■^ V , "^\^\l^§^ 
 
 ■§ ;li:' 
 
L T B R ^ I^ Y 
 
 Theological Seminary 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. . 
 
 CV BX 8915 .B87 1874 
 
 Burns, Islay, 1817-1872. 
 '^'^' Select remains of Islay 
 Bo Burns, D.D. , of the Free 
 
Loudon; Ja-mes M i a b ft ■>>.-'. 
 
SELECT REMAINS 
 
 ISLAY BUENS, D.D. 
 
 OF THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, CLASGOIV. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 EEY. JAMES C. BURNS. 
 
 WITH MEMOIR BY 
 REV. W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 KEW COLLEGE^ EDINBURGH. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLXXIV, 
 
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The appearance of this volume is due to a general "* 
 expression of desire, on the part of those who esteemed 
 and loved Dr Islay Burns, to have some permanent 
 memorial of his work, as a Preacher and as a Lecturer. 
 What he was as an Author, his published works remain 
 to bear witness ; but it seemed desirable that, along with 
 his more elaborate literary compositions, there should 
 be associated some of those oral addresses, whether 
 from the pulpit or the chair, which were listened to 
 with interest and profit when he delivered them ; and 
 which might serve to recall, more vividly than aught 
 else, his genial presence and personnel, now that he is 
 gone. 
 
 In selecting the twelve Sermons which form the first 
 part of the volume, the difficulty usually experienced in 
 similar cases has been increased by two circumstances ; 
 — the one, that very many of those which seemed most 
 fitted for publication had been preached as parts of a 
 series, and were therefore somewhat fragmentary; and 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 the other, that among those which were self-contained 
 and complete, there seemed to be such a uniformity of 
 general excellence as to prompt the wish, rather than 
 reject any, to admit all. The number of carefully- 
 prepared, fully written-out discourses, which the author 
 left behind him, is very great ; — and considering what 
 an amount of labour the mere act of writing involved 
 to him, (more than it could do to any one not entirely 
 blind) serves to exemplify the beautiful conscientiousness 
 with which he went about his ministerial work, allowing 
 nothing whatever to interfere with the pulpit and its 
 paramount claims. Those that have been chosen, it is 
 hoped — though not better than others, and for that very 
 reason — may afford a fair representation of his ordinary 
 Sabbath-day ministrations, and will doubtless revive, 
 in some instances, the memory of pleasant Sacramental 
 seasons at Dundee, at Kilsyth, at Kirkliston, in Glas- 
 gow, and elsewhere, where they are known to have been 
 specially relished and enjoyed, for their sweet seasonable- 
 ness. 
 
 The Lectures have been selected, without difficulty, 
 from among the author's other College preparations, as 
 being in a manner complete in themselves — embracing 
 a distinct branch of Theological inquiry, and seeming 
 fitted to meet a present want. Forming part, originally, 
 of his course as Professor of Apologetic Theology, they 
 were delivered in their present " popular " form during 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 the winter of 1871-2, to a large audience of the young 
 men of Glasgow, by whom they were much appreciated. 
 
 Of the two Essays reproduced, the first, on the 
 " Unity of the Church," is that referred to in p. xxviii. 
 of the Memoir ; and the second, " Oxford and Rome," is 
 one of those admirable papers which appeared from time 
 to time in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review, 
 which is thought to be not unworthy of preservation in 
 its present more durable form, as it is, certainly, not yet 
 unneeded, or out of date. 
 
 The " Memoir " prefixed, alike truthful and tasteful, 
 from the pen of Professor Blaikie, adds another to the 
 many acts of kindness by which the family and friends 
 of Dr Burns have been laid under obligations to him, 
 more than words can express. 
 
 In preparing the volume for the press, I have been 
 largely indebted to the advice and assistance of the 
 Rev. W. R. Taylor, Dr Burns' pastor and friend ; and 
 the selection agreed on between us has received the 
 cordial imprimatur of Professor Douglas, his esteemed 
 colleague in the Free Church College, Glasgow. 
 
 J. C. B. 
 
 Kirkliston, 5th February 1874., 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ix 
 
 SERMONS. 
 I. creation's groans and hopes . 
 
 II. SEARCHING SCRIPTURE AND FINDING CHRIST 
 III, faith's VISION 
 
 IV. faith's touch 
 V. faith's language 
 
 VI. THE spirit's " FRUIT " 
 
 VII. Jacob's " wrestle " 
 viiL esau's forfeiture 
 
 IX. UNANSWERED PRAYER 
 X. FUTURE UNFOLDING OF PRESENT MYSTERIES 
 XI. WILDERNESS BLOSSOMS 
 XII, heaven's BLESSEDNESS KNOWN YET UNKNOWN 
 
 1 
 
 18 
 
 32 
 
 46 
 
 59 
 
 75 
 
 87 
 
 102 
 
 116 
 
 130 
 
 139 
 
 150 
 
 LECTURES. 
 
 I. THE LIFE OF CHRIST 
 IL THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST 
 III. THE WORDS OF CHRIST 
 
 163 
 183 
 195 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IV. THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST .... 209 
 
 V. THE ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE WANTS OP 
 
 MEN ....... 224 
 
 VI. ADAPTATION OP CHRISTIANITY TO THE LIFE OP MAN . 243 
 
 VII. THE DIVINE BOOK— ITS AUTHORSHIP . . . 260 
 
 VIIL THE DIVINE BOOK — ITS INSPIRATION . . . 273 
 
 IX. DIFFICULTIES OP THE BIBLE .... 288 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 THE UNITY OP THE CHURCH OP CHRIST — CATHOLICISM 
 
 AND SECTARIANISM . . . • .315 
 
 OXFORD AND ROME ..... 353 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 ISLAY Burns was bom at the manse of Dun, in Forfarshire, on 
 the 16th January 1817. He was the sixth child of the Eev. 
 William Hamilton Burns, D.D., who was then minister of Dun, 
 but was translated four years afterwards to Kilsyth, near 
 Glasgow, with which place his name became connected so" 
 closely, that " Burns of Kilsyth," was long a kind of house- 
 hold word. In his life of his brother William, Islay Burns 
 has so graphically and beautifully painted both the place of 
 their birth, and the sanctuary of their home, that we make no 
 apology for the copious extract which follows, applicable as it 
 is, in almost every particular, to both brothers : — 
 
 " It was a quiet and gentle spot, fiiirof stillness and peace, nestling, 
 with the adjoining church and graveyard, close within the bosom of 
 a romantic dell, amid the shadows of ancient trees and the hoarse 
 chorus of rooks high overhead, which seemed rather to increase than 
 to break the silence. A little beyond, reached by a rustic bridge across 
 an arm of the ravine, was the gray mansion-house of the Erskines, 
 with its antique garden and bowling-green and smooth-shaven lawn, 
 carrying back the thoughts into the far past, as associated in popula- 
 tradition with stories of " the good Superintendent " and the brave 
 John Knox. With this tranquil scene, little suggestive of profound 
 spiritual experiences or intense moral struggles, were his earliest 
 memories linked. To the neighbouring cathedral city of Brechin, 
 too, of which a paternal tmcle was then minister, and which by the 
 
 * Enlarged from a paper in the Sunday Magazine, September 1872. 
 
 b 
 
X MEMOIR, 
 
 continual coming and going of cousins and common friends had. 
 become to us as another home, our thoughts in after-days often 
 recurred — with the fine old cliurch and churchyard, and the castle 
 steep and the castle pool, and the quaint streets, and the fair suimy 
 gardens, and the scarlet-vested town's officers, the objects to us of 
 continual wonderment ; and chief of all, the reverend face and form 
 of the good pastor, whose very look was a benediction, — all bright 
 for ever in the golden light of childhood. 
 
 " In his sixth year, however, all this was left behind, and be- 
 came as the dreamy reminiscence of a bygone world. In the year 
 1821, his father was translated to a wider and more stirring sphere, 
 where the family life developed itself henceforth under intenser and 
 more stimulating influences, Tlie village of Kilsyth, situated about 
 twelve miles east of Glasgow, at the foot of an undulating range of 
 picturesque green hills, the gentler continuation of the more rugged 
 Campsie Fells, contains a mixed population of hand-loom weavers, 
 colliers, and shopkeepers, which numbered at that time about 3000 
 souls, and formed the centre of a parish which in its landward part 
 contained about 2000 more. Here the wheels of life moved more 
 swiftly. There was a greater stir of mind, greater variety of 
 interests, greater impetus and force of existence everyway, intel- 
 lectual, moral, social. The chatting groups in the market-place and 
 at the street corners, the merry song often sustained in full chorus, 
 blending with the sound of the shuttle in the long loom-shops, the 
 keen party politics and the strong and even bitter denominational 
 sympathies, the eager and sometimes little-ceremonious canvassings 
 of ministers and sermons, the collisions and mutual jealousies of class 
 and class, with all the other well-known incidents of a south-country 
 weaving village in the neighbourhood of a great industrial and com- 
 mercial centre, formed altogether a scene in strong contrast to the 
 still life of our former home. A little to the south of this little busy 
 hive, and geparated from it only by a narrow valley, stands the 
 manse, with its sheltering thicket of planes and beeches, and com- 
 manding an extensive and beautiful prospect not only of the village 
 and the hills, but over a long strath, level as tlie sea, to the far west, 
 where the blue sumtnit of Goatfell can be dimly descried from the 
 parlour window in a clear day. 
 
 " Here our second home was established, and our deepest and most 
 lasting home affections nurtured. It was to us a sacred and blessed 
 gpot in every sense, fij.ll of quiet pleasures, healthy activities, and 
 gentle charities — a manse home, and a manse Lome of the best type, 
 
MEMOIR. xi 
 
 in which cheerful piety, quiet thoughtfulness, and a modest and 
 reverend dignity of speech and carriage, formed together the purest 
 element in which the yoimg life could develop itself and receive its 
 first impressions of truth and duty. Here of course, as elsewhere, 
 it was the parent that made the home, and in this respect I think we 
 were happy beyond the lot of most. Our father, gentle, reverend, 
 gracious, full of kind thoughts, devout affections, and fresh genial 
 sympathies — serious withoiit moroseness, cheerful and even some- 
 times gay without lightness, zealous, diligent, conscientious without 
 a touch of impetuous haste, and carrying about with him withal an 
 atmosphere of calm repose and staid, measured dignity, which in. 
 these bustling days is becoming increasingly rare — he was the very 
 model of a type of the Christian pastorate which is fast passing away ; 
 the father alike and the friend of his whole parish, and the loving 
 centre of everything kind and good and true that is passing within 
 its bounds. To him our mother was in some respects the direct 
 counterpart. Of a nimble, buoyant, active frame, alike of body and 
 mind, she was all light and life and motion, and waa as it were the 
 glad sunshine and bright angel of a house which had been otherwise 
 too still and sombre. There was not in those days under their roof 
 much direct and systematic home education. The influence and 
 teaching of the place was rather felt, or experienced without being 
 felt, than visibly obtruded and pressed upon us. 
 
 " ' My father's government was rather calm ajid sti;orig, than bust- 
 ling and energetic ; he was a regulating and steadying power, rather 
 than a busy executive. He was, in short, felt rather as a presence 
 than seen as an agency ; the element in whi^ch we lived, the atmos- 
 phere which we breathed day by day ; something, ia short, which 
 was as it were presupposed, and in its silent influence entered into 
 everything that was thought, felt, planned, enjoyed, or sufi'ered with- 
 in our little world. "We were not often or much with him, not so 
 much, I think, as would as a general thing be desirable. His 
 calm and unimpulsive temperament here, as elsewhere, fitted him 
 to act rather by continuous infli.ience, than by distinct and specific 
 efforts. A casual rencounter in the garden walk or in the harvest 
 field ; a forenoon drive to some neighbouring manse or country 
 house ; half an hour's private readiug with his boys in the study 
 before breakfast ; above all, the Sabbath evening hour of catechising 
 and prayer ; these, with now and then th^e reading aloud in the fireside 
 circle of some interesting and popular volume, a task in whicli he 
 greatly delighted and much excelled — were the chief occasions of 
 
xii MEMOIR. 
 
 direct intercourse and influence between the father and the child. 
 Sometimes, too, along the garden walk at eventide, or through a par- 
 tition wall at midnight, the ejaculated words of secret meditation 
 and prayer would reach our ears and hearts, like the sounding of the 
 high-priest's bells within the vail.' ^ 
 
 " It was in this way that the first touch of serious thought I ever 
 observed in my brother was brought to light. We had lain long 
 awake in our common sleeping chamber after some months of separa- 
 tion, talking eagerly of all our ideas and plans of life, in which as 
 yet God and heaven had little share, when the well-known sound 
 from within the sanctuary was heard in the silence. He was hushed 
 at once at least to momentary seriousness, and whispered : 'There 
 can be no doubt where his heart is, and where he is going.' It was 
 not long before the great, decisive change took place, and may possibly 
 liave been the first living seed of grace that sunk into his heart. 
 
 " But the more active management of the household and of the 
 home education was safe in the hands of his more nimble and lively 
 partner, who seemed made, if any one ever was, to make home and 
 home duties happy. ' Herself the very soul of springy activity and 
 elastic cheerfulness, she kept all around her alive and stirring ; while 
 by the infection of her own blithesome and courageous spirit, labour 
 became light, and duty pleasant. Never was she so much at home 
 as when, in one of those occasional inundations of friendly kith and 
 kin to which our large connection and central situation exposed us, 
 the manse became too narrow for its inmates, and double-bedded 
 rooms and extemporised shake-downs became the order of the day. 
 "Was there now and then, amid this universal quickness and alacrity, 
 a slight tinge of sharpness in chiding the dreamy loiterer and the 
 handless slut ? Perhaps so : yet we children scarcely saw it, to whom 
 she ever spoke in the true mother tones of gentleness and love. 
 From her lips and at her knees we learned our earliest lessons of 
 truth and in her voice and face first traced, as in a clear mirror, the 
 lineaments of that gentle and loving godliness which hath the pro- 
 mise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.' ^ Such 
 was the element in which my brother's earliest years were spent, and 
 in which his first experiences of life Avere formed." 3 
 
 1 The Pastor of Kilsyth : a brief biography of Mr Burns' father, pub- 
 lished some years ago, from which this sketch of the home life at KOsyth 
 is partly taken. [By Islay Burns, D.D.] 
 
 '■' The Pastor of Kilsyth. 
 
 3 Memoir of the Bev. William C. Burns, M.A., pp. 1-6. 
 
MEMOIR. xiii 
 
 With his brother William, Islay received the earliest part of 
 his education at the parish school of Kilsyth ; and with him 
 also, though not at first, he went to Aberdeen to attend the 
 grammar school, and afterwards the university there. In the 
 memoir of his brother he has enlarged with glowing admiration, 
 and at what might appear to some disproportionate length, on 
 the singular benefits which his brother and he derived from the 
 teaching of Dr Melvin, then rector of the grammar school. But 
 every man with any understanding of the highest work of the 
 teacher, who passed under Dr Melvin's hands, will cordially 
 admit that neither he, nor Professor Masson whom he quotes so 
 largely, was guilty of any exaggeration of the remarkable qua- 
 lities of Dr Melvin, and the singular intellectual advantages 
 which every competent scholar derived from his method of 
 drill. So deeply did Islay Burns treasure what Melvin had 
 taught him, that, a few years ago, he made great use of it in a 
 little book on Latin Syntax, which he pubhshed for the use of 
 students. 
 
 It was at the grammar school of Aberdeen that my acquaint- 
 ance with Islay Burns began. He was a few years my senior, 
 and we were neither class-fellows nor playmates ; but I have a 
 vivid recollection of his appearance in the playground, career- 
 ing in full swing with a peculiarly radiant countenance amid 
 the bustling groups that thronged the narrow yard ; showing 
 that his devotion to Melvin in no degree interfered with his 
 enjojonent of the sport. Boys from the country Avho joined the 
 rector's classes, were usually considerably behind those 
 who had gone through the earlier classes of the school ; 
 and the fact that Islay Burns held a high place was a de- 
 cided testimony both to his diligence and his aptness to 
 learn. 
 
 From the grammar school the two brothers passed to Mari- 
 schal College and University. Here Islay Burns distinguished 
 himself greatly. He was excellent in classics, and what was 
 not very common either then or since, he distinguished himself 
 equally in mathematics. It is for this department that in 
 
xiv MEMOIR. 
 
 recent years, when so many honours are thrown open to gene- 
 ral competition, Aberdeen students have shown the greatest 
 capacity. The highest honour in Marischal College was called 
 "the mathematical bursary;" being a prize of considerable 
 money value, the competition for it was very keen. Burns 
 threw his whole energy into the task ; but though he was suc- 
 cessful, it cost him dear. His eyes contracted an affection 
 called conical cornea; the sight of one was entirely lost; through 
 great care that of the other was preserved to a limited degree, 
 — so imperfectly, however, that when he was reading, it was 
 necessary for him to hold his book' or paper within about an 
 inch of his face. The slow rate of progress and great physical 
 labour which this defect entailed, made it a marvel to his friends 
 that he persevered so earnestly with his studies, and that 
 through life he read so much ; it was a labour which few could 
 have borne ; yet we believe that no one of his friends ever 
 heard him express the slightest impatience at the resistance 
 which, he had thus constantly to encounter in his life work, — 
 not even when it was like to prevent him from being appointed 
 to the great object of his desire — a professor's chair. 
 
 The two brothers, while residing in Aberdeen, were exposed 
 to an ordeal which proves too trying to many a youth. They 
 lived together in a quiet lodging, their own masters in the 
 disposal both of their time and money. In one thing, how- 
 ever, their father Avas very strict. Every fortnight, an exact 
 statement of their expenditure liad to be furnished to him. 
 Balanced to a penny, the fortnightly account was despatched 
 with the utmost punctuality all the time they were at Aberdeen. 
 A class-fellow of Islay Burns remembers the great strain to 
 wdiich his conscience was put on one occasion, when the 
 temptation to hear Kean, who was to appear a few nights at 
 Aberdeen, had proved too much even for the horror of the 
 theatre with which he had grown up. The struggle turned on 
 the question, whether the shilling spent for admission to the 
 theatre was to be entered as such in the account to his father. 
 It cost him a good night's sleep, but the idea of deceiving him 
 
MEMOIR. XV 
 
 on such a point could not be borne ; the destination of tlie 
 shilling Avas frankly avowed. 
 
 After graduating at Marischal College, he returned home, 
 and at the University of Glasgow began his theological studies. 
 
 It is worth while recording that in his zeal for Greek learn- 
 ing, he joined the Greek class then taught by the late Sir D. 
 K. Sandford, as an extra student, and at the public compe- 
 tition became entitled to the highest honour, which, however, 
 he declined to accept, from an honourable feeling that the 
 other students had not had the same advantages. 
 
 By a sort of natural and at the same time gracious process, 
 his mind turned to the ministry. The purpose, we mean, 
 was not formed under any such vehement soul-struggle as that 
 of his brother William, who, urged by the irresistible surging of 
 the new life, left the lawyer's office in Edinburgh, and hurried 
 on foot to Kilsyth, to tell his family that he had resolved to 
 be a minister. Quietly and without observation, the new life 
 had daAvned in Islay, greatly to the joy of his brother, who was 
 the first to observe it, and announce it to the family. It 
 seemed to be an understood thing that Islay would give liim- 
 self to the ministry. Clerical connections abounded in the 
 family — many of them very strong men ; three of his father's 
 brothers were in the church, and cousins without number — 
 including Drs David and Charles Brown, Dr Chalmers of 
 London, Mr Burns of Kirkliston, and (by marriage) Dr 
 Guthrie. His entrance on the service of the Church took 
 place at a most exciting time ; amid the enthusiasm of a great 
 controversy, in which the whole force of the family connection 
 bore like a great tide in the same direction, and amid the 
 remarkable work of grace at Kilsyth and elsewhere, recorded 
 by himself so fully in the memoir of his brother, who was, in- 
 deed, one of its main instruments. In these influences Islay 
 Burns participated fully ; a deeper tone was given to his piety, 
 and the great spiritual ends of the Christian ministry were 
 made to assume that conspicuous and commanding place which 
 they ever after held in his regards. 
 
xvi MEMOIR. 
 
 Having been licensed by the Presbytery of Glasgow as a 
 probationer, Burns was engaged for a time in mission work, 
 in connection with the parish of St George's, Edinburgh, under 
 the ministry of the Rev. Dr Candlish. The controversy then 
 raging in the Church reached avery critical point, when the 
 seven ministers of Strathbogie, who refused to obey the 
 General Assembly, were first suspended, and then deposed 
 from the ministry. Interdicts were issued by the Civil Court 
 against those whom the Church sent to officiate in their 
 room, and any one who accepted the situation of missionary 
 in any of the parishes, forfeited by that act almost all 
 chance of a presentation from a patron. 
 
 In 1841, Burns was appointed by the General Assembly's 
 Committee to officiate as missionary in Botriphnie, one of the 
 seven parishes, and quite cordially accepted the difficult position. 
 The only letter which we have obtained, relating to this period, 
 is more full in its description of the place than in its reference 
 to his work. The last sentence, however, shows what kind of 
 spirit was prevalent in his flock, and how delightful he found 
 it to minister among a people touched with a sense of sin, and 
 thirsting for the bread of life : — 
 
 * Botriphnie is situated in the picturesque and romantic valley of 
 Strath Isla, watered by the stream of the same name, and includes 
 the most beautiful part of that valley with the surrounding hills. 
 As you leave Keith, proceeding by an excellent turnpike in a south- 
 westerly direction, the valley is open, bleak, and generally uninter- 
 esting ; presenting no object of any interest but the stream itself, 
 which slowly winds down the valley, in many a graceful sweep, 
 between banks of the richest verdure fringed with trees scattered at 
 intervals along its sides. As you advance, however, the valley nar- 
 rows and deepens, and the wliole scene becomes varied and pic- 
 turesque in the highest degree. The road winds along the side of 
 the valley : the river murmurs at little distances beneath on the 
 left; now wanders along through cultivated fields or brown heath — at 
 other times faintly seen amid the rich foliage of the trees which here 
 and there crowd and shade its banks. A little beyond, the hills on 
 the other side of the valley, clad to the summits with dark forests of 
 
MEMOIR. xvii 
 
 fir or witli brown heath, and di^^.ded at one place with a deep and 
 dark dell branching off from the valley, close the prospect, and give 
 that silent and intense solitude to the scene which is the main 
 characteristic of this district. 
 
 " The place where I am stationed is about half-a-mile from the 
 parish church in the direction of Keith, in a more open part of the 
 valley. It is a neat and respectable cottage, occupying an elevated 
 platform close by the public road, with a neat garden and fine trees 
 in front. Within, all is neatness and comfort, and all domestic 
 matters are managed with a civilised propriety and taste which 
 would surprise you in a place like this. Within a stone cast of the 
 house is one of the finest and perhaps the most retired and solitary 
 walks I have ever known. You may proceed for a full mile along 
 a nice path by the winding margin of the stream, with steep banks 
 or rather cliffs, finely wooded to the very summits, rising abruptly 
 all the way on the left, and with rich wooded meadows, forming the 
 bosom of the valley, on the right. Here you may wander for 
 months, and never meet a single passenger to break your solitude. 
 Indeed the parish abounds with delightful walks, which I am taking 
 full advantage of, for the benefit of my health. You will think I 
 am spending too much time with these external details ; but I write 
 these notes once for all for the general behoof, and you may hand 
 this letter about till all are acquainted with the scenery of Botriphnie. 
 In other and more important matters, everything is encouraging. Last 
 Sabbath, we had three delightful meetings. My texts forenoon and 
 afternoon were John iii. 3, and Heb. xii. 20-29, and I enjoyed 
 considerable liberty, especially in the morning, when my strength 
 was fresh. There was a tenderness and solemnity visible in the 
 congregation which is delightful and encouraging." 
 
 In the beginning of 1843, a great cloud fell on Dundee in 
 the premature removal of Robert Murray M'Cheyne. A 
 generation has passed away since then, and the ever fresh 
 odour of sanctity that continues to be emitted by his name is the 
 best proof of the marvellous power of grace which his character 
 exemplified. It was no easy matter to find a successor for such a 
 man. The choice of the congregation fell on Islay Burns, and 
 in June 1843, a month after the Disruption, he was ordained 
 to the charge of St Peter's, which had become connected with 
 the Free Church. It may be doubted, however, whether the 
 
xviii MEMOIR. 
 
 congregation in calling him, or he himself in accepting the call, 
 knew precisely what manner of man he was. As it turned out 
 he was not quite of the school of M'Cheyne. At first he tried 
 to be like him, and fell into some of his special tones. But 
 he soon found that that was a mistake, and he became himself. 
 The mind of Burns was of a broader and more robust type 
 than that of M'Cheyne. He did not possess the intense 
 spirituality of his predecessor, nor his exquisitely tender, 
 pitiful, almost weeping tone. To affect what he did not 
 possess, whatever present popularity it might seem to bring, 
 was a weakness from Avhich the honest and manly heart of 
 Islay Burns recoiled. While he was full of affection and long- 
 ing for the spiritual good of his flock, and while his messages 
 to them were delivered with an unction and a fervour that 
 well befitted his character, he felt that the materials for their 
 edification were to be drawn from a wider area, and that the 
 process of their edification was to be spread over a longer 
 period than had been present to the mind of M'Cheyne. The 
 one was emphatically an evangelist, the other was more of a 
 spiritual educator. The one aimed at bringing souls at once 
 into loving fellowship with God^ and his cry was ever to the 
 wind to breathe on the dry bones ; the other, with the same 
 ultimate aim, took more pains in bringing bone to his bone, and 
 sinew to his sinew, and in getting the flesh and skin laid over 
 them, preparatory to their being possessed by the Spirit. In 
 the preaching of Burns, there was more of a measured march, 
 a formal progress, often with great beauty and richness of 
 language, and there was less of close dealing with souls. 
 There is no need for odious comparisons. No man would 
 have admitted more cordially than Burns, that, viewed in 
 itself, the role of M'Cheyne and of his brother William was 
 the noblest a Christian minister could have, and implied a 
 measure of devotedness and close fellowship with the Master, 
 as beautiful as rare. But he felt at the same time that the 
 intense pursuit of this single object by the most direct and 
 immediate means is liable to breed a certain narrowness that 
 
MEMOIR. xix 
 
 may bring unwholesome results in other directions. If it 
 were given to a man to throw his Avhole soul at the highest 
 pitch of intensity, into the work of immediate conversion, he 
 admired him exceedingly ; if, on the other hand, it were im- 
 pressed on him that there were other things also claiming to 
 be attended to in the kingdom of God, he would not have had 
 him to give them up entirely, for the sake of the other. This 
 was his feeling in regard to himself. When he followed it 
 out in St Peter's there was, as might be supposed, considerable 
 dissatisfaction. The congregation fell off in numbers, and its 
 tone was hardly what it had been. But it would be a great error 
 to suppose that his ministry was unsuccessful. There was a 
 goodly harvest of spiritual results. The congregation con- 
 tinued to be large, and the church was usually full, though 
 not overflowing. His preaching was marked by a solid, 
 substantial richness and power, and in pastoral labour he was 
 most assiduous. By and by, his name came to be connected 
 with a type of Christian teaching which was greatly relished 
 by many superior minds. But of course it was always against 
 him that the people among whom he laboured had been so 
 deeply marked, immediately before, by an image and super- 
 scription of a different kind. 
 
 We may here introduce two or three extracts from letters 
 belonging to the early period of his life, illustrative both of 
 his state of mind, and his experience of ministerial joys and 
 sorrows. Writing to a friend on the state of his soul in 
 February 1843, he says : — 
 
 " I have been much exercised in regard to these matters of late, and 
 feel more and more that religion is, after all, either everything or no- 
 thing ; that it is either foolish weakness to be concerned about our 
 state at all, or madness to rest at ease a day without a sweet sense of 
 ' peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.' " 
 
 To a friend : — 
 
 " You will see I have reached home safely, and I am now enjoying 
 perhaps the sweetest of all merely natural comforts— a day's complete 
 
XX MEMOIR. 
 
 and quiet rest of body and soul, after a season of mingled toil, bustle, 
 and exciting engagements. The loud whistling wind around — the well- 
 known voice of November, with the occasional patter of cold sleety 
 rain on my close lattice, add a charm to the feeling of comfort and 
 rest which probably you are tasting by experience at this moment. 
 I often think how blessed Noah must have been in his safe hiding- 
 place when the wind howled, and the fearful tempest beat around 
 him, and the deep, deep roar of that sea of Jehovah's vengeance 
 sounded from beneath in his ears. With what delight would he 
 look around to the strong walls and broad covering above, and that 
 fast-barred door, shut by the hands of Him who shutteth and no man 
 openeth, that not one drop of rain or breath of wind might reach 
 him. Let us think much of Him, the man that is a hiding-place 
 from the storm and a covert from the tempest. Let us sit beneath 
 that strong covering, and listen to the wind and rain without — and 
 sing of Him who delivered us from the wrath to come. ' Come, my 
 people, enter into thy chamber, and shut thy doors about thee, hide 
 thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be over- 
 past.' " 
 
 In 1843, soon after entering on his charge in Dundee, lie 
 says in regard to his position there : — 
 
 " I am getting on upon the whole comfortably here, though I am 
 not without serious difficulties to struggle with. I entered, as you 
 know, against not a little vehement opposition on the part of some, and 
 that has not as yet altogether subsided ; a few such have left the church, 
 and for the present at least, gone elsewhere : then here as elsewhere 
 there was a sprinkling of residuaries, who have of course betaken 
 themselves, with a few exceptions, to the empty pews in town, and 
 thus in some measure thinned our ranks. You may wonder that 
 such should be found under Mr M'Cheyne's ministry : but you 
 must remember that this is an eminently parochial and distinct dis- 
 trict, at a great distance from the other churches ; and so, many 
 attended here for no other reason than that it was the parish church. 
 Still with all these drawbacks we have still a large and flourishing 
 congregation at St Peter's. There were at last sacrament upwards 
 of 900 communicants, and all the seats in church, with a very few 
 exceptions, are let, and if the Lord prospers me, I trust all will still 
 go on successfully as heretofore." 
 
 Writing from Dundee to a friend, after the visit of some of 
 
MEMOIR. xxi 
 
 the Irish brethren who were preaching and holding meetings 
 in many towns of Scotland, of his joy at hearing that they were 
 felt to be men of God, he says : — 
 
 " Far back as I am in everything that belongs to the life and 
 beauty of a child of God, and often as I do tremble for myself, yet I 
 think I have this mark of the saints of God. I do take ' pleasure in 
 Zion's stones, and I do love the dust thereof ; ' it gives me more plea- 
 sure to hear that there are anywhere men filled with the Holy Ghost, 
 touched with grace from above, and ministering in the beauty of 
 holiness, than any other thing that can be told me. . . . Let the 
 longing wishes and kind remembrances with which we send away 
 our brethren not be vain. Let us make them feel that they have 
 been in a praying country, and let us send them home to their flocks 
 and to their country bathed in a new tmction from on high, hke the 
 dew on Hermon, the dew that descended on the mountains of Zion." 
 
 Again after a communion season he says : — 
 
 "On the Monday evening, Mr Leslie of Arbroath spoke most 
 powerfully to the children, nearly 500 of them, and quite arrested 
 them for near an hour : and when the sermon was over, and I went 
 into the vestry, whom did I find but Mr Milne from Perth, dropped 
 as if from the clouds. What had brought him, or where he had been, 
 I know not, for he set off again immediately after his own part of the 
 meeting, but he was evidently sent of God, for a more divine, melting, 
 and powerful message I never heard, and just such as I had been 
 longing and praying for during the whole communion. He spoke 
 for an hour and a quarter, and from the strain of riveted and intense 
 earnestness which rose as he went on, and towards the end became 
 almost painful, he might have gone on much longer without any one 
 feeling that he had unusually detained tis. Mr Milne's sermons are 
 often very wonderful. His style is peculiar. At first, and for a long 
 time, his words fall thick and soft, like falling snow ; but he 'gradu- 
 ally insinuates himself and gains attention — till the audience are all 
 ear and all heart ; and then he pours in his message in a flood of 
 burning words and thoughts which reach the very soul." 
 
 Writing to a friend early in 1845, nearly two years after he 
 had been settled in St Peter's, he says : — 
 
 " It is not to be wondered at if my spirits are not always of the 
 best — it would be wonderful were it otherwise. This sphere, though 
 
xxii MEMOIR. 
 
 important, and in some respects desirable — is yet far from an. 
 encouraging one. There are few, I believe, taking all things together, 
 where a faithful labourer is more exposed to continual heaviness and 
 
 anxiety The grand obstacle' to a happy and prosperous 
 
 career in the ministry, I noio understand much better than ever, and 
 in consequence feel it much more deeply. It is this : — I came here 
 just immediately after a spring- tide, and when the waters had fairly 
 begun to recede : hence from that day to this, I have had to row 
 against the current, and have had continually the painful and dis- 
 heartening sensation of labouring in vain, and spending my strength 
 for nought. I believe I have not been really toiling in vain : the 
 toilworn rower who merely keeps his ground against a back-going 
 tide is not spending useless labour ; still there is all the outward 
 appearance of it, and much of the heaviness and sorrow which fruit- 
 less anxiety and labour give. My course here hitherto has been 
 one of uninterrupted anxiety and incessant toil, and yet I barely keep 
 my ground, if indeed I really do." 
 
 To a friend in 1845, who had been criticising his style, he 
 says : — 
 
 "I am quite conscious for a long while past of an alteration of style 
 in one point ; namely, in regard to application, which I now exclu- 
 sively intersperse and never reserve for a formal appeal at the end ; 
 and this I agree with you in thinking the better plan. But surely 
 my style of composition was never florid or ornamental in any way ; 
 at least I think my taste is a very plain one, and rejects any enhance- 
 ment but that of chaste simplicity and truth to nature. True, my 
 mind is essentially pictorial ; I see everything slightly illuminated 
 and tinted in the colouring of fancy ; but my judgment always keeps a 
 strict and almost stern control, and ever condemns whatever is other 
 than plain. For this reason I never could have been a poet, for my 
 power of fancy (of imagination I have comparatively but little) has 
 ever been kept under such stern control as to become timid and 
 cowardly, and never could have ventured on any hold flight. ... I 
 wish I were more bold and venturous, for I never have, as far as I 
 remember, so ventured, without winning something. To give you a 
 kind of idea of this mental defect of mine, I may mention, that of 
 anything I have written, the very passages which are really successful, 
 and which I like to recur to, I put down with grudge at the time, 
 with many qualms not of conscience, but of an over-scrupulous judg- 
 ment and with a half intention afterwards to delete. In writing 
 
MEMOIR, xxiii 
 
 and printing (if I am ever to do anything in that way), I shall have 
 always to remember the proverb, 'never ventured — never won.' 
 . . . One grand principle is quite clear, that every one ought to 
 cultivate and improve that which is his taste, and to lay it out to 
 the utmost for the glory of God, always imder the direction of a 
 sober, well-regulated, and sanctified judgment. Is not this right 
 doctrine, and may I not be as rich and glowing in my colouring, as 
 my fancy will let me, always within these limits ?" 
 
 Again to a friend who was in trouble : — 
 
 *' Great tribulations to the Lord's children bring great peace, and 
 if we never had deep wounds, we should never know what deep con- 
 solations are. The great tribulations of the redeemed are the deep 
 channels through which the full, calm river of their everlasting con- 
 solations flow 
 
 " It is the divine art of faith, and the believer's privilege, taught by 
 the same God that gave the bee its instinct, to gather honey from 
 every flower, yea from weeds the most bitter and poisonous ; for all 
 things shall work together for good to them that love God, and are 
 the called according to His purpose. And what is that honey ? It is 
 peace, Chrisfs peace ; the peace of God : for when He left us in the 
 wilderness and gave us so many bitter herbs to feed on, He said, 'Peace 
 I leave with you,' and the promise stands, ' Great peace have they 
 who love Thy law, nothing shall ofi'end them.' 
 
 In the year 1845, Mr Burns became the husband of his 
 cousin, Catharine Sarah Brown, eldest daughter of the late 
 Mr William Brown, a leading citizen of Aberdeen. Frank, 
 affectionate, impulsive, and enthusiastic, even to the verge of 
 eccentricity, Mr Brown was a fearless witness for his Lord, 
 at a time Avhen unsparing ridicule was poured on any one 
 who dared to stand up boldly on His side. The marriage of 
 Mr Burns was a singularly happy one. No one could have 
 been better fitted than Miss Brown to be the companion of 
 such a man. An exquisite musician, appreciating all her hus- 
 band's tastes and acquirements, and deeply sympathising with 
 him in his spiritual experience and aims, she possessed at 
 the same time an eminently practical turn, and by this means 
 was well fitted both for aiding in the congregation, and 
 for the management of the house and the rearing of the 
 
xxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 family, under circumstances which would have overwhelmed 
 one less active, careful, and managing. Four sons and four 
 daughters were born in Dundee, a united and very affectionate 
 household, which remained unbroken till after the family 
 removed to Glasgow. Mrs Burns and six children stiU survive. 
 The mind of Islay Burns was essentially broad and catholic. 
 It roamed in every direction for truth and beauty ; and where- 
 ever they were to be found, it delighted to recognise them. 
 His classical and philosophical studies ever furnished him with 
 new sources of pleasure, and where time and opportunity 
 allowed, the fields of general literature were eagerly cropped. 
 The sense of beauty led him to find a peculiar enjoyment in 
 art — pre-eminently in architecture and in music. To unite the 
 sesthetic and the spiritual seemed to him an important and 
 desirable object, though he well knew that in the union the 
 spiritual was very liable to be overlaid by the sesthetic. 
 While fully appreciating the motive that had led the founders 
 of the Scotch Church to eschew the sesthetic, he did not think 
 that either Scripture or experience required so complete a 
 separation. He thought that in certain sections of the Church 
 of England, and even of the Wesleyan and other churches, 
 the question had been dealt with more satisfactorily. He 
 perceived and deeply pondered the fact that the risks had 
 not alv^^ays been avoided — that in many cases the spiritual had 
 been crushed to death ; but, on the other hand, where a 
 vital evangelical teaching held possession of the pulpit, the 
 sesthetic had rather helped than hindered the spiritual. Partly 
 through his inquiries into this subject, and partly on wider 
 grounds, his interest in all the great movements in the Church 
 of England was remarkably great. He delighted to search 
 them out, to trace them to their root principles, to connect 
 them with the ancient historical traditions and tendencies of 
 the great parties in England, and to indicate the inevitable 
 course of their future development. 
 
 The first occasion of his committing his views on this sub- 
 ject to the press was in 1850-51, in connection with the Free 
 
MEMOIR. XXV 
 
 Church Magazine, then under my editorial care. " Chapters 
 on English Church Matters," was the title under which he 
 wrote a few popular papers, placing in their true light those 
 remarkable movements which were beginning to carry intelligent 
 and educated men over to Rome, but on which only a very 
 few persons in Scotland were able to think otherAvise than 
 with amazement and horror. These papers gave the oppor- 
 tunity, as it were, for his " 'prentice hand," and were followed 
 by a much more copious discussion of English Church matters 
 in a series of papers in the British and Foreign Evangelical 
 Beview, under the successive editorships of Dr Cameron, the 
 late Principal Cunningham, and Dr M'Crie. 
 
 The writings of Archdeacon Hare, Archdeacon Wilberforce, 
 Dr Newman, Archbishop Manning, Cardinal Wiseman, Dr 
 Pusey, and others, were subjected to minute examination. 
 The power of analysis and of generalisation evinced in these 
 reviews attracted great attention. To Scotch readers they 
 were unusually interesting, not only for the information which 
 they communicated, but also for the light which they threw 
 on movements that were apt to be regarded as chaotic, and for 
 the clear indication which they gave of coming events, the 
 necessary but not obvious issues of the principles that had 
 come into operation. 
 
 All Church history had an attraction for Burns, but mainly 
 in its relation to Christian life and worship. Amid the claims 
 of a large congregation, he contrived to find time for writing 
 a popular volume, which gave a very interesting survey of 
 Church history during the first three centuries, chiefly in the 
 relations which we have mentioned. Other papers of a similar 
 kind were occasionally written ; including a short series of "Pic- 
 tures from Church History" in the Sunday Magazine (1868). 
 
 In 1861, the Free Church College of Edinburgh sustained a 
 heavy blow, in the somewhat sudden death of Dr Cunningham, 
 Professor of Church History. The appointment of his suc- 
 cessor fell to the General Assembly of the folloAving year. 
 Various names were spoken of, as suitable for the Chair ; that 
 
xxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 of Mr Rainy, then minister of the Free High Church, Edin- 
 burgh, being supported by Dr Candlish, Dr Buchanan, and 
 the other leading men, whose nominations were usually 
 carried by overwhelming majorities. At that time Dr Rainy 's 
 reputation, now so brilliantly established, did not rest on any 
 special evidence he had given of fitness for teaching Church 
 history, but on the high character he had gained as a minister, 
 and the well known fact that his abilities and attainments 
 were of a very remarkable order. It was felt by the friends 
 of Mr Burns, that considering all that he had written on 
 Church history, and written so well, he deserved to be at 
 least recognised on such an occasion as this. This was the 
 strong conviction of the present writer ; and as he happened to 
 be a member of Assembly, he gave notice of his intention to 
 propose Mr Burns' name. It is not easy at this distance to 
 understand how difficult it was to come forward in direct op- 
 position to those whose influence in the Assembly was so high. 
 The speech in which Mr Burns' claims were placed before the 
 Assembly was a simple statement of facts, but it carried the 
 weight which facts simply stated usually have with a candid 
 audience. On a division it was found that no fewer than 202 
 votes had been recorded for Mr Burns, while 230 were given 
 for Mr Rainy. There can be no doubt now that the abler man 
 was chosen, and that Mr Rainy possessed qualifications for the 
 Chair of Church History of a very remarkable kind. But it 
 was most gratifying to Mr Burns and his friends, that his name 
 had met with so large a measure of support ; and great good 
 was done by its being made so clear, that the Church was pre- 
 pared to weigh candidly the qualifications of any candidate, 
 even though he belonged to a quite different circle from that 
 which enjoyed the confidence of the leading men. 
 
 Besides his volume of Church history, and his contributions 
 to the British and Foreign Evangelical Revieto on the great 
 ecclesiastical questions of the day, Mr Burns wrote a number 
 of tracts and papers, on subjects more immediately connected 
 with his professional work. " The Sanctity of Home," was 
 
MEMOIR. xxvii 
 
 the title of a little volume designed to foster right views and 
 practice on the subject of the Christian family. To the North 
 British Review he contributed in 1859 a valuable article on 
 Home Missions in their various aspects and bearings ; and 
 again in 1863, a paper on Modern Preaching. In 1860, he 
 published the Pastor of Kilsyth, a very interesting and remark- 
 ably well written memoir of his father. In a sense Mr Burns 
 had the pen of a ready writer ; yet " The Pastor of Kilsyth," 
 was the result of very unusual pains and care. His great 
 desire to enshrine the memory of his father in a memorial that 
 would not give the bare facts of his history, but would repro- 
 duce the real life of the man, and the very atmosphere which 
 surrounded him, induced him to bestow his very best efforts 
 on this filial tribute, in reference to which some of his friends 
 may remember hearing him say, with great emphasis, that 
 whatever opinion the public might form of it, he was certain 
 that it was impossible for him to do it better than he had 
 done. 
 
 Two years passed after the election of a successor to Dr 
 Cunningham, when again a Theological Chair became vacant, 
 Dr Hetherington having been compelled by ill health to resign 
 the Chair of Apologetics and Systematic Theology in the Free 
 Church College of Glasgow. The friends of Dr Eurns (about 
 this time he received the degree of D.D. from his Alma Mater 
 the University of Aberdeen) moved cordially in his favour, 
 believing that as he. was so nearly appointed in 1862, there 
 would not be much serious opposition to him in 1864. The 
 Chair indeed was not one of Church history, and it was at- 
 tempted to be made out that his qualifications for the office 
 now vacant did not entitle him to the confidence of the 
 Church. But the truth is, that a bitter opposition arose to 
 Dr Burns on the ground of his catholic spirit as a divine, and 
 that in the discussions previous to the Assembly in Synods and 
 Presbyteries, very disagreeable representations were made with 
 the -view of damaging his character for orthodoxy. It is impos- 
 sible to tell how much vexed and annoyed he was at these 
 
xxviii MEMOIR. 
 
 petty but bitter attacks. It happened that, as on the former 
 occasion, it fell to the present writer to take a leading part in 
 the matter ; day after day Dr Burns wrote to him expressing his 
 wish to retire rather than that his character should be exposed 
 to the miserable process of carping and soiling, in which some 
 of the coarser of his opponents indulged. Conscious of in- 
 tegrity' and loyalty to his Master, his Church, and his creed, 
 he felt it a bitter thing, that after expending his best strength 
 in elucidating truth, he should be held up to scorn as an 
 unfaithful servant, and particularly that his character should 
 be exposed to the stifling influence of suspicion. When, in 
 the Free Presbytery of Edinburgh, an opponent was foolish 
 enough to refer to an essay of his on Catholicism, as exemplify- 
 ing his latitudinarian tendencies, Dr Burns at once republished 
 the essay, and thereby gave convincing evidence that there 
 was no ground for a shadow of suspicion.* The result of the 
 conflict was in his favour; by a majority of 292 to 215, he 
 was chosen to the vacant Chair. 
 
 The emoluments of the Chair being very scanty, a few friends 
 took the opportunity to raise a sum of money as a token of 
 their regard, and as viaticum for the journey from Dundee to 
 Glasgow. The local enthusiasm for this testimonial was 
 singularly strong. Two, or at most three hundred pounds had 
 been originally aimed at ; but when the lists were given in, 
 it was found that eight hundred had been raised. The testi- 
 monial was presented in the Town Hall of Dundee, in presence 
 of an immense gathering, representing the congregation of St 
 Peter's and the general public. The whole town was glad 
 that one whom they had good cause to esteem so highly had 
 been successful in the contest, though sorry that they were to 
 lose so genial and estimable a citizen. It was painful to Dr 
 Burns to leave the place where he had spent his wedded life, 
 and where all his children had been born, and to sever himself 
 from a congregation to which he was bound by the strongest 
 and tenderest ties. At the same time he felt not only that 
 * The Essay is republished in this volume. 
 
MEMOIR. xxix 
 
 his whole heart would be in the work to which he had now 
 been called, but that if God spared him, and gave him His 
 blessing, he might be able to render more efficient service than 
 had been practicable in the charge from which he had been 
 severed. 
 
 It may be well to glance here at the character of Dr Burns' 
 ministry, and especially of his preaching. Though, owing to 
 his blindness, and perhaps, too, his studious and thoughtful 
 temperament, he did not feel himself much adapted to the 
 detailed work of the pastorate, he conscientiously laboured to 
 overtake it, spending much time in visiting his congregation, 
 and especially the sick. In classes and other duties connected 
 with the young, he felt himself more at home, and he was 
 drawn instinctively to any gathering of young men, greatly 
 delighting in the atmosphere of active thought and generous 
 feeling which commonly prevails at such gatherings. At 
 soirees and social meetings he was particularly happy ; his 
 loving spirit threw a warmth and radiance around, and he had 
 a vein of easy, pleasant talk, which could be easily directed 
 either to entertain the company with the play of humour, or 
 to guide them into the more solemn lines of meditation. The 
 one great aim of all his labours as a pastor was to bring men 
 to Christ, and build them up in Him. He could not recognise 
 anything on which his heart could rest with full satisfaction 
 in any one who continued to stand outside of the Kingdom. 
 In preaching, his blindness was again a hindrance to full effici- 
 ency ; not being able to see the people distinctly, he of course 
 did not get so close to them in soul, as he might otherwise 
 have done, and his delivery was marked by a slight sense of 
 distance, relieved, however, by the manifest afifectionateness 
 that played round his heart. His hearers, perhaps, had a feel- 
 ing as if he were speaking, kindly and warmly no doubt, to 
 men in general, rather than to them in particular, though as 
 he proceeded, this feeling lessened, and they felt him nearer. 
 Urgency in the application of his discourse to individuals was 
 not his gift, as it was so remarkably that of his brother 
 
XXX MEMOIR. 
 
 William. The most characteristic feature of his preaching, to 
 my mind, was its richness. "Whatever point he took up ear- 
 nestly, he presented with great fulness and beauty. Whether 
 it was a point of doctrine or of practice, he was never content 
 with presenting it barely, but he would heap together every 
 consideration that was fitted to bring out its manifold aspects 
 and bearings. His mind had a great power of amplifying, 
 and a great command of appropriate and beautiful language. 
 When he struck into one of his happy veins, the effect was 
 delightful. Spiritual hearers felt as if he were guiding them 
 through a troi^ical garden, where all was luxuriant and 
 sweet. He not only preached the grace of God, but the 
 exceeding riches of that grace. He not only dwelt on the 
 promises, but showed how they were exceeding great and pre- 
 cious. The character of our blessed Lord he delighted to 
 delineate as fairer than the children of men. The luxuriance 
 in which he indulged seldom became wild, nor the sweetness 
 luscious. His Avords had a music for the soul, that left a charm 
 behind them. An old and appreciative hearer, recalling his 
 ministry could speak " of the days long ago, when dear Islay 
 Burns (whose voice dwells with me like a far off melody), 
 ministered always so kindly, so wisely, so ably, and so well." 
 In point of structure, his sermons had much less of the formal 
 and scholastic element than was usual with the older order of 
 orthodox ministers. There was more of freedom and elasticity, 
 and his topics were selected from a wider sphere. He did not 
 fall into the pious error that it was never safe to lead his flock 
 beyond the rudiments of the gospel theology. Features of 
 Christian character, elements of Christian life, things in nature, 
 too, which are apt to be overlooked, but which are fitted to have 
 an important Christian bearing, were touched on as the occa- 
 sion served. The foundation was always evangelical and the 
 atmosphere spiritual ; but the flight was sometimes in a 
 different direction from that which other preachers chose. 
 
 His introductory lecture at the opening of the Glasgow Session 
 was a great success. Many eyes were turned toward him on 
 
MEMOIR. xxxi 
 
 that occasion, those of friends as well as foes, and even those 
 vho had most thorough confidence in him, could not but wish 
 very earnestly that his first lecture would be such as at once 
 to show his characteristic gifts and graces, and to establish 
 him in the full confidence of the students, and of the Church. 
 The result more than fulfilled their hopes. No one that heard 
 or read it could feel that there was the slightest ground for 
 uneasiness as to his views and influence. It happened that 
 the subject enabled him to use, to great advantage, his peculiar 
 gift of rich and manifold representation. Even those who had 
 felt it their duty to oppose him, now congratulated him 
 warmly ; and he entered on the work of the session with a 
 glad and grateful mind. 
 
 Dr Burns' last eight years were spent in the duties of Pro- 
 fessor of Apologetical and Systematic Theology in the Free 
 Church College, Glasgow. It is quite as might have been 
 expected, that among the impressions produced on the 
 students, the first, and probably the deepest, was that of his 
 piety. "In him," writes one of them, "the old adage was 
 fully verified — ' Pectus facit theologura,' His creed Avas 
 woven into his daily experience and life. Scarcely was his 
 mouth opened in prayer at the beginning of the hour, when 
 we felt the soul-breathings and the mighty wrestlings of 
 a man of God. These devotional exercises were an excellent 
 preparation for the lecture, and helped to keep the balance 
 even (no easy task for the students) between the play of the 
 intellect and the heart. An earnest, prayerful spirit ran 
 through all his words, and we felt quickened and refreshed 
 by contact with him." Another thing that struck them was 
 his scholarly taste and habit. Many an apt classical quota- 
 tion brightened his style, while from the fathers, and especially 
 from the Bishop of Hippo, he drew large store of valuable 
 material. The charm of his style was very delightful to stu- 
 dents, abounding as it did in happy antitheses, often coloured 
 with a tinge of poetry, and always rich, pure, and expressive. 
 On the evidences, especially, his prelections were well adapted 
 
xxxii MEMOIR. 
 
 to the times — the Tubingen school was fully met. But what 
 rendered him particularly attractive to the students was his 
 genial affectionate manner and easy address. " The evenings 
 we spent at his house, in the bosom of his family," writes the 
 same student, " were most enjoyable and stimulating ; and 
 methinks I see him now in the centre of a little group of stu- 
 dents, listening to their friendly discussions, making himself 
 their leading spiiit, and detailing the lights and shades of his 
 own experience. Humility and frankness were two of the 
 brightest ornaments of his character, and nothing gave him 
 greater pleasure than to trace the progress and rejoice in the 
 success of any of his students. Alas ! the eloquent voice is 
 now silent in the grave. We believe he is now in the ranks 
 of the Church triumphant. May it be ours to catch the man- 
 tle of his virtues and graces, and to follow him even as he 
 followed Christ." 
 
 It was not long before he felt himself at home in Glasgow. 
 The academic sphere was very congenial, and the academic 
 spirit wandered beyond the limits of his own institution, and 
 took a cordial interest in the University. He entered very 
 heartily into some' of the details connected with University 
 matters ; wrote a book for helping young men to compose in 
 Latin ; proposed a plan of junior scholarhips, and got it 
 carried into execution ; and took part as a preacher in the 
 University Sunday afternoon service. Yet as if he felt the 
 duty of balancing these efforts on behalf of the higher learning 
 by something more rudimentary and evangelistic, he was one 
 of the chief friends and most active promoters of the Glasgow 
 Foundry Boys' Society. Of this institution he gave an 
 account in a paper contributed to the Sunday Magazine in 
 October 1871. The object of the Society was to gather the 
 working boys of Glasgow on Sundays, and hold a religious 
 service with them. In this service Dr Burns often took part 
 in one of the many schoolrooms which the Society occupied. 
 His last public effort on behalf of the Society was at the 
 annual meeting in the City Hall, when the Marquis of Lome 
 
MEMOIR. xxxiii 
 
 presided. The speech which Dr Burns delivered on that occa- 
 sion was so characteristic of himself, and so happy in its mode 
 of setting forth the subject, that we need not apologise for 
 a pretty long extract : — 
 
 " Amongst the numerous agents of the Society, all busily at work 
 in their several spheres and separate posts, from Port Dundas to Port 
 Eglinton, and from Whiteinch to Tollcross, there are certain other 
 unseen agents in whose presence and co-operation the success of all 
 the others mainly depends, and on these I am desirous to fix your 
 attention. They are these five, which, from their singularly bene- 
 ficent agency, we might almost call the ministering angels of the 
 Society : Order, Thrift, Music, Fresh Air, and True Religion. 1st, as to 
 ORDER : The Society proceeds upon the principle, which, I believe, 
 is a thoroughly sound one, that there is in all men, and even in all 
 boys too, an instinct of order ; that the most uproarious crowd of un- 
 disciplined juveniles may not only be brought to order, but brought 
 to like it, and fall naturally into it, if you only use the proper means. 
 The principle only wants to be drawn out, developed, educated, in 
 order to vanquish all the powers of chaos and wild misrule. Of this 
 we have remarkable examples in some of the early passages in the 
 Society's history, as in Anderston and the Olympic Hall ; and any 
 one who chooses to visit this hall (the City Hall) at eleven o'clock 
 on any Sabbath morning, will see another still more impressive. 
 Order, then, is the word — order, the most exact, punctual, methodical, 
 almost military. The whole organisation of the Society, from the 
 honorary president to the humblest official, is military. The conduct 
 of each meeting, officered by its full staff of chairman, secretary, 
 treasurer, chief singer, monitors, and stampers, is military. The 
 assembling and marshalling of the youthful congregations, and the 
 whole march and movement of the service, is military. Each erup- 
 tion into the country, whether for a few miles only on a Saturday 
 afternoon, or far away to the romantic shores of Argyle for a whole 
 week together, with tuck of drum and banners flying, is unmistak- 
 ably military. This, then, is our secret. If there be one original 
 idea, one real discovery in social science, of which the leaders of this 
 movement are entitled to claim the credit, it is this — it is their 
 appreciation of the power of this principle, and the practical sagacity 
 with which they have applied it. Really I rega'rd the little attend- 
 ance book, which each of our twelve thousand children carries in hia 
 
xxxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 hand every Sabbath, morning, as one of the most notable and bene- 
 ficent inventions of the day, I would send it to the next Inter- 
 national Exhibition as one of the most precious products of modern 
 discovery, bearing this inscription, ' An instrument for reducing, in 
 an incredibly brief space of time, a rough mass of young City Arabs 
 to a quiet and orderly group of Christian children.' 2d. Our next 
 instrument of power is thrift, and thrift is not so difficult to teach 
 to old or young as many think. In fact there are few things more 
 easily taught, if you only set about it in the right way. In order 
 to impart the taste for thrift, it is in most cases only necessary to 
 give a taste of thrift. All of us have a certain natural tendency to 
 accumulation — a native turn for gathering, and getting, and keep- 
 ing, which most men fail to cultivate simply because they never had 
 a chance, or think they never had one. Give him a little balance in his 
 favour at the bank, and instantly there will spring up within him a 
 desire to keep it, and to make it more. It is those who have nothing, 
 and never hope to have anything, that are generally reckless and impro- 
 vident. One of the most popular novelists of our time (Mr Anthony 
 Trollope) remarks somewhere, that the people who are constantly 
 throwing themselves into cabs to travel short distances, and throwing 
 away their money in all other imaginable sorts of foolish ways, are 
 not those who have much, but who have nothing, or rather a great deal 
 less than nothing, who have a great balance at the bank, but that balance 
 on the wrong side. Their affairs, in fact, are so desperate that they 
 have no motive to take care of them, or hope of making them better. 
 So most people are thriftless because they have no hope of having 
 anything — anything beyond the immediate necessities of the present 
 hour. Give them, then, that hope, and they will immediately begin 
 both to gather and to keeji. Now, this Society did not discover this 
 principle, but they can at least claim the credit of taking a, firm hold 
 of it, and vigorously and successfully working it out. So they have, 
 from first to last, driven a brisk and thriving Savings' Bank business, 
 the best proof of which is the pregnant and truly gratifying fact — 
 that the expense of the entertainments and excursions, which form so 
 salient a feature of the foundry boy's social year, is always defrayed 
 by the provident savings thus effected by the boys and girls them- 
 selves, and that sometimes there is a balance to carry over to the other 
 departments of the Society's work. We train these children, in short, 
 from the first to be steady, prudent, self-reliant working-men, and 
 careful, thrifty, frugally managing, working men's wives. 3. Our 
 next instrument of power is music, but here I take music in a wide 
 
MEMOIR. XXXV 
 
 sense, to include not only that deliglitful charmer itself, but all that 
 goes along with it. Those varied social joys which enrich and em- 
 bellish life, and afford a grateful interchange from its sterner cares 
 and toils — play, in short, for boys and girls, and recreation, which is 
 only a graver kind of play, for older children. As to play, the view 
 the Society take of it is, that it is an essentially good and blessed 
 thing, that it is a gift of God, that God made play as truly as He made 
 work, and therefore it is a thing not to be suspected and feared, but 
 to be enjoyed and improved. We are for play then,//'ee, spontaneous, 
 exuberant, hilarious, even on occasion boisterous, so only it is pure. 
 It is not amusement that harms, but sinful amusement, or amusement 
 which, though in itself innocent, becomes sinful by being carried to 
 excess, or indulged in at an improper time. "What does not belong, 
 in short, to the devil, belongs to God, and should be thankfully used 
 and enjoyed as in His sight. Therefore, the dissolving view, the 
 penny reading, the chorus, the song, the flute bands, the merry tale, 
 the merry-go-round, quoits, cricket, all have their place and their 
 function in God's great kingdom of the world, as well as the grave 
 work of life. If not for sober eld, at least for the boys and girls, of 
 whom we read that they shall play even on the streets of the Xew 
 Jerusalem. As to miisic, in the literal sense of the word, we can 
 scarcely have too much of it, so only it is of the right kiud, and en- 
 joyed at the right times ; and much as this Society has done in this 
 respect, my own opinion is, that they might and ought to do much 
 more. Why should we not have at each of our district meetings 
 choirs of trained voices capable of pouring forth as sweet and solemn 
 strains as those drawn forth by ]\Ir Peace from the youthful choristers 
 in the University Chapel? 4. As to fresh air, it is, alas! but very 
 little at the best that we can do in this way ; it is a luxury which 
 our city children can never hope to enjoy save at rare intervals. We 
 cannot give them this choicest of Nature's bouquets * all the year 
 round,' but we try to invite them to it at certain seasons of the year 
 'once a week;' and then there is our great annual festival, — our 
 glad Feast of Tabernacles, as I have ventured elsewhere to call it, on 
 the fair shores of Lochfine, and beneath the grand old beeches of 
 Inverary Castle, — a privilege for which, permit me, my Lord, once 
 more, in the name of this great meeting, to tender to you and to your 
 illustrious house our most grateful thanks. On such occasions our 
 young friends enjoy fresh air to their fill ; quaff fresh air in bumpers 
 and great magnums ; fresh air of the purest, freest, and most ex- 
 hilarating kind ; fresh air, not only unmixed with smoke, but, which 
 
xxxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 is saying a great deal of a Glasgow excursion party, unmixed with 
 whisky. Think of an expedition of eighteen hundred strong march- 
 ing forth together, fathers and mothers and children, on a Saturday 
 afternoon ; and after a long and joyous day amid the fields and woods, 
 returning at close of eve in perfect order, without one muddled head, 
 one dizzy brain, and say whether a Society which can show you such 
 a spectacle is not a benefit to civilisation, to social order, to Christianity. 
 5th. Our last ministering angel — an angel not of earth, but of 
 heaven — is true religion. This is our very life blood, the living 
 soul, of Avhich all the rest is but the body ; the others are the 
 mechanism, this is the moving power. Take away this, and the whole 
 movement collapses and falls to pieces, and the Society vanishes 
 out of sight. Take away this, and all our other instrumentalities 
 will lose their power. Take away this, and we shall no longer have 
 living agents to use them. True religion, I say, but true religion of 
 the most expansive and catholic kind. Christians of every name are 
 welcomed to the ranks of our agency, and almost all are found there. 
 That early and noble pioneer of the work — whose name Dr Guthrie 
 has immortalised — Mary Ann Cloiigh, was a member of the Episcopal 
 Church — most of its first band of labourers were United Presby- 
 terians. Multitudes of Free Churchmen and of Established Churchmen 
 fight in its first ranks side by side, and other less numerous denomi- 
 nations furnish their several contingents. "We own no narrower plat- 
 form than the one Lord, the one faith, the one baptism. We need no 
 other rallying cry, no other inscription, no other legend for our banner 
 than this, — ' For the love of Christ, and of Christ's little ones.' " 
 
 Dr Burns' services as a preacher were much prized and 
 sought after by his brethren in Glasgow. At public meetings, 
 too, he was often in demand. And what gratified him much, 
 his counsel was often sought and much prized on important 
 ecclesiastical questions, by those who seemed at one time to dis- 
 trust him. In his later years, hardly any of the wounds were 
 inflicted on that sensitive nature which at one time had caused 
 him so much suffering. And getting thus into a more serene 
 and happy atmosphere, he came to see, in the first place, that 
 he had somewhat exaggerated the feeling that had existed 
 against him ; and in the second place, that what at the time 
 had appeared to be intentional slights proceeded from circum- 
 
MEMOIR. xxxvii 
 
 stances that in a fair view of them hardly admitted of a differ- 
 ent course. During the years spent in Glasgow, he became 
 intimate with many of the Christian laymen of the city, 
 whom he esteemed the more, the more he knew them. As 
 an elder in Kelvinside Free Church, he showed great interest 
 in the welfare of the congregation ; and felt a peculiar pleasure 
 in being himself, and in seeing the congregation, under the 
 pastoral superintendence of the Rev. W. E. Taylor. 
 
 The last of the more important extra-official labours of Dr 
 Burns was the writing of the life of his brother William. He 
 had already, as we have said, written a sketch of his father's 
 life ; but in addressing himself to his new task, he felt a pecu- 
 liar shrinking of heart. It arose from a conscientious fear that 
 he might not succeed in giving to the world a faithful portrait 
 of one so exclusively devoted to evangelistic work. Deeply 
 similar though the brothers were in their faith and hope, and 
 in the consecration of their whole lives to the same Lord and 
 Master, there were points of difference between them, as Islay 
 well knew, that might prevent him from doing justice to Wil- 
 liam. The one was remarkable for intensity, the other for 
 breadth. The one would concentrate his whole force on a 
 single point of the citadel of Mansoul, and take it, as it were, 
 by assault ; the other would surround the fortress with the 
 various kinds of spiritual artillery, and hope to secure it by the 
 slower process of siege. In William, it was the Godward 
 side of religion that was cultivated, and cultivated to the 
 utmost pitch of intensity; in Islay, the human element also 
 was prominent. William's view of the world led him to sus- 
 pect and renounce everything that did not belong to the 
 innermost sphere of the spiritual life ; Islay saw outside of 
 that circle not a few things worthy to be reclaimed for the 
 kingdom of God. Undoubtedly he thought that his brother's 
 views were rather ascetical. But, on the other hand, he saw 
 in him such thorough genuineness and purity of soul, such 
 true affection to all mankind, such simplicity and godly 
 sincerity, as entitled him to the warmest appreciation of the 
 
xxxviii MEMOIR. 
 
 the whole Christian Church. He delighted to think that ia 
 William there was not one particle of that bitterness or of 
 that spiritual pride which is so apt to flow from the ascetic 
 spirit. His instincts of love had sustained no damage ; he 
 could take his brethren to his heart, and love them with an 
 undiminished afi"ection, though in many things, perhaps, they 
 were indulging in what he had renounced. It often occurred 
 to Islay that it would be better if some one more entirely of 
 William's type would undertake to write his life. But happily 
 these scruples were overcome ; and every one who has read 
 the memoir will admit that the portrait has been admirably 
 given. It is a great possession for the Christian Church. It 
 is a worthy canonisation of one whose rare graces and wonder- 
 ful devotedness have shown that the great Head of the Church 
 has yet in His quiver shafts as polished as in any previous 
 age. With great wisdom, the biographer made his brother 
 portray himself. Standing quietly in the background, he hardly 
 ever stated his own views or opinions, but left the great 
 evangelist and missionary to make his own impression. The 
 Church has placed the portrait in its supplemental gallery to 
 the eleventh chapter of Hebrews ; and the life of William 
 Eurns has become a force of enduring vitality, whose influence 
 may continue to tell on generations yet unborn. 
 
 We have hardly ventured to look into Islay Burns' private 
 and domestic life. But those who knew it will bear ready 
 testimony that seldom has a domestic circle been brighter or 
 more attractive than that large group of which he was the 
 centre. From first to last there was indeed the presence of 
 the res angtista, but the abounding cordiality and cheeriness 
 and hospitality showed that it had distilled no acrid elements on 
 the dAvelling. Who so ready to enter into the troubles of his 
 friends, to encourage them to enterprises before which they were 
 halting, to cheer them when they had bravely done their task 1 
 His friendly letter Avas almost uniformly the first to acknow- 
 ledge any brochure or book that had been sent from the author 
 to his friends, and so couched as to allay any throbbings of 
 
MEMOIR. xxxix 
 
 fear lest the writer had done what was either fooUsh or wrong. 
 Not less certainly, when trouble invaded the dwellings of his 
 friends, would he hasten to send his word of soothing consola- 
 tion. Alas, he had in his own circle bitter enough experience 
 of domestic sorrow. Soon after the family went to Glasgow, 
 the youngest child, a bright, lively boy of two, was some- 
 what suddenly taken away. But a heavier trial followed. 
 His first-born son, a youth of high ability and eminent 
 scholarship, who had just reached the point of an Oxford 
 career where his honours would have culminated, was smitten 
 with fatal illness, and went to Madeira literally to die. It 
 would not be easy to estimate the desolation of the blow. 
 Father and son were very congenial, and their affection for 
 each other was unusually strong ; but the class-room testified 
 that however grievous the trial was for the present, its ulti- 
 mate fruits were of a different order, and that as in many a 
 like case the plaintive cry had been verified, — 
 
 " Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee, 
 Even though it be a cross that raiseth me." 
 
 It had often been my privilege to have Dr Burns for a 
 guest, especially during the sittings of the General Assembly. 
 The last occasion of his being with us was in May 1871, the 
 year before his death, when Mr Fleming Stevenson of Dublin 
 was also our guest. He was greatly exercised about the 
 lowering effect, which the discussions going on in our General 
 Assembly on hymns and such matters, were fitted to have on 
 the standing and influence of the Free Church, and was full 
 of a project of a volume of essays, in which a more healthy 
 tone might be taken on preaching, prayer, psalmody, the 
 sacraments, hymnology, and other questions of general 
 interest. The project was given up for the time, under the 
 impression that in the feverish state of the Free Church it 
 might create fresh embarrassments, and that it was wiser to 
 wait for a calmer opportunity. Dr Burns was very cordially 
 in favour of the proposed union between the Keformed and 
 United Presbyterians and the Free Church, as right in itself, 
 
il MEMOIR. 
 
 and as an important step towards the further settlement of 
 church matters in Scotland. The reactionary policy which 
 arrested the movement he mourned exceedingly ; it was the 
 culmination of the narrow spirit to which he had always been 
 opposed ; but though much saddened and discouraged by the 
 failure of the movement, his hope was that, ere long, the eccle- 
 siastical condition of the country would be its glory and not 
 its reproach. 
 
 Dr Burns had come of a race almost proverbial for longevity, 
 and few of his friends had any apprehension of his being 
 removed at the comparatively early age of fifty-five. A local 
 affection of a painful nature had been giving him considerable 
 trouble for three or four years, and in March 1872, a severe 
 attack of haemorrhage, proceeding from the same quarter, 
 suddenly brought him to the brink of the grave. He had 
 gone through his college work with the utmost regularity ; 
 had moreover conducted a large young men's class in the city, 
 formed to counteract the spread of scepticism ; and had been 
 taking a share in the Foundry Boys' Society. The suddenness 
 of the attack, which had at first all the appearance of proving 
 fatal, was a great shock to his friends. For a time he seemed 
 to rally, but though the acute attacks were not repeated, the 
 pressure of the ailment proved too much for his strength. 
 After hovering for a few weeks between recovery and relapse, 
 his strength gradually but steadily declined, and on the 20th 
 of May, he passed into the rest that remaineth for the people 
 of God. His illness had been a most painful one, sometimes 
 full of torture ; remedies had become unavailing, and hope of 
 recovery had ceased ; even the afi'ectionate watchers at his 
 bedside could welcome death as a friend, and be thankful to 
 the grim messenger for bearing him away to rest. 
 
 Very simple but very beautiful was his mental experience in 
 the prospect of death. After his first severe seizure, he fully 
 looked for a fatal issue, and nothing could have been more 
 calm or natural than his bearing. He went carefully over 
 some of his manuscript lectures, giving directions as to those 
 
MEMOIR. xli 
 
 that were to be read to his classes during the remaining t\ro or 
 three weeks of the session. He talked calmly as to what his 
 family were to do when he should be taken from them, entering 
 minutely into all their arrangements. For himself, he said 
 that the one source of support for the sinner on which he had 
 ever leant, was his support then, and that he found it, as he 
 had always found it, enough to sustain him. He felt that 
 amid all his deficiencies and faults, he had tried to spend his 
 life in the service of the Lord, and he had loved the work 
 right well. There was so much mixture of motive in the best 
 of our services as to make them unworthy to be accepted ; but 
 the Master was a gracious Master, and was pleased to own 
 our services, defective and miserable though they were. 
 When the present writer went to see him soon after his seiz- 
 ure, he found him more willing to speak of the happiness which 
 he had derived from a long friendship than to accept of the 
 regrets which the occasion inspired. Afterwards, when the 
 last stage had come, his reply to my inquiries after him was, 
 with a smile, " Just passing through the stream." On my 
 asking whether he did not feel the comforts of the gospel 
 sustaining him, he said, with that perfect honesty which 
 characterised him, " I am too weak to feel much — but nothing 
 to the contrary." And when I asked whether there was 
 anything in particular he would wish to be prayed for — " for 
 an abundant entrance : " — and then he added, " And for a 
 blessing to those I leave behind." Nothing could have been 
 less theatrical, or more natural and real. Literally and figura- 
 tively, he had set his house in order ; and when the Master 
 gave the last call, he obeyed as calmly and as readily as ever 
 he had obeyed his slightest command. 
 
 Seldom has dust been committed to dust amid deeper regrets; 
 and never, we believe, with a more sure and certain hope of a 
 glorious resurrection. 
 
 On the Sunday after the funeral, sermons were preached in 
 Kelvinside Free Church, by the Eev. W. R. Taylor, minister 
 of the church, in the morning, and by myself in the afternoon. 
 
 d 
 
xlii MEMOIR. 
 
 Mr Taylor's text was from Phil. i. 23, "With Christ, which is 
 far better." Eeferring to Dr Burns' death-bed, he said — 
 
 " On the night of this day last week, I watched by the dying bed 
 of the beloved friend — Dr Islay Burns — whose removal has plunged 
 us all into mourning. Gradually the bands holding him to earth 
 were being loosened ; plainly he was going from us, and with him, 
 the brightness, and tenderness, and love which were so peculiarly 
 his ; he was passing through the dark waters of the great river, from 
 whose farther shore there is no returning ; and yet all the while a 
 divine light was resting on the scene of sorrow ; going from us, he 
 was going to Christ ; the commissioned angels were waiting to bear 
 upward his ransomed spirit ; the Son of Man was waiting to welcome 
 him into His eternal joy. And now that he has gone from us — now 
 that we shall henceforth miss his familiar form, and elastic step, and 
 genial smile, and stimulating words — now that those who knew him 
 amid all the intimacies and endearments of family life, as a husband 
 and a father, as a son and as a brother, have had the world made 
 empty and desolate to them — now, too, that the Church on earth has 
 sustained the loss of a true son, of a wise teacher, and of a living 
 epistle of Christ — this remains for our consolation, that with him it 
 is ' far better.' The longings to which he gave frequent and frank 
 expression, during the sore struggle of the past months, have, as we 
 fully believe, been realised ; he has reached home ; he has entered 
 into rest ; he has rejoined the loved ones who went before j above 
 all, he beholds the face of Him he loved supremely." 
 
 Eeferring to Dr Burns' connection with Kelvinside Free 
 Church, Mr Taylor said — 
 
 " He stood toward us as a congregation in a close relation. Many 
 of you remember how wisely and well he presided over your affau's 
 during the critical period of a vacancy in the pastorate. And ever 
 since we have marked with growing gratitude the deep interest he 
 took in all that concerned our welfare, and the considerable share He 
 bore in our work. Especially, both by precept and example, — 
 taking his place very frequently in the choir-seat, — he was ever stimu- 
 lating us in the matter of our service of praise,— a service most 
 congenial to his bright and beautiful nature. To his more public 
 duties he willingly joined those of an elder among us, and I need 
 not say how lovingly and faithfully he discharged these duties. And 
 
MEMOIR. xliii 
 
 how affectionately he went out and in amongst us as a friend ! Ah ! 
 some of us will long and sadly miss him, — the kind, courteous, con- 
 siderate friend, to whom we might ever turn with confidence, — so 
 happy in easy converse, ever and again letting out bright flashes of 
 genial humour amid more earnest talk, — so ready to give counsel in 
 perplexity, — so willing to render help in need, — so tender, too, in 
 sorrow, for he had himself drank deeply of the Master's cup, — and 
 so full, moreover, of the gentle loving spirit of the God-man with 
 whom he dwelt in fellowship ! " 
 
 From my own sermon I extract the closing sentences, as 
 they happen to sum up what I have tried- to write about him 
 in this short memoir. 
 
 *'In looking back on his career, one sees a path like the 
 shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day. 
 First the conscientious school-boy, then the diligent student, 
 then the fervent preacher, after that the laborious pastor, 
 the eloquent writer, and the enthusiastic professor — and all 
 through, the bright cheerful companion, the trusty, aflfectionate 
 friend ; and in his home, the loving son, husband, and father ; 
 the genial host, the Christian gentleman; — this is what we 
 see, and around it a lustre that becomes brighter and brighter 
 as he nears the end. All that he was, I need not say, we all 
 ascribe to the sovereign grace of God, who girded him before 
 he knew Him, and made him the vessel of honour that he 
 came to be. 
 
 " Of the many great and good men with whom he came into 
 contact in early life, there are three that to the public eye 
 stand conspicuous — his father, and his brother, and his pre- 
 decessor in the ministry at St Peter's, Dundee. In his own 
 character there was something of them all, and yet there was 
 something different from any of them. That, I think, was 
 one of the most notable things about him. He was no copy 
 of any other man. He was able to admire without idolising, 
 and to take the good of other men without slavishly copying. 
 For his father — 'The Pastor of Kilsyth' — I need not say 
 that he had the deepest and most aflfectionate reverence 
 
xliv MEMOIR. 
 
 His brother — 'William Burns, the missionary' — he looked 
 on, as his Memoir shows, as one of the most signal products 
 of divine grace in the line of service to which he gave himself. 
 The same might be said as to his estimate of M'Cheyne. 
 And yet he did not even attempt to follow precisely in the 
 footsteps of any of them. In pastoral diligence he had con- 
 siderable resemblance to his father ; in concern for souls, to 
 his brother William ; in tenderness of touch and of feeling, 
 to his predecessor M'Cheyne. Yet he was different from 
 them all; He might be said, I think, to have a wider view 
 of the kingdom of God, to think of it as embracing more 
 than was at least prominent to the mind of any of them. It 
 was the same kingdom ; the great foundation was the same, 
 built as it was on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
 Jesus Christ its Alpha and Omega, its foundation, its head, its 
 glory. It was the same New Jerusalem that he sought to 
 build up ; but he sought to bring into it some elements that 
 often were not thought of, — there were some bright things 
 that he was unwilling to abandon to the god of this world, 
 because when set in their proper place, in relation to the great 
 foundation, they were fitted to promote the glory of Him, of 
 whom and through whom and for whom are all things. 
 
 " It was in this sense, but only in this sense, that he might 
 be said to be a broad churchman. The term was once 
 applied to him in the way of reproach by men who were 
 either too ignorant to know what it meant, or too unscru- 
 pulous to think of the sting which it carried. Oh ! how bit- 
 terly he felt the injustice when it was made to imply that he 
 sat loose to the great doctrines of revelation, — the lost state 
 of man, the redemption of Jesus Christ, the work of regene- 
 ration and renewal of the Holy Ghost ! It was his peculiar 
 glory that with his whole heart he clung to these great truths, 
 and felt them to be the very heart and soul of revelation; 
 and yet, while this was the centre, he could feel an interest 
 in many things that lie, or ought to lie, at the outskirts of 
 the kingdom ; he was a scholar, he was a man of taste, he 
 
MEMOIR. xlv 
 
 liked literature as literature, art as art, philosophy as philo- 
 sophy — believing that there was a place for all of these in the 
 kingdom of God, lamenting the divorce that so often occurs' 
 between culture and Christianity, and sympathising very 
 deeply with all who tried to efiect a reconciliation — with all 
 who, as figurative ' kings of the earth,' sought ' to bring their 
 glory and honour into the New Jerusalem.' That his aesthetic 
 and scholarly sympathies never led him too far, it is not for 
 me to say ; but sure I am that nothing would have grieved 
 him more than to cause the slightest disparagement of the 
 glorious gospel, or to lessen the impression of the great truth 
 that man by nature is a lost and ruined sinner, for whom the 
 only way of recovery is through the work of Christ, and the 
 grace of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 "In a very eminent degree his mind was marked by trans- 
 parent candour, fairness, and freedom from prejudice. He 
 could see and appreciate anything that was good in men and 
 systems, from which, perhaps, in very vital matters, he differed 
 most profoundly. He could find in churches, at which coarser 
 and rougher men do nothing but scoff, elements of value for 
 the spiritual life, which he cherished with deep regard. His 
 mind recoiled from the extremes of dogmatism, especially in 
 regard to questions on which the Holy Scriptures touch but, 
 sparingly, and which are in a large degree matters of mere- 
 inference and application. He had no sympathy with those 
 who, on secondary questions on which the Bible says littlel 
 directly, contend as vehemently for their views, whether on^ 
 one side or another, as they would contend for the divinity of 
 Christ or the need of conversion. He had no favour for that 
 kind of orthodoxy, complete and cold, that is bounded by hard 
 and fast Hues in every direction, but is wanting iu the life, 
 the feeling, the devotion, the fragrance, of the religion of 
 Christ. And yet there were few men who had more real 
 charity in their hearts, even for the most uncharitable; or 
 who, in actual fellowship with them, could be more kind and 
 genial, could succeed better or more easily in establishing 
 
xlvi MEMOIR. 
 
 bonds of friendly intercourse, and could leave such an im- 
 pression of simple winning courtesy. 
 
