BX 5530 .T7 S4 Trench, Richard Chevenix, 1807-1886. Sermons preached for the Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/sermonspreachedfOOtren SERMONS IN IRELAND SERMONS PREACHED FOR THE MOST PART IN lEELAND BY KICHAED CHENEVIX TEENCH, D.D. AKCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN M A C M I L L A N AND 1873 LOKDON : PRINTEn BY SPOTTISTTOODH AND CO., KEW-STREnT SQUAnE ASD PARLIAMENT STREET ^ DEC 7 1035 A . A/ CONTENTS. SERMON I. JACOB, A PRINCE WITH GOD AND WITH MDN. Gen. xxxii. 24. PAGE And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day 1 SERMON n. AGRIPPA. Acts xxvi. 28. Then Ajrrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to bo a Christian. ......... 11 SERMON III. THK WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER. Luke vii. 39. Now when the Phari.see which had bidden Ilim saw it, he spaite within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him : for she is a sinner 23 SERMON IV. 7k SECRET FAULTS. Ps. XIX. 12. Who can understand his errors ? Cleanse Thou me from secret faults 3G VI CONTENTS. SEKMON V. «f. THE SEVEN WORSE SriHITS. Luke xi. 24-26. PACK When the unclenn spirit is gone out of a man, ho walketh through dry placet*, seeking rest ; and finding none, he Staith, I will return unto my house whence I camo out. And when he Cometh, he iindeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than him- self; and they enter in, and dwell there : and the last state of that man is worse than the first. . . . . .46 SERMON VI. H.FREEDOM IN THE TEUTII. John viii. 31-34. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed ; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered Ilim, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man : how sayest Thou, Ye shall be made free ? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. . . .54 SERMON VII. JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN. Gen. xlv. 3. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph . . .05 SERMON VIII. BEARING ONE ANOTHER'S BURDENS. Gal. vi. 2. Bear ye one another's burdens, and .so fulfil the law of Christ . 77 CONTENTS. Vll SERMON IX. Christ's challenge to the world. John viii. 40. I'AGE Which of you convinceth Me of sin ? . . . . . .87 SERMON X. THE LOVE OF MONET. 1 Tim. vi. 10. The love of money is the root of all evil 95 SERMON XI. y^the salt of the earth. St. Matthew v. 13. Ye are the salt of the earth ; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted ? it is thenceforth pood for nothing, but to be cast out, ,md to be trodden under foot of men lOG SERMON XII. THE ARMOUR OF GOD. Ephes. vi. 13. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand Ill) SERMON XIII. light in the lord. Ephes. v. 8. Ye were sometimes darkness; but now arc yo light in the Lord: walk as children of light l.">;} viii CONTENTS. SERMON XIV. THE JAILKR OF PniUrPI. Acts xvi. 29-31. TAOE Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said. Sirs, what must I do to be .saved ? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and th}- house ......... 142 SERMON XV. THE THOKN IN THE I'LESH. 2 Cor. xii. 7-9. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to bulfet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee : for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me . . 154 SERMON XVL Isaiah's vision. Isaiah vi. 1-3. In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high, and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the Serapliims : each one had six wings ; witli twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and .said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts : the whole earth is full of his glory ..... 166 SERMCyST XVII. SELFISHNESS. Phii.. ii. 4, 6. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus 180 CONTENTS. ix SERMON XVIII. ABRAHAM INTERCEDING FOE SODOM. Gen. xviii. 32. And lio said, Oh let not the Lord be argry, and I -will speak yet but this once : Peradventure ten shall be found there. And He said I will not destroy it for ten's sake . . . . I'.K) SERMON XIX. ^VAIN THOUGHTS. Ps. cxix. 113. o I hate vain thoughts 201 SERMON XX. PONTIUS PILATE. Matt, xxvii. 11. And Jesus stood before the Governor 21.' SERMON XXI. THE BRAZEN SERPENT. Nu.M. xxi. 8, 9. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole ; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, apd put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, tliat if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived ..... 22>* SERMON XXII. THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF MOSE?. Deut. iv. 21, 22. Turthermore the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, and swaro that I should not go over Jordan, and that I should not go in unto that good laud, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance : But I must die in this land, I must not go over Jordan: but ye shall go over, and possess that good land 2:3m a X CONTENTS. SERMON XXIII. ""^ A -WORD FROM THE CBOSS. John xix. 28. TACiE Aftei" this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accouiplishod, that the Scripture might he fulfilled, saith, I thirst . . 248 SERMON XXIV. THE CHUECU'S WORSHIP IN THE BEAUTY OV HOLINESS. Ps. xcvi. 8, 9. Ascribe unto the Lord the honour due unto his name ; briny; presents, and come into his courts. "Worship the Lord in tlio beauty of holiiiess; let the whole earth stand in awe of Ilim 2.57 SERMON XXY. EVERY GOOD GIFT FROM ABOVE. James i. 17. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights 260 SERMON XXVI. ON THE HEARING OF PRAYER. John xvi. 23, 24. Veiily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name. He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full 288 SERMON XXVII. THE KINGDOM WHICH COMETH NOT WITH OBSERVATION. Luke xvii. 20. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation . . . 290 CONTENTS. XI SERMON XXVIII. PEESSI>"G TOWARD THE MARK. Phil. iii. 12. I'AGK Not a.3 though I had already attained 310 SERMON XXIX. SAUL. 1 Samtel xsxi. 4. