity ; — ^liave you 
 grown in these particular graces since you 
 professed Christ ? Have you any religion be 
 yond family-prayers and church-going? Have 
 you a Godlinesss that withstands temptation, 
 that is sweet and patient and . humble and 
 kind in little things ? Are you . absorbed in 
 Christ's work — so given to it, that you sub- 
 ordinate all things to this ? 
 
 John Adams in his old age, at Quincy, was 
 visited by some distinguished foreigners, who 
 called to pay their respects to the political 
 
BE DILIGENT. 279 
 
 hero of the Eevolution ; they asked, " At the 
 beginning. of the fight did you think you 
 should succeed ?" " Yes j I knew the country 
 would go through ; but I expected nothing 
 but ruin and death for my family and myself." 
 Tliere was patriotism sacrificing self for 
 country. Are you so committed to Christ, 
 that you feel and know his cause will succeed, 
 and are determimed to labor for that, though 
 you and yours should perish in the work. If 
 you are redeemed by Christ you are redeemed 
 from the world. A quaint writer says : "As 
 the birds, though they light upon the ground 
 to pick up a little seed, yet immediately they 
 take their wings and fly up to heaven again ; 
 so the redeemed of the Lord, though they 
 use the world and take the lawful comforts 
 of it, yet their hearts are presently oif these 
 things, and they ascend to heaven." Do you 
 so live ? Or do you prefer to abandon the 
 free air of heaven and the trees of Paradise, 
 to sit in a cage because this is made gaudy? 
 Oh, soul redeemed, rise and soar up to thy 
 Maker's glory, singing thy Redeemer's praise. 
 Live not for this world, for " seeing that all 
 
280 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 these things shall be dissolved, what manner 
 of persons ought je to be in all holy con- 
 versation and godliness ? Be diligent that 
 
 YE MAY be found OF IIlM IN PEACE, WITHOUT 
 SPOT AND blameless." AmEN. 
 
 
 
 FINIS. 
 
YB 22642 
 
 7?r 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY 
 
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