 "It was in this sense that he was a broad churchman, but in 
 this sense only. And let me add, it were well there were 
 more such among us, for in these days of busy culture and 
 daring speculation, such men are of eminent service in shutting 
 out that broad churchism which is founded on indifference to 
 vital truth, and which evaporates into mere mist the most 
 essential doctrines of divine revelation. 
 
 " Indeed I have always thought of our departed friend as 
 exemplifying in a remarkable degree, on the basis of evangelical 
 truth, what an eminent writer of the day has called ' sweet- 
 ness and light,' The contention of that writer and of his 
 school is, that you cannot have these two things in connection 
 with what is variously called Calvinism, or Puritanism, or 
 Protestantism. The Calvinistic creed, they tell us, breeds 
 nothing but what is sharp, and bitter, and narrow ; its domain 
 is a sort of frigid zone, fatal to all that is genial in character, 
 liberal in culture, free and open in the search for truth. It 
 binds you hand and foot, — it crushes all the generous instincts 
 of your heart, — it fills you with suspicious dread of all the 
 humanities, — it gives you a fiery breath, and destroys all the 
 aroma of love and goodness. There are doubtless some who 
 give a handle to such representations. But was it so with our 
 departed friend ? Was it not eminently the reverse? Who 
 more remarkable than he for true sweetness ? Not the soft 
 simper of weak amiabihty, but the strong steady pulsation of 
 a most, affectionate heart, in which there was no room for any 
 bitterness ? What a charm it gave to his friendship, and 
 what a glow it diffused over his life ? It was a sweetness with 
 which nothing could dwell that was mean or low, a purifying 
 sweetness, a love fruitful in the best products of love, that 
 cleansed him from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, 
 and that gave to his life a purity which is not always found in 
 men of higher pretensions. And as to 'light' — it, too, was 
 his element ; he saw it everywhere — in nature, in science, in 
 
MEMOIR. xlvii 
 
 history, pre-eminently in revelation, and he rejoiced to welcome 
 it, greeting it instinctively with the salutation, * Hail ! holy 
 light, offspring of heaven, first born ! ' He delighted to trace 
 it out where it seemed but scanty, and to make its rays con- 
 verge; never afraid of truth; always seeking for more and 
 more of it, and convinced that whatever temporary difficulty 
 might be found in arranging the materials which it brought 
 together, all would ultimately be built into that great, har- 
 monious temple, of which Jesus Christ is the corner-stone. 
 
 " And now, my brethren, ' the Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
 taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.' He hath 
 taken our friend to a higher service, and, much though we 
 miss him, and greatly though we mourn him, we cannot but 
 be thankful for his comparatively early entrance into the joy 
 of his Lord. Oh, to be followers of them who through faith 
 and patience inherit the promises ! May the Lord, with whom 
 is the residue of the Spirit, vouchsafe the same gifts and 
 graces to many others, both of the ministers and members of 
 our Church ! And oh, that all of us may learn the lesson 
 of this solemn dispensation ! fight as manfully the good 
 fight of faith, pass as tranquilly through the river, and have an 
 entrance as abundantly ministered to us into the everlasting 
 kingdom ! " 
 
I. 
 
 ceeation's groans and hopes.* 
 
 " The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of 
 the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not 
 willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope ; 
 because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of 
 corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we 
 know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together 
 until now : and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first- 
 fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting 
 for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." — Romans viii. 
 19-23. 
 
 In these deeply pregnant words, the Apostle gives ex- 
 pression to a feeling that is more or less common to all 
 men, in every age and country. It is but the articulate 
 utterance of the universal instinct of humanity. In the 
 largest sense of the word, "the whole creation does groan 
 and travail together in pain until now." All along, 
 the world has been ill at ease. Throughout her whole 
 history, she has been groaning under an accumulated 
 weight of evils, which she has in vain sought either to 
 throw off or to forget. She has been thoroughly and 
 profoundly dissatisfied with her present state, and 
 eagerly looking round on all sides for deliverance. Op- 
 pressed with the miseries of the present, she has been 
 
 * Preached before the General Assembly of the Free Church, at Tanfield 
 Hall. 
 
2 SERMONS. 
 
 ever struggling to escape from it, and has sought refuge 
 by turns, now in the past, and now in the future. Now 
 she looks back to what men call the " good old 
 times ; " now she reaches forward to the " good time 
 coming." Now she sings of a golden age gone by; 
 now she dreams of a millennial day at hand. Now she 
 listens to the plaintive but soothing voice of Memory ; 
 now to the syren witchery of Hope. That things once 
 were well with her, she easily persuades herself ; that it 
 will be well with her yet again, she would fain believe, 
 but never for one day or hour does she dream that it is 
 well with her now. Like a weary patient, she tosses 
 evermore in restless pain upon her bed, and wistfully 
 looks out for the day. 
 
 It may be said that all this is nothing more than 
 was natural and necessary. It has been suggested that 
 the deep-felt dissatisfaction with existing things is an 
 essential condition of all improvement, and constitutes 
 the very mainspring of human progress. A state of 
 contentment with preseat attainment is necessarily also 
 a state of stairnation. It is the sense of somethinsf 
 wanting, of some good in the future yet to be attained, 
 that stimulates both individuals and societies to " forget 
 the things that are behind, and to reach forth unto the 
 thinofs that are before." This is true ; but there is 
 more in this matter than that. The thing in question 
 here is not mere want, but positive misery. The world, 
 creation, humanity, groan not for the attainment of yet 
 higher good, but for deliverance from present and crushing 
 evils. It is a terrible incubus which she would fain throw 
 
CREATION'S GROANS AND HOPES 3 
 
 off; a crushing iron chain she longs to burst asunder ; a 
 deep, hidden woe, gnawing at her heart, which for ages 
 she has striven, and striven in vain, to heal. She 
 " groaneth and travaileth together," not in want or in 
 dissatisiaction merely, but '' in pain," looking and 
 longing for deliverance and rest. 
 
 Thus in their broad and general aspect, the purport 
 and bearing of these words is obvious enough. Thej 
 express a truth which is more or less familiar to us all — 
 that truth, in fact, which has all along constituted the 
 grand problem of humanity and of the world, and of 
 which the redemption that is in Christ Jesus furnishes 
 the one all-sufficient solution. It is when we come to 
 consider the whole passage in detail, that any exegetical 
 difficulties occur, and to this therefore we now proceed. 
 
 What, then, is intended by the '^ creation " here ? In 
 what sense does it "groan and travail together" in 
 pain? and what shall be the issue of that " travail?" 
 The first two of these questions we propose to consider 
 at length, glancing only at the last. 
 
 I. It must be obvious at once that the Subject here 
 spoken of, and which is in our version variously rendered 
 " creature " and " creation," is throughout the whole 
 passage the same. In the original, the word used in 
 each case is identical ; nor is there anything in the con- 
 nection to point out or even suggest a change of sense. 
 The only difference of the expression in our text lies in 
 the addition of the word "whole" — "the whole crea- 
 tion," instead of simply " the creation," which may 
 
4 SERMOJVS. 
 
 indeed be fairly taken to indicate that the word is here 
 used in a greater extent or emphasis of meaning, but 
 certainly not in a different sense. In the former verses, 
 the Apostle may have had more definitely in view some 
 particular part of creation, as, for instance, its living 
 and sentient beings, while here he includes within his 
 view the whole system and general frame of created 
 things ; but this amounts only to an expansion, not to a 
 change of meaning. In the 19th verse, he tells us that 
 this " creature " or creation, in " earnest expectation 
 waitetli for the manifestation of the sons of God." It 
 does so, he next tells us (ver. 20), because it is " made 
 subject to vanity," not, however, irremediably, but '' in 
 hope" of future restoration. And this hope shall not be 
 in vain, — for (ver. 21) " the creature," or creation, 
 '' itself also" — not the sons of God only, but creation 
 generally viewed as a whole — " shall be delivered from 
 the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the 
 children of God." And then, finally, to show how deep 
 the present misery is, and how urgent the hoped-for deli- 
 verance — and rising in energy and impassioned fervour 
 as he proceeds — he adds : " For we know " — every one 
 who has eyes to see and a heart to feel what is passing 
 around him in the world must be sensible of the fact — 
 " that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
 together until now." Thus the whole passage flows on 
 in the closest possible continuity of thought and language, 
 and becomes at once perfectly consistent and intelligible, 
 referring throughout to one great theme — one creation, 
 one struggle, and one deliverance. 
 
CREATION'S GROANS AND HOPES. 5 
 
 But what is this "creature " — or rather, as we can now 
 have little difficulty in rendering it throughout, this 
 "creation?" Does it refer, it has been asked, to the 
 material and inanimate creation ? or to the animal crea- 
 tion ? or to the human race ? If to that, to saints or to 
 sinners — to the Church or to the world ? Such are some 
 of the suggestions, by which a cold and frigid verbal 
 criticism has sought to fritter down the grand generality 
 of the Apostle's words, preferring now the one interpre- 
 tation, and now the other ! Which of these is the right 
 one ? We answer, unhesitatingly, neither the one nor 
 the other. The Apostle is here speaking, not of this or 
 that creature, but of the creation ; not of any particular 
 part or parts of that creation exclusively, but the 
 whole, " the whole creation," creation in its unity and 
 totality, the whole of that grand and goodly order which 
 together forms one perfect and indivisible system, and 
 whereof all the several parts are so fitly compacted 
 together, that if " one member suffer, all the members 
 sufier with it." It is this entire system, material, intel- 
 lectual, moral, social, spiritual, that constitutes together 
 the world as God made it, and which came forth perfect 
 and glorious from His creative hand on the morning 
 of the seventh day ; that creation, of which man is the 
 first and noblest part, and of which all other creatures, 
 animate and inanimate, are subservient indeed, but 
 still essential members ; that creation which God made 
 and man hath marred; — it is this creation, this whole 
 creation, which, through all its frame, groans under the 
 weight of the curse, and travaileth together, as in mortal 
 pain and anguish. 
 
6 SERMONS. 
 
 To justify, then, the full meaning of the Apostle's 
 language, it is not necessary to show of each particular 
 creature that it individually shares, and groans under, 
 the general misery. That this misery, indeed, is very 
 generally diffused amongst all creatures, and throughout 
 this lower creation, is most certain. In all quarters, and 
 amid every tribe of beings, the general disorder and dis- 
 location of all things is more or less felt. Everywhere 
 do we see the signs and tokens of the curse ; everywhere 
 the pangs and throes of a sore travail, which, but for it, 
 had been never known. Mute nature, dumb unconscious 
 creatures, and human hearts, alike betray the presence 
 of a fell, disturbing power. For man's sake, all nature 
 mourns and groans in sympathy. But it is not necessary 
 to show that this is universal. Amid this general travail, 
 there may be still individual exceptions, or even whole 
 tribes of beings, wholly, or in great measure, exempted 
 from it. There may be flowers that bloom as fair, birds 
 that sing as joyfully among the branches, mornings that 
 break as bright and glorious, as in the days of Eden. 
 This does not interfere in the least with the full truth of 
 the Apostle's statement. What he is here speaking of 
 is not the individual creatures in detail, but the creation 
 itself; not the separate parts or members, but the whole 
 body ; and his statement is, that this entire frame and 
 constitution of things is out of course; that it is 
 thoroughly dislocated and in disorder; that it groans 
 under the weight of a judicial curse ; that it is filled 
 through all its bounds with the sad tokens of mourning, 
 lamentation, and woe. 
 
CREATION'S GROANS AND HOPES. 7 
 
 In this travail, of course, man himself most deeply and 
 largely shares. Of that labouring creation he is himself 
 the chief part, the very soul and centre of the whole 
 system. He is, as it were, the living spirit of which all 
 nature round, animate and inanimate, is but the uncon- 
 scious body. Indeed, so largely does man bulk in the 
 whole system of the world, that he is sometimes spoken 
 of as if he were its all, and the word " creation " is used 
 almost as if synonymous with humanity. Thus, " Go 
 ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
 creature," literally, to the whole creation, and again, 
 *' The gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached 
 to every creature (literally, in the whole creation) under 
 heaven " (Col. i. 23). That man, then — his sorrows and 
 his hopes, his ruin and his redemption — is the thing here 
 also chiefly, though not exclusively in view, there can be 
 no doubt. He, of all creatures, has most to do with these 
 pangs and throes of anguish. He is the one guilty cause 
 of it all. He is the criminal that has drawn down this 
 fell curse on creation, and on himself. It is his great 
 ruin that has made the whole universe round to tremble. 
 He, therefore, is the chief and deepest sufferer. The 
 pangs of the other creatures are but the dim reflection 
 of his; the groans of all creation, but the faint echoes of 
 his mighty sorrow — the feeble accompaniment to that 
 long, deep, piercing cry, that throughout all ages, and 
 from every land, has come forth from the very heart of 
 humanity itself. Man groans and travails in anguish ^ 
 and all nature, all creation, animate and inanimate, 
 groans and travails with him. 
 
8 SERMONS. 
 
 In this anguish men universally share; good and 
 bad, righteous and wicked, heathen and Christian. All 
 participate in it, to a greater or less extent, and with 
 more or less intensity. It is the travail of universal 
 humanity — of human beings, everywhere and always. 
 Even the children of God are not exempt from it. A 
 part of this groaning creation, and bound to it yet by 
 many intimate ties, they cannot separate themselves 
 from its sorrows, so long as they sojourn here in the 
 flesh. " And not only so," says the Apostle, not only 
 does creation at large groan, " but ourselves also, which 
 have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves 
 groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to 
 wit, the redemption of our body." And again, "We 
 who are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened," 
 &c. The whole world then groans, and believers 
 groan with it — only with a depth and intensity of 
 feeling, with a perception of the true nature of the 
 malady at work, and with a vehement longing for the 
 one remedy, all their own. The world groans under a 
 malady it understands not, and with blind vague 
 aspirations after a deliverance, it knows not what ; the 
 saints groan under the burden of sin, and wait for 
 the complete " redemption " of God. Such is the 
 Subject of the "travail" here spoken of; creation at 
 large — man in particular — and most of all the saints 
 of God. 
 
 II. The Nature of the travail is described by the 
 Apostle in varied and deeply affecting language. 
 
CREATION'S GROANS AND HOPES. 9 
 
 First^ it is a state of " vanity," — a vague and general 
 phrase, but only perhaps on that account the more 
 profoundly impressive, suggesting almost every idea 
 of nothingness and misery. A state of mere empti- 
 ness, inanity (so the word means), fruitless abortion, 
 frustration of hope, everything miscarrying of its end, 
 belying its promise, ending in dust and smoke — and 
 all rounded off at last by that one dread fatality that 
 awaits us all, and that pours mockery on all things 
 beneath the sun, the dark, insatiate grave. Such is 
 life everywhere and in all ages : — life in its best estate, 
 life without Christ, without the blessed hope which 
 the gospel brings. " What profit hath a man of all 
 his labours, which he taketh under the sun? One 
 generation passeth away, and another generation 
 Cometh ; but the earth abideth for ever. The sun 
 also ariseth and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to 
 his place where he arose. The wind goeth to the 
 south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth 
 about continually, and the wind return eth again 
 according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the 
 sea ; yet the sea is not full ; unto the place from 
 whence the rivers come thither they return again. 
 All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it ; 
 the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled 
 with hearing." How terribly vivid is this picture 
 from Truth's own hand, verified by everything that 
 human hearts have felt, and truest poets have sung, 
 from the beginning of the world till now : 
 
10 SERMONS. 
 
 "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
 Creeps in its petty pace from day to-day, 
 To the last syllable of recorded Time, 
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
 The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle ! 
 Life's but a walking shadow — a poor player 
 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 
 And then is heard no more ; it is a tale 
 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
 Signifying nothing." 
 
 " The creation was made subject to vanity." Then, 
 next, it is a state of "bondage." "The creature shall 
 be delivered from the bondage of corruption," &c. 
 the bondage, that is, of the curse and of the devil — 
 language applying generally more or less to the whole 
 creation, but doubtless more specially to man, who, 
 from a free-born son of God, has sunk down to a 
 miserable thrall and drudge of the Evil One. Bound 
 in fetters of corruption, he is all his lifetime subject 
 to bondage, while he travels on like a doomed and 
 chained captive to a hopeless grave. Poor slave! 
 stooping under thy burden, groaning beneath thy 
 chains, labouring evermore in the mines beneath a 
 tyrant master, set to make thy tale of bricks without 
 straw, and with no reward of all thy toil but bitter 
 sorrow, no resting-place but the grave ; — no wonder 
 than thou sometimes bethinkest thyself of thy con- 
 dition, chafing with thy chains, and looking wistfully 
 around for deliverance. 
 
 Then,7?wa%, it is a state of " pain," and that, too, 
 the keenest and most agonising that suffering nature 
 knows. It is pain as of a woman in travail, and crying 
 
CREATION'S GROANS AND HOPES. 11 
 
 out to be delivered. '^ The whole creation groaneth and 
 travaileth together in pain until now." Let us see whether 
 it is not indeed so. Let us look around us, and see if 
 we cannot descry the traces of this general anguish. We 
 shall not have far to seek. The terrible truth meets us 
 everywhere. The world of matter, the world of mind, 
 the world of social life, the world of thought and of 
 speculation, the world of spirit — all feel the effects of 
 the general and deep disorder, and groan and travail 
 together under it. We see it in the material world — 
 alike in the convulsions that shake the inanimate crea- 
 tion, and in those innumerable and deadly maladies to 
 which flesh is heir, that sad catalogue of fevers, palsies, 
 dropsies, consumptions, malignant plagues, spasms, 
 agonised nerves, throbbing brains, and the like, which 
 turn this whole world into a room of sickness, a vast 
 infirmary of the dead and the dying. We see it in the 
 moral world, in those far deeper and bitterer woes that 
 afflict the heart, the stings of remorse, the forebodings of 
 retribution, the nausea of pleasures gone, and of sin's cup 
 drunk to the dregs, the corrodings of care, the bitterness 
 of disappointment, the pangs of separation, and lonely, 
 desolate bereavement, a wounded spirit, a broken heart. 
 Oh ! what a deep wail of anguish is every day coming 
 up from the world, swelled by innumerable voices from 
 every land, and from every kindred of the earth, in one 
 sad unending chorus from generation to generation ! 
 Therein surely creation groans and travails together in 
 pain. Then look at the social world — the world of asso- 
 ciated life, whether domestic, national, or ecclesiastical. 
 
12 SERMONS. 
 
 There, too, tlie same unending conflict reigns. "What 
 has been the burden of all history from the beginning of 
 the world till now, but just the same melancholy tale of 
 social uneasiness and distress ? Foreign wars, intestine 
 strife, sanguinary insurrections, violent revolutions, fol- 
 lowed by still more violent reactions, uneasy oscillations 
 between despotism and anarchy, men's hearts chafing 
 with present evil, and ever vehemently struggling after 
 some new and better state of things, which still evermore 
 eludes their pursuit. Thus society, age after age, groans 
 and travails, ever and anon coming to the birth, as 
 if with some new and great development, and yet not 
 having strength to bring forth. Meanwhile, its great 
 deep malady remains unhealed, and the cry of the 
 oppressed, and the groaning of the prisoner, and the 
 bitter wail of neglected poverty, and the deep-muttered 
 curse of the down-trodden slave, still rise in one loud 
 complaint to heaven, and enter into the ears of " the 
 Lord of Sabaotli." — In the ijitellectual and speculative 
 world we see the same thing. What a scene of strife and 
 travail do we witness there ! the strife of thoughtful 
 spirits, yearning after the light ; the travail of struggling 
 reason, wrestling with dark and terrible problems, which 
 for ages have pressed like a weight on the human heart, 
 and which have defied all solution ; — the origin of evil 
 — the tyrant reign of sin, unbroken, almost unbroken, 
 under the government of an almighty and infinitely 
 good and holy God — with all those other connected 
 mysteries that in every age have baffled reason and stag- 
 gered faith. A sore travail surely : — to some deep and 
 
CREATION'S GROANS AND HOPES. 13 
 
 Berious spirits, perhaps even more agonising than the 
 bitterest ills of common life, more truly a travail of the 
 soul than any other form of mere natural sorrow. Under 
 its pressure, some noble hearts have almost broken, and 
 felt as if they could not endure existence, unless God 
 should send them light at last. This travail was going 
 on in the Apostle's day, — perhaps at no previous period 
 so intensely as then. It is going on now — it shall never 
 cease, until that final and glorious consummation of all 
 things shall solve at last the mystery of being, and 
 vindicate at once and for ever the ways of God to 
 man. — And now, last of all, we see this same travail 
 in the spiritual world — in the souls of men who have 
 been awakened by the Divine Spirit to a conscious- 
 ness of their relation to God and to things unseen. 
 Therein, indeed, is the deepest agony of all — an agony 
 altogether peculiar at once in its nature and in its 
 intensity. They alone know the real nature of the 
 evil under which creation groans ; they alone know 
 its real depth and malignity ; and therefore they 
 groan under its burden, and yearn after the true 
 deliverance, as no other creature does or can. " They 
 groan within themselves," says the Apostle, in their 
 own deep hearts, with an anguish which no stranger 
 can intermeddle with, or even understand. " Out of 
 the depths have I cried unto Thee, Lord." " I 
 wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and on His 
 word do I hope." " My soul waiteth for the Lord, 
 more than they that watch for the morning : I say, 
 more than they that watch for the morning." '' Deep 
 
14 SERMONS. 
 
 calleth unto deep, at the noise of Thy waterspouts ; all 
 Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me." " My 
 soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto Thy 
 judgments at all times." Thus he "groans being 
 burdened," toiling on in a daily, life-long combat 
 with sin, with death, and all the power of hell; 
 daily dying, yet daily struggling into life, while ever 
 and anon his burdened heart sighs out in anguish, " 
 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from 
 the body of this death?" 
 
 Such is the mighty travail of this whole creation. 
 
 III. On the Issue of it we may not now enter at any 
 length. We simply indicate the chief points deducible 
 from the Apostle's words. 
 
 1. If the sufferings of creation have been long and 
 terrible, there is the sure hope of a glorious deliverance 
 at last. From the first moment of her travail this hope 
 has been held out to her. " For the creature was 
 made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason 
 of Him who subjected the same in hope." Not 
 willingly. It was not its natural and normal state, 
 but a condition wholly against nature, and superin- 
 duced by the curse. It was the result, not of an 
 original constitution, but of a penal doom. Therefore 
 creation recoiled against it, and submitted to it only 
 reluctantly, and of necessity, as the righteous decree of 
 Him who doeth all things well. But in the very act 
 of pronouncing that decree He revealed the promise of 
 a remedy. While justice uttered aloud the curse of sin, 
 
CREATION'S GROANS AND HOPES. 15 
 
 mercy whispered the hope of deliverance in that first 
 primeval promise — " The seed of the woman shall bruise 
 the head of the serpent." Thus, at the very moment that 
 night settled down on the world, already the streaks of 
 a glorious morning appeared in the sky. That morning, 
 though long delayed, will assuredly break at last ! 
 
 2. In that deliverance, when it comes, man shall 
 have the principal share. He is manifestly the central 
 figure, throughout this whole momentous history. His 
 sorrows and his deliverance, his ruin and his redemp- 
 tion, form the burden of the whole. All else is on 
 his account, and with relation to him. As in his ruin 
 all creation mourned, so in his restoration shall all 
 creation rejoice and clap her hands. The one grand 
 hope of creation is the raising up of a new and glorious 
 humanity, under a new and glorious Head, out of the 
 wreck and ruin of the old. It is this accordingly that 
 the Apostle in this passage has throughout mainly in 
 view ; for ever, when he is speaking of the earnest 
 expectation and painful travail of creation at large, it is 
 still the manifestation of the sons of God, their glorious 
 liberty, their adoption, and the redemption of their 
 bodies from the grave, that is the special object of it. 
 It is their natal, their coronation, their marriage day, 
 and for their sakes nature lays aside her long-worn sack- 
 cloth and puts on her festive garments of joy again ! 
 
 3. But in that glory all creation shall share with 
 them. There shall not only be a new and redeemed 
 humanity, but a new and redeemed creation. '' For the 
 creature itself also shall be delivered," &c. It shall not 
 
16 SERMONS. 
 
 be destroyed and cast away as a vain philosophy dreamed 
 of old, as a thing necessarily and in itself evil and 
 accursed, a mere clog and burden to the ethereal, im- 
 mortal spirit, but shall be built up again, a new and 
 nobler frame, out of the ashes of the old. For " we, 
 according to His promise, look for new heavens and a 
 new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." And the 
 whole, blessed hope ! both in its outward and its inward, 
 its material and its spiritual part, is combined together 
 in the august vision of the Apocalypse — " I saw a new 
 heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the 
 first earth were passed away; and there was no more 
 sea," &c. (chap. xxi. 1-5.) 
 
 4. The present pangs and throes of creation are the 
 preparation and sure tokens of the coming deliverance. 
 The very name given in this inspired oracle to these 
 sorrows is itself a proof of this. For '' a woman when 
 she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; 
 but, so soon as she is delivered of the child, she remem- 
 bereth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born 
 into the world." Even so, creation groans and travails 
 in hope of a like happy issue. These are not death- 
 pangs, but birth-pangs. They are not, as unenlightened 
 nature, ignorant of the new and living hope, must have 
 regarded them, the throes of an expiring world, but the 
 birth-throes of a new and better system of things. As 
 the partial and temporary convulsions of nations have 
 ever been precursors of great epochs, so shall the col- 
 lective convulsions and sorrows of all time prepare the 
 way for the greatest and most blessed epoch of all; 
 
CREATION'S GROANS AND HOPES. 17 
 
 and, when that glad day shall come, then shall that 
 once suffering Nature remember no more her anguish in 
 the joy of that new creation, and amid the voices of the 
 morning stars, that shall sing together and shout for 
 joy again. 
 
 Come, then, thou Divine Redeemer ! Thou one only 
 restorer of a ruined world. " Bright and Morning Star " 
 of the new creation, arise on the darkness of our misery! 
 Thou " Desire of all Nations," come ! The ages wait for 
 Thee ; creation groans for Thee ; Thy saints expect and 
 look for Thee. Let the day break at last, and the 
 shadows flee away ! 
 
IL 
 
 SEARCHING SCRIPTURE, AND FINDING CHRIST. 
 
 "Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life : and 
 they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that 
 ye might have life." — John v. 39, 40. 
 
 Many of joii are doubtless aware that the first clause of 
 this most familiar and pregnant text, as it stands in 
 the original Greek, may be read in two ways. It may 
 either bear the force of an imperative injunction, as in 
 our version, " Search the Scriptures," or, as in the 
 margin of some editions, that of a simple affirmative, 
 " Ye search the Scriptures." In the one case, it is the 
 enforcement of a duty ; in the other, the assertion of a 
 fact. It declares either what all men ought to do, or 
 what the Jews, whom our Lord thus addressed, actually 
 did do. Without venturing to pronounce dogmatically 
 on a question at the best doubtful, and on which com- 
 mentators of the highest name have held different opin- 
 ions, I would simply remark that the adoption of the 
 latter view, that, namely, which regards the clause as 
 an affirmative, does seem to impart a clearness of 
 connection, and a solemn point and force to the whole 
 passage, which is not otherwise apparent. According 
 to this view, our Lord is pleading with His Jewish 
 
SEARCHING SCRIPTURE, AND FINDING CHRIST. 19 
 
 auditors on the ground of their glaring inconsistency in 
 receiving and venerating the Scriptures, and yet reject- 
 ing Him of whom these Scriptures so clearly testified. 
 They consulted, and consulted most earnestly, these 
 divine oracles of saving truth, and yet refused to obey 
 the responses which these oracles gave forth. '' Ye 
 search the Scriptures," says He; — ye have them continu- 
 ally in your hands, pore over their sacred pages, fondly 
 dwell on every line and word of the precious roll ; ye 
 seek there the secret of eternal life, and all these Scrip- 
 tures with one consent testify of me, and point to me 
 as the Lord and giver of that life ; and yet, in your 
 blind infatuation, ye will not come unto me that ye may 
 have life. Ye are thus self-condemned, — condemned 
 not only by the Scriptures which you hold in your 
 hand, but by your own act of searching them. Ye 
 not only possess that lamp divine which infallibly 
 guides each faithful soul in the way of peace, but you 
 actually hold it in your hands, and hold it down to 
 your path for the very purpose of finding the right way 
 of life eternal, and yet ye refuse to follow the road 
 which its blessed beams reveal. Ye search the Scrip- 
 tures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal 
 life ; and they are they which testify of me : and yet ye 
 are not willing to come unto me that ye may have life. 
 Taking the words, then, in this sense, we are brought 
 at once in front of a most important question — a ques- 
 tion, too, of as fresh interest and of as vital moment for 
 us in these days as for the Jewish hearers of our Lord 
 eighteen centuries ago, — the question, namely, why so 
 
20 SERMONS. 
 
 many persons, well disposed in the main, and in some sort 
 desirous of obtaining eternal salvation, will not come to 
 Christ that they may have life, — will, in fact, go any- 
 where else, and do anything and endure anything, 
 rather than betake themselves direct to Him in whom 
 it hath pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell, 
 and to whom both Scripture and their own hearts' 
 convictions point, as the one name given under Heaven 
 among men whereby we must be saved. 
 
 I. First, then, and on the very surface, it is 
 evident that this failure to find Christ was not from 
 any deficiency in the means of discovering Him. It 
 is this which our Lord so emphatically marks in 
 the case of the Jews. They had the Scriptures, and 
 they searched them. They had the mine, and they 
 dug in that mine in quest of the eternal riches. The 
 field in which that glorious treasure was hid lay all 
 around them and beneath their feet. The light which 
 God had kindled in a dark world to break the gloom, 
 and reveal to benighted travellers their way, shone full 
 before their eyes ; and that light, like a bright stream 
 of radiance shot athwart a stately picture, shone full on 
 the face of Jesus, the central figure of the whole eco- 
 nomy of grace. They had conversed from infancy with 
 primeval promises that spake of Him, with pregnant 
 types that foreshadowed Him, with mystic rites which 
 prefigured Him, with majestic psalms and hymns 
 that sung of Him, with prophetic visions of His glory, 
 which revealed the far future, and brought His coming 
 
SEARCHING SCRIPTURE, AND FINDING CHRIST. 21 
 
 and His kingdom full before their eye. All these 
 pointed to one object, and with one voice cried, " Be- 
 hold the Lamb of God." They could not, indeed, see 
 directly the person of the Lord, for He was not yet 
 manifested in the flesh, nor had eye of man or angel 
 yet beheld the lineaments of that countenance which is 
 fairer than the sons of men; but that old revelation 
 was but one grand picture of Him drawn by a master 
 hand, so that looking upon it, they could scarcely fail 
 to look upon Him. And they did look upon it, look 
 upon it most earnestly and intently. They ^'^ searched'''' 
 the Scriptures. They not only venerated, but almost 
 worshipped the sacred volume. The letters of its holy 
 words they regarded with a superstitious and fond 
 respect almost idolatrous, and treasured them up and 
 guarded them like grains of precious gold. They 
 gloried in the possession of them as the brightest diadem 
 of their nation, the palladium of their strength, the 
 most precious birthright of their children and their 
 children's children. The very number of its words, 
 and even letters, they counted, lest in the haste of 
 transcription a single particle of what they deemed so 
 transcendently holy should be lost. The golden sen- 
 tences they inscribed on the borders of their garments 
 and on the posts of their doors ; and they talked of 
 them when they sat in the house and when they walked 
 by the way. In many respects they treated the sacred 
 volume in such a way as to be at once an example and 
 a warning to multitudes among ourselves. With privi- 
 leges far less than the mass of professing Christians 
 
22 SERMONS. 
 
 now, they improved them far more. Yet, after all, they 
 failed ; multitudes of those who thus searched the Scrip- 
 tures failed in finding Christ ; or, if they found Him, 
 found Him only to reject Him. 
 
 My beloved brethren, how is it with you in this 
 matter? You have the Scriptures as well as they, 
 the Scriptures now completed and enhanced by the 
 clearer and grander revelations of the New Testament 
 Word ; not the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms 
 only, but all these crowned and consummated by the 
 record of that of which all the law and the prophets 
 spake ; the Law and the Gospel meeting each other, 
 and mutually shedding and receiving light from each 
 other, — like two corresponding sides of one glorious 
 arch resting on and supporting one another, which 
 both alike meet in Him who is the eternal centre 
 and keystone, the eternal " Word made flesh." Well, 
 then, have you found Christ there? found Him in 
 glorious manifestation to your soul, and as the in- 
 ward and most sweet treasure of your heart ? Have 
 you ever searched the Scriptures for Him? I know 
 you read the Scriptures, and in some sort, it may 
 be, study them ; but do you search them, — wistfully 
 pore over their pages, and explore their hidden depths, 
 as one that seeketh the true wisdom, and searcheth for 
 her as for hid treasure ? The unbelieving Jews even 
 did this. Do you ? Or were even the Pharisees and the 
 scribes nearer the kingdom of heaven than you are ? 
 They searched the Scriptures of truth, and yet missed 
 Him who is the centre and sum of all truth ; and shall 
 
SEARCHING SCRIPTURE, AND FINDING CHRIST. 23 
 
 you not search at all, and yet hope to find Him ? May it 
 not rather be said of you with emphasis even greater 
 than of the Jews of old, that " light is come into the 
 world, but ye have loved darkness rather than light, 
 because your deeds are evil." 
 
 I speak not now of those who are entire neglectors of 
 the sacred volume, who let it lie amid lumber and dust, 
 contemned and forgotten ; who have to run hither and 
 thither to the nooks and corners of the house in search 
 of the blessed book, if perchance it is asked for. Such 
 men live palpably and unmistakably as if there were no 
 Bible in the world, no God, no Christ, no heaven, no 
 hell, no soul to be lost or saved. I do not speak 
 of these, but of many who show some respect to the 
 Bible, and peruse its contents more or less regularly 
 in the closet or the family.. They read it, but they do 
 not search it. They turn its pages, run listlessly over 
 its lines, accomplish, with a mind not absolutely asleep 
 or absent, their accustomed portion ; but they do 
 nothing which by the utmost stretch of language could 
 be called searching the Scriptures. In truth, they are 
 searching for nothing. They are merely discharging a 
 task, complying with a proper and decent custom, — a 
 kind of ojms operatum to be gone through at certain 
 times as an integral part of a respectable religious pro- 
 fession, and that is all. No wonder they never find 
 Christ, seeing that they do not even seek him, scarce 
 even dream of anything to be sought or found in the 
 field of the eternal word, or aught whatever to be 
 looked for beyond the mere fulfilment of a recognised 
 
24 SERMONS. 
 
 obligation, and purchasing to the conscience the tem- 
 porary satisfaction of having done a duty. Verily, the 
 scribes and Pharisees of that infatuated and blinded 
 generation shall enter the kingdom of heaven sooner 
 than these. 
 
 II. I remark again, that the failure in question does 
 not wholly arise from a want of intelligence and right 
 understanding in the use of the means. Observe the 
 case of the Jews. We have seen how they searched the 
 oracles of divine truth ; let us now observe the views 
 with which they searched them. They did it with this 
 distinct and definite aim, that therein they might find 
 the secret of eternal life. " Ye search the Scriptures," 
 says Christ, " because in them ye think ye have eternal 
 life." They thus sought the right thing as well as sought 
 it in the right place. They desired to be saved, — to dis- 
 cover and possess the priceless jewel of life eternal which 
 sin had forfeited, but which grace restored, and they went 
 and explored the sacred oracles with the distinct purpose 
 of therein learning how it was to be found. No doubt 
 they had very dim and erroneous views of the nature of 
 the blessing which they were seeking. The eternal life, 
 which is " the gift of God through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord," was a very different thing indeed from that 
 earthly elysium of which their gross and carnal hearts 
 had dreamed. They had scarcely, even in their best 
 moments, formed a conception of that kingdom which, 
 eschewing all the outward insignia of pomp and power, 
 is, in its very essence, *' righteousness, and peace, and 
 
SEARCHING SCRIPTURE, AND FIiYDIiVG CHRIST. 25 
 
 joy in the Holy Ghost; " of that crown whose pathway 
 is the cross, of that life which mainly lies in dying unto 
 sin. Still, all corrupted and debased as the idea was in 
 their fleshly minds, it was, after all, the right thing they 
 sought, and in coming to God's Word to search after it, 
 they were so far on the right scent. Had they earnestly 
 and faithfully followed out the pursuit, the mists of 
 Jewish carnalism might gradually have cleared away; 
 the dim twilight might have ripened into perfect day, — 
 and when in God's light at last they saw the light 
 clearly, they might have been startled to find that the 
 long-sought gift of God was a far grander, nobler, diviner 
 thing than they had even in their highest aspirations 
 dreamed. At least, however little they knew of its nature, 
 they were searching after '^ eternal life." 
 
 How many Bible readers nowadays are there of whom 
 even this much cannot be said? How is it, brethren, I 
 again ask, in this matter with you ? The Jews searched the 
 Scriptures because in them they thought they had eternal 
 life. What do the great mass of Bible readers think to 
 find therein ? Alas ! the answer is but too plain. Just 
 nothing at all. They do it simply to discharge a duty, 
 satisfy conscience, while away a tedious Sabbath hour, 
 contribute somewhat to the general sum total of a decent 
 religious profession, — nothing more. Of a great blessing, 
 of a treasure more precious than a thousand worlds to 
 be sought and found therein, of a living Saviour to be 
 toi;ched, of an all-sufficient God to be enjoyed, of an 
 eternal heaven to be antedated now, of the lightened 
 conscience, the renovated will, the burning heart, — of all 
 
26 SERMONS. 
 
 this they have no more conception than the moth that 
 eats into the texture, or the tiny insect that flits across 
 the surface of the sacred page. Like a blind beggar 
 wandering through a valley of gems, or the unconscious 
 clown stolidly turning over the clods beneath which lie 
 buried mines of gold, — such is the man who reads the 
 Word, and yet thinks not that therein we have eternal 
 life. Surely, we may again ask, if the Pharisees and 
 scribes of those degenerate and unhappy days were not 
 nearer the kingdom of heaven than such as these ? 
 
 III. Now, then, for the true reason for the failure of 
 these men. It was not, we have seen, for want of the 
 necessary means of finding the truth, nor yet for want 
 of a certain intelligence and right aim in using these 
 means. Where, then, did the evil lie ? I answer, briefly, 
 in the will, " Ye are not willing," says Christ, '' to 
 come unto me, that ye might have life." It is thus a 
 moral perversity, not an intellectual defect ; not a want 
 of light, but a want of love. It is to be remarked here 
 that the word " will," as employed in our version, is, as 
 the original clearly shows, to be taken emphatically, not 
 as expressing the mere future tense, but a distinct act of 
 volition, ^'Ye are not willing to come unto me." Ye 
 know who is the Author and Dispenser of the life you 
 seek, but ye are not willing to come unto Him for it; 
 ye sincerely desire that which Christ comes to bestow, 
 at least according to your own conception of the bless- 
 ing ; in point of fact you have been searching the Scrip- 
 tures for it, but ye are not willing to come for it to Him. 
 
SEARCHING SCRIPTURE, AND FINDING CHRIST. 27 
 
 Your conscience cries, your lieart yearns for rest and 
 peace, that rest and peace which is only to be found in 
 Christ, and in your heart of hearts you feel that yon 
 ought to come to Him, that it is madness to stay away, 
 hut ye are not willing. There is something about Christ 
 himself that you recoil from ; something which, even 
 when you would enjoy His benefits, repels you from close 
 contact and intimate fellowship with Himself, and makes 
 you unwilling to come. What is the reason of this ? It 
 is chiefly, I think, twofold : 
 
 First. The natural carnality of the heart. By nature 
 and by habit we live immersed in the things of sense. 
 At home, among things outward, material, tangible, we 
 with difficulty rise to any conception and contempla- 
 tion of things spiritual and unseen. Dwelling in a 
 world of earthly shadows, we come to regard them as 
 the only true realities, and become incapable of imagin- 
 ing anything better or higher. That which eye hath 
 seen, which ear hath heard, and which entereth into the 
 gross and earthly conceptions of our natural reason, — 
 these are the boundaries of the world in which we 
 habitually live, and anything beyond seems to us a 
 visionary dream. "The natural man receiveth not the 
 things of the Spirit of God ; neither can he know 
 them, because they are spiritually discerned." Now, 
 to this spiritual world, Christ and all that essentially 
 pertaius to His kingdom, belongs. We cannot see Him 
 Avith eyes of flesh, we cannot touch Him with hands of 
 flesh ; to approach Him, to hold converse with Him, 
 we must go beyond the bounds of flesh and sense alto- 
 
28 SERMONS. 
 
 gether, and enter into a region wholly new. We must 
 soar on wings of spirit and gaze with eyes of spirit ; and 
 with hands and senses, spiritual and divine, hold con- 
 verse with the unseen. To the natural carnal mind 
 this is a hard saying. It is one main reason why 
 natural men will not come unto Christ, that they may 
 have life. Indeed, they do not know how to come ; 
 scarcely know what coming means. Oh, what need for 
 such to cry for the Spirit ! that Spirit of which Paul so 
 joyfully speaks when he says, "But God hath revealed 
 them unto us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all 
 things, yea the deep things of God." 
 
 Secondly. The love of sin. They instinctively feel 
 that they cannot come to Jesus and live in His divine 
 and holy fellowship and yet live in sin. They feel that 
 there is a natural and eternal incompatibility between 
 the two things. Blinded as their hearts are, they are 
 not so blinded as not to see that if they come to Jesus, 
 the Holy One, they must be conformed to Him ; that if 
 they live within the attraction of His fellowship, all old 
 things must be done away and all things must become 
 new. They may come to Jesus just as they are, but 
 they cannot abide with Jesus just as they are. They 
 cannot dwell with the Holy One, and yet live unholy ; 
 with the lowly Lamb, and yet retain their pride and 
 vain-glory ; with the fount of love, and yet live in sel- 
 fishness and malice one towards another. The very 
 siofht of that countenance which is fairer than the sous 
 of men, that countenance on which love sits enthroned, 
 and purity ineiFable dwells, must either repel into 
 
SEARCHING SCRIPTURE, AND FINDING CHRIST. 29 
 
 antagonism or draw into sympathy. All this they feel. 
 Were it a mere new doctrine, a religious system, a 
 ritual observance, a specific duty, it were quite otherwise. 
 These are things which a man may handle and deal 
 with at his will, and in other respects live as he lists ; 
 but it is another thing to draw near and to hold fellow- 
 ship with a person, a living person, above all, such a 
 person as the most holy and blessed Son of God. With 
 such an one we cannot converse, cannot dwell without a 
 living contact of heart with heart, soul with soul, which 
 must either drive them into wider variance than ever, 
 or bind them in sympathy, in likeness, in oneness of 
 nature and being, closer and closer than ever. This is 
 what men feel ; therefore they are not willing to come to 
 Christ that they may have life. They are quite willing 
 to get blessings from Him, but they are not willing to 
 dwell with Him. They love the hope of heaven it may 
 be, but they love their sin and their carnal pleasures 
 better ; and therefore they will not come to Him that 
 they might have life. They feel that if Jesus once 
 comes into their hearts and homes. He will make an 
 entire revolution there; that " Take these things hence " 
 will be the very first accents of that holy voice that 
 shall resound through the temple of their hearts should 
 they ever bid welcome to that King of glory ; that like 
 Zaccheus they must signalise their reception of that 
 adorable guest by such an act as this, " Behold, Lord, 
 the half of my goods I give to the poor," &c. And for 
 this they are not prepared. All other treasures would 
 they willingly lay at His feet, any other dainties lay on 
 
30 SFRJ10^^'ii. 
 
 His table, to regale that blessed Stranger ; but this, the 
 sweetest of all to Him, — that for which He came down 
 from heaven, that for which He endured the cross, 
 that for which He stands at our door and as a suppliant 
 pleads, that in which He sees of the travail of His 
 soul and is satisfied, — the sacrifice and surrender of the 
 heart's darling sins on the altar of His love, — this they 
 will not give ; therefore they will not come unto Him, 
 therefore He and they remain strangers for ever. 
 
 One or two words now in conclusion by way of prac- 
 tical inference. Learn the preciousness of the Bible 
 as a means of leading us to Jesus. How precious 
 must be the casket that contains such a jewel ; how 
 fflorious the field that hides beneath its surface such a 
 treasure. That casket, my brethren, that field is yours. 
 Here is the clue which, if you firmly hold and surely 
 follow it, will guide you out of life's labyrinths to the 
 glorious light and liberty of the kingdom of God — will 
 guide to Christ, to God, to heaven. Oh, clasp this 
 priceless treasure to your heart ; and as you remember 
 that the whole universe is not equal in value to one 
 Bible, thank God on your bended knee that ever the 
 blessed volume reached your hand, and pray, " Open 
 thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things in 
 Thy law." 
 
 Learn the worthlessness of the Bible if it leads us 
 not to Christ. After all, the Bible is only a light to 
 show us the way, — a hand to point us to the cross, — 
 a voice of one crying in the wilderness, " Prepare ye 
 the way of the Lord, make His paths straight." It 
 
SEARCHING SCRIPTURE, AND FINDING CHRIST. 31 
 
 cannot of itself save us ; it can only direct us to Him 
 who can. It can never serve as wings to bear us to 
 heaven, but it may be a millstone to drag us down to 
 hell. It cannot save us, but it may condemn us. This, 
 and this only, is life eternal, even to know Him who 
 is the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath 
 sent. 
 
III. 
 
 FAITH S VISION. 
 
 " Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
 not seen." — Hebrews xi. 1. 
 
 In these sublime words we have what has sometimes 
 been called the inspired definition of saving faith ; and 
 yet when we look at it closely, it is not so much a de- 
 finition as a description. The Scripture deals not much 
 in definitions ; its element is not so much that of 
 abstract forms as of living truth ; it delights to regard 
 the things of the Spirit, not in their metaphysical 
 essence, but in their concrete, actual embodiment. Its 
 language is not that of the schools, but of common 
 men, and of that real everyday world in which com- 
 mon men fight their life-battle, and win or lose the 
 prize. It furnishes not articles for a creed, or links for 
 a logical chain, but life-truths to fire men's souls, — 
 living germs of thought to take root in the human 
 heart and spring up into immortal fruit. Its aim is 
 not alone, or mainly, the information of the reason or 
 the theoretical development of doctrine, but the quick- 
 ening of the Spirit, the new life of the soul. Accord- 
 ingly, the Apostle, in proceeding in the words before us 
 to give some notion of the true nature and functions of 
 
FAlTirS VISIOX. 33 
 
 that divine principle of grace, tells us not so much 
 what it is as what it does. " Faith," says he, " is the 
 substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
 not seen," — that is, it imparts substance and reality to 
 those objects of the believer's expectation which else 
 were shadowy and unsubstantial, and certainty to that 
 unseen world of eternal things which else might seem 
 but a visionary dream of the heart. It makes future 
 things present, distant things near ; it overleaps the 
 bounds of time and sense, draws the eternal veil, and 
 brings all heaven before our eyes. It makes the soul 
 at once a prophet and a seer, anticipating the future 
 and beholding the unseen ; it lifts it above the thral- 
 dom of time and sense, and teaches it in toil and suffer- 
 ing, life and death, to " endure as seeing Him who is 
 invisible." Such is the nature, and such are the blessed 
 functions, of " precious faith." 
 
 Faith thus, it will be seen, has to do exclusively 
 with two things, or rather, with two classes of things, 
 viz., the future and the unseen. It is the direct oppo- 
 site of sense. Where the realm and sphere of sense 
 ends, the realm and sphere of faith begins. Says the 
 apostle elsewhere, referring to this very distinction, 
 " We walk by faith, not by sight." The things of which 
 the one takes no cognisance are the very things with 
 which the other has to do. Where the one is blind, the 
 other sees. What is night to the one is day to the 
 other. Where the rocks, and the trees, and the rivers, 
 and the flowers of sense die away into darkness, the 
 stars of faith shine out in their glory. In short, what 
 
 c 
 
34 SERMOiYS. 
 
 " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it 
 entered into the heart " of nature to conceive, with rapt 
 vision faith beholds, with beatific fruition she enjoys, 
 and it is the one divine sense which sees, hears, grasps, 
 handles, and for evermore possesses them all. " Faith 
 is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
 things not seen." 
 
 I. " T/ie substance of tilings hoped for.^' A great 
 part of the life of man here below lies in hope. From 
 the very law and constitution of his nature it is so. He 
 is ever, by an irresistible instinct, looking forward, 
 pressing onward. A living fountain of bright anticipa- 
 tion springs up within the heart, and sparkles in the 
 light of the rising sun. He never can feel that he is at 
 rest, that he has attained his ultimate satisfaction and 
 goal. He "never is, but always to be, blest." Thus, 
 all our life long, hope continues our companion and our 
 counsellor ; and even in this present world the things 
 hoped for occupy the largest space in our thoughts, 
 form the most influential element of our daily existence. 
 Indeed, it is to this world pre-eminently that hope 
 belongs. Here is its distinctive sphere and realm. There 
 is no place for it, at least in its present form, either 
 in heaven or in hell. In the one there is nothing to be 
 hoped for, in the other there is nothing to be desired. 
 In the bright world above hope has been glorified into 
 fruition, and in the realm of woe it has darkened into 
 despair. Here, then, is the place for hope ; here, in 
 this uncertain, fateful struggle between life and deatli, 
 
FAITWS VISION. 35 
 
 salvation and perdition, — in this twilight realm that is 
 neither night nor day, but a dim border-land between 
 the one and the other, — where the sun of earthly joy is 
 sinking, and the sun of a better life has not yet risen. 
 To this dark prison-house of our exile and our bondage, 
 this heavenly visitant comes and bids us not despair. 
 Amid our homes of sin and sorrow, toil and care, that 
 angel form glides day by day, cheering the mourners, 
 lifting up the fallen from the ground, nerving to fresh 
 courage the despairing heart, and singing pleasant songs 
 in the ears of those who had hung their harps on the 
 willows, as they deemed it, for ever, and could listen to 
 the voice of no other comforter than her's. 
 
 How forlorn, brethren, were our condition here on 
 earth, were there no such comforter, — were there no 
 solace or balm for the woes of time but that which is 
 to be found in the past or in the present ! — What is 
 the past to us ? It is gone. It is nothing or next to 
 nothing to us now. It is away, away amid the ever- 
 lasting shadows, irrevocably and for ever. Nothing 
 remains to us of it but its recollections ; and what 
 recollections ? Mainly of its pleasures and of its sins ; 
 of its pleasures that are departed, and of its sins that 
 will not depart, — of its pleasures that wave to us a 
 last adieu, of its sins that stare upon us and scare 
 and affright us, and with shadow-hand write records 
 of doom on the wall, — the one a heap of withered 
 flowers, the other a nest of sleeping serpents. Happy, 
 thrice happy they who have recollections of another 
 kind, — of days spent with God, of holy, blessed 
 
36 SERMONS. 
 
 work done in tlie name of the Lord Jesus, of precious 
 moments here on earth that sow the seeds of beatific 
 ages above, of holy friendships cemented here to be per- 
 petuated for evermore in heaven. These things, indeed, 
 live. All that is of God, all that is of heaven lives, but 
 all else dies, perishes, vanishes like fragrance from 
 withered flowers, or music from the harp whose strings 
 are broken, and whose very framework moulders and 
 rots away amid the ruins of the world. 
 
 And then t/ie present ! Surely it is not needful that we 
 should say much of it, for with one consent men are ever 
 striving to eschew it, and to seek an escape from its cares 
 and unrest, either in the past or in the future. No one 
 ever thinks of it as a thing to rest in, as anything more 
 than an endurable transition state between that which is 
 past and that which is to come. Then, every day we live 
 it becomes less and less a thing to rest in. Every day 
 the past becomes more and more sad, and casts a sadder 
 and still sadder shadow on the present. Affections 
 blighted, longings unfulfilled, early hopes crushed or 
 long deferred, confidence betrayed, love's dearest, holiest 
 treasures thrown away, friends, kindred, endeared com- 
 panions of other days dead or estranged, trusted hearts 
 found hollow, distrusted and injured ones too late found 
 true, old wells of blessing dried up and new wells of 
 Marah opened that shall never run dry, — these, and it 
 may be sorrows darker still, a guilty conscience, a 
 blighted heart, a wounded spirit, a wasted, degraded 
 life, — and all terminating at last in that great, great 
 darkness toward which the stream of life is ever rushing 
 
FAITH'S VISION. 37 
 
 and never returning. Such is life, — the life of man upon 
 the earth, were there nothing to be hoped for beyond, 
 no good thing to come when this weary life-struggle and 
 this load of flesh dissolves. Oh, the future, the future ! 
 the bright, the glorious future ! the good time coming, 
 the true and everlasting golden age, the calm after the 
 storm, the spring after the dreary winter, the daj'^break 
 after this long, dull, dark night, of which poets have 
 sung and weary struggling hearts have dreamed, but 
 which He alone who is the Lord of the ages can reveal, — 
 it is this alone which makes life indeed a blessing, that 
 makes conscious, responsible existence indeed a blessing, 
 as well as a most awful and mysterious gift of God. 
 
 Now, it is in this realm of the future that faith lives. 
 That is its native sphere and clime ; not only so, but it 
 transports us also thither. On wings of bright antici- 
 pation it bears us away from this land of shadows and 
 dreams, and sets us down amid other scenes, in another 
 clime, where she herself lives. " She is the substance of 
 things hoped for." In this respect faith and hope seem 
 in nature much alike. Both live in the future, both 
 alike have to do with things unseen, but in a somewhat 
 different way. Hope dreams of them, faith sees them ; 
 hope is the wistful, longing heart, faith is the piercing- 
 eagle eye; hope gilds and glorifies the divine object of the 
 soul's expectation, faith substantiates and gives reality 
 to them. Says the apostle, " Faith is the substance of 
 things hoped for," — that is, as most of the old commen- 
 tators used to explain, that which gives substance and 
 solidity to them gives body and palpable existence to 
 
38 SERMONS. 
 
 them, changes them from a mere dreamland or cloudland 
 of airy nothings, into a real world of most solid and 
 tangible realities. And this, too, enables us to see the 
 distinction between earthly hope and heavenly hope, — 
 not as regards their object only, but their very nature. 
 Earthly hope is the mere peradventure of future good. 
 Heavenly hope is the expectation of it. The one merely 
 whispers to the trembling, sinking heart that all may 
 yet be well, the other assures it that all shall yet be 
 well. " Which hope," says our apostle elsewhere, 
 "we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and 
 steadfast, and which entereth into that within the vail." 
 There is a solidity and substance in it, a security and 
 steadfastness, a sober certainty of waking bliss, of 
 coming redemption and life, which belongs to no other 
 kind of hope. In short, it is hope informed and sus- 
 tained by faith. ^^ Faith is the substance of things hoped 
 for." Natural hope lives on imagination and fancy, 
 divine hope lives on faith. Faith puts the glass of 
 vision into hope's hand, that from the summit of the 
 delectable hills she may descry the sunlit towers of 
 the celestial city, and survey in its length and breadth 
 the land that is afar off. And thus the pilgrim heart, 
 " though it hath not yet received the promises, yet sees 
 them afar off, and is persuaded of them and embraces 
 them, and confesses that she is a stranger and a pilgrim 
 on the earth." 
 
 But what are " the things hoped for " of which the 
 apostle speaks, and with which faith thus has to do? 
 Time would fail me to speak in detail on a theme so 
 
FAITH'S VISION. 39 
 
 boundless, even were it possible to speak fitly on that 
 which is " unspeakable," which " it is not possible for 
 a man to utter," and yet I am unwilling altogether to 
 leave the subject in a dim and vague generality ; for as 
 it is the property of faith to give body and substance 
 to the things of the future world, so it is its property to 
 give them distinctness also, and thus to present a 
 definite aim and mark to the soul's aspirings, which 
 else would shoot its arrows blindly and at random. 
 
 Without then attempting a complete enumeration or 
 description of the things hoped for, we may sum them 
 up under the following heads : 
 
 1. The presence and favour of God, and His gracious 
 help and guidance during all the days of our life. "For 
 He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." 
 
 2. Complete deliverance from sin, both in its guilt 
 and power, and perfect restoration to the image and 
 fellowship of God for ever. " Christ loved the Church, 
 and gave Himself for it, that He might present it 
 to Himself a glorious Church, holy, and without 
 blemish." 
 
 3. Support in a dying hour, and an everlasting victory 
 over the last enemy. '* "When thou passest through the 
 waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they 
 shall not overflow thee." 
 
 4. A glorious resurrection from the dead at the last 
 day, and an open acknowledgment and acquittal in the 
 day of judgment. 
 
 5. And finally, an eternity of blessedness in the presence 
 of God and of the Lamb in heaven, in beatific vision of 
 
40 SERMONS. 
 
 God, in the full consummation of our nature in body and 
 in soul, in the perfection of all our powers, the satisfac- 
 tion of every right desire, and purest, noblest aspiration, 
 for evermore. But, what need we say further ? Why strive 
 to multiply and heap up words on a subject where all 
 words fail, and where it is not so much words that we need 
 as eyes, — eyes to see ''the things which are freely given 
 to us of God?" The Lord impart to us all the heavenly 
 eyesight, and clarify and brighten it more and more ! 
 The Lord " increase our faith," even that faith which is 
 ""the substance of things hoped for ! " May He, who 
 " commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shine 
 in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of 
 the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ !" 
 
 But I go on now, in the second place, to glance briefly 
 at the other view of faith here presented. 
 
 IL " TJie evidence of things not seen.'''' These words 
 are not, as it seems to us, a mere repetition in a different 
 form of the previous statement. The apostle is speaking, 
 I think, of a different object, or class of objects, and 
 consequently of a different exercise or function of faith. 
 Before, he spoke of things non-existing, but which are 
 yet to come ; now, he speaks of things already existing, 
 though as yet unseen. The objects of the believer's ex- 
 pectation are not all future. Some of them (and among 
 these some of the most glorious) already exist, though 
 for the present, by a thin veil of sense, hid from our 
 view. Not only is there a bright world of glory yet to 
 be revealed, when the " redemption of tlie body " and 
 
FAITH'S VISION. 41 
 
 its revival shall have ushered in the full manifestation 
 of the sons of God, hut there is a city of God already 
 built, and already thronged with blessed inhabitants, — 
 though as yet we are only travelling thither, and have 
 not yet passed its pearly gates. The Church militant and 
 the Church triumphant, — the family on earth and the 
 family in heaven, — the inner sanctuary of beatific vision 
 and the outer court of expectant faith, — are in themselves 
 coexistent and contemporaneous, though for the present 
 to mortal sense separated and cut off from each other. 
 Heaven is already begun though we see it not, and the 
 deafened walls of the banqueting chamber permit not even 
 a whisper of the celestial voices to pass through. And 
 so our apostle elsewhere speaks of the Church, not only 
 as looking forward to that beatific state as yet future, but 
 approaching it as a thing already existing, and ready 
 waiting her. " Ye are come to Mount Zion, to the 
 city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, — to an 
 innumerable company, — of angels the general assembly, 
 and to the church of the first-born which are written in 
 heaven, — and to God the Judge of all, — and to the spirits 
 of just men made perfect." In the very presence of that 
 august scene we stand, — we tread on its verge and 
 margin. It is ready waiting for us, and we are approach- 
 ing it nearer and nearer every day, till at last the mys- 
 terious veil rends asunder, and all the hidden glory 
 bursts upon our sight. 
 
 But how is it with us, meanwhile ? Are we entirely 
 cut off from that bright world of joy, wholly shut out 
 and exiled from our rest ? Is there no link of connection 
 
42 SEEMOiYS. 
 
 at all to bind us to the better land, save that which the 
 mere hope of ultimate salvation gives ? Does no beam 
 of glory visit us in this land of darkness ? Are no grapes 
 of Eshcol brought to cheer us in our pilgrim way? 
 Nay, brethren, for " Faith is the evidence of things not 
 seen," — the evidence, e.g.-, the proof, the demonstration 
 of them ; at once the revelation of them and the authen- 
 tication of them in their divine truth and reality to our 
 hearts. What the eye is to the body, such is faith to 
 the soul, — and as the one reveals and assures to us the 
 existence of the world of sense, so the other reveals and 
 authenticates to us the world of spirit. As we have 
 ocular demonstration, — the surest of all demonstration, 
 of the one, so we have ocular demonstration, only of a 
 higher and diviner kind, of the other. '' God hath re- 
 vealed these things unto us by His Spirit," — and what 
 the Spirit reveals, faith sees, sees in the light which 
 the Spirit sheds, sees with those organs of purer vision 
 which the Spirit creates ; and so by faith we are " come 
 to Mount Zion," — see its golden spires and resplendent 
 walls, and catch at least the distant echoes of its songs, — 
 nay, by faith we may not only approach but may enter 
 in, tread the golden streets, drink the living springs, 
 and cast our crowns before the throne ! " The evidence 
 of things not seen." What a blessed air of assurance 
 and certainty, brethren, is there in these words ! How 
 different from the irresolute voices of the schools, those 
 feeble guesses at truth which, in the pages of ancient 
 wisdom, are at once so touching and so sad ! How far 
 removed, even from the highest imaginings of those who 
 
FAITH'S VISIOX. 43 
 
 sometimes indeed reasoned well of " life and immorta- 
 lity," but still with all their reasonings failed thoroughly 
 to convince themselves and fully to satisfy their own 
 heart, — weighing conjectures, balancing probabilities, 
 doubting, hoping, fearing, but settling nothing on which 
 an immortal soul might lean, on which it might plant 
 its foot and calmly wait the end. 
 
 True, indeed, God has never wholly left himself without 
 witness of the great verities of the world unseen, and of 
 the life to come. Nature has never ceased to foreshadow 
 what it could not reveal. The heart, made for immor- 
 tality and hungering after it, whispers the mighty 
 secret. The conscience, living witness of a law and of a 
 judgment yet to come, forbodes it. Reason, interpreting 
 as she may the hints and analogies of nature and pro- 
 vidence, surmises it. The contradictions and anomalies 
 of this present life and its interrupted beginnings, that 
 point to endings beyond the veil, demand it. The in- 
 stinctive thoughts and feelings of universal man, in 
 every age and every land, proclaim it ; yet all together 
 fail to impart to the soul a sure and abiding conviction 
 of its truth. They are rather but probabilities in aid of 
 faith, than the grace of faith itself. Man can never get 
 quit of the dream of a future world. It clings to him, 
 it lives within him, yet no more can he fully satisfy 
 himself that it is anything but a dream. It is the pre- 
 rogative of the gospel, and of the gospel alone, to do this. 
 It alone hath " abolished death and brought life and im- 
 mortality to light," and transferred the trembling hope 
 of nature into the "sure and steadfast hope" of grace. 
 
44 SERMONS. 
 
 Christ is ''the Resurrection and the Life," — and holding 
 His hand, feeble, timid children as we are, we go calmly 
 into and pass through the great darkness, singing 
 the while, " Though I walk through the valley of the 
 shadow of death, I will fear no evil ; for Thou art with 
 me ; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Goodness 
 and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I 
 will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." 
 
 My dear brethren, is this hope yours ? Is your hope 
 (for every man has a hope) of that kind which is informed 
 and sustained by faith, and by it rendered indestructible 
 and everlasting? If not, be assured it is a miserable 
 dream, a feeble and flickering taper at best, it will go 
 out in darkness at the very time you need it most. 
 Earthly hope belongs distinctively to the early stages 
 of life, and fades away according to the progress of the 
 years. The sanguine spirit of youth is the oil that 
 feeds its flame, and when the fountain dries up within 
 the heart, it too fades away and dies. The old know 
 little of hope. They live not in the future, but in 
 the past, groping amid the shadows of departed years, 
 and living the old days and fighting the old battles over 
 again. But heavenly hope is ever young and ever strong. 
 It is "a living hope," — "a hope full of immortality." 
 It shall not die but live, and declare evermore the works 
 of the Lord. Even in the passing away of time it shall 
 not pass away, but shall be only changed, transfigured, 
 glorified, passing in that great awakening day from the 
 sweetness of anticipation to the raptures of fruition. 
 And so it can go on its way to the last, amid withering 
 
FAITH'S VISION. 45 
 
 flowers and drying cisterns, singing, " Yea, I am per- 
 suaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor 
 principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things 
 to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
 shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which 
 is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
IT. 
 
 FAITH S TOUCH. 
 
 " And Jesus said, Who touched me ? When all denied, Peter, and they 
 that were with him, said, Master, the multitude throng Thee, and 
 press Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched me ? And Jesus said, Some- 
 body hath touched me : for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me." 
 — Luke viii. 45, 46. 
 
 In nothing are the miracles of our Lord Jesus more 
 remarkable, than in the exhibition they afford of the 
 nature of that saving faith by which the blessings of 
 salvation are apprehended, appropriated, and effectually 
 applied. In them, that divine principle of grace is not 
 so much described as embodied. We are not only 
 helped to conceive it, and to think of it, but we see it. 
 It becomes not so much a matter of understanding as 
 of observation and sense. The thing becomes in a 
 manner palpable. We learn how souls come now to 
 Jesus for spiritual help and healing, by beholding them 
 actually coming to Him for temporal deliverance and 
 relief. It is wonderful what a flood of light is often 
 shed on a subject in itself abstruse and difficult by one 
 such living instance. It is better than a thousand defi- 
 nitions, or even whole treatises on the abstract notion 
 
 * Preached on a Communion Sabbath. 
 
FAITirS TOUCH. 47 
 
 of saving faith. To say that such faith is to believe in 
 Christ, to credit the testimony of God concerning His 
 Son, and to rely upon it, to trust in Him, to appropriate 
 the blessings He has purchased, and accept the offers 
 He brings, &c., &c. ; all this is correct and true : it is 
 sound and unexceptionable theology ; but what a faint, 
 dim, and unimpressive view does it give of the whole 
 subject compared with one of those instances oi faith in 
 action with which the gospel history abounds. The 
 Syrophenician woman clinging to His feet, and refusing 
 to be spurned away, — Peter sinking in the waters and 
 stretching out his helpless suppliant hands, — the leper 
 standing afar off, and saying, " Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou 
 canst make me clean," — blind Bartimeus, tilling the air 
 with the proclamation of his woes, refusing to be silenced, 
 but crying out only so much the more, the more they 
 sought to stay him, — and last, but perhaps most touching 
 and divine of all, this woman in our text, feeble, pale, 
 emaciated with long disease, shrinking from shame, 
 trembling from fear, jostled and driven aside by a rude 
 unfeeling crowd, but determined to get near the Lord, 
 and touch, if nothing more, the hem of His garment, 
 or, if she cannot, then to die on the way, rather than 
 wilfully throw away the blessed opportunity, — these do 
 not so much tell us what faith is, as show us faith itself. 
 We see its very eye, flashing with eager hope and trust; 
 hear its very voice, thrilling with suppliant earnest- 
 ness ; behold the very hand, grasping, clinging, holding 
 fast the hope set before it. Tell the trembling sinner in 
 the hour of his soul's agony, with all the precision of set 
 
48 SERMONS. 
 
 theological plirase, to act faith in Christ, to close with 
 the terms of salvation, to give full assent and consent 
 to the offers of mercy, — and he will not understand jom, 
 he will look at you with wild, unmeaning gaze, that tells 
 you that your words have never touched the depths of 
 his sonl ; but tell him to look to Jesus, as the dying- 
 Israelite did, to cry to Him from the depths, like sink- 
 ing Peter, to cling to His feet like the poor Syropheni- 
 cian woman, and claim, if nothing better, yet the 
 crumbs; tell him, like this woman, to come behind Him 
 and to touch the hem of His garment, for that if he but 
 touch His clothes he shall be healed, — and you will 
 speak to him in a language which has been in all ages 
 the vernacular tongue of the weary and the heavy laden, 
 and his eye will kindle up with hope, and he will feel 
 that there may be mercy even yet for him. So much 
 are we affected by what we see, rather than by what we 
 merely conceive ; insomuch that those things, which are 
 in their own nature most deeply inward and spiritual, are 
 never so clearly apprehended or so powerfully realised 
 as where they are practically acted out, and as it were, 
 embodied in living words and deeds. How many a 
 tempted soul on the brink of despair, how many a 
 troubled saint wrestling with doubts and fears, has 
 caught a gleam of hope, and found fresh courage to 
 look again to God's holy temple, by calling to mind 
 this woman's case, and catching up the echoes of her 
 imperishable words, " If I may but touch His garment, 
 I shall be whole." 
 
 It will be seen that we do not contemplate the 
 
FAITH'S TOUCH. 49 
 
 consideration of the whole narrative, and of all the 
 varied lessons of doctrinal and practical instruction 
 which it suggests. We confine our attention to that 
 part, and to those aspects of the subject more specially 
 embraced in the words which I have read as the text. 
 We may divide the subject-matter thus : 
 
 I. What this woman did. '' Jesus said, Who touched 
 me ? " 
 
 II. What the crowd around did. '' Peter, and they 
 that were with him, said, Master, the multitude throng 
 Thee, and press Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched 
 Me ? And Jesus said. Somebody hath touched me." 
 
 III. The test to distinguish between the one and the 
 other. " Somebody hath touched me : for I perceive that 
 virtue hath gone out of me^ 
 
 I. What the woman did. That more is meant here 
 than the mere manual or external touch is evident, not 
 only from the whole circumstances of the narrative, but 
 from the explicit and emphatic testimony of the Lord 
 Jesus Himself. He expressly distinguishes between her 
 touch and that of the unthinking crowd around as a 
 thing totally and essentially diiferent ; and then, in His 
 closing words (ver. 48), He declares plainly what that 
 thing was, " Daughter, thy faith hath saved thee, go in 
 peace." That is, it was not the mere bodily contact that 
 constituted the saving touch, but that living faith of the 
 heart, of which it was but the instinctive and touching 
 expression. That faith, while everywhere in nature the 
 same, manifests itself variously at different times. Some- 
 
 D 
 
50 SERMONS. 
 
 times it tells its tale by a look, sometimes by a cry, 
 sometimes by words, sometimes by tears, sometimes 
 by a single ejaculatory utterance, sometimes by long 
 and enlarged supplication, sometimes by passionate 
 pleadings for mercy, sometimes by calm breathings 
 after God, sometimes by smiles of cheerful hope, some- 
 times by groans of strong agony. Thus its language 
 and its moods vary, but its nature is still the same ; and 
 whether it speaks by the suppliant eye, or by the listen- 
 ing ear, or by the pleading tongue, or by the eager feet 
 and outstretched hand. He that searcheth the hearts and 
 knoweth what is the mind of the spirit, still hears 
 the same language, " To whom shall I go ? Thou hast 
 the words of eternal life ;" " Lord, save me, I perish." 
 And never truly did that faith find more expressive 
 language, or exhibit itself in a light more touching 
 and instructive than in the present instance. Let us 
 mark her act for a moment, and note carefully what it 
 implies. 
 
 1. Hers was secret faith. It was unseen and un- 
 known by the world. Not one of that vast crowd, not 
 even the apostles themselves, had any idea what was 
 passing in her soul. It was a deep secret, wrapt up 
 within her breast, which no eye could scan but one. 
 It is not her object to proclaim her faith, but to obtain 
 her cure ; and so all alone and in secret, with her eye 
 and her whole soul fixed on that one object, she presses 
 near the Saviour. 
 
 2. Then it was trembling faith. She shrunk with 
 fear and shame, and sought to hide herself both from 
 
FAITH'S TOUCH. 51 
 
 the eyes of men and of the Lord. Her disease was 
 one which not only entailed suffering and danger, but 
 ceremonial uncleanness, and which involved her sepa- 
 ration from the congregation of the Lord. Hence, while 
 eager to press forward, she in her heart shrunk back. 
 She would pass through the crowd, and yet hide herself 
 amid the crowd ; she would come near to Jesus, but she 
 would come behind Him. — And has it not sometimes 
 been even so with some of you ? Burdened with sin and 
 shame, you felt as if you could scarcely dare to lift your 
 eye to heaven, or intrude, unworthy, into the holy con- 
 gregation of the Lord. You could not stay away, and 
 yet you scarcely dared draw near. You would touch the 
 hem of His garment, and yet fain hide yourself from 
 every human eye. You would even, were it possible, 
 hide yourself from His, and, like this woman, come 
 beliind, while you sought His saving grace. Again, 
 
 3. Hers was an imperfect faith. While morally 
 strong, and prevailing, it was intellectually weak. It 
 had little knowledge, though it manifested much grace. 
 We see this weakness, this dimness and confusedness 
 of spiritual vision in the very fact that she even dreamed 
 of the possibility of eluding Christ's notice, and, as it 
 were, stealing a cure from Him ; we can trace it also in 
 the manner in which apparently she expected her cure 
 to come. While rightly tracing it to the grace and 
 power that dwelt in exhaustless fulness in Christ's 
 person, and so looking in genuine faith to Him, she yet 
 plainly conceived of that healing virtue flowing out in a 
 kind of magical way from His person and His garments. 
 
52 SERMONS. 
 
 How else could slie imagine that the mere touch 
 should help her, unless He should know it, and send 
 forth His healing power ? — It was with her as it is 
 oftentimes with some of us, who, while looking truly to 
 the Lord Jesus as our one hope, and the ultimate source of 
 grace, yet are prone to think of it as somehow residing 
 in, or bound up with, external ordinances, — as if there 
 were " virtue " in them, more or less independent of 
 His personal presence to impart it, — instead of realis- 
 ing, as we ought, that though virtue may come through 
 them, it can come alone from Him. But, though 
 imperfect, still 
 
 4. Hers was a strong faith. AVhile her views 
 were dark as to the manner in which Christ's healing 
 virtue was to reach her, she set no limits to its power 
 and eflScacy. That Christ could heal her, and if she 
 could only get near Him that He would, she entertained 
 not a doubt. " If I but touch the hem of His garment, 
 I shall be made whole." This is, indeed, often quoted 
 as an illustration of the power and blessing even of a 
 weak faith, — the touching of the .hem being used as a 
 type or figure of the faintest and slightest contact 
 of the soul with Christ. And it may, doubtless, be 
 legitimately so used by way of illustration. Still, the 
 act as done by her was an indication not of weak 
 but of strong faith ; for it showed the conviction of 
 such a boundless fulness of grace in Him, that a poor, 
 djdng creature could come, and, by touching His blessed 
 person, secure the outgoing of His healing power. Her 
 thoughts, indeed, were not occupied at all about the act 
 
FAITH'S TOUCH. 53 
 
 of faith ; and lier soul was so filled with a sense of the 
 plenitude of His power and grace, that she felt that 
 nothing more was needed than simply to put herself in 
 His waj'', in order that it might flow out in all its 
 plenitude to her. Therefore, instead of resting her 
 hope upon strong cries and vehement demonstration of 
 misery, as if to move the heart of one unwilling to pity 
 or to help, she said, " If I but touch His garments, I 
 shall be whole." 
 
 And finally. It was earnest and resolute faith. She 
 was resolved at all hazards and at any cost to gain her 
 end. Nothing can arrest her ; nothing can turn her 
 aside. She who has already spent all her living upon 
 physicians, in the vain hope of purchasing the precious 
 gift of health, will not be deterred by a crowd, now the 
 prize is within her reach. Weak and wasted as she is, 
 she will bufiet with the strongest of them, rather than 
 die within sight of the Saviour. That hard struggle 
 will be soon forgotten when her end has been gained. 
 
 Oh, that we displayed as much earnestness in 
 seeking the healing of our souls as this woman in 
 seeking the healing of the body ! We, too, are in 
 the midst of a crowd, — a crowd of cares and vanities, 
 a crowd of lusts and sins, a crowd of idle triflers, 
 and dreaming, gazing loiterers, thronging the way 
 between us and the Lord, and if we would be saved, 
 we must press through and beyond them all, with these 
 words ringing in our ears, '' What is a man profited, if 
 he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? 
 or, What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" 
 
64 SERMONS. 
 
 II. What the multitude did. Having said so much in 
 regard to the act of the woman, it will be the less neces- 
 sary to point out the difference between her attitude and 
 demeanour toward the Lord Jesus and that of the mul- 
 titude around her. Theirs was the mere contact of the 
 body, hers of the heart and soul ; theirs a mere external 
 and unmeaning pressure, hers a living act of trust and 
 love. The human eye, indeed, could detect no difference. 
 To a mere spectator, all stood in the same relation to 
 Him. " Peter, and they that were with him, said. Mas- 
 ter, the multitude throng Thee, and press Thee, and say- 
 est Thou, Who touched Me ?" — surely it were vain amid 
 such a crowd, all of whom are pressing on Thee and 
 thronging Thy path, to single out any one to whom more 
 than another the charge may be applied. But, no : while 
 thousands throng around the Saviour, one alone toucheth 
 Him. Jesus answered, " Somebody hath touched me." 
 
 And so is it, Brethren, still, that the great multi- 
 tude of men under the preached word, and even within 
 the limits of the professing Church, only press and 
 throng around the Saviour and never touch Him. 
 They come before Him as His people come, and sit 
 before Him as His people, but their hearts are far 
 from Him. Their bodies are near, but their souls are 
 at an infinite distance, far as east is distant from 
 the west. Yes, Brethren, in this Christian land, where 
 the profession of Christianity is so general, and the 
 living reality and blessed experience of it so rare, — ''Mas- 
 ter, all men throng Thee and press Thee." 
 
 They throng around the baptismal font. All are dedi- 
 
FAITH'S TOUCH. 55 
 
 cated in infant days to Him, all blessed with the Three- 
 one name, marked and sealed with the token of everlasting 
 life ; yet how few seek or find the baptism of fire and of 
 the Holy Ghost ! The whole multitude of the baptized 
 throng and press Him, but who toucheth Him ? 
 
 We throng and press Him, too, in the reading of the 
 Holy Word. How very near we come to Him every 
 time we take that awful, blessed volume into our hands, 
 and read those words that are the savour of life or death 
 to all that hear them. Then do we indeed stand close 
 beside Him, aud listen to those very accents of old by 
 the shores of Gennesaret, and in the villages of Gali- 
 lee, — those words that have carried life and healing, com- 
 fort and everlasting peace to thousands around the throne. 
 Yet how many that read them with utter listlessness and 
 unconcern, — in whose dead, torpid souls those words of life 
 awake no heavenward breathings, kindle no holy, hidden 
 fire ! They throng and press Him, but never touch Him. 
 