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it ... ■ 321 SERMON XXX. THE GOOD SHEPHERD. JOH.V X. 14. I am the Good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine .337 SERMON XXXI. THE VALLEY OF DRY BOXES. EzKK. xxxvii. 9, 10. Then said lie unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of lUiin, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God ; Come from tlie four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as lie commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army .... 348 SERMON XXXII. ALL SAIXTS. Kev. vii. 9, 10. After this, I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and ton^tues, stood before the throiio, and before the Lamb, clotlitil with wliite robes, and palms in their hands ; And cried witli ft loud voice, sayinpr, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb .3f!0 S E EM 0 N S. SEEMON I. JACOB, A PRINCE WITH GOD AND WITH MEN. Gen. xxxii. 24. And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. There are two decisive and determining moments in the life of Jacob. This wrestling with the Angel of the Lord was the second of these, even as that marvellous vision in the field of Luz ^ had been the first. The work which that began, tliis com- pleted. That Lord wlio was the author then, was now the finisher, of the patriarch's faith. And this with wliich we now have to do, was the crisis not of his inward and spiritual life only, but of liis outward life as well ; even as the decisive, all-determining moments of the one and of tlie other do, in tlie pro- vidence of God, fall oftentimes together. What an epoch in his spiritual hfe this was, we sliall best understand when we come to consider the name of Israel, which in this conflict he won, and whicli hereafter as a memorial of his victory he bore. But it was critical in his outward life as well ; for ' Gen, xxviii. 10-22. B 2 JACOB, A PlilNCE WITH GOD AND MEN. it was now to be seen, a few hours should make plain, whether the painful acquisitions of years should all perish in an instant, the task and toil of a life come utterly to nothing ; whether, before an- other sun had set, he should stand amid the wreck of his earthly fortunes, poor and naked as when long years before he had crossed over Jordan ; nay, far poorer, as the sense of infinite loss, of richest blessings snatched away, would go along with the sense of his poverty now, as they had not done before. Jacob, in obedience to God's command, was re- turning into his own country, from which he had fled after that cruel treachery and deceit which he with his mother Eebecca had practised on the aged Isaac, and the wrong which in the same act he had wrought against his brother Esau. But he must there meet once more the brother whom he had fled from, now grown a man of war, a mighty sheikh of the desert, with troops of armed followers in his train. From him, rude and boisterous by nature, and possibly still incensed by the memory of a mighty wrong, it is evident that Jacob feared the worst, feared lest he might find his anger burn- ing as fiercely as on that day when he comforted himself with the thought that the days of mourning for his father were near, and that then he could slake his vengeance to the full. Probably this fear had not pressed upon him so much while yet at a distance ; but now, when he sent that humble and deprecatory message to his brother, announcing his JACOB, A PRINCE WITH GOD AND MEN. 3 approach, and praying that he might find grace in his sight, and when, instead of any answer of peace and kindness, the messengers merely brought back word that his brother was advancing to meet him, and this not alone, but four hundred of the wild children of the desert with him, then ' Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.' Whatever misgivings about this meeting he may have before entertained now deepened into the anguish of uttermost fear. That meeting with the angels of God ^ on the threshold of the holy land, reassuring sign as it had been, for he had exclaimed when he met them, ' This is God's host,' yet did not enable him to over- come this fear. Where was there one so helpless as he was ? — a man naturally of an unwarlike disposi- tion, and now encumbered with his flocks and herds, in his wives and children having given so many precious hostages to fortune, and lying open to the worst wounds on so many undefended sides. Neither has he in this coming encounter the boldness of in- nocence. His old sin is finding him out ; it is springing up, like a root of bitterness long hidden in the ground, to trouble him at the last. The anguish of this hour God will not spare him. That he should pass through it is a part of the needful discipline of his life. And yet, great as is his present alarm, and great as his past fault has been, we do not fail to re- cognize in him the heir of the promise, the same who saw heaven open and the angels of God as- ' Ver. 1, 2. B 2 4 JACOB, A PRINCE WITH GOD AND MEN. ceudiiig and descending on tliose shining stairs which linked lieaven and earth together, the same wlio had received and beheved that word, ' I will i not leave thee nor forsake thee, nntil I have done ; that which I have spoken to tliee of.' His terror does not hinder him from doing the best which the moment will allow for breaking the full force of the calamity, even if he cannot avert it altogether. He distributes his wives and children in separate bands, so that, if one band is smitten, the other perhaps may escape. And then, having this done, having completed his dispositions, we find in him a beauti- ful fulfilment of the precept of St. Paul, ' Casting all your care u})on God, for He careth for you.' He betakes himself to prayer ; and what a master of this divine art he shews himself in that prayer of his which in this chapter is recorded.