 And so too in the sanctuary and in the public assemblies 
 of His saints. Do we not throng and press Him here ? 
 Is He not in very deed present among us ? Hath He not 
 said, " Where two or three are gathered together in My 
 name, there am I in the midst of them," — and does He 
 not fulfil that word in the experience of all those who truly 
 seek and wait for Him ? Does He not bless the provi- 
 sion of Zion, and satisfy her poor with bread? Does He 
 not beautify the meek with salvation, and make His 
 saints shout aloud for joy ? Does He not break hearts, 
 and cleanse consciences, and revive languid grace, and 
 subdue iniquities, and inflame holy feeling, and kindle 
 
56 SERMONS. 
 
 living hope, and breathe the peace that passeth all 
 understanding by His mighty word and Spirit, now, as 
 heretofore? Yet oh, what multitudes experience no- 
 thing of this ! To all that is living and life-giving in 
 the preached word they are utter strangers. They come 
 and go, from day to day, and from year to year, un- 
 quickened, unblessed, unfed. They throng and press 
 Him all their lives, and by their cumbering the ground 
 keep others away, but they never touch Him. 
 
 No, not even at the Lord's table. There, if anywhere 
 here on earth, we are brought near the Lord. What can be 
 more nearly related to Him than those sacred memorials 
 which He hath appointed and consecrated to all time, as 
 the divinely constituted symbols of Himself and pledges 
 of His love ? And what outward act can bring us into 
 such near contact with Him, and with all that is most 
 affecting and sanctifying in the remembrance of His 
 redeeming work, as the taking these memorials into our 
 hands, and eating and drinking them in remembrance of 
 Him ? Then does the truly contrite and believing soul, 
 in very deed, both with heart and hand, touch the hem of 
 His garment. And yet, even here, Brethren, is it not true 
 that many throng and press Him, and but few touch 
 Him ? Alas ! have there not been many communion- 
 tables, and crowded communion-tables too, in which it 
 is to be feared that scarcely one, if any at all, hath 
 touched Him, from which not one breathing of holy 
 desire hath gone up to God, not one believing look 
 turned towards the cross ? God forbid that it should 
 be so with us this day. . Forbid that our communion- 
 
FAITH'S TOUCH. 57 
 
 roll should be such a roll of the dead, our communion- 
 assembly such a congregation of the dead ! Rather let 
 " the whole multitude seek to touch Him, that there 
 may go virtue out of Him and heal us all." But this 
 brings me, in the last place, very briefly to consider, 
 
 III. The test to distinguish between the one and the 
 other. Jesus saith, " Somebody hath touched me : for 
 I perceive that virtue hath gone out of me.^^ This then 
 was the test ; the saving touch was proved by the out- 
 flowing of the healing virtue. There is no healing influ- 
 ence without faith, — no true faith without healing influ- 
 ence. Therefore, the fact so well known to Him who 
 is the one source and dispenser of grace, that such 
 influence had gone forth from Him to this woman, was 
 the decisive and infallible proof that she had touched 
 Him in a way that none of the throng around her had. 
 Not, indeed, that the Omniscient One required any such 
 practical evidence to show Him that she had indeed 
 touched Him. Had He not before felt her touch, and 
 recognised and owned it as the touch of faith, she never 
 could have received the healing. His knowledge of her 
 faith was the cause of the outgoing of the virtue, not the 
 effect of it. But while no such evidence was needed for 
 Him, it is by such evidence alone that it can be made 
 manifest to others. Thus alone can we surely know that 
 we have truly believed in Jesus to the saving of our souls, 
 when it has become manifest to all men and ourselves 
 that a saving virtue has come from Him to us, and 
 that through that mighty virtue all old things are passed 
 
68 SERMONS. 
 
 away, and all tilings are made new. '' When they saw 
 the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that 
 they were nnlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled ; 
 and they took knowledge of them that they had been with 
 Jesus." They said, " These men have touched Him ; for 
 we perceive that virtue, a mighty, transforming, new- 
 creating energy, hath gone out from Him to them." So 
 is it still. Sins forsaken, besetting lusts subdued, 
 neglected duties discharged, the Sabbath prized, the 
 Bible loved, holy society relished, time redeemed, works 
 of usefulness undertaken, the ordinances of grace im- 
 proved, the closet much frequented, a tender conscience, a 
 loving, devoted heart, an active, willing hand, a conversa- 
 tion in heaven, — thesearethe sure tokens of salvation, and 
 that of God, — the open evidence before the world, that at 
 some secret moment, unnoticed by any other witness, in a 
 day of grace and power, we drew near and touched the hem 
 of His garment. Thus are we known to be His disciples 
 now. Thus shall we be recognised and owned to be His 
 disciples then, when He shall sit upon the throne of His 
 glory, and shall separate the righteous from the wicked, 
 even as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats. 
 For then shall He say to them on his right hand, " Come, 
 ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
 for you from the foundation of the world. For I was 
 an hungered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye 
 gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : naked 
 and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was 
 in prison, andye came unto me. Inasmuch as ye did it unto 
 one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me." 
 
V. 
 
 FAITH S LANGUAGE. 
 
 "And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest into 
 Thy kingdom." — Luke xxiii. 42. 
 
 There are some to whom the incident of the thief on 
 the cross must be a matter of comparative indifference. 
 They have no difficulty at all in believing that God 
 should receive the vilest and most hardened sinner at 
 the very eleventh hour. Conversion at any time they 
 deem no great marvel ; least of all when the last sands 
 of life are running out. They think it quite natural 
 and just in the ordinary course of things that the 
 sinner should then turn to God, and should be received. 
 The transition from death to life is in their eyes so 
 slight and easy an affair, as to be the brief work of an 
 hour, or of a few hurried moments, just before they 
 shuffle off this mortal coil and pass into the eternal 
 world. They think that the work of a life-time may 
 easily be done in a day; that a man may settle his 
 accounts with God while the king of terrors is thundering 
 at the door ; that he may live the life of the sinner 
 
 * Preached before the Communion. 
 
60 SERMONS. 
 
 and die the death of the saint. It is thus they believe 
 that most of their neighbours found salvation ; it is 
 thus that they look to find salvation themselves. Like 
 passengers bound for a distant voyage, that linger on 
 shore while the vessel is awaiting a favourable wind, 
 they think they may safely remain immersed in worldly 
 thoughts and pursuits, and dismiss from their mind all 
 thoughts of their great voyage, and count upon being 
 signalled on board, just as the anchors are weighed and 
 the sails are unfurled to the breeze. There is, however, 
 this great and fatal difference, that while the passengers 
 are ready, and have nothing to do but step on board a 
 bark where their place is secured, and all is waiting for 
 their reception, they are not ready, and their calling 
 and election are not yet made sure. 
 
 To me the matter appears in a very different light. I 
 bless God that there is recorded in Scripture even one fact 
 to prove that a sinner may find mercy in his last hours. 
 It is unspeakably blessed to know, on the express authority 
 of God, and by an actual instance written on the rocks 
 for ever, that such a case, though rare and exceptional, 
 is not impossible,' — that the "uttermost" of the Re- 
 deemer's compassion and power to save, reaches not 
 only to the lowest depths of human vileness, but to the 
 extremest limit of human life on earth. When we 
 consider all that is implied in a sinner being saved 
 and prepared for glory in so brief a space, — when we 
 think of the meetness that has to be wrought, as well 
 as the title given, — when we remember that " old things 
 must pass away, and all things become new ; " that the 
 
FAITH'S LANGUAGE. 61 
 
 fruits of loDg years of sin have to be neutralised in a 
 few hours or moments ; that engrained habits of evil 
 have to be done away, vile affections transformed, new and 
 holy principles, tastes, longings, implanted, cherished, 
 ripened to celestial bloom, all as in the twinkling of 
 an eye ; — when we consider all this, Brethren, and 
 remember, too, the general law of the kingdom, that he 
 that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap cor- 
 ruption, surely it did require an express testimony of 
 the divine word to assure us that such a case may be, — 
 that a deathbed repentance is not necessarily and in 
 every case a visionary dream, that a man may be in 
 the state of nature to-day, and in the state of glory to- 
 morrow. We have such a testimony. Of this amazing 
 miracle of grace we have only one recorded instance, 
 indeed, but we have one : only one, that none may 
 presume ; but still one, that none may despair. By 
 this signal instance first did Christ show all long- 
 suffering, for a pattern to all in after times who, in 
 any circumstances and in any extremity of sin and 
 ruin, should truly repent and cast themselves at the 
 foot of the cross. 
 
 The subject is not only in itself deeply affecting, but 
 peculiarly suitable to the exercises of this day, for it sets 
 before us the Saviour on the cross, and that in the very 
 aspect in which He is alone most glorious and most 
 precious in the believing sinner's eyes. We see Him at 
 once working out the sinner's redemption and applying 
 that redemption to the sinner, paying the ransom-price, 
 and saving from going down to the pit ; stretching wide 
 
62 SERMONS. 
 
 the wings of mercy, and drawing the perishing beneath 
 its covert. Here we have that glorious oracle fulfilled 
 to its utmost extent, and in all its parts, — " He was 
 numbered with the transgressors; and He poured out 
 His soul unto death, and made intercession for the 
 transgressors." Let us proceed, then, to consider briefly 
 in succession the circumstances, the occasion, the nature, 
 and the result of this penitent's prayer. 
 
 I. As to the circumstances. They were surely as 
 unpropitious as any in which a heavy-laden sinner ever 
 sought the Lord. How terribly short is the time he 
 has left to devote to the business of eternity. His whole 
 life is gone, and now only the last sands of his day of 
 grace are running out. He has given the vigour and 
 the substance of his days to the service of sin and the 
 devil, and now he has but the dregs to give to God. It 
 is now near mid-day, and before yon sun, that is climb- 
 ing to its meridian height, shall have sunk beneath the 
 horizon, his account on earth shall have been for ever 
 closed, and his soul gone to its own place. How strong 
 the temptation in such circumstances to give up all for 
 lost, to say there is no hope, and abandon himself to 
 black despair ! Shall he have sown the seeds of death 
 all his life-long, and hope to reap life everlasting at the 
 end ; spent his days in insulting his Maker, and yet find 
 refuge in His love at the last moment? How hard for 
 any awakened sinner to cherish such a hope ! Harder 
 surely for him than any other after him; for they might 
 draw encouragement, and thousands doubtless have drawn 
 
FAITH'S LANGUAGE. 63 
 
 encouragement, from the case of the dying thief, but there 
 was no dying thief before him to encourage him. 
 
 Then think how hard it must have been to fix his 
 thoughts and raise his thoughts upward at such a time ! 
 In no case is a deathbed scene the fittest place for serious 
 thoughts and prayer, and his was no ordinary deathbed. 
 Think of that poor sufferer, writhing in unutterable and 
 ceaseless agony, — his whole mangled frame a mass of 
 living torment, as if he were tossing literally on a bed. 
 of fire, — his parched lips, his beating brow, his anguish- 
 torn and fierce-throbbing limbs, as jiulse after pulse of 
 the labouring heart told the long hour's death, — and you 
 will wonder that he should have been able to abstract a 
 single thought from the dread work in hand to any other 
 subject. Yet even then his mind was clear and his 
 spirit strong. The urgent demands of the suffering body 
 hindered not the upward aspirings of the soul. Grace con- 
 quered nature, faith mastered agony, and the bitter cross 
 itself became to this peerless penitent the very footstool 
 of mercy, the house of God, and the gate of heaven. 
 
 Let no one, then, throw on his circumstances the 
 blame of that neglect of his soul's concerns which is 
 all his own. Neither the distractions and cares of life 
 nor the sufferings of a dying bed need hinder, if we are 
 only true to ourselves, the ascent of the soul's swift mes- 
 senger to heaven. The spirit that is all in earnest will 
 press through all these obstacles. In no circumstances is 
 salvation easy; in any case the kingdom of heaven must 
 be taken by a holy violence ; but wherever it is so sought, 
 it is never sought in vain ; and it is likely that far more 
 
G4 SERMONS. 
 
 have found the Saviour on a bed of thorns, or in a great 
 fight of afflictions, than ever found Him in hours of 
 peace, or on the bed of down. But let us now proceed, 
 in the second place, to glance at 
 
 II. llie occasion of this praj^er. If the situation of 
 the dying suppliant himself was little favourable to 
 calm thought and prayer, the external environments of 
 the scene were scarcely more so. If there was agony 
 within, there were distractions, manifold and harassing, 
 all around. Never was dying chamber less guarded 
 from the world's din and tumult, so little favourable to 
 concentration of the soul on eternal things. A weltering 
 mass of fierce, blaspheming men, with mad, glaring eyes, 
 and savage cries of execration, — a black, troubled sea of 
 basest human passions lashed into foam, and casting up 
 mire and dirt, — such was the scene that met his eye. on 
 every side, — such the sights and sounds that encompassed 
 the poor sufferer, and that shocked and stunned his 
 aching senses during his few remaining hours on earth. 
 Even the fellow-malefactor that hangs by his side 
 catches the general frenzy, and, poor mimic of the 
 scoffing multitude, casts in his feeble mite into the 
 general sum of impious mockery: " If Thou be the Son 
 of God," said he, while his pale, dying lips formed them- 
 selves for a moment into a faint, ghastly sneer — " If 
 Thou be the Son of God, save Thyself and us." Thus 
 not only did hell lie all about him, but close to him, at 
 his very side, vexing his soul with impious blasphemies, 
 and almost shrouding from view the blessed form on 
 
FAITH'S LANGUAGE. 65 
 
 which he is striving to fix his eye, in a cloud of con- 
 tumely and scorn. Yet even these adverse circumstances 
 were turned, through the mighty power of grace, into an 
 instrument of good. Those hell-hlasts of satanic im- 
 piety, that might have extinguished the feeble spark of 
 faith altogether, only fanned it into a flame. The poor 
 jest of his wretched companion became the occasion of 
 his noble confession and prayer. Hitherto he had been 
 silent, sunk in deep reverie, shut up in the secrecy of 
 his own thoughts, — but that bold, bad speech roused him 
 up. An indignant sense of outrageous wrong stirred his 
 bosom, and broke into a flame the latent fire of contri- 
 tion and love that smouldered within, his heart. Startled 
 and shocked, not only to hear those words of blasphemy 
 from the very last lips from which he could have expected 
 them to come, but to find himself mixed up by implica- 
 tion in the heartless sneer, he hastens at once to rebuke 
 the crime, and to repudiate all participation in it. His 
 silence hitherto had probably been mistaken, and led to 
 the surmise that both malefactors alike had shared in 
 the general mockery, but now he can keep silence no 
 longer. He must either roll back by an indignant protest 
 the vile sneer, or by silent connivance make it his own. 
 Accordingly, with a strong effort, he turns himself round 
 on his cross, and casting on his wretched companion a 
 look of mingled rebuke and pity, exclaimed, in those noble 
 words which will remain memorable through all time, 
 " Dost not thou fear God," — thou of all men, thou in 
 such circumstances, and at such an hour as this, " seeing 
 thou art in the same condemnation " with Him ? Surely 
 
66 SERMONS. 
 
 His character as a fellow-sufferer, to say no more, miglit 
 shield Him from such cruel and wounding taunts, at least 
 from thee, — " And we indeed justly, for we receive the 
 due reward of our deeds ; but this man hath done nothing 
 amiss." Noble confession! well and bravely spoken, 
 and at the right place and time. Jesus needed a wit- 
 ness at this moment, some one to speak for Him, while 
 He as a lamb bore all those wrongs in silence ; and He 
 found one, not in a disciple, but in a dying thief. Peter, 
 John, Mary, are silent; the crucified felon speaks. 
 wondrous miracle of grace ! first and noblest of con- 
 fessors ! called forth to speak a good word for God and 
 His Christ at this the grandest moment of all time, not 
 from the ranks of the faithful, but from the throng of the 
 publicans and sinners. most sovereign and unsearch- 
 able love of God, how dost Thou put the first last and 
 the last first, put down the mighty from their seats and 
 exalt them of low degree ! How dost Thou lift the poor 
 out of the dunghill and set him with princes, even the 
 princes of the people ! God of Rahab, God of Manasseh, 
 God of the Magdalene, the thief, the persecutor, — who 
 need despair while Thou reignest, and art still, as of old, 
 rich unto all that call upon Thee, able to save unto the 
 uttermost ? — This was the very turning point in the 
 man's salvation. Then, and by that word, did he take 
 his ground openly and fairly on God's side against the 
 devil and sin. Then did ho cast in his lot with the cruci- 
 fied One in the face of a scorning, scoffing world, and 
 by this act began to suffer for Christ as well as to suffer 
 with Him, — from a felon became a martyr. It was the 
 
FAITH'S LANGUAGE. 67 
 
 first rigliteous and noble thing lie had ever done for God 
 or man, and marked the commencement of a new career, 
 soon, indeed, to be cut short on earth, but to be con- 
 tinued and consummated for evermore in heaven. — But 
 he is not satisfied with merely rebuking his companion's 
 blasphemy, he hastens to cast himself at the Saviour's 
 feet whom he blasphemed. This brings us to our third 
 head of discourse, viz. 
 
 III. The nature of the prayer itself. "And he said 
 unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into 
 Thy kingdom." — The first thing that strikes us in this 
 prayer is its brevity. It could not but be so. There 
 was no time for many words, for vain repetitions, for 
 needless circumlocutions of phrase, or ornaments of 
 diction ; it must go directly to the point, like an arrow 
 to its mark. So is it even in the highest acts of suppli- 
 cation; in those moments of intense earnestness, when 
 the spirit casts its deepest glance within the veil, and 
 wins the mightiest victories at the throne. Then the 
 kingdom of heaven suffers violence as by a grand assault, 
 and an assault ever sudden, swift, decisive. Such prayers 
 are the soul's swift arrows, glowing sparks thrown off from 
 the burning heat, gleaming for a moment, then vanishing 
 out of sight. " I will not let Thee go except Thou bless 
 me." — "I am oppressed, undertake for me." — "Lord, 
 save me, I perish." — Lord, I believe, help mine un- 
 belief." — Such are a few of those winged darts of faith, 
 gathered up from the field of the word, and which have 
 been used again and again by successive combatants in 
 
68 SERMONS. 
 
 the good fight. Such an one is that of the text, a short, 
 sharp cry of a child of grace, in the moment of its birth. 
 But how comprehensive ! If the words are few, 
 how pregnant and vast is the sense ! It is an act of 
 worship. ^^ Lord, remember me." He acknowledged 
 that marred and mangled sufferer as the Lord of life 
 and glory, and casts himself adoring at His feet. Be- 
 neath the guise of the crucified malefactor, he recog- 
 nised and owned the Christ of God, the present King of 
 Israel, the King, too, of no earthly and carnal empire, 
 such as the Jewish people dreamed, but of a kingdom 
 immortal and unseen, beyond the dominion of the 
 grave, and eternal in the heavens. Whence this know- 
 ledge ? Whence this wonderful faith, and equally won- 
 derful discernment, at which He who marvelled at the 
 centurion's faith, must surely have marvelled no less ? 
 How did he learn to "call Jesus Lord?" to think of 
 Him, his fainting, dying fellow-sufferer, as able to help 
 and succour him in his great extremity ? to conceive even 
 the idea of a kingdom beyond the grave ? Who was his 
 teacher, we well know; and marvellous often is the 
 progress of those who learn in His school. Keen and 
 far-piercing are the glances of the Spirit-quickened soul 
 into divine realities at the moment of its first awakening, 
 especially when there is much to learn, and little time to 
 learn it; and in such a case the slow discoveries of 
 years may be crowded into a day or an hour. So was it, 
 doubtless, with this man. It is enough to say that the 
 Divine Spirit opened his eyes, and revealed to his soul 
 the glory of Christ, the majesty of the indwelling Deity 
 
FAITirS LANG UA GE. 69 
 
 shining out througli, and, as it were, transfiguring the 
 shame of the cross. Even the very shouts and cries of 
 His enemies may have been the means, in God's hands, 
 of darting in this divine knowledge into his soul. 
 Much had been said — albeit in mockery — of Christ as 
 a King during the whole transactions of the day. The 
 accusation before Pilate, the maddened shout of the 
 people, the crown of thorns, the purple robe, the title on 
 the cross, — all spake of His claim to this title of dignity, 
 and may have combined to bring home this idea of 
 Christ to the penitent's soul. Like all Jews he expected 
 the appearance of a Messiah in this character. Might 
 not this be He ? May not the name cast upon Him in 
 derision belong to Him of right? And then, as these 
 thoughts pass through his mind, he turns again, — and, 
 as the stately image of the adorable sufferer rises before 
 liis soul, His majesty in meanness. His glory in the 
 midst of shame. His godlike patience and serenity. His 
 love undying, His prayer for His very murderers, and 
 that imperial air of conscious greatness and self- 
 sustaining strength which all the shame of the cross 
 could not conceal, — the whole truth flashed in upon 
 him like a revelation from God, and he fell down pros- 
 trate and adoring, in spirit and words like those of 
 Thomas, " My Lord and my God." 
 
 Then, it was an act of supplication^ and, as such, how 
 comprehensive, how all-embracing ! " Lord, remember 
 me.''' "What needed blessing, what conceivable gift 
 and work of divine grace is not included in it? ''I 
 need not dictate to Him what to do for me. He knows 
 
70 SERMONS. 
 
 it all, — knows all my need, all the extremity of my 
 case, — and He knows well the kind of succour and help 
 I need ; enough if He remembers me, if He thinks of 
 me, if in the hour of His exaltation and glory He do not 
 forget the poor sufferer that once hung by His side." 
 And so he simply, wholly, casts himself on the great 
 Redeemer's power and grace ; feebly, tremblingly 
 indeed, with a faith which yet was but as the grain of 
 mustard seed, yet truly, effectually ; and the germ of 
 a conviction already springs up within his heart, that 
 He to whom he thus committed his soul was able, and 
 as willing as able, to keep that which he committed 
 unto Him against that day. For, in faith, he did auti- 
 cijDate that day, and solemnly pondered the issues of it. 
 '^ Remember me," he says, " when Thou comest in Thy 
 kingdom : " — " in Thy kingdom," the words are not, 
 as in our version, " into Thy kingdom ; " — and the 
 meaning is not when Thou enterest into Thy kingdom^ 
 but when Thou comest again as King, — in Thy kingly 
 majesty, glory, power. 
 
 " The Lord shall come ! but uot the same 
 As once iu lowliueas He came, 
 A silent lamb before His foes, 
 A weary man, and full of woes. 
 
 " The Lord shall come ! a dreadful form 
 In wrath of tlame, and robe of storm, 
 On cherub wings, and wings of wind, 
 Appointed judge of all mankind." 
 
 This was the faith that was already dawning as a 
 bright morning-star within his heart. That day of days, 
 that day of decision and of doom, the day at once of 
 
FAITH'S LANGUAGE. 71 
 
 redemption and vengeance, that day bright yet dreadful, 
 when to the wicked the fiery oven shall burn, and to 
 the just the sun of righteousness shall arise, — such was 
 the vision, awful but glorious, that now arose before his 
 mind's eye ; and so, in expectation of it, and that it 
 might be a day of joy and not a day of woe to him, he 
 pleads that in that tremendous hour the Lord of all 
 power and mercy might remember him. 
 
 IV. A few words must suffice for our fourth and 
 closing head, — the success of this prayer. Nor are many 
 words necessary : the answer of the Lord abundantly 
 speaks for itself. If any words were ever engraven deep 
 and large on the rock for ever, emblazoned in letters of 
 light and glory on the sacred page, so that the dimmest 
 eye may read and understand, they are these. 
 
 Horn j>rompt^ how immediate was the Saviour's reply to 
 the cry of the penitent ! No sooner is the prayer offered 
 than it is answered. While he is yet speaking, the 
 Redeemer hears. He is in haste to meet the returning 
 l)rodigal, and present him with the blessings of His 
 goodness, the seals of His pardoning love. 
 
 Then, see how ample it is, how the answer shoots far 
 beyond, and immeasurably transcends the measure of the 
 request. The suppliant had prayed that the Saviour 
 would, some time, remember him ; — if he mentioned a day 
 at all, it was a day far distant, a day shrouded in the 
 darkness and mystery of the inscrutable future, the day 
 of the winding up of all things, when He should come 
 in His kingdom. The Lord replies, " Not then but now, 
 
72 SERMOJS. 
 
 not on a far distant morrow, but to-day ; — not when 
 I come, but even now, when I go. I am now on the 
 very eve of entering into glory, and thou, but a brief 
 hour afterwards, shalt follow me." 
 
 Then, he had only asked to be " remembered^'' — that 
 from the height of His glory He would deign to cast a 
 look of mercy on him, though ftir away, separated, it might 
 be, by an immeasurable gulf from the place where His 
 glory should dwell. " Not so," said the Saviour," I shall 
 not only remember thee, but thou shalt be with me, — 
 I will that thou be with me where I am, and that thou 
 behold my glory evermore." ''^ In Thy kingdom!'''' says 
 the suppliant, — " Yes ! " says the gracious Redeemer, 
 " but not only then. In that day indeed, thy blessedness 
 and that of all the redeemed shall be perfected in the 
 redemption of the body, and the abolition of death and 
 the grave, — but though only consummated then, it shall 
 be begun even now ; this very day thou shalt be iu 
 Paradise, in the glorious seat of ' spirits made perfect,' 
 in the bright beatific garden of souls ; in the unseen 
 realm of rest and peace, where one by one they are 
 gathering, in imperfect but ineffable felicity, waiting 
 for their complete consummation and bliss till all their 
 brethren are come, and the nuptial bond is complete. 
 Then shall the dawning morn of Paradise give place to 
 the perfect, everlasting day of glory." 
 
 In conclusion. Brethren, we learn from this subject : — 
 
 1. The sovereignty of divine grace. " One is taken, 
 
 and the other left." Two malefactors die the same 
 
 death of shame for the same crime, the one on the one 
 
FAITH'S LANG UA GE. 73 
 
 side, and the other on the other of the Saviour. The 
 one seeks mercy, and is saved ; aud the other remains 
 impious to the last, and goes down blaspheming to hell. 
 
 2. How much divine grace may do in a little time. 
 How does it refine the rudest natures, exalt the most 
 ignoble, create a soul within the very breasts of the 
 dead, often almost in the twinkling of an eye. Think 
 of the dying robber, but yesterday a child of the devil, 
 to-day a saint ripe for glory, — and never despair, while 
 the day of salvation lasts, of the grace of God. 
 
 3. "What a wonderful and divine thing is faith ! 
 How clear its discernment ! how keen and far-piercing 
 its eagle eye ! How does it see beneath the outward 
 masks and shows of things, look into the very heart of 
 them, measure their real worth and value as with the 
 balance and in the light of God. Look at this poor, 
 untutored robber, learning more by a single glance 
 of the eye, than apostles and disciples had learned at 
 Christ's lips during a fellowship of years, — seeing a 
 glory in the cross, and in Him who hung on it, where 
 they could see only shame and darkness and despair, — 
 looking forward in blessed hope to the coming kingdom, 
 when to them that kingdom seemed to vanish from 
 before their eyes as a dream ; and thus learn how true 
 are those words of Scripture, that what " eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heai't 
 of man, God hath revealed unto His own by His 
 Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the 
 deep things of God." Pray, Brethren, for the divine 
 illumination, that He who at first caused the light to 
 
74 SBRMOiYS. 
 
 shine out of darkness may shine in your hearts, to give 
 you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in 
 the face of Jesus Christ. 
 
 4. Learn once more, that presumption and despair in a 
 death hour are alike discountenanced here, — the one in 
 the impenitent thief, the other in his penitent fellow. 
 God will receive us at the last hour, if we truly repent ; 
 but the grace to repent may not then be given, — there- 
 fore, " Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call 
 ye upon Him while He is near." 
 
 In conclusion. If it be a good thing to find Christ at 
 the last, it is a still better thing to find Christ early ; 
 if good to die in Christ, better to live for him ; if good to 
 be even "scarcely saved," better to "have an abundant 
 entrance ; " — if good to be cast even as a helpless wreck 
 on the heavenly shore, better still to enter full sail, and 
 amid shouts of glad welcome, into the everlasting 
 harbour. May this be your case and mine ; and after a 
 long life spent for Him on earth, may we come home at 
 last from the vineyard of toil to the paradise of rest, 
 with those gracious words sounding in our ears, " Well 
 done, good and faithful servant : enter thou into the 
 joy of thy Lord." 
 
VI. 
 
 THE spirit's " FPvUIT " — MANIFOLD, YET ONE. 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
 goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." — Gal. v. 22, 23. 
 
 Before considering the fruits of tlie Spirit in detail, 
 there are one or two remarks of a general kind wliicli it 
 may be desirable to premise. First, Various and mani- 
 fold as these graces of the Spirit are, they are all, 
 nevertheless, in principle and in essence, one. They 
 proceed from the same source ; they are but so 
 many manifestations of the same divine and heavenly 
 life. The " one Spirit" animates and informs them all. 
 Just as the clear sunlight may be divided by the pris- 
 matic lens into a rich variety of coloured rays, and yet 
 is in itself one, — one bright, ethereal, glorious essence, — 
 so that, as soon as the disturbing medium is removed, 
 the separate rays run into each other again, and blend 
 in one burning, dazzling beam, — so is it here. In its 
 essence holiness, or the blessed unity of all the graces, 
 is Love. '' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." 
 " Love is the fulfilling of the law." — " The end of the 
 commandment is love." Here is the heavenly light 
 as it streams, pure and undivided, from the throne 
 
76 SERMONS. 
 
 of God and of the Lamb. But now the prism of tlie 
 word is applied to it ; or shall we rather say the prism 
 of experience and of actual life, — and then that clear, 
 white light dissolves into a glorious spectrum of many- 
 coloured rays, each, as it were, melting into the other, 
 as the red into the orange, the orange into the yellow, 
 the yellow into the green, and so through all the rest : 
 " The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace," &c. 
 
 Secondly. Though varied, they have, even in their 
 separation, a manifest affinity to one another. We 
 cannot read the text, however cursorily, without feeling 
 this. We feel that while each has its own distinctive 
 quality, they are all homogeneous graces. They all 
 belong to the number of what may be called the gentle, 
 loving virtues. They are evidently not a mere company 
 of strangers, gathered together at random, but a family, 
 — a holy sisterhood, bearing a family likeness the one 
 to the other. Look along the bright row as they stand 
 now, side by side before you, and say if it be not so. 
 Love, is she not the sister, you might say the twin- 
 sister, of Joy ? Is there not the same smile, the same 
 rapt seraphic look, on the countenance of both ? And 
 Joy, is she not the nearest of kin to Peace ? and Peace 
 to Patience, and Patience to Gentleness, Goodness, 
 Faith? And as they are like one another, and are 
 sisters, they love to dwell together in holy fellowship 
 within the sanctuary of the same pure heart ; and their 
 voices blend in divine harmony, as only the voices of 
 sisters do. 
 
 Let us now, however, glance briefly at the distinctive 
 
THE SPIRIT'S " FR UIT " 77 
 
 character of each, in the order in which they are here 
 enumerated. 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is love" — love in the 
 largest sense, — love to God, love to Christ, love to the 
 brethren, love to all mankind. Most fitly is this preci- 
 ous grace mentioned first, for she is the first-horn of the 
 daughters of the King, and she is herself the queen of 
 all the graces. Of all the celestial family she has most 
 of the image of her Father, — and most, too, of His 
 heart, for '' God is love." And therefore, wherever she 
 is seen, and in whatever work she is engaged, she may 
 be always known for His child. You may know her by 
 her bright eye, her calm, seraphic smile, her tender, 
 gentle voice, and by her nimble step and busy hand, 
 ever ready for works of kindness and of mercy. She 
 had a Brother once, — an Elder Brother, far nobler and 
 fairer than herself, even " the chief among ten thou- 
 sands, and altogether lovely," — and that Brother had 
 given His life for His brethren, had given His life for 
 her ; and so the image of that Brother lives in her heart, 
 and her great ambition and desire is to be like Him, and 
 to walk in His steps, and thus at last to dwell with Him 
 in that bright realm of love whither He hath gone be- 
 fore. If you wish to know her better, you will find a 
 portrait of her, drawn from the life, by a great master, 
 and hung up for the instruction and delight of the 
 Church in every age, in one of the goodly chambers of 
 the House of God. Here it is, — let us gaze upon it till 
 we drink in each line and shade of its celestial beauty, and 
 are ourselves chano-ed into the same imao-e: — " Charitv 
 
78 SERMONS. 
 
 suffereth long, and is kind ; charity envietli not ; charity 
 vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave 
 itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily 
 provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, 
 but rejoiceth in the truth ; beareth all things, believeth 
 all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is joy.'' How closely 
 allied joy is to love, all experience tells. In fact, you 
 cannot have love but it will bring joy in its train. The 
 one is identified with the other, as light and heat in the 
 same solar beam. Joy is the complacency or delight which 
 one has in anything that is good and desirable, and chief 
 of all in that which we dearly love, — as God, Christ, 
 heaven, the happiness of brethren. It is therefore 
 quite distinct from mere pleasure. Pleasure consists 
 in the gratification of a momentary desire, — an appetite 
 or passion of the flesh ; hence it perishes in the very 
 act of enjoyment. With a single flash it burns itself 
 out, and expires like " the crackling of thorns," to 
 which the wise man compares the mirth of fools. But 
 true joy is immortal, everlasting. Having a real and 
 permanent object of complacency, it will endure while 
 that object itself endures. " We joy in God through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ." While God, therefore, lives 
 and the divine channel of blessed intercourse with Him 
 remains, the fountain of the believer's joy can never 
 run dry ; and so he can walk on tlirough life, amid 
 broken cisterns, and withered leaves, singing, " Though 
 the fig-tree shall not blossom, — yet I will rejoice in 
 the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." 
 
THE SPIRIT'S ''FRUIT." 79 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is peace.'" Peace is so 
 like joy that one might almost mistake the one for the 
 other, and be inclined to say that peace is just joy in its 
 tranquil mood. One might say that what a calm smile 
 is to a merry song, such is the grace of peace to the 
 grace of joy. Yet there is a real distinction between 
 them, not of degree only, but of kind. Joy is the com- 
 placency the soul feels in what is positively good ; peace 
 the blessed consciousness of immunity from evil. Peace, 
 the sense of being saved from hell, — ^joy, the sense of 
 being an heir of heaven. Yet ranking it at the very 
 lowest, and allowing that it is in its nature mainly 
 negative, what a blessed thing is peace ! What music is 
 there in the very name! How shall we describe it? 
 How shall we convey to those who know nothing of this 
 heavenly gift some idea of what it is ? Shall I say it 
 is like the silent cloud that floats amid the glory of the 
 setting sun ? — or like the still lake slumbering within 
 the embrace of the everlasting hills ? — or like the frail 
 skiff lately tossed by the surge, but now quiet and at 
 rest within the land-locked bay? — or like the soft evening 
 dew, or like the calm, deep, broad river, or like an 
 infant sleeping on its mother's breast, — or like the brow 
 of Jesus? These things do indeed whisper to us of 
 peace, faintly image to ns its nature and its blessed- 
 ness, — but, oh ! to know it we must taste it. "We must 
 " taste and see that the Lord is good." "We must come 
 to Jesus Himself, and receive from His own blessed 
 hand that rest, — that peace which He hath purchased 
 with His blood, and which it is His prerogative to 
 
80 SERMONS. 
 
 bestow. Then shall our hearts become the very nest of 
 the Holy Dove, and all our lifelong, more and more, 
 " the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect 
 of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever." — 
 " Come unto Me all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest." — " Peace I leave with you, my 
 peace I give unto you." Thus the Holy Dove flutters 
 evermore round and round the cross, and rests on the 
 head of him who bends in lowly, contrite, believing 
 supplication there. 
 
 "The fruit of the Spirit is long - sujfeTing^'' — 
 just peace in the midst of suffering, and in spite 
 of it, — peace in the midst of ignominy, insult, wrong, 
 mockery, persecution, and all else that can try the 
 patience, and fret and wound the heart ; — the inward 
 calm amid the outward storm, the great peace of the 
 upright soul which nothing can offend, and which keeps 
 the heart and mind unharmed, when the arrows of 
 death are flying all around. It is the sublime victory 
 of the steadfast soul, alike over the world and over 
 himself, of one who out of weakness " is strengthened 
 with all might by the Spirit in the inner man, unto all 
 patience and long-suffering, with joyfulness." 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness,'''' — rather kind- 
 ness, or " that benevolence and sweetness of dispo- 
 sition, which finds its sphere and exercise in our inter- 
 course with one another ; " — a gracious benignity of look, 
 speech, and behaviour, which is the very opposite of 
 everything rude, harsh, and unfeeling. It is thus well 
 described by one of the old Fathers, who was himself 
 
THE SPIRITS " FR UIT." 81 
 
 rather deficient in it, as a " gentle virtue, winning, 
 tranquil, affable, inviting familiarity, gracious in speech, 
 modest in behaviour;" and thus distinguished from, 
 though often interchanged with, that sterner goodness 
 which is of a sadder aspect, and frequently wears a 
 clouded brow at the very time it confers a benefit or 
 grants a prayer. It is the very spirit of Him of whom 
 it was written that " He should not strive, nor cry, nor 
 lift up His voice in the streets," — who "broke not the 
 bruised reed, nor quenched the smoking flax," — who drew 
 the publicans and the sinners round Him, and took the 
 little childi'en in His arms. 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is goodness,''^ — exactly what 
 in common speech we mean by the term — the disposi- 
 tion (as one has expressed it) to will and to do that 
 which is good, good in itself and good to others. It is 
 to be imitators of God, as dear children, — of Him of 
 whom it is said that " He is good and doeth good," — 
 essentially good in His own nature, and the fountain of 
 all goodness and blessing to every creature He hath 
 made, — '' the Father of lights, from whom cometh down 
 every good and perfect gift." It thus includes all man- 
 ner of beneficence and benevolence in the best sense ; 
 expansive, generous, large-hearted interest in whatever 
 concerns the good of man, the diffusion of happiness, the 
 extension of the Church, and the triumph of truth and 
 righteousness on the earth. It manifests itself ever in a 
 disposition and endeavour to be useful and to do good ; 
 to bear a hand in any good work that is going on. It 
 is a homely working grace ; not expanding itself in mere 
 
 F 
 
82 SERMONS. 
 
 sentiment, or losing itself in flights of high enthusiasm, 
 but busying itself in active work in God's Church and in 
 God's world. To this class belong the honourable com- 
 jDany of the Dorcases, and Phcebes, and Tryphenas, and 
 Tryphosas, and Persis' of old time, but who have had their 
 worthy successors in every after age, — those true sisters 
 of charity so often to be seen in prisons, and in sick 
 chambers, and in infirmaries, and in houses of mourn- 
 ing, and in the gloomy garrets and cellars of the 
 neglected and the forlorn. To it belong also workers of 
 another and grander mould, — the great public heroes 
 and champions of philanthropy in the open arena of the 
 world ; those true " Great Hearts " of humanity and of 
 the Church of God, who, like Paul, Luther, Howard, 
 Wilberforce, Chalmers, have fought a gallant and suc- 
 cessful fight against the sins and sorrows of the world. 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is faith,'''' — here to be taken 
 in the largest sense, and not to be confined to that special 
 and first act of faith which unites the soul to Christ, and 
 which, strictly speaking, is not so much one of the fruits 
 of the Spirit, as the root of them all. Here it is trustful- 
 ness, — in the widest sense a believing, confiding, hopeful 
 spirit alike towards God and man, — the bright sunshine 
 of a soul that is at peace with the world, itself, and God, 
 and that lives in the assurance that if God be for him, 
 none can be against him. It is the spirit which utters 
 itself in such words as these, — " I will hope continually, 
 and will yet praise Him more and more." — " God is my 
 salvation; I will trust and not be afraid." — " My God 
 shall supply all my need according to His riches in glory 
 
THE SPIRITS "FRUIT:' 83 
 
 by Christ Jesus." — '' So that we may boldly say, the Lord 
 is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto 
 me." Thus it looks towards God, — while towards man it 
 cherishes thoughts rather of trust than of suspicion, in 
 the spirit of Godlike charity, " believing all things, 
 hoping all things." 
 
 "The fruit of the Spirit is meekness,''^ — one of the 
 softer and more delicate touches that go to constitute the 
 perfect image of Christ, — often sadly awanting when 
 other graces of the Spirit are eminently displayed. It is 
 not easy to coml)ine with that holy ardour, zeal, energy, 
 faithfulness, and unflinching boldness in behalf of truth 
 and righteousness, which become " a good soldier of 
 Jesus Christ," that serene and chastened gentkness, 
 that ornament of a " meek and quiet spirit," which 
 imparted such an inexpressible charm to the character 
 of Jesus himself! Hard, very hard is it to unite the 
 boldness of the lion with the gentleness of the lamb. 
 Amid the impetuous ardour especially of young disciples 
 is this element often wanting. It is only in the mellow 
 fruit of a holy old age, or in those whose ripening has 
 been hastened on by suffering and sorrow that this 
 exquisite flavour is usually, in its full perfection, found. 
 
 And now, last of all, 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is temperance.'''' As Love 
 in this catalogue is mentioned first, so as fitly and 
 significantly is Temperance mentioned last. For as the 
 one is the soul of all duty, so the other is its strong 
 sinew and nerve. The one is the motive, the other the 
 regulative and conservative principle of the divine life. 
 
84 SERMONS. 
 
 Love makes us willing, eager, joyfully strenuous iu the 
 service of God — Temperance makes us strong. It is tke 
 soul's girdle, the soul's rein, the soul's balance-wheel, the 
 soul's helm, the soul's severe but salutary discipline, 
 which prepares it as a good soldier to fight its battle, as 
 a strong man to run its race. If it be not itself one of 
 the fair flowers in God's garden, it is at least the firm 
 fence that guards it round and shields all its bright 
 blossoms from harm. Even the heathen Plato could, in 
 his sublime fancy, figure the soul in its fateful career of 
 moral progress as a chariot, drawn by two fiery steeds 
 of contrary natures and dispositions, the one black, 
 the other white, the one plunging and tearing down- 
 wards, the other struggling upwards, and so itself either 
 soaring aloft to the realms of light, or sinking down to 
 the abyss of darkness, according as under the guiding 
 and controlling hand of the charioteer the one or the 
 other prevails. It is easy to give a Christian turn to this 
 pregnant allegory. Conscience, informed and sustained 
 by the grace of God, is the charioteer, and temperance is 
 the firm bridle hand, that at once restrains the passions 
 of the flesh, and gives loose rein to every high and holy 
 impulse. It is thus a virtue very comprehensive in its 
 scope ; inclusive not only of temperance in the ordinary 
 modern sense of the term, but of self-restraint and self- 
 control in the widest and largest sense, — purity, chastity, 
 sobriety of thought and action, self-denial, government 
 of the temper, government of the tongue, government 
 of the appetites and passions, government even of the 
 holiest aifections and desires, which else will run to dan- 
 
THE SPIRITS " FR UITr 85 
 
 gerous extremes, and manifest themselves in morbid 
 and disordered forms. " He that striveth for masteries 
 must be temperate in all things.'''' He must not only 
 keep under the body, but discipline and control also the 
 more subtle movements of the soul, and bring every 
 thought into subjection to the obedience of Christ. The 
 whole stream of the new and heavenly life must flow 
 within the firm and inviolable barriers of a holy and 
 resolute temperance. "What are the ten commandments 
 themselves, in the negative and prohibitory form in 
 which it has pleased God to give them, the " Thou shalt 
 not kill,"— " Thou shalt not steal,"— " Thou shalt not 
 commit adultery," — but so many loud calls to the exercise 
 of this grace, so many solemn mementoes of how much 
 of our Christian warfare and service here must lie in 
 resistance, in self-conflict, in denying ourselves ? 
 
 Learn, in conclusion, from this rapid survey, four valu- 
 able lessons : 
 
 A lesson of self-examination. '' Fruits of the Spirit " 
 grow not in the soil of nature. Wild flowers and garden 
 flowers are like, but they are also unlike, in beauty, in 
 fragrance, in duration. 
 
 A lesson of encouragement. " In me is thy fruit 
 found." " All things possible with God." 
 
 A lesson of incitement. How far behind are we ! How 
 much have we still to learn ! Hold up this glass before 
 you day by day, to rebuke your remaining deformity, and 
 stimulate to a closer following and imitation of Christ. 
 
 A lesson of hope. Blessed world! in which all these 
 graces shall be perfect and shall be everlasting, — all but 
 
86 SERMONS. 
 
 patience and temi3erance ; because they shall be then no 
 longer necessary, — no injury or sorrow will there be to 
 bear, no unholy passion to control. Then, our earthly 
 battles over, we shall hang those weapons of our warfare 
 on the wall, and love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, 
 faith, meekness shall dwell together in that bright un- 
 troubled realm, where " the work of righteousness shall 
 be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and 
 assurance for ever." 
 
VII. 
 
 Jacob's wrestle. 
 
 " I will not let thee go, except thou bless me," — Genesis xxxii. 2G. 
 
 Twenty years of mingled joy and sorrow have passed 
 away, since Jacob arose a new man from liis wondrous 
 dream, and entered in earnest on the pilgrim's course of 
 faith, ind patience, of which he was so illustrious a 
 pattern. That course, like that of every one who before 
 or siiice has trod the same path, has been a chequered 
 one ; jet, on the whole, it has been prosperous beyond 
 the usuil lot of men. The God of Bethel has been with 
 him, and has kept him in all places whither he has gone. 
 The web of his life has been variegated with many 
 colours, bat the bright threads of blessing have largely 
 preponderited over the darker lines, and imparted the 
 prevailinghue to the whole. " Goodness and mercy," 
 albeit somttimes veiled and disguised to sense, have 
 followed hin hitherto all the days of his pilgrim-life. 
 How vast tie change over the whole complexion of his 
 circumstances and prospects since he last traversed this 
 border-land several years ago ! Then a lonely wayfarer 
 on the world'? highway, — he is now the honoured head 
 of a numerou; family, and dwells surrounded by happy 
 
88 SERMONS. 
 
 faces and loving hearts. Before, a poor outcast 
 wanderer, with no companion but his pilgrim-staff, no 
 possession but the promise of his God, — he is now a 
 powerful shepherd-prince, rich in flocks and her(]s. 
 Thus far, then, and amply has the Lord fulfilled t|ie 
 promise made to him at Bethel. And now anotber 
 and still sweeter part of that promise is on the eve of 
 its accomplishment. 
 
 The God who has been with him at Padan-aram is it 
 last, according to His word, bringing him again to his 
 fatherland. He is even now nearing the confines of 
 that heritage of promise, and the warm memories of 
 Bethel and of Beersheba gather thick around his ieart. 
 The shadow of the Almighty is over his head. The 
 angel of His presence goes before, and all things seem 
 to work together toward the fulfilment of his kghest 
 hopes, and to confirm to his heart the divine assurance 
 that He would never leave him, until He had done all 
 that which He had spoken to him of. 
 
 Such was the bright side : but there was a dirk side 
 too. Over all that cheering prospect a deep portentous 
 shadow rested still. Esau still lives, and his deep and 
 well-deserved revenge was yet unappeased. flie ghost 
 of Jacob's old sins still haunted his path/ and now 
 silently starts up like a spectre in his way' Even in 
 Padan-aram, when far beyond the reach of l^s brother's 
 anger, the retributive consequences of his /sin against 
 that brother seem still to pursue him in clastisements 
 peculiarly appropriate to the crime. Th^ deceiver is 
 himself deceived. The selfish and overr&iching sup- 
 
JACOB'S WRESTLE. «9 
 
 planter meets at last with one more selfish and over- 
 reaching than himself. The nndutiful son and brother 
 becomes the victim of an unjust and cruel father. 
 The stealer of the birthright and the blessing has 
 himself stolen from his bosom the dearest jewel of 
 his heart ; and even when that jewel is restored, — 
 when Kachel is indeed given to him, it is in circum- 
 stances which rendered the boon rather a curse 
 than a blessing, — introducing into his house and his 
 family life an element of dissension and bitterness, 
 the consequences of which he never survived. 
 
 Thus even when separated by a distance of four hun- 
 dred miles from Esau, Jacob's sin against Esau finds him 
 out and scourges him. But now the dread avenger of 
 his great transgression meets him in his proper person. 
 The man he had so foully wronged is about to confront 
 him face to face, and to settle once for all the long- 
 standing account. The crisis is as inevitable as it is 
 dreadful. The command of that very God who has been 
 hitherto his guardian and his guide shuts him up to 
 the meeting. Before, he fled in terror from the presence 
 of this roaring lion ; but now the force of circumstances, 
 and the very decree of heaven, seems to drive him straight 
 into that lion's den. Feeble and defenceless, as all 
 criminals are, he goes to meet an adversary clothed not 
 with physical power merely, but with that awful and 
 irresistible might which a righteous cause imparts. 
 Jacob, the self-convicted culprit, cowers and trembles 
 before Esau his avenger and judge. He fears Esau's 
 power ; he fears his own sin still more. The glance of 
 
90 SERMONS. 
 
 that injured brother's eye is more terrible to him than 
 all his armed men. 
 
 Such, then, was the dread emergency, — the most trying 
 and critical moment, j)erhaps, in all the patriarch's life. 
 But he knows whither to betake himself in the time of 
 trouble. Helpless, — bereft of all resource in himself, — 
 and without a word to offer in arrest of that judgment 
 which seemed impending, — he casts himself, in the sim- 
 plicity of faith and in an agony of prayer, upon the mercy 
 and faithfulness of his God. In the passage before us, we 
 have the history of a battle and of a victory, the noblest 
 battle in which mortal man can be engaged, and the 
 most glorious victory, the battle of love against hatred 
 — the victory of weakness over strength. Let us glance 
 in succession, — first, at the warning that preceded the 
 battle, — second, the preparation, — third, the combat 
 itself, — and, finally, the victory. 
 
 I. The warning. The great conflict did not come 
 without some' solemn premonitions of its approach. 
 Special comforts often precede and prepare the way for 
 times of special trial. They are the shadows which the 
 dark forms of coming events often cast before them. 
 So was it in the case of our Lord Himself in the days of 
 His earthly warfare. The open heaven and the descend- 
 ing dove and the baptismal blessing at the Jordan, were 
 the immediate precursors of the temptation in the wil- 
 derness ; and then, again, at its awful close, the trans- 
 figuration prepared the way for the cross, and the Man 
 of sorrows went straight from the upper chamber to the 
 
JACOB'S WRESTLE. 91 
 
 garden of agony. So was it with the patriarch here. 
 On the very eve of his great battle with a mortal foe, 
 the veil of the eternal world is for a moment drawn, and 
 he has a glimpse of those unseen armies of the sky 
 that are to be his allies and guardians in the strife. 
 Called to combat alone against the most terrible enemy 
 on earth, he is given to see that all heaven is behind 
 him. " And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of 
 God met him. And when Jacob saw them, he said, This 
 is God's host : and he called the name of that place 
 Mahanaim," that is, " Two hosts," referring, doubtless, 
 to the feeble host on this side the veil — a host of helpless 
 women and children set in array against armed men, — 
 and the invincible host of heaven — the chariots of fire 
 and horses of fire on the other. Whether these 
 celestial legions made any articulate communication to 
 the patriarch, we are not told ; whether they came with 
 a special message from the God of armies for the guid- 
 ance of His servant in that trying emergency, or 
 whether in solemn silence they only appeared for a 
 moment and then vanished out of sight, like the shining 
 hosts on the ladder that without voice or sound passed 
 and repassed up and down its radiant stairs, we have no 
 express information. It is most probable, however, that 
 the latter was the case. There is no hint in the sacred 
 narrative of anything beyond a simple appearance, and, 
 therefore, it is most natural to conclude that there was 
 nothing more. Nor does it appear that anything more 
 was necessary. The simple sight of those celestial 
 guards, and the knowledge, that, though unseen, they 
 
92 SERMONS. 
 
 were ever hovering near his path, and would accompany 
 him on the morrow to the scene of his great conflict, 
 was enough to fire his heart with corn-age, and prepare 
 him for every emergency. It was to him what the 
 knowledge of strong reserves at hand, or the irresis- 
 tible reinforcements appearing within sight, are to a 
 struggling army in the field. The Prussian succours 
 at Waterloo, even though they had not struck a single 
 Mow, would yet have decided, by their very presence, 
 the fortune of the day. Jacob feels that though feeble 
 in himself, the omnipotence of God is behind him, and 
 on that he can lean as against a wall of rock. I have 
 said that God's host after appearing for a little, probably 
 vanished almost immediately out of sight; nor do we 
 hear of them again appearing visibly on the scene. No 
 matter. Jacob knows and feels that they are there, and 
 the whole might of their unseen presence enters into his 
 soul. Like the scent of flowers borne to seaward by the 
 breeze that tells the midnight voyagers how near they 
 are to the shore, or the gleam of his cottage window to 
 the belated traveller, — such was this passing vision to 
 Jacob, telling him that though hid by a thin veil of 
 sense, home and friends are near. And so with good 
 courage and with strong heart he goes on his way. He 
 feels henceforth that he is the leader, not of one, but of 
 two hosts, and he can go forward on that dark journey, 
 saying, " If God be for me, who can be against me ? For 
 Thou, Lord, art a shield unto me, my glory, and the lifter 
 up of my head. I will not be afraid though thousands 
 of people should set themselves against me round about." 
 
JACOB'S WRESTLE. 93 
 
 II. The preparation. Like a wise general on the eve 
 of battle, Jacob proceeds without delay to make the 
 needful dispositions. To this duty he addresses himself 
 immediately on the withdrawal of the angels. The 
 assurance of heavenly succour does not supersede or for 
 a moment suspend the use of human means. His 
 arrangements were mainly threefold. First^ Having 
 beforehand sent forward messengers to reconnoitre the 
 ground, and ascertain the movements and probable 
 intentions of the enemy, and having received a report 
 which warned him to prepare for the worst, he divides 
 his little company into two bands in such a way, as, in 
 the event of a hostile encounter, would enable them to 
 meet the danger with the greatest advantage (v, 7). It 
 was the act of a wise commander, who is ever averse to 
 peril all on one venture, — who makes one part of his 
 available forces an outlying rampart to the rest, and even 
 deems it better, in case of stern necessity, to sacrifice a 
 part, rather than peril the loss of the whole. Had Esau, 
 in his unappeasable fury, fallen upon the first company, 
 his revenge had been fully satiated long before he had 
 finished the slaughter, and the quick relentings of his 
 better nature would have made him ready, even eager, 
 to spare the rest. Then secondly^ He gives himself to 
 prayer. This was his great strength ; this was his main 
 battle. It was to him like the charmed locks of Ramson, 
 or the mysterious Ark so terrible to their enemies borne 
 of old by Israel into the battlefield. '' God of my 
 father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord 
 which saidst unto me. Return unto thy country, and to 
 
94 SERMONS. 
 
 thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee : I am not 
 worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the 
 truth which Thou hast showed unto Thy servant : for 
 with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am 
 become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the 
 hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau : for I fear 
 him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother 
 with the children. And Thou saidst, I will surely do 
 thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, 
 which cannot be numbered for multitude." Let us, in 
 our seasons of darkness and distress, follow in this, 
 above all, the example of Jacob. One heart-prayer in 
 the hour of need is of mightier avail than ten thousand 
 armed men. Then thirdly, He accompanied prayer to 
 God with the use of the likeliest means to propitiate 
 the wrath, and win the heart of his brother (vv. 13-21). 
 Thus, as the warfare, on his side at least, was to be one, 
 not of force, but of love, the proper weapons of warfare 
 were kind words and gracious deeds. And so the first 
 detachment which he pushed forward in advance to meet 
 the enemy were armed, not with sword and buckler, but 
 with gentle messages and right royal gifts. The event 
 showed how well he had judged, — how much easier it was 
 to vanquish Esau's heart than to break his arm; how 
 much better to melt an enemy than to crush him ; that 
 that iron hate which all the hammers of the world will 
 only harden, will become soft and pliable at once in the 
 furnace-heat of love. And now all is ready, and as 
 the shadows of night gather around them, the members 
 
JACOB'S WRESTLE. 95 
 
 of the little encampment lie down in scattered groups, 
 and prepare themselves to rest. 
 
 III. The battle. Jacob too, perhaps," lies down, but 
 
 not to sleep. The anxious father courts repose in vain. 
 
 Busy thought, never more restlessly active than at the 
 
 dead hour of night, keeps his eyes waking, and suggests 
 
 3'et other precautions to be taken against the morrow. 
 
 The encampment has not yet crossed the river ; and 
 
 there will be some delay, in consequence, in commencing 
 
 their march in the morning. "Would it not be better to 
 
 effect the passage now, and thus have everything in 
 
 readiness, without hurry or confusion, to start at break 
 
 of day ? He rises accordingly, and taking his staff in 
 
 his hand he first crosses the ford alone to ascertain the 
 
 depth of the water, and then, having found it easily 
 
 practicable, he returns and sends the whole encampment 
 
 across before him. He remains alone, but not to sleep. 
 
 " To everything," saith the wise man, " there is a 
 
 season, and time for everything that is done under the 
 
 sun," and Jacob wisely judged that to him, at least, 
 
 this was not a time to sleep. Had no burden rested on 
 
 him but that which concerned himself, he might, indeed, 
 
 as at Bethel, have freely abandoned himself to weariness 
 
 and slumber, saying, as he laid himself down on the 
 
 dewy ground, " I will both lay me down in peace, and 
 
 sleep; for thou. Lord, only makest me dwell in safety." 
 
 But that was at the time when his staff was his only 
 
 companion, and no life to guard and defend but that of 
 
 his own young buoyant frame, — whereas now the lives of 
 
96 SERMONS. 
 
 a numerous company of helpless women and cliildren hang 
 upon his care ; and, therefore, he must watch while they 
 sleep, — watch just that they may sleep secure. His eye 
 must watch, his thoughts must care for them, — while 
 they, stretched on the silent ground, free from all care, 
 resign themselves to the sweet abandonment of rest. 
 So "Jacob was left alone," — alone in the darkness, on 
 the other side of the stream, even as our Jacob too, the 
 true and ever-prevailing Prince with God, keeps watch 
 and vigil evermore for us within the veil, while we. 
 His helpless flock, remain sleeping or waking, toiling or 
 struggling, on the other side of the great river. What 
 a touching though faint emblem was Jacob on this 
 occasion of that great Shepherd of the sheep that never 
 slumbereth nor sleepeth while a single lamb of His flock 
 remains exposed to the roaring lion ! 
 
 " And there wrestled a man with him until the break- 
 ing of the day !" Taking this whole scene, in its broad 
 features, as they lie before us in the narrative, there are 
 one or two things which, amid much that is mysterious, 
 appear to us to be plain. 
 
 First, The glorious Being who here appears to Jacob, 
 is manifestly the Angel of the Covenant, the second 
 person of the ever-blessed Trinity, in form and appear- 
 ance as a man, even as afterwards, in the fulness of 
 time, He became manifest in our very flesh and blood. 
 
 Secondly, The manifestation was such that Jacob not 
 only seemed to see the mysterious form with his eyes, 
 but to come into contact also with Him by the sense of 
 touch, for he embraced and grappled with Him in mys- 
 
JACOB'S WRESTLE. 97 
 
 terious conflict, as one strong man wrestles with another. 
 How all this was accomplished, in a scene where every- 
 thing was miraculous and supernatural, it is of course 
 needless to inquire. A more important and interesting 
 question is as to the essential natm-e and meaning of the 
 contest itself, — and perhaps we do not greatly err in 
 conceiving of it somewhat as follows : — 
 
 Jacob while pleading alone upon his knees for the 
 safety of his little flock, and the divine succour and 
 blessing amid the trying scenes of the morrow, becomes 
 conscious of another presence near, and lifting up his 
 eyes beholds a glorious form of more than earthly 
 majesty approaching. He recognises, or thinks that 
 he recognises, the mysterious stranger as none other 
 than the Angel of the Divine presence, the same 
 that appeared to Adam in the cool of the day, and to 
 Abraham at the tent door of Mamre. He hails the 
 sign as a token for good, and concludes that his 
 prayer is heard. He hastens to throw himself at the 
 Divine stranger's feet, and supplicate from his own 
 lips an assurance of the fact. "Oh, that Thou wouldst 
 bless me indeed, that Thou wouldst assure me that 
 Thou art indeed with me, that Thou wilt never leave 
 me, that Thou wilt stand by my side, in the great 
 hour of trial that is near at hand ! " The Angel hears, 
 but answers not, — He moves, as if about to depart, — He 
 makes as if He would go farther. Jacob in an agony 
 prays yet more earnestly. "He weeps and makes sup- 
 plication." Still no response. The angel stands silent 
 
 and motionless, as in a muse ; at last He seems to come 
 
 G 
 
98 SERMONS. 
 
 to some resolve, and hastily turns as if to depart. Jacob 
 in extremity, lays hold upon Him while the other reso- 
 lutely tears Himself away. And so they wrestle together 
 until the dawning of the day. At last the Angel, as if 
 to terminate the strife, exclaims, " Let me go, for the day 
 hreaketh," — and Jacob replies in those words which have 
 lived in the hearts of all true wrestlers ever since, " I will 
 not let thee go, except Thou bless me." And now the 
 Lord's design is fulfilled. Jacob's faith is fully tried. 
 Humility, patience, persevering earnestness, trust in 
 God, hope against hope, stimulated to the highest point 
 in the trial, have had their perfect work. Jacob has 
 gained the blessing now, not by languid wishes or 
 drowsy prayers, but by a real victory of faith fairly and 
 nobly won in the battlefield. ''And He said unto him, 
 What is thy name ? And he said, Jacob. And He said, 
 Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel : for 
 as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and 
 hast prevailed. . . . And He blessed him there.'' 
 
 How fully that blessing was fulfilled, as regarded the 
 immediate subject of present anxiety, we need not stay 
 to tell. The melting scene on the morrow speaks too 
 well for itself. The brothers met, not to grapple in 
 enmity, but to embrace in love. "Warm tears of relent- 
 ing tenderness sealed their reconciliation, and drowned 
 in forgetfulness all that was past. Blessed tears ! 
 blessed for Jacob as a token of his brother's forgiveness 
 and of God's mercy : more blessed still for Esau, because 
 he then learned how unutterably sweeter it is to forgive 
 than to revenge. How true it is, that even human love, 
 
JACOB'S WRESTLE. 99 
 
 when that deep is broken up within the heart, " covers a 
 multitude of sins." 
 
 Learn, then, from the whole subject, 
 
 1. How near we are at all times to the world unseen. 
 Though never, as to Jacob, revealed to our fleshly eyes, 
 the unseen hosts of God are ever around the saints. 
 The whole world, and any part of the world, will be a 
 " Mahanaim " to those whose eyes are truly opened. 
 Heaven, if we are the children of God, lies all about us 
 every moment. " He giveth His angels charge over 
 thee, to keep thee," — and again it is written, " The angel 
 of the Lord encampeth roundabout them that fear Him." 
 Nor is it otherwise with the ungodly. They, too, tread 
 every moment on the very verge of the spirit-world. 
 Spirits of darkness haunt their path, ready when their 
 feet slip to seize them for their prey, and carry them 
 away to the dark abyss ! 
 
 2. Never are we so near that world as in the hours of 
 darkness. It was so with Jacob here. It was when 
 there was night both within and around him, that the 
 heaven was opened to him, and the angels of God met 
 him. So is it ever in the dark night of sorrow, or 
 spirit-trouble, that the soul has its keenest intuitions of 
 eternal things, casts its deepest glances within the veil. 
 It is in the night alone, that we see the stars. But for 
 it, Orion and the Pleiads, and all the rest of the glorious 
 host on high, had been for ever unknown, bmied in a 
 secrecy and solitude which neither eye nor telescope 
 could ever explore. Nay, but for night we never could 
 have known of their existence, could scarcely have dreamt 
 
100 SERMONS. 
 
 of any other world in tlie infinitude of space around us 
 besides our own, — so that one night reveals more to us 
 of the real greatness and grandeur of God's universe, 
 than all the days together of all the years since the 
 world began. Even so it is, in the spiritual world 
 too, when the dark pall of sorrow is cast over all 
 the bright objects of earth, that the glories of heaven 
 come forth to view, and the waking spirit beholds what 
 eye had not seen, nor ear heard, neither had it entered 
 into the heart before to conceive. Oh ! how many are 
 there besides the Psalmist who can say, " It is good for 
 me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Thy 
 statutes," who have found in their hour of need that 
 the blessed Bible is just another more glorious firmament 
 that only requires the world's sun to set, that it may 
 unveil its hidden glories, and reveal to our eyes its 
 eternal stars. 
 
 3. Let us diligently improve the eve of time, in pre- 
 paration for the great morning of eternity. Before us 
 lies a far more eventful morrow, and more solemn meet- 
 in o-, than that which awaited Jacob. What was the 
 vengeance of his injured brother, even had it proved as 
 terrible as he feared, to that of the holy Judge of quick 
 and dead, that, if impenitent and unreconciled, awaits us 
 all ? Oh ! then let us be diligent that we may be found 
 of Him in peace, — let us wrestle in believing prayer 
 for that blessing, which will enable us to meet Him with 
 joy and not with grief, and to find in Him, instead of an 
 implacable enemy, a gracious and everlasting friend. 
 
 4. Let us continue in prayer and take no denial until 
 
JACOB'S WRESTLE. 101 
 
 the blessing come. Let us not be discouraged by delay. 
 Let not even an apparent denial make us cease our plead- 
 ing. Eemember Daniel, remember the Syroplienician 
 woman, remember the importunate widow, remember 
 the disciples at Emmaus, — and thus learn that it is ever 
 God's way to stir up the grace of prayer before He 
 answers it, to fan the holy flame to its utmost ardour, 
 to draw forth from the deep heart the most piercing cries 
 of impassioned supplication, and then to crown it with 
 victory and blessing. Therefore persevere and faint not. 
 Not only ask the blessing, but plead for it and wait, 
 clinging to the footstool until it comes. You will prevail 
 at last. Jacob's earnestness shall be crowned once more 
 with Jacob's blessing, and you too shall have a Peniel, 
 yea, many a Peniel in your way, and be enabled to say, 
 even on this side heaven, — " I have seen God face to 
 face, and my life is preserved." 
 
VIII. 
 
 ESAU's FORFEITUEE. 
 
 " Looking diligently . . . lest there be any profane person, as Esau, who for 
 one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that after- 
 ward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected : 
 for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully 
 with tears." — Hebrews xii. 15, 16, 17. 
 
 There are few incidents of Bible history more toucliing 
 than that of Esau's final loss of the blessing. An inex- 
 pressible pathos lingers over every line. It is one of 
 those thrilling tales of true human interest, which 
 appeals irresistibly to the sympathies of all hearts, and 
 the bare recital of which in a moment makes all men 
 kin. It is scarcely possible to read it without emotion, 
 or without feeling a deep and almost personal interest 
 in the actors. The figures on the canvass stand out 
 before us clearly and vividly, and the whole scene rises 
 up before the mind's eye in all the fresh reality of life, 
 as though but of yesterday: — the aged patriarch bending 
 with look of mingled fondness and grief over the manly 
 form of his favourite child, bowed beneath the first great 
 sorrow of his young life, — and then behind, dimly seen 
 in the background, the shadowy forms of the scheming 
 mother and her too congenial son, as if skulking in 
 
ESAU'S FORFEITURE. 103 
 
 the darkness, and watching from a distance the success 
 of their vile and nefarious plot. We can almost see the 
 blank and woeful look of Esau, hear his loud and 
 exceeding bitter cry, and catcli the very accents of that 
 passionate outburst of sorrow, — " Hast thou but one 
 blessing, my father ? bless me, even me also, my 
 father." That piercing wail from the depths of one 
 human heart, touches an answering chord in every other 
 to the end of time, and all the world over. 
 
 We cannot help feeling strongly for Esau. We instinc- 
 tively take his part, as against the heartless and selfisli 
 authors of his misery. Whatever may have been his faults 
 elsewhere, we feel that here at least lie was right and 
 they were wrong, — that in this transaction he was infi- 
 nitely more sinned against than sinning. He was the 
 victim, not the actor, in a scene which must ever brand 
 this page as one of the blackest and most humiliating in 
 human history. If he is thoughtless and reckless of his 
 own highest interests, the greater the shame of those 
 who took advantage of his wayward heedlessness to 
 betray and ruin him. If in his carnal blindness he held 
 the heavenly birthright and blessing light, the more 
 hateful the selfish cunning that conspired to rob him of 
 those jewels. And so we are ready with all our hearts 
 to mingle our tears with those of the .injured and 
 defrauded brother — to cry shame on his vile betrayers — 
 and almost sympathise with those deep muttered words 
 of vengeance, with which, dashing away the indignant 
 tears, he hurried despairing and almost broken-hearted 
 from the presence of his father. 
 
104 SFRMOJVS. 
 
 Such is tliis tale as a mere incident of ancient story, 
 and sucli the feelings with which it must ever be 
 regarded. But it is not a subject for mere sentimental 
 sympathy and tears. These things were written not 
 for our entertainment only, but for our learning. With- 
 in the bosom of a simple incident of old times, God has 
 wrapt up a lesson of instruction and warning for men 
 of every time. Esau's heedless trifling with precious 
 privileges and opportunities, and their consequent irre- 
 trievable forfeiture, is but an example of what is hap- 
 pening in a thousand other instances every day. Thus 
 the case of one speaks in tones of solemn admonition 
 to all. Let us read and seriously ponder the lesson, 
 brethren, that we may avoid the rock on which the un- 
 happy trifler struck, and so by patience and comfort of 
 the Scriptures, we may have hope. Let us, as suggested 
 by the words of our text, proceed to consider in succes- 
 sion, Esau's general character — Esau's special want — 
 Esau's folly — Esau's repentance — and Esau's despair. 
 
 L Esau's disposition. As to this point it is obvious, 
 from the whole history, that Esau was not what in 
 ordinary phrase would be called a bad or wicked man. 
 He was neither profligate, nor cruel, nor avaricious, nor 
 unjust, nor at least openly and glaringly ungodly. He 
 was not notorious for any great crimes, or flagrantly 
 deficient in any of the ordinary duties of social life. 
 To one parent at least, the only one who treated him 
 with any fairness, he was an affectionate and dutiful 
 child ; and if an unhappy breach of bitter alienation 
 
ESA U'S FORFEITURE. 105 
 
 separated him from his only brother, it was one not of 
 his, but of that brother's making. His faults were 
 those rather of reckless heedlessness, than of cool and 
 deliberate depravity. He was bold, impetuous, impulsive, 
 eagerly bent on the indulgence of the present moment, 
 and thoughtless of after consequences ; but like many 
 others of similar temperament, frank, open, and generous- 
 hearted withal. Beneath a rough and rude exterior, he 
 concealed a warm and kindly heart, and occasionally, as 
 at the meeting of the brothers after their long estrange- 
 ment, surprises us with bursts of generous tenderness 
 peculiarly honourable to him. Esau was a strong, but 
 not hard character, — vehement and passionate, but not 
 malignant. He was his old father's darling child, — 
 I)artly indeed for the reason specially mentioned, " be- 
 cause he did eat of his son's venison," but doubt- 
 less also on other and higher accounts. There was 
 something in the brave, manly, fearless spirit of his 
 young hunter, which, from the well-known principle of 
 contrasts, must have been peculiarly captivating to the 
 mild and gentle Isaac ; and if he dearly loved his 
 gallant boy, he had doubtless been often made to feel 
 that he had a heart to return his preference with will- 
 ing and devoted service. Such then was Esau, as regards 
 his natural disposition and character, and as a mere 
 man of the world. But we must now look a little 
 deeper, and consider in the second place, 
 
 11. His special fault. As a man of the world we 
 have seen he possessed a character in the main respect- 
 
106 SERMONS. 
 
 able and unexceptionable. But his great fault was, tbat 
 he was a man of the world and nothing more. At this 
 time at least, and however it may have been with him 
 in his later years, he was evidently " without God and 
 without hope " in the world. In the emphatic words of 
 our text he was " a profane person,'''' — a man, that is, 
 not necessarily of an openly impious or vicious character, 
 but simply secular and earthly in his spirit and aims ; 
 the word " profane," as well as the original Greek term 
 of which it is here a translation, signifying properly that 
 which is common or unconsecrated in ojiposition to that 
 which is sacred or dedicated to holy uses. (Literally, it 
 means that which you may lawfully tread upon, as 
 opposed to the sacred precincts of the sanctuary, which 
 none but hallowed feet may touch.) The profane is thus 
 the outer world of mere nature and common life, as dis- 
 tinct from the inner shrine of the heavenly and the 
 divine. So too, we speak of sacred history and profane 
 history, meaning by that latter term, not the history of 
 the wicked or ungodly, but simply of the common men 
 and common affairs of the world. In this sense then 
 the word is obviously used here ; indeed, in no other 
 sense could it apply to the character of Esau as he is 
 portrayed in the sacred history. He was a man, in 
 short, of this world, a common ordinary man, from the 
 general herd, having his portion in this life, and with no 
 higher hopes beyond. He dwelt wholly within the sphere 
 of present things ; this world to him was the only real 
 world ; his entire circle of thoughts, cares, interests, 
 hopes, fears, was there ; to that other infinite realm of 
 
ESA ITS FORFEITURE. 107 
 
 spiritual and eternal things wbicli lies above it and 
 around it, he was an utter stranger. To him the world 
 was everything, and God and heaven nothing, or next 
 to nothino^. He lived in the reo:ion of the secular in 
 contradistinction to the sacred and divine, and deemed, 
 with the foolish in every age, that " there is nothing 
 better for a man than to eat and to drink, and that he 
 should make his soul enjoy good in his labour all the 
 days of his life, which God giveth him." 
 
 Such was Esau, — such was the very worst that is re- 
 corded of him in the book of infallible truth. Alas ! 
 how many such are there in every age ! How many 
 among ourselves ! How many even in this Christian 
 land, and within the pale of Christian profession and 
 communion, are in the same sense with him " pro- 
 fane persons," — having their portion in this life, their 
 hearts in the world, and their whole habitual thoughts, 
 feelings, cares, engrossed with passing sublunary 
 things ! Their profession perhaps is in heaven, — but 
 their conversation, their real fatherland and heart's 
 home, is on the earth. They live for time, not for 
 eternity, — for themselves, not for God. In outward 
 behaviour they may be respectable, and even in some 
 points exemplary ; in the ordinary relations of life, as 
 wives, husbands, parents, children, they may be kind, 
 and, in the world's sense, dutiful ; but to the higher 
 relations that bind them to God and heaven, they are 
 almost wholly strangers. They are without faith, with- 
 out repentance, without grace. They are secular, earthly, 
 carnal. In one emphatic, pregnant word, they are " pro- 
 
108 SERMOm. 
 
 fane persons," The smile of the heavenly Father, and 
 the blessings of the eternal birthright, are to them 
 nothing in comparison with the mere animal care of 
 " what shall I eat, what shall I drink, and wherewithal 
 shall I be clothed?" — and a morsel of earthly pottage 
 is of more account to them than a whole heaven of 
 spiritual and future joys. And so, like Esau, in the 
 hour of trial, when the cravings of their ruling passion 
 are strong upon them, and when nothing now stands 
 between them and their darling pleasure but this birth- 
 right which they hold so light, and in the very existence 
 of which they scarce believe, the die is soon cast. Every 
 consideration of conscience, duty, the fear of God, the 
 hope of heaven, is bartered away for the indulgence of the 
 moment, and the fatal bargain of Esau is repeated again. 
 But this brings us to our third topic of discourse, 
 
 III. Esau^s folly. The precise nature and full privi- 
 leges of what is here called the "birthright," it is not 
 easy, nor is it necessary, to define. It is enough to 
 say, that it was the position alike of dignity and of 
 blessing belonging to the first-born in the sacred line 
 of God's covenanted mercy. It constituted him the 
 representative for the time of the holy chosen race, and 
 as such, the depository and guardian of those celestial 
 treasures which had been entrusted to that race for 
 the future blessing of the world, in the chain of God's 
 eternal purposes of love, — one of the august band of 
 hoary and truly royal fathers, not of Israel only, but of 
 all mankind, of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ 
 
ESAU'S FORFEITURE. 109 
 
 came who is over all, God blessed for ever. It was 
 thus not a high, honour or privilege only, hut a sacred 
 trust, like the custody of the Ark itself, not to he trifled 
 with or bartered for gold, or parted with but with life 
 itself. But not so thought Esau. In his carnal blind- 
 ness he regarded this sublime distinction as a trifle 
 light as air, nay, scarcely believed in its very existence. 
 As a thing in its nature mainly spiritual, and belonging 
 rather to the future than the present, it seemed to him 
 little better than a visionary chimera and dream, not 
 worthy for a moment to be compared with the present 
 and substantial objects of sense. " I am at the point 
 to die," he cried, when, stung with the pangs of hunger, 
 the dainty morsel, like the forbidden fruit of old, caught 
 his eye, " and what profit shall this birthright do to 
 me ? " And so, at the first breath of temptation, he 
 snatched the golden crown from his head, and cast it 
 like a worthless bauble in the mire. 
 
 Even so have thousands done since his day; so, per- 
 haps, have some of you, or are even now doing. Esau's 
 story is but a specimen of the manner in which men in 
 every age lose the tide of life — forfeit the golden moment 
 of opportunity, which, once gone, is gone for ever. Every 
 man has his birthright and blessing like Esau — his own 
 providential advantages and God-given opportunities of 
 good, of getting good, and of doing good — of saving his 
 own soul and that of others — of winning heaven and 
 leading others there. That is his birthright ; a birth- 
 right more precious than worlds — a birthright carrying 
 an infinite blessing within its bosom — a birthright which, 
 
no SERMONS. 
 
 if true to himself, lie may seize and make liis own for 
 ever, — but wliich, in the great majority of cases, is trifled 
 with, bartered away, and irretrievably lost. 
 
 ^^For one morsel of meat he sold his birthright." 
 Surely, at least, we are not such fools as that. If, like 
 him, we barter away our higher interests for earthly things, 
 it is at least for a better bribe than he. Are you sure 
 of this ? Has there never been a critical moment in your 
 life, when the whole battle, of God or the world, Christ 
 or the Devil, seemed to hang on the balance, and when the 
 trembling scale was turned by a trifle light as that which 
 decided Esau ? You thrust away the golden moment of 
 striving and almost victorious grace, for a mere momen- 
 tary pleasure of the flesh, keen indeed, and fatally sweet, 
 but hollow and evanescent as his. And since then, per- 
 haps, you have never had such another moment of grace ; 
 since then you have gone backward, not forward, — losing 
 ever, not gaining in the great battle. And if not thus 
 by a single throw, are there not many who barter away 
 their birthright piecemeal — that fritter away and dissi- 
 pate that heavenly inheritance day by day — Sabbaths, 
 sacraments, days of grace, moments of conviction and 
 impression, one after another, till all are gone, and gone 
 for ever ? Alas ! what need have we to take heed lest 
 there be among us any profane person as Esau, who for 
 one morsel of meat sold his birthright! 
 
 IV. Esau's repentance. Esau's birthright is gone, and 
 yet he feels apparently as if it still were his. He goes 
 on just as before, giving himself little trouble about the 
 
ESAU'S FORFEITURE. Ill 
 
 matter, and seems scarcely if at all aware that any 
 important change has taken place in his position and 
 prospects. Had the sale of the birthright been a mere 
 act of innocent sport, it could scarcely have affected him 
 less or bulked less largely in his mind than it seems to 
 have done. This is indeed quite what we might have 
 expected. Eegarding as he had done the birthright as 
 a mere trifle while it was still his own, he did not feel 
 that he had lost much now that it is gone ; like a savage 
 who would willingly barter a priceless diamond for a 
 gilded bauble, and count himself happy in the exchange. 
 What recks the sensual swinish heart of the holy 
 pearls, which, in its eager rush to the trough, it tramples 
 down in its way ? 
 