^ How effec- tually he pleads the promises ! How docs he re- mind God of old mercies, by the help of these challenging new! How docs he claim deliverance now on the ground that he is in the path of duty, and that this danger has come upon him in the fulfilment of God's command ! But this done, he (;ounts it no lack of faith to combine with this earnest supplication a careful use of what further means of safety may be at his command. He knows that the hearts of men are in the hand of God to turn them as He will ; yet this does not hinder him from sending a present to his brother Esau,^ for it may be God's will, by means of this very present, to 1 Vcr. 'J-12. 2 Yyj.. 13-20. JACOB, A PBINCE WITH GOD AND MEN. 5 bring about that turning of his brother's heart towards him. All human means for averting the clanger which is so near having thus been taken, and probably as desiring again to be alone with God, now that the hour of supreme peril is drawing ever closer, lie causes his wives and children to pass over the brook, himself tarrjdng behind ; even as a Greater than Jacob, for whom an hour more terrible even than this was appointed, withdrew Himself from his own, from those dearest to Him, that so, under the olives of Gethsemane, He too might be alone with his Father. And now in the deep solitude there con- tends with him a man : ' Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.' 'A man' this antagonist is called, in form and fashion being such ; but the word must not here, anymore than elsewhere, be pressed further ; for that by this ' man ' is meant the very Angel of the Covc- ' nant, that Eternal Word, who afterwards took our nature, and who was herein preluding his Incarna- ^ tion, this has been the faith of the Church in all times. Jacob himself confessed as much, ' I have seen God face to face.' So too in his after-halting he carries about with him an abiding record of the reality of his struggle. At the same time that out- ward struggle was but the expression of an inward. He nmst discover, and he does now discover, that his controversy is not so much with his brother as with God. It is not Esau's wrath which he has so Luke xxiv. 4. 6 JACOB, A PEINGE WITH GOD AND MEN. much to dread as God's ; for the sin against hia brother was in its ultimate ground a sin against God. Can he beheve, despite of this conscience of sin, that God is pacified toward him ; can he lay hold on the promises, and now, when all things seem against him, and God Himself sets Himself as an adversary to him, can he in this darkest hour, in this night of the soul, of which the actual night diuring which this conflict found place was but the outward sign, still hope and trust and believe? That he can do this, that he is strong to contend, even when God seems to set Himself, and for the time does set Himself as that adversary, against him, this it is which constitutes Jacob a Prince with God, a champion who prevails with Him, and who therefore need not fear but that he shall prevail also with man. ^ Truly we have here, in tliat ' Let me go ' of the Angel, and in that ' I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me,' of Jacob, a glimpse into the very heart and deepest mystery of prayer, man conquer- ing God, God suffering Himself to be conquered by man ; suffering Himself, I have said, for I need not urge that He Himself supplies the strength wherewith He allows Himself to be overcome : the power which prevails with Him is a power which has itself gone forth from Him. It is in this sense that ' the king- dom of heaven suffereth violence,' even as in the Patriarch we have one of ' the violent ' who ' take it by force ; ' and this because it loves to suffer such wel- come violence at their hands ; the Syrophoenician woman, his counterpart in the New Testament, being JACOB, A PRINCE WITH GOB AND MEN. 7 another of these. Very instructive from this point of view is the alhision to this conflict made by the prophet Hosea.^ From him we learn what were the arms by which Jacob prevailed with the Angel, that these were tears and prayers : ' he wept, and made supplication to Him ; ' even as we are thus again reminded of a Mightier than Jacob, of the strong crying and tears of Him who in like manner was heard and delivered from his fear.^ These, indeed, weeping and supplication, are the weapons that are all-powerful with God ; even the weapons of weakness ; for by strength shall no man prevail. And as this history is full of instruc- tion in so many ways, it has also instruction in this. The Angel ' touched the hollow of liis thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he ■wrestled with Him.' Nothing of course could have so utterly disabled Jacob for the conflict as this crippling of that very limb whose full force and vigour this struggle most of all demanded ; and yet, despite of that, he is conqueror still. Wliat was this but an incorporation in act of that lesson which elsewhere God teaches by word, ' My streugtli is made perfect in weakness ; ' and to which man set his seal, replying, ' When I am weak, then am I strong.' ^ Not in his natural strength shall man prevail with God; at the lightest touch of his hand, all this comes to nothing ; but in the power of faitli ; and the after-halting of Jacob, for we are told that after this he ' halted upon his thigh,' is not to be ' Hos. xii. 3, 4. 2 Heb..v. 7. ^ 2 Cor. xii. 9, 10. 