 A circumstance, however, soon occurred to rouse 
 Esau from his dream, as it has done thousands after 
 him. This was the loss of the blessing. The birth- 
 right which he held so light, he finds to his dismay 
 carried the blessing in its bosom, and that by the bar- 
 tering of the one he had forfeited the other. He had 
 ' never thought of this. He had never meant, or dreamed 
 of, this when he made his fatal bargain. Indeed, in 
 the wild delirium of the moment, he had thought of 
 nothing but his hunger and the dainty morsel before 
 him. But now he awakes because of that which he has 
 lost. Esau loves his father. He would not for the 
 world forfeit that father's love, or lose his share of that 
 heritage of blessing which he should leave behind. The 
 very thought of disinheriting himself of a treasure so 
 dear and sacred, — of that father passing away from earth, 
 
112 SERMONS. 
 
 and leaving liim, liis darling child, unblessed, or with 
 any lesser meed of blessing than might have been his, 
 was intolerable to him, — and yet this was the very 
 calamity which in his folly he had brought upon him- 
 self, and which now in all its bitterness stares him in 
 the face. Thus quickly did sorrow follow on the heels 
 of sin, — thus apace did that accursed seed, so heedlessly 
 sown, spring up into bitter and deadly fruit, Alas ! 
 and is it not even so, that sinners still learn that it is 
 an evil and a bitter thing to depart from the Lord ? 
 Then first do they see the evil of sin, when, in the retri- 
 butive providence of God, they are made to eat of the 
 fruit of their own ways, and are filled with their own 
 devices. They think nothing of the little seeds of sin 
 which drop into the ground till the harvest of death 
 appears. According to the old fable, they gaily sow the 
 dragon's teeth, and shudder to see them springing up 
 armed men. Like Cain of old, their punishment, not 
 their sin, is greater than they can bear. The cup of sin 
 was sweet, but its dregs are bitter ; and shame and sorrow 
 extort the exceeding bitter cry of selfish anguish from 
 hearts that never wept for sin, or breathed one sigh of 
 ino-enuous grief for a Father dishonoured and a Saviour 
 despised. 
 
 V. Esau's unavailing sorrow. There are some con- 
 sequences of sin which even the truest repentance and 
 most thorough amendment of heart and life can never 
 repair. The guilt of sin may be pardoned, and yet its 
 fruit remain. There are some things which when done. 
 
USA U'S FORFEITURE. 1 1 3 
 
 cannot "be undone, even by the forgiving and saving 
 grace of God : fountains of tears which once opened will 
 still flow on all the days even of the true penitent's life 
 on earth. Instances of this are innumerable, and must 
 occur to every one. The murderer may mourn in bitter 
 sorrow over his victim, but that remorse can never restore 
 the murdered man to life, or gather up one fatal drop of 
 blood spilt on the ground. The penitent Magdalene 
 may recover her peace with God, but can never repair 
 her virgin honour, or be on earth at least what she has 
 been. We may lament the wasted years of a thoughtless 
 youth, but we can never recover the precious seed-time of 
 life, or do now the work that should have been done then. 
 We may grieve over the golden opportunities which 
 met us on the threshold of our manhood, and which, if 
 timely seized, might have led us on to usefulness and 
 honour, — but when once the tide has passed, it will 
 never return again. The converted and forgiven sinner 
 remembers with anguish the companions of his sin, the 
 companions whom he has helped to ruin, and would give 
 all the world for one opportunity of speaking to them, 
 and pleading with them, and doing something to repair 
 the evil himself had done. But it cannot be. The 
 man who has wasted health and strength in the service 
 of the devil, and now remains in mind and body but 
 the miserable wreck of that which once he was, may, 
 through the divine mercy repent and be forgiven, but 
 he can never regain the buoyant life and vigour of his 
 early prime, or have anything but the dregs of his earthly 
 existence at least to give to God. 
 
 H 
 
114 SERMONS. 
 
 Such are but a few instances out of fhousancls illus- 
 trative of this principle. So was it with Esau. Thus 
 he lost his birthright and his blessing; lost them finally, 
 lost them for ever, — " so that afterwards when he would 
 have inherited the blessing he was rejected ; for he 
 found no place for repentance, though he sought it 
 carefully with tears." However it may have been with 
 him in regard to his eternal destiny (for of this the pre- 
 sent passage speaks nothing), whatever at least was 
 desirable and precious in the birthright and blessing 
 here on earth was gone, — for ever gone. And so it is 
 that if men take not heed, their heavenly, their ever- 
 lasting blessing shall be forfeited too. What are youth, 
 health, days of grace, baptismal gifts, parental counsels, 
 gospel calls, convictions of conscience, strivings of the 
 Spirit, yearnings of the weary homeless heart, but, so to 
 speak, part of the birthright, of the divinely-ordained 
 means of blessing, with which a man sets out in life, 
 and which must all be realised and made our own, or 
 like Esau's, trifled and squandered away ? So with the 
 whole of life, the entire space of time — with all its 
 providential calls, opportunities, means, and materials of 
 well-doing and of well-being, which God once for all has 
 assigned to each of us. This is our birthright, which, 
 once gone, is gone beyond recall. 
 
 How is it, my brethren, with you ? Have you claimed 
 your birthright, and do you now enjoy the blessing, — 
 the blessing of pardon, the blessing of peace, the bless- 
 ing of a Father's love, the blessing of a holy, peaceful 
 conscience, the blessing of a new heart, a new life. 
 
JSSA U'S FORFEITURE. 115 
 
 and a hope full of glory beyond the 'skies,— or are you 
 still unblessed? Is your birthright slipping through 
 your hands ? Shall you leave the world with an exceed- 
 ing bitter cry, and fill eternity with the weeping and 
 wailing of unavailing sorrow ? Oh, be wise in time, and 
 while you mourn over that which is lost, seize with all 
 your might that fragment of the birthright that yet 
 remains, crying in a better spirit than Esau, " Bless 
 me, even me also, my Father! " 
 
IX. 
 
 inSTANSWEEED PRAYER. 
 "Be not silent to me." — Psalm xxviii. 2. 
 
 I. The first thing whicli strikes us as lying on the very 
 surface of this pregnant text is, that the true suppliant 
 at the throne of grace expects an answer. He not only 
 prays, but he looks for a response to his prayers. He 
 not only speaks to God, but he expects that God -will 
 speak to him. " Evening and morning, and at noon will 
 I pray," says this same royal suppliant elsewhere, and, 
 " I will look up," — expecting an answer. Prayer, in his 
 view, was a real converse and traffic with the skies, a con- 
 verse and traffic not on one side only, but on both. It 
 was not a mere soliloquy with his own soul, but a col- 
 loquy between his soul and God. It is a ladder set on 
 the earth whose top reacheth unto heaven, and the 
 angels of God not only ascend but descend upon it, — 
 angel prayers climbing upwards, angel blessings speed- 
 ins: down its shinins: stairs. Therefore the Psalmist 
 came with boldness to the throne of grace, not only that 
 he might seek mercy, but that he might " obtain mercy, 
 and find grace to help in time of need." To such inter- 
 course, to such blessed transacting with God, silence on 
 
UNANSWERED PRAYER. 117 
 
 either side were equally fatal. If the soul is silent to 
 God, there is no prayer at all ; if the Lord is silent to 
 the soul, there is no accepted, there is no effectual 
 prayer. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that to the genuine suppliant who at 
 the throne of grace casts his burden on the Lord, there 
 is a certain blessed sense of relief in the very act of 
 prayer itself. To look again to God's holy temple, in 
 the hour of darkness and distress — to pour out the tale 
 of our sins and sorrows into the ears of infinite mercy — 
 to lean back our feeble spirits on the strong Rock of ages 
 and feel that He is behind us — even in this, apart alto- 
 gether from any more sensible tokens of a gracious 
 acceptance, there is support and strength. It is a 
 blessed thing thus to cast our burden upon the Lord, 
 and to commit our case to Him and feel that we have 
 done so, even before we assuredly know that He has taken 
 up that burden, that He has made that case His own. 
 Simple, naked faith, thus precedes sense, and prepares 
 the w^ay for it, — the faint, dim dawn before the warm 
 flush of morn. When Hezekiah had spread the letter of 
 Sennacherib before the Lord and left it there, he doubt- 
 less in that very act experienced a great relief, as if the 
 burden that lay so heavy on his heart were almost 
 already gone. There is comfort in the hour of sudden 
 alarm in the very fact of having sent for a physician — 
 that a messenger is on his way to him — and bright hope 
 keeps watch by the sufferer's bed until he comes. 
 Thus even already does the pleading soul feel that it is 
 a good thing to draw near to the Lord, that there is 
 
118 SERMONS. 
 
 peace, that there is strength, that there is holy and 
 deep repose, in the very act of prayer. But then we 
 are to remember that the comfort that comes before 
 the answer is mainly grounded on the hope that the 
 answer will come. God may be silent now, but He 
 will not always keep silence. My petition now lies 
 before the throne, but my trust is that it will not lie 
 for ever there unnoticed and unregarded. The Divine 
 Physician is not yet come, and meanwhile my sore dis- 
 ease pursues its course, and my life draweth nigh to the 
 grave, — but He has been sent for, and surely He is 
 coming and will soon be here. It is this hope that 
 gives sweetness and strength to prayer. The upward 
 glancing of the eye gives comfort and help, but it is 
 because God, though none but God, is nigh. '' My soul, 
 wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from 
 Him. He only is my rock and my salvation : He is my 
 defence; I shall not be moved." Thus the true sup- 
 pliant not only prays but waits, not only speaks but 
 listens. " I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and 
 my hope is in His word. I wait for the Lord more than 
 they that watch for the morning ; I say, more than they 
 that watch for the morning." 
 
 My dear brethren, is this your idea of prayer, and is 
 this what it practically is to you ? Has it been your way 
 thus not to bring your petitions to the footstool only, but 
 to cling to the footstool until you have obtained the an- 
 swer ? Is prayer really to you a means of obtaining bless- 
 ings from the Lord, blessings that spring not up in your 
 own hearts within, but come down distinctly from above ? 
 
UNANSWERED PRATER. 119 
 
 Have you called unto the Lord in distress, and has the 
 Lord answered you, and set you in a large place ? Can 
 you say with the Psalmist, " I waited patiently for the 
 Lord, and He inclined His ear unto me, and heard my 
 cry?" I believe every true suppliant at the throne 
 Las had something of this experience. There have heen 
 times when to his clear consciousness the very gate of 
 heaven has been opened to him, and blessings super- 
 natural and divine have come down like angel ministries 
 of mercy in answer to his cry, so that he could be as sure 
 of the fact as he is of his very life. Do you know any- 
 thing of this experience ? If not, surely you have yet 
 to learn the worth and power of prayer. God has been 
 silent to you, and you have been silent to God. 
 
 IL I proceed, however, a step further, and remark 
 from the text, that though the true suppliant expects an 
 answer, the answer does not always immediately come. 
 It manifestly did not do so in the present case. The 
 very cry of this earnest suppliant that the Lord would 
 not continue to keep silence to him plainly implies that 
 He was keeping silence now, that up to that moment, 
 from the beginning of his present supplications, that 
 silence was yet unbroken. He heard as if He heard 
 not. He heard, but answered not a word. 
 
 Nor is this unusual in the dealings of God towards His 
 suppliant people. It is, indeed, apparently the ordinary 
 course of the divine economy of grace thus to interpose 
 an interval of delay between the prayer and the answer, 
 an interval of hope, of desire, of earnest seeking, of holy 
 
120 SERMONS. 
 
 importunate wrestling, before faitli is crowned with 
 victory, and tears are changed into songs. "Weeping may 
 endm-e for a niglit, and oftentimes a long and wearv 
 night, though joy does come in the morning. Now and 
 then, indeed, it is otherwise ; now and then, even whib 
 we are yet speaking, the Lord hears, and the answer 
 follows the prayer, as sudden and as quick as the sound 
 follows the flash in a thunder-clap ; as when, for example, 
 the poor leper moaned out in his anguish, "Lord, if Thou 
 wilt. Thou canst make me clean," and the instantaneous 
 echo returned, " I will, be thou clean ; " — or, as when the 
 dying thief whispered in the darkness, " Lord, remember 
 me, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom," and immedi- 
 ately the reply was given from the neighbouring cross, 
 " To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise," There was 
 no time for delay then, and there was no delay. But ordi- 
 narily it is not so. Such instances are the exception, not 
 the rule. Much more often does it happen that even the 
 truest suppliant asks again and again before he receives, 
 seeks long before he finds, knocks with reiterated 
 urgency before it is opened unto him. Thus He tries 
 and trains our faith, — thus He proves and stimulates 
 our earnestness, — thus He effectually teaches us our 
 helplessness, and our absolute dependence on His simple 
 mercy and grace, — thus He weans us from all creature 
 stays and confidences, that we may lean alone on Him, 
 — thus He compels us to seek out the secret causes of 
 distance and of darkness, and to put away the evil 
 thing, — and thus He enhances to us, enhances a thou- 
 sand-fold the preciousness of the boon when at last it 
 
UNANSWERED PRAYER. ' 121 
 
 comes. The longer and tlie darker the night, the brighter 
 smiles the morn. The sterner and the wearier the winter, 
 the more welcome and the more gladsome the spring. 
 The more utter our despair of self, the more absolute our 
 trust, and the more glorious our victory in the Lord. 
 
 It is thus that in every age the Lord has dealt with 
 His most illustrious and most successful suppliants. 
 So was it with Jacob. He wrestled all night long, 
 until the breaking of the day, before the blessing and 
 the new name were won. So was it with the Syro- 
 phenician. Again and again did she pour out her 
 complaint in the ears of One who apparently heard her 
 not, and seemed in the very act of being spurned like 
 a dog from His feet, when the answer in peace was 
 given. So was it with the storm-tossed disciples on the 
 Galilean sea. All through the night had they buffeted 
 with the winds and the waves while the Saviour was far 
 away on the unseen shore, and not till the fourth watch 
 had brought a dim, uncertain light on the waters, 
 making the crested billows loom more terribly than ever 
 through the gloom, did He come to hush the storm to 
 rest. So was it with the gentle and devoted sisters of 
 Bethany. Oh, how anxiously did they count the slow 
 passing moments, moments that seemed almost like 
 weary hours, between the dispatch of their messenger, 
 and the earliest moment their Lord could arrive ! But 
 now that moment is come, and is passed, long passed, 
 and yet He comes not. There is not even any message, 
 not a single word to tell them that He is coming, — that 
 He is not forgetting them. He is silent unto them, 
 
122 SERMONS. 
 
 silent in the very hour of their greatest need, of their 
 deep and most utter desolation. Meanwhile, the dread 
 disease pursues its ravages, and death with hot haste 
 presses on, while the Prince of life is tarrying. But 
 He comes at last, and comes at the right time, at the 
 best time, though a time strange to flesh and blood. 
 He comes in man's view too late, but not too late in 
 God's, — too late to prevent the evil the sisters feared, 
 but not too late to repair it, — too late to anticipate 
 death, but not too late to triumph over it, — too late to 
 grant the blessing the sisters craved, but not too late to 
 do exceeding abundantly above all that they were able 
 to ask or to think. Thus to those who feared His name 
 did the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His 
 wings, and the darkness of night was turned into the 
 light of the morning. 
 
 Now surely, brethren, these things that were written 
 aforetime were written for our learning, for the en- 
 couragement and consolation of the true seekers of the 
 Lord in every age and land, that they, too, by patience 
 and comfort of the Scriptures, may have hope. Let us 
 not be cast down and discouraged by the Lord's delay. 
 Though He tarry, wait for Him. Let us learn from those 
 examples that God's silence is not a refusal, but only a 
 provocation to greater earnestness and importunity. He 
 refuses, in order that He may more loyally give, — He 
 thrusts us away, that He may draw us closer to Himself, 
 — He keeps silence for a while, that He may more gra- 
 ciously speak at last. Even He whom the Father heareth 
 always, and in whom He is ever well-pleased, the Prince 
 
UNANS WERED PRA YER. 123 
 
 of snppliants and wrestlers, seemed for a -while, in the 
 hour of His great extremity, to plead in vain. *' my 
 God, I cry in the day-time, and Thou hearest not, and in 
 the night season, and am not silent. Be not far from 
 me, God, my strength; haste Thee to help me." 
 But the more His faith is tried, the firmer does it cling. 
 The deeper His Father's silence, the louder and more 
 earnest His cry, till, having poured out His soul, long 
 and fervently, " in strong crying and tears unto Him 
 who was able to save Him from death. He was heard in 
 that He feared." 
 
 In this then, brethren, let us follow the steps of our 
 great Exemplar. As we learn from Him to suffer and 
 to serve, so let us also learn from Him to pray. ''It is 
 good that a man should both hope, and quietly wait for 
 the salvation of the Lord," — " till the Lord look down 
 and behold from heaven," — for, " though He cause grief, 
 yet will He have compassion according to the multitude 
 of His mercies." Let us thus wait, brethren. Let us 
 wait patiently. Let us wait longingly. Let us wait ex- 
 pectantly, and we shall not wait in vain. They that 
 wait on the Lord shall never be put to shame. What 
 says he, whose plaintive and almost despairing words 
 we are now considering ? What is the experience which 
 in other and happier days he records for the encourage- 
 ment of all after snppliants, who should tread the same 
 dark path of trouble, doubt, and fear? " I had fainted, 
 unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord 
 in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, and be 
 of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart : 
 wait, I say, on the Lord." 
 
124 SERMONS. 
 
 I go on, however, to remark, 
 
 III. That the time suppliant^ though he seeks patiently 
 to await the answer, cannot rest satisfied without it. The 
 Lord's silence and delay, though he tries meekly to 
 endure it, and though he knows that God is hoth righteous 
 and wise in thus afflicting him, is in itself very painful 
 to him. Sweet as are the uses of that trying dispensa- 
 tion afterwards, and loudly as he shall yet praise the 
 Lord that He did thus try him, it is not for the present 
 joyous, but grievous. If from this sowing-time of tears, 
 there shall be a reaping-time of joy, they are none the 
 less tears, and bitter tears, still. If we can bear easily 
 the hiding of the Father's face, and the long silence of 
 His lijjs, it is a sad sign surely that we have the hearts, 
 not of children, but of strangers. A hireling servant 
 may be well content with his master's wages and his 
 master's fare, though he should never hear his voice or 
 see his face, — but nothing less than that can satisfy a 
 child. More terrible even than a father's frown, or a 
 father's rod, or a father's word of keen reproof, is a 
 father's silence. That he will not speak to him, that 
 he will not speak one word of kindness and of forgive- 
 ness, it is this that cuts him to the very heart. And the 
 longer that this silence continues, it becomes the more 
 painful, till at last it grows into a burden almost too 
 heavy to be borne, and his poor heart breaks and cries 
 out in its desolate anguish, " father, speak to me, 
 speak to me, be not silent to me, to me thy child, — 
 speak to me, if it were but a single word, to tell me 
 
UNAiYS WERED PEA YER. 125 
 
 that I am forgiven, and that I am thy own child once 
 more." And so the father relents at last, and as he 
 presses the little penitent to his bosom and dries his 
 tears, he whispers in such words as these : '' Is Ephraim 
 my dear son ? Is he a pleasant child ? for since I 
 spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still : 
 therefore my bowels are troubled for him ; I will surely 
 have mercy upon him." 
 
 And as in the earthly relation, so also in the heavenly, 
 — as in the natural, so in the divine. The spirit of 
 adoption which divine grace imparts is but the tran- 
 slation into a higher sphere of the feelings which stir 
 within the breast of every true child, and the infinite, 
 eternal Fatherhood is only the reality of which every 
 other father's love is but a shadow. So, the mere 
 fact of God's silence is painful to him to whom the 
 spirit of adoption has been given, just because from its 
 very nature it excludes him from the blessed sense of 
 His gracious presence and love. In this way it is 
 tantamount to what is elsewhere called, " the hiding of 
 His face," — the gracious look, and the gracious word, 
 the smile and the voice of love, being the two main and 
 most expressive signs by which the heart sjieaks ; and 
 accordingly it is that in another Psalm we find the first 
 of these acts spoken of, as the second is here, (Ps. cxliii. 
 7) " Hide not Thy face from me, lest I be like unto 
 them that go down into the pit." Each expression alike 
 indicates the cutting off of sensible intercourse, the 
 withdrawal of sensible manifestation and communica- 
 tion, and the consequent drying up of all the deep 
 springs of light, and life, and peace within the soul. 
 
126 SERMONS. 
 
 And from this flow other evils scarcely less bitter and 
 painful. How can the soul to whom the Lord thus 
 keeps silence know that his prayer is heard at all ? It 
 is the reply alone that assures us that our letters to a 
 beloved friend far away have reached his hand, or that 
 he still lives to receive them. When he keeps silence, 
 and long months or years pass away without a response, 
 we fear either that he is dead, or that our |^ words of 
 kindness and affection have missed their way. So it is 
 with the answer to prayer. The answer is conveyed 
 either in actual blessings, or in secret whispers and con- 
 solations of grace that attest the hearing of prayer ; and 
 when that answer is long delayed, we may well cry out 
 with Jeremiah, " Thou hast covered Thyself with a 
 cloud, that our prayer should not pass through." Nay, 
 sometimes it seems to us in this awful silence as if 
 there was no God at all, no higher world, no heaven, no 
 stars. At least He is at a great distance separated from 
 us by an awful gulf, across which we look, but see no 
 light, — cry, but receive no answer. When the strayed 
 child cries out in the darkness to Him in whose guidance 
 and help he trusts, and whom he thought to be near at 
 hand, and- when no answer returns, — nothing but the 
 echoes of his own voice in the awful silence, — his heart 
 sinks within him as he feels himself all alone. So a 
 silent God is an absent God ; at least it seems to the 
 soul as if it were so. How can it but do so, as he cries 
 out in his trouble for light, guidance, succour, strength, 
 to Him who alone can help, and there comes no answer ? 
 Meantime, while God is afar off, trouble is near. While 
 
UNANSWERED PRAYER. 127 
 
 the master tarries on the further shore, the winds and 
 waves roar for their prey, and the frail bark struggles 
 as in the jaws of death. When He hideth His face we 
 are troubled. Darkness broods over the soul. Guilt 
 presses on the conscience. Terrors affright and scare 
 the heart. He sinks in the deep waters, — the floods 
 come in upon his soul, — he is going down, and as he 
 stretches out his hand for help in vain, and flings out 
 his voice into the dark, blind, pitiless night, and no 
 answer comes, he is like unto them that go down into 
 the pit, even those who in the day of their extremity shall 
 call and He shall refuse, who shall stretch out their hand 
 and He shall not regard, but shall " laugh at their 
 calamity, and mock when their fear cometh." It was 
 the fear of being thus forsaken in the day of his 
 extremity — the painful feeling he now had, as if he were 
 about to be so forsaken — that drew from the Psalmist 
 the strong, and almost despairing cry of the text, " Be 
 not silent to me, God." 
 
 Is there any one here present to whom God has been 
 always silent, to whom He has not only now and then 
 kept silence as to the Psalmist here, but to whom He 
 has kept silence all their life long ? Have you never 
 heard the gracious voice of God speaking peace to your 
 heart, and saying to your soul, " I am thy salvation?" 
 Have you been all your days a stranger to Him, — never 
 conversed with Him in love, never walked with Him in 
 holy fellowship, and tasted the sweetness of His mercy ? 
 Alas ! poor soul ! you are like unto those that go down 
 
128 SERMONS. 
 
 into the pit. What if He should keep silence to you 
 for ever, if you should never see His face in love, never 
 hear His voice save only in accents of wrath and doom ? 
 What if on a dying day, on a judgment day, He 
 should be silent to you, if then you should cry out and 
 shout, and He should shut out your prayer ! Oh, be 
 warned in time ! " Seek the Lord while He may be 
 found, call upon Him while He is near." He has not 
 always been silent to you, though you have been silent 
 to Him. He has called, though you have refused to hear, 
 — He has stretched out His hand, though you have not 
 regarded. Let Him not speak in vain. Let not your 
 silence constrain even infinite love itself to be for ever 
 silent to you. 
 
 To you, on the other hand, who have tasted and seen 
 that the Lord is gracious, and have often conversed with 
 Him in holy spiritual fellowship, though now His voice 
 is silent, I would speak in another language. Humble 
 yourselves deeply in the dust, but be not overmuch cast 
 down by the present hiding of your Father's face, and 
 withdrawal of His sensible and gracious consolation. 
 His silence is not necessarily an eternal silence. The 
 hiding of His face is not the withdrawal of His love. 
 Nay, rather, oftentimes does He in a little wrath hide 
 His face from His people for a moment, just that, 
 thus weaning them from their idols, and drawing them 
 closer to Himself than ever, with everlasting kindness 
 He may have mercy on them. Why should it not be 
 even so with you ? Nay, is not the fact that you so 
 painfully feel His silence, and so long to have that 
 
UNANSWERED PRATER. 129 
 
 silence broken, and the blessed fellowship of your first 
 espousals renewed, a sign that He has not utterly for- 
 saken you, and cast you off for ever ? Be not then 
 discouraged. Look again to God's holy temple, and 
 cry to Him from the depths. Pray on. Wait on. Hope 
 on. It may be but a little while, and the dark cloud 
 shall break, and the Sun of Righteousness shine out 
 again, and the same lips that now pour forth this 
 mournful complaint, take up the joyful strains with 
 which this very psalm is closed : " Blessed be the 
 Lord, because He hath heard the voice of my sup- 
 plication. The Lord is my strength and my shield ; 
 my heart trusted in Him, and T am helped : therefore 
 my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I 
 praise Him." 
 
X. 
 
 FUTUEB UNFOLDING OF PRESENT MYSTERIES. 
 
 " What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou shalt know hereafter." — 
 John xiii. 7. 
 
 In these words we have only a single instance of a 
 principle which is of wide and varied application. Di- 
 vested of the special accidents of place and circumstance 
 with which they are here connected, and viewed with 
 regard to their naked essence, they teach us the great 
 truth, that the ways of God towards the sons of men 
 are progressive, — that they evolve their purpose and 
 their meaning gradually and slowly, and that therefore 
 if we would judge of them rightly, we must wait to see 
 the end. We see the thing He is doing, or at least a 
 part of it, but we do not know what it is. We see the 
 movement as it were of His hands, hear the sound of His 
 feet, but what He is doing, or whither He is going, as 
 yet we know not. " His way is in the sea, and His 
 path in the great waters," and we must follow Him, — 
 follow Him blindly, if we would reach the shore, and 
 see the wealthy place whither He is leading us. He 
 leadeth the blind in a way they know not — leadeth them 
 step by step, along a road of which a few inches alone 
 
FUTURE UNFOLDING OF PRESENT MYSTERIES. 131 
 
 are visible, and wliich stretclies away into the infinite 
 unseen. The lamp to the feet illumines only the spot 
 on which now we tread, and that on which we are to 
 tread next, — while all beyond and before is darkness. 
 God Himself indeed has a complete plan of your life 
 continually before Him, — but He lets you only see the 
 point at which He is working, and in which He would 
 have you to work with Him. " Master ! where dwellest 
 Thou?" was the disciples' question at their very first 
 meeting with the Lord. " Come and see," was the 
 simple and pregnant reply. To all curious and unprofit- 
 able questionings alike concerning our own future, and 
 concerning that of our brethren, He has for us mean- 
 while, but one decisive and all-sufficing, '' What is that 
 to thee ? Follow thou me." 
 
 This is the principle of our text. Let us endeavour 
 more fully to open up its meaning, and apply its 
 lesson. 
 
 L We must wait to know the meaning of things of 
 which we now only see the form. So, in the case 
 immediately before us. " What I do thou knowest not 
 now." Thou seest me doing it, but thou dost not know 
 what I mean by it, — this thou shalt know hereafter. So 
 is it also in innumerable other cases. The world is full 
 of hidden meanings that lie behind the form of visible 
 things, which require both thought and patience, and 
 often long time also, to decipher. The universe is but 
 one vast volume covered over with the hieroglyphic 
 signs of hidden truth, one great Interpreter's house, with 
 
132 SERMONS. 
 
 lessons of instruction for every pilgrim, liad we only the 
 Interpreter himself beside us to read and apply them. 
 The sun, the stars, the trees, the great mountains, the 
 mighty sea, the countless sands, the rivers of God that 
 are full of water, the lilies, the birds, the thick sown 
 field, the dying germ, the springing blade, summer and 
 winter, day and night, sickness and health. Sabbath 
 peace, home joys, a faithful friend, a father's fear, a 
 mother's love, — all have their special message of heavenly 
 wisdom and grace ; eternal truths hid beneath the forms 
 of passing things ; divine words written between the 
 lines for those who have eyes to read them. 
 
 Of this deeper interpretation of common things, 
 Scripture gives us many examples both in the Old Testa- 
 ment, and in the New. " The righteous shall flourish as 
 the palm tree, he shall grow as the cedar in Lebanon." — • 
 " The ungodly are not so, but they are as the chaff 
 which the wind driveth away." — " The Sun of Righteous- 
 ness shall arise with healing in His wings." — " I am the 
 true vine." — " Consider the lilies." — "Consider the fowls 
 of the air." — " Thou fool, that which thou sowest is 
 not quickened except it die." — And the thoughtful, 
 heaven-taught soul acquires a happy and ever-increasing 
 skill in tracing out those hidden meanings for himself. 
 Still there are depths of wisdom in the great volume, 
 grand revelations of mysterious and far-reaching truths, 
 which we shall never fully explore on earth, — and which 
 must be reserved for that great day, when we shall see 
 not merely as now a little way beneath the surface, but 
 down to the very centre and heart of things. ''What 
 
FUTURE UNFOLDING OF PRESENT MYSTERIES. 133 
 
 I do thou knowest not now ; but thou shalt know here- 
 after." 
 
 II. We must wait to know the reason of things, of 
 which we now only know the fact. Singular, indeed, is 
 the folly of those who refuse to believe anything except 
 what they can understand. To say so is just in reality 
 to say that we shall believe nothing, for assuredly, in the 
 strict and full sense of the word, we understand nothing. 
 The thing which we suppose ourselves to know best of 
 all, we often in reality understand least of all. We 
 know the form of many living things, and have no 
 doubt whatever of the reality of their life, — yet who shall 
 define life itself or explain what it is ? We know the 
 functions of the body, and the operations of the mind, — 
 but what is body, and what is mind, and by what mys- 
 terious links they are joined together, — what science 
 can discover — what philosophy can explain ? We give 
 names to the objects around us to conceal our ignorance 
 of their real nature, and because we are familiar with 
 the words, flatter ourselves that we understand the 
 things. We speak of light, electricity, the magnetic 
 current, gravitation, chemical affinity, and so forth, — 
 but what do we know about these things, except that 
 we are conscious of something, or can trace the effects 
 of something, to which we have given these names, and 
 we dream that we have shed a flood of light upon them, 
 when those names have been given ? 
 
 Science, indeed, investigates not only the facts, but also 
 the causes of things ; but these causes still are only 
 
134 SERMONS. 
 
 second causes, — one or two further links of a chain, 
 whose beginning is unseen. " Who can bj searching 
 find out God ? " Who can find out the primary root and 
 ground of anything which God hath made ? 
 
 Why then refuse to believe the mysterious truths of 
 the spiritual world, merely because we cannot fully 
 understand them ? If even the commonest things of 
 earth be shrouded in such mystery, how shall we- expect 
 to fathom the depths of the things that are in heaven ? 
 Is not the very law of our existence here that we shall 
 know much, but understand almost nothing ? No doubt 
 the time is coming when we shall know more, when we 
 shall not only be sure of the facts, but shall see some- 
 thing also of the reasons of things. It may be that we 
 shall yet see a little way even into the mystery of 
 Being, its Trinity in Unity, the divine decrees, the 
 origin of evil, &c. Meanwhile, be it ours to believe, to 
 work, to wait ; to welcome and improve the light we 
 have, while we humbly look for more ; content to see 
 only as in a glass darkly, in the hope that we shall yet 
 see face to face, — cheered on, the while, by the assurance 
 of the Master, "What I do thou knowest not now; but 
 thou shalt know hereafter." 
 
 III. We must wait to know the end of thimrs of which 
 
 O 
 
 we now only know the beginning. It has passed into 
 the most familiar of all proverbs that we can never judge 
 of anything rightly until we have seen its end. None 
 but a fool or a child, it is said, would think of judging of 
 a great work when it is only begun or half finished. 
 
FUTURE UNFOLDING OF PRESENT MYSTERIES. 135 
 
 Examples are innumerable and obvious. The first rude 
 stones of a sublime and stately edifice — an isolated 
 spring or wheel of an exquisite and complicated mechan- 
 ism — the opening chapters of a great volume — the first 
 rough sketch of a great picture — a single note or chord 
 of a grand symphony, — what can we learn from these 
 things of the real purpose and plan of the worker, or of 
 the excellence of his work ? Sometimes it is not even 
 until it is nearly finished that the design is fully 
 apparent, and order finally emerges out of confusion, 
 beauty out of deformity, and bright intelligence out of 
 meaningless chaos. Not seldom does the whole sym- 
 metry of a building depend on the completion of a single 
 tower or pinnacle, — the perfection of a painting on a 
 single touch. An arch is nothing but a precarious heap 
 of stones, that cannot even sustain its own weight, until 
 it receives the key-stone. How ill should we judge 
 either of the gardener's or the physician's art, did we 
 look only to the immediate results ! How rude should 
 we deem the pruning knife of the one, and how cruel the 
 bitter medicines of the other ! How heartless were the 
 labours of the husbandman, did he look no farther than 
 the sowing time, — and the boy at school frets over his- 
 irksome task, because he knows not of the golden harvest 
 of which he is sowing the seed. And if it be so in 
 regard to the works of men, shall it be otherwise with 
 the works of God ? If even the puny plans of those 
 whose days are but as the twinkling of an eye require 
 some time to develop their meaning, and manifest their 
 wise designs, how much more the mighty thoughts of 
 
136 SERMONS. 
 
 Him to whom '' a thousand years are but as one day ? " 
 Shall we judge Him only by His beginnings, without 
 waiting to see His ends, — look only at means and think 
 nothing of results, — fix our attention wholly on what He 
 is doing, without inquiring what He designs ? Nay, but 
 much better and truer is the divine philosophy, the 
 wisdom that speaketh to us from heaven, "Be patient 
 therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold 
 the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the 
 earth, and hath long patience for it until he receive the 
 early and the latter rain. Be ye therefore patient and 
 stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth 
 nigh." Shall we regret the toils of the sowing and the 
 weeping rains that accompany it, or of the long, weary 
 months that follow it, when such a glorious harvest home 
 is come? " Behold we count them happy that endure," 
 who patiently and steadfastly wait. '' 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." 
 
 Leave then the great Master builder of thy life to com- 
 plete His work, and to bring forth the crowning pinnacle, 
 ere thou complainest of the rude heaps that cumber the 
 foundation, or the long, weary shaping of the stones. 
 There is much meanwhile, no doubt, that you cannot 
 understand, but believe that He understands, and will 
 yet, ere long, make His meaning plain. Soon shall the 
 cloud of confusion disperse, and the divine eternal order 
 appear. Meanwhile, let it be our comfort that He is 
 working, and that it is His own gracious voice that 
 whispers to us, amid our impatient fretfulness and 
 
FUTURE UNFOLDING OF PRESENT MYSTERIES. 137 
 
 anxious fears, '' What I do tliou knowest not now; but 
 thou shalt know hereafter." 
 
 There are other applications which we might have 
 made of the principle of the text, — as, for instance : We 
 must wait to see the whole of what we now know only a 
 part, — and we must wait to see the 2yerfection of what we 
 now know only the feeble tentative approximation ; — but 
 what we have given may suffice as examples, and we 
 must now, in conclusion, point out some of the practical 
 lessons which flow from the subject. 
 
 1. We learn a Iq'&^o'q. of 2^ (^tience. " Wait upon the 
 Lord, and be of good courage." Give Him time to 
 accomplish His purposes, and, meanwhile, leave thy 
 case wholly in His hands. Shrink not at the bitter 
 draught and sharp wounds of the physician's lance that 
 is to work out your eternal healing, for no patient yet 
 ever miscarried in His hands. Only make sure that He 
 is indeed on your side, and that He is working all His 
 work in you, and all shall in the end be well. '' Trust 
 in the Lord, and do good : so shalt thou dwell in the 
 land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also 
 in the Lord ; and He shall give thee the desires of thine 
 heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord ; and He shall 
 bring it to pass : and He shall bring forth thy right- 
 eousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noon- 
 day." — " Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for 
 Him." 
 
 2. Learn a lesson of fear. What if the Lord should 
 not be on our side, should not be the architect of our life, 
 the physician of our souls, — and if the end to which all 
 
138 SERMONS. 
 
 things are tending sliould be an end of darkness, and 
 not of liglit ? 
 
 All ! there are other secrets in the eternal world 
 which the great day shall declare, besides the crown of 
 righteousness and the eternal blessedness of the re- 
 deemed. " The ungodly are not so, but they are like 
 the chaif which the wind driveth away. Therefore the 
 ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in 
 the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth 
 the way of the righteous : but the way of the ungodly 
 shall perish." Oh, then, let us be diligent to make our 
 calling and election sure, and not be high-minded, but 
 fear, when we hear the words, not of the gracious Saviour 
 only, but of the Righteous Judge, — " What I do thou 
 knowest not now ; but thou shalt know hereafter." And 
 let us take along with them that other pregnant saying, 
 spoken but a moment before, '' If I wash thee not, thou 
 hast no part with me." 
 
XL 
 
 WILDEENESS BLOSSOMS. 
 
 " The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them ; and the desert 
 shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose," — Isaiah xxxv. i. 
 
 It is not tlie utterance of querulous discontent, but the 
 expression of the mere simple truth, when we say that 
 the world we live in, and which as pilgrims we are pass- 
 ing through, is " a wilderness." Like the chosen people 
 of old in their journey through the Syrian desert, from the 
 land of exile to the city of their fathers, we are indeed 
 travelling home, but our path lies meanwhile through "a 
 dry and thirsty land where no water is." It is a place 
 of privation, a place of hardships and of toil, a place of 
 weariness and loneliness, of constant transition and 
 change. Many of us have already felt it so very deeply, 
 — and all of us, if we live long, will surely feel it sooner 
 or later, more or less. When the heaven that lies about 
 us in our infancy has closed its gates, — when the golden 
 glory of the morning has died away and given place to 
 the light of common day, — our early dreams of Eden 
 vanish, o.nd we find ourselves amid the stern realities of 
 a world on which the primeval curse of barrenness rests, 
 and in which toil and travail, sorrow and care, are the 
 appointed lot of all. It was one of the most prosperous 
 
140 SERMONS. 
 
 of the sons of men who sighed, in the very bitterness of 
 disappointed hope, " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," — 
 and one of the best and happiest, who confessed in his old 
 age, " Few and evil have the days of the years of my life 
 been," and whose truest comfort it v^as at last that he 
 could say, not "I have found rest or contentment on 
 earth," but "I have waited for Thy salvation, God." 
 
 I. The wilderness is a place of privation. No verdant 
 pastures smile there, no golden harvests wave there, no 
 happy flocks brouse and make their fold there. There 
 is food neither for man nor beast, save only here and 
 there, at distant intervals, in favoured spots amid the 
 surrounding barrenness, — little patches of greenness and 
 beauty, just enough to apprise the traveller that he is 
 not wholly beyond the realm of life, and to remind him 
 of the fairer and better world that lies beyond those 
 wastes of rock and sand. 
 
 So is it with the pilgrim soul here on earth. The soul 
 was made for God, and can find its true rest only in Him; 
 but our present state is one essentially of exile and dis- 
 tance from Him. Even those who have been brousrht nisrh 
 
 o o 
 
 to Him by the blood of the cross, and live habitually 
 nearest to Him, behold His glory as yet only in passing 
 limpses, — "see His back parts" only as He passes in 
 His majesty, from the clefts of the rock in the wilderness. 
 The state of the believer here is one, not of vision but 
 of anticipation, not of presence with God but of pilgrim- 
 age to God. We behold from afar the goodly land, but 
 it is from the top of Pisgah only, — the sunlit towers of 
 
 & 
 
WILDERNESS BLOSSOMS. 141 
 
 tlie city of God, but in momentary glimpses only, througli 
 the telescope of faith, from some lofty summit in the 
 wilderness. We see Him, but it is by reflection only, — not 
 ' ' face to face, but darkly. " " Whilst we are at home in the 
 body, we are absent from the Lord." So the soul hungers 
 still, and can find nothing in all the world to satisfy its 
 hungerings. Amidst the utmost fulness of earthly con- 
 tent, there is still a deep void within that the world can 
 never fill. There is food for the body, there is food for the 
 mind, — there is food for the fancy, for the imagination, 
 for the scientific instinct, the speculative reason, the 
 social affections; but for the soul, — for the inmost, deepest 
 life of our being, — for all that is truest and most divine 
 in our immortal nature, all that links us with the divine, 
 the unchanging, the everlasting, there is none in all the 
 world, — none save only in that blessed "manna" which 
 comes to us even in the desert from another clime, as 
 an earnest and foretaste of the richer and better heritage 
 to come hereafter. Meanwhile, who is there that truly 
 lives, who will not, at least in his best moments, heartily 
 respond to those plaintive accents, uttered long ago, 
 but whose echoes linger still in the wilderness, — "As the 
 hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul 
 after thee, God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the 
 living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" 
 " I am a stranger on the earth ; hide not Thy command- 
 ments from me." 
 
 II. The wilderness is a place of loneliness. Here it 
 is called " the solitary place," the " desert," — a place 
 
142 SERMONS. 
 
 deserted and forsaken of all living beings, and living 
 things. Men pass tlirongli it or halt in it, but it is 
 either alone, or in little companies, while all around 
 solitude and silence reign. It is not, thank God, alto- 
 gether so in this world. It is a wilderness indeed, but 
 a wilderness not wholly desolate. God has set us here 
 in families and in social groups, and has sweetened 
 and brightened our lot by the joys of home, of kindly 
 neighbourhood, and congenial friendship. It is seldom, 
 even in our worst estate, that we are wholly alone, with- 
 out a brother and without a friend. Yet there are times 
 when the sense of loneliness strikes upon our hearts 
 with terrible chillness, and reminds us that we are in a 
 wilderness and a solitary place. When some beloved 
 object is withdrawn from our sight — some one dear to 
 us as our own soul, and in whom we had garnered up 
 our hearts, oh, how instantly and terribly is the world 
 changed ; — how doth the fruitful garden become to us 
 a waste, the joyous city a solitude — what a hunger of 
 the heart, — wben we listen for that voice which shall 
 never speak to us again, search for that well-known 
 face we shall never look upon again, until the resurrec- 
 tion of the just! Then, indeed, is our earthly Eden 
 blasted, our gourd withered down to the roots, never to 
 spring up again. Every star goes out in our sky, every 
 flower withers, every spring is dried up. 
 
 Even though it may not be so, though our circle of 
 loving intercouse remain yet unbroken, there are times 
 still in which we are made to feel the solitude of the 
 wilderness. Within the inmost circle of our social life, 
 
WILDERNESS BLOSSOMS. 143 
 
 there is an inner circle still, in wliich so far as human 
 companionship is concerned, we must dwell alone. There 
 are joys and sorrows there, with which no earthly friend 
 can intermeddle, a secret and sacred chamber of our life 
 where even they are strangers. How little in this world 
 do even the nearest and dearest know each other ! Close 
 as they may seek to come to us, there is still a chill inter- 
 val of distance, a dull partition wall between them and 
 the inmost sanctuary of our life. How hard it is to 
 lay our hearts wholly bare to another, or to look down 
 into the very depths of a heart laid bare ! And as we go 
 on in life this loneliness increases. One by one our 
 closest bosom friends are taken from us, and more and 
 more we come in conflict with evils, in which the closest 
 friendship can but little avail us. And so we become 
 more and more alone, alone amid the gathering shadows 
 and increasing sternness of the last stage of our earthly 
 journey, alone at last in the valley of the shadow of death. 
 Then, truly, if not before, we shall find it to be indeed 
 '' a wilderness and a solitary place." Happy for us if there 
 be one who can follow even there — who can enter where 
 no earthly friend or companion can come, — who can bear 
 with us those burdens and share with us those griefs 
 which they cannot touch nor even understand, who hath 
 said, and will prove to all those who trust Him, as good 
 as His word, " When thou passest through the waters, I 
 will be with thee," — who teaches the true pilgrim to sing, 
 even to the last, '' Yea, though I walk through the valley 
 of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for Thou art 
 with me." 
 
144 SERMONS. 
 
 III. But, again, the wilderness is a place of transition 
 and of constant change. Many pass through it, but none 
 dwell in it. The Arab wanderer, the passing traveller 
 pitches his tent there to-day, only to strike it and de- 
 part to-morrow. Even the fair oasis, with its palmy 
 shades and carpet of fresh verdure and springs of 
 living water, is a place of sojourning, not of habitation. 
 Soon its scanty supply of herbage and of fruit is 
 exhausted, and we must up and away to seek a similar 
 resting-place elsewhere. It is a homeless place, — no 
 settled abiding habitations of any kind there. It may 
 be the way home, — the dreary interval between one home 
 and another, but it cannot be itself a home. 
 
 So is it with this world. Here we have "no continuing 
 city " or place of rest. We are here to-day, and away 
 to-morrow. It is a place of transition, not of abiding. 
 "We are passing through it, not dwelling in it. Unlike 
 the temporary dweller in the natural wilderness, we halt 
 not even for a single day in the same spot, but pass in- 
 cessantly on, while others follow us. Silently, ceaselessly, 
 we are moving onwards along that path in which millions 
 have gone before us, and in which there is no returning, 
 and most of us leave not the trace of our feet on the 
 sand to tell that we have been. CLearly, then, it is not 
 home and cannot be : but is it to you, to me, " the way 
 home ? " Have you been taught to say with the apostle, 
 " We know that if the earthly house of this tabernacle 
 were dissolved, we have a building with God, an house 
 not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ? " Then, 
 indeed, may we go on, even in our desert path, singing, 
 
WILDERNESS BLOSSOMS. 145 
 
 " Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee, — in whose 
 heart are the ways of them ; who passing through the 
 valley of Baca make it a well ; the rain also filleth the 
 pools. They go from strength to strength ; every one of 
 them in Zion appeareth before God. Lord of hosts, 
 blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee." 
 
 But thus we are lead to consider, ere we close, another 
 view of this subject. We have hitherto been looking 
 almost exclusively at the dark side of the truth before 
 US. Let us now look for a little at the bright side. 
 Having considered the Trials, let us now consider the 
 Comforts of the wilderness. " The wilderness and the 
 solitary place shall be glad for them; the desert sh,all 
 rejoice and blossom as the rose^ 
 
 There are flowers even in the desert — few indeed and 
 scanty — but fair, the fairer because they are so few. Some 
 of the loveliest blossoms in all creation are those which 
 grow in the far wilderness, or on naked cliffs where all 
 other life dies, — left there apparently to remind us that 
 God still is there, and can follow us even to those deso- 
 late scenes with His gracious consolation and tender 
 care. *' So the wilderness and the solitary place shall 
 be glad for them," — ''for them^'" if for no others, — for 
 God's pilgrims, if for no other pilgrims. They have 
 meat to eat which the world knoweth not of, joys with 
 which it cannot intermeddle. To them flowers blossom 
 and fountains flow, unseen and unknown to others. To 
 their divinely-opened eyes the desert shall rejoice and 
 blossom as the rose, — to their longing and thirsting 
 hearts the dry land shall become a pool, and the thirsty 
 
146 SERMONS. 
 
 land springs of water. After all, true happiness lies 
 not in tliat which is without, but in that within ; 
 beauty lies not so much in the object, as in the eye. 
 To the bright soul all things in heaven and earth are 
 bright, — for God the eternal sun and source of beauty 
 shines upon them. He, if we wait on Him, can make 
 the dreariest desert a garden, the gloomiest dungeon a 
 palace, the flinty rock a gushing well. " "When the poor 
 and needy seek water, and there is none, and their 
 tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I 
 the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will 
 open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of 
 the valleys : I will make the wilderness a pool of water, 
 and the dry lands springs of water." — " Have 1 been 
 a wilderness unto Israel, a land of darkness ? " — " Whoso 
 believeth, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living 
 water." The things that were sweet before shall become 
 tenfold sweeter now, and those that were bitter before 
 shall bring sweetness in their bosom. Holy ordinances, 
 holy Sabbaths, holy hours of retirement and of prayer, 
 holy friendships and communings of heart with heart, 
 holy duties, and sacrifices and ministries of love, holy 
 memories of the past and anticipations of the future, all 
 shall bloom to our eyes with a new beauty, and breathe 
 to our senses with a new and heavenlier fragrance, when 
 the Sun of Righteousness shines upon them, and the 
 showers of blessing fall. 
 
 " Old friends, old scenes will lovelier be, 
 As more of heaven in each we see, 
 Some softening gleam of love and prayer 
 Shall dawn on every cross and care." 
 
WILDERNESS BLOSSOMS. 147 
 
 " And an highway shall be there and a way, and it shall 
 be called the way of holiness " (v, 8). I said it was not 
 home, but the way home, and to the true pilgrim it is a 
 sure and a safe way. Like the caravan tracks in eastern 
 deserts, or the lonely paths across our own heathy hills, 
 it is indeed to a stranger very dim and obscure, but to 
 a wayfarer accustomed to traverse those regions it is 
 clear and distinct as a paved highway. By sure signs 
 he knows it at a glance, and distinguishes it from all the 
 trackless waste around, where others would become be- 
 wildered and lose their way. '' The wayfaring men 
 though fools shall not err therein." 
 
 And it is safe, too, as well as plain. " No lion shall 
 be there, neither shall any ravenous beast go up thereon" 
 (v. 9). Those fierce roamers of the desert may prowl 
 very near, and their dread roar may be often heard; 
 but they cannot, dare not cross that sacred ground. 
 '' They shall not be found there, but the redeemed 
 shall walk there." — '^ Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
 peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee." — " They shall 
 never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my 
 hand." — " I am persuaded that neither death nor 
 life . . . shall be able to separate us from the love of 
 God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 
 And so "the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and 
 come to Sion with songs and everlasting joy upon their 
 heads : they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow 
 and sighing shall flee away," — (v. 10) shall ^^^ away. 
 They shall see those dark forms no more. Those birds 
 of evil omen which have followed them all their life long. 
 
148 SERMONS. 
 
 and hovered round them and shadowed them with their 
 wings of darkness up to the very gates of the city, shall 
 then flee away, — away, away, into the far distance, till 
 they pass out of sight, and are seen no more for ever. 
 
 And thus I can imagine some shining ones, com- 
 panions once in tribulation, hut companions now in glory 
 and eternal rest, sitting down on the hills of immortality 
 and retracing together the scenes of the long-vanished 
 past, thinking and talking, amid the stillness of eternal 
 peace, of those bitter griefs and sighs which once were 
 theirs, in the world they have so long left behind, pre- 
 sent, terribly present and real then, but now vanished as 
 a passing dream. They are gone now, ages gone, gone 
 for ever, — and they bless God that it is so, and yet they 
 bless Him also, fervently bless Him, that those sorrows 
 did not leave them one day earlier, not till they had 
 accomplished a gracious purpose, and left a blessing, an 
 eternal blessing behind them, — that those light afflic- 
 tions, which were but for a moment, worked out for them 
 a far more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory. 
 And the thought will impart a deeper adoration, and a 
 loftier gratitude to their song, as they take up their 
 harps again and sing, " Oh, the depth of the riches both 
 of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable 
 are His judgments, and His ways past finding out ! " 
 
 Shall this blessedness be yours ? Shall such as this be 
 your retrospect of earth, when time shall be no more ? 
 Oh, make sure of this, by making sure of Christ, and 
 entering in earnest on the heavenly pilgrimage. " So 
 run, that ye may obtain ! " 
 
WILDERNESS BLOSSOMS. 149 
 
 '' Now, I saw in my dream that these two men went 
 in at the gate : and. lo ! as they entered they were trans- 
 figured, and they had raiment put on that shone like 
 gold. There were also that met them with harps and 
 crowns, and gave them unto them. Then I heard in my 
 dream that all the bells of the city rang again for joy, 
 and that it was said unto them, ' Enter ye into the joy 
 of your Lord.' Now, just as the gate was opened to let 
 in the men, I looked in after them and behold the city 
 shone like the sun ; the streets also were paved with 
 gold ; and in them walked many men with crowns on 
 their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps to 
 sing praises withal. 
 
 " There were also of them that had wings, and they 
 answered one another without interruption, saying, 
 ' Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord.' And after that 
 they shut up the gate ; which when I had seen, I wished 
 myself among them." 
 
 And which of us would not wish the same for our- 
 selves also, at least at the end? Who is there that 
 would not pray, " Gather not my soul with the wicked," 
 but " Gather me with the just, make me to be num- 
 bered with Thy saints, in glory everlasting." Let us so 
 pray now, and labour and strive day by day to live 
 more nearly as we pray. 
 
XII. 
 
 heaven's blessedness known, yet unknown. 
 
 " It doth not yet appear what we shall be." — 1 John iii. 2. 
 
 There is a sense iu which it is blessed to think that 
 these words are not true. In more respects than one, 
 and these to ns "by far the most interesting and practi- 
 cally important, we do know what we shall be. God 
 has not left the eternal future of His peojDle involved in 
 utter and impenetrable mystery. The secret things 
 indeed belong unto the Lord, and the things revealed 
 unto us and to our children ; but blessed be His name, 
 among the things revealed are included all those which 
 it most concerns us, with a view alike to our comfort 
 and to our safety, to know. " Life and immortality have 
 been brought to light by the gospel," and that light 
 shines on every object, the sight of which is needful, at 
 once to impart meaning and grandeur to life, and to 
 shed a glory around the hour of dissolution. The 
 essentials in short of our immortal life are revealed, the 
 circumstantials only are for the present reserved. We 
 know who we shall be, and where, — in what presence 
 and in what society, in what essential condition of our 
 moral and spiritual nature, and in what relation to God, 
 
HEA YEN'S BLESSEDNESS. 151 
 
 the light and life of all, — though wliat exactly we shall 
 be, what the outward form and fashion, and the outward 
 condition and surroundings of our future life, we know 
 not, and are perhaps incapable now of knowing. We 
 know much about the home, and about those whose pre- 
 sence and society shall, most of all, render that home 
 dear and sacred and blessed ; bat of the house where 
 tbat home shall be, and of that wide domain that shall 
 stretch around it, and which shall be free to all the 
 children for evermore, we know little or nothing. 
 
 Let us dwell on this thought a little, brethren. Let us, 
 as it were, plant our feet firmly on what is known, before 
 we cast our eyes forward towards the dark unknown. This 
 is what the apostle does in the words of which our text 
 forms a part. "iVbw," he says, "are Tce the sons of God ; 
 and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : hut we 
 know that, rchen He shall appear, we shall he like Him; 
 for we shall see Him as He is.^' Thus what we know 
 not is enclosed on either side by that which is known, 
 and derives even already a certain reflected brightness 
 from it. There is a spot of darkness here, but it is a 
 spot on the face of the sun, — darkness encompassed 
 round and almost lost amid the excess of light. 
 
 L Looking, then, first of all at this bright side of the 
 subject, I remark. 
 
 First, — That we shall he for ever what we are now. 
 " Now are we the sons of God," and we shall be sons 
 for ever. It doth not yet appear what we shall be 
 beyond this simple, but infinitely pregnant fact, that we 
 
152 SER210XS. 
 
 are sons, and shall remain sons, for evermore. "The 
 servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the son 
 abideth ever." It is a relation indissoluble and inde- 
 structible, save by the destruction of life itself; and we 
 know that neither the Father nor the children can die. 
 He lives for ever, and they for ever live in Him. There- 
 fore " neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principali- 
 ties, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 
 nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be 
 able to separate us " from this dearest and most sacred 
 form of love, — the love of the immortal Father toward 
 His immortal children. Indeed, it is in a sense true of 
 all of us, whether saints or sinners, that we shall be for 
 ever what we are, or are at least becoming now. We 
 shall be in eternity what we are making ourselves, or 
 what grace is making us, in time. The same essential 
 nature, and in the same essential state in which our last 
 day on earth left us, we shall carry forward into the 
 other world. Here tliere is no break, or line of separa- 
 tion between the seen and the unseen state. " He that is 
 UDJust shall," when he has crossed the awful barrier, even 
 as before it, " be unjust still, and he that is holy, shall 
 be holy still." If, then, you would desire to know what 
 you shall be in regard to all that is most essential in 
 your future being, ask yourselves what you are be- 
 ginning to be, and are more and more becoming, as the 
 brief space of this momentous spring-tide of our being 
 is passing. But I remark again. 
 
 Secondly^ That we shall be for ever immeasurably more 
 than we are now. We shall, indeed, as we have seen, 
 
HEA YEN'S BLESSEDNESS. 153 
 
 advance in the same line in which we are moving now, 
 but we shall be further on in that line. It will be the 
 same nature, the same divine nature which we received 
 in our second birth, but it will be that nature more fully 
 grown, more richly and largely developed. " Now are 
 we the sons of God," and we shall be sons still ; but 
 we shall be more son-like, shall have got deeper into 
 the meaning, and further into the fulness and blessed- 
 ness of sonship. There shall be a fuller and fuller 
 " manifestation of the sons of God," — at once to others, 
 and to themselves. "We shall have more of the heart of 
 children, and shall know more of the heart of the Father. 
 The sphere of our privilege shall be enlarged, and our 
 capacity of enjoying it increased. The bud shall have 
 become the flower — the restless brook, the deep, calm 
 river — the heir of God, the possessor of all things. We 
 shall be wiser, stronger, holier, truer, more gentle yet 
 more brave, more lowly yet more exalted, more lamb-like 
 yet more lion-hearted than we are now, nearer in station 
 to God, and liker in heart to Christ. '* The light of the 
 moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of 
 the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in 
 the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His 
 people, and healeth the stroke of their wound." But 
 this leads me to remark still further. 
 
 Thirdly^ — That we shall be for ever in perfection what 
 we are in embryo now. Then shall we be not only sons 
 but shall be altogether and only sons. Now, indeed, we 
 are the sons of God ; but besides the true child's nature 
 there is still much of the servant's, and even of the 
 
154 SERMONS. 
 
 slave's nature about us. " The glorious liberty of the 
 children of God," the unclouded trust, the love which 
 has for ever cast out fear, the free limbs and free buoyant 
 hearts that have forgotten even the sensation of the 
 chain, the eyes that in looking up into the Father's face 
 have lost the very power of weeping, all this as yet is 
 but as a dream, though a bright dream to us. We have 
 indeed " the earnest " of these things, — but in that ear- 
 nest there is still so much imperfection and sinful defect, 
 so much bitterness in the sweet, so much discord in the 
 music, so much selfishness in the love, so much fearful- 
 ness in the faith, so much dimness, and broken, partial 
 uncertain light in the knowledge, so much sluggishness 
 and slavish constraint in the obedience, so much of the 
 body of death weighing down the upward, striving spirit 
 of life, — that what we know scarcely gives us an idea of 
 what the full and absolute fruition will be. The risen 
 soul is yet so encumbered with the grave-clothes, and his 
 eyes are so weak through long dwelling in the darkness, 
 that the bright world, and bright life into which he has 
 entered, is comparatively strange to him. 
 
 " It doth not yet appear what we shall be." We 
 are sons, but yet we know comparatively little of the 
 meaning, and the glory, and the blessedness of son- 
 ship. This, like everything else now, we know but in 
 part. But when that which is perfect is come, then 
 tliat which is in part shall be done awa3^ We shall 
 reach at last to the full height and depth and length 
 and breadth of sonship. We shall taste the full 
 sweetness of the name, realise the full nobility of the 
 
HE A YEN'S BLESSEDNESS. 155 
 
 nature, rise to the full heiglit and grandeur and unut- 
 terable blessedness of the relation. For we shall be 
 conformed unto the image of God's Son, the eternal 
 archetype and pattern of all sonship, and who in heaven 
 and earth bears the Father's name. "Now are we the 
 sons of God," — that is grace. We shall be made like un- 
 to '' the Son of God," — and that is glory. " It doth not 
 yet appear what we shall be," but that is only because 
 He to whom we shall be conformed, and in whom our 
 life is hid, hath not yet appeared. 
 
 So much then, brethren, we know ; and it is satis- 
 factory surely to learn that the amount of that which 
 is known in proportion to the unknown, is in truth 
 so great. For 
 
 II. That which remains concealed is immeasurably 
 less important to us than that which is revealed. Indeed, 
 the unknown is important mainly because of the relation 
 in which it stands to that which is known. Thus, 
 
 First, '^ It doth not yet appear what we shall be," — 
 in regard to the locality and outward circumstances of our 
 glorified life. " I saw," says the rapt apostle in the Apo- 
 calypse, " a new heaven and a new earth ; for the first 
 heaven and the first earth were passed away." But where 
 and what like that new and glorious world shall be, — 
 what sun shall shine upon it, what fruits and flowers 
 shall bloom on its soil, and what stars shall shine in its 
 sky, what physical conditions and laws shall regulate its 
 arrangements and control the movements of its inhabi- 
 tants ; whether it shall be this self-same earth in which 
 
156 SERMONS. 
 
 we now dwell, tlie theatre of so many wonders and of 
 so grand and deathless a history, — the scene of the incar- 
 nation of the Son of God, of the sacred manger, of the life- 
 giving Cross, — or some other and fairer planet untouched 
 as yet by the blight of the curse, or the shadow of darkness, 
 — or some bright and glorious sun, whose self luminous 
 skies shall need no other sun or moon to brighten them, 
 and where there shall be no winter and no night for ever- 
 more. These questions, and a thousand more, we cannot 
 answer. "It doth not yet appear." And yet what matter? 
 The place is known to Him, and it is the best place we may 
 be sure which infinite wisdom can plan and infinite love 
 and power prepare for those whom He hath chosen to be 
 with Himself for ever. " I go to prepare a place for youl " 
 Surely this is enough for us, a place prepared by Him, 
 and which He deems a meet abode for those whom He 
 hath betrothed eternally unto Himself ! 
 
 Secondly., "It doth not yet appear what we shall be" in 
 regard to the form and fashion of an immortal and glorified 
 life. That it shall be a social life, a state of blessed inter- 
 course one with another, we do assuredly know. It is 
 described under the idea of a family, of an assembly, of 
 a congregation, of a city, — in every one of which the idea 
 of society and of social activity and enjoyment forms 
 the very primary and fundamental element. In its very 
 essence. Hell is isolation, loneliness, — Heaven is unity, 
 communion, love. But what shall be the particular con- 
 ditions and forms of a society where there shall be no 
 more husbands and wives, parents and children, masters 
 and servants, kings and subjects, high and low, rich 
 
HEAVEN'S BLESSEDNESS. 157 
 
 and poor, we cannot tell or even almost conceive. What, 
 too, shall be our special organs and means of communi- 
 cation there ? Shall we speak with the tongues of men 
 or of angels ? Shall we have some still closer and more 
 immediate medium of intercourse between mind and 
 mind, heart and heart, than the inadequate forms of 
 articulate speech supply ? Shall our very inmost souls 
 be laid bare to one another in a world where no one has 
 anything to conceal, or which he would blush to confess 
 to all the world? We cannot tell. "It doth not yet 
 appear." Only this we know, that the society of heaven 
 shall be of the closest, most intimate, and perfect kind. 
 We shall be nearer to God, nearer to Jesus, nearer to 
 all who are dearest and most precious to us in the flesh 
 and in the spirit, nearer to all the holy, the pure, the 
 noble of every age and land, than we have ever been or 
 even conceived. "God himself shall be with them and 
 shall be their God." — "They shall see His face, and 
 His name shall be in their Forehead." — " And the 
 nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of 
 it. . . . And there shall in no wise enter into it anything 
 that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or 
 maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb's 
 book of life." And, 
 
 Finally, " It doth not yet appear what we shall be " 
 in regard to the employments of the future Ufe. That it 
 shall be a state of activity, indeed, and not of quiescent 
 repose, we are well assured. It will be a state of rest, 
 but of a rest that is perfectly consistent with a state in 
 which they "rest not day nor night" in the holy service 
 
158 SERMOJVS. 
 
 of God, and witli the intense and unwearying life of a 
 world, of whicli it is written that ''there shall be no night 
 there." But what the special kind of work that shall 
 occupy eternity, we know not. There shall be praises we 
 know, and deepest adoration and profoundest study of the 
 attributes and ways of God, eternal anthems, endless 
 hallelujahs, and Christ's face shall be our ever open 
 Bible, in which we shall learn more during a day than 
 here in months and years, — but what else ? On what 
 more active service shall we be employed ? Into what 
 special field of holy enterprise directed? Shall there be 
 science, fresh discovery, art, music such as we know it 
 here, in heaven ? Shall we be sent on special ministries, 
 distant errands of love from world to world, from star 
 to star? Shall we visit the distant pleiads or walk with 
 shining feet the milky way, like those angels which 
 are spirits, and those ministers which are as flames of 
 fire? We know not. How should we know? " It doth 
 not yet appear." This only we know, that God is not a 
 God of the dead but of the living, and that the world of 
 glory in which we dwell shall be pre-eminently a world of 
 life, of intense life, of varied life, of noble and ennobling 
 life, such as we have never known or dreamt of here. 
 
 But enough, brethren. Let us end where we began. 
 "Now we are the sons of God." But are we? We 
 have professed this, indeed, at His table, but have we 
 professed a truth, a reality, or a mere delusion and pre- 
 tence? Oh, it is a great word that, brethren, — "Now 
 are we the sons of God," — and if it be a lie only, and not 
 a truth, what a terrible lie is it for a man to carry in his 
 
EEA YEN'S BLESSEDNESS. 159 
 
 right hand to the eternal world, to the judgment-seat 
 of Christ. Oh, "Examine yom-selves, whether ye be in 
 the faith ! " Rest not until you can, with humble, yet 
 well-assured confidence, take this blessed, sublime, awfully 
 sweet and sacred title to yourself, and then all things 
 else shall be yours, — everything that is precious, glorious, 
 divine, in time and through eternity. "Now are we the 
 sons of God ; and it doth not yet appear what we shall 
 be : but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be 
 like Him, — for we shall see Him as He is. And every 
 man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even 
 as He is pure." 
 
LECTURES. 
 
LECTURE L 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 
 
 The battle of the faitli has again changed from a skir- 
 mish of outposts to a combat as for life or death. From 
 discussions on creation and the Pentateuch, the antiquity 
 of man, and the unity of the race, the scene of conflict 
 has quickly shifted to still higher and holier ground, and 
 the embattled legions of faith and unbelief struggle 
 around the very central citadel of truth itself. It is no 
 longer the authority of Moses only that is now in ques- 
 tion, but that of Christ ; not the historical integrity of 
 the early annals of the kingdom of God, but the very 
 existence of a kingdom of God on the earth at all. Once 
 more it is denied, and once more are we summoned to 
 maintain that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is come in 
 the flesh ; that there has been a divine supernatural in- 
 tervention in the affairs of men ; that the wondrous life 
 portrayed in the Gospels which has created the Church 
 and new created the world is a reality and not a fiction 
 or a dream. 
 
 In this form the Church at once and most gladly 
 accepts the contest. It is here pre-eminently that her 
 position is impregnable, and it is here that the last and 
 decisive battle of the truth must be fought and won. 
 
164 LECTURE I. 
 
 Triumphant here, our ultimate and complete victory on 
 every other field is a question only of time; defeated 
 here, there is nothing more remaining at stake worth 
 contending for. If the life of Christ be indeed super- 
 natural and divine, then all that precedes and all that 
 follows it in the same train of events — the preparatory 
 dispensations and the subsequent results — necessarily 
 partake of the same character ; if simply human and 
 natural, then all else before and after, from the earliest 
 patriarchal to the latest Christian times, is simply 
 human and natural too. Everything, then, alike in 
 profane and in so-called sacred history, will resolve itself 
 into a mere matter of human historical development, 
 more or less pure, more or less exalted, more or less in 
 a loose pantheistic sense divine, but still in its essential 
 nature human and only human still. It is thus not the 
 problem broached by Colenso, grave and vital as that 
 problem is, but that which has been stated anew, and 
 with such rare eloquence and literary skill by Ernest 
 Renan, that constitutes the real question of the day — 
 the question of a standing or a falling Christianity for 
 our age, and for every age. 
 
 If we have thus ground for gratulation in the form in 
 which the great argument is now raised, and the direct 
 and decisive issue to Avhich it brings us, we have none 
 the less in the present aspects and progress of the 
 contest. One by one have successive hypotlieses, framed 
 to explain the fact of Christianity as a historical pheno- 
 mena on infidel or naturalistic principles, been tried 
 and found wanting, and thus the way has been prepared 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 165 
 
 as by a process of exliaustion for a final and absolute 
 solution. 
 
 There are, in truth, only three positions essentially 
 distinct, which are logically possible, on this whole 
 question. Either the life of Christ, as we now possess 
 it, is simply true or simply false, or partly true and 
 partly false. It is either a true history, or a lying- 
 fiction, or a mixture of fact and fable, of real life and of 
 legendary romance. The first is the position of the 
 Christian believer ; the second, practically at least, of 
 the old infidel school ; the last, of modern rationalism 
 and philosophic unbelief. Of these, the second may be 
 said to be now unanimously and on all hands rejected. 
 Denounced by the Christian believer as an impious 
 calumny, it is equally repudiated by the modern critical 
 school as a historical impossibility. Whatever the life 
 of Christ may be finally held to be, most certainly at 
 least, by the mature and deliberate judgment of all 
 reasonable men, friends and foes alike, it is not the work 
 of mere imposture and dishonest fiction. It is funda- 
 mentally, at least, a real history — a history, too, the 
 most wonderful and momentous in all the annals of 
 time, whether that history has descended to us in a pure 
 and unmixed, or in a corrupted and legendary form. 
 The question is thus greatly simplified, and the ground 
 of contest narrowed. 
 
 One of the only three possible hypotheses is now 
 finally exploded and put out of court. The older and 
 coarser infidelity is dead. The spirit of Yoltaire and of 
 Tom Paine is vanished. That cold, mocking devil — 
 
166 LECTURE L 
 
 that careless, sneering Mepliistopheles of unbelief — that 
 mean, shallow-liearted philosophy which could believe 
 Jesus of Nazareth to be an impostor, and His martyr- 
 followers charlatans and knaves, has been exorcised, and 
 is gone from the world, we trust, for ever. Men are too 
 serious at least for mere sneering now. They may or 
 they may not accept the gospel history as we now possess 
 it as true. They may believe or they may not believe, 
 or they may halt and hesitate between faith and unbelief. 
 They may cling to Christianity as for their life, or they 
 may stand aloof or turn away from it, whether with utter 
 recoil, or with a lingering wistfulness as loth to part 
 with that bright vision for ever ; but at least they deal 
 with the subject for the most part seriously, and are in 
 no mood to play and trifle with a subject, to them as to 
 us, so awful, or to dismiss it with a coarse jest or a 
 glittering bo7i mot. And as the spirit of this school is 
 obsolete, its fundamental position is a proved and 
 admitted absurdity. The world has fairly found it out 
 at last. We all instinctively feel that it can do nothing 
 for us either intellectually or morally — nothing to aid 
 the struggling reason, or help the solution of the great 
 problem with which all alike must wrestle. It raises 
 difficulties, but it removes none. It explains nothing, 
 but only scouts and ridicules that whereby alone the 
 enigma of life and of human history can be explained. 
 It leaves the entire fabric of modern history intact, and 
 seeks to render its annals credible by simply ignoring 
 that one fact which dominates its whole course, and 
 forms the main factor of its life from first to last. 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 167 
 
 Verily, of all unliistorical and irrational hypotheses, the 
 simple rejection of the gospel history is the most un- 
 historical and irrational. If there were no Christ, or if 
 the Christ that was had not something at least of that 
 moral grandeur and power which our Gospels ascribe 
 to Him, and which has made His image live within the 
 heart of humanity ever since, what account shall we 
 give, in the light either of history or of common sense, 
 of Christendom? This monstrous hypothesis, then, 
 may be now wholly eliminated from the problem 
 before us. 
 
 There remain two, and only two, possible solutions to 
 choose from. Either the Christ of the Gospels is true, 
 or the Christ of Strauss, or of Renan. Jesus did live, 
 and lived a great, glorious, and wonderful life. The 
 only question is, what exactly that life was — whether 
 that related by the four evangelists or something dif- 
 ferent. From that life the Church, Christianity, our 
 whole modern civilization, sprang, but how it sprang, 
 how that mighty tree grew from that mysterious mus- 
 tard seed, is the point still in debate. For the answer 
 to both questions the Church points to the Gospels. In 
 them she maintains is to be found the adequate, and 
 the only adequate, explanation of the facts of history. 
 Admit the wondrous life they related to be true, and 
 true as they related it, and all that has followed since 
 becomes clear, consistent, intelligible. A divine Chris- 
 tianity naturally and fitly springs from a divine Christ, 
 a new creation of humanity and of the world from a 
 true creative act and manifestation of God. A new 
 
168 LECTURE 1. 
 
 stream of life, intellectual, moral, spiritual, gushes up 
 from a new springhead of life. The world since Christ 
 has become other in its inmost, deepest being than it 
 was before, because a power unknown before has entered 
 into its life. There is a kingdom of Grod on earth, in 
 short, a kingdom radiant still with celestial light and 
 instinct with vivifying, transforming power, because 
 eighteen hundred years ago the kingdom of God came 
 with power. 
 
 All is thus abundantly plain and simple. The 
 history reads straight on and most luminously. There 
 is nothing that needs to be explained ; the whole pheno- 
 menon, as it stands before us on the grand canvas of 
 history, explains itself. Part fits into part, and all, 
 from first to last, from the birth at Bethlehem to the 
 conversion of to-day, stands in such a perfect harmony 
 that it seems as if either all must be true or none. 
 Apostolic faith, evangelistic zeal and love, martyr 
 constancy, glorified lives, victorious deaths, the new life 
 of nations, and renovation and purification of all true 
 human relations, the fresh exuberance of benignant 
 virtues and graces till then unknown ; the resistless 
 march of the new faith from victory to victory, from the 
 cross of Golgotha to the capitol of Rome, and then 
 onward through all the ages until now ; the undying 
 life of the Church and its ever-fresh renovation amid all 
 else, which in succession fades away and dies ; the fresh 
 vigour infused into the frame even of the old and 
 decrepit world ; above all, that sacred image of unearthly 
 grandeur and beauty which a few simple annalists first 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 1G9 
 
 gave to the world, but ■which, when once given, coukl 
 never be forofotten, but has lived ever since in the heart 
 of the race, the unapproached ideal of every highest 
 thought and noblest aspiration — all this, indeed, is 
 exceeding wonderful and strange, yet still quite con- 
 ceivable when traced back to so wonderful and divine a 
 source : but otherwise it is a hopeless contradiction and 
 enigma. 
 
 To this conclusion the modern schools of unbelief 
 demur. Accepting the historical phenomenon sub- 
 stantially as we have stated it, they reject the conclusion 
 which we have drawn from it. They can explain 
 satisfactorily, they maintain, all the facts of the case 
 without the admission of a superhuman Christ, or any 
 superhuman intervention whatever in the affairs of 
 men. Jesus may have been a mere man, and lived a 
 mere human, however pure and noble life, and all that 
 has since followed have fallen out precisely as it has 
 done. " The most beautiful thinsr in the world," to use 
 Kenan's words — the gospel history itself and the divine 
 life which it enshrines, and which has left its long track 
 of glory through the whole course of succeeding time, 
 " may have proceeded from an obscure and purely 
 popular elaboration " — from a few simple incidents of 
 real human life, embalmed by affection and magnified 
 and glorified by a creative imagination. Is this, then, 
 indeed so ? Can the disciples of Tubingen really make 
 their case out? Does Christianity, simply as a his- 
 torical phenomenon, admit of the explanation they 
 propose? This is the question before us — the one 
 
170 LECTURE I. 
 
 surviving question between faitli and unbelief from the 
 long and chequered conflict of ages. In the mythical 
 hypothesis, whether in its original integrity or as modi- 
 fied and adapted to meet the exigencies of more recent 
 investigation, unbelief is playing its last stake — fight- 
 ing its last battle. Let it be worsted here, and its 
 defeat in the historical ground at least is complete and 
 final, and nothing logically remains for it but an absolute 
 acceptance of the only other possible alternative — the 
 historical truth of the written Gospels, and of the divine 
 human life which they enshrine. 
 
 We shall have occasion to show in subsequent 
 lectures how it fares with this theory when submitted 
 to the ordeal of strict historical investigation. I shall 
 be able, I trust, to show that imposing, and, to a 
 certain class of minds, attractive as it may appear as a 
 mere piece of ingenious historical construction, it at once 
 collapses and falls to pieces when brought in contact 
 with the actual and inexorable facts of the case. To 
 meet the exigencies of the hypothesis our existing 
 Gospels must be carried down to the second century; 
 but then, when questioned, they positively refuse to be 
 carried down there. They cannot, without doing 
 violence to every historical principle, be torn out of the 
 first Christian age ; they cannot be forced into the 
 second. Whatever difliculties may attend their criticism 
 as authentic relics of the apostolic period, these dif- 
 ficulties vanish into insignificance in face of the utter 
 confusion and perplexity attendant on any other sup- 
 position. Constrained accordingly by these considera- 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 171 
 
 tions, the latest and most popular expounder of the 
 legendary hj'pothesis abandons this position as hope- 
 less, and, while accepting substantially the received 
 date of the fourth Gospel, shifts the composition of the 
 other three from the second century back again to a 
 period far within the first. But in thus escaping from 
 one difficulty he runs straight in the face of another — 
 
 " Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdiu. " 
 
 While the mythical theory will not fit the historical 
 date, the historical date will not fit the mythical theory. 
 So you can save the one only by the sacrifice of the 
 other. Strauss does this in one way, Renan in the 
 other. The older and warier writer saves the theory by 
 doing violence to the historical facts. The latter and 
 more impulsive accepts the facts to the destruction of 
 the theory. Such is the inevitable dilemma of un- 
 belief; you may take your choice between history and 
 theory, but you cannot at the same time do equal 
 homage to both ; the inexorable condition of the pro- 
 blem forbids it. 
 