8 JACOB, A riUNCE WITH GOD AND MEN. understood, .as some have understood it, namely, as an abiding witness that no man comes altogether scatheless out of the struggle with mighty tempta- tions ; that even when victorious, he still bears about with him a scar or a strain in memorial of the conflict. Not so ; this laming of Jacob, this his halting upon his thigli, so far from representing his loss, did rather represent his gain. It was not a weakness, or the sign of a weakness, brought out by liim from the conflict, but rather a strength ; or, more accurately, theit) was in this the outward token of an inward strength which he had won therein, of a breaking in him of the power of the flesh and of the fleshly mind ; while the fiulher fact recorded, namely, that he halted not merely then, but after- wards, from that day forth, was a testimony that this was no gain made merely for the moment, from which he should presently fall back to a lower spiritual level again ; but that he was permanently lifted up into a higher region of the spiritual life. ^, For, indeed, we must contemplate this struggle as having left Jacob from that day forth a different man from what it found him. The new creature had by and in these painfid throes extricated itself for ever from the old, won permanent form and subsistence, and thus demanded a new name to express it ; just as in Christian baptism a new name is given to the child, because a new nature has been implanted in it. This new name does not, in the case of Jacob, abolish and extinguish the old ; as for Abraham it does ; who, from the time that he has JACOB, A PEINCE WITH GOD AND MEN. 9 received it, ceases to be Abram altogether, is not once in Scripture so called ; while the names Jacob and Israel subsist side by side, and neither, in the subsequent history of his life, wholly abolishes the other. Doubtless the explanation of this hes deep, yet not so deep but that we can attain to it. In Abraham's name are incorporated and sealed the promises of God. These evermore abide the same, for He is Himself the same, ' yesterday, to-day, and for ever ; ' and ' with Him is no darkness, neither shadow of turning.' Therefore is there no variation in that name. Israel, on the other hand, is the expression, not of the promises of God , but of the faith of man . But this faith of man ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes ; shows, like the revolving lamp of some lighthouse, now an illuminated side, and pre- sently again a dark ; the old man manifesting him- self even in the midst of the actings of the new. Jacob is not wholly Israel ; Israel has not entirely swallowed up Jacob during the present time ; and in sign and witness of this, the new name only partially supersedes and effaces the old.^4; And yet, brethren, though this be true, though faith has its waxings and its wanings, its increment and its decrement, for all this recognize, I beseecli you, in that new name which Jacob won, which he brought out of this conflict, the mighty afld abiding blessing which a great spiritual trouble, or a great worldly trouble, or, as here, both or these in one, may bring to the man who is duly exercised thereby. These may l)e, these often are, the making of him 10 JACOB, A PRINCE WITH COD AND MEN. for ever. Secrets of grace, secrets of power, wliicli lie would else have never known, may be revealed to him then. lie may have entered on the trouble a Jacob, and he may come forth from it an Israel, God's name henceforward bound up with his name, and he a Prince witli God who has prevailed — his fleshly confidence for ever broken, his spiritual con- fidence, his confidence in God, multiplied a hundred fold. And even though this trouble has been of his own making, though he may be able to trace with the saddest clearness the connexion between the sin and the sorrow, he need not suffer the miserable consciousness of all this to paralyse his efforts, to cut the nerves of his prayers. Ill would it have fared with Jacob had he so done. Strong, indeed, must the temptation have been, when God and man seemed both against him, to count that both alike were his enemies, and to throw up all in despair. But he overcomes this temptation ; says, like another sorely tempted saint, ' Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him ; ' believes that, however God may seem to shew Himself an enemy. He must be a friend to all that put their trust in Him. And it is so. In Him Ave may hide ourselves from Him. In his love there is a refuge from his wrath, a hiding- place for the children of men from their own sins, and from*all the wretched fruits of those sins. So Jacob believed, and so he found it ; even as every other will find, who treads in his footsteps, and who, strong in self-despair, out of his own utter weakness is bold to claim the strength of God for his own. , - S E E M 0 N 11. AGKIPPA. Acts xxvi. 28. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost tliou persuadest me to be a Christian. Almost, and not quite ! So near the prize, and yet missing it after all ! With only one step between him and life, and that one step not taken ! Surely this was a tragic doom ; the whole range of Scrip- ture does not offer us a more tragic one ; for, oh ! the difference between the ' almost ' and the ' alto- ' gether ' — a difference not less than between death and life, between all which we have most to fear, and most to desire. Who was it that uttered these memorable words, which I take as they stand in our Version, and without entering into the question whetlier or not they might be capable of a somewhat different turn ? It was ' King Agrippa,' as St. Luke calls him ; being known as Herod Agrippa the Second in profane history. It was no good stock of which he came. He was son of another Herod Agrippa, who is branded in an earlier chapter of the Acts as the 12 AanTPFA. nmrdercr of James the Apostle ; and who was only- defeated by the interposition of an angel in his ])urpose of killing Peter also ; of that Ilerod Agrippa who ])erished so miserably, being smitten of God in the hour of his blasphemous pride.' Nor was this all. He was descended from a mightier criminal yet ; he was great grandson of that first Herod who slew all the young children at Bethlehem, trusting to include in that slaughter the royal Child, to whom the throne which he occupied as an intruder and usurper rightfully belonged. There was blood enough of God's saints and servants on that wicked Herodian race; and, to do this Herod justice, there is no desire upon his part to shed more of this precious blood, or to curry favour with the Jewish people, by delivering Paul, as his father would fain have delivered Peter, to their will. Had he been such a cruel persecutor, breathing out rage and tlireatenings against the followers of Christ, his story would not have contained half, no, nor a himdredth part of the warning for us which it does contain. It might hardly have touched us at all. This Agrippa was a king — one of those little kings who were permitted to maintain a shadow of royalty within the limits of the Eoman Empire. When Festus, the newly-appointed Eoman governor of the neighbouring province, arrived at Cassarea, the seat of his government, it was consistent with the subordinate position of Agrippa, that he, though called a king, should do homage to the superior ' Acts xii. 2, 4, 23. AGBIPPA. 