 In this way I cannot help attaching much more im- 
 portance to the Vie de Jesu, and the fresh discussion 
 of the great argument to which it has given rise than 
 many of the friends of truth may be disposed to do. 
 As a mere recast and popular rendering of a theory 
 already verging to decay, the book of Kenan is no doubt 
 of comparatively slight importance ; but as a virtual 
 surrender of the fundamental principle of that theory 
 by one of its ablest and most vaunted disciples, its im- 
 
172 LECTURE L 
 
 portance can scarcely be overstated. It is the clear 
 pronouncement of cultured and philosophic unbelief 
 against the cardinal position on which cultured and 
 philosophic unbelief had finally taken its stand. It is 
 the very branch by which it was sustained suicidally cut 
 by its own hand. " On the whole," says he, "I admit 
 as authentic the four canonical Gospels ; all, in my 
 opinion, date from the first century, and the authors 
 are, generally speaking, those to whom they are attri- 
 buted," The admission is all the more important as 
 it evidently was not the author's original position. He 
 had started apparently, like the other disciples of the 
 legendary hypothesis, with a prepossession in favour 
 of the late date, and consequent utterly unhistorical 
 character of the Gospels, but further reflection and 
 inquiry amid the actual scenes of the history itself 
 irresistibly forced upon him another conclusion. That 
 which might be read as mere second century romance 
 in the salons of Paris could no longer be so read on the 
 brow of Olivet, or amid the shadows of Gethsemane. 
 "With the sight of the sacred soil, the unchanged though 
 marred and dishonoured face of the land, consecrated 
 by the footsteps of God, the mist of theory passed 
 from his eyes, and the vivid life-like reality of the 
 whole picture flashed out before him like a revelation : 
 " I have traversed in all directions the country of the 
 Gospels, I have visited Jerusalem, Hebron, and Samaria. 
 Scarcely any important locality of the history of Jesus 
 has escaped me. All this history, which at a distance 
 seems to float in the clouds of an unreal world, thus 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 173 
 
 took a form, and a solidity wHcli astonished me. 
 The striking agreement of the facts or with the country 
 which served it as a framework, was like a revelation to 
 me. I had before my eyes a fifth Gospel torn but still 
 legible, and henceforth through the recitals of Matthew 
 and Mark, in place of an abstract being, whose existence 
 might have been doubted, I saw living and moving an 
 admirable human figure." 
 
 At this point, indeed, Renan stops. Having made 
 this concession, or rather this confession, of his own 
 historic belief, he proceeds for the most part as if it had 
 never been made. Having surrendered the fundamental 
 position on which the whole legendary hypothesis rests, 
 he goes on to expound that hypothesis and adapt it to 
 present exigencies, just as though it remained intact. 
 He removes the keystone of the arch, but the airy struc- 
 ture still stands. The historic data are totally changed, 
 but the results continue still the same. Strauss could 
 regard our gospels as legendary, because of late com- 
 pilation, and therefore unauthentic ; Renan holds them 
 to be both early and authentic, and yet legendary. 
 Indeed, while examining and testing his materials, he 
 does homage so far to the facts of history, in handling 
 and using them, he proceeds on a method wholly arbi- 
 trary. Now he reads the gospel narrative as literal 
 history ; now as wild romance — just as suits his purpose. 
 In one evaugelist the discourses are undoubtedly gen- 
 uine, but the narratives of fact apocryphal ; in another 
 the facts are mainly true, but the discourses fabulous — 
 not that in either case there is anything in the style 
 
174 LECTURE I. 
 
 and manner of the historian to suggest or even to per- 
 mit such a discrimination, but because to meet the 
 exigencies of his theory it ought to be so. Judged by 
 every test, even of fair internal criticism, it is the same 
 Matthew who records the vivid words of Jesus, and 
 depicts, with an almost photographic distinctness, the 
 scenes amid which He lived and moved, who relates 
 also the daily incidents of His history ; and yet the 
 one, according to this author, is a picture even marvel- 
 lous for its truthful fidelity from the life, and the other 
 a tissue of fiction. It is the same John who repeats to 
 us the words of the upper chamber, and who introduces 
 us to the family of Bethany, but in the one case he is 
 the manufacturer of imaginary discourses, in the other 
 the historian of sacred and indelible memories. The 
 same writers, in short, are in the same book, and even 
 often within the limits of a few lines the most exact of 
 annalists and the wildest of romancers ; and yet the 
 history and the romance are so identical in style and 
 manner, and so inextricably interwoven through the 
 whole texture of the narrative, that it is impossible to 
 disentangle the one from the other. 
 
 Such is literally, and without exaggeration, the posi- 
 tion of Renan. He recognises in the gospels generally 
 a vivid stamp of originality and truth, which flashed out 
 before him on the spot where their true character might 
 best be judged like a revelation ; but that originality 
 and truthfulness extend only so far as he chooses, or 
 rather so far as the foregone conclusion which domi- 
 nates his thoughts will permit. But while the incou- 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 175 
 
 sistencies and contradictions of this author are his own, 
 the great truth to which he unwillingly bears witness 
 is for us and for all men. Though the gossamer crea- 
 tion of his constructive fancy shall dissolve again into 
 airy nothing, the concession extorted from him by the 
 irresistible force of evidence will not soon be forgotten 
 by Christians. The fifth gospel, which he found in 
 Judea, and laid open to all the world, cannot be closed 
 or buried out of sight again. Meanwhile, perhaps, the 
 heaviest blow which the school of Strauss has of late 
 years received in the historical field is that which has 
 been dealt by Eenan. It would appear as if the new 
 legendary Christianity were destined to die like an old 
 Roman by its own hand. 
 
 Let me again remind you that the theory which thus 
 gives way in our hands — which cannot endure the rough 
 handling even of its own friends — is now the only alter- 
 native to the simple acceptance of Christianity as true. 
 Either the gospel history as we now possess it, with its 
 pervading supernaturalism, with all the mysterious 
 halo of superhuman greatness and miraculous power 
 surrounding its central figure, is true ; or it must have 
 originated in some such way as Strauss has imagined, 
 but has so conspicuously failed to reconcile with the 
 historical conditions of the case. We are compelled to 
 choose between the Christ of the evangelists and the 
 Christ of Strauss (for the Christ of Voltau-e and of 
 Paine is long since dead), and if the latter prove only 
 a spectral illusion and vanish into thin air, the grand 
 and sacred form of the other, which the Church of God 
 
176 LECTURE I. 
 
 tlirougliout all tlie world has for eigliteen hundred years 
 confessed and adored, must henceforth, occupy the 
 ground alone. 
 
 Meanwhile, the positive evidence for the truth of the 
 gospel, historical, moral, and experimental, remains as 
 valid and as strong as ever. While false solutions of 
 the great problem of Christianity are breaking down, 
 those visible and patent signatures of the divine power 
 and presence which point to the true solution shine out 
 in undimmed lustre before our eyes. The simple narra- 
 tive of the actual facts as they are writ large on the page 
 of history is, after all, the best proof of the divine hand 
 that was at work in them throughout. 
 
 Foreshadowed by ancient oracle and mystic type and 
 symbol, at once the bright expectation of Jewish saints, 
 and the dim dream of yearning hearts in other and 
 unenlightened lands, there appeared at last in the 
 fulness of time a glorious spiritual Deliverer and King, 
 who, while immeasurably transcending, met and fulfilled 
 them both. He lived a life such as the world has never 
 since been able to forget, and died a death which in its 
 power and effect has proved mightier than all the lives 
 ever lived on the earth before. He spake as never man 
 spake — in words, by the admission even of an adversary, 
 '' at once mild and terrible, and possessing a divine 
 strength and splendour which, as it were, emphasizes 
 them, and detaches and distinguishes from all others," 
 and if He did not really work miracles He was Himself 
 in His singular and uuapproached grandeur, a miracle, 
 and impressed, at least on the minds of His disciples. 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 177 
 
 a conviction of His superhuman power and greatness 
 stronger than death itself. They believed that by His 
 touch and by His word He had healed the sick, opened 
 the eyes of the blind, hushed the tempests of the sea, 
 raised the dead, and at last Himself burst the fetters of 
 the tomb, and ascended to heaven in triumph before 
 their eyes, and while this belief was strong enough to 
 give a new direction to, and mould the whole course of 
 their lives, they were ready at any moment to seal its 
 sincerity with their blood. 
 
 Of this wondrous life and death we have four separate 
 and more or less independent accounts from the hands 
 professedly of contemporaries and eye-witnesses, which, 
 while stamped with the clearest signatures of authenti- 
 city, seem by the very character of their subject-matter 
 irresistibly to prove their own truth. While differing in 
 style and manner, and in every circumstance of minute 
 delineation and grouping, the representation of the won- 
 drous person and history which form their common 
 subject is yet so manifestly one, and marked by such a 
 perfect harmony, freshness, and life-like reality, as to be 
 beyond the reach of fiction. An unmistakable indi- 
 viduality stamps the whole picture and pervades its 
 every line and shade. All the elements of which it is 
 composed, whether of words or deeds, leading events, or 
 subordinate circumstances, ordinary human experiences 
 or miraculous transactions, are in such absolute keeping, 
 both with each other and with the great central figure 
 to whom they seem as of right to belong, as to form 
 together an unique and indivisible whole, insomuch that 
 
 M 
 
178 LECTURE I. 
 
 it must be true absolutely and altogether or not at all. 
 The canvas lives and speaks, and, homely as are its 
 materials and rude the hands that covered it, a sacred 
 and divine glory is diffused over it, which arrests all eyes 
 and moves all hearts, and which has caused the match- 
 less image which it reveals to sink into the heart of 
 humanity and live there for ever. Verily, if the life of 
 Christ is not divine, the Gospels are. If they are not 
 the faithful and exact delineation of a supernatural life, 
 they are the embodiment of a grand and unearthly 
 thought, which, in the whole circumstances of the case, 
 must be regarded as scarcely less supernatural. An in- 
 carnate God is ushered on the stage, and made to speak 
 and act before us, and mingle familiarly with the 
 common incidents and scenes of life, and gradually to 
 unfold and reveal Himself to our eyes, not by laboured 
 description or theatrical displays, but by the simple 
 annals of everyday words and deeds, and He sustains the 
 character. He bears and demeans Himself like a God. 
 Everything, from His first recorded words in the temple 
 to His last cry on the cross, is in perfect keeping alike 
 with the character and with itself. Not a word escapes 
 His lips, not a look, or step, or lightest trait, ever betrays 
 itself that is unworthy of One who, being the brightness 
 of the Father's glory and the express image of His per- 
 son, should yet walk this earth in human form. A 
 divine majesty sits upon His brow; an indescribable 
 sacredness surrounds His person, such as belongs to no 
 other picture drawn by mortal hands. 
 It is not Christians alone who feel this. Even the world 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 179 
 
 and the world's own prophets have more or less con- 
 sciously felt and owned it. How tenderly do they touch 
 — if, indeed, they have any spark of j)ure and noble feel- 
 ing in them at all — the adorable person of the Lord, 
 however roughly or recklessly they may handle in other 
 respects the inspired records of His life. They have no 
 heart either for cold logic or bitter scorn when they 
 approach the sacred haunts of Bethany and of Calvary. 
 They may reject His miracles, they may cavil at the 
 alleged contradictions of His biographers, but they can- 
 not but revere and love Himself Prejudice is disarmed, 
 and the sharp pen drops from the relentless critic's hand 
 as he meets the eye of Him who looks upon us with such 
 benignant majesty from every page. 
 
 Thus the Galilean holds the world in awe, though 
 as yet He has not fully conquered. How has this 
 transcendent image lived amid all changes of time and 
 circumstances in the memory of mankind, drawn to itself 
 all j)m-e, and high, and noble, and tender thoughts, 
 and proved the germ of whatever has been true and 
 strong and holy in the life alike of individuals and of 
 nations. How has it kept itself apart from every 
 other personal or historic reminiscence, — towered in 
 imapproachable majesty above every other ideal, dwelt 
 apart, as in a most holy sanctuary, alone ! How irre- 
 sistibly does it impress itself upon us, as something 
 essentially and specifically different from anything else 
 ever known or conceived of on earth — the true holy of 
 holies of humanity and of all history, to which we in- 
 stinctively turn in all times of deepest thoughtfulness. 
 
180 LECTURE I. 
 
 or sorrow, or douLt, or fear, as the very centre of rest 
 and peace. And yet, all tliis we are asked to believe is 
 the creation of one or two Jewish peasants, or of some 
 anonymous compilers of floating legends, writing no one 
 knows when or where. 
 
 Nor does the miracle end here. The life of Christ, 
 whether real or unreal, is no mere vision or sacred sou- 
 venir of the past. Though dead He still lives. Like 
 Samson of old, while in His life He struggled apparently 
 in vain with enemies too strong for Him, in His death 
 He shook the very pillars of the world, and prepared the 
 way for a new epoch — a new form and order of things 
 which continues to this hour. His very name, and 
 words, and memory, with the strange power that at- 
 tended them, breathed new life into the nations, and 
 fresh moulded humanity. Souls sunk in slumber and 
 hopeless apathy awoke at His bidding, and the dry bones 
 of the world arose. Thousands everywhere recognised 
 in His words the very voice of God, and found in them 
 the key of life's mystery, the opening of the gate of 
 heaven. Thus, if the first evidence of Christianity is 
 Christ, the second is Christendom. " Si vis monumen- 
 tmn circumspicG.'''' Our whole modern life, and all that 
 is purest, noblest, and best, alike in what man is and in 
 what he aspires to be, reposes on the foundation of this 
 wondrous life and death. "We are what we are so far 
 as there is anything good and blessed in life at all, 
 mainly because Christ lived, or else because a few rude 
 unlettered peasants dreamed that He had. 
 
 In fine, in the cleansed and healed lives of thousands. 
 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 181 
 
 in the clioicest fruits of our civilization and highest cul- 
 ture, in the fairest virtues and noblest deeds which bless 
 and dignify humanity, in our universities, and schools, 
 and infirmaries, and asylums for the helpless and for- 
 lorn, and all the other forms and agencies of God-like 
 mercy, in the very ideas of humility and self-sacrifice, 
 and inviolable truth and sacred love, in the ever-endur- 
 ing, ever-renewed life of the Church, while all things 
 else yield to the inevitable law of death and change, in 
 the gracious tears of penitents, in the shining lives of 
 saints, — in all this, and in much more which time would 
 fail me to tell, but which we all see before our eyes day 
 by day, yea, in the very light, intellectual, moral, and 
 spiritual, which shines around us, and the atmosphere 
 of life we daily breathe — behold the present evidence 
 of the unchanging power and godhead of Him who died 
 and rose again and liveth for evermore. This is the true 
 miracle of miracles ; that beside which all other miracles 
 seem common, and fall naturally into their proper place, 
 as the befitting and inevitable accidents of an economy 
 from first to last supernatural and divine. The one 
 grand miracle of Christianity began with the birth of 
 Bethlehem, and continues to this hour, and belongs not 
 to one age or country only, but to all. Christ came 
 into the world in the fulness of time, and He has been 
 in it ever since, and He is in it still. Surely in all 
 this we have not the result of a clever fiction or a collec- 
 tion of legendary tales, but the very handiwork and 
 footprints of God. 
 
 To sum up all in a few words. The first evi- 
 
182 LECTURE I. 
 
 dence of Christianity is Christ — the glory that shines 
 in the face of the incarnate God as reflected on the 
 gospel page. The second is Christendom — the divine 
 and supernatural result of the divine supernatural his- 
 tory. The third is the Bible, resplendent on every page 
 with the light of inspiration. The fourth is the Church 
 — the ever living, ever fresh, and young, and buoyant 
 body, of the ever-living, ever reigning Head. And the 
 last is the soul, — witnessing from its inmost depths to 
 the truth of that gospel whose every cry it answers, 
 whose every wound it heals, whose every highest aspi- 
 ration it meets and satisfies, — that true testimonium 
 animce naturaliter Ckristiajice, of which Tertullian so 
 grandly spoke of old. Let us see to it that we all 
 possess at least this last evidence — this witness in our- 
 selves which nothing can countervail or shake — that 
 clear sight and full persuasion of the truth which is 
 ever given to them who in real earnest cry and wait for 
 the light. Then, as the divine work within us witnesses 
 to the truth of the divine economy above and around us, 
 we shall not only believe but know the truth, and be 
 enabled amid all the conflicts of opinion and failings of 
 men's hearts, with calm, resolute voice, to echo the 
 words of the apostle, " We know that the Son of God 
 has come, and has given us an understanding that we 
 may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is 
 true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true 
 God and eternal life." 
 
LECTURE 11. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 
 
 The character of Christ, or iu other words, His whole 
 personality as it comes out in life and action, is be- 
 yond all question a reality in one of two senses. It is 
 either a supernatural fact, or a supernatural thought. 
 It is the fruit of a divine miraculous birth, or the em- 
 bodiment of a divine conception, in the whole circum- 
 stances of the case scarcely less miraculous. Either 
 Jesus lived, and lived just such a life as the evangelists 
 have related, or the idea of such a life had in some in- 
 scrutable way entered into the minds of a few unlettered 
 men, and been by their unskilled pens embodied in a 
 biography, which in point of life-like reality, individual 
 unity, and sacred majesty and glory, stands unparalleled 
 in all literature, whether fictitious or real. If God 
 incarnate did not walk the earth in human form, in the 
 land of Judea, and in the days of Augustus and Tiberius 
 Ca3sar, He at least lives on the canvas of the four 
 evangelists, and from thence speaks in word and deed 
 to men of all time. We recognise, as we look, the 
 present God. 
 
 There is a glory around that head ; there is a majesty 
 
184 LECTURE II. 
 
 in that countenance ; tliere is a power in every word 
 and look and action, which irresistibly speaks itself 
 divine. All men have felt this more or less, and have 
 in their hearts done homage to it. The shadow of Christ 
 is on the world, and has been for eighteen hundred 
 years ; and a divinity doth hedge around the sacred 
 person of this King, forbidding all irreverent approach. 
 The noblest and purest spirits have ever felt this the 
 most; and whatever their speculative doubts or diffi- 
 culties, have instinctively cast their shoes from off their 
 feet as they approach the holy ground. Men may not 
 recognise the Sun of Eighteousness as really shining in 
 the firmament of history ; but they cannot help seeing 
 its reflection on the stream of the evangelistic narrative, 
 and confessing, that whether real or imaginary, it is 
 beyond all parallel and all conception bright and 
 glorious. 
 
 It will be at once seen, that the argument with which 
 we are now engaged proceeds on no assumption of the 
 historical authenticity of the documents in which the 
 life of Christ has been enshrined ; but simply on that 
 life itself, as it stands forth from the canvas, luminous 
 in its own truth and glory. We maintain that it does 
 not need to be proved, but that it proves itself. We 
 can even suppose that we know nothing whatever of 
 those documents, except the representation they thus 
 give of the person and character of Christ; nothing 
 either of their authorship or their history, or the 
 medium of their transmission to our times. We can 
 conceive that they had been found but yesterday, with- 
 
THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 185 
 
 out name or date or illustrative note of any kind, in 
 some old Syrian or Egyptian monastery, amid heaps 
 of other mouldering parchments of by-gone days ; and 
 we maintain that even then, a true appreciative eye 
 might discern that the life-history they record is true, 
 and that it is divine. We may know nothing of the 
 mirror on which we gaze, of the hand that made it, or 
 whence it came ; and its surface, too, may be dim and 
 worn, and marred here and there by partial roughnesses, 
 and spots of rust, which offend the curious eye ; and 
 yet we may be perfectly sure that the image reflected 
 on its surface is a living man, though He stands behind 
 us unseen, and not a picture or a mask. We may never 
 have seen that face before, or ever conceived or dreamed 
 of any like it ; but we see it now, and are as sure of 
 its objective truth and reality as we are of our own 
 existence. We may not be able clearly to explain why 
 we have this full and absolute assurance, yet still it is 
 so. We may not be able by logical arguments to justify 
 our assurance, but still we are sure. We may be unable, 
 perhaps, to give any other account of the matter, or say 
 anything more about it than this, that it produces this 
 impression upon us, and produces it irresistibly, and 
 would, we cannot doubt, do the same on any other clear 
 and open eye as well. We are sure that there is a liv- 
 ing man behind us, because there is the express image 
 of a living man before our eyes. Such an image, as we 
 know from all experience, never was produced save by 
 the reflected form of a living man, and never can be. 
 Now, it is in something of this way, though, as we shall 
 
186 LECTURE II. 
 
 see, "witli even a larger measure of rational ground^ 
 that the simple reading and meditative study of the 
 gospel annals, conveys to us as with the force of a revela- 
 tion, the assurance that He of whom we read is a real 
 man, and j^et that He is more than man. The life of 
 Jesus, in short, authenticates the Gospels, far more than 
 the Gospels authenticate it. God incarnate lives and 
 moves and speaks — almost breathes, in those artless but 
 wondrous pages, and illuminates and glorifies them by 
 His presence throughout. 
 
 "Were we to endeavour to put this argument into a 
 logical form, we should perhaps best express it in the 
 two following propositions : — 
 
 I. On the supposition that the life of Christ is indeed 
 divine, the entire portraiture of that life, as given in the 
 Gospels, is in entire harmony and perfect keeping with it. 
 
 II. It could not have been so, the whole circumstances 
 of the case being considered, unless it had been real. To 
 a brief illustration and development of these two posi- 
 tions, we shall devote what remains of the present lecture. 
 
 First, then. If we suppose the life of Christ to have 
 been indeed a divine life, then everything which the evan- 
 gelists have recorded of Him is in harmony with the sup- 
 position. A divine character is assigned to Him, and He 
 fully sustains the character. He speaks and acts and 
 bears Himself throughout in a manner befitting it, and 
 worthy of it. Alike in word and in deed, on great occa- 
 sions and on small, amid miraculous events and everyday 
 scenes ; — in childhood, in youth, and in full strong man- 
 
THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 187 
 
 hood ; — at the marriage feast, the solemn funeral, the 
 convivial meeting, the synagogue assembly ; — flushed 
 with holy indignation, and melting with unutterable 
 tenderness ; — reasoning with the doctors, denouncing the 
 Pharisees, and taking the little children in His arms ; 
 — radiant with transfiguration light, and bowed with 
 mysterious and infinite sorrow ; — walking on the sea, 
 sitting weary by the well, reclining in the upper 
 chamber, kneeling in the garden, hanging on the 
 cross, — everywhere and always, and all through the 
 crowded details of a free and artless biography He is 
 the same, — ever worthy of Himself, and of the awfully 
 great and sublime position assigned to Him. His bio- 
 graphers start with an ideal that is divine, and their 
 subject fulfils that ideal. The deep stamp of the God 
 and of the man, or rather of the God-man in perfect 
 and indissoluble union, is on it all. This may be said 
 to be, practically at least, on all hands admitted. 
 
 Whatever exceptions some may have taken to parti- 
 cular traits in the character of Christ, or special words 
 or deeds imputed to Him by the evangelists, it will not 
 be denied that the total impression made upon us, by 
 His whole recorded history, the combined result of all 
 His words and deeds and ways of life, as by them 
 related, is just what we have said. An image of in- 
 describable beauty, power, and greatness, which we 
 instinctively call divine, rises up before us as we read, 
 and becomes clearer and clearer to us, more and more 
 exalted in stately majesty, as we steadfastly contemplate 
 and deeply ponder it. Nowhere is this more conspicuously 
 
188 LECTURE II. 
 
 apparent than in the writings of some unbelievers 
 especially of the present day. In the recent work, for 
 example, of Ernest Eenan, it is at once striking and 
 passing sad to mark the continual conflict in his mind, 
 between the bright vision of a divine and unearthly 
 Christ which still haunts him, after the true living 
 Christ is gone, and those low and unworthy constructions 
 of His recorded words and deeds, to which the neces- 
 sities of his position force him : now speaking of Him 
 as a son of God, and even by pre-eminence the son of 
 God, the greatest of all the sublime spirits that ever 
 visited the earth, whose glory and life-giving influence 
 on humanity and the world shall never pass away, and 
 now attributing to Him traits of weakness and infirmity 
 below the level even of ordinary men ; now, as pene- 
 trating the deepest mysteries of being and of the divine 
 nature ; now, as dooming rich men to hell simply because 
 they were rich, the minions of earthly prosperity to 
 everlasting tears, because they had had their joys here. 
 Yet with all this incredible inconsistency and con- 
 tradiction, the divine ideal which the Gospels reveal, 
 is rather merely defaced and marred, than utterly de- 
 stroyed. Ever and anon, through the glittering haze of 
 sentimental French jargon, do we seem to catch the 
 lineaments of a form, which we dare not, with him, to 
 decorate with flowers, or compliment with pompous 
 eulogy, but must worship and adore. Even the shadow 
 of the cross seems for a moment to fall uj^on him, and 
 to soften him as he writes such words as these : " Rest 
 now in thy glory, noble initiator ! Thy work is com- 
 
THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 189 
 
 pleted, thy divinity is established. Fear no more to 
 see the edifice of thy efforts crumble through a flaw. 
 Henceforth, beyond the reach of frailty, thou shalt be 
 present from the height of thy divine place, in the 
 infinite consequences of thy act. At the price of a few 
 hours of suffering, which have not even touched thy 
 great soul, thou hast purchased the most complete 
 immortality. For thousands of years the world will 
 extol thee. Banner of our contradictions, thou wilt be 
 the sign around which will be fought our fiercest battles. 
 A thousand times more living, a thousand times more 
 loved since thy death, than during the days of thy 
 pilgrimage here below, thou shalt become to such a 
 degree the corner-stone of humanity, that to tear thy 
 name from this world would be to shake it to its founda- 
 tions. Between thee and God men will no longer 
 distinguish. Complete conqueror of death, take pos- 
 session of thy kingdom, whither, by the royal road thou 
 hast traced, ages of adorers will follow thee." * 
 
 Yes ! it was indeed a royal road, and those were royal 
 feet that trod it in power, and in majesty, and the world 
 to this day, as witnessed by this its favourite prophet, 
 hears the echoes of them. Let us not be misunderstood. 
 In those poor tinsel words of rhetorical eulogy, in those 
 vain trappings of the mock king of Israel, we do not 
 recognise the image of our Lord. Rather is it only a 
 lifeless waxen model, fashioned by one who merely 
 worked out his own ideal, but yet who had caught sight 
 of an ideal higher than his own, and never been able 
 
 * Vie de Jesu, 
 
190 LECTURE II. 
 
 wholly to forget it. That higher ideal will still be 
 recognised by every unbiassed student, as the true and 
 only possible one. The Parisian Christ will not supplant 
 the Christ of Bethany and of Calvary, as that which 
 mankind will regard, as either the more life-like and 
 credible in itself, or more worthy to be cherished as a 
 sacred treasure in its heart of hearts. This false Christ 
 is a contradiction, an impossible combination of in- 
 congruous and incompatible elements ; the Christ of the 
 Gospels is a divine and perfect whole, in which all the 
 parts fit together, and mutually confirm each other. 
 If ever God incarnate dwelt on earth. He must have 
 been just such an one as these wondrous annals have 
 described Him, and such as their thoughtful and reverent 
 students have ever, with more or less of adequateness, 
 conceived Him. He whom they speak of as God, is as 
 they have drawn Him altogether and unmistakably god- 
 like. That which, according to their testimony eighteen 
 hundred years ago, men saw with their eyes, and heard 
 with their ears, and with their hands handled of the 
 Word of Life, still fills these pages with His glory, and 
 in them He is yet present with us, even as though we 
 beheld Him, and heard Him, and touched Him still. 
 
 We do not attempt any full and detailed development 
 of this argument. To do this would imply a complete 
 portraiture of Him of whose divine glory we speak, and 
 from such a task we utterly shrink. For the utmost 
 that can be done in this way, or at least has been done, 
 we are content to refer you to the powerful work of Dr 
 YouDg on the '' Christ of History," a complete answer 
 
THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 191 
 
 by anticipation to the romance of Renan ; and to the 
 exquisite chapter on " the Character of Jesus " in Horace 
 Bushnell's treatise on " Nature and the Supernatural." 
 If it were possible to exhibit the beauty of the rose, by 
 taking it to pieces, and examining its fair petals with 
 keen microscopic scrutiny, one by one, or the glory of 
 the sun by prismatically resolving its separate beams, 
 then in such works as these we have demonstration 
 irresistible of the divine glory of Christ and of Chris- 
 tianity. But any such mere description, or analytical 
 estimate, is from the nature of the case inadequate. It 
 is the whole image and idea, or rather living Person of 
 the Christ, as He moves, breathes, speaks in the 
 Gospels, rather than any separate facts or traits, that 
 irresistibly proclaims Him divine. We are ever more 
 powerful and convincing when we confine ourselves to 
 general expressions, and ajipeal to what all men feel, 
 than when we attempt any detailed exhibition of attri- 
 butes. Any one who, with aught of serious thoughtful- 
 ness, or even ordinary susceptibility of impression, has 
 read the Gospels, has inevitably caught from them a far 
 more distinct and living conception of what He is, than 
 any words of mere description can convey. Then does 
 there rise up before us, silently, spontaneously, not 
 manufactured out of parts and shreds pieced together, 
 but shining out through the veil of sacred acts and 
 words, that very form and face divine before which the 
 unbelieving Thomas fell down adoring, — in which gentle- 
 ness and power, lowliness and majesty, tenderness and 
 strength, awful purity and unutterable compassion. 
 
192 LECTURE It 
 
 vastness of tliouglit and purpose, and condescension to 
 the homeliest facts and scenes of life, sympathy without 
 softness, benignant forbearance without indulgent weak- 
 ness, sanctity without a shade of moroseness or ascetic 
 rigour, sublimity without effort, majesty without dis- 
 tance, decision without extremeness, burning zeal and 
 entirest consecration of heart without a shade of morbid 
 enthusiasm, humiliation, poverty, shame, without degra- 
 dation, — all blend together in an image of divine human 
 grandeur and beauty, such as thought had never con- 
 ceived before, such as, language must ever fail to express. 
 Verily, if here we find not God, — behold not as in a 
 glass the brightness of His glory, it is not too much to 
 say we shall never find Him at all. 
 
 Second. We have now room only for a very brief illus- 
 tration of our second proposition, viz., that the evan- 
 gelists never could have given such a portraiture of 
 Christ, never could have thus drawn a full-length, and 
 truly worthy picture of a God-man, unless it had been 
 real. Let us start here with making a very extravagant 
 supposition. Let us try to imagine it possible that they 
 could have themselves conceived such a character as that 
 of Jesus — created it through the mere power of imagina- 
 tion or pious reverie, either out of nothing, or out of the 
 broken and legendary reminiscences of an actual but 
 merely human life ; or rather (for in such a case a joint 
 creation is preposterous) that one of them, the sublimest 
 spirit of their number, had imagined it, and that the 
 others had caught it, in its absolute purity and com- 
 pleteness from him; even then, we maintain, they 
 
THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 193 
 
 never could have set that ideal before us in words — ' 
 never could have embodied it in a detailed biography, or 
 biographies, such as vs^e now possess. Such an effort 
 were beyond the reach of highest genius, much more of 
 such simple and artless pens as theirs. Let us take as 
 an illustration an instance in point in the literature of 
 our own country. No intelligent person who has read 
 Boswell's Johnson, ever doubted for a moment that the 
 character there depicted is real, or that it is delineated 
 to the life. We feel irresistibly that Boswell never 
 could have conceived a Johnson, had he not known him, 
 and that even had the idea been revealed to him, he 
 never could have made him live before us in everyday 
 words, and deeds, and as in very flesh and blood, as he 
 has done. "We are perfectly sure from first to last, that 
 it is the same identical man that moves and speaks be- 
 fore us, and that the idea we get of him is about as true 
 to the life, as any human words can make it. All this, 
 though we knew nothing previously of Johnson himself, 
 or of his biographer, or his book. We are as sure in 
 fact of the reality of the robust and strong sinewed 
 moralist, from a simple reading of the book, as we are 
 of the friend we met on the street an hour ago. How 
 much more would this be the case (if indeed we can 
 speak of degrees at all in a case of absolute certainty), if 
 instead of one we had four Boswells working more or 
 less independently of each other, and varying endlessly 
 in lesser details, yet agreeing absolutely in the idea they 
 give of their one common subject. To doubt in such a 
 case, either as to the fact of his existence, or of his 
 
194 LECTURE II. 
 
 having been just sucli a man as he is thus described, 
 would be the very insanity of unbelief. Now such is 
 precisely the actual case before us. In the Grospels we 
 have four biographies exactly of the same nature, as the 
 famous memoirs I have alluded to, portraying their 
 great subject just as they do, not by elaborate descrip- 
 tion, or philosophic analysis, but by the simple recital 
 of everyday words and deeds ; and if it was confessedly 
 impossible for one educated Englishman thus to create 
 and present a robust and strongly-marked human char- 
 acter, how much more for four Galilean peasants, or 
 other obscure romancers assuming their name, to con- 
 ceive and portray, in a manner worthy of the theme, the 
 character and acts of a God. 
 
 In fine, and to sum up all in a single sentence, the 
 life the Evangelists have portrayed, if real, is heyond all 
 question divine; and it never could have been so por- 
 trayed, unless it had been real. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 THE WORDS OF CHRIST. 
 
 It is necessarily but an imperfect idea of a powerful 
 discourse, whicli we can gather from a written account 
 of it, however skilfully and truthfully its substance may 
 have been recorded. Even though with infallible exact- 
 ness every word which fell from the speaker's lips may 
 have been preserved, still there is much of that which 
 imparted its charm and power due to the living speech 
 which has passed away. The flash of the eye, the 
 excited flush of the countenance, the nervous quiver of 
 the hand, the thrilling tones and changeful cadence of 
 the voice, whether falling in gentle whisper or crashing 
 in awful thunder — all, in short, which constitutes the 
 electric fire — the peculiar spell of the great orator as 
 distinguished from the great author — all has vanished 
 like the fire from the spent thunder cloud. Though 
 many may not understand the difference, all at once 
 and instinctively feel it. With the man himself who 
 spoke, the very soul of the words spoken seems to have 
 in great measure departed also. He no longer comes 
 close to us, is no longer in living contact with our soul 
 and spirit, as he was before. In his living presence and 
 
196 LECTURE III. 
 
 burning words, he speaks to us, — in bis mere written 
 sentences he discourses before us. In the one case we are 
 rapt, enchained, carried along, — in the other, we read on 
 in cokl blood, and perhaps with difficulty compel our- 
 selves to read through. In short, the words in which 
 our thoughts are expressed are only a part, and often 
 the least part of language. The eye speaks, the hand 
 speaks, the whole living, quivering body speaks as well 
 as the tongue. Thought brightens in the countenance, 
 but only indicates itself by poor dumb signs, in words. 
 
 Hence it is that the recorded addresses of celebrated 
 preachers often so greatly disappoint us. The dead 
 relics of their words are as nothing beside the surviving 
 tradition of their fame. They read flat and common- 
 place — good, sound, instructive indeed — sometimes per- 
 haps, pathetic, impressive, sublime ; but still nothing 
 so very wonderful, unaj)proachable — nothing very differ- 
 ent from what we have ourselves heard a hundred times 
 from the lips of comparatively undistinguished men. 
 The reason is, we have been hearing their words, not 
 hearing them. It is not the words of an eloquent man 
 only, but the man himself that is eloquent. It is not 
 his sentences and jieriods that speak, but his soul, his 
 living, burning self that speaks through them; and 
 through eye and lips and hand and voice all together. 
 Without this it is but the withered leaves, not the flower — 
 the written score, not the music — the colourless outline 
 of the human face divine, without the power, the beauty, 
 and the majesty. 
 
 While this, however, is true of all exalted eloquence. 
 
THE WORDS OF GURIST. 197 
 
 more or less, there is a kind of eloquence, or ratlier of 
 grand and lofty speech higher than eloquence, of which 
 it is less so. It is that eloquence which lies, not so 
 much in the passionate fervour of the feelings, as 
 in the inherent weight and grandeur of the thoughts. 
 Such words can bear to be read afterwards. Such 
 thoughts do breathe, and such words do burn, even 
 apart from the breathing, burning lips that uttered 
 them. The feelings with which words are spoken j)ass 
 awaj, and may scarcely even be suggested by an after 
 perusal of them ; but the thought remains, and there- 
 fore just in proportion as they are instinct with thought, 
 they endure and are everlasting. Thus the sermons of 
 Whitefield have, in great measure, lost their charm, 
 while the great thoughts of Howe and of Hall, and 
 Leighton and Taylor, not to speak of the Basils and 
 Augustines of a long past age, survive in undiminished 
 power, and are a treasure to all times. 
 
 So pre-eminently was it with the words of Christ. 
 " The words that I speak unto you," says He, " they are 
 spirit, and they are life," — the words themselves, even 
 apart from the look, the voice, the divine and holy pre- 
 sence of Him who uttered them, and who, doubtless, alike 
 in what He said, and in His manner of saying it, spake 
 as never man spake. Still, something of the power even 
 of His words — so far at least as regards their natural 
 influence and impression on men's hearts, must have 
 passed away with the living presence of the peerless 
 speaker, and therefore, in order to attain a full and 
 complete conception of it, we require not only to read 
 
198 LECTURE III. 
 
 the words, but to learn what impression those words 
 made on the minds of those who first heard them. 
 
 And this we are enabled to do from such graphic and 
 pregnant statements as we find appended to some of His 
 most remarkable discourses, as that, for instance, which 
 closes the report of the Sermon on the Mount: "And 
 it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the 
 people were astonished at his doctrine : for he taught 
 them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." 
 The general purport of the statement we can at once 
 comprehend. The multitudes which then surrounded 
 the august Sj^eaker were arrested and enchained, and 
 profoundly moved by His words. Attracted thither by 
 a variety of motives and considerations — some, perhaps, 
 by mere idle curiosity — they were held captive by a spell 
 to them as new as it was strange. Before, they had 
 been accustomed to yield a listless ear to this or that 
 speaker, and then turn away ; but this Speaker took 
 hold of them, and held them fast. It was not that 
 they apprehended, with more or less of intelligence, with 
 more or less of interest. His instructions, but He appre- 
 hended them. He got within them, and with irresis- 
 tible grasp took hold of their heart and soul. So com- 
 pletely was it so, that for the time they probably took 
 no note of the fact. They were so occupied while He 
 spoke, and absorbed with the truths He spoke, that 
 they had no time to think of how He spoke ; and it 
 was not until the wondrous discourse was ended, and a 
 long-drawn breath of relief followed the intense silence 
 of rapt and strained attention, that, waking as from a 
 
THE WORDS OF CHRIST. 199 
 
 dream, they began to collect themselves, and to reflect 
 upon the matter. Then it was that they turned one to 
 another, and with hushed breath whispered, " How 
 wonderful is His doctrine ! He speaks as one that hath 
 authority, and not as the scribes." 
 
 Let us try to ascertain the secret of this power, to 
 which that mixed Jewish multitude thus did homage. 
 "We ourselves feel in reading the words of Jesus, espe- 
 cially when we read them in the spirit of prayer and 
 under the eye of the Master, something of the same 
 power ; and therefore we are in some degree in circum- 
 stances to comprehend its nature, and analyse its 
 elements. 
 
 " He spake as one having authority." The first 
 and most obvious idea here is, the majesty of the tone 
 and maimer in which He spoke. There was a stately 
 port and bearing about the mysterious Teacher, an 
 indescribable air of j)Ower and command, which struck 
 His hearers with awe, and at once placed Him at an 
 immeasurable distance from any other instructor they 
 had ever heard before. We see this in some degree in 
 the very form in which His teaching is couched, apart 
 even from the subject-matter of it. His words were 
 kingly in their very stamp and coinage, as well as in the 
 precious material of which they were composed. This 
 of course cannot be as fully perceived by us as by those 
 who were His immediate hearers, and who not only 
 listened to the gracious words which proceeded out of 
 His mouth, but were eye-witnesses too of the majesty 
 of Him who spoke them. The look, the air, the tone 
 
200 LECTURE III. 
 
 of high command and conscious greatness with which 
 He uttered those mighty words, — all this of course is 
 lost to us who hear the divine Shepherd's voice only 
 now by faith, and no longer with eye of flesh see His 
 face ; yet there is something in the very form of His 
 language itself, which at least powerfully suggests what 
 we can no longer see. " I say unto you, swear not at 
 all." " Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord." 
 " Whoso heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth 
 them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his 
 house upon a rock," &c. " Whosoever shall be ashamed 
 of me, of him shall I be ashamed." " Go in peace ; thy 
 sins are forgiven thee." " To-day shalt thou be with me 
 in Paradise." Such language as this is plainly imperial, 
 god-like. He who speaks here is the King of Glory, or 
 He is a deceiver and an impostor. Between these two 
 alternatives there is no middle theory possible. Plainly 
 He is no mere human teacher, however wise and great 
 and good. No human teacher ever assumed a mien, and 
 usurped a tone like this. Either it is the voice of a 
 God, or of one who, by an impious robbery, dares to 
 make himself equal with God. He speaks " as one 
 having authority," — the authority of One whose every 
 word is truth, whose every command is law. He is the 
 sovereign Lord of the living and the dead — the mighty, 
 awful King, who openeth and no man shutteth, and 
 shutteth and no man openeth, the gates of life and 
 death, time and eternity — or. He is nothing. 
 
 Now, observe here the precise force of the argument 
 we are putting. It does not lie simply in the fact 
 
THE WORDS OF CHRIST. 201 
 
 that Christ makes these pretensions, and makes them in 
 so kingly a manner, but that His whole character and 
 bearing is in keeping with them. He not only assumes the 
 sublime position He claims, but He worthily sustains 
 it. Indeed it will ever be found that in the common 
 apprehension of the race, He maintains the merit of 
 a most peculiar modesty, producing no conviction more 
 distinctly than that of His intense lowliness and humi- 
 lity. His worth is seen to be so great, His authority so 
 high. His spirit so celestial, that instead of being 
 offended by His pretensions, we take the impression of 
 one in whom it is even a condescension to breathe our 
 air. I say not that His friends and followers take this 
 impression, it is received as naturally and irresistibly 
 ])y unbelievers. I do not recollect any sceptic or 
 infidel, who has even thought to accuse Him in this, 
 the weakest and absurdest, if not the strongest and 
 holiest, point of His character. 
 
 Then mark in another aspect, the form in which 
 His instructions are conveyed. They are delivered not 
 speculatively, hut author itatuehj. He does not reason, 
 infer, prove, confirm, by elaborate induction and process 
 of argument, but He reveals. He does not, like other 
 sublime spirits, pry wistfully into hidden mysteries, but 
 He draws the veil of the world unseen. There is no 
 effort or straining in His discourses of these awful 
 mysteries, as of one struggling with problems too 
 mighty for him, but He speaks of them with the 
 unconstrained ease and calm assurance of one who has 
 seen them, who is familiar with them, has been all 
 
202 LECTURE III. 
 
 liis life moving in the midst of them, and who is therefore 
 now only speaking of the things which he has seen or 
 heard. There is no irresoluteness, no wavering, no 
 feeble guessing at truth, like those gifted spirits of old, 
 who indeed sometimes "reasoned well" of life and im- 
 mortality, but yet failed by all their reasonings, even 
 thoroughly to convince and fully satisfy themselves. He 
 did not question like Socrates, or dream like Plato, 
 or laboriously balance probabilities or weigh conjectures 
 like Cicero, but like one who tells of his native country 
 in aland of strangers, He spake that which He did know, 
 and testified that which He had seen. 
 
 Connected with this is our third remark, that the 
 teaching of Christ is characteristically direct^ positive, 
 and satisfactory. He not only raises questions, but 
 answers them ; does not merely state and expound the 
 great problems of being, but He resolves them. He 
 goes at once to the heart of those great questions on 
 which the very life of immortal beings turns, and He 
 speaks of them with a clearness and a precision on 
 which there is not a shadow of doubt or darkness. He 
 speaks precisely on those things on which we most need 
 an interpreter from the unseen world to speak to us, and 
 He speaks on them explicitly and plainly. He speaks 
 of the soul, of God, of immortality and responsibility, 
 of sin, of reconciliation, of redemption, of a new birth, 
 of inward healing and rest, of the heart's orphanhood, 
 and the divine, everlasting Fatherhood, — of a kingdom of 
 heaven and a restitution of all things. How infinitely 
 satisfactory is all this ! How instantaneously and in- 
 
THE WORDS OF CHRIST. 203 
 
 timately do we feel it, so soon as we take our place at 
 His feet, and come within the shadow of His most 
 sacred presence. How do those utterances of His go 
 home to our very heart of hearts, wake up hope and 
 sublime aspiration there, where all hope and aspiration 
 seemed dead or dying ; seem the very answer from the 
 great deep of mercy to the great deep of our misery. 
 In the beautiful words of an eminent writer of our 
 church,* in contrasting the teaching of Christ with that 
 of Solomon : " Next to the man who can answer a 
 question thoroughly, is the man who can ask it clearly. 
 Our world is full of obscure misery, — dark wants and 
 dim desiderata. Like a man in a low fever, its whole 
 head is sick and its whole heart is faint, but it can 
 neither fix exactly on the focus of disease, nor give an 
 intelligent account of its sensations. In this respect 
 Solomon was the mouthpiece of humanity. Speaking 
 for himself, he has so described the symptoms that a 
 whole ward, an entire world of fellow-sufferers, may take 
 him for their spokesman. But this is all he can do. He 
 can state their wants, he cannot meet and satisfy their 
 wants. He is a great querist, but he can shed no light 
 on his own questions. It is Christ's prerogative to do this. 
 One by one, the great Evangelist answers the queries of 
 the great Ecclesiastes. And if the sage has done a 
 service, who in articulate words describes the symptoms 
 of the great disease, how incomparably greater is the 
 service rendered by the Saviour who prescribes the 
 
 * The late Dr James Hamiltou. 
 
204 LECTURE III. 
 
 remedy ! After all, Solomon is only an eloquent patient ; 
 Jesus is the divine Physician." 
 
 So, one by one the seals of the great volume, which 
 human wisdom and genius had for ages been struggling 
 to unloose in vain, gave way at once at His touch. In 
 the words of the same writer again, '' Solomon with, all 
 the rest of the wisest and truest of the race shook his 
 head and told what happiness is not, — Jesus opened His 
 lips, and enunciated what it is. Solomon said, Know- 
 ledge is vanity, power is vanity, mirth is vanity, man, 
 and all man's works, are perfect vanity. Jesus said, 
 Humility is blessedness, meekness is blessedness, 
 purity is blessedness ; God is blessed for evermore, and 
 most blessed is the creature who is likest God, — Holiness 
 is blessedness. ' We labour and find no rest,' said Solo- 
 mon. ' Come unto me all ye that labour, and I will give 
 rest,' said the Saviour. ' All is vanity,' sighed the 
 Preacher ; ' In the world ye shall have tribulation, — but 
 in me ye shall have peace,' replied the Saviour. ' What 
 is truth? ' asks Ecclesiastes ; ' I am the truth,' returns 
 the divine Evangelist. Solomon was tall enough to scan 
 the most of earth, and see an expanse of sorrow ; the 
 Son of man knew all that is in heaven, and could tell of 
 a Comforter, who can fill with peace unspeakable the 
 soul immersed in outward misery. Solomon could tell 
 that the gate of life is closed against human effort. 
 Jesus has the key of David and opens what Adam shut ; 
 and into the Father's propitious presence. He under- 
 takes to usher all who come through Him. Solomon 
 composed earth's epitaph, and over the tomb of the 
 
THE WORDS OF CHRIST, 205 
 
 species wrote, 'All is vanity; ' accustomed to date men's 
 history from their death, Jesus substituted, 'AH is 
 heaven or hell.' " 
 
 These words are as true as they are beautiful, so beauti- 
 ful indeed, just because they are so true, — and may help 
 us to understand a part, at least, of what is meant when 
 it is said that " He taught as one having authority, and 
 not as the scribes." 
 
 But there was more still than this. Christ's instruc- 
 tions were not only kingly in their tone, authoritative 
 in their form, positive in their announcements, but 
 weighty and pregnant in their sense. There was a depth, 
 a power, a majesty, a self-evidencing light, a soul- 
 searching energy about His words themselves, that 
 seemed to stamp them as divine, and to claim by an 
 inherent and indefeasible title, the homage of those who 
 heard them. They were not only spoken with authority, 
 but they carried in themselves the pledge of their own 
 authority. They were not only uttered in god-like 
 manner, but they were themselves god-like. " The 
 words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a 
 furnace of earth, purified seven times." " The word of 
 God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged 
 sword." Such pre-eminently were the words of Christ, 
 and His hearers felt it. He spoke of weighty subjects, 
 and He spoke of them with weighty words — words that 
 went direct to the heart of the matter, that touched the 
 deepest ground of truth and of the soul's needs. '' He 
 spake as never man spake." The wisest instructions of 
 former teachers seemed to those who heard Him but 
 
206 LECTURE HI. 
 
 trifling and vain jangling compared with those majestic 
 utterances that fell with such divine, unconscious ease 
 from His lips. None before had ever so spoken to their 
 hearts — none before so searched and fathomed their 
 deepest wants and longings — none so moved and stirred 
 their inmost hopes and fears. As I remarked before, He 
 came within them, and laid an irresistible grasp on their 
 very soul and conscience. They were not so much 
 listening to Him, as arraigned before Him, held as by a 
 mighty spell before the presence and beneath the very 
 eye of Him before whom all things are naked and 
 open. 
 
 Thus, not only did Christ's words command miracles, 
 but they were themselves miracles — bright and super- 
 natural unveilings of eternal truth, even as His deeds of 
 mercy were the forthputtiugs of the divine power. As 
 a little child once said of the stars, so we may say of 
 them, that they are so many openings pierced in the 
 awful curtain of mystery to let the inaccessible glory shine 
 through. And yet, if thus His words had in them the 
 majesty of God, they had in them no less the gentleness 
 and sympathy of man. They were as utterly human as 
 they were unmistakably divine. At once simple and 
 profound, homely and sublime, plain and practical, yet 
 pregnant and far-reaching, full alike of commanding 
 authority and of persuasive sweetness, — now soft and 
 gentle as a mother's voice, now awful as the crashing 
 thunder, — we are reminded every moment that if He who 
 thus speaketh to us from heaven be the Son of God, He 
 is also the Son of man, — that if He was the eternal Word, 
 
THE WORDS OF CHRIST. 207 
 
 He was at the same time, the "Word made flesh, Immanuel, 
 God with us. 
 
 I have just one point more to notice, and it follows 
 naturally on what I have just endeavoured to illustrate. 
 As Christ's words were in their substance weighty, so 
 were they i?i t/ieir results e^cacious. " The law of the 
 Lord is perfect, converting the soul, the testimony of 
 the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes 
 of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart, the command- 
 ment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." Such 
 pre-eminently were and are the words of Christ. Not 
 only was there a divine power in them, but a divine 
 power went with them. They were sharp arrows, and 
 they were winged by a mighty, unerring hand. They 
 were not only heavenly food, but divine seed taking 
 root in living souls, and springing up into immortal 
 fruit. They were as Luther said, " not dead words, 
 but living things having hands and feet." There 
 was a soul and spirit in them, a mighty influence 
 for healing, and salvation to every one who received 
 them. They were the power of God unto salvation 
 to every one that believed them — opening blind eyes, 
 turning men from darkness to light, and from the 
 power of Satan unto God. So was it in the days 
 of His personal ministry. So is it with His gospel 
 still. Not only now do His words speak, but He Him- 
 self speaks in them. In and through them does He 
 still breathe forth His life-giving energy for the quick- 
 ening of dead souls, in and through them does virtue 
 still go out of Him, for the healing of all who press 
 
208 LECTURE III. 
 
 near to touch the hem of His garments. " The Spirit 
 of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath 
 anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor, to bind 
 up the broken-hearted, to proclaim deliverance to the 
 captives, to set at liberty them that are bound, to appoint 
 unto them that mourn in Zion, — to give unto them 
 beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the gar- 
 ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." This day is 
 this Scripture fulfilled. Yes, this day, and every day 
 unto the world's end. Still the eyes of the blind are 
 opened, the ears of the deaf are unstopped, the lame man 
 leaps as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sings. 
 Still does He call forth the dead to life, hush the tempest 
 by His vford, and send the unclean spirit of darkness 
 howling to his den. A new life breathes over the world 
 wherever He comes, and heavenly flowers blossom, and 
 living waters spring wherever He plants His feet. The 
 wilderness and the solitary place is glad for Him. The 
 deserts rejoice and blossom as the rose. 
 
 Thus He speaks "as one that hath authority." All 
 powers and dominions in the spiritual world obey Him. 
 The shadows of darkness flee at His command, and the 
 day-spring of a new creation dawns at the sound of His 
 voice; old sins die, tyrant lusts relax their hold, hard 
 hearts break, cold hearts burn. They that are in their 
 graves hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that 
 hear it live. 
 
LECTURE lY. 
 
 THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 
 
 The question of the Gospel History is essentially also 
 the question of the Miracles. That history is in its whole 
 stamp and character so thoroughly miraculous ; miracle 
 forms so manifestly the very warp and woof of the entire 
 narration, that it is impossible to accept the one and 
 reject the other. It is based on miracle ; it is pervaded, 
 and as it were cemented and held together, by miracle ; 
 it culminates in miracle. Miracle, indeed, is its very 
 essence and differentia — that by virtue of which it stands 
 out apart from every other history, and constitutes a 
 mighty and singular factor in the life of the world. 
 Miracle is the very soul and spirit of which the mere 
 human incidents and circumstances are but the fleshly 
 form and vestment, and therefore to eliminate that ele- 
 ment is to strike at the life of the whole. To do so is 
 not to render the history more intelligible, but on the 
 contrary utterly incredible and preposterous ; inasmuch 
 as you remove that one factor which of itself explains, 
 and which only can explain the wliole course of events, 
 and the presence of which makes all the rest natural, 
 consistent, probable. With miracles, or in other words, 
 with the assumption of the supernatural origin of Chris- 
 
 
 
210 LECTURE IV, 
 
 tianity, the history of the first three centuries reads 
 straight on, and is throughout luminously intelligible ; 
 without it, it is from first to last a medley and an 
 enigma. 
 
 To effect this separation the whole strength of recent 
 unbelieving criticism has been perseveringly bent, but 
 in the attempt has utterly and conspicuously failed; 
 and so the state of the question has again returned to 
 the position in which it existed in the days of the old 
 deistical writers. The gospel history, as we possess it, is 
 an organic and indivisible unity, which we must either 
 accept as a whole, or reject as a whole. 
 
 The entire weight of evidence, then, which sustains the 
 general credibility of the evangelic accounts, is equally 
 available also to sustain its miraculous facts. The 
 external testimony of the Church and of early writers 
 to the genuineness and authenticity of the sacred books; 
 their internal signature of truth and reality ; the illus- 
 trative and corroborative light of contemporary history ; 
 the patent nature of the facts recorded, and the 
 unquestionable sincerity of the witnesses who sacrificed 
 their all for the truth to which they testified, and sealed 
 by a life-long martyrdom; the very existence of the 
 Church, and the entire course of modern history which 
 the facts recorded in the gospel so luminously explain, 
 but which else remain an enigma ; the total absence, in 
 fine, of any countervailing testimony, and the significant 
 silence of adversaries at a time when on the supposition 
 of imposture or credulous delusion, refutation must have 
 been so easy — all constitute together a mass of evidence 
 
THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 211 
 
 for the historical truth of the great facts on which the 
 faith of Christendom rests, and pre-eminently the super- 
 natural part of them, such as cannot be adduced in 
 support of any other series of events in ancient history 
 whatsoever. Nor, indeed, we may safely affirm, would 
 those facts ever have been called in question at all, or 
 been thought to admit of doubt, had there not been 
 other grounds of an a priori nature necessitating their 
 rejection, and which no historical evidence of any kind, 
 however abundant, decisive and complete, could possibly 
 neutralise. To this a ptriori ground we are now brought 
 in connection with that great branch of the Christian 
 evidence with which we are at present engaged. 
 
 For the question now before us is simply this : — Lay- 
 ing for the moment out of account, the positive evidence 
 of a historical kind for the truth of the miraculous facts 
 recorded in the Gospels, is the nature of those alleged 
 facts themselves such as to hinder or to help belief? 
 Are they essentially and in themselves impossible, or 
 incredible, or the reverse ? Is their internal witness, if 
 indeed they carry any such witness at all, for or against 
 the system of which they form an essential and insepar- 
 able part? Is Christianity, in short, whether as a 
 historical phenomenon, or as a professedly divine 
 religion, more credible with them, or without them? 
 This is the great j)roblem which we are now called on to 
 consider, and it is manifestly one, not of the historical 
 and external, but of the internal and moral evidence. 
 To the brief consideration of this question, then, we now 
 proceed; and in doing so I shall look at it on the 
 
212 LECTURE IV. 
 
 negative side first ; that is to say, consider the arguments 
 which have been adduced by unbelievers to show that 
 miracles are essentially, and per se, incredible or 
 impossible. 
 
 A full discussion and refutation of this position is 
 obviously in the present connection out of the question. 
 It raises an inquiry far deeper and more fundamental 
 than that immediately before us, and which to be ade- 
 quately handled must be taken up not incidentally and 
 in its special relation to this subject, but ex prqfesso 
 and on its own merits. The refutation, in short, of this 
 objection to miracles is simply, in other words, the refu- 
 tation of Pantheism on the one hand, and of materialis- 
 tic Positivism on the other. It may be enough, however, 
 for the present, to point out that the objection in question 
 as urged by the parties now in our view, is simply an 
 assumption, not an argument. The philosophic prin- 
 ciple, on which miracles are declared to be impossible, 
 whether derived from the School of Hegel or of Auguste 
 Comte, are postulated, not proved. They are taken for 
 granted as primary principles or axioms to be started 
 from and proceeded on, — the terminus a qiio, not the ter- 
 minus ad quern of this great debate. They are treated 
 as the results of science proved and established, not as 
 jihilosophical theories yet under trial. Even Renan, 
 who in words disclaims this a priori ground, aud pro- 
 fesses to treat of miracles simjily as a question of 
 evidence, talks of the doctrine of positive and invariable 
 law as a proved conclusion of science from the days of 
 Lucretius downward, and proceeds simply on that ground, 
 
TEE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 213 
 
 and brevi manu, to discard all alleged supernatural 
 events as necessarily legendary. Now we submit that 
 this mode of procedure is manifestly inadmissible. It 
 is nothing less than a vast and unblushing petitio prin- 
 cipii. The philosophical doctrines in question are 
 theories in debate only, not facts of science, — themselves 
 under trial, not the accepted laws by which all things 
 human and divine are to be tried. More than this, — 
 so far as the trial has gone in the court of human con- 
 science and reason, it has decidedly gone against them. 
 Repudiated alike by the deepest and noblest spirits, 
 and by the spontaneous instincts, and primary intuitions 
 of the race, they are plainly not within, but outside the 
 common law of human thought; bound, therefore, to fight 
 their way into the acceptance of mankind, not to claim it 
 as a prescriptive right. Nor is there even di prima facie 
 case in their favour, such as would justify their being 
 assumed in the meanwhile, and proceeded on tentatively 
 as a probable hypothesis. To refer, for instance, specially 
 to Positivism, — the form of infidel speculation now most 
 prevalent and formidable, — there is nothing in it which 
 can be regarded as ce?^tai?ij but that fvhich is admitted 
 on all sides. 
 
 We pass to the consideration of the other and less 
 venturous position of modern scepticism, indicated above 
 — viz., the alleged impossibility of proving miracles, 
 even though they might be conceived as in themselves 
 and abstractly considered, possible. This ground is by 
 no means a new one, though it has been revived with 
 fresh confidence of recent years. It is substantially the 
 
214 LECTURE IV. 
 
 position of Hume in the celebrated Essay on Miracles, 
 wliicli held so prominent a place in the arena of apolo- 
 getic discussion in the days of our fathers. His argu- 
 ment was in substance this : — 
 
 " Our experience of the invariableness of nature's laws 
 is uniform and universal, while our experience of the 
 truth of testimony is inconstant and partial. The 
 expectations founded on the one never deceive us, those 
 founded on the other often do. Wherever these two 
 kinds of evidence contradict or run counter to one an- 
 other, we are to believe the former in preference to the 
 latter. The one may mislead, the other never can. 
 This is precisely the case of all reported miracles. 
 Testimony, more or less strong, more or less specious 
 and plausible, may sustain them ; all experience — all the 
 ■ knowledge we possess of the fixed and steadfast order of 
 nature is against them, and therefore they must be 
 rejected, as, whether true or not, at least, incapable of 
 rational and sufficient proof. The balance of evidence, 
 alike in nature and in amount, is always and necessarily 
 against them." 
 
 There can be no question as to the eminent ingenuity 
 and primd facie plausibility of this argument : yet its 
 fundamental fallacy may be easily shown. It is, in fact, 
 another notable instance of the most vulgar of all 
 sophisms, — the petitio ^;rm«jwz7. The experience of 
 mankind as to the invariableness of nature's order is 
 assumed as universal, — while the very question at issue 
 is as to the universality of that experience. 
 
 The believer in revelation maintains that while the 
 
THE MIRACLEH OF CHRIST. 215 
 
 operation of the laws of nature is in ordinary circum- 
 stances invariable, it has been on various occasions and 
 in extraordinary circumstances interrupted. Both facts, 
 he maintains, — the ordinary uniformity and the extra- 
 ordinary departure from uniformity, — are alike attested 
 by the experience of the human race. Hume meets 
 this with the assumption, not the proof, that there never 
 has been any such departure. Or, to put it otherwise : 
 in asserting the uninterrupted operation of nature's 
 laws, he only, in other words, asserts that there never 
 have been any miracles, which is just precisely the thing 
 to be proved. We say. Human experience is in favour 
 of miracles ; Hume says. All experience is against them. 
 This is, of course, an abundantly legitimate position to 
 take up and sustain by valid evidence ; but certainly 
 not to be assumed as a starting-point without proof. 
 
 Of course it may be said that in speaking of universal 
 experience, Hume uses the word in a diiferent sense than 
 that in which we have been now employing it; that he 
 refers not to the experience of mankind in all time, but 
 of men in our time, — and that, therefore, he is perfectly 
 entitled to assert that its testimony to the uniformity of 
 nature has been universal and unexcepted. But then, if 
 this is his meaning, we have only to reply that it is no- 
 thing to the point ; for the thing in question is not 
 the experience of our time, but the experience of all 
 time — not whether there are miracles now, but whether 
 there ever have been any miracles. In short, takiug 
 experience in the large sense, then we maintain it is on 
 our side ; taking it in the narrow, it is nothing to the 
 
216 LECTURE IV. 
 
 juirpose. That the operation of nature's law has been 
 in our day, and within the limits of recent history, 
 unvaried; and that in other times, and for the accomplish- 
 ment of great and extraordinary ends, it has been inter- 
 rupted, — these are manifestly not contradictory proposi- 
 tions, and it is idle, therefore, to speak of the testimony 
 that sustains the one as conflicting with the testimony 
 that sustains the other. 
 
 Another flaw in Hume's argument very ably handled 
 and refuted by Dr Chalmers, I can only briefly glance 
 at. It tm-ns upon the ambiguity of his language in 
 speaking of the uncertainty of testimony. The real 
 question, as Chalmers luminously shows, is not as to the 
 trustworthiness of testimony generally, but of such testi- 
 mony as that by which the gospel miracles are proved. 
 All experience, he maintains, is in favour of the invariable 
 truthfulness of testimony, borne by such men, to such 
 facts, and in such circumstances. Testimony, says Hume, 
 as a matter of daily experience often deceives. Some 
 testimony, it is freely granted ; but never such testimony 
 as this. To use Dr Chalmers' own words : " Mr Hume's 
 affirmation is that we have never experienced a violation 
 of the laws of nature, but that we have often experienced 
 the falsehood of testimony, and the argument which'he 
 grounds on this affirmation is, that it is not in the power 
 of testimony to establish the truth of such a violation ; 
 for this would be making the weaker experience prevail 
 over the stronger, that which is unstable and uncertain 
 prevail over that which is constant and immutable. We 
 think that in the argument he falls into the fallacy of 
 
THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 217 
 
 ascribing to testimoDj in the general, what should only- 
 have been ascribed to a certain kind of testimony, and 
 which is in no way ascribable to a certain other sort of it. 
 When he affirms that our experience of the truth of 
 testimony is not so uniform as our experience of the 
 constancy of nature, we would reply, Of what testimony is 
 it, that our own experience in its truth is not so uniform ? 
 We allow the assertion in regard to that testimony 
 which bears upon it the mark of imposture. We further 
 allow it of the testimony which, without any glaring 
 marks of imposture, may have the gainly and prepos- 
 sessing appearance of truth without its reality. But 
 we cannot allow it of all testimony. We affirm that a 
 testimony is conceivable, — nay, that a testimony has 
 often been given, having such marks and characteristics 
 of truth accumulated upon it, and in such circumstances 
 of unlikelihood or moral impossibility of its falsehood, 
 that we can aver with the utmost confidence of such 
 testimony that it never has deceived us, and never will. 
 What Mr Hume charges testimony in the general with, 
 is very often realised in one species of testimony ; not so 
 often in a second ; less frequently in a third : much 
 seldomer in a fourth; with the exceeding rarity of a 
 thing quite marvellous in a fifth ; and never in a sixth 
 species of testimony. The subtle error of Mr Hume's 
 sophistry lies in this, that he makes all testimony 
 responsible for all the instances of falsehood, whereas he 
 should make each species responsible only for its own 
 instances." * 
 
 * Chalmers' Evidences, Book I., chap. 3. 
 
218 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The argument of Hume is now long since dead, at 
 least in the form in which he presented it, like many 
 another ingenious sophism of bygone unbelief; but inspirit 
 it still lives, and forms the essential principle of much 
 of the Anti-Christian speculation of our time. Kenan's 
 argument on the incredibility of all miraculous histories, 
 in particular, rests fundamentally on the same ground. 
 While in words repudiating all theoretic prepossessions, 
 drawn from the doctrines of any particular philosophy, 
 and not even denying the abstract possibility of proving 
 a miracle, he denies that any such event ever has been 
 proved, or can be proved, by any of the methods which 
 historical investigation supplies. He indicates a method 
 by which they might conceivably be established, if true, 
 but that method is totally beyond the sphere of ordinary 
 historical proof. He offers us a crucial test by which 
 the matter might be at once and for ever settled, and the 
 conflict of ages thus terminated ; but that test is of such 
 a kind that it never can be applied. Thus miracles are, 
 according to him, provable by a certain conceivable test, 
 but unprovable by any actual or possible test. Let us 
 here use his own words : — ''No miracle has ever been 
 performed^before an assembly of men capable of verify- 
 ing the miraculous character of a fact. Neither common 
 people nor people of the world are capable of doing this. 
 It requires great precaution and a long habit of scientific 
 research. Have we not, for example, in our time, seen 
 society become the dupe of coarse pretences to puerile 
 illusions ? Miraculous facts, so-called, attested by whole 
 villages, have disappeared before a more rigorous inquiry, 
 
TEE MIRACLES OF CERIST. 219 
 
 as utterly worthless. And if it be tlins proved that no 
 contemporary miracles bear discussion, is it not likely 
 tliat the miracles of the past, which were all performed 
 in the presence of mere popular witnesses, would be 
 found equally illusive, if they could be subjected to the 
 same careful scrutiny ? . . . Were a worker of miracles to 
 present himself in these days, with pretensions sufficiently 
 serious to be discussed, and announce himself, we shall 
 suppose, as capable of raising the dead, what should we 
 do ? We should appoint a commission composed of 
 physiologists, physicians, chemists, and persons trained 
 in historical criticism. This commission would choose 
 a dead body, would assure themselves that it really was 
 dead, would select a room for the experiment, and arrange 
 an entire system of precautions necessary to place the 
 result beyond doubt. If under such conditions, the rais- 
 ing of the dead was effected, a probability, nearly equal 
 to certainty, would be obtained. However, as an experi- 
 ment must be always capable of repetition, — as those who 
 have once done a thing must be able to do it again, and 
 as there can be no question of easy or difficult in regard 
 to miracles, — the miracle-worker would be invited to re- 
 produce the miraculous fact in other circumstances, and 
 upon other dead bodies in another company. If on each 
 occasion the miracle succeeded, two thinsfs would be 
 proved :^r5«^, That supernatural facts happen in the world: 
 and secondly, That the power of producing them belongs 
 to, or is delegated to, certain persons. But who does 
 not see that no miracle ever has been performed under 
 these conditions, that the miracle-worker hitherto ever 
 
220 LECTURE IV. 
 
 has himself chosen the subject of experiment, and the 
 company or witnesses before whom the act was to be 
 done; more frequently, perhaps, that it is the people them- 
 selves — obeying an invincible impulse to recognise some- 
 thing divine in all great events and great men, — who 
 have created after the event the miraculous legend or 
 story. Historical criticism, therefore, compels us to 
 maintain it as a principle that recitals of miraculous 
 events are, j^si" se, inadmissible ; that they always involve 
 credulity or imposture, and must consequently be sifted 
 and explained, to see how much of truth, how much of 
 error, lies in them." 
 
 I forbear to remark on the somewhat loose-jointed logic 
 of this ingenious piece of plausible special pleading, — 
 e.ff., ''No contemporary miracles bear discussion;" 
 therefore, '•' It is likely that the miracles of the past, if 
 subjected to the same scrutiny, would be found equally 
 illusive ; " therefore, on the whole, " Historical criticism 
 compels us to maintain it as a principle, that recitals of 
 miraculous events are per se inadmissible." Or, more 
 shortly thus : Present pretended miracles are illusions ; 
 therefore, all past alleged miracles were, likely, illusions ; 
 therefore, all accounts of such are, certainly, untrue. M. 
 Eenan talks of the scientific conditions of experimental 
 investigation ; he should remember that there are scien- 
 tific conditions also of fair and conclusive reasoning, 
 — conditions which his own style of argumentation very 
 imperfectly meets. Nor is this a mere logical quibble 
 or piece of dialectic sword-fence. The inconsequence 
 in reasoning we have pointed out enters most vitally into 
 
THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 221 
 
 the very heart of the question in debate. There is quite 
 an abyss between the " likely'" in the second member of 
 the sorites and the '■'•certainly''^ of the third. It is a 
 stupendous leap, and a leap to the very conclusion which 
 he ought to have reached by sure and legitimate steps, 
 without any leap at all. Granted that the illusive char- 
 acter of modern miracles did create a likelihood that all 
 past miracles might on investigation prove so too ; this 
 would only call for increased caution in examining the 
 proof by which they should be sustained, not for sum- 
 mary rejection, without investigation. That is to say, 
 it would bring us precisely to our ground, not Eenan's ; 
 in other words, to the fair and candid consideration of 
 the question on historical grounds, — "Whether in point of 
 fact those events, granting them to be antecedently 
 unlikely, actually took place, or no ? In short, his own 
 premises clearly demand a conclusion, in favour of the 
 cautious and sifting examination of the evidence, not of 
 the instant dismissal of the cause without evidence. 
 
 But leaving this, we at once join issue with him on his 
 main and decisive plea. '' If," he in effect says, "miracles 
 could be subjected to the ordinary processes of scientific 
 experiment and investigation, then they might be proved, 
 but they never have been so tried" — (he might safely have 
 added, they never can be) — "therefore, they are essentially 
 unprovable." I say, they never can be so tried ; for in 
 appealing the question to the arbitrament of a scientific 
 investigation, conducted by a commission of savans^ I 
 presume he does not mean seriously to suggest that any 
 supernatural acts of God, supposing them real, ever could 
 
222 LECTURE IV. 
 
 in tlie nature of tilings be submitted to sucTi a test. 
 That God incarnate, in His mysterious sojourn and majestic 
 goings on the earth, should court the decision of such a 
 tribunal, should submit His pretensions like a common 
 juggler or Thaumaturgus to their arbitrament, should 
 repeat and re-repeat His experiment for their satisfaction; 
 that any true manifestation and working of the living 
 God ever could have been thus tested and proved, is 
 surely an idea too preposterous to be entertained. To 
 offer us such a trial, therefore, is obviously to refuse us 
 any trial at all. In appealing the cause from the arena 
 of historical evidence to that of scientific experiment, he 
 summons us to a court where we cannot in the nature 
 of things appear. But why should we be called to such 
 a trial ? Why should a scientific investigation in such 
 a case be necessary? If scientific facts and laws may 
 be certainly established by scientific trial, why may not 
 historical facts be equally established by historical trial ? 
 Is it maintained that the Almighty God could not, even 
 though He would, make His own supernatural presence 
 and working known to His creatures, except through the 
 investigation of a commission of savans ? Surely if the 
 Eternal Word made flesh really dwelt among us. He 
 could manifest forth His glory in such a way that all 
 that had eyes might behold it, and be sure of it, even as 
 of the sun in the firmament. Even so we maintain it to 
 have been, — even so the whole history of the first three 
 hundred years seems to postulate that it must have been. 
 For, observe, the miracles of Christ were not of a kind of 
 which experienced savans^ and savans only, could judge. 
 
THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST. 223 
 
 K true at all, they were such as must have been equally 
 jjatent to all. The feeding of the hungry multitude, the 
 hushing of the raging sea, the raising of the buried dead, 
 the healing of crowds of blind, halt, withered, by a touch, 
 — these were works of God palpable to all eyes, and which 
 the learned and the simple, the philosopher and the 
 clown, could judge of and appraise alike. Surely if such 
 things as these were done, those who saw them might be 
 as sure of them as of their own very existence, and 
 might transmit by a testimony, steadfast unto death, the 
 sure knowledge and belief of them, to the generation 
 which succeeded their own. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE ADAPTATION OF CHKISTIAFITY TO THE WANTS OF MEN. 
 
 "We may consider the Christian religion, either as it is in 
 itself, or in its relation to the nature and the wants of 
 man, — its own intrinsic excellence, or its adaptation to 
 the purpose for which it is professedly given. Does it, 
 on the one hand, worthily declare and manifest the 
 glory of God; and on the other, does it adequately 
 and eifectually meet the great and immemorial desiderata 
 of man ? In both respects we should expect, on the sup- 
 position that it is true, to find in it the clear signature 
 of its divine original. We should expect to find it at 
 once godlike as a revelation, and efficacious as a religion, 
 — radiant on its very face with celestial glory, and in 
 its inner nature and workings instinct with an unearthly 
 and truly divine life and power. Now, that both these 
 anticipations are fulfilled in the gospel of Jesus Christ, — 
 as Christian apologists we confidently maintain. We 
 believe and are sure, both that the glory of God shines 
 in the face of Christ, and that that glory, whenever it is 
 truly beheld, has in it an irresistible power to change 
 the beholder into the same image, — from glory to glory, 
 even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 
 The first proposition we have already considered, and 
 
ADAPTATION TO MAN'S WANTS. 225 
 
 I trust established when speaking of Christ Himself, — 
 His character, His teaching, His miracles, considered as 
 so many ways in which His divine personality reveals 
 itself, and manifests forth its glory. We are now in 
 the present lecture to invite your attention to the other. 
 An objection, however, has been raised in limine to the 
 whole line of argument I am now about to pursue. The 
 mere correspondence between the religion of Jesus, and 
 the deepest feelings and wants of man, is, it is main- 
 tained, in itself no proof whatever of the divine 
 nature of that religion, but rather, on the contrary, of a 
 natural and spontaneous human origin. The corres- 
 l^ondence in question may be only the result of these 
 very feelings and wants to which it is an adaptation — 
 the articulate expression, as it were, of these inward 
 cravings which seem bound up with the very essence of 
 man's being, and which make him everywhere and 
 always, in some form or other, a religious being. Man, 
 it is said, will ever believe what he himself wishes to 
 believe; what he feels to be needful for him he will 
 instinctively assume and cling to as true ; and so his 
 religion, whatever its form, and whatever the degree of its 
 comparative purity and excellence, is ever, essentially, 
 but the reflected image of himself, — alike in his great- 
 ness and his misery, his aspirations and his fears. 
 Conscious of the brevity of life, and shrinking from the 
 termination of an existence so dear to him, he dreams of 
 a hereafter ; oppressed with the miseries of life, and with 
 the struggles of a combat too hard for him, he imagines 
 
 to himself all manner of divine deliverers and saviours, 
 
 p 
 
226 LECTURE V. 
 
 mighty to wrestle with the giant forms of evil, and to 
 stretch forth to weaker combatants a helping hand ; 
 the fears of guilt give birth to propitiatory sacrifices ; 
 the perplexities of doubt to oracular responses, visions, 
 apocalypses, inspired seers, and incarnations of divine 
 power ; and hence, in all their endless forms and names, 
 the religions of the world — from the lowest to the highest, 
 from the foulest to the purest, from the most degraded 
 fetish-worship, to the sublime religion of Jesus. Such is 
 substantially the prevailing sceptical i^hilosophy of 
 religion, — the rationale of the great question before us 
 usually given by men who are not wholly insensible to 
 the moral excellence and spiritual power of Christianity, 
 but yet refuse to accept it as a divine religion. All 
 religions alike, and Christianity among the number, 
 are the birth of human consciousness, and as such serve 
 as an index of the comparative purity and elevation, 
 which that consciousness has attained amongst the 
 people and in the age in which they take their rise. As 
 expressions thus of a true, and, in a sense, divine instinct, 
 they possess a certain validity and stamp of truth, but 
 in this sense only. Of such expressions of that which is 
 inmost and most divine in man, the religion of Christ 
 may be admitted to be, in point of fact, the highest and 
 purest, — but still this only, and nothing more. 
 
 I have endeavoured in this sketch to put the objection 
 under consideration, and the philosophical theory on 
 which it rests, in the clearest and strongest light possible, 
 and that for two reasons : — First, because the question 
 here raised is vital and fundamental, and there is no use 
 
ADAPTATION TO MAN'S WANTS. 227 
 
 in such a case to evade or disguise the force of au 
 argument, which it becomes us on every account faii-ly 
 to face and to meet : and Secondly, because there is a 
 certain amount of truth at the basis of the objection 
 itself, and of truth, too, most important in its bearings 
 on the great question before us, vrhich a fair consideration 
 of our adversaries' argument will enable us the better to 
 recognise. For it is true, that man is by nature a 
 religious being ; that he does instinctively and inevitably 
 create a creed and a worship for himself; that he does 
 dream of a retribution and a hereafter, and bethinks 
 himself of sacrifices, and propitiatory rites and praj^ers ; 
 that he does feel after some God unknown, and some 
 unknown way of friendly converse with him, if haply 
 such may be found ; that, in fine, he is not self-sufficing, 
 but dependent, and so driven by the very necessity of his 
 being, to look above himself and beyond himself, as to a 
 rock, higher and stronger than he. 
 
 That all this is true, and that it is the main source, too, of 
 all the various forms of religious belief and worship that 
 have existed in the world, all at least but one, does not 
 admit of question, and is not indeed seriously questioned 
 on either side of this great debate. The only real question 
 is, does it explain all that the disciples of unbelief pro- 
 fess to explain by it ? Allowing that it accounts for the 
 origin of every other religion, does it account for the 
 existence of the one only religion now in question? Will 
 the same key which unlocks the mystery alike of eastern 
 and of western Paganism, equally unlock the mystery 
 of the Cross ? We maintain that it does not. It quite 
 
228 LECTURE Y. 
 
 explains, we admit, why man should have a religion, 
 but not why he should have such a religion as this. A 
 human religion will be ever essentially human. The 
 birth of his own heart, it will inevitably bear more or 
 less the likeness of its parent. Man can never rise far 
 above his own level, and though it may be admitted that 
 his ideal, and especially that of the more gifted and 
 lofty spirits of the race, will always be somewhat above 
 anything he has ever realised in fact, yet still it will be 
 essentially of the same character. It will not be speci- 
 fically different, but only a larger and brighter form of 
 that which is. It may scale the loftiest heights of the 
 human, it will never reach to the divine. It will 
 adumbrate the great want of the human spirit, but will 
 not satisfy it. In it man hears only the echo of his own 
 voice, not the answer, or aught that bears the semblance 
 of the answer of a God. 
 
 Observe what it is precisely that we here affirm of 
 Christianity. It is not merely that it bears witness to 
 the spiritual wants of man, but that it meets and satis- 
 fies them. Other religions bear witness more or less 
 fally, more or less impressively, to the same wants, but 
 do not satisfy them. Herein lies the pre-eminence, and 
 the distinct authentic signature, of the religion of God. 
 
 The one-half of the statements we have now made 
 will be admitted without question on all hands. The 
 testimony of all experience will be accepted as decisive 
 of the fact that the religions of nature have not ful- 
 filled their purpose — have not answered the end for 
 which the soul of man craves after and fashions for 
 
ADAPTATION TO MAN'S WANTS. 229 
 
 itself, a religion. They have neither satisfied its long- 
 ings, nor healed its wounds. Instead of efFectually 
 ministering to the mind diseased, they have only 
 soothed and pampered the deep malady, and thereby, 
 in the end, only irritated and inflamed it the more. 
 They have imparted to him neither peace, nor strength, 
 nor purity. They have not broken the soul's heavy 
 chain ; they have not given it strength to rise. It is 
 even a question whether they have contributed much 
 to raise it above that utter baseness and degrada- 
 tion, to which the blank negation of all religions must 
 have doomed it. For myself, I cannot but believe that 
 in this respect they must have contributed something. 
 It is but reasonable to conclude, that the belief almost 
 in any form of a higher world, and a higher ideal than 
 that which here we see, that even glimpses and shadows 
 of the divine, however dim and broken and distorted, 
 must have communicated something of higher aspiration 
 to the spirit of man, and helped to make it less ignoble 
 and utterly base than it would otherwise have been. 
 But to such beneficial influence, whatever it may have 
 been, there were great countervailing drawbacks. If 
 polytheism tended, in some respects, to make man better, 
 it tended in other respects to make him worse. If it 
 enshrined some of the highest virtues of his nature, it 
 consecrated also his foulest crimes. If justice and heroic 
 courage were deified, so equally were lust and blood. 
 Aphrodite and Mars had their worshippers, as numerous 
 and as devoted as Apollo, or Athene Minerva; nor were the 
 rites of the one at all incompatible with those of the other. 
 
230 LECTURE V. 
 
 Purity, chastity, humility, godlike mercy, and self- 
 sacrificing love, had no place either in their Pantheon 
 or their Olympus, — nor was there aught in their whole 
 mythology even to suggest such thoughts as these, 
 which have been the source of all that is purest and 
 best in the life of the world : " Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit ; blessed are the peace-makers ; blessed are the 
 pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
 
 Confessedly, then, all the religions of the world, except 
 Christianity, are failures. Suggested by man's felt needs, 
 and instinctive religious longings, they yet utterly fail to 
 meet his case. Is it otherwise with Christianity ? Does 
 it stand forth in this respect as a thing apart, and 
 specifically different from all the rest ? Do the desires 
 of all nations which had only found expression more or 
 less articulate elsewhere, find satisfaction here ? Is it 
 fitted, in short, at once to heal the disease of our nature, 
 and unfold its highest life ? 
 
 Let us briefiy examine this question. Let us interro- 
 gate the soul itself, which is here our only available 
 witness, as to her experience in this matter, and let us see 
 whether she be in very deed, as Tertullian calls her, natur- 
 aliter Christiana or no, — Christian in all that is truest, 
 deepest, and most divine within her, and in the testimony 
 which she gives to that divine remedial system which 
 alone can meet her case. 
 
 Christ, in the Gospel of St John, speaks of the 
 religious instinct of the human soul as a " Hunger," 
 and the provision He makes for its satisfaction as 
 *' Bread." The first part of this doctrine at least is true. 
 
ADAPTATION TO MANS WANTS. 231 
 
 The soul does thus hunger. It has its own peculiar 
 wants distinct from those of the body, and of the mere 
 common and earthly life, and it is advertised of those 
 wants, and urged to seek their supply by an inward 
 appetency and craving, which seems bound up with the 
 very essence of its being. Man liveth not by bread 
 alone. Immortal food alone can fill and satisfy the im- 
 mortal mind. All men feel this more or less. The deep 
 heart everywhere cries, '' Who will show us any good? " 
 and by that cry, blind as it often is, it very plainly means 
 something very different from the mere animal instinct 
 of " what shall I eat, and what shall I drink, and where- 
 withal shall we be clothed ? " It is not merely that the 
 soul should hunger for a food other than that of the 
 body. It does hunger after it. What it is indeed it 
 hungers for, or where it is to be found, it knows not well ; 
 vet still it hunsrers, and it must have that it huno^ers for, 
 or continue unsatisfied and craving still. This hunger 
 and this need of soul food is not a discovery of revela- 
 tion, but it is a fact of humanity, borne witness to by 
 the experience of all hearts, and by the history of all 
 time. The gospel did not create this hunger, it only 
 professes to satisfy it. It found souls famishing for 
 bread, and it offered them bread. It makes them 
 indeed more conscious of their spiritual necessities, 
 interprets their nature and meaning, and stimulates 
 them to seek the only true supply, — even as the hunger 
 of the body, too, is sometimes whetted, and rendered more 
 vehement by the sight, or even by the thought of food ; 
 but the hunger itself and the wants which it implies, 
 
232 LECTURE Y. 
 
 existed none the less before. It is true, indeed, that 
 before the advent of Christ, and especially in lands un- 
 visited by prophetic vision, the souls of men were, as it 
 were, asleep; and even yet, they slumber on until the day- 
 spring of a supernatural illumination come to awaken 
 them, — but they hunger even in their sleep, and have 
 strange, dim dreams of the needed bread. Hence those 
 propitiatory rites and sacrifices of which we have already 
 spoken, oracular voices, tales of heroes and demi-gods, 
 visions of Elysian fields, and Tartarean fires. Thus it 
 would seern that when God made the soul. He ordained 
 the food on which it should live, and stamped upon it at 
 the same time such a nature that it should ever hunger 
 for that food, and never be able to find satisfaction and 
 rest in anything else. All the parts of our nature share 
 in this hunger, — the mind, the conscience, the heart, the 
 will, the immortal hopes and fears, — that is to say, they 
 all in one way or other point to something beyond this 
 world — crave after a portion, and a stay, higher and better 
 than aught that is seen and temporal, as their true centre 
 of rest. 
 
 The mind thus hungers, — hungers after truth — 
 longs to get to the reality and heart of things — 
 to solve the enigma of existence — to know the real 
 meaning and end of life, and the awful secret that lies 
 in the bosom of death, to pierce the veil of mere shadow 
 and make-believe, and to grasp the truth, as it is, concern- 
 ing God, the universe, and myself. That there is such 
 a hunger as this, and that there always has been, it is 
 surely not needful to prove. What is all philosophy, or 
 
ADAPTATION TO MANS WANTS. 233 
 
 the search after wisdom and the secret of the chief good, 
 but just the impressive witness to the fact? And what, 
 too, alas, is the failure of that philosophy, and the utter 
 darkness and uncertainty in which it issued, but the 
 witness to that other fact, that while the mind hungers 
 after truth, it cannot of itself find the bread it hungers 
 for, but must receive it, if it ever comes at all, from 
 above ? It can only knock, earnestly and long, at the 
 gate of this highest knowledge. Another hand, from 
 behind, must open it. 
 
 Then, t/ie conscience hungers, — hungers for the sense of 
 righteousness and peace with God. I do not enter here 
 on any question of speculative philosophy, concerning 
 the nature of conscience, and the origin of our moral 
 judgments. I proceed on the plain facts and pheno- 
 mena of the case as they are patent to all. It is clear 
 beyond all question that the conscience of man, wher- 
 ever in any degree awake and susceptible, longs to feel 
 itself right with a power higher than itself, and yet is 
 at the same time conscious that it is not right. It can- 
 not shake off the idea of responsibility — of amenableness 
 to an unseen law of right, whose behests it knows it 
 has not fulfilled, and whose retributive penalty it fears. 
 Fear dogs the heels of guilt ; unseen furies pursue the 
 transgressor; and even the innocent, as judged by a 
 mere earthly standard, feel at times that there is some- 
 thing in their relations to heaven that is wi'ong. They 
 are afraid of that which is high. There is a shadowy 
 hand on the wall — the echo of a dread footfall behind — 
 a rustling of leaves amid the trees of the garden — the 
 
234 LECTURE V. 
 
 haunting dread of a judge, and of an inquisition yet to 
 come, now slumbering, and now again awaking with 
 awful vividness, that will not let the spirit rest ; and 
 then it cries out in its pain, '' How shall man be just 
 with God?" and hungers, oh how vehemently and 
 agonizingly often, for the solution of the great mystery! 
 Orestes, at the shrine of expiation, where alone he found 
 at last escape from the avenging furies, and his own 
 sleepless crime, is but a symbol of the universal instinct 
 and great immemorial desideratum of the race. 
 
 Then, the heart hungers too, hungers for affection, for 
 sympathy, for an infinite love, an infinite sympathy, for 
 one transcendent object whom it may love supremely, 
 and trust entirely; some strong arm to lean on, some 
 faithful heart to confide in, when every mortal arm shall 
 fail, and every mortal heart grow cold or cease to beat, — 
 or at least show its essential shallowness and incapacity 
 to love and to feel, as you feel you need to be loved and 
 felt for. Yes, tliere are times when we all of us feel our 
 need of this, or at least will feel it, — times when the 
 world seems to us very lonely, when it is wintry chill, 
 and the heart shivers and shrinks into itself. There are 
 none that can understand us, that can perfectly enter 
 into our feelings and sympathise with us ; and so in the 
 darkest crises of our life, we are compelled to leave all 
 behind, and to walk, like our divine Lord in the wine- 
 press of His agony, alone. And then, in very deed, 
 does the heart hunger for a friend, a friend transcendent, 
 a friend that shall stick closer than a brother, a friend 
 with a deeper heart and entirer and more inward 
 
ADAPTATION TO MAN'S WANTS. 235 
 
 sympathies than any ever known on earth, who when 
 we pass through the waters, however deep or dark or 
 lonely, shall be with ns, and abide with us to the last. 
 
 " Be near me, when my life is low, 
 
 When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick 
 And tingle ; and the heart is sick. 
 And all the wheels of being slow. 
 
 " Be near me, when the sensuous frame 
 
 Is racked with pangs that conquer trust 
 And time, a maniac scattering dust 
 And life, a fiery stinging flame, 
 
 "Be near me, when my faith is dry, 
 And men, the flies of latter spring, 
 That lay their eggs, and sting, and sing, 
 And weave their pretty cells and die. 
 
 " Be near me, when I fade away, 
 
 To point the term of human strife, 
 And on the low last verge of life, 
 The twilight of eternal day." 
 
 Do not these words speak to the hearts of us all ? Is it 
 not this, in very deed, that men hunger for, and would 
 they not cry from their very inmost depths if they only 
 knew of such an one, " Whom have I in heaven but 
 Thee?" 
 
 And if the heart thus hungers for a Friend, the will 
 no less truly and deeply craves a Master. Wayward as 
 it is, and impatient of all wise guidance and control, it 
 yet feels the need of guidance and control. It craves 
 for a master — an authority — a higher support, and 
 firmer guiding-rein, than its own. The created will is 
 not self-sufficing. It is a child's will, not a father's 
 will. It was made to obey, not rule, to follow, not to 
 lead ; and it feels this and can never be perfectly at 
 
236 LECTURE V. 
 
 rest and sure of itself till it is in tliis, its right place. 
 So it is feeble, fluctuating, irresolute, inconsistent, 
 restless, when divorced from God, its true Lord and 
 King. Yes ! deejily as we have forgotten Him, and far 
 as we have wandered, there is at least this much of the 
 child's heart remaining in us, that we ever shrink from 
 walking wholly alone, with nothing higher than ourselves 
 to lean on, and then only are we perfectly brave and 
 strong and happy, when we are sustained by the strong 
 arm, and swayed by the strong will and law, of our 
 Father in Heaven. 
 
 Then, finally, there is a hunger m which all the 
 parts of our nature share together^ — in which mind, 
 conscience, heart, will have each their part, and as with 
 one voice cry out together for a bread the world cannot 
 give. It is the hunger after immortality. Man who 
 lives, hungers to live for ever. While the divinity stirs 
 within us, and intimates eternity to man, the soul with 
 all the streno:th of its beiner claims that heritage, and 
 hungers after it. It recoils from the thought of 
 annihilation and nothingness. It shrinks back upon 
 itself, and startles at destruction. It does not love 
 death ; never can be reconciled to it, but hates it ; 
 abhors it ; flees scared and terror-stricken from the sight 
 of it. It is determined to live for ever, and refuses to 
 believe, spite of all appearances and specious reasonings 
 to the contrary, that it ever can die finally. It sees, 
 indeed, the grave before it, it cannot shut its eyes to 
 that, but it refuses to stop there, persists in looking 
 beyond. Hope, even human hope, pierces the veil on 
 
ADAPTATION TO MAX'S WANTS. 237 
 
 ■which the eye of sense gazes in vain. Though reason 
 stao-irers and fails, the heart still clings to its immortal 
 birthright, and, if it cannot see, yet dreams of a here- 
 after. Still it thinks of friends departed, not as lost, 
 but only gone before, and of itself not as finally cut off 
 from them, but following, not to a land of darkness, 
 but of light and life. Hence those dreams of happy 
 elves, and Elysian fields, and breezy hunting-grounds, 
 and spacious halls of everlasting feasting, which fill the 
 poetry of heathen lands, and, whatever else they may 
 mean, show at least the direction in which the heart 
 ever tends. Hence, too, those gentle expressions, in 
 which even heathen tongues could speak, of that Avhich 
 to the eye of sense, at least, is the " be all, and the end 
 all" here, " e vita excedere, migrare^ quasi et hospitio 
 discedere.'''' So indestructible is this immortal instinct 
 within us, so inextinguishable this hunger j insomuch 
 that if it ever die, methinks, it must be by no natural 
 decay, but by a very strangling and crushing out of the 
 soul's life itself. 
 
 Have I stated the case fairly? Have I not read 
 the testimonium animce aright, and is it not, so far 
 as it goes, naturaliter Christiana, — witnessing at least 
 to the reality of the desideratum, which Christianity 
 professes to supply ? Does it not hunger even in its 
 natural unregenerate state, and apart from, and ante- 
 cedent to those deeper and holier hungerings, which the 
 Spirit of grace awakens, and to which alone the sure 
 promise of satisfaction belongs — the hungering after 
 God, the living God? Surely Augustine was right, 
 
238 LECTURE V. 
 
 when speaking of himself even in the days of his dark- 
 ness, he said, " Fecisti nos ad Te ; et inquietum est cor 
 nostrum, donee requiescat in T^." Surely He who can 
 meet this hunger and satisfy it, who can do that which 
 all the philosophies and religions of the world had failed 
 to do, is indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God, — 
 is indeed the true Bread that came down from heaven 
 that men might eat thereof, and not die. 
 
 Now, it is precisely this that the Gospel does. It is the 
 grand final answer to the question of ages — the all-suf- 
 cient provision of God for the infinite desideratum of man. 
 Those great, fundamental, universal, and everlasting 
 wants of the human spirit, are just those which it professes 
 to meet. It meets the soul's hunger in all its forms and 
 manifestations, and offers it at last that full and absolute 
 satisfaction which it had sought everywhere else, but 
 never found. To the mind, the conscience, the heart, 
 the will, the immortal hopes and fears alike, it is at 
 once the life-giving food and the sovereign medicine 
 and balm. To the mind it ojers truth, — the clear mani- 
 festation and the absolute certitude of truth, yea, the 
 Spirit of Truth himself, — to guide it into all truth, and 
 seal it in divine assurance, and holy sweetness to the 
 heart. To the conscience it offers atonement, expiation, 
 propitiation, reveals a divine Substitute and Sin-bearer, 
 yea, lifts off, as by a mighty unseen hand, the burden 
 of its guiltiness, and bears it away out of sight into a 
 land not inhabited. To the heart it offers a Friend, — a 
 friend in whom it finds at once its highest ideal, and 
 who yet immeasurably transcends it, a friend at once 
 
ADAPTATION TO MAN'S WANTS. ' 239 
 
 human and divine — divine in knowledge and in power 
 and infinite depth of love, human in tenderness and 
 sympathy, and gentle grace and truth, — an ever- 
 lasting, ever-loving, never-changing friend, — " a friend 
 that loveth at all times, and a brother born for adver- 
 sity." To the will it offers a Master, — a mighty, a wise, 
 a strong, a righteous, and rightful master, the true 
 sovereign Lord of the spirit, whose allegiance is truest 
 dignity, whose service is perfect freedom, giving us, in 
 the very act of taking np the light burden and the easy 
 yoke, an ineffable sense of rest and peace we never knew 
 before. And, finally, to the dying man it opens the gate 
 of life, solves by a word the mighty secret, rends the 
 awful veil, rolls the great stone away, yea, kindles 
 up within the soul the very light of immortality, as 
 those words of majesty fall upon our ears, " I am the 
 resurrection and the life ; he that believe th in me, 
 though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever 
 liveth and believeth in me shall never die." 
 
 Thus in every way Christianity is the divine provision 
 for the infinite wants of man ; and Christ is in very 
 deed the desire of all hearts, as well as of all nations, — 
 though, alas ! they know it not. 
 
 But does the gospel fulfil all that it promises ? In 
 form adapted to the case and wants of man, is it at the 
 same time in power and efficacy adequate to meet them? 
 This is in great measure a question of experience, and 
 to that we must make our appeal. Thus alone can we 
 distinguish food from poison, the true nutritive substance 
 from that which seems to be, but is not bread. The 
 
240 LECTURE V. 
 
 body's true food is that whicli satisfies tlie body's hunger, 
 and sustains the body's life, — the soul's food is that which 
 satisfies and sustains the soul. Thus the Prophet of old 
 appealed to this discriminating test of the true and the 
 false, "Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which 
 is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth 
 not ? " And to the same criterion our Lord fearlessly 
 appeals, '' He that cometh unto me shall never hunger," 
 — and again, " Whosoever drinketh of this water shall 
 thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that 
 I shall give him shall never thirst," &c. We see here 
 plainly enough what He engages to do. He promises 
 to meet and satisfy the deepest longings and thirstings of 
 the heart, so to satisfy them that we shall feel and know 
 that they are satisfied, and never need to thirst or hunger 
 more for anything, other than we have already found ; 
 but only for itself alone, in larger, and in larger measure. 
 He promises to give us rest — rest in the fullest, deejDest 
 sense ; divine, absolute, everlasting rest, — from the 
 agitations of doubt — from the stings of conscience — from 
 the weariness of the lonely, homeless heart — from the 
 aimless restlessness of the unfixed will, from the chill 
 dread and horror of the last enemy ; — the sense, in short, 
 of having found at last that which I was made for, and 
 have all along been blindly feeling after, and beyond 
 which there is nothing truly good to be sought for or 
 desired. 
 
 Now is it indeed so ? Can Christ fulfil this pro- 
 mise, and does He do so? Surely this is a question 
 that may be answered, which any man, at least by due 
 
ADAPTATION TO MAN'S WANTS. 241 
 
 search and inquiry, may ascertain for himself. We have 
 abundant materials, at least, for the solution of it. After 
 Christianity, or in other words, Christ, has been eighteen 
 hundred years in the world, dispensing to all hungry 
 and seeking souls the bread of which He here speaks, 
 it may be certainly known whether it be indeed satisfying 
 and soul-sustaining bread, or no, — whether it indeed 
 so fills and satiates the souls that partake of it, that 
 they cease to crave after any other, and in the new light 
 and life and strength and hope which it imparts, feel 
 that they have found the key of life's mystery, the ever- 
 lasting balm and medicine of the soul's wounds ! Is it 
 then indeed so ? Is there such a thing as this on the 
 earth ? or is it all an imagination and a dream ? Is there, 
 or is there not, in actual human experience, such a thing 
 as the second birth, as the new creation, as the peace of 
 God, as the spring of life within the breast, as the eifec- 
 tual cleansing of the conscience, and breaking of sin's 
 chains through the power of the cross, as the swallow- 
 ing up of death in victory ? Is there such a thing as so 
 finding the pearl of great price, as with joy thereof to 
 sell all that we have and buy it, so tasting the sweetness 
 of salvation, as that all other sweetness shall in the 
 comparison lose its charm ? In a word, have men ever 
 found rest to their souls by sitting at Jesus' feet, — been 
 enabled to live glorious lives, and die victorious deaths 
 by simply believing and following Him ? 
 
 I do not ask if there have been any false Christians, 
 any who have had the name and the profession thus 
 to live, but were dead ; but have there then been any 
 
 Q 
 
242 LECTURE V. 
 
 true, any to whom Christ has been all that He pro- 
 mised to be, and more than they had ever dreamed ; 
 and who, by the mighty change He wrought in them, 
 and by the divine and blessed life He taught them to 
 live, might be known even by enemies and strangers 
 to have been with Him ? That is the issue on which 
 this question turns, and on this issue even by itself, we 
 are willing to peril the whole case of Christianity. If 
 the gospel be divine, its power will be divine, its work- 
 ing divine, its influence and its fruits divine, so that 
 candid inquirers may be effectually answered now, even 
 as the disciples were of old, in such words as these : " Go 
 and tell the things which ye have seen and heard, how 
 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers 
 are cleansed, and the poor have the gospel preached to 
 them, — and blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended 
 in me." 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 ADAPTATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE LIFE OF MAN. 
 
 In my last lecture I called your attention to the argu- 
 ment for the truth of Christianity, which results from its 
 adaptation to the wants and deepest instincts of man, 
 both as a creature and a sinner. In doing so, however, 
 we confined ourselves mainly to one great aspect of the 
 subject. We fixed our view rather on the passive than 
 on the active side of human nature, on its wants and 
 woes rather than on its living energies, and were thus 
 led to speak of Christianity in its healing, rather than 
 in its quickening power, as a divine balm for the soul's 
 wounds, rather than as the spring of its highest and 
 holiest life. Even as thus partially considered, we 
 found in it abundant evidence of the divine source from 
 which it springs, and of the divine power which still 
 follows it, and works in it. It satisfies the soul's 
 hunger, medicates the soul's wounds, calms the soul's 
 fears and deep unrest, as no other doctrine or discipline 
 ever did or can, and thus vindicates itself as the very 
 voice of One who could feed famishing thousands by His 
 word, and say to the troubled waters, " Peace, be still," 
 and there was a great calm. But its divine power and 
 
244 LECTURE Yl. 
 
 self-evidencing truth does not end here. It is as 
 efficacious, as a discipline of life, as it is, as a remedy 
 for the poison of death. While it quells the soul's 
 hunger, it stimulates its energies and renews its strength. 
 While it gives rest to the weary bondsman, it at the 
 same time lays upon him a lightsome burden and an 
 easy yoke, and calls him to a new and blessed life, in 
 which duty passes into privilege, and service is glorified 
 by love. Translated from the kingdom of darkness, he 
 passes at once into a new world, where other influences 
 play around him, and other instincts stir within his 
 breast, and all, alike within and around him, behind and 
 before, are to him so changed that it seems to him that 
 till now he had never lived at all. It will be my 
 endeavour in the present lecture to make this statement 
 good, — to show that Christianity, while meeting and 
 satisfying the deepest cravings, is equally efficacious in 
 awakening and moulding the highest and divinest life 
 of man. 
 
 The great primary forces of the Christian life, as laid 
 down by the greatest of the apostles, and borne witness 
 to by the whole Scriptures, are these three, — Faith, Hope, 
 Love. " And now abideth," says he, contrasting those 
 elements of our present existence, which are merely 
 provisional and transitory with those which are essential 
 and everlasting, " now abideth faith, hope, charity, these 
 three ; but the greatest of these is charity." Observe, 
 these all '' abide." Not love only, as some have gathered 
 from a too cursory reading of the words, but all three. 
 In other respects, difi'erent from one another, even as 
 
ADAPTATION TO LIFE OF MAN. 245 
 
 one star differeth from another star in glory, — in this 
 respect they are alike. They are all abiding ; they are 
 all everlasting. They belong not to earth only, but to 
 heaven ; not to time only, but to eternity. For the con- 
 trast drawn by the apostle is not between the abiding 
 nature of one of these graces, and the transitory nature 
 of the others, but between the abiding nature of them 
 all, and the transitory nature of certain other things, 
 which he had spoken of in the context. " Whether there 
 be prophecies, they shall fail ; or whether there be 
 tongues, they shall cease ; or whether there be knowledge, 
 it shall vanish away." Those excellent gifts shall pass 
 away, when they have fully served their end, and pre- 
 pared the way for something more perfect, and there- 
 fore more enduring than themselves. They belong not 
 so much to the essential life of the soul, as only to a 
 particular period or stage of its spiritual progress, and 
 we shall cease to possess them, just because we shall 
 leave them behind, and advance onward to something 
 higher and better. We shall leave them as the winged 
 insect leaves its chrysalis shroud, as the mature man 
 leaves the alphabets and spelling-books and grammars of 
 his childish days, — not because he undervalues or despises 
 them, but because he has fully realised the use of them, 
 and needs them no more. '' For we know in part and 
 we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is 
 come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 
 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as 
 a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a 
 man, I put away childish things. For now we see as 
 
246 LECTURE VI. 
 
 in a glass, darkly, but then face to face ; now I know 
 in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. 
 And now abideth faith, hope, charity; these three, but 
 the greatest of these is charity." 
 
 Such is the apostle's Philosophy of religion, and 
 of the Christian life, — and the whole teaching of the 
 Scriptures elsewhere is in harmony with it. Everywhere 
 do we see these cardinal principles so thoroughly enter- 
 ing into the very heart of Christianity as a practical 
 system, that they may be said not so much to belong to 
 it, as to constitute its very essence. They do not make 
 the Christian life only, — they are the Christian life. 
 From first to last, alike in its primary germ and its 
 ultimate consummation and crown, that life is a life of 
 faith, a life of hope, a life of love. We live by faith, 
 we wait in hope, we labour and rest in love. The first 
 supplies strength, the second incitement, the third con- 
 straining and ennobling motives; and so the work of 
 faith, the labour of love, and the patience of hope, are at 
 once the seal of our election here, and the measure of 
 our preparation for that higher and brighter sphere to 
 which we are taught to aspire. Let us endeavour, then, 
 more fully to develop this view, and point out its 
 significaucy, alike in itself, and in its relation to the 
 wants and nature of man. In doing so, we shall find, if 
 I mistake not, as in our former discussion, that the 
 true Theology is also the best Psychology. 
 
 I. And first, as to Faith. "Now nhidefh faith." — 
 " The just shall live by faith."—" By ftiith we stand."— 
 
ADAPTATION TO LIFE OF AIAN. 247 
 
 " Justified by faith, we have peace with G-od through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by 
 faith into that grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in 
 hope of the glory of God ; and not only so, but we 
 glory in tribulation also, knowing that tribulation work- 
 eth patience ; and patience, experience ; and experience, 
 hope ; and hope maketh not ashamed." — " We walk by 
 faith, not by sight." — " These all died in faith, not 
 having received the promises, but having seen them 
 afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced 
 them, and confessed that they were strangers and 
 pilgrims on the earth." — " If ye had faith as a grain 
 of mustard seed, ye might say unto this rock or this 
 mountain, be removed, and be thou cast into the sea, 
 and it should be done." 
 
 Such is the consentient testimony of Scripture as to 
 the primary place and sovereign virtue of this divine 
 principle, as one of the grand factors of the new life. Is 
 that teaching justified by fact ? Is it in harmony with 
 the constitution of human nature on the one hand, and 
 with the experience and history of human life on the 
 other ? Is the spirit of man of such a make and mould 
 as that he shall find his highest and noblest life in 
 faith, and is the gospel of sucb power and efficacy as to 
 enable him to live such a life ? 
 
 To answer these questions, we must ask another, — 
 What is faith ? And to this we reply, in accordance with 
 the whole teaching of Scripture, it is trust, — the leaning 
 of the soul on something beyond itself. In its general 
 seuse, it is a leaning on something, — in its religious, in 
 
248 LECTURE VI. 
 
 its Christian sense, it is a leaning on God ! It is tlie 
 spirit of man lifting up itself to take hold of one higher 
 and stronger than himself. As such, surely it has its 
 root in the very constitution of our nature as created 
 beings, and in our essential relation to the infinite and 
 uncreated. Man was made to trust. He is by the very 
 law of his being, dependent. He is not self-sufficing, 
 and he knows that he is not. He never was made to 
 stand alone, and he trembles to stand alone. If there 
 be one primary instinct that lies deep down at the very 
 core of our being, it is this sense of weakness, limited- 
 ness, of the necessity of holding by something, leaning- 
 back upon something that is higher and stronger than 
 we. So much is this the case that some of the profound- 
 est thinkers on the philosophy of natural religion, have 
 traced to this innate sense of dependence our very first 
 ideas of God, and of a higher world. Thus, as hy an 
 irresistible law of our being, we are ever looking above 
 ourselves, and beyond ourselves, groping on every side 
 for some sure stay and centre of repose. We are strong, 
 brave, resolute, just in proportion as we feel, or dream, 
 that there is a power behind us, seen or unseen, created 
 or uncreated, on which, in the hour of need, we may 
 fall back, and fix the anchor of our heart. We find no 
 such one among our fellow-creatures. There may be, 
 indeed, some higher than ourselves, and stronger, — as 
 parents and teachers, — and in these, accordingly, we at 
 first entirely trust, and they are to us even as God. 
 But gradually we outgrow this confidence, this first 
 religion of our infancy. Step by step we find out the 
 
ADAPTATIOX TO LIFE OF MAX. 240 
 
 narrowness, the limitedness, the hollowness of these 
 dear earthly stays. They are higher and stronger than 
 we, perhaps; still, but only a little higher and stronger, — 
 perhaps even in some respects lower and weaker ; at least 
 they are not strong enough to sustain the weight of those 
 interests a man would fain repose in them, — the entire- 
 ness of that trust he feels he must one day repose in 
 some one, or sink altogether. The dread powers of sin 
 and sorrow with which he has now to combat, and which 
 are too strong for him, are too strong for them also. 
 That wisdom which once he thought unerring, and that 
 strength which once he deemed boundless, stand equally 
 with himself paralysed and helpless, in presence of the 
 dread powers and awful mysteries of life. Frail, sinful, 
 dying, he cannot conceal from himself that they are 
 frail, sinful, dying, too. So he feels that he needs a 
 rock higher than they, and a deep voice speaks within 
 his heart re-echoing the words of the holy oracle without, 
 " Trust not in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there 
 is no stay." So he stretches out his hand, not only beyond 
 himself, but beyond all creatures, beyond all finite stays 
 whatever, and feels after the divine and the everlasting. 
 What does all this mean, this dim groping in the 
 darkness, this blind feeling after God, or anything 
 which the heart can fashion for itself, and which 
 shall be to it as a God? What, surely, but this, 
 that the heart was made for faith, and can find its 
 true life only in faith. That blind instinct, indeed, of 
 which we have spoken, is not itself faith. It only indi- 
 cates the capacity for faith — the soul's felt need of a 
 
250 LECTURE VI. 
 
 centre of repose which it has not yet found. It is not 
 faith, but rather the conscious absence of faith, and of 
 that on which faith may lean, the woful cry of a lost 
 child for that father whom he has forsaken, and almost 
 forgotten, but without whom, just because he is a child, 
 he cannot live. It marks the place within the soul 
 where faith should be, from which the lost link between 
 the finite and the infinite has been torn away. 
 
 Now, Christianity restores that link, it reawakens faith 
 within the breast by revealing and bringing nigh the true 
 object of faith. In it, the heart that longs to trust finds 
 one, transcendent alike in power and in love, in whom 
 it may trust absolutely and wholly. In it, the frail ten- 
 drils of the soul that were made to cling, and because they 
 have nothing else to cling to, cling to the ground, and 
 creep on the ground, find at last a worthy and sure support 
 around which they may throw their arms, and mount up- 
 ward, sustained by its strength and quickened by its life. 
 '' I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that 
 He is able to keep that which I have committed unto 
 Him against that day." — " At my first answer all men 
 forsook me ; nevertheless, the Lord stood by me, and 
 strengthened me ; and the Lord shall deliver me from 
 every evil work, and shall preserve me unto His heavenly 
 kingdom." — "I am persuaded that neither death, nor 
 life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor 
 things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor 
 depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate 
 us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord." This then is faith, divine faith : the true anchor 
 
ADAPTATION TO LIFE OF MAX. 251 
 
 of the soul, sure and stedfast, alike amid the storms of 
 this present life, and amid the heavings of that dark river 
 that rolls between it and another. This is the victory 
 which overcometh the world — yea, all the powers and 
 principalities of evil, here and hereafter, — even this 
 faith! 
 
 II. If Faith has its foundation in nature, so also has 
 Hope. "Now abideth hope."" — Equally with faith, 
 it strikes its roots down into the deepest ground of 
 man's primary and indestructible constitution. As 
 the soul naturally and instinctively looks around it, 
 and above it, or rather let us say beneath it, and 
 behind it, for some unseen support surer than itself, — 
 so as naturally and instinctively does it look before, 
 toward a goal and point of satisfaction and repose such 
 as it has not yet found. By the very necessity of our 
 being we live in the future — forget the things that are 
 behind, reach forth unto the things that are before. A 
 living fountain of bright expectation springs up ever- 
 more within the heart, and sparkles in the light of the 
 rising sun. Evermore there is a hand beckoning us, 
 and bright visions luring us on and on. The light even 
 of this world's sun shines not on the objects that lie 
 immediately at our feet, but on the crests of the delect- 
 able hills that seem to rise up before us in the far dis- 
 tance. The path we tread is hard and dry and dusty, 
 like a burning desert track, — but on the horizon far away 
 there gleams a glorious sea of joy, a deceitful mirage, 
 indeed, a mere illusion of the fancy so far as this world 
 
252 LECTURE VI. 
 
 is concerned, — but still enough to fill and fire the faint- 
 ing traveller, and impel him to press forward still. 
 
 It is good for us that it should be so. It is the very 
 mainspring and primary condition of all progress. We 
 advance beyond the present and rise above it, just because 
 we are dissatisfied with it, and cannot acquiesce in it as 
 a final state. A state of absolute contentment and 
 sufficiency were a state also of stagnation : it is the 
 sense of something wanting — of some good thing in the 
 future yet to be attained, that stimulates to high endea- 
 vour and prompts to noblest deeds. And so, as we never 
 in this life fully attain, nor are yet perfect, this spring 
 of progress continues with us to the last. As we start 
 on the race of life, so do we close it, hoping still. It is 
 so alike, though in different ways, with old and young. 
 When we are young we look forward to our own future ; 
 when we are old to the future of our children, — but still 
 equally look forward. Even the natural life thus is, in some 
 sense, a pilgrim's progress, though the pilgrim, alas ! has 
 lost his way, and knows not of the true rest and goal. It 
 was not as a saint only, but as a man, that Joseph, when 
 he took farewell to time, looked forward still to the future 
 of his race, — when he made mention of the departing of 
 the children of Israel, and gave commandment concerning 
 his bones. And so, all our lifelong, yea, through all the 
 lifetime of the race, hope remains our companion and our 
 counsellor. Amid our homes of sin and sorrow, toil and 
 care, that angel-form glides day by day, cheering the 
 mourner, lifting up the fallen from the ground, nerving 
 to fresh courage the despairing heart, and singing 
 
ADAPTATION TO LIFE OF MAN. 253 
 
 pleasant songs in the ears of those who had hung their 
 own harps on the willows, as they deemed for ever. 
 
 Yet what a deceiver is this hope, at least as men know 
 it here, in its mere human, earthly form! How inevit- 
 ably do its promises fail, its dreams dissolve and vanish ! 
 We travel on and on, but we find not that we were seek- 
 ing after. We wander amid broken cisterns and faded 
 flowers. We advance not toward the sun, but from it, 
 and the glory of life's morning fades away into the light 
 of common day, and then anon dies into darkness. The 
 memories of the past become more and more sad, and cast 
 a sadder and still sadder shadow over the present and 
 the future. Affections blighted, longings unfulfilled, con- 
 fidence betrayed, early hopes deceived or long deferred, 
 friends, kindred, endeared companions of former days, 
 dead or changed, trusted hearts found hollow, and dis- 
 trusted and injured ones too late found true, — old wells 
 of blessing dried up, and new wells of Marah opened, 
 that never run dry, — these, and it may be, sorrows darker 
 still — a guilty conscience, a blighted heart, a wounded 
 spirit, a wasted, degraded life — and all terminating at 
 last in that great, great darkness towards which the 
 stream of life is ever rushing and never returns, — such is 
 life ; the life of all men, and of every man, more or less, 
 the be-all and the end-all here, — the fruitless fruit of all 
 our cares, toils, struggles, tears, and yearnings of the 
 heart, — were there nothing to be hoped for beyond, — no 
 good time to come when this mortal strife is ended, and 
 the load of flesh dissolves. 
 
 Kow it is here again that Christianity meets us, and 
 
254 LECTURE VI. 
 
 proves itself once more that divine religion whose author 
 knew what was in man, and could speak to the heart of 
 man as none other ever did or can. It is pre-eminently 
 the religion of hope, the religion of the future, and of the 
 great coming age. It both kindles hope to the loftiest 
 ardour, and sets before it the highest and worthiest aim. 
 It interprets the dim anticipations of nature, gives voice 
 and utterance to them, purifies and exalts them, and pro- 
 mises them a fulfilment such as she had never dreamed, — 
 an object of aspiration and pursuit, high, holy, sublime, 
 and irresistibly constraining, such as eye had not seen, 
 nor ear heard, nor thought in its utmost stretch had con- 
 ceived, but which, when once revealed, commends itself to 
 his very heart of hearts, as its true portion and prize. 
 
 This, doubtless, is one main source of the power of Chris- 
 tianity. It is this which has imparted to it its irresistible 
 charm, alike for sorrowing and for aspiring hearts in every 
 age. All through the long and weary night of the ages, 
 has the bright vision of the city of God gleamed before 
 their eyes, inspiring lofty purposes, and nerving to heroic 
 deeds. The good time coming, the true, the everlasting 
 golden age, the calm after the storm, the spring after 
 the dreary winter, the day-breaking after the long chill 
 dark night, the solving of all doubts, the clearing of all 
 mysteries, the consummation of all hopes, the crown 
 and reward of all righteous deeds and sacrifices, the 
 great final harvest after the long sowing of prayers and 
 toils and tears, — all this, of which poets have sung, 
 and weary struggling hearts have dreamed in every age, 
 but which He alone who is Lord of the ages could 
 
ADAPTATION TO LIFE OF MAN. 255 
 
 reveal — it is this which has imparted a new grandeur 
 and reality to life, and shed a glory unknown before over 
 the hour of dissolution. Nor does it impart inspiration 
 only, but sanctity also. While it fires us, it raises us. 
 The presence of a lofty hope makes the thoughts also, 
 and the life sublime. The holy fire it kindles within 
 us purifies while it burns : and thus proves that both 
 the hope itself, and He who is the author and the sub- 
 stance of it, are divine. 
 
 III. If man was made to believe and to hope, so surelv, 
 and perhaps more than either, was he made to love. " Now 
 abideth love.'' — As the soul needs a support, and the life 
 needs an aim and spring, so does the heart require an 
 object. The heart, as we had occasion to remark in our last 
 lecture, hungers for love — craves and demands an object 
 of supreme afiection and complacency — some one tran- 
 scendent being whom it may single out from every other, 
 to whom it may assign its highest throne, and at whose 
 feet it may lay its richest, choicest treasures. All men 
 love — all men, more or less — some object or other, whe- 
 ther worthy of that high affection or no ; and so strong 
 and absorbing is this passion, that when first we taste 
 its sweetness and prove its power, we are ready to con- 
 fess that we never fully knew what it was to live, till 
 we had learned to love. Yes ! love, even human love, 
 is a blessed thing ; even in its disappointment, in its 
 bereavement, in its desolate and lonely anguish, it is 
 blessed. The poet touches a chord in every breast when 
 he says — " 'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never 
 
256 LECTURE VI. 
 
 to have loved at all." Even the bruised and smitten 
 heart, — he to whom all life has been changed, and the 
 whole world become a solitude because one beloved form 
 has passed from it for ever — would refuse to be healed 
 of his wound on the condition of being bereft for ever- 
 more, alike of the sweetness and the bitterness of loving. 
 Even the memory and departing fragrance of one true 
 and sacred affection is more sweet and precious to the 
 heart, than the present possession of all other joys what- 
 soever. Nor sweet and blessed only : it is salutary as 
 it is sweet. How it elevates, softens, refines, the heart 
 in which it dwells — transfigures the whole character, and 
 gives a new purpose and meaning to life! How often 
 has the entrance of one pure and chaste afiection into a 
 hitherto diseased nature exorcised a whole legion of 
 devils, and made it the home of pure and gentle and 
 generous virtues unknown before ! And all this, though 
 the object itself beloved, may be quite unworthy of the 
 exalted sentiment with which it is regarded — may owe 
 its grace and beauty far less to anything in itself than 
 to the eye that beholds it — may, indeed, in point of fact, 
 as time runs on, become to the same eye poor and 
 commonplace, when the glory which fancy lent it has 
 died away. We first love, and then we idealise and 
 glorify the object of our love, and then this ideal and 
 glorified form takes possession of our hearts instead of 
 the poor earthly counterpart, and still more elevates and 
 purifies the afiection which created it. The love ennobles 
 the object, and the object again ennobles the love, and 
 so the process goes in a blessed course of action and 
 
ADAPTATION TO LIFE OF 21 AK 257 
 
 reaction until, perchance, some rude shock of stern, 
 inexorable fate, to which love itself cannot close its eye, 
 breaks the spell, and throws us back on the cold, naked, 
 and ignoble real again. But who shall say what the 
 power alike, and the sacred, purifying influence of the 
 principle must be, when the most exalted love finds an 
 object indeed worthy of it ; one who shall not only fulfil 
 its loftiest ideal, but rise immeasurably above it ; one in 
 whom the most naked real, and the most glorious ideal, 
 are the same — one, therefore, whom the more we know 
 the more we shall love, because we shall ever feel that 
 we never can love Him as He deserves. Now, such an 
 object Christianity reveals. Christ, — as He lived on earth, 
 as He lives still on the breathing canvas of the Gospels, 
 is the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether 
 lovely, the living embodiment of all that is noblest and 
 best for which heart ever yearned, or which fancy ever 
 dreamed. Radiant alike with divine glory and most 
 endearing human excellences — the brightness of the 
 Father's glory, and the fairest flower of earthly beauty 
 — precious alike for what He is in Himself, and for 
 what He has done and borne, — He claims for Himself a 
 place in all true hearts, such as belongs to none other. 
 Nor does He make that claim in vain. Not only does 
 He deserve to be thus loved, but He is thus loved by 
 thousands. He lives and reigns in countless hearts, 
 the object of an afiection, deeper, purer, mightier than 
 any which nature knows — and undying, too, even as He 
 is Himself. 
 
 "The love of Christ constraineth us." These words 
 
 R 
 
258 LECTURE VI. 
 
 are fulfilling themselves at this hour, as they have ful- 
 filled themselves in every day and hour since the gospel 
 of the kingdom began. This is the true life-power of 
 Christianity — the mightiest life-power, in truth, in all 
 the world. The sacred fire of an unearthly love, kindled 
 at Pentecost, burns on still on the earth, and at once 
 by its exalted intensity, and by its purifying and trans- 
 forming and new-creating might, proves itself divine. 
 The grand hyperbole of the Preacher is translated into 
 fact ; it is a pure flame which " many waters cannot 
 quench," which is "strong as death," and which has proved 
 its indomitable might in a thousand martyrdoms. Nor 
 does this supreme and most sacred affection stand alone ; 
 love to man, and all gentle thoughts and charities, fol- 
 low in the train of love to God and to His Christ. 
 Those in whose hearts the love of Jesus reigns, ever 
 delight also to walk in His steps, going about doing 
 good, and soothing and healing all human griefs and 
 wounds, even as He did before. The great central and 
 all-controlling affection gives birth to a whole crowd of 
 other lesser affections, which go forth with it to gladden 
 and bless the world. Divine charity is also, in the best 
 sense, and in the most practical way, human charity too. 
 And thus, from the day of the ascension till now, not 
 confessors and martyrs only, but sisters of mercy, heroes 
 of philanthropy, have been the crown and glory of 
 Christianity, and its grand distinction from all other 
 religions ever known on earth. 
 
 Thus in every way has Christianity proved itself, and 
 
ADAPTATION TO LIFE OF MAN. 259 
 
 every day anew proves itself the great life-power of 
 humanity — at once rousing all that is purest and best 
 within it to its highest pitch, and carrying it by an 
 energy truly divine, beyond itself — creating at once an 
 all-conquering faith, an all-inspiring hope, and an 
 all-transforming love, and proving that the apostle 
 gave expression at once to the truest reason and the 
 highest faith, when he uttered those grand words : 
 *' Now abideth Faith, Hope, Charity, these three ; but 
 the greatest of these is Charity." 
 
LECTURE VIL 
 
 THE DIVINE BOOK — ITS AUTHORSHIP. 
 
 It must be admitted at the outset, that the Bible is 
 a book entirely unique and singular in the literature 
 of the world. It is like itself, and like none other. 
 Alike amongst ordinary human writings, and amongst 
 writings distinctively religious, and so in a sense divine, 
 it stands apart and alone. The very manner of its pro- 
 duction, even on a prma facie view, presents a 
 phenomenon altogether unparalleled. It is at once 
 one and many, a library and yet a book, the collected 
 production of many authors, writing with diverse aims, 
 and amid diverse influences and circumstances, yet 
 forming together a single, absolute, organic whole. 
 Composed of no fewer than sixty-six separate frag- 
 ments, by forty different authors of the most diverse 
 education, culture, bent of mind and position in life ; 
 by legislators, judges, poets, priests, prophets, kings, 
 evangelists, apostles; in Jerusalem, in Babylon, 
 Ephesus, Corinth, Rome; in Hebrew, in Chaldee, and 
 in Greek ; during the long course of fifteen centuries, 
 from the grey dawn of history to the very highest 
 noon of Greek and Roman civilization; — in outward style 
 and form, too, the most various ; history, biography, 
 didactic discourse, sententious apothegm, lyrical psalm, 
 idyllic song, tragic drama, prophetic rapture, elaborate 
 
THE DIVINE BOOK— ITS A UTHORSHIP. 261 
 
 argument, and free familiar letter: — yet when all its 
 multifarious and apparently heterogeneous parts have 
 been put together, or rather, as by a mysterious affinity 
 and silent process of organic life, have grown together, 
 the whole stands out in a distinct individuality, a perfect 
 and indivisible unity, even as though it had been, in the 
 ordinary human sense, the production of one mind, and 
 of one hand. One spirit pervades it ; one thought fills 
 it ; one message and grand design runs through it. The 
 Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, the Gospels, the Acts, 
 and the Epistles, — the Old Testament and the New, — seem 
 as absolutely to belong to and fit into each other, as in- 
 tegral parts of a common whole, as the books of the Iliad, 
 or the chapters of the Novum Organon. 
 
 If there is any apparent exception to this, it arises 
 from a characteristic which only reveals in another 
 way the organic unity of the book itself, and of the 
 divine dispensation which it records. Its teaching is 
 not only complete but progressive. As through the 
 ages, so through its mysterious page, an increasing 
 purpose runs, and becomes clearer and clearer as we 
 advance. It proceeds from the simplest lessons to the 
 highest truths ; from the milk of babes to the strong 
 meat of full and manly age. In short, it was not 
 made, but grew, — not cut and rounded into a formal com- 
 pleteness like a dead crystal, but rising up like a palm 
 from the root to the highest frond, or a stately pile from 
 its deep foundations to its sublime heaven-pointing spires. 
 Thus, while recording in its vivid annals the gradual 
 divine education of the world, it furnishes at the same 
 
262 LECTURE VII. 
 
 time the materials for the similar gradual education of 
 each individual soul, which is, indeed, itself a little world 
 like the great world without, and must pass in its 
 spiritual growth through the same essential steps and 
 stages. Thus the teaching of Abraham and the teach- 
 ing of Paul are different, and yet parts of the same — 
 complementary though not identical; neither in itself 
 complete, but each contributing to the completeness of 
 the whole, of which each equally forms a part, — even as 
 the simplest axiom and the highest calculus are each 
 essential portions of the one sublime science, by which 
 the mountains are weighed in scales, and the distances 
 of the stars are measured. 
 
 So remarkable, indeed, is this mystery of Holy Scrip- 
 ture, notwithstanding those circumstances of composi- 
 tion which might seem to render any such unity 
 impossible, that, possessed by the intimate and irresis- 
 tible sense of it, we are continually apt to overlook or 
 underrate the rich variety which it nevertheless presents. 
 The unique grandeur and sanctity of the one book makes 
 us forget the special traits and characteristics of the 
 several books ; the common and transcendent individu- 
 ality that belongs to all, puts out of sight the particular 
 and lesser individuality that belongs to each. The 
 human is lost in the divine — the many voices of the 
 messengers, varying endlessly in tone and compass, in 
 the one commanding voice that speaks through them 
 all. Thus, in doing justice to the supremacy, we are in 
 danger of losing somewhat of the riches of Scripture. 
 To use the felicitous words of another, " Theology has 
 
THE DI VINE BOOK— ITS A VTHORSHIP. 263 
 
 not yet turned to sufficient account the Bible's marvel- 
 lous diversity. We know how opposite are the turns, 
 and how various are the temperaments, of different 
 people, and how unequal are their capacities. One lias 
 a logician's intellect, and delights in a dialectic subtlety. 
 Another has a prompt intuition, and deprecates every 
 ingenious or protracted argument. Some have the 
 ideal faculty so strong, that they never understand a 
 proposition rightly till it sparkles as a sentiment ; poet- 
 wise their eyes are ever aloft; they cannot descry 
 matters of fact and homely truths, which creep or walk 
 along the ground ; but, in order to arrest a vision so 
 sublime as theirs, thoughts must spread the wings of 
 metaphor, and soar into the zenith : whilst others are 
 so prosaic, that they are offended at all imagery, and 
 grudge the time it takes to translate a trope or figure. 
 Some minds are concrete and cannot understand a 
 general statement, till they see a particular example ; 
 others are so abstract that an illustration is an inter- 
 ruption, and an example a waste of time. Most men 
 love history, and nearly all men live much in the future. 
 Some minds are pensive, some are cheerful, some are 
 ardent, and some are singularly phlegmatic ; and, had an 
 angel penned the Bible, even though he could have con- 
 descended to the capacity of the lowliest reader, he 
 could not have foreseen the turn, and fitted the taste of 
 every child of Adam. And had a mortal penman been 
 employed, however versatile his talent, however many- 
 sided his mind, he could not have made himself all 
 things to his brethren, nor produced styles enough to 
 
264 LECTURE VII. 
 
 mirror the mental features of all mankind. In His 
 wisdom and goodness, the Most High has judged better 
 for our world, and, using the agency of forty authors, 
 transfusing, through the peculiar tastes and tem- 
 peraments of so many individuals, the self-same truths, 
 the Spirit of God has secured for the Bible universal 
 adaptation. For the pensive there is the dirge of Jere- 
 miah, and the cloud-shadowed drama of Job. For the 
 sanguine and hopeful, there sounds the blithe voice, and 
 there beats the warm pulse of old Galilean Peter. And 
 for the calm, the contemplative, the peacefully loving, 
 there spreads like a molten melody or an abysmal joy, 
 the page — sunny, ecstatic, boundless — of John the 
 divine. The most homely may find the matter of fact, 
 the unvarnished wisdom and plain sense, which is the 
 chosen aliment of their sturdy understandings, in 
 James's blunt reasonings ; and the most heroic can ask 
 no higher standard, no loftier feats, no consecration 
 more intense, no spirituality more etherial, than they 
 will find in the Pauline epistles. Those who love the 
 sparkling aphorism or the sagacious paradox, are pro- 
 vided with food convenient in the Proverbs, while, for 
 those whose poetic fancy craves a banquet more sublime, 
 there are the dew of Hermon, and Bozrah's red wine, 
 the tender freshness of pastoral hymns, and the purple 
 tumult of triumphal psalms." 
 
 The truth of this must be obvious to every one, and it 
 only requires to be thus vividly and felicitously expressed, 
 to be recognised in its true importance as one of the grand 
 characteristic features of the divine word. It is one of 
 
THE DIVINE BOOK— ITS A UTIIORSIIIP. 265 
 
 the chief of those varied adaptations to the nature and 
 the wants of man, which betray the manifold wisdom of 
 God, which presided over its production. In speaking to 
 man, it was needful that the divine Revealer should 
 speak in the language of men — that He should speak to 
 many men in many languages — so that each one might 
 hear in his own tougue — in that style and form of speech 
 which he understands the best, and which comes most 
 directly home to" his heart, the manifold wisdom of God. 
 Thus the divine message comes to us, not through a 
 human voice only, but a voice specially familiar and 
 grateful to us, and enriched, too, with the tones of some 
 special experience, some special discipline of suffering 
 and sorrow answerinir to our own. 
 
 But this diversity of the sacred writings, in itself at 
 once so conspicuous and so admirable, only renders the 
 common element, the mysterious principle of unity that 
 combines them all, the more remarkable, and the more 
 irresistibly suggestive of a more than human source. 
 That unity itself is wonderful, taken in connection with 
 the whole circumstances of the case now described ; and 
 it becomes still more so, when we consider the nature of 
 that unity — in other words, the special characteristics 
 common to all these writings, which part them off, and 
 distinguish them from all others. These characteristics, 
 perhaps, have never been better defined than in these 
 words of our Confession, which seem almost to stake 
 the whole question of a divine revelation on this evi- 
 dence alone : " The Scriptures manifest themselves to 
 be the word of God by their majesty and purity, the 
 
266 LECTURE VIL 
 
 consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole, which is 
 to give all glory to God, and by their light, and power 
 to convince and convert sinners, to comfort and build up 
 believers unto salvation." Or we might express it other- 
 wise by assigning to the AYord, in the same way as to the 
 Church, certain distinctive notes or differentia which 
 might be denominated thus, — sanctity, purity, majesty, 
 catholicity, vitality, efficacy. 
 
 (1 .) Sanctity. That this is, speaking generally, and apart 
 from special difficulties and apparent exceptions, the 
 marked characteristic of these writings, will scarcely be 
 denied. Every one, who gives himself earnestly to the 
 study of them, and yields up his mind to their spirit and 
 influence, feels this. We instinctively feel that we are 
 treading holy ground; that we are breathing a diviner 
 atmosphere, walking amid a richer, serener light than 
 that of earth. "We have entered into a sanctuary, 
 ascended a sacred mount. An aroma that breathes not 
 of earth but of heaven, perfumes every page of these 
 wondrous writings, — and of other writings, just in propor- 
 tion as their authors have come under their influence, 
 and caught the infection of their spirit. Whatever may 
 be said of particular passages, this, at least, is, beyond 
 all question, their general purport and character. God 
 here is all in all, — He is the central Sun of this higher 
 and holier world into which they introduce us ; and every 
 object and relation there is seen in the light that streams 
 from His face. Amid all the lesser, and it may be 
 dissonant sounds, " Glory to God in the highest, on earth 
 peace, good- will toward men " is the key-note that sounds 
 
THE Dl VINE BOOK— ITS A UTIIORSIIIP. 267 
 
 through them all, and which irresistibly arrests and 
 fills the listening ear. 
 
 (2.) Purity. This also will in the main be granted. 
 It will not, cannot be denied, that the Bible as a whole, 
 and in its pervading spirit and tendency, is pure, and 
 the source of purity. The common conscience of man- 
 kind countersigns the testimony of the Psalmist : " The 
 words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a 
 furnace of earth, purified seven times." — " The command- 
 ment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes ; the 
 fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever ; the judg- 
 ments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'' 
 Nay, is it not demonstrable, is it not notorious, that 
 whatever of purity, in any true and higher sense, there 
 is in this world, is almost wholly due to this source ? 
 Heart purity, family purity, social purity, virgin chastity, 
 matronly honour ; where would these things have been 
 at this hour, where would the very idea and shadows of 
 them have been, but for those words of purity which came 
 forth from Jerusalem, but for those holy waters which, 
 eighteen hundred years ago, went forth from the 
 sanctuary, and mingled with the great sea of the world ? 
 And where at any time do those fair flowers blossom in 
 their full grace and beauty, save within tTie precincts of 
 this holy ground, and beneath the dews that distil from 
 those sacred skies ? What voice but that ever awakes 
 within tlie sinful heart the cry, " Create in me a clean 
 heart," or urges it with inextinguishable longing in life 
 and death to seek it ? Who shall tell even, how far 
 some of those who reject the divine authority of the 
 
263 LECTURE VIL 
 
 Bible, may owe their purest impulses and noblest aspira- 
 tions to the secondary influence of sacred words, the 
 remembrance of which still haunts them, while their 
 inspiration is denied? 
 
 (3.) The majesty of the style in which the sacred writers 
 discourse, together with those other attributes of form 
 and diction, which together with it make up the distinc- 
 tively Biblical language, has been often remarked, and 
 can indeed scarcely fail to strike any moderately suscep- 
 tible reader. Amid all the lesser diversities which 
 characterise the individual writers, we still feel that 
 there is a common stamp and coinage of thought and 
 language characteristic of them all. As there is a 
 Platonic style, and a Shaksperian style, and a Miltonic 
 style, and a Johnsonian style, the rhythm and ring of 
 which any cultured ear can at once distinguish, so there 
 is just as distinctly a Biblical style. We all insensibly 
 come to know it, become familiar with it, learn at once 
 to recognise it when it falls upon our ears. Not only 
 do we distinguish its very words, but other words as 
 like them, and cast in the same mould. Like any other 
 style it is difficult to describe ; but we shall not at least 
 greatly err if we say, that there is in it a simple grace, 
 a limpid freshness, a sententious force and memorable- 
 ness, a pregnant depth, a vis vivida, a grave and sacred 
 majesty all its own, and which emphasizes it, and sets it 
 apart from every other. Of chaste beauty and strength 
 it has ever been regarded as a model, and has contributed 
 at once to refine and to enrich every literature with 
 which it has blended, and whose standard of taste it has 
 
THE DIVINE BOOK— ITS A UTIIORSIIIP. 269 
 
 helped to form. Even the well of English unclefiled 
 would not have run so pure but for the English Bible. 
 Of all quotable books, it is, perhaps, the most quotable, 
 spangled all over with starry texts, which arrest the eye 
 of every devout and reverent reader, shoot into the dark- 
 ness of the soul, and shine within the heart for ever. 
 It is also the most translatable, — easily passing from 
 language to language, with scarcely any abatement of 
 its original force and beauty, insomuch that unlearned 
 and even some learned readers unconsciously come to 
 feel, as if it was not the dead Greek and Hebrew, but 
 the living, vernacular Bible that is inspired. In fine, its 
 language is the language of the people — of all men and 
 every man alike — of the gentle and the simple, of the 
 learned and the unlearned, of the sage and the child alike; 
 for it is the language, not of conventional form or of 
 abstract thought, but of the soul and of the heart. 
 
 (4.) Closely connected with this last attribute of the 
 Biblical style, is the catholicity of its message. As the 
 language of the Bible is the language of man, so is the 
 religion of the Bible the religion of man — of man as man 
 — of man everywhere and always — of all that is truest, 
 deepest, and most universal in his nature. It is the true 
 cosmopolitan and secumenical faith, — admitting of easy 
 transplantation to any soil or clime — equally at home 
 in any century of human history, and in any country 
 in which human beings are found. We have referred to 
 this consideration already, in speaking of the genius of 
 Christianity itself, and of the framework and constitu- 
 tion of that divine society in which its spirit dwells. 
 
270 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Meanwhile it is enough to note the fact, as a thing 
 most remarkable, and inevitably suggestive of a higher 
 than human inspiration, that a book, proceeding from 
 the hands of a few obscure and despised Jews, should 
 be at this hour by pre-eminence the book of books for 
 all men, and for all lands, — the inmost bosom friend of 
 the truest, purest, noblest hearts of every kindred and 
 of every clime. 
 
 (5.) We take our two last notes together, the vitality and 
 efficacy of the divine words, — their power of germinating 
 and taking root in human souls, and of yielding the 
 blessed fruits of a new and better life, wherever it thus 
 grows. Here again I am tempted to quote the language 
 of another ; " Before the days of printing," says Dr 
 James Hamilton, " the copyists sometimes took great 
 pains with their manuscripts, and Bibles were then 
 elaborately embellished. Traced in silver and gold and 
 brilliant colours — occasionally executed on tinted parch- 
 ment, the mere letters were often a gorgeous picture ; 
 and such illuminated manuscripts will always awaken 
 the astonishment and delight of the tasteful antiquarian. 
 We do not print our Bibles in silver and in gold ; nor have 
 we verses marked out from the others by their vermilion 
 ink, or their bolder character. And yet we have some- 
 times thought that every careful reader can illuminate 
 his own copy as he proceeds. The book is all bright 
 with passages, which at one time or another have stirred 
 or strengthened him ; it is all radiant with texts which 
 have assured, or rebuked, or consoled him. On this 
 verse he heard a sermon which he never can forget ; this 
 
THE DIVINE BOOK— ITS A UTIIORSHIP. 271 
 
 cliapter is associated with some affecting event in his 
 domestic history ; and here is a paragraph which gave 
 rise to a dialogue or meditation ever memorable in his 
 religious career. 
 
 " Such is the divine variety of scripture, that from the 
 stores of religious biography might be compiled a sort 
 of historical commentary, showing what service in the 
 way of ' doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction 
 in righteousness,' the different passages have done. It 
 would be found that in this quiver there are hundreds 
 of arrows, which have pierced the conscience, and con- 
 vinced of sin. It would be found that from this tree of life, 
 as many leaves have dropped, and proved effectual to the 
 healing of such wounds. It would be found that in this 
 garden there hardly grows an herb, but some visitor 
 has been regaled by its beauty, or revived by its fragrance : 
 and those which have not been sweet to the taste, have, 
 in their very bitterness, yielded a salutary tonic. How 
 many a text should we find invested with its true and 
 touching legend. This was the lamp which lighted that 
 pilgrim through that ominous eclipse ; and this was the 
 hidden manna which in the howling wilderness restored 
 his soul. Here is the smooth stone with which he struck 
 down that terrible temptation, and here is the good sword 
 with which he struck off his head. Here is the harp on 
 which he discoursed sweet music, when God gave him 
 songs in the night ; and here is the staff with which he 
 was comforted, when he walked through the valley." 
 
 It is, then, by considerations like these, which appeal 
 to the experience of every one, that we are enabled to 
 
272 LECTURE VII. 
 
 trace the imprint of heaven on the pages of the sacred 
 word, and thus derive another evidence of the divine 
 origin of that religion of which it is the articulate 
 expression and authentic transcript. Here the question 
 of revelation and the question of inspiration are coin- 
 cident, and the discussion of the one leads us straight 
 into the heart of the other. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 THE DIVINE BOOK ITS INSPIKATION. 
 
 The idea of Inspiration seems bound up indissolubly 
 with the fact of the Incarnation. We cannot believe 
 the one without in some form or other accepting the 
 other. K the Son of God is indeed come in the flesh for 
 the redemption of man, He is come not for one age only, 
 but for every age ; not for the salvation of a people, or of 
 a generation, but for the salvation of the world. The 
 advent must have been not a mere visit to earth, but a 
 new creating epoch, — the entrance of a new course and 
 order of things, — the inauguration and commencement 
 of a continual and enduring presence. If He was ever in 
 the earth, He must be still in the earth — in it, in living 
 power and efficacy, even as in outward and palpable 
 manifestation of old. In other words, in closing His 
 earthly ministry by an august and triumphant return to 
 the skies, He must have made some effectual provision 
 for the continuance in all after times, and the eventual 
 completion of the work which He had begun ; for the in- 
 gathering of the harvest of which He had sown the 
 seeds ; for the rearing of the living temple of which He 
 had laid the foundation-stone. It would be scarcely 
 possible to believe on any evidence, the stupendous 
 miracle of the Incarnation, otherwise. Had all things 
 
 s 
 
274 LECTURE VIIL 
 
 continued as they were in the course of history and of 
 human life ever after ; were no new and enduring factors 
 seen to be at work for the regeneration of the race ; 
 were there nothing actual and tangible in the real world 
 we live in, to show that He, who eighteen hundred years 
 ago passed out of sight, is indeed ascended on high, and 
 is wielding that mysterious power in heaven and earth 
 which His disciples ascribe to Him, we could scarcely 
 help regarding the whole as an unsubstantial, however 
 bright and glorious, dream. If the life of Christ, in 
 short, is real, it must also be perpetual ; what we read 
 of in the Gospels must only be the beginning of what may 
 be seen now, and shall be seen to the end of time. 
 
 There are two ways in which, in harmony with the 
 general course of the divine procedure in the adapta- 
 tion of means to ends, we may conceive this to be done. 
 It might either be by a living representative, or by a 
 written oracle, or by both together. The great Teacher 
 and wonder-worker, though unseen, might yet speak and 
 work on earth, either through the voice and hand of 
 another, or by an authentic and enduring record of His 
 own words and deeds, — by a Vicegerent or by a Book, — 
 Himself, the while, by His ever-present Spirit, dwelling 
 in the one, and speaking through the other. Now, tha^ 
 one of these conditions actually exists in matter of fact, 
 can scarcely admit of a question. Christ does live in 
 His Church. The mystical body does truly, however 
 imperfectly, represent the living head. His personal 
 ministry and labours of mercy and love are continued in 
 the ministry and labours of one who is now, even as He 
 
TnE DIVINE BOOK— ITS INSPIRATION. 275 
 
 was before, in the world. There is, and ever since the 
 ascension there has been, an actual living society in which 
 the Spirit dwells, and His divine, unearthly life is perpetu- 
 ated, and more or less palpably manifested on the earth, — 
 truly and even marvellously, spite of manifold imperfec- 
 tions and shortcomings, reflecting His image and doing 
 His work, — bearing in her whole mind and idea of her life 
 a deep stamp and impress which never could have been 
 hers, had not He lived and borne it in transcendent mea- 
 sure before her. The glory that shone in the face of Jesus 
 Christ still lingers on the countenance of His members, 
 in whom He still lives, still suffers, still toils and prays, 
 still goes about doing good, still lifts up His hands to 
 bless the world. 
 
 Thus the one condition is fulfilled. Is the other 
 fulfilled also ? We have an enduring witness and 
 teacher of the faith. Have we also an enduring rule of 
 faith ? The one manifestly were incomplete and inade- 
 quate without the other. If the Church is to teach the 
 world, who or what is to teach the Church ? By what 
 means is the authentic knowledge of His will, the true 
 and faithful image of His life, to be perpetuated in her ? 
 By what enduring die is the impress of God to be ever 
 anew stamped upon her soul, and the sacred lineaments 
 to be preserved in unfading freshness and authentic 
 truthfulness from age to age ? If she is to shine through 
 all the darkness of the world, till the great sun again 
 shall rise, whence is she to derive her light ? One of 
 two things at least seems to be very clear ; if she is to 
 fulfil at all her heaven-given function, or even perman- 
 
276 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 ently to exist on the earth, either she must have in her 
 hand an inspired rule of truth, — or she must be her- 
 self inspired. She must get the sure knowledge of the 
 faith direct from heaven, or learn it from some heaven- 
 provided oracle. Grant the truth of the Incarnation, or, 
 in other words, the fact of a divine, supernatural revela- 
 tion at all, and assuming that it cannot he the will of 
 God that that Incarnation should fail of its end, that 
 revelation die away and perish from the world, there 
 follows as a direct and almost inevitable conclusion, 
 either an infallible Bible or an infallible Church. 
 
 The special nature of the revelation itself strongly 
 confirms this conclusion. It was characteristically and 
 pervasively miraculous. The Incarnation was itself a 
 miracle, and all that followed after it, and sprung out of 
 it, was a continual succession of mu'acles. It began with 
 a miraculous birth, and closed with a miraculous ascen- 
 sion, and the whole path between was illuminated with 
 the glory of a divine, miraculous life. Christ's own 
 teaching was accredited by miracle, and so was that of 
 His disciples. As they spake in the name of God, so 
 they bore with them the visible and miraculous attestation 
 of the authority of God, He "Himself bearing witness to 
 them, both with signs and wonders, and with diverse 
 miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His 
 own will." Did the miraculous then stop here? If it 
 accredited the messengers, did it fail also to give and to 
 guide the message ? Did God indeed miraculously set 
 His seal on these men as His appointed ambassadors 
 and spokesmen to their own age, and to every age, and 
 
THE DIVINE BOOK— ITS INSPIRATION. 277 
 
 did He take no effectual means to secure that the words 
 they spoke, and delivered down to the end of time, should 
 be His words, and not, as otherwise in large measure 
 they must be, their own. 
 
 But is the Bible, in point of fact, such a book ? Have 
 we any good reason to believe that it is in any true and 
 proper sense Christ's book, even as the " Dialogues " are 
 Plato's, and the " Novum Organon'' Bacon's? We have 
 already seen that there is a very strong presumption 
 indeed, in favour of the existence of such a book, but the 
 ultimate decision must manifestly depend not on pre- 
 sumption, or a priori considerations of any kind, but on 
 the direct and proper evidence applicable to the case. 
 
 In one point of view the question of inspiration runs 
 up essentially into the general question of revelation. 
 The traces of a more than human orisrin in the intrinsic 
 character of the sacred books constitute a part, and a 
 most essential part, of the evidence of Christianity as a 
 divine, supernatural economy ; they are also as obviouslj'' 
 and directly an evidence of inspiration. To prove, in the 
 sense in which the Christian apologist maintains it, that 
 the Bible is a divine book, is necessarily also to prove 
 that it is an inspired book. The two propositions indeed 
 are identical ; for the very thing we mean when we say 
 that the Holy Scriptures are inspired, is simply this, 
 that they are the product of a special and supernatural 
 intervention of God, — that they are from heaven, and 
 not of men. In this point of view accordingly, the 
 question has already received full discussion in our last 
 Lecture. I proceed now to remark. 
 
278 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 I. '' Scripture " claims to be inspired. It does so in 
 many ways : — 
 
 (1.) By an appeal to the promise of God; of Jeliovah, 
 to the prophets of old. — of Christ, to His apostles. 
 " Behold I have put my words in thy mouth," saith the 
 one (Jer. i. 9). " He shall guide you into all truth," 
 saith the other (John xvi. 13). 
 
 (2.) By explicit statement of the doctrine. " All scrip- 
 tures is given by inspiration of God " (2 Tim. iii. 16). 
 " Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the 
 Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. 1. 20). 
 
 (3.) By habitual recognition, as 
 
 {a) In formula of reference; ''As the Holy Ghost 
 saith" (Heb. iii. 7). " The Holy Ghost this signifying" 
 (Heb. ix. 8). " As he spake by the mouth of His holy pro- 
 phets which have been since the world began" (Luke i. 70). 
 
 (b) In argumentative citation ; as " How then doth 
 David in Spirit call Him Lord ? " " If David " (in the 
 Spirit) "calls Him Lord, how is He then his son?" 
 (Mat. xxii. 43-45.) 
 
 (c) In explicit assertion. " Thus saith the Lord." 
 "The word of the Lord came unto me saying." " For I 
 neither received it (the gospel) of man, neither was I 
 taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus." 
 
 Of this, then, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt. 
 There is the tone and language of Scripture throughout, 
 in speaking of itself. It distinctly claims inspiration — 
 claims to speak in God's name, God's words. 
 
 II. Then, secondly, its character justifies the claim 
 attested by miracles from without; with signs and won- 
 
THE DIVINE BOOK— ITS INSPIRATION. Tid 
 
 ders and gifts of the Holy Ghost accompanying the words 
 and deeds of its authors, it itself shines with a pure, 
 celestial lustre, as of the shekiuah of old, that is scarcely 
 less miraculous. 
 
 By its majesty and purity, by its power and sanctity, 
 by its spiritual depth and prophetic insight, by the sacred 
 grace and germinant force of its language, and the lofty 
 grandeur of its thoughts ; by its wondrous unity in the 
 midst of endless variety and manifoldness, by its catholic 
 breadth and cosmopolitan adaptation to all men and to 
 all times, by its exhaustless meanings and divine quick- 
 ening energy ; above all, by its light and power, with the 
 mysterious influence which has ever accompanied it, to 
 convince the conscience, to renovate the heart, and to 
 transform and glorify the life ; by all, in short, that has 
 made it in all ages, and in all lands, the best of books 
 alike for high and low, for rich and poor, for learned and 
 unlearned, the exponent at once of their truest, deepest 
 nature, and the awakener and sustainer of their highest, 
 holiest life, the comfort of the sorrowful, the friend of 
 the poor, the balm of the penitent, the light of the per- 
 plexed, the quickening breath of saints, heroes, martyrs, 
 the guiding clue of life, the hope of the dying ; — by these 
 and other such signs have we seen it stand forth before 
 us radiant in the light of heaven, and bearing as on its 
 forehead the very seal and signature of God. We shall 
 not, therefore, recur to this argument. We shall assume 
 and proceed upon the fact of inspiration as already 
 proved, and devote our remaining time to some remarks 
 on its proper definition and import. 
 
280 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 There are three several senses in which the word " In- 
 spiration " may be taken, and in point of fact has been 
 taken, with relation to this subject, and which it is of 
 the utmost importance clearly to distinguish. 
 
 1. There is the Inspiration of genius ; the inspiration of 
 a Plato, a Bacon, or a Shakspere, — the sublime intuitions 
 of truth, and visions of glory and beauty, that are given to 
 the loftiest minds in their loftiest moods ; the workings 
 of nature in her highest sphere, bilt still of nature and 
 of nature only. It is obvious that this has nothing in 
 common with the special inspiration, which we have 
 claimed for the Holy Scriptures, the very end of which is 
 not to vivify and clarify the truths of nature, but to 
 reveal truths above nature — to shed a clear and unerr- 
 ing light on a path on which all earthly guidance fails. 
 " He shall teach you all things," says Christ, speaking 
 of that inspiration which He was to give to His disciples, 
 " and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever 
 I have spoken unto you." " He shall guide you into all 
 truth," the truth, that is, concerning salvation, and the 
 world unseen. To such a work as this manifestly the mere 
 inspiration of genius has no relation whatever. Then, 
 
 2. There is the Inspiration of moral goodness^ or of 
 ordinary spiritual influence, — in other words, the illu- 
 minating and sanctifying grace of the Holy Ghost, be- 
 stowed in larger or lesser measure on all believers to 
 lead them in the way of truth, and create them anew 
 unto good works ; the inspiratio caritatis spoken of by 
 Augustine, and in the Communion Collect in the " Book 
 of Common Prayer." In this sense every Christian, from 
 
THE DIVINE BOOK— ITS INSPIRATION. 281 
 
 the simplest child to the loftiest saint and master of 
 Christian thought — from a Dorcas or a Phoebe to a 
 Paul or an Augustine, is inspired. It is more difficult 
 to distinguish this, by any sharp and compact definition 
 from the special inspiration which we ascribe to the 
 writers of Holy Scripture, inasmuch as the former equally 
 with the latter is supernatural — as really beyond the 
 mere workings of nature, as the visions of an Isaiah or a 
 John. It is, too, illuminating as well as purifying, an 
 unction of spiritual vision as well as of inward sanctity — 
 unveiling truth as well as kindling love, the very " Spirit 
 of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ ; by 
 which the eyes of our understanding are enlightened, 
 that we may know what is the hope of His calling, and 
 what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the 
 saints." Still we may distinguish from this the special 
 inspiration of Scripture, if not with regard to its source, 
 at least with regard to its effects, and define it, as 
 
 3. The Inspiration of infallible guidance. This clearly 
 was the very purpose for which the special illumination 
 of the first messengers of the faith was required, and 
 for which it was expressly promised to them by their 
 Lord. Thus alone could the heavenly Comforter and 
 Guide be said " to teach them all things, and bring 
 all things to their remembrance ; " — " to guide them 
 into all the truth;" — "to show them things to come." 
 Thus alone could they be qualified to fulfil their sacred 
 function as " the ambassadors of Christ, and stewards of 
 the mysteries of God," both delivering in uncorrupted 
 purity His message to the men of their own age, and 
 
282 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 handing it down in unerring words to the generations 
 following. The inspiration of genius unveils the deepest 
 truths of nature, but does not go beyond nature. The 
 inspiration of grace apprehends and realises the truths 
 of revelation, but does not reveal. The inspiration of 
 the sacred Book does both. It is the inspiration of 
 which Paul speaks when he says, " I certify you, 
 brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is 
 not after man ; for I neither received it of man, neither 
 was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." 
 The inspiration, therefore, of which we are now speak- 
 ing, may be thus briefly defined in contradistinction 
 alike to the inspiration of genius and the inspiration of 
 grace;— as distinguished from the former, it is Super- 
 natural, — as distinguished from the latter, it is Extra- 
 ordinary and Infallible. 
 
 So much for the positive aspect of the doctrine. It will 
 be necessary, however, before closing, to consider it also 
 on its negative side, with the view alike of obviating pos- 
 sible misapprehension, and more definitely estimating 
 results. It is important not only to know what Inspira- 
 tion is, but also what it is not. 
 
 (1.) Then, It does not imply any suppression or 
 abeyance of the natural powers and faculties of the 
 writers. It neither extinguishes their individuality, nor 
 restrains the free play of their human thoughts and 
 feelings. It elevates, illuminates, guides, informs the 
 essential and indestructible powers of the soul, but 
 does not supersede them. It is not the supplanting of 
 the human by the divine, but the blending and mutual 
 
THE DIVINE BOOK— ITS INSPIRA TION. 283 
 
 interaction of the human and the divine. In this sense, 
 therefore, it is dynamical, not mechanical, — not a mere 
 dictation of words, but an inspiration of thoughts, feel- 
 ings, truths. The words, too, are indeed inspired, but only 
 in and with the things of which they are the expression 
 and the symbol. The sacred writers speak and write not 
 only what they have received, but what they have inwardly 
 felt and realised, — the truths they have learned, the 
 experiences they have passed through, the combats, 
 struggles, aspirations, they have j)ersonaIly known, — so 
 that the words they utter come forth, not from the depths 
 of the divine mind only, but from the depths also of their 
 own hearts. Thus in the psalms of David we have not 
 only God's words, but David's words, the utterance of 
 his inmost heart, and of all the varied experiences 
 of his life, — as shepherd, warrior, patriot, king, a wor- 
 shipper, a penitent, an exile, a pardoned sinner, a trium- 
 phant saint, — and in them we are permitted to witness, 
 and in a sense to share, the whole work and warfare of 
 his life — his consolations and victories, his combats, 
 struggles, and wounds. 
 
 Hence one of the peculiar excellencies of Holy Scripture. 
 It is as utterly human as it is truly and absolutely divine. 
 It comes as closely near us, as it rises far above us. It is at 
 once our sacred teacher, and our personal bosom friend. 
 Speaking human words, uttering human feelings, realis- 
 ing human sins, sorrows, temptations, and unlocking the 
 fountains of human tears, it is in a special sense like to 
 Him who is at once our Master and our Brother, the Son 
 of Mary, and the Son of God, — who hath the tongue of 
 
284 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 the learned, to speak a word in season to them that are 
 wear}', because He was in all points tempted like as they 
 are, yet without sin. 
 
 Hence, too, the endless variety of the sacred writings, 
 and their marvelloas adaptation to all sorts and condi- 
 tions of men. Not only does each writer deliver his own 
 special message, but follows his own special bent of 
 thought and language. Thus the Book is rich, at once 
 in those touches of our common nature that make all 
 men kin, and in those fresh traits of individual life 
 which touch the sympathies of particular men. 
 