13 majesty of Eome in the person of the Eoman deputy, and wait upon him on his first arrival, and welcome him there. After many days, spent no doubt in feasts and ceremonies and courtly revels, and when now the interest in these began to flag, and some new excitement was needed to stimulate the jaded appetite of these hunters after pleasure, Festus chanced to mention to his royal guest that a strange Jewish prisoner — his name was Paul — had been left upon his hands by his predecessor Felix. What offence this man had committed he was quite unable to make out ; nor yet why the Jews were so fiercely set against him that nothing would satisfy them but his blood. And the man had claimed to be sent to Rome, and to be tried before the Emperor himself, a right which, being a Roman citizen, could not be denied him ; while yet he, Festus, was sorely perplexed what account of his matters, of the crime wherewith he was charged, to send with him. In fact, the whole quarrel between the other Jews and this Paul was a mystery to him. It turned on some wretched dispute of their own superstition, on one Jesus, who certainly was dead, for a predecessor of his own, Pontius Pilate, had crucified him some thirty years before ; but whom Paul, who on other points seemed reasonable enough, persisted in affirm- ing to be alive. The curiosity, perhaps even the interest, of Agrippa is excited. Though not a Jew by birth, he was such by education ; familiar with the law and the prophets, ' expert in all customs and qucs- 14 AOBIPPA. tions wliicli were among the Jews.' * He would gladly hear the man himself. Festus readily con- sents. It was this probably which he had been aiming at all the while. The next day they are all assembled : Agrippa and Bernice ' with much pomp,' and Paul with his chain. But being permitted to speak for himself, he so speaks, so convincingly, with such demonstration of the truth, so pressing home upon the king the claims of Jesus of Nazareth to be the Christ, the promised king of Israel, that from Agrippa at length are wrung those memor- able words, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.' But wherefore ' almost,' and why not altogether ? How came it that he stopped short where he did, and never advanced any further ? Alas ! brethren, it is only too easy to answer this question. Our own hearts supply, and only too well, the answer, when they whisper to us that, under hke temptations, we might only too probably have stopped short where Agrippa stopped. For suppose he had been altogether persuaded. What a change in all his outward conditions of existence must have followed ! what a coming-down from his pride of place ! To be a Christian was not so easy a thing then as it is now. No more of that great pomp, no more of those obsequious crowds, no more of that royal purple, no more of those flnttcries and favours which the world reserves for its own, for the great and prosperous among its own children. Then too, if ' Acts xxvi. 3, 27. AGBIPPA. 15 the king was bound, as there is too much reason to believe, in the cords of an unholiest attachment, those cords must have been snapt asunder at once, that secret wickedness utterly put away. And other thoughts, as we can little doubt, rose up before him, even the thoughts of all the scorn and all the bitter mockery which that same world has in store for those that desert its allegiance. What would they say at Eome ? What would they say at Jerusalem ? What would they say in Ccesar's palace ; what in the Great Sanhedrim ; when it was told, as the latest and most piquant news of the day, that he, that King Agrippa, had thrown in his lot with the despised Nazarene, the crucified Galilasan ? All this, we may well believe, passed swiftly through his mind ; he counted the cost, and that cost seemed too much for him to pay. Truly, brethren, it was much ; the only question is, whether it was too much. Perhaps not. Perhaps he counted amiss, and another could have counted better for him than he counted for himself Let us make the experiment. Let us, for we can do it deliberately and dispassionately, cast u[) his gains and his losses, and set those against these. His gains, what were they ? For a few years more he kept the glories to which he clung, he played his part of king on the world's stage, and men bowed to him tlie crooked hinges of the knee, and paid him lip- homage, and he sat in the chief i)lace of honour at wearisome feasts, and was the principal figure in hollow court-ceremonials and empty pageants of 16 AORirrA. state ; and then the play was over, and his Httle day was done, and darkness and night swallowed up all, and he carried nothing away with him when he died (except indeed his sins), neither did his pomp follow him. His gains then, they were not after all so very large, and, such as they were, they did not tarry with him long. But his losses, or rather his loss? It may not seem so much, seeing that it can be summed up in a single word, and yet that word a word of awful significance. What did he lose ? He lost himself. Christ has demanded, ' What shall a man profit, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? ' Agrippa had 7iot gained the whole world — only a miserable little fragment of it ; and this but for a moment, for a little inch of time; but in the grasping and gaining of this he had made that terrible loss and shipwreck of which Christ speaks, had lost himself ; in other words, had lost all. But now let us contemplate the matter from an- other point of view. Suppose, dear brethren, he had found strength actually to do that thing which he was almost persuaded to do ; suppose he had made room for the truth in his heart, had been wholly per- suaded to become a Christian, had followed on where the Spirit would have led him, how would it have been with him then ? Here, again, let us count the cost for him ; let us put the sufferings of this present time over against the eternal weight of glory. The sufferings of this present time — a few years of self- denial and of toil; a few hard words and con- AGBIPPA. 17 temptuoiis looks from the world wliicli he had forsaken, a few buffetings from evil men ; it might liave been a sharp and painful passage into life ; but sweetened all by the sense of God's love, by the assurance of his favour, by the knowledge of sin forgiven, of a conscience cleansed from its guilty stains through the blood of the atonement, by the fellowship of all the best and noblest upon earth, by the hope of a glory to be revealed ; and then, this brief life ended, then when the expectation of the worldling perishes, when there is nothing more for him but a fearful looking for of judgment to come, Agrippa's hope would have begun to find its fulfilment, and the gates of Paradise have been thrown open to him, and the great ' Well done ' have sounded in his cars. For the purple which here he renounced, he should have been clothed for ever in the wliite and shining garments of immortality ; for the crown which here he laid down, he should have worn a crown of life for evermore. Joy beyond joy, to see the face of God, and in and through that beatific vision to be changed from glory to glory even into his likeness, to leave behind and for ever every soil and spot and stain, all impurity and de- filement ; and this should have been his portion for ever. Certainly it was a mistake which he made, a miscalcidation, as we all must own. It was a rich treasure hid in the field, on which he had stumbled unawares. It was a pearl of great price, which had come within his reach, and he would liave been no foolish merchantman had lie sold all that he had, c 18 AOEirPA. and bought this pearl. It would have proved no sorry bargain after all. We own it, we confess it. Standing, in regard of him, upon an eminence, where the hillocks of time do not conceal from us the mountains of eternity, nor the trivialities of this life the realities of the life eternal, as for him they did, we are all ready to admit that he left the better part, and chose the worse ; even while we do not conceal from ourselves the mighty difficulties which hindered him from embracing that better. But shall we stop here, with this acknow- ledgment ? Are not all things, and these among the rest, written for our learning ? What about our- selves ? Are there no Agrippas now? Thou that art hesitating in thy mind, thou also convinced of sin by the power of the Spirit, but not yet con- verted from sin by the same Spirit, thou that tremblest on the brink of tlie mighty river of God's love, and yet darest not commit thyself boldly to its waves, art not thou exactly such another as this was ? Change the name, and this tale might be told of thee. Thou art this King Agrippa ; thou art the man. Thou too hast said after some searching sermon, or the earnest converse of some godly friend, or after reading some holy book which has found thee out in the deeper depths of thy soul, or after some mani- fest dcahngs of God with thee by sorrow or by joy, by mercy or by judgement, thou too hast said to this book, to this sermon, to this friend, to this joy, to this sorrow, or rather to Him who was speaking to thee through all these — ' Almost thou persuadest AGRIPPA. 19 me to be a Christian, a Christian in deed and not only in name, to accept Christ for what He is, the true Lord of my life;' and yet this 'almost' of thine, like that of the unhappy king, has never ripened into a ' quite.' And why not? It rises clear before thee, the blessedness of a life in Christ, of having the deep wound of thy spirit healed, as He only can heal it, of throwing in thy lot with saints and apostles and martyrs, and all the holy and humble men of heart that have ever lived, of working for God, and not against Him, for the truth and not against it, the blessedness of such a life as this rises up plainly before thee ; and the emptiness, the vanity, the disappointment, the defeat, the misery, the despair which must attend any other life than this ; and thou too hast almost chosen thy part, even that better part which should never be taken from thee. And why not ? what has hindered ? what has stood hitherto in the way of so blessed a consummation ? will perhaps stand in the way unto the end ? Alas ! (!xactly that which stood in the way of King Agrippa. The bands that bound him, and bound him so closely, that he dallied indeed with life and with heaven, but made a covenant with death and witli hell, they are the same that bind thee. Perhaps, like him, thou art holden by the cords of some sinful passion. Thou canst not bring thyself to forego the sweetness of it. It seems to thee that if that were taken out of thy life, the life which re- mained would not be worth the living, that all the c 2 20 AO RUT A. wine would bo drawn, and nothing but the lees re- main. Or the sin may not be sweet, the sweetness of it, if it ever liad any, may liavc departed long ago ; — but though not sweet, it may be strong, binding thee with bands which thou hast no courage to break, which thou knowest thou couldst not break •without a far mightier effort than any which thou art prepared to make. Or there may be no such single well-defined hin- drance to thy yielding thyself without reserve to that God, who would have thee altogether, that He might bless thee altogelher ; no bosom sin, dear as a right eye, almost as mucli a part of thyself as a right hand, which would need to be plucked out or cut off; but rather a more vague and general re- luctance to yield thy will to God, to mortify the corrupt affections of the heart, and to come under the rules and discipline and obligations of the life in Christ, the indolence of a worldly and self-indul- gent spirit, than which perhaps there is nothing more effectual to keep men from Him. Or it may be, at least in part, the fear of man which oppresses thee. What will they say, the old ungodly com- panions with whom thou hast walked at liberty in times past, when thou announcest to these thy inten- tion of ordering thy life henceforward by another rule, of living the rest of thy time not to the lusts of men but to the will of God ? But be these bonds what they may, oh ! believe that it is worth the while to break them, as in the 5 Hos. yii. 8. Rev. iii. 17. SECRET FAULTH. 