 While, however, this characteristic of the sacred 
 writings is the source of some of their greatest excel- 
 lencies, to it also are to be traced some of their 
 greatest difficulties. Where the human and the divine 
 are so inextricably blended in one common result, it 
 becomes absolutely impossible clearly to discriminate 
 the one from the other, to fix any definite point, where 
 the one element ends and the other begins. We cannot 
 determine a priori, either the kind or the amount of those 
 human characteristics which may in the divine wisdom 
 be found compatible, with the perfection of the final 
 result, what freedom of historical detail, what popular 
 rendering of scientific facts, what peculiarities of style 
 and thought, what lesser irregularities in grammar or 
 in diction, what liberty in quoting and in accommodat- 
 ing remembered words, what necessary anthropomor- 
 phisms and partial views and perspective glimpses of 
 truth, — which in their absolute fulness cannot be uttered 
 by man. 
 
THE DIVINE BOOK— ITS INSPIRATION. 285 
 
 All this was inevitable from the very conditions of the 
 problem which the divine wisdom had to solve, how 
 best to speak of things divine in human words, and from 
 a human point of view. Of this only we may be 
 sure, that whatever of the distinctively human is per- 
 mitted to mingle with the purely divine, is left there 
 just because it is best that it should be there, and 
 because what might appear to us imperfections in the 
 parts, only contribute in the eye of unerring wisdom to 
 the more absolute perfection of the whole. 
 
 (2.) Inspiration does not imjoly an equal clearness and 
 fulness in the exhibition of divine truth in every part 
 of the same hook. On the contrary, it is one of its 
 excellencies that it is progressive, proceeding from less 
 to more, from the germ to the ripened fruit, from the 
 faint dawn to the perfect day. 
 
 I am tempted in conclusion, for a moment, to refer to 
 the analogy which may be traced between the rearing 
 of the sublime temple of inspired truth, and the 
 rearing by slow degrees, through a long succession 
 of years, and by the co-operation of many hands, of a 
 stately earthly pile, — some vast cathedral church, or 
 temple of learning, of science and philosophy. In the 
 one case, just as in the other, the labourers are many, 
 but the design is one. That design to human eye grows 
 and extends, as the successive segments of the vast 
 edifice rise from the ground, and resolve themselves as 
 they advance into the varying form of solid masonry, 
 traceried window, columned aisle, Gothic archway or lofty 
 tower, — but it does not grow. It existed in the architect's 
 
286 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 mind, and before the architect's mind's eye, in absolute 
 perfection and completeness from the first. Meanwhile 
 there is not order, but disorder ; not beauty, but defor- 
 mity, save only here and there in the separate parts, 
 as some graceful shaft or delicately chiselled capital 
 comes fresh from the skilled artist's hand. Crowds of 
 workmen throng the ground, and cross and recross each 
 other's path in multitudinous confusion, obliterating 
 every trace of symmetrical form, or of intelligible design. 
 Each knows his own part of the work and does it, but 
 knows little and thinks little of that of others, or of 
 the great whole to which all alike contribute their share. 
 Some dig the deep foundation ; some rear the walls, 
 some shape the groined arch, or carve the delicate tracery. 
 Some wield the mattock, some the trowel, some the 
 chisel. Some work in stone, some in marble, some in 
 wood, some in iron or brass. Some are famous for 
 their strength, some for their taste, some for their skill. 
 But all work together to the fulfilment of the same 
 design — the realisation of the same sublime conception — 
 as day by day the mighty edifice grows under their 
 hands, and rises up to the sky, and reveals more and 
 more its fair proportions and manifold uses, till at last 
 the headstone is brought forth with shouting, and the 
 unsubstantial vision in the architect's soul is translated 
 into everlasting stone, and the finished work remains 
 the ornament and the pride of the land that owns it 
 from generation to generation. 
 
 Even so it is that the living temple of God's 
 revealed truth was slowly reared in the course of 
 
THE DIVINE BOOK-ITS INSPIRATION. 287 
 
 many ages, and by the instrumentality of many in- 
 spired penmen, from the first promise at the gate of 
 Eden, to the last blessing in the Apocalypse, — and 
 now it is ours to dwell beneath its shadow, and to 
 tread its sacred courts, and to feed upon the hidden 
 manna that lies within its holy place, and to listen to 
 the grand symphony, in which the voices of Patriarchs, 
 Prophets, Psalmists, Evangelists, Apostles, blend toge- 
 ther and peal through its lofty arches evermore, and to 
 think the while of those thousands, and tens of thousands, 
 who in successive generations have found in it a home 
 and a rest, and now slumber beneath its shade, waiting 
 for the resurrection of the just. 
 
 "Walk about Zion, and go round about her; tell 
 the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, con- 
 sider her palaces ; that ye may tell it to the generation 
 following. For this God is our God for ever and ever ; 
 He will be our guide even unto death." 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES OP THE BIBLE. 
 
 In entering on tlie consideration of Bible difficulties, it 
 may be as well to distinguish between two things, very 
 closely and vitally connected indeed, but still, in them- 
 selves, essentially distinct. The Inspiration of the 
 Bible is one thing ; the Truth of Christianity, generally, 
 as a divine revelation, is another. Of the former there 
 are various theories, or at least various shades of opinion, 
 even amongst Christian men ; of the latter there is 
 none, and room for none. The great supernatural facts 
 and dispensations which the Bible records, and in which 
 the very essence of our religion consists, might be 
 absolutely true, and true as the Bible relates them ; and 
 yet that sacred history itself not be in all points a very 
 minute detail, strictly exact and accurate. The facts 
 themselves, in short, are one thing : the record of the 
 facts, and the book which contains that record, is an- 
 other. Thus the great leading events in the history of 
 the first Napoleon, and of the tremendous European 
 struggle of which he was the central figure, may be and 
 is as certain to us as the existence of this world, or of 
 ourselves ; and yet the most authentic and faithful 
 history of those eventful days extant in our language or 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 289 
 
 in any language may not be free from imperfection, or 
 even considerable errors in detail. The inaccuracies or 
 even serious misstatements in, say Sir Walter Scott's Life 
 of Napoleon, or in that of Bourrienne, or of Thiers, do 
 not raise within any rational mind the shadow of a 
 doubt, either as to the historical reality of the life itself, 
 or of its great leading features. In the same way the 
 grand outstanding facts of our Lord's manifestation in 
 the flesh might be absolutely true, and yet the evangeli- 
 cal histories which relate them not so plenarily inspired 
 as to preserve them from all possibility of error, in trivial 
 and circumstantial matters. Nay, we can even conceive 
 the facts to be true, and yet the recorded history of 
 them not inspired at all. Thus the Son of God, the 
 promised Consolation of Israel, might have come in the 
 flesh, just as we know He did come in the fulness of 
 time, been born of a woman of the seed of David, lived, 
 taught, wrought miracles, died, risen again, ascended on 
 high, and sent down from on high the Pentecostal fire, 
 which still burns in the hearts of men, and shall burn 
 on to the end of time, — and yet the preservation of those 
 momentous facts for the consolation and help of all 
 succeeding generations might have been left, conceivably 
 at least, to the ordinary channels of authentic history ; 
 and amongst all authentic histories there are, as we 
 have already shown, none that bear so clear and deep a 
 stamp of authenticity as these wondrous and imperisli- 
 able annals. Call them inspired or not inspired, still 
 they are true, and therefore, the wondrous life they 
 record, and the religion which is bound up inseparably 
 
 T 
 
290 LECTURE IX. 
 
 with it, are divine. It might have pleased God, had so 
 it seemed good to Him in His infinite wisdom, thus 
 to leave us with an authentic and substantially certain 
 knowledge of a divine and living Christ, hut without 
 an inspired Bible. He has not so left us. In our last 
 Lecture we were able, I believe, demonstrably to show 
 that we have in the Bible, not only a substantially 
 authentic and trustworthy history, but an inspired and 
 infallible record of the great facts on which our religion 
 is based. But what I am now wishing to point out and 
 to impress upon you is this, — that even though we had 
 not succeeded in that proof, even then it would by no 
 means follow that our preaching is vain, and your faith 
 also vain. The divine Christ is one thing; the divine 
 Book is another ; and though scepticism, by a gigantic 
 achievement which it has not yet accomplished, and 
 never will accomplish, should rob us of the one, it will 
 not even then have robbed us of the other. The ques- 
 tion of inspiration, in short, unspeakably important as 
 it is, concerns, strictly speaking, only the external 
 defences or outworks of the faith ; the divine-human 
 life of Christ is the citadel itself. In contending for 
 strict views of inspiration, we are contending for the 
 integrity of a great Christian doctrine ; in vindicating 
 the authenticity of the gospel history, we are defending 
 the very foundation on which Christianity is based. 
 
 Let us proceed, then, to our brief survey of Bible 
 difficulties with this important distinction clearly fixed 
 in our mind. It may even at the outset greatly help to 
 calm the mind of any who may have been unduly dis- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 291 
 
 turbed by those difficulties, to remember that though 
 we could conceive ourselves to lose this battle, even 
 then all would not be lost; that the truth of Chris- 
 tianity and of the great salvation of God, does not 
 stand or fall even with that view of inspiration which we 
 hold and defend ; that we are fighting here rather only 
 for one of the goodly towers and bulwarks of the city of 
 God, than for its deep and eternal foundation. 
 
 The difficulties of the Bible have been in our day 
 greatly exaggerated — exaggerated alike by the baseless 
 assumptions and hasty conclusions of adversaries, and 
 by the vague and ungrounded fears of its friends. " In 
 the present day," says an excellent writer, whose fresh, 
 vigorous, and memorable volume, entitled — " Rays of 
 Light, or Church Themes and Life- Problems," * I would 
 most cordially recommend to you, '' in the present day, 
 although we are hearing but little about the difficulties 
 of infidelity, we hear many talking loudly about the 
 difficulties and discrepancies of the Bible. These are 
 flared up and paraded in the broad light of day, as if to 
 deter men from the study of a book in which they 
 abound, or at least to prejudge and prejudice its claims 
 as being a revelation from God. We hear much of the 
 difficulties which the Bible has created ; but little or 
 nothing of those it has cleared up. And what now 
 would be thought of one continually pointing to the 
 spots in the sun, while ignoring the light of day ? 
 or what of one who should refuse to enjoy that light, 
 until these spots were either wholly expunged, or fully 
 
 * By the Rev. John Philip, M.A., Fordoun. 
 
292 LECTURE IX. 
 
 explained ? Equally foolish are those who, while harp- 
 ing perpetually on the difficulties of Scripture, refuse to 
 acknowledge the benefit of revelation, or to be guided by 
 the light it has shed on the darkness which preceded it/' 
 
 Such as they are, however, it becomes us fairly and 
 candidly to consider them, and this we propose to do in 
 the remarks that are to follow. Of course a general survey 
 of the ground, and a more particular notice of the more 
 salient points, is all we can attempt in a single lecture. 
 
 The chief difficulties of Scripture, real or alleged, may 
 all be arranged under three heads, — Scientific difficul- 
 ties ; Historical difficulties ; Moral difficulties. I shall 
 consider each of these separately in the order in which I 
 have now named them — dwelling, however, chiefly on the 
 first two.* 
 
 1. Of scientific difficulties properly so called, or appa- 
 rent contradictions of the facts and laws of nature as 
 established by modern scientific discovery, very few 
 indeed have been alleged even by the adversaries of the 
 faith. The wonder truly is, not that those difficulties 
 are so many, but that they are so few; not that they 
 should be capable of being found, but that they should 
 require so much ingenuity and keenness of research to 
 find them, and to make anything plausible whatever in 
 the way of objection out of them. It cannot be denied 
 that the statements of Scripture, taken as a whole, are 
 in perfect harmony with the most advanced results of 
 science, that the general scope and tenor of the view 
 
 * The third was dealt with by a subsequent Lecturer in the same course. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 293 
 
 given us in the one volume, of tlie general course or order 
 of the world, is in an entire accord with that revealed, 
 everyday, with greater clearness and fulness in the other ; 
 that in short, we may live habitually under the teaching 
 of Holy Scripture, converse with it daily and hourly, 
 become intimately familiar with all its ways of viewing 
 things, alike in nature and in providence, and yet not 
 find ourselves coming into perpetual collision, or almost 
 ever even into apparent collision, with any fact or law 
 established by modern human discovery. The points of 
 agreement are manifold ; the points even of seeming 
 difference are trivial and few. Any one may easily 
 satisfy himself of this, by simply asking himself this 
 question, — Laying out of account the single case of 
 the first chapter of Genesis, when did even the shadow 
 of a scientific difficulty cross your mind, in connection 
 either with any Bible text, or clearly established fact of 
 science ? True, the Bible does not teach science, or speak 
 of the familiar phenomena of the world in the language 
 of science. But in this, the most common candour ought 
 to recognise its excellence, not its defect. Its grand 
 design, and therefore its single aim, is to teach not science 
 but religion, and in doing this it fitly speaks not in the 
 language of science, but of common life and of common 
 men. Hence it speaks familiarly of the sun and the 
 stars rising and setting, of the earth being established 
 that it could not be moved, and of the falling of a stone 
 to the ground, and of everything else in the outer world 
 just as they appear to us, and are to us, totally without 
 reference to the earth's motion on its axis, or of the law 
 
294 LECTURE IX. 
 
 of gravitation, — -just as every rational man does in the in- 
 tercourse of common life, and even every writer however 
 profoundly versed in science, except when writing for a 
 distinctly scientific purpose. Do you suppose that a Her- 
 schell or a Whewell could not make the familiar remark 
 that the sun had risen an hour ago, without pedantically 
 referring to the fact that it had not really risen at all, 
 but that the earth had only moved a little on its axis ? 
 
 But there is much more significance than at first 
 sight appears, in the fact that the Bible does not teach 
 science, or mix up its sublime discoveries of the will 
 and dispensations of God with scientific questions. 
 Other writings of the same ancient times, and especially 
 the religious writings, do deal with science, and deal 
 with it absurdly and erroneously. The mythologies of 
 Egypt and of India, the philosophy of Greece even in 
 its highest noon, and in the writings of Plato and of 
 Aristotle, are full of the crudities and errors, which were 
 universally prevalent in that age of the infancy of science, 
 and which it was not given to the most illustrious pion- 
 eers of the race to rise above. A giant in speculative 
 philosophy, — in matters of physical research Plato him- 
 self is but a child, and thinks as a child, and speaks as 
 a child. Why is it otherwise with the writers of Holy 
 Scripture ? Why in its sacred pages is there such a 
 conspicuous absence of that element of scientific crudity 
 and wild extravagance which is so universal else- 
 where ? Why does it not ever and anon astound us 
 with such palpable blunders in physical fact and geo- 
 graphical description as we find in the writings even 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 295 
 
 of Herodotus the " father of history " ? Why, with that 
 grand reserve on all abstruse questions of science 
 which it was not its business to teach, and which the 
 men of those ancient times, even had it been taught them, 
 could not have understood, is there at the same time 
 such a perfect general consistency, with all that scientific 
 research has in the course of successive asfes brousfht 
 to light ? How is it that, written in the dim, grey dawn 
 of human knowledge, when, in the lack of all true science, 
 the whole world of thought was a phantom-land of 
 whimsical fancies and crude hypotheses, it presents us 
 with no exploded scientific fact, or worn-out and obsolete 
 theory, and can bear to be read with keen scrutinizing 
 eyes in the nineteenth century after Christ, even as in 
 the days of Moses or of Joshua ? How are we to explain 
 this ? What account are we to give of a phenomenon so 
 singular, so altogether unparalleled in the literature of 
 the ancient world ? For my part, I can see no rational 
 or probable explanation of it, unless we are content to 
 trace in it the manifest working of the finger of God, 
 of the present and infallible guidance of the divine, om- 
 niscient, all-revealing Spirit. 
 
 But then there is the miraculous element, so charac- 
 teristic alike of the Old Testament and the New, — those 
 frequent interruptions of physical order and law as 
 revealed by science, which in the scripture narratives 
 are connected with the great epochs of the divine dis- 
 pensations ? — Of course there is this element, and we 
 have already shown that there could not possibly have 
 been a divine supernatural revelation without it ; and 
 
296 LECTURE IX. 
 
 we have shown too, that the truth of miraculous facts is 
 not incompatible with the strictest scientific views of 
 natural fact and law. We do not maintain that miracles 
 occur in the ordinary course of nature as revealed by 
 science, that water is turned into wine, or that deadly 
 diseases depart by the force of natural law at the whis- 
 per of a human voice, or the touch of a human hand. 
 Miracles are not facts of nature, but facts above and 
 beyond nature, with which science therefore has nothing 
 to do, and which it can neither contradict nor prove. 
 Nay, so far as science has anything to say in regard to 
 miracles at all, it speaks, as we had occasion to show 
 in a former Lecture, rather for them, than against her, 
 for she, too, has her miracles ; her great initial and 
 creative epochs, when all her ordinary processes of 
 sequence and of law palpably fail her as an explanation 
 of the phenomena with which she has to deal, and which 
 seem to demand the interposition of a direct fiat of 
 divine will and power, identical in principle with the 
 miraculous facts to which the Scriptures bear witness. 
 Creation, let it never be forgotten, if there be such a 
 thing as creation, is nothing other and nothing less than 
 a miracle. It is a thing not within the course of nature, 
 which indeed it originates and calls into being, but 
 above and before it. It is an everlasting witness to the 
 living presence, independent being, and immediate will 
 and power of God. 
 
 But what of the Mosaic account of the creation, and 
 of the alleged discrepancies between it and the corre- 
 sponding revelations of geological science ? Yes, this is 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 297 
 
 in our day the great battle-field of faith and unbelief, so 
 far as the relation of science and revelation are con- 
 cerned ; but it is a battle-field which, as it seems to me, 
 we need not fear to approach. Already nine-tenths of 
 the difficulties, which were once thought to beset that 
 mysterious territory, have vanished before the light of a 
 sounder Biblical interpretation, and a fuller scientific 
 induction, and the rest, if any indeed of serious moment 
 still remain, will, I cannot doubt, speedily follow them. 
 First, The gratuitous imagination that the Scripture 
 taught the original creation of the world, and the 
 absolute beginning of our present mundane system as 
 coincident with the creation of man, was exploded, as an 
 unwarrantable inference from the inspired words. 
 
 Next, The hasty assumption that the six grand cycles 
 of the Creator's working — those mighty days of God — 
 were necessarily to be understood as simply literal days 
 of common time, measured by a single revolution of the 
 earth on its axis, was exposed and abandoned. 
 
 Then, The still more natural, and therefore, more rooted 
 error, that the appearance of light must have succeeded 
 the creation of the sun and the other celestial orbs, and 
 must have followed from it as its immediate effect, was 
 dismissed as a scientific delusion. Take away these three 
 errors alone, and already two-thirds of the supposed dis- 
 crepancies between the Mosaic record and the " Testimony 
 of the Rocks," vanish with them. For the rest, and taking 
 the entire Mosaic record as a whole, what I am struck with, 
 is not the occasional appearance of diff'erence, but the 
 grand and truly wonderful harmony of the two accounts ; 
 
298 LECTURE IX. 
 
 a harmony which, when we consider that the sacred text, 
 written in the very infancy of science, or rather before 
 science was born, has in the great leading features of 
 its representations anticipated the highest results of 
 science by three thousand years, must appear scarcely 
 less than miraculous. Whether we regard the Mosaic 
 oracle as a literal historic record of the successive acts 
 of creation, such as they might have appeared to an 
 angel-witness, hovering over the scene on viewless wings ; 
 or, as seems more likely, a grand inspired poem or psalm, 
 presenting in shadowy outline as in prophetic vision, in 
 a series of sublime dissolving views, the great successive 
 epochs of the Creator's working, the accordance is almost 
 equally striking. " There is," says Dr McCosh (Chris- 
 tianity and Positivism, pp. 434), " account for it as we 
 may, a general correspondence between the record in the 
 Bible, and the record in stone. My friend, Hugh Miller, 
 may not have been able to point out an identity in every 
 particular, but he has certainly established a general 
 congruity. There is an order, and there is a congruity, 
 very much the same in both. In both there is light 
 beforei the sun appears. In Genesis, the fiat goes forth 
 ' Let there be light, aud there is light,' the first day — 
 and the sun comes forth only on the fourth, in accord- 
 ance with science, which tells us that the earth was thrown 
 off ages before the sun had been condensed into the 
 centre of the planetary system. In both the inanimate 
 comes before the animate ; in both the grass and herb 
 and tree before the animal ; in both fishes and fowls 
 before creeping things and cattle. In both we have as 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 299 
 
 the last of the train, man standing upright, and facing 
 the sky ; made of the dust of the ground, and yet filled 
 with the inspiration of God. 
 
 " As both agree in the history of the past, so both agree 
 as to the future of the world. The Scriptures point not 
 obscurely to a day of dissolution. ' The heavens and the 
 earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, 
 reserved unto fire against the day of judgment.' All men 
 of science are agreed that, according to the laws now in 
 operation, there is in our system a wasting of energy in the 
 shape of heat, which must in an indefinite time bring our 
 cosmos to a state of chillness and death ; tobe followed, some 
 think, by an accumulation of heat, and a conflagration 
 which will reduce all things to star dust ; out of which, 
 by the agglomeration of matter, new worlds will arise. 
 It may be rash in any one to imagine, that he sees so far 
 into the future, in which new powers may appear as they 
 have certainly done in the past : but this, it can be 
 demonstrated, is and must be the issue accordins: to 
 the powers now working. Such is the correspondence 
 between Science and Scripture. You will find no such 
 correspondence between modern discovery, and any work 
 of heathen mythology, eastern or western. Prima facie , 
 there must be a great truth in that opening chapter of 
 Genesis which has anticipated geology by three thousand 
 years." 
 
 In fine, and in a single word, the divinity and true 
 inspiration of the Scripture appears, first, In its general 
 reserve in regard to all distinctively scientific questions ; 
 and secondly, In its remarkable accordance with scientific 
 
300 LECTURE IX. 
 
 truth, whenever the great and only purpose of its reve- 
 lations brings it to the confines of the scientific sphere. 
 It is everywhere non-scientific, yet everywhere consist- 
 ent with the results of science. 
 
 II. On the second class of Bible difficulties, those of 
 a historical kind, our time will compel us to dwell some- 
 what more briefly. Here, also, the number and import- 
 ance of the apparent discrepancies have been greatly 
 magnified, and those which present any serious difficulty 
 to the candid inquirer are singularly few ; so few indeed, 
 as to constitute, when rightly considered, the strongest 
 possible proof of the thoroughly historical character and 
 minute fidelity of ancient writings, dealing so freely and 
 fearlessly in historical details, and touching at so many 
 points the general history of the world. Taken as a 
 whole, and tried especially at those points where their 
 fidelity can be most thoroughly tested, they are charac- 
 terised throughout by an exact accuracy and vivid truth- 
 falness of , fact and colouring, totally alien from the 
 general style of contemporary histories, and to which 
 accordingly there is no parallel in the literature of the 
 ancient world. Fresh facts are continually coming to 
 light to illustrate this remarkable characteristic, and 
 often turning, as by a sudden flash of illumination, a 
 seeming difficulty into a most convincing evidence of 
 truth. The Pyramids of Egypt, the Mounds of Babylon 
 and of Nineveh, the plains of Moab, the altar at Athens, 
 the hills and valleys of the Holy Land, all combine to 
 demonstrate the photographic truthfulness of historic 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 301 
 
 pictures, which never could have been drawn by human 
 hand, unless they had been drawn from the life. Let 
 me give a single instance selected out of many, as an 
 illustration of the general fact of which I am now speak- 
 ing. Here, then, is the picture which Moses gives of the 
 general forms and ways of life, in that dim and long- 
 forgotten world of the Egyptian Pharaohs in the days of 
 Joseph and of Moses, as briefly summarised by Professor 
 Rawlinson : — 
 
 ''The monarchy noted in Gen. xii. continues. The 
 king still bears the title of Pharaoh. He is absolute or 
 nearly so, committing men to prison (xl. 3), and releasing 
 them (v. 21) ; or, if he please, ordering their execution 
 (v. 22) ; appointing officers over the whole land, and tax- 
 ing it apparently at his pleasure (xli, 34) ; raising a 
 foreigner suddenly to the second position in the kingdom, 
 and requiring allwithout exception to render him obedi- 
 ence (vv. 41-44). At the same time, the king has coun- 
 sellors or ministers, elders of his house, (I. 7) and others 
 whose advice he asks, and without whose sanction he 
 does not seem to act in important matters (xli. 37, 38). 
 His court is organised after the fashion of later oriental 
 monarchies. He has a body-guard, under a com- 
 mander or ' captain,' one of whose chief duties is to 
 execute the sentences which he pronounces on offenders 
 (xxxvii. 36). He has a train of confectioners, at the 
 head of whom is a chief * confectioner ' (xl. 2), and a 
 train of cup-bearers, at the head of whom is a ' chief 
 cup-bearer ' (ib.). He rides in a chariot, and all men 
 bow the knee before him (xli. 43). The state of Egypt 
 
302 LECTURE IX. 
 
 is one of somewliat advanced civilisation. There are 
 distinct classes of soldiers (xxxvii. 36), priests (xlvii. 
 22), physicians (1. 2), and herdsmen (xlvi. 34; xlvii. 6). 
 There is also a class of ' magicians,' or sacred scribes 
 (xli. 8), who may be either a subdivision of the priests, 
 or form a distinct profession. The name given to this last 
 class implies that writing is practised. Among other 
 indications of advance in civilisation are, the mention of 
 ' fine linen,' as worn by some (ib. 42) of a golden neck- 
 chain (ib.), a silver drinking cup (xliv. 2), waggons (xlv. 
 21), chariots (1. 9), a coffin or mummy case (ib. 26), and 
 the practice of embalming (ib. 2, 26). 
 
 Among special peculiarities of the nation are (1.) The 
 position of the priests, which is evidently very exalted 
 (xli. 45), and more particularly their privilege with respect 
 to their lands, which they held by a different tenure from 
 the rest of the people (xlvii. 22). (2.) The existence of 
 customs implying strong feelings with respect to purity 
 or impurity, and a great dread of material defilement 
 (xliii. 32). (3.) A special dislike or contempt for the 
 occupation of herdsmen. And (4.) A greater liberty with 
 respect to the intermixture of the sexes than is common 
 in the east, with a consequent licentiousness in the con- 
 duct of the women (xxxix. 7-12). 
 
 Other noticeable points are the great fertility of the 
 soil, the existence of numerous granaries (xli. 56), the 
 practice of carrying burdens on the head (xl. 16), the use 
 by the monarch of a signet ring (xli. 42), the employment 
 of bought slaves (xxxix. 1), the importation of spices 
 from Arabia (xxvii. 25), the use of stewards (xxxix. 41 ; 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 303 
 
 xliv. 1), the washing of guests' feet (xliii. 24), the prac- 
 tice of sitting at meals (ib. 38), the use of wine (xl. 11 ; 
 xliii. 34), and meat (xliii. 16), and the employment of 
 some mode, which is not explained, of divination by 
 cups (xliv. 5)." 
 
 This is surely a sufficiently minute and circumstantial 
 account of Egyptian life and Egyptian customs and 
 ways in those old Pharaoh-ine days, — that strange 
 palaeozoic world of history in which the mouldering 
 occupants of our mummy cases lived, and moved, and 
 toiled, and died, and presents assuredly abundant scope 
 for contradictions and sure detection, had the writer been 
 a mere manufacturer of fictitious legends in a long after 
 age. How then does the fact stand ? In the words of 
 the learned writer already quoted, with whose general 
 statement only I must now content myself, referring 
 you to his admirable and deeply interesting volume for 
 the proofs in detail. '' It may be broadly stated that 
 in this entire description, there is not a single feature 
 which is out of harmony with what we know of the 
 Egypt of this remote period from other sources. Nay 
 more, — almost every point in it is confirmed, either by 
 the classical writers, by the monuments, or by both " 
 (Historical Illustrations, pp. 89, seq). 
 
 Another extract from this learned writer will bring us 
 into the very heart of our more specific subject, the his- 
 torical difficulties of Scripture. "It would weary the 
 reader," he says, " were we to proceed further with this 
 confirmation of the Mosaic narrative, in all its details. 
 A simple, and perhaps a stronger, confirmation is to be 
 
304 LECTURE IX. 
 
 found in an examination of those few points, in respect 
 of which modern rationalism has ventured to impugn the 
 sacred history, and, on the strength of which, it has 
 been argued that the writer of the Pentateuch was un- 
 acquainted with Egypt, and composed his work many 
 centuries after the time of Moses. Now, the points to 
 which exception is made are chiefly these — (1.) The 
 mention of camels and asses among the possessions of 
 Abraham in Egypt. (2.) The blasting of the ears of corn 
 by the east wind. (3.) The cultivation of the vine and 
 the use of wine in Egypt. (4.) The use of flesh for food, 
 especially by one connected with the higher castes of the 
 Egyptians as Joseph was. (5.) The employment of 
 eunuchs, regarded as implied in xxxvii. 36. (6.) The 
 possibility of famine in Egypt. And (7.) The possibility 
 of such a marriage as is said to have taken place be- 
 tween a foreign shepherd and the daughter of the high 
 priest of Heliopolis." 
 
 "Well, the remarkable thing is, that every one of these 
 counts of indictment has conspicuously broken down as 
 the result of subsequent investigation, each single state- 
 ment of the sacred writer admitting either of direct proof 
 from other sources, monumental or documentary, or of 
 such illustration as render the facts impugned in the 
 highest degree probable. Thus to take the several 
 allegations in their order — (1.) We know now for cer- 
 tain that asses did abound in Egypt, and we may with 
 safety infer that camels also were no strangers, as they 
 always abounded in countries of Asia bordering upon 
 Egypt, and must have been used in any traffic which 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 305 
 
 existed between her and her Eastern neighbours. (2.) 
 Under the term " east wind " would be included the south- 
 east, which is frequent in Egypt, and so injurious that, 
 as Ukert tells us, " it works destruction upon every- 
 thing." The grass withers, so that it entirely perishes if 
 this wind blows long. (3.) As to the vine and the drink- 
 ing of wine, it is now certain from the monuments, in 
 the face of the statements both of Herodotus and Plut- 
 arch, that the cultivation of the grape, the art of making 
 w'ine, and the practice of drinking it, were well known 
 in Egypt at least from the time of the Pyramids. (4.) 
 As to the use of animal food by high-caste Egyptians, 
 there really is not a vestige of evidence that any class of 
 the people, not even the priests, habitually abstained 
 from it ; while the cooking scenes which abound on all 
 the monuments prove demonstrably that it was the 
 principal food of the upper classes. Finally, As to the 
 last three charges, we know from Manetho, the Egyptian 
 priest, that eunuchs were an ancient Egyptian institu- 
 tion ; it is a fact certain, beyond the possibility of dis- 
 pute, that Egypt was subject to the scourge of famine 
 whenever the inundation of the Nile fell below the 
 average, and that in point of fact its people did suffer 
 terribly from it ; and last of all, as to Joseph's marriage, 
 he would not be known in Egypt as a herdsman, but as 
 an adopted member of the royal family, high in the 
 favour of the king, — and the power of the monarch's will 
 was surely potent for much more than the arrangement 
 uf an advantageous marriage in behalf of a distinguished 
 
306 LECTURE IX. 
 
 courtier, statesman, and friend whom he delighted to 
 honour. 
 
 "What a notable instance have we here of the truth of 
 the old proverb, "He that is first in his own cause 
 seemeth just, but his neighbour cometh and searcheth 
 him " ! Thus startled by the torch of modern antiquarian 
 search, does old Egypt awake from its long sleep in 
 Pyramids and mummy-caves, to bear witness to the 
 truth and minute fidelity of the infallible and ever- 
 living oracles of God. 
 
 On the chronological difficulties involved in the nume- 
 rical calculations drawn from the statements in Genesis 
 and Exodus, with regard chiefly to the length of the 
 period which elapsed between the time of the Flood and the 
 time of the Exodus, our rapidly lessening space will not 
 permit me to enter, and I therefore prefer referring you 
 for information to the excellent little work of Professor 
 Rawlinson just quoted, where you will find the subject 
 very ably handled. I would only here make the general 
 remark, that of all questions of ancient history, there 
 are none which are involved in so much uncertainty as 
 those which relate to numbers and numerical calculations, 
 — the original mode of expressing them in all countries 
 of which we have any knowledge having been by signs 
 often scarcely distinguishable from one another, and in 
 consequence, peculiarly liable to corruption from the 
 mistakes of copyists ; and the force of this consideration 
 is particularly apparent in the present instance, as in 
 the three versions of the Pentateuch which we possess 
 the numbers are in each case given differently. Dismiss- 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 307 
 
 ing, then, this question of numbers, to which from the 
 nature of the case little or no importance can be at- 
 tached, I shall pass on to one or two points of greater 
 interest, and which admit, at the same time, of more 
 succinct and intelligible statement. Of these, two shall 
 be from the Old Testament and two from the New. 
 
 The first is one which was brought forward, and pressed 
 as of very great moment, some years ago, by the late 
 Baron Bunsen. The original kingdom of Babylon is 
 represented in the tenth chapter of Genesis to have 
 been from a Cushite stock ; but Baron Bunsen held 
 that there were no Cushites out of Africa, and that an 
 Asiatic Gush existed only in the imagination of Biblical 
 interpreters, and was the child of their despair. 
 Such was the objection. Take now the decisive answer 
 in the words of the learned historian of the five ancient 
 monarchies whom I have already repeatedly quoted : 
 " An analysis of the earliest documents recovered from 
 Babylonia has shown that the primitive Babylonian 
 people, that which raised the first structures whereof 
 any trace remains in the country, and whose buildings 
 had gone to ruin in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, was 
 (at least to a large extent) Cushite, its vocabulary be- 
 ing undoubtedly Cushite or Ethiopian, and presenting 
 numerous analogies with those of the non-Semitic races 
 of modern Abyssinia. Hence modern historical science, 
 in the person of one of its best representatives (M. Len- 
 ormant), commences now the history of the East with a 
 * first Cushite empire,' which it regards as dominant 
 in Babylonia for several centuries before the earliest 
 
308 LECTURE IX. 
 
 Semitic empire arose " ! So much for the ipse dixit of 
 a self-confident rationalistic criticism, and the imagina- 
 tive despair of orthodox biblical expositors. 
 
 In 2 Kings xv, 19, we are told of an invasion of the 
 kingdom of Samaria by Pul king of Assyria, who is said 
 to have put Menahem to a tribute of a thousand talents 
 of silver. Now it appears clearly from the history of 
 the Assyrian monarchy, which we possess for this 
 period in a state of tolerable completeness, that there 
 was not at this time, or indeed at any time, any mon- 
 arch at Nineveh bearing the name of Pul, or any name 
 in the least resembling it. We have in the muster roll 
 of those ancient kings such names as Shalmaneser, 
 Ashin-dayon, Ashin-lush, immediately preceding the 
 better-known Tiglath-peleser, but no Pul; and yet, 
 under the reign of one or other of these, the events 
 recorded, if true at all, must have taken place. Well, 
 the difficulty here seems certainly at first sight serious 
 enough, and might well have suggested to such a critic 
 as Bunseu the impossibility of any explanation except 
 such as should be the creation of imaginative expositors, 
 and the child of exegetical despair. Why, as there was 
 at that time no Pul king of Assyria, what recourse was 
 there but to create one for the occasion, and palm 
 liim ofi" as a real dramatis persona in the history of the 
 world? Nay, but let us not be quite so hasty in this 
 matter. We are not yet driven to so desperate an 
 expedient ; for it turns out that there was a Pul, called 
 by Berosus King of the Chaldeans, who probably reigned 
 at Babylon while Ashin-lush was reigning at Nineveh, — 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF TEE BIBLE. 309 
 
 and during the confused and troubled state of Assyria 
 at the time, seems to have acquired a temporary ascen- 
 dency over that empire, deprived it of some of its western 
 provinces, and materially crippled its power. In these 
 circumstances, heading, as he would naturally do, the 
 eastern hordes in any incursions they might then make 
 on the countries of Western Asia, and thus representing 
 for the time that dreaded power which was only known 
 to them under the name of Assyria, it was almost 
 inevitable that he should be spoken of in any Jewish or 
 Syrian chronicle of that time as an Assyrian king. It 
 was much as if a writer in China should speak of some 
 British author as an English historian or poet, when in 
 point of literal fact he was a Scotchman or an Irish- 
 man. There would be room here for the quibbling 
 cavils of small minds, but no real violation of historical 
 truth, inasmuch as from the writer's point of view, and 
 for the purpose in hand. Englishmen, Scotchmen, and 
 Irishmen are all the same, and are best represented by 
 the best known name. 
 
 In the New Testament I scarcely know of any con- 
 siderable historical difficulty except one, that, namely, 
 which is connected with the statement about the taxing 
 in Luke iii. 1, 2. The difficulty does not turn so much 
 on the fact of the taxing, or rather the census with a view 
 to the taxing itself, as this admits of considerable illus- 
 tration and confirmation from other sources, as on the 
 time assigned to it — viz., "when Cyrenius was governor 
 of Syria." Now, it appears from other historical 
 authorities that Cyrenius's governorship of Syria did not 
 
310 LECTURE IX. 
 
 take place till nine or ten years later, and that the 
 office was in point of fact at that time held by another 
 bearing the name of Sentius Saturninus ; but it turns out, 
 as the result of a recent interesting discovery, that both 
 Saturninus and Cyrenius occupied at the period in ques- 
 tion the position of governor of Syria — Saturninus as 
 resident ruler, and Cyrenius as governor of Cilicia, to 
 which Syria was then united. As supreme administrator, 
 therefore, of the province, the order for the census would 
 probably proceed from him, and would be all the more 
 naturally connected with his name, as by a subsequent 
 appointment he became more closely connected with 
 Syria itself. There are other ways of explaining the 
 difficulty ; but this, it appears to me, is the most simple 
 and satisfactory. 
 
 Here we must close our review of Bible difficulties. 
 These are fair samples of the sort of historical discrep- 
 ancies which have been produced and paraded by oppon- 
 ents of the plenary inspiration of Holy Scripture, and 
 our time of course does not permit of giving more than 
 samples ; but ex uno disce omnes. From the nature of 
 the sample you may form a judgment of the character 
 of the piece, and those who wish to go deeper into the 
 details of the subject may consult with much advantage 
 the excellent volume I have already so often referred to, 
 entitled " Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament," 
 by the Eev. G. Rawlinson, M.A., Camden's Professor of 
 Ancient History in the University of Oxford. (London 
 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.) 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF THE BIBLE. 311 
 
 Let me conclude by suggesting one or two practical 
 lessons derivable from the whole subject. 
 
 1. Do not allow yourself to be over-much troubled 
 with arithmetical puzzles, such as those in which Col- 
 enso so largely deals, referring to apparent discrepancies 
 of numbers and dates. From the cause already ex- 
 plained, no calculations founded on the signs of number 
 in ancient MSS. are reliable, and can therefore have no 
 weight in argument either way. 
 
 2. Beware of attaching too much weight to the con- 
 fident and sweeping assertions of great authorities. 
 Bunsen's is a great and honoured name not only gene- 
 rally, but specially, in the sphere of Egyptological 
 research, and yet we have seen how egregiously he 
 blunders in his ex cathedra assertions about Babylonia 
 and the ancient Cushite race. 
 
 3. And finally, let us ever look at particular diffi- 
 culties in the light of the transcendent and demonstrable 
 truthfulness of these sacred and imperishable annals 
 considered as a whole, and in the full remembrance of 
 the singular manner in which time after time apparent 
 discrepancies have not only been cleared away, but 
 turned into the most convincing evidence of minute and 
 exact fidelity, — and we shall then be slow to adopt the 
 charge of historical error in a document referring to time 
 so remote, and to a state of the world so imperfectly 
 known to us, until time and patient research have ex- 
 liausted the means of elucidating the mystery, and every 
 possible method of reconciling apparent discrepancies 
 
312 LECTURE IX. 
 
 have been tried in vain. Let ns remember how very 
 little we know at all about those old times, and that 
 nine-tenths of what we do know is due to that very 
 volume on which we presume to sit in judgment. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
THE UNITY OF THE CHUECH OF CHRIST. 
 
 CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 
 
 "Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, Sanctara Ecclesiam Catholicam, Sanctorum 
 communionem." 
 
 The various questions which, for more than fifteen cen- 
 turies, have agitated the Christian workl concerning the 
 true idea and constitution of the Church, and which in 
 the course of ages have given birth to so many contro- 
 versies and so many schisms, are all resolvable more or 
 less into one — the question of Unity. Apparently dis- 
 tinct, and branching out into regions of thought the 
 most diverse, they yet all converge on this single central 
 point. They respect either the unity of doctrine^ the 
 unity oi fellowship, or the unity of life ; — the one faith, 
 the one communion, the one spirit of Christ's mystical 
 body on the earth. To the first head belong all ques- 
 tions concerning authority and the standard and test 
 of truth ; to the second, concerning the centre of 
 unity and terms of ecclesiastical communion ; to the 
 third, concerning the channel and conditions of spirit- 
 ual life ; and all alike presuppose as their common 
 
3 1 6 ECCLESIASTIC A L ESS A YS. 
 
 basis, an idea still more primary and fundamental — that 
 of one divine and indivisible body, founded on one faith, 
 united in one holy fellowship, and animated by one 
 divine spirit of life in Christ. 
 
 This threefold division of the great general question 
 flows necessarily from the very nature of Christianity 
 itself. In its primary idea and essence it is at once a 
 divine doctrine, a divine society, and a divine life. It 
 is a revelation of God's truth, the establishment of Grod's 
 kingdom, and a dispensation of God's Spirit. It must, 
 therefore, have a faith, a communion, and a principle of 
 common life. As a doctrine, it must have an infal- 
 lible standard and test of truth ; as a society, it must 
 have a centre and terms of fellowship ; as a life, it must 
 have a source and spring of spiritual influence. Each 
 of these is one, even as Christianity itself is one. Under 
 each head it is a divine institution, one and indivisible. 
 Under each it possesses a character peculiar to itself, 
 and which constitutes its distinctive principle and 
 essence. Under each, the question, What is Christian- 
 ity ? must admit of a distinct and categorical reply, and 
 that reply will shape itself substantially as a solution of 
 these three fundamental problems : What is the one 
 faith of God's elect? What is the one communion of 
 saints on earth? What is the one depository and 
 channel of spiritual influence and grace ? Such is the 
 radical principle and main heads of that great argument ^ 
 which for ages has occupied the tlioughts both of specu- 
 lative and practical minds within the Church of Christ, 
 and which at this hour divides the whole strength of 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 317 
 
 visible Christendom into two vast and irreconcilably 
 antagonistic hosts. 
 
 The solution which Rome has given to this great 
 problem possesses one decided and obvious advantage — 
 its great simplicity. To each of the vital questions in- 
 volved, it gives a clear, direct, decisive, and unhesitat- 
 ing reply. On each its language is at once positive, 
 authoritative, and, alike in its theory and practical 
 results, intelligible to every one. There is one distinct 
 and visible society, scattered over all countries, and 
 existing in all time ; yet everywhere and always, in 
 doctrine, discipline, government, worship, and organic 
 life, one and the same, and marked by certain broad and 
 grand characteristics which unmistakably stamp it as 
 divine. This is the one catholic Church of God — the 
 guardian and witness of the one faith, the household of 
 the one fellowship, and the depository and dispenser of 
 the one spirit of life. Her reply to the first question, 
 is the Infallibility ; to the second, the Popedom ; to the 
 third, the Priesthood and the sacraments. For the one 
 faith, she points us to her creeds, and to herself as 
 their interpreter ; for the one fellowship, to her apostolic 
 see, and all who own subjection to and hold communion 
 with it ; for the one life, to every altar and confessional 
 in Christendom. Thus, to all the deepest and most 
 momentous questions which can agitate the human soul 
 — What is truth ? Where is rest ? Where the fountain 
 and channel of eternal life ? — she has one summary and 
 brief supply, and that reply expressed in a single word 
 — Rome. No faith without the Church; no Church 
 
3 1 8 ECCLESIASTICA L ESS A YS 
 
 without tlie Pope; and without the Church and the 
 Pope, no grace, no salvation. Here, then, is nothing 
 vague, nothing ambiguous, nothing difficult or abstract 
 either in theory or in practice. The way she points is 
 so plain that he that runs may read; patent alike to the 
 philosopher and the child, to the Roman cardinal and 
 to the Irish beggar, and the only question that remains 
 is — whether it be true or false ? 
 
 That question, indeed, is not of difficult solution. As 
 a matter simply of rational investigation, it cannot for 
 a moment stand the test either of Scripture or of history. 
 As a scriptural dogma, it is a pure figment ; as a fact in 
 history, it is a gigantic anachronism. Claiming to be 
 received as a divine and apostolic institution, it is with- 
 out the faintest trace of its existence either in the 
 apostolic writings or in the apostolic Church for more 
 than two hundred years. A simple and unsophisticated 
 reader, whether of the inspired documents or of the 
 early Christian annals, far from finding the incontestable 
 evidence of its claims, fails to form even the faintest con- 
 ception of it, even as a possible theory. Notoriously 
 and demonstrablj'' it was the birth and gradual growth 
 of an after-age — an age of civil and social dissolution, 
 and of deep and growing religious corruption — and owes 
 whatever claims it possesses to the reverence and sub- 
 mission of mankind, not to such names as Paul and 
 John and Polycarp, but to those of Damasus and Innocent 
 and Hildebrand. Thus far, then, the issue of this great 
 debate is not doubtful. On the ground of logical argu- 
 ment, the triumph of the Protestant advocate has been 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 319 
 
 from the first, and ever must be, decisive and inevitable. 
 The Roman pretensions have been refuted a thousand 
 times, conclusively, unanswerably, and will be so again 
 and again, whenever the great issues involved are fairly 
 grappled with in the light of Scripture evidence and 
 historical fact. 
 
 But, unfortunately, even then the work is not more 
 than half done. After all, the Roman theory does not 
 require so much to be refuted as to be superseded. 
 Like every mighty error, it can be effectually and 
 permanently dispossessed only by the corresponding 
 truth. Its strength lies not in its argument, but in its 
 very presence. Essentially it is its own evidence. It 
 does not so much convince men as fascinate them. It 
 subdues not by discourse of reason or induction of facts, 
 but by the mere witchery of its magic wand. Men do 
 not try Rome's credentials and pronounce them valid, 
 but wonder after her and bow before her. There is 
 something, in short, in its whole aspect and form — a 
 certain barbaric vastness and grandeur, a consistency 
 and completeness, a solid mass and stability, together 
 with a simplicity and directness in its mode of dealing 
 with every question of faith and duty, that exercises an 
 irresistible charm, not only over the ignorant multitude, 
 but over a certain class of speculative minds, and which, 
 instead of being destroyed by argument, is not even 
 appreciably affected by it. The truth is that Romanism 
 is strong, not so much as a falsehood, as a perversion 
 of the truth, and can, therefore, be exorcised and over- 
 come only by the manifestation and living embodiment 
 of that truth itself. Albeit in a carnal and perverted 
 
320 ECCLESIASTICAL ESS A TS. 
 
 form, she yet does present before the eyes of men the 
 semblance, at least, of that grand unity of faith and 
 fellowship and life which essentially belongs to the 
 mystical body of Christ, and even that semblance, poor 
 and earthly as it is, must exercise a mighty influence, 
 ay and until it be confronted with the divine reality. 
 Now, it is precisely here that Protestantism hitherto 
 has shown itself weakest. She has ever been far more 
 successful in overthrowing the theory of Rome than in 
 realising her own. Instead of the one faith, of which 
 her adversary boasts, she has seemed to offer only a 
 multitude of opinions ; instead of the one fellowship, a 
 medley of conflicting sects ; instead of the one life, the 
 isolated and unaided struggles of the individual soul 
 after salvation and peace. That this is an exaggerated 
 representation of the real state of the case is indeed most 
 true. We shall be easily able to show that, amid so 
 much diversity, and much real or apparent contradiction, 
 there yet exists throughout the great evangelic body an 
 essential unity of faith and conviction, which the mere 
 compression of external authority never can produce. 
 Still, this unity, though real, is not apparent. It is 
 latent, not embodied in outward manifestation. Rom- 
 anism, amid real discord, presents to the world the 
 semblance of unity ; Protestantism, amid real unity, 
 presents to the world the semblance of discord ; and so 
 long as this continues so, the Church of the Reforma- 
 tion, despite of its unquestionable superiority in argu- 
 ment, must ever fight at a vast disadvantage against 
 an adversary, which wins the homage of men, not by 
 
CA THOLICISM A ND SECT A RIANISM. 321 
 
 what she is, but by what she seems to the carnal eye to 
 be. 
 
 How this state of things may be best remedied ; how 
 we may most effectually mend, not our argument, but 
 our position for successfully urging it; how we may 
 prove ourselves mighty, not alone in the destruction of 
 falsehood, but in the reconstruction and practical embodi- 
 ment of the antagonist truth, is a question worthy of the 
 earnest consideration of our deepest and most thoughtful 
 minds. In the present essay we can only pretend to 
 glance at some of its more salient points, particularly in 
 its bearing on the circumstances of the present time. 
 
 As regards the Unity of Faith, which forms the prime 
 boast of our great antagonist, the subject does not appear 
 to us, as against her at least, to be attended with serious 
 difficulties. If there is one faith on the earth at all — 
 one divine doctrine dwelling at once in innumerable 
 hearts, and yet essentially one and the same in all — 
 assuredly that faith is found, not in the communion of 
 Rome, but of the evangelical churches. One creed, in- 
 deed, the votaries of authority may and must have ; but 
 one faith, which is the assent of the free soul to a revealed 
 doctrine, on an inward and personal conviction of its 
 truth, they cannot have. For ourselves, we are prepared 
 to accept the strongest statements of our adversary con- 
 cerning the essential unity of the true faith, and in their 
 most emphatic and unqualified sense to adopt them as 
 our own. "We fully believe that there is one " faith once 
 delivered to the saints," and that that faith has never 
 
322 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 been lost. We believe that the promise of the Spirit 
 of truth, while not securing any particular part of the 
 professing Church from the possibility of error, did secure, 
 and has, in point of fact, preserved the Church as a whole 
 from a fundamental departure from the faith. We are 
 even prepared to accept of the celebrated Lerinensian 
 dictum, which has ever been so great a favourite with 
 Roman and Romanising divines, and to say that the 
 true Catholic faith is that which has been believed and 
 professed " semper, ubique, et ab omnibus^ The faith 
 delivered to the saints, we conceive to be that which all 
 the saints have always and everywhere believed, and in 
 which they have lived and died. It is not the faith of 
 one age, or of one country, or of one school, or of one 
 sect, but of all in every age, and country, and school, 
 and sect, to whom the gospel has come home in power, 
 and who are led by the Spirit of God. . . . That faith, 
 indeed, may be more or less clearly apprehended, more 
 or less adequately and articulately expressed, more or less 
 completely drawn out in system, more or less developed 
 in detail and embodied in formal categorical proposition, 
 more or less pure and unmixed with error, but still in 
 essence and substance it is the same. In some the 
 circumference of truth may be wider, and the radiating 
 lines more luminous and distinct than in others, yet 
 still there is the same centre. It is a faith this which 
 is often rather felt than expressed, lived on than con- 
 tended for, uttered not so much in dogmas as in prayers. 
 It is the same in the first century and in the nineteenth; 
 it is the same in the East and in the West ; it is the 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 323 
 
 same in the schools of theology and in the cottages of 
 the poor ; it is the same in the deep revolvings of 
 mightiest spirits, and in the simplest conceptions of 
 lowly piety ; it is the same in the Epistles of Paul, in 
 the Confessions of Augustine, in the sermons of Bernard, 
 in the prayers of Luther, in the Contemplations of Hall, 
 in the treatises of Owen, in the hymns of Herbert, in 
 the allegories of Bunyan, in the penitent cries of Andrews, 
 and the seraphic songs of Eutherford — everywhere the 
 same, yet different ; in essence identical, in form and 
 colour diverse, even as pure water issuing from a common 
 spring, but passing through different channels, and 
 tinged, as it flows, by different soils. It is the common 
 consciousness of redeemed and regenerated humanity, the 
 echo of the new creation to the voice of Christ, speaking 
 by His Spirit through His Word. ... If any 
 tribunal on earth, besides the living oracles, may be called 
 infallible, it is this. We may say of it with truth, what 
 Tertullian predicated of the old baptismal creed, " This 
 rule of faith is wholly one, alone unalterable, and admit- 
 ting of no improvement. This law of faith remaining, 
 in other things pertaining to discipline and life, you 
 may continually grow, through the grace of God working 
 in you even unto the end." It is the divine reality of 
 which the enforced uniformity of popes and councils is 
 but the carnal and earthly counterfeit. 
 
 We do not flatter ourselves that in these observations 
 we have solved the long-pending question concerning 
 essential and non-essential truths — fundamental and 
 non-fundamental articles of faith. A problem which 
 
324 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 has for hundreds of years baffled the analysis of the 
 subtlest divines, is not likely so easily to yield to any 
 solvent of ours. That there is a reality at the bottom 
 of the distinction in question, all, or nearly all, vrill 
 admit and feel ; but the difficulty is to define wherein 
 precisely the difference lies, and clearly to draw the line 
 between the one class of doctrines and the other. Per- 
 haps we should not greatly err were we to regard the 
 difference in question as one rather of degree than of 
 essential nature, and speak, accordingly, rather of truths 
 that are more and those that are less essential, than 
 absolutely of those that are essential and those that are 
 not. The various questions which make up the subject- 
 matter of Christian Theology would then be arranged, 
 not the one part on this side and the other on that of 
 a sharp dividing line, but rather at different distances 
 from a common centre. What that centre is can 
 scarcely come into question. The great idea of redemp- 
 tion through the incarnation and mediatorial work of 
 the Son of God, revealed and applied by the Holy 
 Ghost, stands out before the eye even of the most, 
 superficial inquirer as the grand central principle and 
 distinctive essence of the Christian revelation. While 
 that, then, is livingly embraced and practically realised, 
 the substance at least of the one faith is preserved 
 intact, and other doctrines and opinions will take rank, 
 in point of essential importance, in proportion as they 
 stand in nearer or more remote relation to it. In this 
 way the greater part of the so-called variations of Pro- 
 testant Theology will be regarded not as differences of 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 325 
 
 faith, but as diverse developments, more or less com- 
 plete, more or less pure, of tlie " one faith once 
 delivered to the saints." 
 
 Upon the unity of faith is founded the Unity of 
 Fellowship. The one divine doctrine gives truth to 
 the one divine society. A community of judgment in 
 regard to all that is dearest and most precious to man 
 for time and for eternity cannot but generate also a 
 community of feeling, of interest, of intercourse, and 
 mutual co-operation and help. Those who, in matters 
 so infinitely vital and sacred, think together, will natu- 
 rally seek also to walk together, work together, pray 
 together. Hence at once arises the idea of the Church, 
 not as a mere system of doctrines or ordinances, but a 
 living society of believing men united in holy fellow- 
 ship in Christ Jesus. This flows, indeed, from the very 
 nature of man as a social being, and of Christianity as 
 a social religion in adaptation to it. The same God 
 that made the family, that made the nation, that made 
 the common brotherhood of man, made also the Church 
 to be a still dearer family, a holier nation, a grander 
 and diviner brotherhood of saints. Hence the mere 
 fact of the essential identity of faith in the hearts of 
 all true Christians, to which we have already referred, 
 all wonderful and divine as it is, is not of itself suffi- 
 cient to express the full idea of the unity of the Church. 
 That faith must not only be believed and loved by each 
 separately, but must be held, and professed, and 
 livingly embodied together by all. 
 
 Every view given us in Scripture of the Cliurch, or 
 
326 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSA TS. 
 
 of any particular part of it, confirms this. It is the 
 ecclesia or common assembly of the saints. It is a flock, 
 not a multitude of scattered sheep. It is a body, not a 
 medley of disjointed members. It is a temple, not a 
 heap of stones. It is a city compactly joined together, 
 not a wilderness of isolated homes. For " there is one 
 body, and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope 
 of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one 
 God and Father of all, who is above all, and through 
 all, and in you all." It may, indeed, be said that all this 
 is true only of the invisible Church of true saints, not 
 of any visible society bearing the name ; and we, of 
 course, admit that those high attributes never have 
 been fully realised, or, in the present imperfect state, 
 ever will be, in any external fellowship on earth. As 
 the unity of faith lies rather in an identity of inward 
 experience than of articulate confession, so probably will 
 the unity of fellowship be ever more completely realised 
 in an inward oneness of heart than in an outward one- 
 ness of communion. Many circumstances, besides mere 
 local separation, may keep those visibly asunder who in 
 feeling and affection, so far as they are known to each 
 other, are wholly one. But what is, is no measure of 
 what ought to be. The necessary imperfection of visible 
 fellowship among Christian men and Christian societies 
 is no reason why they should not aim and strive after 
 that which they have not yet attained. The divine 
 ideal of the perfect Church is surely the only legitimate 
 standard of duty for the imperfect ; and her strength, 
 and beauty, and influence for good will be in very pro- 
 portion to the degree of her approximation to it. 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. ; 327 
 
 This is emphatically true in the matter of which we are 
 now speaking — the unity of Christian fellowship. Faith 
 is in its very nature an inward thing; fellowship, in large 
 measure at least, outward. Springing from an inward 
 principle, it necessarily seeks its fulfilment and embodies 
 itself in fact. Fellowship can exist only by the holding 
 of fellowship ; that is to say, by positive relations, and 
 overt acts of mutual affection and brotherhood. It is 
 not love merely, but love carried out in life — love 
 expressing and striving more and more to realise itself 
 in an interchange of loving words and deeds. It is the 
 living contact and communion of Christian with Chris- 
 tian, congregation with congregation, church with 
 church, in a holy association of intercourse, sympathy, 
 action. In the very nature of things, then, visibility is 
 more or less an essential characteristic of it. It is the 
 very condition of its existence, enters necessarily into 
 its definition. You cannot even conceive in your mind 
 the notion of a living society without including in that 
 notion the idea of actual intercourse and communion 
 amongst its members. It belongs, therefore, as an essen- 
 tial property, emphatically to the Church, considered as 
 visible, in contradistinction to the unseen communion 
 of the saints — being that, indeed, wherein mainly its 
 visibility consists, and by virtue of which alone it stands 
 out before the world, not as a multitude of units, but 
 as one body, one brotherhood, one sacred society in 
 Christ. 
 
 The principle to which we are now adverting may be 
 of great service in helping us to define more clearly 
 
328 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 what is, and what is not, a breach of the unity of the 
 Church. It will be obvious, for instance, if the views 
 we have stated are correct, that a mere diversity of 
 outward forms of worship and administration does not 
 necessarily constitute such a breach. If the true unity 
 of the Church be a unity of fellowship amongst the 
 members of Christ's body, founded on and springing 
 from a unity of faith, it is manifest that nothing that 
 does not rend asunder that fellowship can destroy that 
 unity. Schism, therefore, is not a divergence from uni- 
 formity, but a severance of communion. It is not the 
 variety of opinions, but the separation of Christians. 
 There may surely be diversity without discord, difference 
 without alienation. The seamless robe of Christ may 
 be tinged with diverse colours, and yet not rent asunder. 
 There may be a vast amount of essential unity in the 
 midst of outward and circumstantial diversities ; even as, 
 on the other hand, there may be an iron uniformity amid 
 a total want of inward unity. Such diversities may 
 either be or may not be justifiable. They may either 
 turn on matters on which the Word of God has not 
 clearly spoken, or on which its testimony, distinct in 
 itself, has been imperfectly and so variously interpreted. 
 In neither case does the mere diversity constitute a breach 
 of Christian unity; it does so only when without suffi- 
 cient ground^ it is made the pretext for a severance of 
 fellowship, and so a difference of sentiment issues in a 
 renunciation of communion. There may surely be even 
 serious differences among brethren, and one may feel 
 called on emphatically to remonstrate with and protest 
 
CATHOLICISM AXD SECTARIANISM. 329 
 
 against what he deems wrong in the other, while yet 
 they cease not mutually to own and treat each other as 
 brethren. Such mutual recognition, in word and deed, 
 between Christian and Christian, and between church 
 and church, constitutes the very essence of ecclesiastical 
 communion ; nor can there be any actual schism in the 
 body so long as with the unity of the Spirit this bond of 
 peace is preserved. 
 
 What amount of diversity, indeed, in doctrine and dis- 
 cipline, is on scriptural grounds lawfully compatible with 
 the maintenance of ecclesiastical communion, is a differ- 
 ent and far more difficult question. That a very con- 
 siderable amount of such diversity is so compatible, is 
 undeniable, unless indeed we are to accept the Roman 
 principle of a rigid and enforced uniformity ; that again 
 there is and must be a limit to that diversity, if the 
 visible Church is to retain the faintest semblance of 
 essential unity, seems equally manifest. The difficulty 
 here is to draw the line, and fix the point where forbear- 
 ance should end and uncompromising antagonism begin. 
 In the case, indeed, of fundamental heresy, or scandalous 
 moral corruption, we can easily see that it may be not 
 only justifiable, but obligatory on the part of the Church 
 at large, and every sound and living portion thereof, to 
 cut off the offending member from her fellowship by a 
 formal renunciation of communion. Such an act will 
 correspond in the ecclesiastical world at large to the 
 solemn excision of an unworthy member in the individual 
 congregation. The same principle that requires our 
 withdrawal from every brother that walketh disorderly, 
 
330 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 would seem also equally to call for the withdrawal of 
 active fellowship from every community of professing 
 brethren justly chargeable with the same offence. It is 
 to be remembered, however, that such an act is in its 
 nature one of extreme solemnity ; that it is the sternest 
 sentence of condemnation which one professedly Chris- 
 tian body can pronounce against another ; and that in 
 every such case the onus probandi lies with a heavy 
 weight of responsibility on the party that deems itself 
 justified in adopting such a course. The entire renun- 
 ciation of fellowship with any portion of Christ's visible 
 Church is essentially an anathema, and anathemas are 
 things not to be touched save with reverent and trem- 
 bling hand. It is to be justified only by the strongest 
 grounds — grounds which would equally call for the ex- 
 clusion of the offending body, temporarily or permanently, 
 from the commonwealth of universal Christendom : when 
 these are wanting, it is schism ; and the guilt of that 
 schism rests not on the party condemned, but on the 
 party who condemns. The total renunciation of com- 
 munion, in short, like the amputation of a diseased limb 
 in the human body, is the last extreme of ecclesiastical 
 censure ; the deepest brand of reprobation which one 
 professedly Christian society can set upon another ; to 
 be adopted, therefore, only on the gravest reasons, and 
 in the last resort, when every other means of correction 
 have been tried in vain. To resort to it earlier, or on 
 lighter grounds, is surely a high offence against Chris- 
 tian charity, and a criminal, because needless rending 
 asunder of the visible body of Christ. 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 331 
 
 If a perfect uniformity of outward worsliip and order, 
 and even articulate profession of the faith, be not essen- 
 tial to the unity of Christian fellowship, so no more is 
 an absolute identity of ecclesiastical organisation. As 
 there may be unity without uniformity, so there may be 
 unity without incorporation. Neither the diversity of 
 forms nor the plurality of denominations necessarily 
 breaks, though it may more or less impair the bond of 
 Christian brotherhood. There may be fellowship, and 
 that most intimate and sacred, between church and 
 church, even as between Christian and Christian. That 
 fellowship may be in all various degrees, from the 
 slightest acts of kindly intercourse to the closest ecclesi- 
 astical communion. It may be a mere cordial recogni- 
 tion of each other, or it may be an intimate and con- 
 stant intercourse, or a common participation and mutual 
 interchange of sacred services, or an active co-operation 
 in the work of Christ ; and by such means as these the 
 cords of fraternal sympathy may be drawn indefinitely 
 close, while still distinctive principles are maintained, 
 and denominational arrangements preserved. They 
 may be confederated without being amalgamated— knit 
 in close alliance without being merged each into the 
 other; and in this way also, *'we being many," may 
 be " one body in Christ ; " and that not really only, 
 but visibly and conspicuously before all the world. An 
 army is still an army, though it is composed of different 
 divisions, or the contingents of different nations, and 
 moves in separate columns on the battle-field. It 
 cannot be denied, however, that in order to this 
 
332 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 end, there is a certain necessary and comparatively 
 narrow limit to such denominational subdivision. A 
 plurality of Christian communities existing side by side 
 in the same country, may be compatible with a certain 
 unity of fellowship and action, but scarcely an unlimited 
 multiplicity. Multitude breeds confusion, and the 
 almost total loss of common understanding and common 
 sympathy. In the blind medley of discordant sects, the 
 very semblance of visible unity disappears ; and the one 
 spirit of brotherhood is merged and lost amid the strife 
 of conflicting views and interests. The boundaries of 
 sect, if they do not arrest, yet certainly most materially 
 interrupt the circulation |of Christian intercourse and 
 sympathy, and that interruption will be in direct propor- 
 tion to the multitude of points at which it takes place. 
 They are like so many non-conducting spaces in the line 
 of the electric stream, or breaks in the arterial channels 
 that convey the life-blood from the heart. Hence the 
 flow of the vital current through the whole body becomes 
 feeble, interrupted, broken; and the sense of corporate 
 life and strength for common action in proportion 
 impaired. The smaller the number, therefore, of 
 denominational distinctions, consistent with the free 
 development of individual conviction, the better for the 
 highest interests of Christianity and the Church. 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that such a limitation 
 of the denominational principle is practically most dif- 
 ficult. Once admit the lawfulness of separation from 
 the general body of the Church, on the mere ground of 
 Bpecial views of doctrine or practice, and it becomes hard 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 333 
 
 indeed to draw the line where legitimate secession ends 
 and schismatical division begins. Liberty in such a 
 case easily degenerates into licence ; and that which in 
 itself is only the necessary condition of our present 
 imperfect state, grows into a rooted and mischievous 
 chronic malady. That separation, which can be justified 
 only on the strongest grounds, comes to be justified 
 almost on any ground, and the last remedy against 
 extreme corruption becomes matter of familiar everyday 
 occurrence. When the paramount obligation of unity, 
 unless where the imperious demands of conscience render 
 it absolutely impossible, is but faintly realised, when 
 the great centripetal force of all-uniting love is in any 
 measure weakened, and when in the decay of vital fer- 
 vour great central truths lose their commanding pro- 
 minence, and lesser questions of detail rise into unnatural 
 importance, there is scarcely any difference of opinion or 
 practice which is not thought sufiicient to justify, not 
 earnest advocacy only, but the formation of a new com- 
 munion. Thus a principle is inaugurated which in its 
 tendency leads to utter disorganisation and dissolution. 
 The body ecclesiastical has lost its principle of coherence, 
 and a process of gradual but sure disintegration ensues. 
 Shades of difference without number and without name, 
 which never ought to have been other than diverse views 
 within one united Church, issue in an endless diversity of 
 separate communions, and each successive age yields its 
 freshharvest of conflicting sects. And thus thesolidfabric 
 of visible Christendom, like a rock split up and broken by 
 minute drops of water freezing within its crevices, grad- 
 
334 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ually falls to pieces in a confused and ever-accumulating 
 heap of debris. 
 
 How much this has been the case in the history 
 of modern Protestantism, it is unhappily needless to 
 say. Coming at first out of the bosom of the mediaeval 
 apostasy, with a marvellous and truly divine unity of 
 faith, of spirit, and even general views of order and 
 discipline, it gave early signs of a deep principle of dis- 
 organisation working from within, which in the course 
 of ages has only more and more manifested itself. The 
 liberty of private judgment gradually degenerated into 
 the licence of unlimited separation ; difference of 
 opinion, and severance of communion, became mere 
 convertible terms ; fragment after fragment, splinter 
 after splinter, was detached from the general mass of 
 Reformed Christendom, till at last, instead of a goodly 
 fellowship of sister churches, little else remains but a 
 chaos of sects. Like the great planet which, according 
 to the speculation of some astronomers, once wheeled its 
 course around the Sun, between the orbits of Jupiter 
 and Mars, it has been disrupted into fragments, and 
 now, instead of one primary and majestic orb, we have 
 only a multitude of feeble telescopic stars. These minute 
 separate bodies, indeed, like the tiny asteroids of our 
 comparison, move substantially in the same direction, 
 revolve in orbits but slightly divergent from each other, 
 and cross each other's paths at every point ; but the 
 grand simplicity and stately march of the primeval 
 order is gone. 
 
 The practical consequences of this state of things 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 335 
 
 are as apparent as they are disastrous. The Church's 
 strength is divided; common counsel and common 
 action are precluded ; party rivalries and jealousies 
 are engendered, and spread as a subtle solvent 
 through the heart of the social mass ; primary truths 
 sink into the shade, and secondary opinions rise into 
 undue and unnatural importance ; partial views and half 
 truths spring up everywhere ; in the desperation of self- 
 preservation, each sect enormously magnifies its own 
 distinctive profession, and thus there is a general shift- 
 ing of the centre from the one faith of Christians to 
 some subordinate point ; vital force is wasted to a degree 
 quite incalculable in internecine contests ; the world, 
 and individual souls, are bewildered amid the confusion, 
 while the great adversary looks on with triumph, and 
 quietly reaps his advantage. In great cities, indeed, 
 where there is abundant room for the development of 
 all, and rival sects may hold on each their separate way, 
 like ships on the high seas, with comparatively little 
 risk of collision, these evils are more partially felt ; but 
 in small towns and villages the demon of sectarianism 
 riots uncontrolled. In a community of a few hundred 
 inhabitants there are often nearly as many different 
 sects as there are hundreds of souls. The result is 
 inevitable. Instead of two or three vigorous and 
 flourishing congregations, a whole crowd of feeble sects 
 struggle for existence, and in the keen tenacity of life 
 mutually prey upon each other. In these circumstances, 
 to exalt each their own distinctive tenet into a life-and- 
 death truth, becomes not so much a temptation as 
 almost a necessity. They are, in truth, life-and-death 
 
336 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 truths to them — touching most vitally the very question 
 of their existence as separate bodies. They live, in fact, 
 by the maintenance of those points, and by holding them 
 aloft as the rallying-points of distinctive profession and 
 communion ; they are to them the very principle of 
 coherence and corporate existence, without which they 
 would dissolve and fall to pieces. The more insignifi- 
 cant such bodies are in number, the stronger the temp- 
 tation to swell themselves out into factitious importance 
 by the exaggeration of their principles. The more 
 minute the ground of separation from other bodies, the 
 more vehement the struggle in its behalf; just as in war 
 a barely tenable position is held and maintained by the 
 stronger guard. The nearer rival parties approximate 
 in vital faith and principle, the more bitter often is the 
 antagonism, and the greater the eagerness to prove the 
 difference essential. Thus the fair face of Christianity 
 is deformed by the unsightly exaggeration of its lesser 
 features ; the one transcendent name is drowned amid 
 the din of other sounds ; brotherly love expires amid the 
 rivalries of faction ; denominations eye each other with 
 jealous vigilance, and their union is not so much a cordial 
 alliance as an armed truce ; the one faith becomes a 
 chaos of opinions, the one Christian society a hotbed of 
 faction ; and the total result is a state of disorganisation 
 and anarchy, only less pernicious than that iron despotism 
 that stifles all free thought, and unites all only by crush- 
 ing out the life of all. 
 
 It is easy, indeed, to see and point out these evils, 
 but it is comparatively difficult to prescribe the remedy. 
 At the same time, the history of the last three hundred 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 337 
 
 3'ears had been written in vain, did it not afford some 
 lessons fitted to aid the Church in avoiding for the future 
 those rocks on which it has split in the past. There 
 are, as it appears to us, at least two causes of avoidable 
 separation that lie on the very surface. These may be 
 designated respectively as despotism and optimism : the 
 one the besetting sin of church rulers ; the other of 
 church members. The one party have enforced too 
 much, the other demanded too much. On the one side, 
 terms of communion have been so multiplied, and points 
 not of doctrine only, but of order, discipline, and wor- 
 ship, so minutely defined and so rigidly enforced, that 
 outraged liberty had no resource but in open rebellion 
 and separation. On the other side, there is a kind of 
 morbid conscientiousness on the part of church members 
 which makes each man feel as if personally responsible, 
 not for his own faith and life only, or even for the 
 general soundness and purity of the communion to which 
 he belongs, but for its absolute conformity in every par- 
 ticular to the standard of the Divine Word. It is not 
 enough for him that in all essential matters of faith and 
 practice it is sound and true, that it exacts no term of 
 Christian communion which his conscience rejects, that 
 he is free to use every means in his power to briug it 
 into entire conformity with what he regards as the 
 perfect Scripture model; he must be satisfied that it 
 actually does in every respect realise that model, or sepa- 
 rate from it. He deems himself in conscience bound 
 to connect himself only with a perfect church, and if he 
 find it not in the communion to which he belono-g he 
 
 Y 
 
338 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 must seek it in another. There is, in his mind, no 
 medium between absolute satisfaction and separation. 
 Accordingly, whenever any particular view is taken on 
 any matter of opinion or practice, which is either not 
 recognised or but imperfectly carried out in any section 
 of the existing church, it is immediately thought neces- 
 sary to originate a new communion to maintain and 
 embody it, and another fragment or splinter is added to 
 the waste of confusion which has been accumulating 
 from age to age. Thus, while church rulers have often 
 necessitated separation, church members have, perhaps, 
 as often needlessly precipitated it ; and both causes to- 
 gether have contributed more, perhaps, than any essen- 
 tial differences of faith or practice to that gradual dis- 
 integration of the Reformation Church, which all must 
 alike deplore. Had these two sources of division been 
 throughout avoided — had Christian churches never 
 sought to enforce as terms of communion aught but 
 what was even in their own view vital and essential, and 
 had Christian people never separated but on the ground 
 of such unlawful terms, or of flagrant and intolerable 
 corruption, it is not too much to say that half the 
 schisms that have rent the Protestant Church might 
 have been spared, and half the party names that now 
 baffle and bewilder the ecclesiastical historian never been 
 heard of. 
 
 The retrospect is a sad one, and yet we think it is 
 not without its lessons of encouragement as well as of 
 salutar)'' warning. To lay our hand on the root of the 
 disease is, in very many cases, more than half the cure ; 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 339 
 
 and, in the present instance, we believe it will be found 
 on a close examination of the malady at work that the 
 remedy is not only possible, but that it is already begun. 
 The disease, we believe, has already passed its worst. 
 Both the morbid tendencies in question have in the 
 main run their course, and exercise daily a less and less 
 influence over the Christian community generally. 
 There is neither in our day the same disposition on the 
 part of rulers to enforce needless terms of communion, 
 nor of the people to separate on every light pretence. 
 The time has gone by when an absolute agreement on 
 every minute point of doctrine, discipline, order, and 
 even views of political and ecclesiastical history, could 
 be prescribed as an essential condition of admission to 
 the sacramental table, or when a separate religious body 
 could be founded on a peculiar view taken of an extinct 
 burgess oath. The tendency of our age is more and 
 more to subordinate lesser differences to fundamental 
 principles, to distinguish between matters of opinion and 
 matters of faith, between special views and catholic 
 verities, between points simply deserving of a more or 
 less earnest advocacy, and points that would justify 
 separation ; and, as the consequence of this, the smaller 
 bodies, resting upon a narrow foundation of distinctive 
 principle, are gradually either dying out or coalescing 
 with the larger. This, indeed, may be regarded by 
 some as an evil — as only one out of many tokens of 
 the downward tendency of the age ; there are those who 
 shrink from the very name of forbearance in regard to 
 any one matter great or small, as only another name for 
 
340 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 latitudinarian compromise, and can conceive of no other 
 way of witnessing in behalf of any triith, but in entire 
 ecclesiastical separation from those who impugn it : at 
 all events, however, there can be no doubt whatever of 
 the fact. The principle of vitality in such small com- 
 munities becomes daily less and less ; in the larger sec- 
 tions of Protestant Christendom, greater. Everything 
 tends towards consolidation and concentration — to the 
 drawing together the broken strength and closing in the 
 lines of the great evangelic army. Diverse divisions and 
 distinctive banners there doubtless will still be, but the 
 broken and straggling groupes that now encumber the 
 field will, we may hope, gradually disappear. It may be 
 long, indeed, before the evangelical Church in Europe 
 and America present before the eyes of the world, and in 
 the face of the enemy, that orderly and compact array 
 which the exigencies of the times so urgently require, 
 but yet we do not despair of seeing ere long a nearer 
 approximation to it than has been witnessed for more 
 than two hundred years. The denominational distinc- 
 tions of Protestant Christendom, if we lay out of account 
 those minute sections already referred to, and whose 
 period of vigorous life has run its course, reduced therri- 
 selves mainly to three — the Episcopal, the Presbyterian, 
 and the Congregational. ■^''' These will, doubtless, still 
 
 * It may be thought that so large and powerful a body as the Wesleyan 
 Methodists ought to have found a place in this analysis. But we cannot 
 help regarding the constitution of that body, originating, as it did, in a 
 mere society within the Episcopal communion, and still retaining in its 
 separate church capacity the organisation proper to its original character, 
 •M an anomalous one, and destined to undergo, sooner or later, most impor- 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 341 
 
 for long survive. They each present a phase of ecclesi- 
 astical organisation and life so broadly marked and dis- 
 tinct, and have struck their roots so deep into the soil 
 of Protestant Christendom, that they may be expected, 
 it may be for many generations, to hold their ground, 
 and to flourish side by side ; but it does not appear 
 hopeless that the limits of denominational variety might 
 be confined more and more to these. Were this hope 
 realised, and were the cords of fraternal amity between 
 the true-hearted throughout the entire Christian com- 
 monwealth drawn progressively closer, we should then 
 be disposed ourselves to wait with comparative patience 
 for the attainment of that more perfect unity of faith 
 and fellowship which may be reserved for a future day. 
 
 Meanwhile, the existence, to a certain extent, of sepa- 
 rate communions, if fraught with many evils, and the 
 result more or less of sin, may not be without its large 
 amount of attendant good. It is probable that each of 
 the great sections of catholic Christendom has much to 
 teach as well as much to learn from the rest, before it 
 could be safely blotted out of the Christian world, and 
 simply merged into one or other of the rival systems. 
 Much as we value our own distinctive platform, and 
 thoroughly as we accept it as founded on, and agreeable 
 to, the Word of God, we should be bold indeed, did we 
 claim for it or for any other, as actually realised, an 
 absolute perfection as a complete embodiment of the 
 
 tant modifications. In that case its principles and "methods of adminis- 
 tration will probably become assimilated more or less closely to some one 
 or other of the leading types of ecclesiastical polity above defined. In 
 America this is already in large measure the case. 
 
S42 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSA TS. 
 
 divine ideal of the visible Church. There may he much, 
 we can well believe, in the experience and life even of 
 communions widely separated from our own, and whose 
 constitution we may regard as most defective, that is 
 worthy both of our admiration and imitation. If the 
 sister Churches have their besetting sins, they have also, 
 doubtless, their distinctive graces ; and it is time, per- 
 haps, to consider seriously whether their intercourse 
 might not with advantage lie somewhat in mutual 
 appreciation as well as in mutual protest. This will 
 appear the more probable, if we consider the widely 
 different standing-grounds occupied respectively by the 
 three great Protestant denominations. 
 