39 a lie in their right hand, and perhaps only to dis- cover, when, alas ! the discovery will help theui nothing, that they liave fiillen altogether short of the righteousness of God. This first, and then, secondly, how we may deliver ourselves, or rather how we may be delivered, from these cheats and ilhisions, the sorceries of sin, and walk in the truth of things, seeing ourselves something as God sees us, making something ot the same estimate of our own spiritual condition which He is making — the only estimate, let me remind you, whicli will be of the sligheit importance at the last. And, first, How is it that sin possesses this power of deceiving? that, being foul, it can often look so fair ; or, where it cannot conceal altogether, can yet conceal to so large an extent, its native hideousncss .^^ I need hardly answer, that it derives this power altogether from ourselves. There is that in everyone of us which is always ready to take the part of sin, to plead for sin, to be upon sin's side, sin having a natural correspondence and affinity with every- thing which is corrupt and fallen within us ; being, as it is, the Canaanite which we have been bidden to extirpate root and branch, but which we are only too ready to spare, and to come to terms with ; to endure as a neighbour, even where we enter into no oi)en alhance with it. For instance, there is our love of ease. Obedience to the truth is often hard, painful, laborious — involves the girding up the loins of tlie mind for earnest toilsome endeavour; but compliance with sin is almost always easy. 40 SECRET FAULTS. How find fault witli this wliidi, like tlje false prophetesses of old, sows pillows for all arm-lioles, rounds off all the sharp corners of Christian obe- dience, bids us embrace that way of life which is so congenial to us all ? Is it probable that men will lightly quarrel with a counsellor who thus falls in with all which they naturally most desire ? Then, again, there is our love of pleasure. The Gospel of the grace of God says. Mortify your corrupt affections ; do not follow nor be led by them. They war against tlic soul ; and you must kill them, or they will kill you. Hard lesson to learn ! unwelcome truth to accept ! No wonder, then, that when sin, the strange woman, whose lips drop as a honeycomb, and whose mouth is smoother than oil, though her end is bitter as wormwood, sharper than a two-edged sword — no wonder, I say, that when she comes with quite another message, she should obtain only too ready a hearini^ from all who are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. How break with her who still is whispei'ing in the ear, ' It is for me that thou wast made. How can it be wrong to take me to thy bosom, after whom thy nature so craves, and yearns, and desires ? ' And then, once more, there is our pride. Every natural man has a certain ideal self which he has set up, whether he knows it or not, in the profaned temple of his heart, for worship there — something which he believes himself to be, or very nearly to approach to being. And this ideal self, as I have called it, is something which he can regard with SECRET FAULTS. 41 complacency, with self-satisfaction, and on the whole with admiration. It may not be quite perfect ; there may be, even by his own admission, a few flaws and blemishes in it ; but still every natural man feels of himself that, taken altogether, he is a credit to himself, and an ornament to human nature in general. Will a man willingly give up this self- worship ; change this being something in his own sight to being nothing, and a great deal less than nothing ; come down from this his pride of place ; see this idol of self utterly shattered, cast down in the dust, trampled in the mire ; abhor himself in dust and ashes ; give all righteousness to God, and take all sin, shame, and confusion of face to himself? Is it strange tliat he should be ready to listen to any counsellor rather than to one who insists that all tliis must be done, that there is no other way than tliis through death into life? And is not sin such a counsellor ever at hand, with all the pride, as well as all the passions of man, enlisted upon its side ? Is it wonderful tliat it succeeds in deceiving tlie mul- titudes who desire to be deceived by it, persuading them that tlicy are rich, and have need of nothing, when, indeed, they are poor, and naked, and have need of everything, for tliey have need of that one thing, even the righteousness of God, without which everytliing else is notliing ? But now, dear brethren, to deal briefly witli the second portion of our subject. How sliall we dehver ourselves from these tlie sorceries of sin, the delu- sions about ourselves with which it is ever seeking- 42 SECRET FAULTS. to delude us — liow sliall we understand our errors, or at least understand that we never can understand them to the full, and thus seek of God that lie would cleanse us from them, from those faults of our hearts and lives, so secret as to be hidden very pos- sibly from others, and certainly from ourselves ? And first, as a necessary preliminary to any such endeavour, I would say, Grasp with a full and firm faith the blessed truth of the one sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction made for your sins. You will never dare to look sin full in the face, to look your own sins full in the face, till you have looked up to the cross of Calvary and seen a Saviour crucified there for those sins of yours, and those sins them- selves, the handwriting that was against you, nailed with Him to the accursed tree, and all their con- demning power taken away. Then, but not till then, you may venture to sum up tlieir number, to take a little the measure of tlieir aggravation, to weigh them not in the false balances and with the deceitful weights of the world, but in the balances of the righteousness of God, and to own that they are a bin'den heavy as death, and whicli, if a Mightier had not borne them, must have prest you down even to liell. But until you have so done, seen by faith your sin and your Saviour crucified together, you Avill always be seeking clokes, j)alliations, excuses for sin, playing false witli your conscience, putting bitter for sweet, and darkness for light ; you will be open to the thousand suggestions by which it will seek to persuade you that it is not that hori'il)le SECRET FAULTS. 43 tiling which indeed in God's sight it is ; and wliich, if we ever mean to have it removed from us, it must also be in ours. But then, secondly, remember that He who made that atonement for your sins, and so enabled you to look them in the face, for they are sins not im- puted any more, the same is also the Giver of the Spirit, of that Spirit which convinces of sin, of righteousness, of judgement to come. Do you really desire to know anything, to know everything about yourselves, your present self no less than your past, to understand your errors, the faults that God may be seeing in you, though you may be unable to see them in yourselves, there is only one way for this. Throw open the doors and windows of the house of your soul. Let the light, the light of God, the light of the Holy Ghost, search every nook, j)ierce and penetrate into every recess ; let it fnid its way into every chamber. If you suspect of any chamber there that it is a ' chamber of imagery,' keep not back the key of that, but rather invite Him especially to enter there. Let all which is in you come to the light, either that it may be made manifest that it is wrought in God, or else may be shewn for what it is, and receive its due condemnation, and the sentence of death upon it. Christ, the risen and the glorified Lord, He who has the seven Spirits of God, holds in his hand the true Ithuriel's spear, at whose slightest touch sin starts up at once and shews itself in its proper shape, in its native ugliness, whatever fair disguises it may have succeeded in wearing before. 44 SECRET FAULTS. Ask of God and ask earnestlj^ and ask continually, for this convincing Spirit. There is nothing else Avhich will ever shew lis to ourselves as we truly are. Think with trembling how many have walked a whole life long in a vain shew, deceiving them- selves, or rather suffering themselves to be deceived, and only to be terribly undeceived at the last, guests without a marriage garment, whom only the King's eye, when He comes in to see the guests, will detect — foolish virgins, that shall knock at the door, never doubting that it shall be open to them, but who shall find it inexorably closed — unprofit- able servants, bold to say, ' Lo, there Thou hast that is thine,' and dreaming nothing of the outer darkness reserved for them — workers of iniquity, who have eaten and drunk in Christ's presence, who in his name shall have done many wonderful works, but whom He shall declare that He never knew, and bid to depart fi'om Him for ever. Those Pharisees of old, whom He who reads the secrets of all hearts denounced as whited sepulchres, do you suppose they knew themselves to be hypocrites, actors of a part, wearers of a mask, wholly different in the sight of God from that which they were in one another's sight and in the sight of an admiring world ? Ah, no ! he is but a poor hypocrite who only deceives others ; the true hypociite has managed also and first to deceive himself So it was, no doubt, with those whom I speak of. Probably nothing seemed more unjust to them than this charge of hypocrisy which the Lord persisted in bringing against them ; so deceitful SECRET FAULTS. 45 above all things is the heart of man, so impossible is it for a man to know what is in his own heart, except the Lord reveal it to him. And even then, and at the best, there will always be something, it may be much, which will remain a terra incognita, an unknown and unexplored land, to us. And therefore, when you have searched out all which you can search out in yourselves, still end with a prayer not wholly unlike to this : — ' I know that Thou, 0 Lord, seest much in me that I cannot see in myself — besides tlie faults which I know of, which I confess and seek to overcome, other subtler miscliiefs, hidden from my eyes, but not from thine. Lord, if Thou wilt, give to me also a keener vision, that I may see these, and seeing may have grace to overcome them ; or else do Thou overcome them by secret and in- visible processes of thy grace. One way or another cleanse Thou mc from my secret fiiults.' Blessed, I say, is the man who thus feareth always, who, instead of confession to a man, to one wlio, after all is said, can tell so little about us, and to whom we can tell so little about ourselves, makes daily his contrite confession of the errors which he does understand, and the errors which he does not un- derstand, of his known sins and his unknown, to that great High Priest who knows them all, and forgives ihem all, and in the end will subdue them all. SERMON V. THE SEVEN WORSE SPIRITS. LcKE xi. 24-2G. When the unalean spirit is gone oat of a man, lie walketh through dry places, seeking rest ; and finding none, lie saith, I will return unto my house Avhonce I came out. And when ho cometh, he findcth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more ■wicked than himself; and they enter in,