 The Episcopal Church is the representative, among 
 Reformed Churches, of the past. She is the continuation 
 into Protestant times of the spirit and traditions and 
 general church life of ante- Reformation times. She 
 went upon the principle of conserving what was good, 
 as well as rejecting what was evil, in the existing system, 
 and generally holding that to be good which could not 
 be clearly proved to be bad. Like an old feudal castle 
 repaired and adapted for modern use, or one of those 
 solemn piles built in other days, but which now resound 
 to the voice of her common prayer, she is not a new 
 Church, but literally and strictly a reform of the old. 
 In her the spirit of Cyprian and of Ambrose blends with 
 that of Latimer and Cranmer — the old Nicene theology 
 with the articulus stantis vcl cadentis ecclesice. Such a 
 plan of reform had its advantages and its disadvantages. 
 If it was less searching, it was perhaps also less one-sided. 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM, 343 
 
 If some things were preserved which it had been well for 
 her to have utterly extirpated, and the toleration of 
 which has been to her a root of bitterness ever since, 
 there are probably other elements of the old church life 
 preserved in her which the Protestant Church at large 
 would not willingly let die. With the preservation of 
 outward historic continuity, she has a more intimate 
 inward communion than other Protestant bodies with the 
 Church of the preceding ages ; and accordingly, what- 
 ever, in the distinctive spirit of those ages, was of 
 enduring value for all times, finds the most congenial 
 home within her pale. She is, in short, at once patristic 
 and Calvinistic, Catholic and Protestant ; not of the six- 
 teenth century only, but of that and all the rest that 
 went before. In fine, the stately order of her service, 
 its deep devotional cast, the rich freedom of her sacred 
 psalmody, the simplicity and brevity of her creeds, the 
 prominence throughout all her services of the great in- 
 carnation mystery, and the living personal Christ, her 
 sound and sober ethical spirit, — all present features 
 which other reformed communions may study with 
 advantage, with the view of considering not only what 
 they may teach, but what also they may learn. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church, again, is the birth of the 
 Reformation age. It is mainly the simple embodiment 
 of its distinctive spirit, distinctive doctrines, and dis- 
 tinctive principles. Clearing the ground alike of the 
 accumulated rubbish of the past, aud the stately pillars 
 and arches of the old edifice, it set to work, with the 
 Bible in hand, to rear afresh the fabric of the house of 
 
344 ECCLESIASTICAL ESS A YS. 
 
 God. It is distinctly a new structure, not a modification 
 of the old ; like a modest, but substantial and commodi- 
 ous Elizabethan mansion rising up beside the ruined and 
 mouldering feudal castle. And what her founders then 
 made her she still substantially remains. . . . Her 
 creed is that of Augsburg and Geneva ; her constitution, 
 with the exception of one single point, that which the 
 great body of the reformed divines made, or would have 
 made her ; and her great theme is the unchanged note 
 of that mighty article which, after the torpor of a thou- 
 sand years, new-created the Church, and breathed fresh 
 life into the world. If she has her faults, they are those 
 chiefly of defect. The creation of one great epoch, she 
 may bear perhaps the stamp of that epoch somewhat too 
 exclusively. There may be a danger of losing the Catho- 
 lic in the Protestant, the church of all times in the 
 church of the last three centuries. Certain it is, that 
 with many Presbyterians, theology simply means the 
 doctrinal systems of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries ; church history, the record of events from the 
 Keformation downwards. Their Christian fathers are 
 Calvin and Knox, and in the perspective of ages, their 
 forms seem to touch and blend with those of Paul and 
 John, almost as if the intervening fifteen centuries had 
 never existed. Hence a certain narrowness alike of 
 Christian doctrine and of Christian sympathy. In one 
 point, however, the churches of the Presbyterian model 
 stand pre-eminent. In that marvellous power of con- 
 centrated action which her representative system supplies, 
 and which drew the homage even of the sceptic Hume, 
 
CATHOLmmU AND SECTARIANISM. 345 
 
 as the most perfect ideal of deliberative and administra- 
 tive government, she forms a model to the whole Chris- 
 tian world, realising in actual fact, that theory of 
 synodical action to which the Episcopal churches are 
 only feeling their way, and of which the Congregational 
 bodies are more and more recognising the need, with 
 but faint and distant hopes of seeing the desideratum 
 supplied. 
 
 In most respects, the Congregational churches* are 
 the direct counterpart of the Episcopal. The one rests 
 on the past, the other on the present. The one gives 
 prominence to the ministry, the other to the congrega- 
 tion. The master principle of the one is order, of the 
 other freedom. The one is strong as an institution, the 
 other as a people. The Episcopal Church is the episco- 
 pate, the liturgy, her solemn forms and sanctuaries of 
 worship, together, of course, with the Christian flock 
 within her pale. The Cougregational is the last, and the 
 last only. It belongs, in short, emphatically to the cur- 
 rent age. It mingles with the existing movement of the 
 time, and is a part of it. If it helps to mould, it is also 
 largely moulded by it. With few traditions of the past, 
 with no fixed forms of worship or standards of faith, with 
 no solid structure of positive institutions, her character 
 in any age is simply what the existing state of doctrine 
 and life in her congregations makes her. Generally, as 
 compared with the Episcopal, and even the Presbyterian 
 Church, she bears more or less the stamp of modernness ; 
 
 * Under this general title we of course include both the Baptist and 
 Paedobaptist sections of the great Congregational body. 
 
346 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 her prevailing views and tendencies are more of to-day, 
 and if there be anything that is stirring and progressive 
 in the spirit of the time, whether for good or for evil, 
 she is, perhaps, more in the way of catching it. In her 
 the vox populi, subject of course to the Divine Word, is 
 the vox Dei, and whatever that oracle declares, is for the 
 moment at once her confession of faith and standard 
 of authority. She, too, has her own peculiar point of 
 strength. This lies in her congregational life. If there 
 be one thing more than another characteristic of the 
 Apostolic Church, it is the intensity of common life, and 
 the rich development of individual activity in her con- 
 gregations ; and this element has been perhaps more 
 completely preserved and carried out in this denomina- 
 tion than in either of the rival communions. Her 
 churches are real bond fide societies of Christian men 
 and women, knit together in a sacred fellowship of life 
 and love, not mere gatherings of people attending the 
 same place of worship and professing the same creed ; 
 and thus she is specially strong in that very point in 
 which the Episcopal communion, and in some degree 
 also the Presbyterian churches, hitherto have been 
 weakest. Thus, as it appears to us, each of the great 
 sections of Reformed Christendom, however in other 
 respects defective or erroneous, has its own distinctive 
 point of excellence, its special element of strength, in 
 which it may be at once a pattern and incitement to the 
 others. Neither one nor other of them as actually exist- 
 ing is complete without the others — is a fall realisation 
 of the mind of God in re<2:ard to His visible Church. 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SEGTARIANISZL 347 
 
 Truth, as it exists in tlie Eternal Mind, is one and 
 indivisible ; as it exists among men, more or less broken 
 and scattered. . . . 
 
 Meanwhile, let none deem that they have already- 
 attained, either are already perfect; let each be quick 
 to learn, as well as faithful to protest and warn ; and 
 whereto we have already attained, " let us walk by the 
 same rule, let us mind the same thing." 
 
 Our rapidly-lessening space will preclude our enter- 
 ing at any length on the third branch of our theme — 
 the Unity of Life. Here, too, the Eoman falsehood 
 is not so much a simple figment as a perversion of the 
 truth. All spiritual life, she says, is in the Church. 
 In her is salvation, out of her perdition. She is the 
 one body of Christ, wherein dwells the fulness of the 
 quickening Spirit, to be severed from which, therefore, 
 is death. " There is one body and one Spirit," and that 
 one Spirit dwells alone in that one body. Christ dwells 
 in the body as a whole, not in the separate members ; in 
 the temple, not in the individual stones by themselves 
 and apart from each other. Each branch lives in the tree, 
 and all receive the vital sap through one stem, from 
 one hidden fountain. No more, then, can a soul live 
 apart from the Church, than an amputated limb or 
 severed branch apart from the living organism of which 
 it forms a part. Not only is this true of the invisible 
 Church, or true mystical body of Christ, but, in a sense 
 also, even of the outward fellowship of professing 
 Christians. If grace comes at first to the individual 
 
348 ^ ECCLESIASTICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 soul direct from heaven, and is sustained and renewed 
 evermore by immediate personal communion with Christ 
 the Head, yet it is no less true that it lives, grows, and 
 matures best, not in isolation, but in fellowship) with 
 the living body. Christianity is a social religion, and 
 the life of the individual member is intimately linked 
 with the common life of all. As coal kindles coal on 
 the hearth, so heart kindles heart, spirit kindles spirit, 
 sympathy kindles sympathy in the living fellowship of 
 quickened souls in Christ. 
 
 So far all is plain and clear, and is in substance admitted 
 alike on either side. All life comes from Christ ; all life 
 resides and effectuallj^ works within the Church. It come s 
 from the heart ; it pulses through the body. But here 
 comes the essential point of difference between the two 
 systems, according to which the same identical proposition 
 becomes either a life-giving truth or a soul-killing false- 
 hood. What is the Church — the one body in which resides 
 the one spirit ? It is the Roman hierarchy, says the one 
 system; It is the congregation of Christ's faithful 
 people, says the other. Wherever there is a priest and 
 an altar in communion with the holy apostolic see, 
 there is Christ, says Rome. " Wherever two or three 
 are gathered together in my name, there am I," says 
 Christ himself, and the evangelic Church after Him in 
 every age. In the one scheme the Church is a mystical 
 instrument, in the other a living society ; in the one 
 a dispenser of grace, in the other a subject of it. In 
 all Roman and semi - Roman teaching, in short, the 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 349 
 
 Cliurch is a vast, mysterious, and awful power, above 
 the soul, and external to it, before which it suppliant 
 bends, as the sovereign mistress of its faith, and 
 arbiter of life and death ; in the biblical and Reforma- 
 tion creed, it is a free community of brethren. Widely 
 divergent, however, as the two systems thus are in 
 their practical results and tendencies, in one respect 
 they both alike point in one direction. The Protestant 
 doctrine as we have now explained it, equally with the 
 Roman, enforces the importance of Christian union, and 
 the pernicious consequences of unnecessary separation 
 in the body. Though grace reside not in sacramental 
 charms, but in the divine communion of quickened souls 
 in Christ, yet none the less is it in the body and insepar- 
 able from it. If Christ dwells in His people, not as 
 isolated units, but as a holy society and brotherhood 
 united together in Him ; if the peculiar life of Christian- 
 ity be in its very nature corporate and social ; if member 
 be knit to member in deepest sympathies, and the 
 sacred influences circulate, as in a mysterious electric 
 circle, from heart to heart, then is it manifest how 
 much the essential vitality and fervour of each member 
 must depend on that of the whole body, and on his 
 own intimate union and communion with it. What- 
 ever, then, interrupts or impairs that communion, 
 is more or less detrimental to life. Monachism and 
 sectarianism — the individualism of the cloister and the 
 individualism of the conventicle — are alike suicidal. The 
 fellowship of love is the very native air of Christianity, 
 
350 ECCLESIASTICAL ESS A VS. 
 
 apart from whicli it pines and dies. No more can an 
 individual Christian separate himself from his brethren, 
 or one sect renounce the communion of universal Chris- 
 tendom, and yet maintain the life of grace unimpaired, 
 than an isolated ember, thrown off from the glowing 
 hearth, can retain its fire. Indeed, it would seem as if, 
 other things being equal, the intensity of corporate life 
 and energy in Christian communities were almost in 
 direct proportion to their numerical strength. It is 
 greater, cceteris paribus^ in a large congregation than 
 in a feeble one ; it is greater in a large and growing 
 denomination than in a minute sect. As in a great city, 
 as compared with an obscure village or country town, the 
 social heart in such a body beats more strongly. There 
 is greater force and impetus in everything ; greater life 
 and freedom; everywhere a more intense fermentation 
 of thought, feeling, action. Men's views are larger, 
 their aims are loftier, their spirit rises higher. They 
 devise more liberal things, and attempt greater things. 
 They are less occupied with paltry trifles, more with 
 great essential principles. As their position is more 
 commanding, so their horizon is more extended, and 
 their sympathies with everything that is good and noble 
 throughout the catholic world more intimate. If in such 
 a body the fervour of spiritual life, and the tone of 
 Christian doctrine, for a season decline, the whole past 
 history of the Church encourages the hope of an after 
 revival and renovation ; whereas small branch churches 
 and fragmentary sects usually have their day of vigorous 
 
CATHOLICISM AND SECTARIANISM. 351 
 
 life, and then finally expire. Their very isolation, and 
 the necessity they are under of living on secondary 
 rather than on fundamental principles, kills them. So 
 was it with Donatism, Novatianism, and other earnest 
 but one-sided sects in early times ; so is it with similar 
 fragments of the Reformation Church at this hour. The 
 great fire of catholic Christianity burns on for ever, 
 while the scattered embers die ; the broad stream rolls 
 on majestically in an ever-widening channel, while 
 partial side-currents lose themselves iu idle eddies or in 
 stagnant pools. 
 
 The general result, then, of all is plain. Unity is 
 strength, unity is life, unity is ardour, activity, courage, 
 incitement, hope. Isolation is only weakness, decrepi- 
 tude, and death. The very essence of the Church lies 
 in its fellowship, and it concerns nothing less than its 
 life to preserve that fellowship unbroken, and more 
 and more to cement, strengthen, extend it. For this end 
 everything must be sacrificed — everything hut truth ; and 
 even truth itself, though it may never be compromised, 
 may yet be subordinated to truth higher and broader 
 than itself. Let us unite wherever union is with a safe 
 conscience possible, and so far as it is possible ; let us 
 separate only at the imperative call of sacred principles, 
 to be preserved inviolate by no other means. Amid the 
 diversity of our separate communions, let the bright 
 stately image of the one Church throughout all the 
 world live within our hearts, and draw us ever in intense 
 and intenser longings toward the eternal centre of perfect 
 truth and love. Thus we being many shall be even now 
 
352 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 one body in Christ ; and drawing our lines and combin- 
 ing our scattered strength, be the better prepared for 
 that great combat for the very foundations of the faith, 
 which is assuredly coming, and is even now in part 
 begun. 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 
 
 The true spring of the English Reformation, and of 
 whatever was new and distinctive in the religious life 
 of the Church and nation since that time, was the Word 
 of God. As at Wittemberg, as at Zurich, as at Geneva, 
 as at St Andrews, so was it emphatically here. The 
 Bible reopened wide before the world, and re-enthroned 
 within the Church of God — that was the grand distinc- 
 tive work of the men of that age, and their priceless 
 legacy to all succeeding times. This was the one 
 fulcrum on which rested the mighty lever that heaved 
 the whole mediasval world from its foundations — this 
 the trumpet-blast, at whose voice whole nations awoke 
 and gathered together for a holy war, ^' because of truth, 
 and meekness, and righteousness." It was the old 
 seed of the eternal Word that was sown again broad- 
 cast over the world, and sprang up over many lands in 
 a fresh harvest of Pentecostal life and power. The 
 English Reformation — like every other true reforma- 
 tion, whether in individual souls or in nations and 
 churches at large — was no mere organic change, 
 hatched in cabinets or shaped in conclaves of bishops 
 and doctors, but a living fire kindled in men's hearts 
 
 z 
 
354 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 by the same hand which sixteen centuries before had 
 sent '' fire upon the earth." 
 
 It is of the utmost importance to keep this fact dis- 
 tinctly in view in every question which concerns the 
 history, the principles, and the destinies of the Reformed 
 Church of England. Thus alone can we understand its 
 true genius, and the real source of its strength. We 
 must remember that in its real essence and living spirit, 
 it was not an institution, but a birth ; and that not as 
 one that should spring, Minerva-like, full-grown and 
 full-armed, from the brain of a Henry or a Cranmer, 
 but ''begotten" within the womb of earnest hearts by 
 the incorruptible Word of God. In point of fact, the 
 movement was not only in its sources deeper, but in its 
 date far anterior to those personal interests and political 
 exigencies to which the malice of adversaries has striven 
 to trace its origin. Latimer is already thundering forth 
 his thrilling sermons from his pulpit at Cambridge : 
 Bilney is already poring in secret over the sacred page, 
 or flits from house to house on errands of mercy amid 
 the poor of the gospel flock; already are Protestant 
 martyrs rotting in Oxford dungeons; already is John 
 Tyndale skulking in foreign cities, and fleeing from 
 town to town with the half-printed sheets of his English 
 Bible; already are bales of Bibles and Testaments 
 arriving contraband at the harbour of the Thames, and 
 eagerly bought up, passed from hand to hand, and 
 devoured by greedy thousands ; — thus already is the 
 holy fire kindled, and is spreading far and wide, — years 
 before the name of Cranmer had been heard in history. 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 355 
 
 and while Henry VIII. still holds his place as the fore- 
 most champion of the Papal system. Henry, in short, 
 for his own ends, availed himself of the Reformation 
 spirit, not created it; and Cranmer and his coadjutors 
 (a noble task in its place, but still not the highest) 
 only gave form, and shape, and authoritative sanction 
 to a principle which already existed as a living and 
 triumphant power in the land, and which, with them or 
 against them, must have still gone on conquering and 
 to conquer. 
 
 Thus emphatically true it is that the Bible and the 
 Bible alone is the religion of Protestants. The Bible, 
 speaking directly home to the individual heart and soul, 
 and interpreted and applied by the living Spirit of 
 God — the Bible, the one test of truth, the one source 
 of authority, the one spring of spiritual life and health 
 — the Bible, the one oracle of the living God, and 
 mightiest instrument of His grace — that was the new 
 wine which everywhere burst the old bottles of tradi- 
 tionary forms and dogmas, and which demanded the 
 creation of new institutions to receive and conserve it 
 for the use of all succeeding time. 
 
 This the Reformers in a great measure accomplished. 
 Besides clearly enunciating in public deeds and formu- 
 laries the principle of the sole authority of the Word 
 of God, they endeavoured so to remodel the outward 
 framework of the Church as to give free scope to its 
 operation. Whatever was manifestly contrary to its 
 dictates, or palpably antagonistic to its spirit, they un- 
 sparingly removed. Here, however, they paused. In all 
 
356 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 other respects tilings were permitted to remain in great 
 measure as they were. Unlike our Scottish Reformers, 
 who with axe and mattock fairly cleared the ground, and 
 dug their foundation anew for their new structure, our 
 mitred and surpliced neighbours of the soutli were con- 
 tent to build on the old foundation, and work according 
 to the old model ; or rather, they left the shell of the old 
 edifice standing, and only remodelled and refitted it as 
 they thought best for the new inmate it was to receive, 
 and the new purpose to whicb it was to be applied. 
 
 We are not undervaluing the work of the English 
 Reformers. On the contrary, no one who remembers 
 the state of things as they found them, and that in 
 whicb they left them, and who takes into account the 
 circumstances in which they did their work, can deny 
 tbem the praise of having executed their task with a 
 firm and an earnest hand. Let any one compare the 
 Latin matins and vespers of the old ritual with 
 the vernacular morning and evening service; still 
 more the pompous mass, with its endless bowings, 
 crossings, genuflexions, kissings, turnings, unintelli- 
 gible mutterings, and meaningless dumb-show, with 
 the simple and scriptural majesty of the communion 
 office ; and let him call to mind the circumstances in 
 which these men had to work, under the influence of 
 old prejudices, a despotic court, and a divided people, 
 and his wonder will be, not that they accomplished so 
 little, but that they accomplished so much. Still the 
 general contour and framework of the body ecclesiastical 
 remained in many respects unchanged. Though no 
 
OXFORD A^'D ROME. 357 
 
 true Romisli devotee could have beheld that new temple 
 without tears, yet there was much about it to remind 
 him of former days. The episcopal and archiepiscopal 
 thrones of the old sees ; the majestic minsters and 
 abbey churches of the old worship ; the white-robed 
 bands of prebendaries, canons, and youthful choristers, 
 chanting as of old their matins and even-song ; the 
 Kyrie Eleisons, the litany, and the chanted psalm ; the 
 stone font and the altar rail ; the glories of the stained 
 window, and the pealing anthem ; the feasts and fasts, 
 and solemn commemorative days, — in all this, albeit 
 animated by another spirit and counterbalanced by other 
 elements, there was much to revive in imaginative and sus- 
 ceptible minds the faint image at least of the gorgeous 
 system that had passed away, and make men feel that 
 the England of Edward and Elizabeth, all changed as 
 it was, was still the England of Henry VII. and VIII. 
 These things, indeed, occupy not now the place they 
 did before. They form not now the essence and sub- 
 stance of the national religion. They are recog- 
 nised and treated as the dress and drapery, not the 
 living body of the Church. Still they are there — there 
 in palpable form and presence. They stand forth before 
 the eye as the marked features that go to constitute the 
 distinctive visage of the Reformed English Church, and 
 must continue to modify more or less the thoughts, 
 feelings, ideas, and religious life of her members in 
 successive generations. In short, from that moment 
 and ever since, there have been two principles continu- 
 ally present and at work within the bosom of the Epis- 
 
358 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 copal communion, and more or less acting and reacting' 
 on one another. The one is the Biblical, the other the 
 Ecclesiastical — the one the Evangelical, the other the 
 Traditional — the one magnifying the Gospel, the other 
 magnifying the Chnrch ; the one the glorious birth of 
 the Reformation age, the other the inheritance of the 
 ages of the past. The former is the spring of the Low- 
 Church tendency in all its forms, the latter of the High- 
 Church element of every shade and degree. 
 
 We have now laid our hand on what we resrard as 
 the key to the whole question which forms the subject of 
 the present paper. The two principles which we have 
 now mentioned as so prominently marked in the con- 
 stitution and working of the Church of England, are 
 in truth more or less present and operative in every 
 religious society. In every ecclesiastical community 
 the religious life of the individual member is necessarily 
 influenced on the one hand by the authority of the 
 Word on his own heart and conscience, and on the 
 other by the character of the body to which he belongs 
 — its forms of worship, its distinctive spirit, its tradi- 
 tionary opinions and principles. While we fully believe 
 that an earnest soul might, through the sole guidance 
 of the Word and Spirit of God, feel its way to the 
 cross, and thence to heaven ; yet practically this is not 
 the customary way of our education for eternity. The 
 Church is a flock, not a multitude of isolated units ; and, 
 accordingly, however much broken into separate sec- 
 tions, its individual members do not, and cannot, travel 
 on separately one by one, but in groups and companies. 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 359 
 
 Thus every one, however much he may magnify the 
 supreme authority of the Word, and seek in all things 
 to know and follow its dictates, does at the same time 
 lean more or less upon his brethren, and the particular 
 body to which he belongs. He is what he is, partly by 
 what the Word and Spirit of God has made him, and 
 partly by the influence which his own particular church 
 system or denomination has had upon him ; — that is to 
 say, the Biblical and Ecclesiastical principles have been 
 both present and unitedly operative in moulding the 
 particular form in which Christianity embodies itself in 
 his case. The great and vital question here is, as to 
 the degree in which these two principles are severally 
 operative ; which of the two constitutes, in a man's con- 
 victions and feelings, the dominant and controlling 
 authority ; to which he turns his eye as the tribunal of 
 last appeal in adjusting his faith and guiding his practice ; 
 whether, in short, the Bible, speaking to the individual 
 conscience through the power of the Spirit, is made to 
 judge and control the Church, or whether the Church, 
 by its dogmatic decisions and traditionary beliefs, is 
 made to interpret and control the Bible. In the one 
 case, we believe and act because God has in His Word 
 declared and commanded ; in the other, because the 
 Church has authoritatively defined the dogmata of our 
 belief and the rules of our practice. Both principles, 
 indeed, as we have seen, may and will exercise an 
 influence over us ; but one or other must in the nature 
 of things be supreme. In the last resort we must either 
 try the Church by the Bible, or interpret the Bible by 
 
360 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the Church. On the one side is Protestant truth and 
 liberty ; on the other, all Roman and Romanising error. 
 The one is private judgment — the other is authority. 
 There may be many shades and degrees between the 
 two principles carried out to their full and logical 
 extent ; but this is the border line that divides the two 
 regions from one another — the tropical circle, so to 
 speak, which separates the torrid clime of despotic power 
 and rankly-growing superstition from the temperate 
 region of robust freedom, spiritual independence, and 
 rational faith. 
 
 Let us now at once illustrate and apply this principle, 
 by a brief examination of the leading points which 
 enter into the great controversy between Anglicans or 
 Anglo- Catholics and Romanists or Roman Catholics. 
 The points we shall select are these three — The Test 
 OF Tkuth, The Principle of Unity, and Sacramental 
 Grace. These will be allowed, by every one qualified to 
 pronounce a judgment on the matter, to be the cardinal 
 points on which the whole issue may be said to turn ; 
 and we shall be able, we think, demonstratively to show 
 that in regard to each of these there is no tenable middle 
 ground between the full and loyal adoption of the 
 Biblical principle of Protestantism on the one hand, 
 and the Roman doctrine and claims of authority on the 
 other. 
 
 1. As to the Test of Truth. We prefer this expres- 
 sion to other terms in general use in connection with 
 this question, as '•' Rule of Faith," " Standard of Truth," 
 &c., as indicating more simply the precise point of our 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 361 
 
 present inquiry — namely, What is tlie Jinal authority 
 for regulating the belief and practice of the individual 
 Christian man ? The Protestant answer to this question 
 is direct and clear. " The Word of God," he maintains, 
 " which is contained in the Scriptures, is the only rule 
 to direct us what we ought to believe concerning God, 
 and what duty God requires of man." The voice of 
 God speaking in the Word, by the Spirit, to the 
 conscience and heart — that is the one and all-sufficient 
 oracle for deciding every question of faith and law of 
 duty. With him one sentence of the Word outweighs 
 all the decisions of Fathers and Councils; one divine 
 command, the canons and traditions of a thousand years. 
 " Search the Scriptures," and by them " prove all things, 
 and hold fast that which is good " — that is his call to 
 all men of every rank and degree. " To the law and to 
 the testimony" — that is his appeal in every question of 
 faith and duty, and by that one issue he is prepared to 
 stand or fall. This is not inconsistent with the due 
 influence of the Church in the moulding of our indi- 
 vidual views and convictions. The principle of private 
 judgment not only admits, but demands, the earnest use 
 of all the subordinate means within our reach for helping 
 to the fuller and deeper understanding of the mind of 
 God in His Word. At this point, and for this purpose, 
 the voice of the universal Church does come legitimately 
 in, and will be seriously weighed and taken into account 
 by every sincere searcher after truth. The decisions of 
 doctors, the definitions of councils, the solemn confes- 
 sions of churches, the utterances of Christian experience 
 
362 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 and of the profoundest convictions of lioly men of every 
 age and country, the instructions of parents, teachers, 
 pastors, and eminent men of God of our own time — in 
 short, the sublime consensus of all times and of all 
 lands in certain great fundamental verities of Christian 
 faith and life, which, semper, uhique, et ah omnibus , have 
 been believed, proclaimed, lived on, died on, by heaven- 
 anointed souls, — this voice of the Church doubtless may 
 be a blessed means of leading the individual man to the 
 knowledge of the truth revealed in the Word, and con- 
 firming him in it when found. Such subsidiary means 
 form valuable corroborations to our faith, and serve as a 
 salutary ballast to the levity of individual specula- 
 tion. They are our servants, not our masters ; our 
 helps, not our authority. They may stand as buttresses 
 and outworks to the living temple of truth that is built 
 up within the soul ; but the structure itself must still 
 repose on its own foundation — even the immovable rock 
 of Grod's eternal Word. 
 
 But with this basis of faith, this test of truth, both 
 Romanism and Anglicanism are dissatisfied. Both alike 
 proclaim their conviction of its utter inadequacy as an 
 infallible guide of faith and duty. Both avowedly base 
 their system on this fundamental principle, that the 
 Bible is not the only authoritative test of truth. Both 
 thus arrest in limine all issue with Protestants on indi- 
 vidual points of doctrine, by an appeal from this tribunal 
 to another. Another step further both parties — the 
 lloman Catholic and the Anglo- Catholic — proceed in 
 common. Both agree in joining tradition with Scripture, 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 363 
 
 and regarding both as forming together the '' Rule of 
 Faith." There are, indeed, subordinate differences of 
 view between them on this point. Most Anglicans, for 
 example, will assign to tradition only an interpretative 
 authority ; while the Romanist claims for it a place 
 entirely equal and co-ordinate with the written Word of 
 God. Both, however, alike maintain its plenary authority, 
 as a source of divine truth, and its absolute necessity 
 along with the Bible as a guide to the faith. 
 
 But here a vital question arises, and urgently calls for a 
 solution. How is this rule of faith thus constituted to be 
 made available for the guidance of the individual con- 
 science ? How am I to reach its decisions, that I may 
 guide myself by its light ? Where are those decisions 
 recorded, how authenticated and proved ? Amid the count- 
 less floating opinions and traditionary dogmas of eighteen 
 centuries, who shall guide the bewildered inquirer to 
 those which are unquestionably apostolic, divine, authori- 
 tative ? Put the Bible into my hand, and bid me guide 
 my course by those unerring dictates which on all fun- 
 damental points are so plain that he that runneth may 
 read, and I understand what you mean, and bless God 
 for the priceless boon ; but to steer my hapless bark, 
 without pilot or compass, over the wide trackless sea of 
 fathers, doctors, councils, decretals, and contradictory 
 decisions, that surely is a task too great for man. The 
 inference is manifest and inevitable. There must be a 
 living, authoritative guide. The adoption of such a rule 
 of faith, from the very nature of the case, plainly demands 
 this. Accordingly, one step further the Anglican and the 
 
364 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Romanist still take in common. They both maintain the 
 necessity of an authority. The Anglican, founding upon 
 a single fragmentary clause of the Thirty-nine Articles — 
 a clause of which the authenticity is more than question- 
 able — claims for his Church the same power authorita- 
 tively to define and teach the faith to her members, which 
 Rome in bolder and louder accents challenges as her own. 
 
 But here at last comes the decisive and mortal 
 issue between the two systems. Where is this authori- 
 tative guide to be found ? Where is the seat where 
 this awful power sits enthroned? What the organ 
 through which it utters its voice to mortal men ? How 
 may I personally reach its divine, infallible decisions ? 
 Such questions as these manifestly demand a solution. 
 When called to renounce our private judgment, and 
 the sole guidance of the Word and Spirit of God, it 
 surely concerns us, above all things, and before we 
 take a single further step, to know what and where 
 that other tribunal is before which we are to bend 
 our soul, and whose voice we are to obey as the infallible 
 oracle of truth. Whatever that tribunal may be, this 
 much, at least, is clear in regard to it — it must be one ; 
 it must have some recognised organ through which it 
 speaks ; it must be accessible to all ; it must stand out, 
 marked by certain grand characteristics, as a power 
 entirely peculiar and alone upon the earth ; it must, in 
 fine, exist through all time and speak to men of all time. 
 
 Where is there such a tribunal ? Can the Anglican 
 jooint out such a one — one possessing even the faintest 
 semblance of a claim to such a character ? Is it the 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 363 
 
 bishop? Then the bishop of one diocese contradicts 
 that of another. Is it the prayer-book ? That of itself 
 needs an interpreter — an authoritative umpire in those 
 endless controversies of which it has been the battle- 
 ground. Is it a synod — a general convocation of the 
 whole national Church? Then other national churches 
 must have the same right ; and so we shall have one 
 law for Canterbury, another for Eome, another for 
 Constantinople. Is it a general council of the whole 
 Church — the collective decision of universal Christendom 
 in holy synod assembled, as at Nice, Constantinople, 
 Chalcedon ? Such a synod has not met for a thousand 
 years, nor is there the faintest prospect of any such 
 assembling for ages more. And if it should, who is to 
 decide who they are that shall be summoned to it, and 
 admitted to a voice in its decisions ? Amid the mutual 
 anathemas of Rome, Greece, and England, who shall 
 authoritatively adjust the roll of the holy fathers on 
 whose solemn sentence is to hang the faith of the world? 
 And is the universal Church of God meanwhile without 
 a guide ? Is the heavenly oracle silent ? and are men 
 left the while — left for ages — to grope their way in 
 darkness, amid the blind medley of rival churches and 
 rival creeds ? Is it for such a guide as this that we are 
 called to renounce the true light of the eternal Word, 
 and the promised guidance of the eternal Spirit ? Shall 
 we be thus content to close our eyes and hold out our 
 hand to the first pretender who comes, under some high- 
 sounding name of authority, to demand our faith ? But 
 enough — the thing is through and through preposterous. 
 
366 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 The whole theory vanishes at the touch, like a spider's 
 web. There is no such authoritative guide as this 
 system, as its first principle, demands. It has no ex- 
 istence beneath the sun, either in history or in fact, — 
 unless indeed you are content to seek it — where some 
 have been in sheer logical necessity driven — in that 
 stupendous and mysterious power that sits enthroned on 
 the seven hills, and which, with all the confidence of an 
 assured infallibility, launches forth its high decrees, and, 
 on pain of anathemas and eternal perdition, demands the 
 implicit faith of the entire Christian world. 
 
 On this point Dr Wiseman and his coadjutors press 
 their argument with crushing effect on the feeble position 
 of their antagonists. For ourselves we cannot see the 
 faintest possibility of an escape for them from the plain 
 alternative of either retiring from that position or sur- 
 rendering at discretion to the enemy. The doctrine and 
 theory of an authority without an actual living authority, 
 may serve as an ideal to amuse the visionary dreamer, 
 but cannot meet the exigencies of really awake and 
 earnest men. Well and irresistibly does Dr Newman 
 make his appeal to his old followers, in these terribly 
 graphic words : — 
 
 " The idea, then, of these so-called Anglo-Catholic divines was 
 simply and absolutely submission to an external authority ; to it 
 they appealed, to it they betook themselves ; there they found a 
 haven of rest ; thence they looked out upon the troubled surge of 
 human opinion, and upon the crazy vessels which were labouring 
 without chart or compass upon it. Judge, then, of their dismay 
 when, according to the Arabian tale, on their striking their anchors 
 into the supposed soil, lighting their fires on it, and fixing on it the 
 Ijoles of their tents, suddenly their island began to move, to heave, 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 367 
 
 to splash, to frisk to and fro, to dive, and at last to swim away 
 spouting out inhospitable jets of water upon the credulous mariners 
 who had made it their home," * 
 
 Thus at length is the dream dispelled — the dream of 
 a tenable middle ground between the simple supremacy 
 of the Word and the supremacy of the Pope : — 
 
 " Thus it is that students of the fathers, antiquarians, and 
 poets began by assuming that the body to which they belong is that 
 of which they read in times past, and then iwoceed to describe it with 
 that majesty and beauty of which history tells, or which their genius 
 creates. Nor is it an easy process or a light effort by which their 
 minds are disabused of this error. It is an error for many reasons 
 too dear to them to be readily relinquished. But at length either 
 the force of circumstances or some unexpected accident dissipates 
 it ; and as in fairy tales the magic castle vanishes when the spell is 
 broken, and nothing is seen but the wild heath, the barren rock, and 
 the forlorn sheep-walk, so is it with us as regards the Church of 
 England, when we look in amazement on that we thought so un- 
 earthly, and find so commonplace or worthless." t 
 
 We need not say how easily these eloquently vivid 
 words might be retorted on Dr Newman himself, to 
 break the spell of that more gorgeous, imposing, and 
 consistently compacted system which now forms the 
 object of his blind idolatry, but which is at bottom 
 equally hollow, false, and baseless. But that is not our 
 present task. Meanwhile we turn away from these vain 
 j anglings to cling with a firmer grasp than ever to that 
 one eternal rock of truth laid in Zion — " The law of the 
 Lord is perfect, converting the soul : the testimony of 
 the Lord is sure, making wise the simple : the statutes 
 of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart : the command- 
 ment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes : the 
 
 * Lectures to Anglicans, p. 124. t Ibid., pp. 6, 7. 
 
3G8 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the 
 judgments of the Lord are true and righteous 
 altogether." 
 
 2. In regard to the Unity of the Church, there is a 
 certain length to which all parties alike, Protestants, 
 Anglicans, and Romanists, are agreed. That there is 
 hut one true Church of God upon the earth ; that that 
 Church is in itself one and indivisible ; that to that 
 Church every genuine Christian must belong ; that the 
 treasures of Divine grace are centred there ; and that 
 there is no ordinary possibility of salvation out of it, — 
 is the doctrine alike of all who believe that there is no 
 name given under heaven among men, whereby we must 
 be saved, but the name of Jesus, and that those whom 
 He saves are called out of this world as a peculiar people 
 unto Himself, As there is but one Shepherd, so there is 
 but one flock and one sheepfold. In this sense we can 
 all cordially confess, in the language of the Nicene 
 creed, " We believe in one Catholic and Apostolic 
 Church." But what is the nature of this unity ? What 
 is the bond that connects individual souls with the one 
 Church, and which, taking hold alike of all, binds them 
 together in one indivisible mystical body ? Is it an out- 
 ward and visible unity, or an inward and spiritual ? A 
 unity of organisation, or a unity of life ? A unity, in 
 short, which all men may see, and which exhibits itself 
 in such plain and palpable characteristics as government, 
 discipline, forms of worship, and symbols of belief? or 
 a unity unseen and unearthly, manifesting itself indeed 
 in its effects, but in itself cognisable by God the All- 
 
OXFORD A.YD ROME. 369 
 
 seeing alone ? On this question, we believe, hangs the 
 whole issue, so far as regards the matter of unity, 
 between the Protestant and the Papal system. Adopt 
 the former view, and you have already adopted the 
 fundamental principle of the Papacy, and require only 
 to carry your convictions thoroughly out to land you full 
 in the arms of Rome ; lay fast hold of the latter, and 
 impregnably establish it in the light of God's Word, and 
 you have a lever in your hand by which you may heave 
 up the whole fabric of spiritual despotism from the 
 foundation. Let it be clearly noted here, that the unity 
 we now speak of is not that union which is desirable 
 among the different members of the one Church of Christ, 
 and which is destined, doubtless, more and more to issue 
 in an outward harmony of profession and practice, and 
 even administration ; but that miity which is essential 
 to the being of the Church — which forms its very con- 
 stitutive principle, whereby alone it is one body. In plain 
 language, is an outward, visible, organic unity essential 
 to the being of the true Church of Christ, or is it not ? 
 And in order to be a member of the Church, must I be 
 connected, and in active communion, with such a visible, 
 outward organisation, recognised and received as the one 
 true Church and kingdom of Christ on earth ? On this 
 hinge, we repeat, the whole controversy on this momen- 
 tous point between Protestants and Romanists turns. 
 
 The Anglicans fully symbolise with Romanists in 
 adopting the former view as a fundamental principle of 
 their system, and repudiating the antagonist position of 
 the Protestant creed. From the first they held forth 
 
 2a 
 
370 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSATS. 
 
 the Churcli as essentially a visible kingdom, held together 
 by a visible principle of unity, and reprobated at once 
 the name and idea of an invisible Church as a baseless 
 figment of ultra- Protestant sectarianism. With them, 
 the true Church, wherever found, must stand forth before 
 men's eyes as one body, marked by certain plain and 
 palpable characteristics or notes, and circumscribed 
 within certain distinct and assignable lines of demar- 
 cation. In principle, then, Anglicans and Romanists 
 are entirely at one in regard to this point. Both have 
 formed identically the same idea of the true Church, and 
 the only question that remains is as to where and in 
 whom that idea is actually realised. Where the true 
 Church is, remains at issue between them ; but ivkat she 
 is, and by what great characteristic features to be re- 
 cognised, is agreed on the part of all. ' 
 
 The question between them thus lies within very narrow 
 limits, and admits, we are persuaded, but of too easy a 
 solution. It is entirely a question of history and of fact. 
 We have only to look abroad over the wide field of pro- 
 fessing Christendom, and with this august image of a 
 grand and universal visible unity in our mind, seek out, 
 amid the innumerable forms of belief and profession 
 which occupy the ground, for that one body which bears 
 the greatest appearance of fully realising it ? Where is 
 she ? Where, in the actual state of things now existing 
 in the world, and which has existed for centuries, is that 
 body, which, herself claiming to be the one only Church 
 of God on earth, is spread over all the world, and yet is 
 everywhere, visibly and organically, one and indivisible ? 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 371 
 
 Is it the Churcli of England, together with those other 
 sister communions at home or abroad, that are essenti- 
 ally one with her in doctrine, discipline, and communion? 
 No sane man ever dreamt of putting forth such a claim. 
 
 Or is it the whole commonwealth of reformed churches 
 holding the essentials of the faith, and more or less pure 
 and apostolical in their outward order and discipline ? 
 Such a notion every Anglican would reject with instant 
 and unmitigated scorn ! 
 
 What then ? Is it the collective body of churches 
 episcopally constituted, and possessing, or claiming 
 to possess, the grace of lineal succession from apos- 
 tolical times ? — the Anglican, the American, the Gal- 
 ilean, the Roman, the Greek, the Abyssinian, the 
 Arminian, together with those other numerous frag- 
 ments of ancient Christianity that lie scattered, as the 
 bleached remains of once living churches, over the whole 
 Oriental world ? This is, in fact, the Anglican position 
 — the only theory on which they can pretend to hold 
 out to the world any actual embodiment of the doctrine 
 which on this point they profess to hold. 
 
 But where, on this supposition, is the boasted, and to 
 them essential unity ? Surely to speak of such a con- 
 geries of discordant elements — of churches diflferinof in 
 doctrine, discipline, worshi}), everything save the single 
 element of episcopal government, alienated, repellant, 
 and mutually anathematising — as the one visible king- 
 dom of God on earth, is to say that the one Church of 
 Christ is no more one, and that the seamless robe of 
 Christ is rent in a hundred fragments asunder. How 
 
372 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 can they lie one, wlio practically disown all unity with 
 one another — who have been for long centuries divorced 
 from all, even the least semblance of mutual communion 
 — who never meet but to close, in violent collision and 
 deadly strife, the one with the other? There may, 
 indeed, be conceived to be, amid all this outward diver- 
 sity and discordance, a certain inward ground of unity, 
 such as binds together even the most widely divergent 
 sections of the evangelical Protestant body ; but visible 
 and organic unity there is none. They may be one with 
 one another in our sense, but certainly not m theirs. 
 
 The real state of the case, then, viewed in the light 
 of fact and experience, is surely transparent enough. 
 The unity which these men have dreamt of, and 
 cherished within their hearts, as a fundamental prin- 
 ciple of their faith and life, exists not on the earth. 
 As a fair vision of the heart, it may amuse for a while 
 the fancy of fond enthusiasts, but amid the stern and 
 solid realities of the actual world it has no place or 
 standing whatever. Nusquam apparet ; — unless, indeed, 
 here again you are content to recognise your heart's 
 ideal in that vast and mysterious system, which, spread- 
 ing in endless ramifications throughout the world, is 
 yet, in creed, order, discipline, worshij"), and communion, 
 everywhere one, and which boldly challenges to herself 
 the name and the prerogatives of the one only kingdom 
 of Christ and the ark of salvation here on earth. 
 
 This argument Dr Wiseman has wrought out at great 
 length in one of his Essays,* and we must say, so far 
 
 * Essays on Various Subjects, vol. ii. Essay vi. 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 373 
 
 as Anglicans are concerned, with overwhelming effect. 
 We would recommend a careful perusal of that paper to 
 any one who would see, in its full extent, the utter 
 hopelessness of the position to which these divines have 
 in a disastrous hour committed themselves. It derives, 
 too, a peculiar interest, as having been, according to his 
 own statement, the first means of raising a doubt in the 
 mind of Dr Newman as to the tenableness of the Ansfli- 
 can position ; nor, we are very sure, will any candid 
 and unprejudiced reader much wonder that it should 
 have had that effect. For ourselves, we can hardly con- 
 ceive it possible that any thorough-going disciple of the 
 Anglo- Catholic system could read and seriously weigh 
 the argument pursued in that paper, without having his 
 whole faith in his cherished theory shaken to the very 
 foundation. That it had that effect on the mind of the 
 leader and master-spirit of the movement, and that from 
 the shock then received he never afterwards recovered, 
 is now historically known ; that a similar influence was 
 exercised more or less on thousands of his followers, who 
 can doubt ? Indeed, it is from this period that the 
 general unsettlement of conviction and panic-stricken 
 feeling which, after the first years of sanguine confidence, 
 befell this party, and which has marked all their move- 
 ments, more or less, ever since, must be traced. That 
 individual and important points in Dr Wiseman's argu- 
 ment may be successfully impugned, we are well aware ; 
 that in particular his testimonies drawn from the age of 
 Augustine, in behalf of the Papal centre of unity, are in 
 many instances greatly exaggerated or misinterpreted, 
 
374 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 we could easily show. Still, after every reasonable 
 drawback, the Eomish controversialist remains impreg- 
 nably entrenched in two positions, both equally fatal to 
 the theory of his Tractarian antagonists : — (1.) That the 
 idea of the visible unity, or theory of catholicity, which 
 had in that age fully established itself in the Church, 
 and which Augustine wields as his great engine of 
 assault on his Donatist antagonists, included not only 
 a uniform system of government throughout all the 
 churches, but a state of active communion and mutual 
 recognition between them ; and (2.) That already the 
 so-called apostolical See of Rome had begun to be looked 
 to as the visible centre of unity, and communion with it 
 to be employed as a practical test for deciding on the 
 catholicity of individual churches. That these two 
 principles, and especially the latter, were not then fully 
 developed or universally received, is unquestionably 
 true ; still it is not the less certain that the foundations 
 of both were in that age securely laid. Already, in the 
 days of Augustine and Ambrose, had the doctrine of a 
 visible universal unity, tested by actual intercommunion, 
 grown into a system, and taken full possession of the 
 Church's highest minds, and already had the germ, at 
 least, if not the full-grown principle, of a visible centre, 
 acquired a firm lodgment in the growing feelings and 
 sentiments of the age ; and those two principles, thus 
 born together, grew with one another's growth, and 
 strengthened with each other's strength, until both 
 together reached their full development in that gigantic 
 fabric of hierarchical despotism which reached its sum- 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 375 
 
 mit in the days of Innocent and Hildebrand.* It stands 
 thus on record, not on the pages of controversy only, 
 but on the clearest registers of impartial history, that 
 never yet was the idea of a visible outward unity fully 
 realised, but in connection with a visible centre of unity, 
 and that centre the Eoman See ; and men of all times 
 must make up their minds to the alternative of either 
 resting content with that divine unity which God has 
 given, and of which alone we have the faintest trace in 
 the inspired Word — a unity in spirit and in truth, 
 issuing more or less in an outward and visible harmony ; 
 or grasping at a fond ideal of our own vain hearts, 
 which can never be realised on earth but by a blind 
 submission to that dread power which unites all, only 
 by destroying all, and which, with the might of a devour- 
 ing vortex, sucks and draws all things into itself. 
 
 To a clear sense of this alternative many have already 
 fully awoke ; and more and more will do so as this great 
 controversy advances towards its close. 
 
 3. We could have wished to have spoken much more 
 at length of the subject of Sacramental Power than 
 our space will now permit us to do. We could, we 
 think, easily show that here also the transition from 
 Anglicanism to Eomanism, if not perhaps so clearly 
 demonstrable in logical sequence, is, in the whole 
 tendency of things, as natural and inevitable as under 
 
 * See Neander's General Church History, vol. iii. ; Hagenbach's History 
 of Doctrines, vol. i. ; and for a succinct statement of the leading facts and 
 authorities, " The Kise of the Papal Power, traced in Three Lectures." 
 By Professor Hussey. Oxford. 
 
376 ■ ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the two former heads. If the votary of sacramental grace 
 cannot be so easily reasoned into Romanism, he may 
 assuredly be as naturally and surely developed into it. 
 
 The radical distinction between the Romish and 
 semi-Romish, and the Protestant doctrine, on the sub- 
 ject of the efficacy of the sacraments, may be stated 
 briefly thus : According to the Romish view, their 
 power is mystical ; according to the Protestant, it is 
 moral and spiritual. In the theory of the one, their 
 power resides in themselves, and operates directly and 
 inevitably as a sacred charm on the souls of the prepared 
 recipient; in that of the other, their whole virtue depends 
 on the blessing of God going with them, and the work- 
 ing of the Spirit in and by them. According to the one, 
 they impart grace ; according to the other, they are only 
 means of grace. True, the instructed Romanist does 
 not maintain that the sacraments efi'ectually communi- 
 cate grace altogether independent of the state of the 
 recipients. He admits, in a certain sense, the necessity 
 of penitence and faith, and the absence of any insuper- 
 able inward obstacle or obex, such as that of mortal sin, 
 in oriier to their beneficial participation ; still supposing 
 all the requisite conditions present, the sacrament, sim- 
 ply by virtue of its administration {ex opere operato), 
 will certainly and inevitably work its saving effect like 
 a magical charm upon the soul. They stand before us 
 like so many vessels full charged with the mysterious 
 supernatural energy, and only require a touch, and the 
 absence of any non-conducting medium within, that they 
 may communicate all their life-giving power to the re- 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 377 
 
 cipient's soul. Such was the idea of sacramental power, 
 excogitated and matured in an age when the simple and 
 sublime spirituality of New Testament times had passed 
 away, and when the belief in magical charms was uni- 
 versal in the world, and which still holds its ground as 
 the central dogma of a vast superstition, long after the 
 heathenish fancies which generated it had seemed to 
 have fled for ever before the light of advancing know- 
 ledge and of scriptural truth ! 
 
 We need scarcely say that this sacramental principle, 
 thus explained, is held alike by Anglicans and by 
 Romanists. The former, equally with the latter, glory 
 in proclaiming their religion as intensely and pervasively 
 sacramental, and in dwelling on this as the grand funda- 
 mental difference between their system and that of the 
 so-called ultra-Protestant sects. With them the sacra- 
 ments, and the grace therein communicated, constitute 
 the very central spring of all practical Christianity and 
 of the Christian life. Everything hangs upon this. 
 Pardon, peace, spiritual life and strength, our very 
 standing and hope before God, turns upon this one 
 matter — the due and valid administration, and the 
 right reception, of these " holy and tremendous 
 mysteries." What natural birth is to the child, and 
 the staff of life to the man, such is the baptismal 
 laver and the eucharistic altar in Catholic and Anglo- 
 Catholic life. The preaching of the AVord occupies 
 an entirely different and subordinate place. It may be 
 most useful for calling in heathens and heretics into 
 the Church, for instructing catechumens, awakening 
 
378 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 penitents, and preparing the faithful generally for the 
 more profitable reception of " the mysteries ; " but so 
 far as the inner life and nourishment of the soul is con- 
 cerned, the sacraments are still the all in all. Through 
 these we are born again ; through these we are renewed 
 again unto repentance, and restored to a state of grace, 
 on every fresh relapse from baptismal purity ; through 
 these we are nourished and built up unto eternal life. 
 
 But it may be asked, why an Anglican, holding these 
 doctrines, and believing that he has within the Church 
 of England, or, as he loves to call it, '' the English 
 branch of the Catholic Church," all the blessings of 
 sacramental grace, may not remain in that Church to 
 his life's end, and fully carry out the belief and 
 practice of his religion within her bosom ? Now 
 that he may do this, at least to a very large 
 extent, is but too lamentably manifest from the 
 course followed by many for the last twenty years and 
 up to this hour. But there are two things which 
 must ever stand greatly in the way of such men, and 
 render the practice of " Catholic life " within the Pro- 
 testant pale but an uneasy, stunted, and half-hearted 
 thing. 
 
 In the Jirst place, the Catholic Anglican must always 
 be more or less exposed to chilling scruples about the 
 perfect security of his position. His whole religious 
 life hangs on the validity and efficacy of the sacraments 
 which he enjoys. If there be any flaw there, then the 
 rock of his confidence is gone, and he is thrown adrift 
 with others on the wide sea of uncovenanted mercy, from 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 379 
 
 which he had hoped that he had for ever escaped. But 
 of this indispensable validity and efficacy, he can never, 
 from the nature of the case, feel quite secure. That 
 baptism may be valid, it must be received within the 
 Catholic Church. That the elements on the altar may 
 be to him really the body and blood of Christ, they 
 must be consecrated by a duly accredited priest ; and 
 yet of neither of these things can he thoroughly satisfy 
 himself. He believes^ indeed, that his Church is a true 
 branch of the one Catholic body, and that her priests 
 are true priests of the universal Church ; but at the 
 same time he cannot but know that both these things 
 are emphatically denied by the great body of what he 
 considers Catholic Christendom, and that all communion 
 and recognition is refused to himself and his Church on 
 that very account. That such an overwhelming testi- 
 mony should awaken doubts in his mind is manifestly 
 inevitable ; nor has he anything whatever to countervail 
 it but his own private judgment and that of his brethren 
 — that very private judgment which he has learned to 
 shrink from with horror as a blind and delusive guide. 
 At this point the old and well-known argument on the 
 ground of greater security, comes in with overwhelming 
 cogency. The validity of the Romish sacraments is 
 admitted by all alike ; the validity of the Anglican is 
 denied by all, save only by theinselves. What sane man, 
 then, that values his everlasting security, and who 
 believes that on the validity of those life-giving ordin- 
 ances his all depends, would not unspeakably prefer a 
 certainty to a perad venture, and unless other circum- 
 
380 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 stances of overwhelming gravity stood in the way, seek 
 life rather where it is assuredly to be found, than where 
 he runs the danger of losing it for ever ? To us who, 
 with the Bible in our hand, reject this whole system of 
 sacramentalism as totally without warrant in the Word 
 of God, and believe "that the sacraments are made 
 effectual means of salvation, not through any virtue in 
 them, or in him that doth administer them, but only by 
 the blessing of Christ and the working of His Spirit in 
 those who by faith receive them " — such an argument is 
 totally inept and powerless ; but to those who believe, 
 with Anglicans, that their nqvj salvation hangs on the 
 canonical validity of the sacraments they receive, it 
 never can fail to come home with a certain measure of 
 painful force — enough, at least, to render the attainment 
 of perfect mental repose in the practice of a sacramental 
 religion impossible, except within the bosom of the 
 Church of Rome. 
 
 Then, in the second place, there is a manifest difficulty 
 in fully carrying out this system within the bosom of 
 the Protestant Church. However deeply rooted it may 
 be in the convictions and feeling of its disciples, and 
 however anxiously they may cherish the frail exotic in 
 themselves and in one another, the whole circumstances 
 are unfavourable to its free and healthy growth. The 
 soil is uncongenial, and the climate unfriendly. It is 
 and must ever be in the Church, but not of it ; the 
 Shibboleth of a party, not the faith of a people. It can 
 exist only in more or less perfection as a hothouse 
 delicacy to gratify the taste of the few, not the stable 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 381 
 
 and substantial food of the many. While sacramental 
 grace and power is with these men the all in all of 
 religion, they cannot conceal from themselves, that if 
 held at all in their sense, it occupies an entirely other 
 place, Loth in the system of their Church, and in the 
 convictions of the great body of her members. This 
 cannot but make them very uneasy. They must feel 
 themselves to be members of a Church which has not 
 only in a great measure lost hold of the very essence 
 of Christianity, but seems, in its whole constitution, 
 traditional sentiments, and prevailing spirit, uncongenial 
 with it. Do what they will, the fact stares them in the 
 face, that the religion of the Church of England is not 
 in their sense sacramental, and that all their own 
 unceasing labours of twenty or thirty years have entirely 
 failed to make it so. The element which they deem the 
 very essence of its life, it has barely tolerated within 
 its pale, or rather, from a certain feebleness of con- 
 stitution, has simply failed in violently throwing out of 
 its system. Hence inevitable and endless misgivings 
 as to the thorough rectitude of their position — the 
 ever-recurring feeling that they are not at home, and 
 that their right place is in another clime. Besides, 
 not only is there a difficulty in fully acting out their 
 sacramental system, but the very machinery for it within 
 the English Church is incomplete. Where sacramental 
 power is made the one grand channel of grace, it would 
 seem nothing more than fitting and necessary that the 
 system should be so constructed as to meet all the turn- 
 ings and windings of the Christian life — that for every 
 
382 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 great exigency in our earthly course, there should be a 
 great and special sacrament of grace. 
 
 It may, of course, be said, that the two great sacra- 
 ments recognised by the Church of England are such 
 as, if rightly used, effectually to provide for every 
 case; but certainly, to say the least, the superior 
 number of the Roman rites, and the manner in which 
 they fit into all the great and critical moments in 
 the life of man, gives them, upon the sacramental 
 theory, a great advantage. The life of a Roman 
 Catholic is really and throughout intensely sacramen- 
 tal. He moves in this element, and breathes this air 
 from first to last. They are the wells of which he 
 drinks by the way, the successive station-houses in 
 which he rests and is furnished for his onward journey. 
 In Baptism, he is born ; in Confirmation, he is estab- 
 lished in grace ; in Penance, he is restored and renewed 
 in strength day by day ; in the Eucharist, he is fed ; in 
 Orders, if he enters on the sacred office, he is baptized 
 with heavenly unction and gifted with all ghostly power 
 and grace ; in Matrimony, if he prefer the ordinary path 
 of life, he is enriched with all conjugal and domestic 
 blessings ; and then at last, when the sands of life are 
 running out, and the dread moment of dissolution draws 
 near, he receives his last Communion as his viaticum 
 for the untrodden way before him. And now, to use 
 the words of one better acquainted with these things 
 than we, " from that moment our tender mother re- 
 doubles her solicitude, and enlarges her bounty, bringing 
 forth from her stores fresh blessings for every hour and 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 383 
 
 its new wants and trials. That healing, and soothing, 
 and bracing unction which comes so seasonably to 
 strengthen the Christian athlete in his final conflict ; 
 that sublime commendation of the parting spirit into 
 the hands of God and His angels, wherein the Church 
 on earth seems to bear the soul committed to its care to 
 the very threshold of the eternal gates, and there, with 
 equal solemnity, met by its triumphant brotherhood, 
 deliver it over to their safer watchfulness ; that last 
 blessing wherein the Churcb of God should seem to give 
 her expiring son the final pledge of her indulgent par- 
 don, to imprint upon his brow the seal of recognition, 
 in her last parental kiss, and to receive this back upon 
 the image of Christ crucified, which is pressed to his 
 lips. These are advantages for which one has a right to 
 ask, where are the equivalents in that Church which sets 
 up a claim to be our mother, and to have our allegiance 
 and our love ? " Nor is this all. Even to the grave, 
 and beyond it, the Church follows her children, and 
 succours them with the might of sacramental grace : — 
 
 " Let us be laid in our shroud with that cross at which evil spirits 
 tremble grasped in our hands ; let the poor brethren of some pious 
 guild bear us, with psalms of penance mournfully sung as for a brother, 
 to our common place of rest — ' the holy field,' consecrated by most 
 solemn rites ; let the standard of Christ be borne before us, as the 
 emblem of victory over the grave ; let the Church recite over us her 
 touching prayers for our deliverance and rest ; and the very earth 
 ■which, sprinkled with blessed water, falls heavy upon our coffin, shall 
 seem rich with her benedictions, embalming our remains beyond 
 Egypt's skill for a glorious resurrection." * 
 
 Verily tbis is sacramentalism in deed and in truth — 
 
 * Dr Wiseman's Essays, vol. ii. pp. 337, 338. 
 
384 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 sacramentalism genuine and intense, livingly realised 
 and practically carried out — sacramentalism, with which 
 no imitation yet produced on Anglican ground can, in 
 the eye of a true votary, admit of being for an instant 
 compared. By all means, if we are to be saved by 
 sacraments, let us throw ourselves on them wholly, and 
 live in their element continually. The greater their 
 number, and the more entirely they meet our every exi- 
 gency of life, the better. 
 
 True, indeed, to a man who has really felt the bur- 
 den of sin, and the healing power of the living Word, 
 miserable comforters will they be all. Better to him 
 one single sentence from the lips of his Lord than 
 a thousand such appliances of untempered mortar. 
 Rooted and built up on the true foundation, he needs 
 no such feeble buttresses of wood, hay, and stubble 
 to sustain his hope. " That healing, and soothing, 
 and bracing unction which comes so seasonably to 
 strengthen the Christian athlete in his final conflict " ! 
 — how infinitely better one single whispered word of the 
 blessed God at such a moment ! — '' Let not your heart 
 be troubled : ye believe in God, believe also in me." 
 *' The Church on earth bearing the soul committed to its 
 care to the very threshold of the eternal gates " ! — were 
 not this better, "When thou passest through the waters, 
 / will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall 
 not overflow thee ; " " Yea, though I walk through the 
 valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for 
 Thou art with me " ? Drops of " blessed water, falling 
 heavy upon our coffin, embalming our remains for a 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 385 
 
 glorious resurrection " ! Oh ! away with such senti- 
 mental drivelling in presence of the dread realities 
 of death and the grave, and let me rather grasp that 
 promise of my Lord as my only anointing for the 
 burying — " I am the Eesurrection and the Life : he 
 that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall 
 he live." 
 
 Still, if sacramental charms be the great source of 
 saving grace, and not the living God speaking directly 
 to the sinner's soul by His own Word, and applying the 
 signs and seals of His covenant spiritually to their con- 
 sciences and hearts, that assuredly is the way effectually 
 to apply them. Such mere playing at sacramentalism 
 as the Anglican divines have attained to — such mere 
 flourishing in men's eyes of " the golden keys " of 
 ghostly power, which they scarce ever use — may amuse 
 the sentimental votary, but can never either satisfy the 
 understanding or fill the hearts of earnest men. Such 
 an amphibious and half-and-half life can only, to clear 
 and thorough-going minds at least, be a state of tran- 
 sition. Those who have tasted the genuine fruits of 
 living sacramentalism, where it grows in its own native 
 clime, will scarcely care to seek it again in the cold seats 
 of its mere artificial and scanty culture. 
 
 Thus we have, we trust, sufficiently shown that there 
 is in reality not enable middle ground between the prin- 
 ciples of Protestantism and the principles of Roman- 
 ism. "We must take our choice between the religion of 
 the Bible on the one hand, and the religion of the 
 Church on the other. The Bible, the one test of truth, 
 
 2b 
 
386 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS, 
 
 in opposition to a dogmatic infallibility ; tlie Bible, the 
 one bond of spiritual unity, in opposition to the binding 
 force of an external visible centre ; the Bible, " the 
 power of God unto salvation," in opposition to a system 
 of sacramental charms ; the Bible, in the hands of the 
 Spirit, in opposition to the Church in the hands of the 
 priest, — such are the only two real alternatives, and on 
 one or other we must take our stand. Every theory 
 which attempts to establish a middle ground between 
 them, will prove on trial a mere sham and make-believe 
 — existing only on paper, and incapable of being carried 
 out in practice — only so many slippery positions on the 
 inclined plane that leads from the firm rock of truth to 
 the rank and treacherous swamps of error. 
 
 We have felt it painful to have been obliged in this 
 controversy even to seem to take the part of our com- 
 mon adversary against those with whom, amid all their 
 aberrations, we may be supposed to entertain a far 
 greater sympathy ; but we had no alternative. It has 
 been our unwelcome lot to witness this forlorn division 
 of the professedly Protestant host, madly leaving the 
 entrenched and impregnable camp of their brethren in 
 arms, and, in sheer infatuation, and heedless of all 
 warnings, marching full within the lines of the enemy, 
 loudly proclaiming the while that theirs was the only 
 true position, at once for effective assault and secure 
 defence. What other result could possibly be expected 
 in such circumstances than that they should be igno- 
 miniously routed, and either cut to pieces or carried as 
 helpless captives to the camp of the enemy. We beheld 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 387 
 
 the ill-starred movement ; we foresaw its consequences ; 
 we proclaimed the danger ; but all in vain. " No posi- 
 tion like ours," they cried, *' for effectually assaulting 
 Popery, and repelling the common enemy ; " and so 
 they rushed blindly on. That the consequences anti- 
 cipated by every intelligent Protestant have actually 
 happened, we need scarcely say. The battle between 
 them and their Romanist antagonists is really at an 
 end. Confidently as they rushed on to the assault, they 
 staggered and recoiled in the encounter, retired from 
 position to position, till their ranks were thoroughly 
 broken, and the rout became complete. Single points 
 of importance they may have held good — as the novelty 
 of this or that ceremony, or of this or that assumption 
 of Papal tyranny ; but meanwhile their main battle gave 
 way before the heavy onslaught of the enemy, and their 
 ranks were scattered beyond the possibility of rallying. 
 Their very leader, whose voice hitherto had been to them 
 as a trumpet-blast, capitulated, and delivered himself 
 up bound and handcuffed to the enemy. Many more of 
 every degree followed the ignominious example. Since 
 then they have borne all the aspect of a broken and 
 discomfited host. Never appearing in the open field, 
 they have maintained a mere desultory and guerilla 
 warfare. Bereft of heart and hope, they have ceased 
 from all aggressive demonstrations, and confined them- 
 selves to a system of irresolute and feeble defensive 
 operations. They who, erewhile, flushed with hope and 
 early success, boldly hurled forth their defiance to all 
 the world, claimed broad England as indefeasibly their 
 
388 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 own, and summoned Eomanists and Dissenters alike to 
 surrender to their claims, are now content to exist on 
 sufferance, and stand on their defence. Instead of call- 
 ing upon their old antagonists to come out from the 
 apostasy, and seek a sounder faith and purer worship 
 within their mother Church of England, they are only 
 solicitous to prove that they themselves may feel secure 
 within her pale, and are but too glad to leave others 
 alone where they are. Their toilsome demonstrations 
 are du-ected now to show, not that Romanists should 
 come over to them, but that they themselves may have 
 some plausible case for not going over to Rome ; while, 
 ever and anon, one and another of their younger and 
 more earnest followers are cutting the knot, and shaking 
 themselves free from their perplexities, by throwing 
 themselves into the arms of that system, in which, by 
 the confession of both parties alike, they are safe. 
 
 Such is the inglorious issue of that once triumphant 
 movement which was to revive in England all the glories 
 of the Niceue age, to realise all the grandeur of the 
 Roman system without its corruptions, and absorb all 
 the various forms of dissent into itself! 
 
 There are many thoughts of a practical kind which 
 the subject may well awaken, and which, did our space 
 permit, we would willingly purs'ue at length. In parti- 
 cular, it is surely worthy of most anxious consideration 
 how we may best contribute to reinvigorate and conserve 
 those great Protestant principles which are so fearfully 
 imperilled by the movement we have been contemplating. 
 How to arrest the progress of an evil so widespreading 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 389 
 
 and so formidable — an evil whicli not only in a general 
 way tends towards, but directly and inevitably, and just 
 in proportion as it exists, works the ruin of whatever is 
 sacred and precious in Protestant truth, is a question 
 which may well occupy the deepest thoughts of our 
 highest minds. The disease is before us, manifesting 
 itself indeed no longer by such open and portentous 
 signs as some years ago, bat working insidiously, and 
 perhaps not the less fatally, in secret. Where, then, is 
 the remedy ? Before indicating our reply to this 
 question, let us endeavour to make a more exact 
 diagnosis of the malady itself, as it manifests itself in 
 some of the chief classes of those in the sister kingdom 
 who have been infected with it. 
 
 While an extreme and hurtful ecclesiasticism char- 
 acterises all the adherents of this movement, and 
 constitutes the radical principle of all their aberrations, 
 this general tendency exhibits itself under various 
 special phases, according to the particular bias of char- 
 acter of those who have imbibed it. Tim^, first of all ^ 
 we have what may be distinguished as the ascetico- 
 devotional class. Of this section, Dr Pusey himself 
 may be taken as a characteristic example. Serious, 
 earnest, thoughtful, smitten with a sense of sin, without 
 apparently having fully tasted the peace of the gospel, 
 and so rather painfully seeking than having joyfully 
 found the hidden treasure, they have aimed at a deeper, 
 severer, more self-mortifying form of piety than was 
 prevalent in their day. Clothing themselves with sack- 
 cloth, and eating ashes like bread, they have striven 
 
390 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 hard after the sacrifices of a broken heart, while the 
 "joy of God's salvation''' has been little known. The 
 ^^ Dies irce, dies ilia'''' has been the keynote of their 
 strain ; and although its cheering " quem tu salvos, 
 salvas gratis " has not, we trust, been entirely hid from 
 them, yet, like a faint star, it has shone on them but 
 feebly and unsteadily. They have given themselves to 
 prayer, fasting, confession, severe self-discipline, and 
 daily sacrifices of praise. They have sympathised rather 
 with Luther weeping in his convent cell, than when, 
 filled with the great light that had burst upon him, 
 he pealed forth his glad Eureka to the world. We are 
 disposed to speak of these men tenderly. If there is 
 much in them to condemn, there is much also from 
 which we may all most profitably learn. In a super- 
 ficial age, when multitudes are disposed to take every- 
 thing for granted, so far as spiritual religion is 
 concerned, the spectacle of souls struggling earnestly, 
 though in a mistaken way, after inward purity, may be 
 much better used as a lesson and a warning than as a 
 mark for scorn. May not this perilous tendency be in 
 a great measure traced to a reaction from the feeble 
 and frothy character of much of our own current evan- 
 gelism, awakening in fervent but imperfectly-enlightened 
 minds a feeling of indignant revulsion from what seemed 
 to them effete and powerless, and a longing for some- 
 thing deeper and more real in the life of God in the 
 soul? 
 
 A second class, some of them perhaps partaking 
 largely of the element already described, but standing 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 391 
 
 out by certain distinct characteristics of their own, are 
 ■what we would call the speculative-ideal school. If Dr 
 Pusey serve as the representative of the former class, 
 Dr Newman is as decidedly the characteristic type of 
 this. Mainly at one with his distinguished compeer 
 on most points, and working with him hand-in-hand in 
 the same great enterprise for years, he yet differed from 
 him in this — that while the Regius Professor occupied 
 himself almost solely with special doctrines and prac- 
 tices which both wished to see restored, he was from the 
 first the votary of an idea. The one yearned after the 
 revival of confession, fasting, frequent communion, 
 inward discipline, and the like ; the latter panted after 
 the resurrection of the Church. Of an imaginative 
 temperament, and constructive genius, the system never 
 appeared to him as a mere set of forgotten truths and 
 neglected observances, the revival of which was much 
 to be wished ; but as one great whole which was to be 
 realised in living presence and mighty power upon the 
 earth. A grand ideal lived within him, and fascinated 
 him. The majestic image of a visible unearthly king- 
 dom in the world, but not of it ; everywhere spread, 
 yet everywhere one, and radiant in the varied graces of 
 unity, sanctity, universality, perpetuity ; the mother of 
 martyrs, the home of saints, the refuge of penitents, the 
 depositary of truth, the treasure-house of grace ; — such 
 was throughout the object of his fond idolatry and eager 
 search. If he find it not here, he must seek it else- 
 where; nor can he rest until he feels, or at least most 
 strongly believes, that it is found. To use the masterly 
 
392 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS 
 
 portraiture of one whose too early removal from the 
 scene of this and every other strife we cannot but 
 deeply deplore : — 
 
 "His imagination and feelings were irreparably engaged, and 
 reason as usual was soon busily active in devising subtle argumen- 
 tative grounds to justify his choice. He had before his fancy a 
 bright idea of unity, perpetuity, holiness, self-denial, majesty,— in 
 short, that 'glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any 
 such thing,' which the Lord of the whole Church is yet to 'present 
 to Himself,' holy and without blemish. In the impatience of desire, 
 he had come to identify his ideal with the actual Church of history ; 
 by constantly dwelling among the highly-wrought devotional works 
 of holy men in the Roman communion — works which utterly spoil 
 the taste for the calmer and more intellectual piety of our divines 
 (very much as romances debauch the taste for solid reading) — his 
 heart was seduced into forgetting the vices of thousands, in the 
 heroic virtues of comparatively few, and (what is much worse) the 
 gross doctrinal errors of those few for the sake of the ardent piety 
 their eflfusions seemed to embody ; until at length the errors became 
 tolerable, became acceptable, became welcome, were received as 
 truths ; and then the work was accomplished." * 
 
 That his actual course has not been very different 
 from this may be gathered from his own graphic words 
 given above, in that we need not doubt that he only 
 imputes to his brethren what he had but too deeply 
 experienced himself. That the fond dream should have 
 met the rough awaking which he describes in the Church 
 of England, with its many real defects and glaring 
 anomalies and abuses, and to an Anglican eye utter 
 baldness and nakedness, no one will wonder ; but that 
 
 * Letters on the Development of Christian Doctrine, in reply to Mr 
 Newman's Essay. By the Rev. William Archer Butler, M.A., late Pro- 
 fessor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Dublin. Dublin : Hodges 
 and Smith. See pp. 33, 34. 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 39S 
 
 he should have found, or dreamed that he had found, 
 the realisation of his ideal in the bloated and blood- 
 stained form of Papal Rome, may be hard to conceive. 
 It is indeed a mystery, and may find its full explanation 
 only in causes that lie too deep for our philosophy. 
 
 Our foregoing argument, however, affords abundant 
 reasons to explain why he should have been strongly 
 moved to look in that direction ; though we can easily 
 see why, if his ideal was ever to be realised on earth, he 
 could look in no other. Here, at least, if he can throw 
 every other consideration into the shade, is something 
 solid, vast, imposing, before which to bow one's self, and 
 which he could gild and glorify at will, and invest with 
 all the drapery of an ardent and gorgeous fancy. At all 
 events, he is there — there in professed and apparently 
 real content — with what secret misgivings and uncon- 
 fessed desolateness of heart, it is not for us to tell. 
 
 The third and the last class which we shall men- 
 tion, is one which must be abundantly familiar to all 
 who have even superficially watched the progress of 
 this movement — we mean the cesthetico-sentimental 
 admirers of Tractarian doctrines and practices. This 
 class includes a very large and miscellaneous body, 
 from the most refined and intellectual worshippers of 
 architecture, poetry, music, sculpture, and painting, to 
 the mere drivelling admirers of priestly vestments, 
 rood-screens, and stained glass. As a body, they are 
 caught rather by the eye and the ear than by any deep 
 questions of doctrine or the inward life. They are 
 those who, according to the superb invective of Mr 
 
394 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Ruskin, are " lured into the Romanist Churcli by the 
 glitter of it, like larks into a trap by broken glass ; 
 blown into a change of religion by the whine of an 
 organ pipe ; stitched into a new creed by gold threads 
 on priest's petticoats ; jangled into a change of 
 conscience by the chimes of a belfry." To this class, we 
 fear we must refer the enthusiastic authoress of "From 
 Oxford to Rome," who, from the sketch of her own 
 life history she has herself given us, would seem to have 
 been fascinated towards the enchanted ground mainly 
 by considerations of this kind ; and who, we believe, 
 driven by contrary gusts of sentimental feeling, has 
 already more than once crossed and recrossed the border 
 line that separates " the glorious land of saints and 
 angels " * from the homely ground of the Bible and the 
 gospel. We are afraid the persons of whom we speak 
 constitute a very large class, mustering particularly 
 strong in the saloons of aristocratic fashion, among the 
 minions of a sickly and overwrought civilisation. It is ' 
 essentially a Belgravian sect, and has its rallying-point 
 somewhere about St Paul's, Wilton Place. If any one 
 doubts the existence of such a feeble generation on the 
 soil of sturdy old England, let him ponder the following 
 words of Mr Pugin, written, no doubt, with the view of 
 being read, and under the idea that there did exist 
 among the English public a class capable of drinking 
 them in : — 
 
 " Those who have lived in want and privation (to wit, the mem- 
 
 * Newman's Lectures to Anglicans. 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 395 
 
 blessings of plenty ; thus to those who have been devout and sin- 
 cere members of the separated portion of the English Church, who 
 have prayed, and hoped, and loved, through all the poverty of the 
 maimed rights which it has retained — to them does the realisation 
 of all their longing desires appear truly ravishing. . . . Oh, then, 
 what delight ! what joy unspeakable ! when one of the solemn piles 
 bers of Protestant Churches) are the best qualified to appreciate the 
 is presented to them in all its pristine life and glory. The stoups 
 are filled to the brim, the rood is raised on high, the screen glows 
 with sacred imagery and rich device, the niches are filled, the altar 
 is replaced, sustained by sculptured shafts, the relics of the saints 
 repose beneath, the body of our Lord is enshrined in its sculptured 
 stone, the lamps of the sanctuary burn bright, the saintly portrait- 
 ures in the glass windows shine all gloriously, and the albs hang in 
 the oaken aubries, and the cope-chests are filled with orphreyed 
 bandekins, and pix and pax and chrismatory are there, and thimble, 
 and cross." * 
 
 Such are the chief groups into which the great army 
 of modern ecclesiasticism naturally divides itself. Others 
 there are more or less distinctly marked by special 
 characteristics, particularly a vast loose multitude of 
 mere political High- Churchmen^ who during the heyday 
 of its success patronised the movement, but during the 
 late years of rebuke and disaster have been more and 
 more holding aloof At the first look of the matter they 
 could not but be disposed to hail a movement which pro- 
 mised to strengthen the foundations of the Church, and 
 to deal a new and crushing blow to the hated dissent. 
 It was pleasant to them to hear, from what they deemed 
 the holiest men of the Church, that their position, 
 as churchmen, was as safe for eternity as it was un- 
 doubtedly comfortable for time ; and that there was as 
 much sanctity as there was dignity in episcopal mitres 
 
 * Quoted by Mr Raskin in "Stones of Venice," vol. i. pp. 370-74. 
 
396 ECCLESIASTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 and lawn-sleeves. But by and by things began to look 
 more serious, and the camp waxed too hot for them. 
 The vessel in which they had promised themselves a 
 triumphant voyage begins to pitch and heave ominously, 
 some of their best officers are washed overboard, and 
 there are cries of rocks ahead ; and so they are fain 
 to make their escape to terra Jirma as best they may, 
 and return to their old, safe, easy-going, High-Church 
 ways. 
 
 The remedy for all these evils might admit of large 
 discourse, but may be indicated in a very few sentences. 
 The whole may be summed up in a single word — the 
 Bible, — the renovating, purifying, transforming energy 
 of the living "Word. "We close where we began. The 
 Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants. 
 That which formed the creative principle of the Church 
 of England must also be its sustaining principle. That 
 which was at the beginning the source of its life, must 
 in all after-times be the spring of fresh renovation and 
 of increasing strength. This is the very palladium of 
 Protestant England — the pith and marrow of whatever 
 is sound, and strong, and holy in its constitution, alike 
 in Church and State. Here are the charmed locks 
 wherein her great strength lies, the secret of that hidden 
 might which has made her name great over the whole 
 world ; let her be shorn of this, and she will be weak 
 as other lands, and fall, as other noble realms have done 
 before her, a blind and helpless captive, into the Philis- 
 tine's hands. To all the forms of ecclesiasticism alike — 
 
OXFORD AND ROME. 397 
 
 ascetic, idealistic, sestlietic, hierarchic — this is the true 
 and alone effectual antagonist. The free spirit of a 
 living Bible Christianity must supplant, and by sup- 
 planting expel, the slavish spirit of an ascetic and 
 cloistral devotion; a cordial submission of mind and 
 conscience to the testimony of Grod, and a firm grasp 
 laid on its mighty, soul-filling realities, will put to 
 flight the airy dreams of the speculative idealist ; and 
 the sober, serious, masculine tone, at once rational and 
 fervent, which is generated within the heart of every 
 Bible-reading and Bible-loving people, will prove the 
 best corrective for all the follies of a feeble, sentimental 
 pietism. Thus biblicism will exorcise and drive out 
 ecclesiasticism, in its every form, and all the world over. 
 This is the grand panacea for all the ills of the body 
 ecclesiastical at this present hour. In an age when the 
 minds of men are uneasily oscillating between two 
 extremes, equally perilous — between the licence of the 
 ifidividual reason or " Christian consciousness," on the 
 one hand, and the blind submission to an authority on 
 the other — there is no salvation for us but in cleaving 
 faster than ever to the eternal rock of the Word. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED liV BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY 
 EDINBUKOII AND LONDON 
 
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